Law of Attraction (20 page)

“McGee lost his teeth in a foot chase,” Jack said.

“Aha.” Anna smiled and relaxed. “Go on.”

“It happened before my time, but the story’s legendary. Give any
cop a few beers and he’ll tell you about it. When he was in his twenties, they had McGee doing undercover SLIP work. You know what that is?”

“Solicitation for a Lewd and Immoral Purpose. He was posing as a john, propositioning prostitutes?”

“Exactly. So one day, he’s out on the track—you know, the street where the prostitutes hang out to pick up their ‘dates’—when this guy comes running out of an alley, being chased by a hooker who’s yelling, ‘He just raped me!’ So McGee chases him, and—this is over twenty years ago—McGee is fast as lightning, and after a block or so, he tackles the guy onto the sidewalk.

“But now all the prostitutes run up, and they’re furious. It’s a big hazard of their job—prostitutes get raped all the time, and sometimes worse. So they start beating on the guy.

“McGee tries to stop them, and now they think he’s
with
the rapist or he
is
the rapist or something—he’s in civilian clothes and there’s a lot of confusion—and they start beating on
McGee,
tearing at him, kicking him with those big high-heeled platform boots. There’s, like, a dozen hookers, all in short-shorts and fishnets and wigs and what have you, and they just give McGee this epic beatdown. By the time his arrest team gets over there and breaks it up, McGee’s passed out, his shirt’s torn clean off his body, his wrist is broken, his lip is split, and his two front teeth are lying on the sidewalk next to him.”

“Whoa.”

“He spent a couple nights in the hospital. The guy he caught turned out to be a serial rapist who’d been terrorizing the city that summer, specializing in prostitutes and drunk college girls leaving bars. McGee got a medal of honor for it.”

“That’s quite a story. But . . . why doesn’t he get his teeth fixed?”

“I’ve never straight-out asked him. But I think he’s proud of them. Cops know the story, they see him, and they know it’s him. Plus, I suspect he thinks it’s just funny.”

Anna nodded, smiling. That sounded like McGee. She leaned farther back on the edge of the planter, trying to picture a young, skinny McGee getting beaten by a mob of furious prostitutes.

“So, how do you know Nick Wagner?” Jack asked casually.

Anna took a sip of her coffee to hide her gulp. She’d known that the question was coming, but he’d still caught her off guard. She hadn’t decided how to answer it. The question raised so many issues: her duty to
this case, her desire to have Jack think well of her, her reputation, her privacy, her obligation to Jack, to Rose, to Laprea.

“We were in law school together,” she found herself saying. It was the truth. Maybe not the whole truth, but their relationship was over, and it wouldn’t affect her work. She was just beginning to earn Jack’s respect—she couldn’t bring herself to tell him she had dated an OPD attorney. She didn’t think she had any duty to disclose it. Still, she felt a pang of guilt at her evasion.

Jack nodded, looking out at the pedestrians. He didn’t press her further. “Wagner’s got his hands full,” he said. “He obviously wants a deal, but his client won’t go for it. If D’marco doesn’t plead, Wagner’s going to lose. He hates to lose a high-profile case.”

“It doesn’t have to be that cynical, does it?” Anna asked. “Maybe he’s just recommending a plea because it’s D’marco’s best option now.”

“Maybe. But I don’t think Nick Wagner is your typical OPD true believer. He’s a spoiled rich kid who enjoys playing defense lawyer. He likes to talk about working in the trenches while he’s nibbling on shrimp at cocktail parties. He doesn’t like to take weak cases to trial, especially high-profile cases. He must think this one’s a real loser.”

“Defense attorneys must be used to losing, though.”

“Sure. But he’ll do whatever he can to win. And he has a big bag of tricks.”

Anna’s mind wandered back to the alpaca rug in front of Nick’s fireplace. She was familiar with a few of his tricks. Jack took a sip of his coffee and studied Anna’s face as she gazed at the passersby.

“What I’m saying is: Be careful dealing with him, Anna. Be very careful.”

Anna turned back to Jack. She couldn’t read his poker face. She didn’t agree with his assessment of Nick, but she wasn’t going to debate him about it. Especially since the tone of his advice made her wonder if he meant it on a more personal level.

“I’ll be careful,” she said, and she meant it. She couldn’t change the past, but she would be wiser in the future.

