Kill Whitey

The District Attorney was up for re-election, and he threw a bunch of charges at me—all kinds of felonies and offenses. But by the second day, the FBI and others were involved. Turns out they’d had several informants inside Whitey’s organization, and they’d confirmed that a lot of what I was saying was true. I hadn’t killed Darryl or Yul. I wasn’t with Jesse when he disappeared. The murders of Otar and the other mobsters had been purely in self-defense. Ballistics and eye-witness accounts verified that.

Within a few days, things started to turn around, and the media fell in love with me all over again, painting me as a solid, blue collar citizen who’d just happened to mistakenly run afoul of a Russian organized crime group. I had no prior arrests or felonies other than that old traffic fine. I was a working man—a decent member of society who’d had the bad judgment to get involved with a stripper, who had since disappeared.

Yeah. We’ll get to that in a minute.

Believe it or not, I escaped murder and manslaughter charges. My parents used their retirement money to get me a good defense attorney. The DA, wanting to get re-elected, didn’t press too hard because public sentiment was on my side, thanks to the media and how they spun the story. In the end, I got sentenced to time served, with seven-year’s probation and a big ass fine that will probably take me the rest of my life to pay off. As part of my deal, I pleaded guilty to discharging a fire-arm, trespassing, evading and resisting arrest, theft of industrial property, and abusing a corpse.

At least they didn’t nail me for improper disposal of a corpse, while they were at it.

The day after my release from prison, a bunch of terrorists shot up an elementary school in Florida, killing over one hundred children, and the media—and the rest of the country—forgot all about me. It was like I’d ceased to exist.

Sort of like Sondra did.

Oh, she didn’t cease to exist. She wasn’t dead, at least, not that I know of. But she did vanish and as far as I know, nobody has seen or heard from her since. According to a few law enforcement officials who were sympathetic to my case, she skipped town immediately. Probably made a break for it while Whitey and I were still at the lake. The FBI made several arrests, rounding up what was left of Whitey’s crew, and then confirmed that a large amount of cash had been stolen that night. Stolen by a pregnant stripper named Sondra. Like her, the money’s whereabouts were unknown. Nobody ever told me what the amount was.

The investigation continued, even though I was no longer a part of it. Witnesses were interviewed again. I found out that several of my neighbors had placed Sondra at my apartment shortly after the incident at the lumber yard. The yellow police tape on the door, warning people that it was a crime scene, had been cut and the door had been forced open. They theorized that Sondra had hidden the money in my apartment all along. They said that she’d probably hidden it when she went to clean up, while Darryl and I sat in the kitchen and discussed how to help her. I told them that was bullshit—explained that when we’d found her, Sondra had been barely dressed, wearing only a pair of skimpy blue silk shorts and a matching silk top, more like a pair of pajamas than clothing. She’d had nowhere to stash the money. And she couldn’t have hidden it in my Jeep because that had been locked.

I’ve thought it over. Run through various scenarios. I believe she stole the cash. But I don’t know where it is. Maybe that’s a good thing. It’s blood money, after all. Maybe it should stay buried, like those who died because of it.

At least Webster wasn’t harmed. He made it out relatively unscathed. Didn’t escape when the cops searched my apartment. He spent a few nights at a no-kill shelter run by a very nice pair of old hippies, and then my parents rescued him from there and kept him until my release. Now he and I live in a new apartment.

I think a lot. About Sondra. About my friends. I miss them all. Even her. Especially her. She betrayed me and hurt me and used me like the sucker I was, but I miss her all the same. When I dream, it’s often about Sondra—her simultaneously annoying and endearing broken English, dancing on stage to the beat of the music, making love to me in my bed, holding my hand as we raced through the sewer. In the dreams, she says that she loves me and that she’ll never, ever leave. In the dreams, we are together.

But dreams are just lies.

In the real world, I never saw her again. She disappeared.

Just like Whitey.