The Adored (53 page)

“Lupe, Estou na cadeia em Stamford Estação de Polícia,” DeLuna said in Portuguese and continued, “you need to get Carlos. This has to be done quickly. Tell him it’s the Olinda operation again. (Olinda had become the gang’s code for putting an operation together to attack an enemy location.) He’ll need all of the boys to get me out of here. He needs to do it before tomorrow morning.”

The jailer returned, “OK, Poncho, time’s up. Hand over the phone.”

“I love you, Lupe. Help me, quickly or I’m done,” and he closed the phone and handed it back to the officer.

In the meantime, while DeLuna was out of the cell, Curtis Strong called across the aisle to Parker Barnes, who was lying in a funk on his mattress.

“Parker, it’s me, Curtis Strong.”

Barnes thought he heard his name. He got up off the bed and moved to the bars where a black man in DeLuna’s cell was looking at him, speaking to him.

“Parker, it’s me, Curtis Strong,” he repeated.

“Curtis,” he stammered in disbelief, “how the hell,” Barnes said, beginning to comprehend what Strong’s mother said about him going to be freed. “Curtis, Hi.”

“Parker, listen, this guy in here with me has been saying he’s going to take you down with him.”

“No way. Nothing to that.” Barnes said. “He’s a vendor of my father’s, importing cement.”

“Says he brought the drugs they caught him with in your boat. Says he left a bag behind, hidden, for proof, for his insurance.”

“Shit,” Barnes said.

“It’s true?”

“He’s a sly little bastard.”

“Parker, is it true?” Strong said as they heard the jailer open a gate at the end of the block.

“Yes, but damn it, Curtis, please don’t say anything,” Barnes pleaded.

“I won’t say anything,” Strong replied as the jailer returned DeLuna to his cell.

DeLuna noticing both men at the cell bars, asked Strong, “Are you and my boy Barnes there becoming friends?”

Strong went back to his cot without answering.

DeLuna said to Barnes, “Bet you, I get out of here before you.”

The jailer returned to DeLuna’s cell. “It’s getting late; you said you’d be quiet if I let you make the call. No more talking.”

DeLuna nodded and laid back on his bed. Soon he was asleep, snoring loudly. “Finally,” Strong said to himself.

Now it was Strong who was astir. But what of Barnes. How could Strong help him. He smiled to himself, “You are the one who’s nuts. Why help him. You did ten years in prison for what the guy in the other cell did. And you want to help him? Yes, came his answer. It was the Barnes family who looked after Mrs. Strong. They even tried to help him, by hiring an attorney when he was charged. And then it hit him. Did old man Barnes know what Parker did? Is that why he hired the attorney? Is that why he took care of my mother? Is that why Parker got away with it? No, that can’t be. Billy Stevens said it was just the two of them. They got away, no one else ever knew. As sleep started to take him, his last thought was, no, I must help.


At three in the morning, Officer Clark Watson came to Barnes’ cell, opened the door and gently shook Barnes awake.

“Your attorney is here.”

Barnes got up quickly and quietly, and followed the officer down the aisle, careful not to breathe for fear of waking DeLuna.

They went upstairs and to a glassed-in office. “In here, Mr. Barnes.” Officer Watson said, and as he walked around the officer, there was Gideon Bridge.

“Got your message when I woke up to take a leak. What the hell’s going on, Parker?” Bridge said.

Bridge shook his head as he listened to Barnes tale. He said he believed Barnes, that he did not buy any of the stock in Rocket Solar based on inside information. He said Barnes should just spend the night, and he would be back first thing in the morning when the NY police and the SEC were here. They would all meet, and he would get this straightened out.

At 3:30 a.m. Barnes went back to his cell and exhausted, quickly fell into a deep sleep.

Chapter 74

After Lupe heard from Chunk, Lupe, from DeLuna’s apartment on 28th St in Chelsea, called Carlos at his condo in Port Chester. There was no answer. She called him on his cell phone and got him. “Carlos, Chunk has been arrested. He’s in jail in Stamford.”

