32
32Physically and emotionally drained, Andre slumps in his wheelchair on the journey back to his room. Mr. Horton and Detective Jackson are huddled outside his door. They notice Andre rolling up.
“I have reason to believe that Andre is withholding information that can help us in this investigation,” Jackson says.
“What information is that?” Mr. Horton asks.
Jackson’s eyes glimmer. “Andre and I have a little history that keeps him from being as forthcoming with me as I’d like him to be. Why don’t you ask him?”
Mr. Horton’s face frosts over. “I think I will.”
Andre ignores Jackson but acknowledges Mr. Horton by limply raising his finger as he’s wheeled into the room. Two male nurses hoist him into bed amidst more misery.
Mr. Horton rises and extends his hand to Jackson. “I’ll be in touch.”
“Great,” Jackson says. “And you can trust me on this. We’re going to find out who’s responsible.”
Mr. Horton takes a seat beside Andre’s bed. Andre closes his eyes and slowly releases air through his lips in the hope that the stabbing spasms will subside with it.
“Andre,” Mr. Horton says.
Andre opens his eyes.
“Do you know who did this to you and Sandra?”
Andre briefly closes them again. “OGC.”
Mr. Horton is blown back into his seat. “You’re in a gang?”
“No, I’m not in a gang,” Andre retorts.
“Then what are you talking about, it’s OGC?”
Andre monitors the door, glances out the window, and lowers his voice. “I saw my cousin get killed when I was still driving for New Jersey Transit. And the shooter saw me.”
“You saw your cousin get killed, and you didn’t say anything to the police?”
“I didn’t know him, Mr. Horton. I found out all of this after the fact. And I didn’t see who did it. He saw me.”
Mr. Horton manipulates his temples with jittery fingers. “Do the police know this is gang related?”
“I don’t deal with the police.”
Mr. Horton bounces up and broods over Andre with clenched fists. “My daughter is in there fighting for her life, and you—what if they send somebody in here to finish the job?”
Despite the evening chill, Rock is huddled on the balcony of his apartment with a conflicted conscience. The view of New York Bay usually comforts him, but tonight the cold, dark waters exacerbate his sinking sensation.
Rock thought that all of his fiery rage had been “buried with Christ” when he was submerged in the prison pool by the chaplain at Sing Sing. Rather than a dove descending on his shoulders as the voice of God proclaimed, “This is my son in whom I am well pleased,” converted jailbirds crowed, “Yo, son! The heavens rejoice when thugs embrace God’s decrees!”
Despite that moment of spiritual exhilaration more than a decade ago, the venom that fuels Rock’s present anger toward his own flesh and blood is unlike any he’s felt since his days of running the streets.
Thoughts of Carollo seep in.
When Carollo was still a beat cop, he got his rocks off by whacking Rock in places where the bruises wouldn’t show.
“You a punk,” Rock seethed after that first beating. His lower back, buttocks, and thighs were on fire.
A month earlier, Carollo had led a JCPD raid on Rock’s apartment that turned up nothing.
“Where’s the smoking gun?” Rock mocked as Carollo exited the house. “Violating a black man’s Fourth Amendment rights.”
A red-faced Carollo responded, “Expect to get hammered when I see you on the street. And I promise you, I’m going to keep doing it until I find something on you or you take up another profession.”
Cuffed in the backseat of Carollo’s cruiser four weeks later, Rock remembered the threat but jawed anyway. “I bet that’s why you became a cop, so you could get a badge and a gun and run around the hood like you hard.” Through the rearview mirror, Rock saw that he had found Carollo’s soft spot, so he dug deeper. “If you was a real man, you’d take these cuffs off so we could go one-on-one. But punks with badges don’t do that. They cuff people before they swing on ’em. And I promise you, if I ever see you on the street and you off duty, you can expect—”
Carollo slammed on brakes, opened the back door, and battered Rock speechless. Of course Rock didn’t file a complaint because internal affairs would have lovingly cast lots for the opportunity to burn a complaint offered up by OGC Rocky Jenkins.
Rock’s cell phone rings.
“It’s Dre.”
“So now you’re calling me?”
“Sorry,” Andre says. “But I need to talk now. It’s pretty important.”
This is the part of servant leadership that Rock hates—used up when people need you, conveniently dismissed when they don’t.
And I’m supposed to just take it? Like I don’t have any self-respect?
“I’ll try and stop by tomorrow,” Rock says.
He hangs up and tosses his phone on the table.
Mr. and Mrs. Horton step out of their stately Italianate Victorian. The north sides of the mature oaks that surround the house are plastered with ice sheets that blew in with the storm that galloped through the Watchung Mountains at daybreak.
