Suicide
Santiago wrapped his bed sheet and then knotted it around his neck. He was standing on the steel sink in his cell. The other end of the sheet was tied to the light fixture on the ceiling. He had thought about writing a suicide note, but he figured his swinging body would speak for itself. He yanked on the sheet once more to make sure the fixture was strong enough to hold his weight.
“Hey! What are you doing in here?” the officer cried out, fumbling with his keys.
Santiago stepped off the sink.
“Nooo!” the officer bellowed, grabbing his walkie-talkie. “D-wing! D-wing! Code 5 suicide attempt!”
He dropped the keys, but snatched them up, and stuck the proper one in the lock. When he rushed in, Santiago was twitching and kicking. The officer grabbed his leg and pulled. Santiago gagged. Realizing he couldn’t pull him down, he lifted his body to take the pressure off.
“Just hold on!” the officer urged.
Several seconds later, several officers rushed in being led by Mercedes.
“Oh my God! Cut him down! Cut him down!” she screamed, grabbing her walkie-talkie. “We need the ambulance ripped and ready to go ASAP! We’ve got a suicide attempt!” she turned to two officers. “You two, go get strapped. You’ll be the tail car! Go!”
The officers nodded and ran out. By the time she turned around, they had Santiago lying on the floor.
“Is he . . . dead?” she asked.
“No, no, but his pulse feels weak.”
“Okay, stay with him. I’m going to strap up!” Mercedes barked as she ran out the door.
They kept an ambulance by the back dock of the jail because so many violent fights broke out. So the ambulance was ready in seconds. The two EMS workers on duty wheeled Santiago out on the stretcher. Mercedes and the officer that originally found Santiago jumped in the back with him. Behind them were two heavily armed officers in the escort car. The wail of the ambulance siren set the rhythm as it screeched off.
As they zoomed along the city streets, the officer looked down at Santiago’s closed eyes and remarked, “Didn’t look much like a kingpin hanging from that rope.”
“I’m sure he didn’t,” Mercedes replied sourly.
The officer started to say something, but a quick metallic flash shooting by the window caught his eye.
“What the—shit?”
At the same time, the two escort officers were joking about the same thing.
“Shit . . . all the time he facing, I woulda tried to kill myself too!” The driver laughed.
The passenger turned to comment, but he saw what the officer in the ambulance thought was a metallic flash.
It was a silver Silverado truck coming, barreling off the side street.
“Look out!” the passenger cried, but it was too late.
The Silverado, timing the intersection and acceleration like a true car thief, shot out of the side street, running the red light and ramming directly into the side of the escort vehicle. They were hit so hard, the driver was knocked unconscious and would later die of blunt force trauma. The passenger was dead.
And then everything seemed to go in slow motion . . .
Santiago had planned it all to a science. He knew the jail’s policy on suicide because Mercedes had told him.
“They have to take you to an outside hospital,” she informed him.
“Have to?”
“Have to.”
He just smiled.
Then he waited for the officer to do his rounds, which was every fifteen minutes. As soon as he said, “Hey!” Santiago stepped off the sink.
Finally, he had Nazir to handle the streets.
“Only nigguhs you can absolutely trust,” Santiago had emphasized.
“Zoo Crew,” Nazir replied, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
“Zoo Crew?” Santiago echoed.
“That’s my crew of goons, strictly official tissue, unc. Don’t worry, they can handle it,” Nazir assured him.
“They better.”
And they did.
As soon as Santiago heard the loud crunch of the crash, slow motion kicked into overdrive as Santiago jumped up from the stretcher, grabbed Mercedes’s gun out of her holster, and aimed at the other officer. He turned his attention back to Santiago just in time to see that death was coming.
Boc! Boc! Boc!
All three were head shots since he was wearing a vest. He pointed the gun at Mercedes.
“Get down!”
She screamed and complied just like they talked about. He aimed the gun at the EMS workers.
“Stop this motherfucka now! And get out!”
Screech!
It came to a complete stop. They got out and jetted.
He aimed the gun back at Mercedes and smiled.
“I wish I could go with you,” she remarked.
“Ma, we talked about this. I need you here to throw ’em off the scent. We’ll meet up later,” he promised.
“Damn skippy we will,” she sassed, laughing.
“You ready?”
She nodded, her face turning pale. He bent and kissed her lips.
“I love you.”
Boc!
The shot went through the fleshy part of her thigh. She screamed out, “Fuck!”
“You okay?”
She glowered at him like he had two heads. “Hell no! You just shot me! And Santiago, I know you don’t love me, but thank you for saying it. It took the sting out.”
He smiled and kissed her. “I gotta go,” he replied, then hopped out the ambulance.
“But you will . . . you will,” she mumbled to herself.
Nazir skidded up in a stolen whip, the trunk already popped. He had hardly stopped, before Santiago open the trunk then lay inside and closed the trunk. Nazir skidded off, fleeing the scene clean.