ROLL CALL ~ A Prison List (True Prison Story) (56 page)

I thought about all of the drama I had in my back pocket and wondered if I should just keep it there. How could I? My mind kept replaying the beating I’d heard Vince getting. I had to find out if he was alright and decided Damon had a right to know and chose if he wanted to get involved or not. “I have to talk to you about Sir Vincent the Valiant.”

I explained details in a nut shell that led to the phone conversation with Vince explaining his intelligence gathering and discovery dossiers that led to my hearing him being beaten. I watched Damon’s stoic granite face flash full of concern and followed him to the pay phone in the garage. I watched him call a 714 number that ended in 666.

“What number is that?”

“It’s the Orange County Jail.”

I felt chills going down my spine. We listened to Vince’s charges, street terrorism, extortion, resisting arrest and assault and battery on a police officer. Then the secretary told us Vince wasn’t housed in the jail, he was in a county hospital in Santa Ana.

Damon called the hospital and we found out Vince was in critical condition from head injuries. He was in a coma.

I told Damon, “I’ve got a key to a P.O. Box Vince managed to ditch with all of the evidence but I don’t know which P.O. Box.”

“I know exactly where it is. It’s in Trabuco Canyon. He told me about it in our cell in the Pelican Bay S.H.U.”

CHAPTER 160

Damon borrowed Jade’s Hummer and we drove away from CROSSROADS. At the end of the street a caravan of undercover vehicles raced through the stop sign toward the recovery center. From the passenger seat through the double tinted window I saw detective Pincher in his Crown Vic., the white van and three other units. Damon called Jade to let her know and hung up when he started getting yelled at.

We got to the P.O. Box and went to number 88. The box was stuffed full. I pulled out a video camera marked in stickers, CANDY 007, and three boxes. On top of one of the boxes was a note. It was in code. Damon recognized the code and said they were ancient ruins. He knew the code. We hustled back to the Hummer and I played the video footage and explained what Candy was doing on her homegrown dancer/escort production company. I imagined what watching this footage must have done to Vince’s heart after six years in a cell for 23 hours a day. I opened the first of the three boxes and asked Damon, “Where are we going?”

“I don’t know.”

Damon pulled over and called Jade from a payphone.

“Damon the gang task force just left! They want to know if you’re with B.J.! They said he has a parolee-at-large warrant and is wanted! You have 24 hours to report or you’ll have a warrant! I wouldn’t tell them anything because I know it always gets twisted and they threatened to put my recovery center out of business!”

“Jade, Vince is in a coma over some evidence he’s obtained against the task force. I need to go over the evidence somewhere. Where can I go?”

“Damon! Don’t get involved! Give the evidence to an attorney!”

“That’s where Vince got the leads and they were just going to use it for black mail!”

“Damon, you’re choosing Vince over your family!”

I watched Damon struggle with the loyalty issue. I knew he couldn’t turn his back on the cell mate he’d lived through so many crises with, in prisons packed with ultimate pressures producing ruthless animals and discarded souls. How can you explain to someone who hasn’t been there that your conscience won’t allow you to leave a brother behind, it’s the only loyalty and honor you’ve got left.

“Jade, I won’t get caught up… I just need a place to go over Vince’s discovery intelligence.”

“Go to my sister’s house in that gated community we had dinner at last week in Laguna Niguel.”

Damon was pulling on the telephone cord so hard it snapped.

CHAPTER 161

We pulled into the gated community and met Jade’s sister.

“I just got off the phone with Jade. You’re welcome to use my house and I’ll be praying for you nonstop! I’m on my way to the airport right now for a conference in San Francisco. I won’t be back for a week. Please think things through and pray about them before you do anything!”