“Dewey, I’m not riding in that Dodge,” Mrs. Horton proclaims. “We can either drive two cars or you can ride with me.”
“We’re not driving two cars, and I’m not riding with you, Wilda.”
“Just drive my car,” she says.
“I like my car better. It knows me. And do we have to go through this every time we ride somewhere together?”
“Your car is seventeen years old and ugly,” she says.
“Vanity, Wilda. That’s all that is. I sell it every day.”
Mrs. Horton tosses her keys through the air and Mr. Horton catches them. “Spare me the faux asceticism and drive the car, man,” she says.
Mr. Horton climbs behind the wheel of the Mercedes and fumbles around for the keyhole.
Mrs. Horton shrieks.
“What?”
She points through the windshield.
OGC is spray-painted across the front of the house in large black letters.
The young Montclair police officer marvels at the elaborate cherry-paneled foyer. “Nice place you got here.”
“Thank you,” Mr. Horton says.
“Michael Strahan lived in this neighborhood, right?”
“Two streets over.”
“So’d you ever see him? You know, like driving around or anything?”
“Officer”—Mr. Horton looks at his badge—“Sandifer. I’m really not interested in discussing anything other than my house being vandalized.”
“Sorry, Mr. Horton. I’m just a big-time Giants fan, you know?”
No answer.
“Okay, so let’s get down to business,” Sandifer says, his game face on now. “What connection do you have to the gang?”
“None whatsoever,” Mr. Horton answers, taken aback.
“I mean, is there any reason OGC would want to vandalize your property?”
“Yes. My daughter and her . . . friend were the victims of a gang-related shooting two weeks ago. And according to her friend, the shooting happened because he witnessed the murder of one of his family members a few months back.”
“I see,” Sandifer says as he scribbles notes.
“As soon as I found out about that, I reported it to the detective in Jersey City who’s handling the investigation. I wanted to get police protection in the hospital for my daughter.”
“Sorry to hear about your daughter. How’s she doing?”
“Not good. In a coma since it happened.”
“What about her friend?”
“He got shot up pretty bad too, but none of his injuries were life threatening.”
Officer Sandifer gnaws on the eraser of his pencil. “I don’t recall ever hearing of an incident in Montclair involving OGC. They don’t tend to travel. Your daughter’s friend, is he talking?”
“No.”
“Not surprised. And I’ll let you in on a dirty little secret since we’re talking JCPD and not us. Municipal police departments don’t always do the best job protecting witnesses. What they usually offer in exchange for testimony is a cheap motel until trial and a seat on a Greyhound when it’s over.”
“I’m not sure I’m following you,” Mr. Horton says.
“Okay, picture this.” Sandifer puts his hands up with his thumbs forming the bottom of a frame. “A ranch house in the painted hills of Arizona, a new identity, and mint juleps?”
“Okay.”
“Hollywood, my friend. Only happens in the movies. Local police departments just aren’t equipped for that kind of thing. We barely got enough cops on the street with all the budget cuts. Look, a handshake and a thank-you from the DA is free. After that, it’s up to the person who testifies to start a new life.”
Mr. Horton frowns. “So a person is supposed to leave their job, their family, basically everything they know after they testify?”
“They don’t have to do that, but what would you do?”
Mr. Horton is silent. The upper and lower arc of the spray-painted O is visible through the window in the foyer. He thinks about Sandra, Andre, Little Dre, Wilda, himself.
“How do you get people to do that?” Mr. Horton asks.
“Some are willing to take the risk in the interest of justice, but more and more people are choosing not to. And it’s not just in bad neighborhoods. In a lot of places the DA won’t even pursue charges if they only have one witness and no forensics evidence to back it up. Think about it. You spend months preparing a case, get to trial, and your one witness gets spooked or bumped off, and then poof.” Sandifer wiggles his fingers for effect. “There goes your case and many thousands of taxpayer dollars. Wanna hear a sad story that happened right here in Jersey?”
“Go ahead,” Mr. Horton says, warming to the cold-blooded reality of what he’s now entrenched in.
“A grandmother sees her granddaughter get shot through the face,” Sandifer says. “The little girl was riding her bike and gets caught in the crossfire between rival gangs. The grandmother doesn’t testify because she lives in the same projects where the gang operates.”
“So what happened with the case?”
Sandifer closes his notebook. “Nothing. Grandma figured she’d rather her and her family live than be killed if she testified. That’s the kind of pressure she was getting. Seventy-five years old. It’s a shame.” He stands and extends his hand. “You take it easy, Mr. Horton. I’m gonna compare notes with the JCPD. And my sergeant told me to tell you that he added a few extra patrols on your street overnight for the next couple of weeks. He said you sold him a car ten years ago and it still runs great.”