Anna and Jack tossed their empty coffee cups and headed back to the office. The conversation had been much easier than she had imagined. With any luck, her relationship with Nick wouldn’t come up again. Anna relaxed in the comfort of her hopeful naïveté. Now she could forget her liaison with Nick and concentrate on building a case to keep his client in jail as long as possible.

18

R
ay-Ray sauntered through the yard of the D.C. Jail with the authority of a CEO walking past a row of cubicles. The other prisoners waved and called greetings to the tall, skinny man, and Ray-Ray nodded back, greeting a few by name. Meanwhile, his eyes continually skimmed the yard.

He was hoping to see D’marco here today. Ray-Ray had heard that his old friend was back in jail. He still felt guilty for being the one who broke the bad news to D’marco the day that Laprea was killed. Ray-Ray knew it was probably his big mouth that had sent D’marco over the edge that night. He wanted to see how D’marco was hanging in there, and if there was anything he could do for him.

But until Ray-Ray found his playcousin, he wouldn’t miss any opportunities to do business.

Midway around the basketball court, Ray-Ray slowed and called, “Yo, Peanut.” A short man lounging on a concrete picnic table hopped up and met Ray-Ray by the court. They clapped hands languidly and said a few quiet words. Then Peanut went back to the table and Ray-Ray continued to walk casually downcourt, flipping his dreads over his shoulder nonchalantly. The entire transaction took less than five seconds. To anyone watching, it was just a handshake between jailhouse friends. Only the closest observer would have seen Ray-Ray slip a tiny ziplock bag filled with white powder into Peanut’s hand as Peanut slipped a twenty to Ray-Ray.

Smuggling contraband into the D.C. Jail had always been a lucrative business. Most of the prisoners were accustomed to seeking happiness through drugs, women, and the occasional fight over drugs and women. Their habits didn’t evaporate just because they were in lockup. Just the opposite. In jail, they needed the obliterating relief of a rock of crack or the protection of a knife more than out on the street, where pleasure and protection were more easily acquired. So the prisoners were willing to pay high prices for anything that made it inside. The jail’s
voracious appetite for contraband was surpassed only by the creativity of the entrepreneurs who satisfied it.

Ray-Ray was one of those entrepreneurs. He was a weekender, the magical status sometimes conferred on petty offenders who held a steady day job. After Ray-Ray was convicted of shoplifting for the third time, the judge sentenced him to sixty days in jail, but allowed him to serve the sentence on weekends so he could keep working as a busboy during the week. The judge hadn’t intended it, but this arrangement also allowed Ray-Ray to run a profitable side business of filling orders from prisoners who weren’t furloughed Monday through Friday.

Ray-Ray’s method of import was as effective as it was low-tech. He wrapped his contraband in cellophane, coated the plastic with Vaseline, and shoved the package so far up his rectum that the probing, latex-covered fingers of the guard conducting a Friday-afternoon strip search wouldn’t reach it. The items could then be gingerly retrieved Friday night, wiped off, and sold to prisoners whose cravings made them overlook the method of transport. Ray-Ray’s specialty was heroin, although he would occasionally take orders for crack, vials of PCP, and, once, some tightly rolled-up pages of
Hustler.
He charged four times the street price for drugs. Ten times for the porn, which had not been a comfortable experience.

His business was booming. In the six weekends he’d served so far, Ray-Ray had earned more than he had in six months of bussing tables. He knew he could be making even more. For every customer he had, there were three who wanted to buy from him. But Ray-Ray couldn’t bring in enough supply to meet the demand. He’d tried to think of a way to increase his wares, but finally, sadly, concluded that his business had no room for expansion. His profits were limited by the size of his colon.

Ray-Ray walked through the yard and made a few more transactions with some of his steady customers. By the time he reached the far side of the basketball court, he was three zips away from being sold out.

Ray-Ray leaned against the wall and fished a package of Newports out of his pocket. He looked around as he lit up, scanning for any additional clientele. The yard could feel disorienting sometimes, cut off as it was from any reference point in the outside world. It was an inner courtyard of the jail, an asphalt square surrounded by four high walls of pinkish stone. A basketball court dominated the center of the yard, and some concrete tables lined the sides. There were a few scattered
pieces of stationary workout equipment, but no free weights; the jail had gotten rid of them a few years ago after the prisoners started getting too big. A difference in muscle mass between prisoners and guards could have serious security implications in a facility where the guards didn’t carry guns.