We entered the mansion through the garage and went upstairs to the bonus room to make a headquarters to study the evidence. The first box was addressed to a court house and more specifically, the head D.A. I opened the box and pulled out an artistic piece of paper that had been fashioned to look like a parched scroll. In beautiful writing I read a Bible verse I was familiar with, Matthew 7 verse 1. JUDGE NOT, LEST YOU BE JUDGED. LET THOSE WITHOUT SIN CAST THE FIRST STONE. There was another note. I, the sender of this message am a product of this area, the same as your son. I like your son, got caught up in a prevalent drug using culture and went to prison over it. I can tell you that prison life turns the disease of addiction into an AFFLICTION much harder to escape from. Prison breeds tattoos that represent race, territories and streets where violence is a big part of the solution and the only way. Would you want that for your son? I’m asking you to observe the dates I later mention; on those dates I beseech you to send everyone on your court calendar from that day with a drug crime to a treatment center rather than prison. No exceptions. If you chose not to go with this program get your popcorn and a drink ready to watch your son make the news.

I put the video in and Damon stopped me.

“The coded ruins Vince left behind said that he was able to use the same video camera the D.A.’s son used to record his sexual escapades, unbeknownst to the girls he was sleeping with, to build up a homegrown porn collection he bragged about. Vince flipped the script on him and used the same video camera on him.

The footage showed a white beach-style looking guy in his mid twenties with bleach tip spiked hair with his back to the video camera. He was weighing up product on a triple beam scale from a healthy pile of speed to his right where more than twenty plastic baggies were. We heard Vince ask, “How much did that half a pound of speed cost you and how much do you usually make from breaking it down like that?”

The trendy drug dealer turned. He looked standard issue for the area with a few tattoos, flashy silver rings and a Silver Star belt buckle. “I make a couple thousand a week off the kids in college. I’m actually helping them get their degrees.”

The next box was marked CHIPCOM. I opened it and listened to Damon explain Vince’s notes he’d deciphered.

“Vince spent a lot of time on this one and never came up with a strategy. He mentioned he thought the chairman; Raymond Senior was a good man who was misguided and power hungry. He noted how much the senior loved his son and how much satisfaction he got from donating to causes. Vince mentioned wanting to steer the powerful chairman into becoming a leader philanthropist who helped ex-prisoners dig roots in the community as youth leaders by using their past experiences for something good.”

We watched the video footage of the chairman’s son Raymond Junior. It was from a camera phone. Raymond Junior was dressed in designer clothes and looked like a G.Q. model with brown spiked hair. The only thing that gave him away was the flashy Silver Star belt buckle and all the dope on the table he was weighing up on a digital scale. There were ecstasy pills and a pile of speed with a number of baggies. I saw the similarities between Raymond Junior and the D.A.’s kid in that they both had that invisible leash around their necks to their dope, holding them to the sense of power that made them feel like a god. I put an audio cassette of a phone call in and hit play. We heard Vince say, “Big Ray! What’s up with my level four shot caller? What’s the business holmes?”

Raymond junior responding, “What’s up Big V.?… What are you doing you big old pimp?”

“Pimp? You’re the one hording all of the sexy sluts! I’m over here waiting for you to reach out and touch me with one of those top shelf, ten thousand dollar a night escorts I know you ball with, you big baller! Are you going to any after hour raves this weekend?”

“Yeah, there’s one in L.A. this Friday and one in Irvine everyone is going to be at on Saturday. All the local companies like Volcom, Lost and Black Flyes are hosting the one in Irvine. It’s a PIMP and HO party, so all of the guys are going to be dressed in pin stripe pimp wear and all of the ladies are going to be dressed like high class escorts. I’ll pick you up in the Hummer limo I’m renting for the weekend.”

“Hell, yeah! That sounds good, but I don’t want to live off your coat tails, I might get used to it stud. Let me pay my own way. How much for a zone of those shards? That means an ounce of speed.”

“I understood the first time! Give me some credit. If you buy one it’s $900, if you buy four its $800.

“I’m sorry big Ray. It’s just that I’ve been locked up for half of my life and I’m not sure if I know the lingo you guys are using or not. Say, how much for those excellent vitamin pills you’ve got. How much for a boat?”

