One Way or Another (5 page)

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Authors: Rhonda Bowen

BOOK: One Way or Another
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Chapter 4
“K
nock, knock.”
Adam looked up from his desk at the head of long, silky black hair that had stuck itself inside his office door. He grimaced.
“Now, that's no way to greet your guests,” Toni said, slipping inside and taking a seat before he could say a word.
Adam rubbed his temples. There were things he could deal with today. Like the past-due energy bill sitting on his desk and Dexter's failing report card. But Toni he didn't have the energy for—even if her vanilla-scented perfume brought a welcome change to his office.
He watched her smooth out the nonexistent wrinkles in her black slacks and fold her hands in her lap expectantly. He took a deep breath and inhaled another whiff of vanilla. Guess she wasn't going anywhere.
“How can I help you, Miss Shields?”
“It's Toni,” she said brightly. “And actually I've been thinking there's a way we could help each other.”
She smiled and Adam wondered if this was the same person who had taken out an Atlanta PD officer less than a week ago. He glanced at the morning's copy of the
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
sitting to the side of his desk. A few hours earlier he had skimmed over her latest article about the shortage of legal aid at city court. It was a lot milder than most of her other pieces—not that he followed her stories.
Something told Adam she wouldn't leave until he heard her out, so he put down his pen and clasped his hands together resignedly. “I'm listening.”
“So you know I want to talk to Jerome about his case... .”
“You already know how I feel about that,” he interrupted.
“Yes, but I think it might help everyone if we were to work together on this,” she added quickly.
Adam raised an eyebrow. “I suspect it would help you more than it would help me, Miss Shields.”
“I disagree. And it's Toni.”
“Well,
Toni
, I think we're going to have to agree to disagree.”
“But you haven't even heard what I have to say yet.” She narrowed her large dark eyes.
“Given what I've already seen of you, I'm not sure I want to,” Adam said.
Toni's mouth fell open. “That's not fair! You don't even know me.”
“Yes, but apparently the Atlanta PD does.”
“That is so judgmental... .”
“But true. Right?” Adam challenged.
“Look, are you going to fight me all morning or are you going to at least hear me out?” Toni asked, losing the brightness.
He couldn't help but smirk. “I was wondering how long it would take for the real you to show up.”
“Well, here I am.” She let her glare reinforce her words. “So let me know if I should leave now, or if we can have a civilized conversation like two grown adults.”
Adam glared back at Toni. He was doing it again. Picking a fight with her. Something about her seemed to unsettle him, and the quicker he could get rid of her the better. Unfortunately it seemed like the only way to get rid of her would be to hear her out.
He frowned. “Okay, I'm listening.”
“For real this time?” Toni challenged.
Adam bit back what he really wanted to say and settled with “Yes.”
She took a deep breath and for a moment Adam saw that she was a bit nervous. He was surprised.
So she did have feelings.
“I know you're trying to protect Jerome.” Her voice had mellowed out to an even tone. “I can understand that and I'm not trying to exploit him. But I do think there are people out there who are.”
“What do you mean?” Adam asked, his brow furrowing.
“Your people downtown don't really care about Jerome,” Toni said flatly. “They're just using his case to hit the opposition at elections.”
Adam listened, stunned, as she explained what Afrika had told her about the changes in the auto theft unit and the way the opposition wanted to use it against the current government.
“They're planning to make an example of Jerome,” Toni said. “They want to use him to prove how well the system is working, even though they cut the budget. When he goes to prison, Jerome will be the poster boy for how committed they are to fighting crime.”
Adam leaned back in his chair and rubbed a hand over his face. So Jerome was just a puppet. And everyone knew it. That's why no one at Legal Aid would touch the case. It was a suicide mission—failed from the get-go.
“How do you know all this?” Adam asked.
Toni offered a tight smile. “You don't really wanna know.”
Adam sighed. “This is not good.”
“That's not all,” Toni said, her eyes tainted with something that looked to Adam like pity.
His eyebrows rose. “What do you mean?”
She bit her lip. The pause before she answered only served to increase Adam's apprehension.
“If you lose the case with Jerome, chances are they're gonna start reopening all the cases on all the boys here.”
“What?” Adam asked, the lines in his forehead deepening as he sat forward.
“There's already a list of the ones they're thinking of looking into first,” Toni said.
Adam closed his eyes.
“Listen, they haven't started looking into any of the others yet,” Toni followed quickly. “It might not even come to that, but I thought I should let you know.”
“So is this how you're helping me?” Adam asked dryly. “By letting me know the Jacob's House program is falling apart in slow motion?”