As Ray-Ray scanned the yard, his eyes rested on a big man working out on the dip bar. It was D’marco Davis. Ray-Ray grinned and strode over.

“D!”

D’marco glanced over, saw Ray-Ray, and released himself mid-dip. He landed with muscular grace on the blacktop and strode over to his friend.

“Ray-Ray.”

The two big men in orange jumpsuits greeted each other with a loud, back-thumping half handshake, half embrace. Ray-Ray was delighted to have found his friend, and to find him looking good. They stood watching a basketball game while they talked and caught up. Ray-Ray filled D’marco in on what was happening in Anacostia, and then asked D’marco what was going on in the jail.

“You ain’t gonna believe this,” D’marco said softly. “There’s a . . . a business opportunity you gotta see.”

Ray-Ray followed D’marco to the back of the prison yard. The yard was formed by the rectangular courtyard created by four adjacent jail buildings, but there was one corner where two of the buildings did not touch each other. There was an opening between the two buildings at that corner of the yard, wide enough to drive a car through. That space was sealed off by a large steel double door that led directly to the street outside. The prisoners never saw anyone open the door or use it for anything; it appeared to be welded shut, its original purpose lost to history.

D’marco pointed to the door.

“Yeah, man.” Ray-Ray shrugged, disappointed. Like every other inmate, Ray-Ray had given this door a serious once-over when he first came out in the yard, and quickly concluded there was no getting around it. It went up about eight feet, ending in a wide, flat concrete ledge. There was a slight gap above the ledge, then a sheet of metal ran six stories up to the top of the two buildings. The metal walled off the opening between the two buildings. “So what? You can’t get out there.”

“True. But you can get stuff in.”

D’marco pointed to the eight-inch gap between the top of the door and the bottom of the metal sheeting. Through that gap, they could see the sky.

“Other side of that is Nineteenth Street.”

“Huh.” Ray-Ray looked at the door with renewed interest. Ray-Ray’s eyes were wide when he turned to D’marco. “You know what we can do with this?”

“Yeah, man,” D’marco replied, laughing quietly.

D’marco sat Ray-Ray down at one of the cement tables and they got down to business. The men spoke in low voices, their elbows on their knees, leaning toward each other to hear. D’marco explained his proposition; Ray-Ray listened with growing excitement, then pitched a few ideas of his own. They came to a detailed plan.

Ray-Ray left the jail on Sunday feeling like he’d just won the lottery.

The very next day, Ray-Ray returned to D.C. Jail—but this time on the outside of the walls. The 96 bus dropped him off at the corner of 18th and Massachusetts Avenue SE. Ray-Ray walked down to 19th Street. The big structure of the jail was on his left; a vacant lot was on his right. It was amazing, Ray-Ray thought, how close the jail was to the street. From this side, it just looked like a big ugly office building.

Between the sidewalk and the jail was a little strip of grass and then a waist-high brick wall, which couldn’t stop a child. There wasn’t a chain-link fence here, or the swirls of barbed wire that surrounded some other sections of the jail. On this side of the facility, the thick walls of the jail itself provided the outer layer of security. Except that Ray-Ray knew there was a chink in it.

Ray-Ray walked along the enormous pinkish stone building until he saw the strip of metal running up from a thick steel door. You couldn’t tell from the street, but that metal strip was the back corner of the prison yard.

Ray-Ray crossed the grass and stood by the little brick wall. He was less than twenty feet away from the jail. He could hear the prisoners talking and shouting on the other side of the metal door, and if he strained, he could even hear the rhythmic thump of a basketball hitting the asphalt court. Most important, Ray-Ray could see the eight-inch gap between the bottom of the metal sheeting and the ledge on top of the door. He would have to be precise. Ray-Ray checked his watch: 3:30 p.m. He looked across the street, at the vacant lot. No one else
was around. He glanced at the jail itself, sure he would see a watchtower with a guard looking out at him. But there was none.

He was alone on the street and no one was looking at him.

Ray-Ray reached into his pocket and pulled out the brown paper package of heroin. He took a deep breath, clenched his fist around the package to steady his arm, and took aim.