Playing Dirty (17 page)

T
he CO came into the jail and screamed out my name. I was groggy from sleep and thought I was dreaming. “Lomax!” she screamed again. I finally stood up in my cell and walked to the bars. “Get ya shit!” the fat CO screamed at me. I didn’t know what was going on, but I did as I was told. I had been in jail almost a week now, and I frankly thought I’d never get out. When I had my stuff, the CO yelled for the guard to open the gates. I stood and let the gate open, with the entire tier of hard-looking women watching me. I stepped out onto the tier and followed the CO down the long corridor.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“What else would be going on? Do you think I’m taking you out on a date or something?” the sarcastic-ass CO spat.

When we approached the release office area, my heart jumped. I wasn’t going to ask any questions, it was clear that Scott had found a way to get me released on bail. My bail was set at $3 million during my preliminary hearing a couple of days ago. I was processed out through the system like a cow being herded through a cattle call. When the gray gates of the jail opened up and I saw the Miami sun, tears streamed down my face.

“Yoshi!” I heard my name. I placed my hand up to my eyes to shield them from the sun and noticed Scott.

“Hey, Scott,” I called out, walking in his direction.

“Feels good to be out, huh?” he asked. I was finally standing next to him. I didn’t know whether to hug or kiss his ass.

“How did you pull this one off?” I asked.

“Magic,” Scott answered. I climbed into his BMW 750 and we sped off. It felt so good to be in a luxury car again. I knew I looked like shit, but Scott still complimented me.

As we rode through Miami, I suddenly realized I had no where to fucking go. My condo was a crime scene and I just knew that the feds had probably taken everything, so I sat in the passenger seat with the dumbest expression I could muster. I asked him where we were going, so he smiled at me and said, “Listen, don’t worry about a place to stay. You can bunk with me.”

“Are you sure that would be a good idea? I mean, I would hate to be an intrusion, because it would be nothing for me to stay at a hotel,” I assured.

“No, you can stay with me. So let’s not discuss that anymore,” he said.

“No problem,” I said, smiling. And from there we rode in silence until a thought popped up in his head. The things he told me changed everything. He told me that his investigators had spotted Paul and Mr. Santana hanging out and playing golf together a few times since my arrest. He also told me that he had a recorded conversation between the two about the plot to bring me down. To think that I had been fucking both of those slimeballs—I really got sick to my stomach. They had been playing me all along, which brought me back to the conversation Mr. Santana and I had at the club one night about me representing Sheldon. He had kept asking me, was I sure about representing this guy, and I had told him yes.

Damn, why hadn’t I seen through that? I was now sitting on the forefront of a huge fucking murder scandal. But what I really wanted to know was, whose idea was it to get me jammed up like this? It wouldn’t surprise me if it was Paul. I was on his shit list because I wasn’t fucking him anymore and he was afraid that I would blow the lid on the firm’s shady practices.

Scott then told me that Eric Bretner—my fucking archenemy—was really a lawyer who worked for Scott’s firm. He had been sent over to Shapiro and Witherspoon to infiltrate and find out all of the firm’s secrets so that the rival firm could destroy Shapiro and Witherspoon. I sat with my mouth hanging open. Eric Bretner was a fake, and he was always up Paul’s ass.

Scott told me that Mr. Santana had agreed with Paul to get me back on drugs so I would fail at representing Chisholm. That would send Chisholm away for life, which, in turn, would have Chisholm’s people after me—to the point where I’d have to leave town or I’d be dead. Both Paul and Mr. Santana would get their way. Scott also told me that Paul had put in anonymous calls to the feds letting them know that judges, DAs, and police officers were taking bribes from me. Paul’s calls had brought down at least four judges and about twenty narcotics detectives in all. No wonder everywhere I went, people were wanting to kill my ass. They thought I was snitching!

I grew angrier by the minute as Scott unfolded Paul and Mr. Santana’s schemes to bring me down. I was overwhelmed. Two men wanted to fuck me over. They were both using me! I was feeling sicker every time Scott uttered a word, and you know I wanted nothing else but revenge.

The one thing Scott couldn’t tell me was who had killed Maria, and why. Scott did not know where she came into play in all of this drama, and neither did I. But I was bound to find out. And I also knew that it wouldn’t be long before I did.