“No,” Toni said sincerely, shaking her head. “I was just explaining the situation.
“But I do know someone who can help,” she continued. “I have a friend who's a lawyer who would be willing to look at your case.”
“We already have a lawyer.”
Toni chuckled. “Not a good one.”
“So I guess you've been talking to Trey.”
“Well, he is my brother, so yes,” Toni answered, her sarcasm thinly veiled. “But I also know Emmett Green, and trust me when I tell you, he's not trying to help you out. You'd be better off defending yourself.”
Adam grimaced. They had already figured out that part on their own.
“Look,” Adam said. “It's nice that you're taking an interest, even though it might be opportunistic of you... .”
Toni rolled her eyes.
“... But we can't afford a big-time lawyer. Look around,” Adam said, nodding to the peeling walls and aging ceiling. “We're barely getting by as is.”
“Adam, my sister-in-law and brother both work here. Give me some credit,” Toni deadpanned. “I know money is tight. The lawyer I spoke with is willing to do this pro bono for you. He's got a quota he has to fill for his firm.
“Besides, he's just gonna look at the case and let you know what Jerome's chances are and what kind of representation you're gonna need,” Toni finished.
A small spark of hope lit up inside Adam, but he squelched it before he could get too optimistic. “So you're saying there is an actual criminal lawyer who is willing to work with Jerome on this case, free of cost?”
“No,” Toni said with a small smile. “There is an actual topnotch criminal lawyer who is willing to work on this case, free of cost.”
Adam tried not to smile, but the muscles in his face were already relaxing.
Okay, God, I see you.
Suddenly his eyes narrowed at Toni. “So what do you get for your part in orchestrating all this?” he asked suspiciously.
Toni smiled sweetly. “I think you already know what I want.” Adam cocked his head to the side and considered her, wondering all the time how someone so beautiful could be so calculating. So this was how Samson got caught.
“Call your lawyer friend.” Adam let out a sigh, shook his head. “Is this how you get all your stories?”
Toni grinned as she reached across the desk to use his phone. “Only when I'm being good.”
Chapter 5
“S
o why you so interested in talking to me anyway?”
The lanky young man draped his almost six-foot frame over the chair and glanced at Toni. With his two neck tattoos, two-inch afro, and two-sizes-too-big clothes, Jerome almost seemed older than his seventeen years. But his sleepy copper eyes, which shone brightly in the blanket of his deep mocha skin, were what gave him away.
“Maybe 'cause everyone else is so interested in making sure I don't,” Toni said. “Kinda makes me feel like you know something worth knowing, you know?”
Jerome laughed and stuck a fry in his mouth. The two of them were sitting across from each other outside a McDonald's on a hazy Thursday afternoon. Adam had finally caved and let Toni talk to the boy, but he had insisted on it being a supervised session. Toni had insisted that was stupid. So instead they had come to a compromise that involved Adam sitting one table away, pretending to read the paper while Toni chatted with Jerome.
Toni looked across at Adam. “Is he always that uptight?” she asked.
“Pretty much,” Jerome said.
“Too bad,” Toni said, her eyes lingering. “He might have been a lot of fun.”
“He's all right,” Jerome said, taking a bite out of his cheeseburger. “You just gotta get used to him.”
Toni wrinkled her nose. “I'll pass.”
She looked back at Jerome, who had completely finished the cheeseburger in about three bites, and stifled a laugh.
“So you ready to talk now? Or do I need to bribe you with another one of those?” she asked, an eyebrow raised.
Jerome licked some ketchup off his fingers. “Not now,” he said, grinning mischievously. “But maybe later. So what you wanna know?”
Toni leaned back and shrugged. “How 'bout you tell me how you ended up at Jacob's House in the first place.”
Jerome took a large sip from his soda. Then he told her his story.
It wasn't an unfamiliar one to Toni. He had grown up in what used to be Bankhead Courts before it was demolished in the Atlanta Housing Authority public housing wipeout.
There were two of them, both boys, both with different fathers whom neither of them knew. His mom worked two jobs and was never home, and so he followed his older brother and his brother's gang around on the street.
“They never really told me anything, you know?” Jerome said, all the ease long gone from his features. “I was just Jamal's kid brother. Wherever Jamal went, I went.
“So, one day, we're just hanging out as usual, me and Jamal and some other dudes, when we end up downtown. There's this car parked on the side of the street, and Rico says, this is the one.
“I'm asking Jamal what he's talking about, but he just tells me to shut up. So I do, 'cause I know these dudes, and if they tell you to shut up, you shut up. So I'm just standing there, and then I see Rico pull something out of his pants and start trying to boost the car.
