“I hear you, but the cost of what you’re looking to do grossly outweighs the benefit.” Gavin shook his head. “That’s not the direction that we’re going in.”
Twan sat back. “That’s not the way I heard it,” he said shaking his head.
Gavin’s eyes narrowed. “What are you saying?”
“That’s not what I was assured would happen before I made this move. Now you coming with some whole other shit.”
“I can arrange it so you can hear it for yourself, but I’ve done all I’m going to do.”
“That’s fucked up, Magic.” Twan shook his head. “If your daddy was here, he wouldn’t be talking no cost benefit analysis shit. He’d say what you need, and it’s done. That’s how shit used to work.”
Gavin got up and stood over Twan. “You see my father or Butch in this room?”
“No.”
“Who you see?”
“You.”
“So, what you gonna do?”
Twan hesitated before he said, “Make it work.” He looked up at Gavin. “But there is this one mutha fucka, nigga calls himself Coffee. This the nigga I need out of my way or I’m wasting my time.”
“I’ll have that handled for you, and I’ll handle it without devoting a bunch of manpower to it.”
“As long as he gets dead, I’m good,” Twan.
“You put your work in and let me deal with all the other shit,” Gavin said and headed towards the door to leave. “I’m out.”
Chapter Nine
Against her partner’s better judgment, Detective Bautista charged Baby Chris with four counts of murder in the hope that he would flip on Rain. Dickerson thought that they should stick to the unlawfully discharging a firearm and criminal possession of a weapon charges. Despite what Bautista thought she could make him do, Dickerson knew that Baby Chris would never flip on Rain.
“Not over this nickel and dime shit,” he told her.
But Bautista was not only stubborn and headstrong, she was determined. Determined to arrest Rain Robinson for any of the litany of murders and other crimes that she had committed. So, there was no turning her around.
Seated next to Baby Chris was his lawyer, Akilah Malheiros. After Jackie spoke with Patrick Freeman about the situation, he immediately dispatched his best criminal defense attorney to handle it. Since Bautista made her wait for hours before she interrogated him, Akilah had plenty of time to review the facts of the case and speak with some of the officers that were on the scene that night.
Her experience told her that this interview was a waste of time. Akilah was sure that there wasn’t enough to charge him. She had a bondsman on standby and Baby Chris would be out before the sun came up, but it didn’t work out that way.
“What happened when you went in the club?”
“When I came in the club, I saw two more masked men.” Akilah touched his hand to remind him of what they discussed. “I saw that they had already shot a number of people.”
No longer able to contain herself, Bautista leaned forward. “Did you just start shooting at them too?”
“No, detective,” Baby Chris said smiling at Bautista. “When they shot at me, I shot them both.”
“What did you do after that?” Dickerson asked, but he knew that the way Baby Chris was answering their questions, that his lawyer was primed and ready to scream self-defense.
“I waited for you and Detective Bautista to come and arrest me,” Baby Chris said.
Dickerson knew that the best they could do was charge him with unlawfully discharging a firearm and criminal possession of a weapon and call it a day.
There was no way that he was going to flip on Rain or anybody else with what they had on him. He glanced at Bautista and knew that she wouldn’t agree. She was wide open to get Rain Robinson and nothing, including the facts of the case, were going to get in her way.
“I think that it is safe to say that this is clearly a case of Mr. Arcus not only defending himself, but his place of business as well,” Akilah said as Dickerson predicted.