Nine

The Port Authority police ushered Nico into a holding cell, took his handcuffs off, and slammed the steel cell doors shut.

“I need to make a call,” Nico said to the cop who pushed him into the cell.

“Shut the fuck up and sit your nigger ass down!” The cop then walked off upset that he had to do lengthy paperwork and even more pissed off that his shift wouldn’t end until the Nassau County Police Department detectives arrived and took custody of Nico, so they could question him about the shooting at his Long Island estate.

Nico smiled at the racist remark, but he didn’t respond.

“Jimmy, can you fingerprint that black nigger for me? I don’t want to have to whip his nigger ass,” the cop said to one of his fellow officers. He was purposely talking loud so that Nico could hear him.

“Jimmy, your boy don’t got no swag. Tell him it’s nigga, not nigger.” Nico smirked. He wanted the racist cop to know that nothing fazed him.

The cops looked at Nico and shook their heads. Nico couldn’t believe how mentally weak they were.

Officer Jimmy came over to the damp cell that smelled like a wet cat and unlocked it, and then held Nico by the arm and walked him over to a computer cart and began to fingerprint Nico.

“So how much they pay y’all to do this job?” Nico asked.

The cop didn’t answer.

“At least six figures, right?” Nico asked. “I mean, with overtime and all that, you making at least a hundred grand, right?”

The cop methodically continued to fingerprint Nico and also took his mug shot. When he was done, he walked Nico back to the holding cell, slammed the door shut, and made sure it was locked.

“We make an honorable living. We work for everything we get, and we don’t sell poison to our communities,” Office Jimmy said to Nico.

Nico nodded his head with a smirk, but he didn’t reply. He knew that he had won the mind game with the weak-minded officers. He sat down on the benches and wondered what he was being held for, and he also wondered how long it would be before they let him make a phone call.

An hour and a half later, two Nassau County cops came to his cell accompanied by the racist cop.

“There’s your black nigger right there,” the Port Authority cop said to the Nassau County detectives.

The detectives introduced themselves, and then they placed Nico in handcuffs and escorted him to an empty room.

“Yo, what the fuck is up? Port Authority arrests me, but Nassau DTs are questioning me?” Nico asked as he took a seat at the table.

“Do you want anything to eat or drink?” one of the detectives asked.

“I wanna know what the fuck I’m being held for,” Nico shot back.

At that moment, a Port Authority sergeant knocked on the door and whispered something into one of the detectives’ ears. The detective got visibly upset, his face turning bright red. And he told his partner to step out into the hallway with him.

“His lawyer is here,” the detective told his partner.

“What the fuck?” He looked at the sergeant for answers. “We told you guys not to let him lawyer up until we had a chance to question him.”

“We never let him use the phone,” the sergeant replied.

“That’s bullshit! How the fuck is his lawyer here if he didn’t make any phone calls?” The lead detective shook his head in disgust.

The larger police departments like the NYPD and Nassau County all looked on smaller police departments like they were inept. And that was definitely what the two detectives were thinking about the Port Authority police at that very moment.

“You mother fuckers are so incompetent,” the detective said to the Port Authority sergeant.

The sergeant didn’t reply because he wasn’t exactly sure if one of his officers had slipped up and allowed Nico to make a phone call.

“Don’t just stand there. Get the fuckin’ attorney,” the detective said with defeated disgust.

Nico’s attorney, Ron Thompson was a very well known and very powerful black attorney from Manhattan that most police departments both feared and respected. He was a former prosecutor who had started his own private practice, and he represented many high-profile clients.

The sergeant walked Ron over to the two detectives.

“Gentlemen.” Ron held out his hand for a handshake.

The detectives shook Ron’s hand, and then they all went into the room where Nico was sitting. The detectives took a seat, but Ron remained standing.

A relieved Nico was shocked to see Ron, but he made sure to keep a poker face after nodding to his attorney.

The lead detective was about to talk, but Ron interrupted him. “First thing, remove the handcuffs from my client’s wrists.”

The detectives complied, and then Ron asked them for a moment alone with Nico.

“How did you know I was here?” Nico asked.

“BJ called me from the airport after he saw you in handcuffs.”

Nico nodded.

Ron sat down across from Nico. “You didn’t sign anything or make any statements, did you?”

“I ain’t sign nothing, and I didn’t say anything.”

Then Nico went on to explain how they’d arrested him when he was about to step off the plane but never charged him with anything or told him why he was being arrested.

“Well, you know why?” Ron replied. “The shooting is dominating the news, and they are going to see if they can link you to it.”

“I ain’t have nothing to do with that shit. I was out of town.”

His lawyer nodded. Then he asked him where he went.

“I was in Vegas.”

“By yourself?”

“Nah. With my lady.”

Ron nodded. “And you don’t know nothing about this, right?”

“Only what the streets is saying. But I ain’t got nothing to do with that shit. I ain’t gonna sanction my own crib to get ran into and shot up.”

“All right.” Ron stood up and went to the door and motioned for the detectives to come in.

“You’re holding my client, and you didn’t charge him with anything? What the fuck is this?”

“We didn’t arrest him. We just want to question him,” the lead white detective replied.

“Don’t play games with me. I know who arrested him. They arrested him on your department’s request,” Ron shot back as he stood in his three-thousand-dollar tailor-made Italian suit, looking like he was about to give closing arguments in a courtroom.

“Ron, look. We got a murder that took place within our jurisdiction at your client’s residence. We want to ask him questions pertaining to that.”

“No. What you want to do is swoop down on my client while he’s getting off the plane and make a dramatic arrest and then question him and get him to confess to a crime that he had nothing to do with, just so you can have him do a perp walk out of this precinct with the news cameras flashing. That’s what you really want.”

Nico sat back. His lawyer was worth every dime he paid him.

The detective was about to say something, and Ron cut him off.

“Look, are you charging my client with murder or what? If not, then what the fuck are we doing here?”

“We just want to question him.”

“You lost that right with the dramatic way you guys decided to handle things. My client isn’t talking.”

This was what the detectives feared, and that’s why they didn’t want Nico to lawyer up. The lead detective knew he was stuck. He looked at his partner for help.

“Ron, we’re not playing hardball, we just want to question your client. But we can play hardball and lock your client up on a conspiracy charge.”

Ron shook his head and smiled. “My client was nowhere in the vicinity of New York when the crimes in question took place, and he can prove that. Now, unless you gentlemen have direct eyewitness testimony and statements that implicate my client in a conspiracy of any kind, then I think he’s free to go.”

The detectives looked at each other, stumped.

“Nico, you’re free. Let’s go,” Ron said, and the two of them walked out of the interrogation room.

Nico wanted to retrieve his belongings before his lawyer drove him to meet up with BJ. He let the racist Port Authority cop, who was still sitting at his desk doing paperwork, know that he needed his stuff.

Now that an attorney accompanied Nico, the slick racist talk was no longer coming out of the cop’s mouth. The cop retrieved Nico’s things.

After Nico gathered his stuff and put away his cash and his wallet, he said to the cop, “Remember, it’s nigga, not nigger. You gotta add more ga into it, you feel me?”

He watched the cop turn red, then patted him on the shoulder. “I’m just fuckin’ wit’chu, man. Be easy,” he said, a sinister smile on his face.