already have that second strike. I remembered how that snotty little ADA said “one-punch homicide” about two hundred times while I was taking that manslaughter-down-to-assault plea. He just liked the sound of his own voice—everyone had agreed to the deal before we ever walked into court.
Sure, I was a lot older and smarter than after my first fall. But I didn’t have the skills to slide away from the situation while it was still just an argument, the way a real pro would have done. I hadn’t started the fight, and I sure didn’t set out to murder anyone. But I believed the Legal Aid when he said a jury would take one look at me and come back with a murder rap.
Why wouldn’t I believe him? He looked scared just being alone in the room with me.
A ninety-day county slap, that was sweet enough. But them letting me plead to misdemeanor assault, that was pure gold. Probably helped that the other guy had a lot of priors. And a knife.
It was even fair, sort of. I had dropped that other guy. I didn’t set out to kill him, but he was just as dead.
Only I knew it wouldn’t go that way again. Even with the DA already talking about a plea, I knew I was looking at felony time. All I cared about was keeping that as short as possible without giving anyone up.
I already missed smoking—I’d had to trade my whole first commissary draw for a decent shank. Rikers is no place for a white man, especially one with no Nazi ink.
“Could I see your right forearm?” the lawyer asked me.
I pulled back my sleeve to the elbow. He motioned for me to turn my hand so he could see the underside. He couldn’t be looking for track marks—otherwise, he’d have wanted to look at both arms.
“I knew it,” he said, nodding like he was agreeing with himself.
“What?”
“No tattoo. The victim said the man who raped her had one. Big one. Right forearm. She didn’t get a close look, but she remembered it had a lot of red in it.”
“So I’m off the—?”
“Experienced rapists always use them. Decal tattoos, I mean. It’s the kind of thing victims remember.”
“Yeah. They’ve got an answer for everything,” I told him, remembering what the black cop had said about me wearing a rubber.
“But you still want to roll the dice?”
“What’s the difference?” I said. “I’m going anyway. I was carrying when they grabbed me.”
“Operable?” he asked. Showing me he’d handled carrying-concealed cases before. But telling me something else: that the DA hadn’t exactly opened their files for him, like he thought they had.
“Yeah,” I said. “With one in the chamber.”
“You know they’re going to write it up that the safety was off, right?”
“For once, they wouldn’t be lying if they did. But I guarantee you there’s nothing on that gun. Brand-new. Never been fired.”
“You’re sure of that?”
“Bet my life,” I told him.
That would have been a safe bet. Solly always supplied the hardware on his jobs. I remember one time when one of the crew Solly put together wanted to bring his regular carry piece. Said it was his lucky lady. “That’s no lucky lady,” Solly told him. “In fact, that’s no lady at all.”
Before the guy could say anything, Solly snatched the piece out of his hand and held it up under the lightbulb hanging in the basement where we were meeting. “What’s this hold, about nineteen rounds? Where’re you even gonna carry it, fucking monster like that? You’re planning on a gunfight, swell. But this job, it goes right, nobody shoots at all.”
“Sometimes—” the guy started to say.
“Sometimes isn’t this time. That’s what I get paid for. On my jobs, every man carries the same. Show him, Sugar.”
I took out the one Solly had given me. Short-barreled, kind of ugly.
“Ruger in forty-five,” Solly said. “Whatever you hit with this, it’s not getting up. The only thing that ‘lady’ of yours would be good for is a firefight. You want one with a SWAT team?”
“I still don’t see why we all have to carry the same—”
“Because one guy also carries a little bag with him. That’s Sugar. Soon as you start work, Sugar puts the bag down, opens the zipper. There’s two hundred full magazines in there.
“You all carry the same, so you all got your ammo supply right there. Every round checked before it went into a clip—you’re not gonna have to worry about jams. Even better, nobody has to