Arriving at Scott’s house, I was tired and my brain was throbbing from all of the information I had just received. Scott showed me around his Tudor-style home, and I thought it was fabulous. He lived like I was used to living…in the lap of luxury.

“Yoshi, make yourself at home,” Scott welcomed me in. Although I wanted to jump and take his invitation, I really didn’t trust anyone at this point. I had to ask myself, why was Scott helping me so much? He gave me my own room. It was beautiful, decorated in lilac, dark brown, and white. It smelled like lilacs, too.

When Scott left, I jumped onto the bed and hugged the pillows. After sleeping on a small hard-ass jail cell bed, I thought this bed felt like heaven. The room had its own bathroom. I walked into the marble-tiled bathroom, and when I looked into the mirror, I almost broke down. I looked like a mess. Not only did I need makeup, I needed some moisturizer. The prison soap had dried me the fuck out. I took the longest shower I could stand. The water felt so good all over my body. I kept thinking about my situation and wondering what fucking clues I was missing.

After my shower Scott cooked dinner. I hadn’t had pasta in weeks. To see and smell real food was so damn good. Scott was a pure gentleman. Over dinner we started talking about my case strategy. Scott planned to get an expert to review the murder video to refute the fact that the impersonator on the tape was me. He also planned to present all that he knew about Paul and Mr. Santana setting me up and trying to destroy me.

I was so angry with Paul, I told Scott all of his business. I told him all about Paul’s deals with the IRS and all of his bribes of judges. It was Paul who showed me the ropes with bribing, and then he turned on me to make
me
look like the fucking bad guy. Scott was very interested in everything I had to say about Paul. I also told Scott about Paul’s sexual interludes with other men. Paul didn’t think I knew, but I’d mistakenly come across a video of Paul and a guy that he’d stashed in his safe at the job. Paul also didn’t know I knew where he hid his safe key, and because he was so predictable, I also knew his combination.

“Scott, you put a lot of information on me tonight. Can I ask you why you’re helping me like this?” I finally asked. The question was burning inside me for so long.

“Well, Yoshi, it’s basically like this. My firm agreed to help you with the agreement that you help us take down your former boss and his firm,” Scott answered honestly.

“I knew there had to be a catch,” I said, lowering my head.

“There’s no catch. We are not charging you for your murder trial or your bail. All we want is every piece of dirt you have on Shapiro and Witherspoon,” Scott said.

At first, I didn’t think I was going to do it. But after thinking about how Paul was trying to completely destroy me, I opened my mouth and paid the price for my freedom. I was setting Paul up the way he had done me, and I was going to make sure he went down. Now all I had to do was think of how I was going to get revenge on Luis Santana. I was the one who had gotten him off, so it was going to be hard to get any law enforcement interested in chasing him for fear they’d lose. Then again, if I was willing to tell them everything I knew about Santana—all the things that Santana had shared with me under attorney-client privilege—his ass would go down, too. In turn, I would probably lose my license to practice law anymore. But then I figured, why care? If Miami prosecutors got a conviction from my cocaine possession charge, then I was bound to lose my license anyway. So fuck it! If I went down, so did everyone else.

After more thought, I agreed to help Scott destroy Paul and everyone connected to him—that included Luis. I knew he was a very powerful man, and I might have to go into witness protection behind his ass, but, hey, that was the chance I was going to have to take. Hopefully, when all this was over, Scott and I would be able to prove that I had not murdered Maria.

Not only that, I also need to make a special visit to Ophelia’s house and pay my condolences and help out any way I could. I mean, that’s the least I could do. I was the reason she was murdered. I just couldn’t reveal that information to her family. They would probably hate me for the rest of my life, and that was too much drama for me to have to deal with at this point.

A
fter I agreed to give Scott all the dirt I knew on Paul, he went straight to work. I told Eric Bretner how to get into Paul’s safe to get his IRS records and that sex tape. We sent anonymous letters to every law enforcement agency in Miami, detailing Paul’s bribes and his connections to the drug game. I sent a nice long letter to his wife, I told her all about Paul’s deviant sexual behavior, and I made sure to mention his four tattoos, his birthmarks, and his missing toenail. I wanted her to know that I’d seen Paul without his clothes on. I placed an anonymous call to the IRS detailing how Paul laundered his money through his brother’s wine vineyard in California and through offshore bank accounts. That was just the first day.