“That’s what happened,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“After we got the shipment,” then he paused. DeLuna was very strong on compartmentalizing gang knowledge. Carlos was not sure that Lupe was aware of what they were up to.

“They got him, and the shipment,” Lupe said. So much for compartmentalizing. “He said you need to get him out or he’s done for.”

“I see,” he said, his mind moving toward thought, rather than the girl he lay on top of. He rose up, “What else did he say?”

“Not much, it was short. He did say it’s the Olinda operation.”

“Shit, this is going to be hard. Where are you going to be, Lupe?”

“I’ll come there if you want?” she asked.

“No, you stay there, in case we need you. I’ll call that lawyer, the one Chunk set up. We’ll use him.”

“Carlos, are you stupid. Chunk said it’s the Olinda operation. I know what happened in Olinda. You guys didn’t use any lawyers,” Lupe said. Chunk’s gang had come to respect Lupe, and she could be as hard as Chunk to deal with. “Now listen to me Carlos. Chunk said you need to do this before tomorrow morning.”

“That’s impossible!” Carlos said loudly.

“Carlos, he needs you and the boys to get him out or it’s all over for him and us.”

“I’ll get back to you,” Carlos said and closed his cell phone. He unplugged himself from the girl, said something to her and she left the room. His head began to hurt—the pressure to act was enormous. He only had hours. He opened the cell phone again and began pushing buttons. His direction was the same to each of them: “Come to my place in one hour, ready for war and bring your vests.”

His last call was to two brothers in Stamford. “I need you both at my place in one hour.”

The two brothers Henri and Francois Piermont, Haitians who were part of his dealer network in Stamford, had been arrested recently and had been held in the same location as Chunk and would be valuable in locating Chunk quickly. These Haitians had been very helpful to Deluna in establishing the US drug operations in Stamford and New York City when Chunk and Carlos and their original gang members moved to the US as Chunk began securing cement contracts with Barnes Construction. Deluna’s childhood friend, Angel Pagan, took over all operations for Chunk with his own crew in Brazil. The Haitians were loyal and dependable. They were also known for their ruthlessness and their imposing size would be an asset in what Carlos was planning.

At 5 a.m., two cars and six men, three in each car, pulled up to Stamford Police Headquarters. The June morning air was cool but comfortable. They parked the cars in the street and took two duffel bags from each car. It was just becoming light, the street was deserted and no one was stirring around the station.

When they got to the front of the building, the six men gathered round the four duffel bags. They were dressed in jeans and t-shirts and Kevlar bullet proof vests. They reached in, each taking Uzi sub-machine guns and extra clips, which they were jamming into their pockets.

Carlos reminded them, once more, “We follow the brothers. I do the talking. 
We only shoot when confronted.”

Inside Police Headquarters there were five officers on duty. One at the front desk, a duty sergeant in back of him, two dispatchers, one officer downstairs in the jail. Also, a patrol officer, Rita Vercillo, arrived early to work out in the small gym at the rear of the building. It was her way of getting some privacy from the testosterone bunch that came in at 6 a.m.

As soon as they walked in the front door, the front desk officer instinctively punched the alarm button. He was alert, looking forward to the shift ending in two hours. He had been keeping himself busy with the crossword puzzle from the Stamford Advocate. At 5 a.m. six Latino guys walking in the front door of police headquarters gets your attention. It’s not a big jump from that to the Kevlar vests and Uzis for you to realize you have fifteen seconds to live.

The alarm button rang, Klaxon like, loud and long. It stunned Carlos how fast they needed to spring into action. He opened fire on the front desk, the heavy glass shattered. The Piermont brothers blasted away at the metal door, shooting the lock away. They pulled the door open as the desk officer fell over dead. The duty officer in charge, Sergeant John Walsh, drew his service pistol but never got a shot off as he was hit by a hail of bullets from Pedro. Carlos positioned Pedro in the office area that gave a view to the front door, the office area and the stairwell leading down to the jail. The other three followed the two Piermont brothers downstairs quickly.

The alarm gave the officer in charge of the jail time to draw his weapon. He stood to the right of his desk, behind a wall that enables him to see anyone coming thru the staircase door.