“So, I'm like ‘Yo, Jamal, what are you doing?' He tells me to shut up and go watch, make sure no one's coming. I tell him no, but he says if I don't do it, he's gonna make sure I go down with them when they get caught.”
Jerome's eyes narrowed in anger. “My brother, my blood. And he's about to sell me out for some niggas who don't give a sh—”
He stopped midway, and suddenly looked across, as if sensing Adam's eyes. Toni looked across and found Adam glaring at him.
Jerome cleared his throat. “Uh, sorry.”
He took a sip from his soda and seemed to relax a notch. “So anyway, I go out and watch the corner,” Jerome continues. “At first it's all good, but then I see five-oh cruising down the street, like they on patrol or something. I try to tell Jamal we need to bounce, but Rico's got him in the driver's seat tryin' to start the thing. I don't know what he does, but the alarm suddenly goes off and that nigga Rico takes off down the street. Jamal gets out the car, we start running but somehow we end up splitting up, and since I don't know downtown like they do, I'm the one who gets caught.”
Jerome slumps back in his chair, a ticked off look all over his face. No doubt still angry about everything that had happened. Toni would have been too if her brother had ditched her and let her take the rap for his mess.
“What happened after the cops got you?” Toni asked after she had given Jerome a moment to calm down.
Jerome's eyes grew darker. “I was in lockup for a while before I could see a judge. That was some other sh—” He paused again. “... Was messed up. 'Cause I wouldn't tell them who the others with me were, they charged me for trying to steal the car, and then pinned some other boost on me 'cause they said it looked like the same crew. It was probably Rico who did that other job, but I wasn't even there. Didn't even know nothing about that other mess, but I was the one who took the rap.
“Since I was fifteen, they said I would probably end up in juvie, but then my lawyer told me about this program with Jacob's House where I could live there and go to school and whatever, and if I kept clean, then at the end of my two-year sentence, they would clear my record. Since my moms didn't want nothing to do with me, and I wasn't feeling the juvie scene, I figured a free bed and grub, why not? So I signed up, and here I am.”
“Just like that, huh?” Toni asked.
“Nah,” Jerome said, his eyes going cold. “Not just like that. This is better than what could have happened to me, but it ain't no fairy tale. My moms still won't talk to me, and I can't go anywhere near where I used to live. If I do, I go straight to juvie. If I miss curfew, I go straight to juvie. If I jaywalk, I go straight to juvie. It's not prison, but ain't nobody free.”
Toni watched him carefully as he fiddled with the wrapper of his burger. “So what happens now?” she asked.
“Now they want to put me in prison. Real prison. Gen pop, with the rapists, the triple murderers, and a bunch of other coldhearted brothahs.”
“Why?”
Jerome scowled. “They say I didn't really serve my sentence. That the state was too easy on me.” He snorted. “I wanna meet the person who came up with that mess. Let them spend a week at Jacob's House. Let them see how easy it is.”
Toni glanced at Adam, then dropped her voice. “Jacob's House—do they treat you well over there?”
Jerome nodded. “Yeah. Bayne, Dr J, Shields, Walters, Gonzales, they're good people. But like I said, it ain't no fairy tale. We got chores and work and school, and some of us got jobs outside of that. And of course church is a must, and if you break any of the rules, that's it.”
Toni looked across at Adam. He had switched to a book Toni had never heard of. She took a sip of her own drink and turned back to Jerome.
“Anybody ever get dropped from the program?”
“A couple,” Jerome said. “Not everybody is in it for the right reasons, you know? Some dudes think it's a free ride.”
Toni smirked. “But of course you're in it to change, right?”
Jerome's eyes turned to ice as he looked her up and down. “What do you care, you just trying to make front page.”
Toni heard a cough from her right. She didn't need to look to know Adam had heard everything.
“Well, I gotta write something to sell your hard-luck story,” Toni shot back.
“Write what you want, I don't care,” Jerome said. “It ain't gonna change nothing. Nobody cares about me or any of us except Bayne and the rest of them. You think your little story is gonna change that?”
Toni scowled. “Guess we'll have to wait and see.”
“Yeah,” Jerome said, dismissing her with his eyes as he stood to his feet. “I ain't holdin' my breath.
“Yo, Bayne, can we bounce?” Jerome said, with an air of distaste as he ignored Toni. “I'm done here.”
Toni caught Adam's eyes as he stood, and the look there was clear: Jerome was done talking to her, and she was done talking to Jerome too.

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