After Eric returned with the tape, Scott made still photos from it and sent them to the local newspapers. Scott also made several copies of the tapes and sent them out to the news media. I couldn’t front—all of this revenge was making me feel more sinister by the minute. I felt like I had been stepped on and I was finally going to get mine.

Scott didn’t want anything to do with bringing Mr. Santana down. I knew he wasn’t going to get down with me on that one, but I wasn’t going to let that shit go. I called the DEA, Miami-Dade Police, ICE, and any agency I could think of. I detailed the insides of Santana’s house, where he had drugs and how often he threw parties and catered a half kilo for personal use. I told them about the body of one of his soldiers, which Mr. Santana had confided in me. He’d told me that he murdered the guy in front of the guy’s kids because the guy had had sex with a very young girl who’d turned out to be Mr. Santana’s niece. He told me that he had the body chopped and burned. I knew Mr. Santana was a ruthless motherfucker. He said his logic for killing the guy in front of his own kids was because he wanted the guy’s kids to suffer for life, like his niece would.

I also made a blocked call to Mr. Chisholm’s partner and let him know that Mr. Santana was trying to set up Sheldon to do a bid so he would be out of the picture, and out of the game. I knew that call alone would start an all-out drug war, and I couldn’t care less. I could see Mr. Santana running from the feds and Haitian Mafia. How sweet that would be! That motherfucker would be dead within a week, I was sure of it.

And as far as Paul was concerned, he was going to be brought to his knees, too. All the shit that came out about him would surely bring that fucking firm down, and humiliation would plague his face. Come to think about it, he might jump off a bridge after we got finished with his ass.

I got pure satisfaction out of everything I did, and I didn’t feel one bit of remorse. Fuck Paul and Mr. Santana! I thought about how easily I had almost lost everything. I’d let my greed for more and more money almost destroy me. In the process I lost my best friend and almost lost a fortune.

Three days had passed and things were still quiet. I hadn’t heard anything from all of the calls and shit I’d made. Damn, what’s going on? I was starting to think. Then Scott rushed into the room where I was staying.

“Yoshi, you gotta come see this shit!” Scott screamed, excited, grabbing my arms up off the bed where I lay.

“What! What happened?” I asked, confused. I rushed into the living room with Scott. He flicked on his fifty-one-inch flat screen. The news flashed across it:

“Aaaahhh,” I started screaming and laughing. The shit had hit the fan now. I knew Paul was somewhere about to shit himself.

“After this hit the news, our firm’s phones were ringing off the hook with clients from Shapiro and Witherspoon that wanted to hire us instead,” Scott said, smiling brightly.

“Wow, business is going to be booming for you,” I said somberly. I missed getting those big retainers and big paydays.

“Yes! Thanks to you, Yoshi. Now, do you see why we are not sweating you for representation fees? We were going to get paid anyway, using you and having you as a client,” Scott returned.

When he said the words, my heart sank. He had used me just like everyone else. Although I was happy to be free for now, shit was just getting crazier by the moment. He jumped up and down at the mere thought of how his career was about to take off to the next level. I sat there stoically, pure disgust written all over my face.

Several minutes later he popped a bottle of Moët to celebrate, but I was still not in the mood. I returned to the room I was staying in and promised myself that the next day I’d get a hotel room and just wait for my trial. While I was in the room, I pulled out my checkbook and wrote out a check in the amount of the bail Scott’s legal partners had put up for me. Sick to my stomach, I pondered ways to get away from all this havoc after I was exonerated from all my charges.

Scott and everyone else probably thought that I was going to come on board with their firm, but they had another thing coming. I was getting the hell out of here. I had made my mind up that I was packing my bags and I was moving north, never to come back to this godforsaken place. I knew my family on my father’s side would welcome me with open arms. And who knew, perhaps I might be able to open up a small practice there in Virginia. Where they lived was a small, urbanlike city, so they might need my expertise.

I knew one thing, if I decided to open up a practice in that state, I was going to have to keep it low-key. I couldn’t dare let anyone from around here find out where I was, especially Sheldon’s and Santana’s people. After what was about to go down, my best bet would be to stay behind the scenes, at least for a couple of years. Maybe longer, who knew?