Henri Piermont was the first through the door. The jailer saw the machine gun, saw Piermont raise it and shot the bigger of the two brothers dead.

Francois held the others up. “Damn, he shot Henri.”

Carlos pulled Francois aside, “We have to go in there. Now.”

“There’s another way. A back door that comes in through the jail.”

“Isn’t it locked?”

“I never heard them unlock it. But I don’t know how to get in there.”

“OK, you stay here. Come on boys, we need to hurry.”

The three ran back up the stairs, across the office area toward a back door in the rear.

Rita Vercillo, the officer who arrived early came up out of the gym with her gun drawn. She was pulled aside by the two officers in dispatch.

“There’s shooting out front, and it sounds like downstairs,” the older of the two dispatchers said, “Go out the back door, and come around the side of the building, flat up against the front door. Stop them there if they are coming out.”

“Got it,” and Vercillo was off and out the back door.

Three seconds later Carlos along with two other gang members burst through the door at the rear of the office area. Five guns fired in the next second. Two officers and one gang member fell dead. Carlos had a bullet pass through his right leg, along the surface.

Carlos saw the rear staircase door. It was ajar; left open by the officer coming up from the gym.

Francois meanwhile attempted to enter the jail area and was met by a volley of shots from the jailer’s service pistol.

Carlos and Paco, Pedro’s brother, descended the stairs. It brought them past the gym, a kitchen area and to the cell block entrance. There was no door. They looked in and saw all of the prisoners at their locked cell gates yelling. They saw the jailer at the other end of the cell block, hiding behind a wall and saw an exchange of gunfire with Francois.

The jailer began reloading his weapon when Carlos charged down the aisle.

“Francois, now,” Carlos yelled.

The officer froze; he saw a figure running at him from inside the cell block. He fumbled with his gun as Carlos approached the bars and fired at him, killing him.

“Francois,” Carlos called out. “Come in, we got him.”

The large black head poked through and saw Carlos. He opened the door fully and bent down to his brother.

“Francois, get the keys.”

Francois made the sign of the cross on Henri’s forehead, rose and took the keys from the dead officer’s belt. After a couple of tries with keys, he found the one that opened the main gate.

Chunk DeLuna was screaming with joy from his cell. Carlos rushed over with the keys. In a moment he had the gate opened.

“Blackie, come on,” DeLuna said to Curtis Strong.

Strong said nothing and remained standing by his bed.

“Suit yourself.” Deluna said, then turning to Parker Barnes, “Hey Barnes, want out?

He didn’t wait for an answer but instructed Carlos to open Barnes cell. Carlos handed DeLuna a pistol that was tucked in his belt.

Once Barnes cell was ajar, DeLuna walked in, “Come on. You’re coming with us.”

“DeLuna, no. Leave me here,” Barnes said pulling back.

“Bullshit, I’m safer with you with me,” and DeLuna grabbed the much taller Barnes by the arm, and looking at the gun Carlos had pointed at him, Barnes went with DeLuna.

Paco, Francois, and Carlos proceeded to the front staircase with Barnes and DeLuna behind them.

Curtis Strong reacted to DeLuna pulling Barnes with him. He saw the downed officer’s gun, the officer whose last action in life had been to reload a clip in his gun without firing a shot. Strong followed behind the men who had now entered the stairwell. He picked up the dead officer’s gun. He saw Henri Piermont’s Uzi and picked it up as well. There was not time to wonder why he would now risk his life for the man who had caused him to be imprisoned for almost seven years. It was not a thoughtful reaction but an instinctive one, one borne of loyalty. It was a misplaced loyalty to a family that he believed protected his mother and had tried to protect him. It was a misplaced loyalty he had only recently come to realize—that in providing the lawyer to defend him, it kept all of the Barnes family’s options open to protect Parker. If the evidence seized was weak in the prosecution of Strong, the defense could be made weaker. It was a loyalty infused in him to protect what he cared about. It was why he would not give up Billy Stevens, who for all those long years he believed had killed Augusto Santos by himself. It was the way he was programmed, the way his mother and father raised him. It was why in this split second he was moving to protect Parker Barnes.