Raymond Junior took a while to answer and then sounded uncomfortable. “$3,500… Hey Big V. let me talk to you about this stuff in person. I don’t trust these lines of communication if you know what I mean.”

“Alright, I hear you… On another note I want to start a nonprofit foundation to help ex-prisoners re-integrate back into society. I’m going to draw up a floor plan with a purpose and see what else is already out there to find an angle. Do you think your Dad would be interested in donating money to it or becoming part of it? Doesn’t he own a big part of CHIPCOM and already does a lot of donating for tax write offs?”

“My Dad has a big heart and I’m sure if we propose it right he’ll help us.”

The last box was labeled, DEMOCRACY THAT TURNDED INTO HYPOCRISY. I opened the box and pulled out a legal file. Damon and I read a compilation of reports from private investigators working for a big law firm in Laguna Beach. We could visualize the top law enforcement official trying, out of love to help his son avoid prison for the gang rape on video in their garage. The father hadn’t left a stone unturned and we could imagine him recruiting others within the department to help his cause. At the end of one of the reports we saw who he co-opted. Detective Pincher. Detective Pincher co-opted Bob Prescott. The rest of Vince’s discovery evidence was unsubstantiated. He had an audio tape from a phone conversation of a snitch Vince’s coded notes referred to as Short Dog, admitting Bob Prescott set up Jane Doe for detective Pincher. Damon shook his head and said, “That won’t hold up in court. We can’t get any mileage out of it, only problems, it’s all smoke and mirrors.”

I thought of the only way we could make something tangible out of it that would hold a little weight in court under their rules. “If we got Bob Prescott to tell the TRUTH, that Detective Pincher and he took advantage of Jane Doe’s emotional pain of being gang raped on video, and, then, the pain of her own friends turning on her in affidavits, saying that she wanted to be a slut and a porn star and was using drugs, and, essentially deserved what she got…” I could see how emotionally invested Vince had got; I couldn’t even finish the sentence right.

“It doesn’t matter. Jane Doe accepted the speed and had it on her person with knowledge of what the illegal drug was. That’s all it takes under the law.”

“You’re right, but Bob Prescott is a loose end for detective Pincher.”

I looked at a table and saw an ancient looking chess board set up. The pieces were double the normal size and exquisitely carved. Damon saw me staring at it and asked, “Do you want me to show you how to play?”

I knew he knew I already played, I’d bragged earlier about being taught by a ranked player. “I guess I can show you a Bobby Fisher opening and how he closes games.”

“I wasn’t taught by a ranked player like you but Vince and I played for an average of three hours a day seven days a week for six years of cell time.”

“Now that we’ve both patted ourselves on the back that we’re chess masters, let’s look at this game as a way to process which of the two pieces of Vince’s discovery evidence has the most far reaching power. Excluding the gang rape, let’s look at the CHIPCOM and the D.A.’s kid as pieces on our neighborhood.”

“Good idea.”

Damon won the guessing game to see who would be the white pieces and I told him, “Don’t bring your queen out to early.”

We played and an hour flew by in a slow march to seize control of integral territory on the board. I came out with my Bobby Fisher opening that took seven moves before I zeroed in on the middle of the board and threw away a bishop to make an opening for two of his pawns. Damon defended like a vise and squeezed his pieces to defend the opening. I waited for an hour before I moved and studied a seven move staggered attack that should end in my horse and queen pinching an end game. Vince’s discovery homework infiltrated my mind.

“Vince would want us to guide the CHIPCOM chairman Raymond Senior to our cause. I think we can get the most mileage out of it.”

I remembered the newspaper clippings I’d read at the Marriot about the chairman donating money to the horse trails in his community. We were in that community! I got up and went to the window and saw a man on a horse 60 feet away just outside the backyard get off his horse at a barn that looked as big as a house. I saw a couple of signs on the horse trail. One was Merino Circle and the other one was Shamrock Lane. “Does Vince’s coded notes say the street the chairman lives on?”