Page 88 of Givin' Me Fitz!
The blood on my shirt was not my own, and the way fists had been flying, it could have been anyone’s. I’d just have to somehow dump the shirt when we got to jail.
We were divided into groups of five—me with Jim and my brothers, and the Scorpions in the holding cell down the hall. We sat down on the metal benches to wait.
I glanced at my companions, seeing Ders had a T-shirt under his dress shirt. “Gimme that,” I said, plucking at the collar of his T-shirt.
Without a word, he slid off the navy dress shirt and pulled off the T-shirt, handing it to me. I took off my burgundy shirt and slid the T-shirt over my head. I sat there and tore the shirt in half, handing part of it to Ders. “Rip it into strips and let’s flush it.” I showed him the blood spot, and he nodded.
We’d all been frisked already, but none of us had been arrested. Tearing that shirt up and flushing it down the toilet gave us a way to pass the time. What an interesting turn of events.
Hours later, a deputy came back to the large holding cell. “James Middleton.”
I stood and hurried to the cell door as Hobie helped Jim up and over to the door. “What do you want with Mr. Middleton? He shouldn’t be here, anyway. He needs to go to the hospital and get checked out. He’s nearly eighty, man.”
Jim had been hit with a chair during the melee, and his eyes continued to tear from the fucking gas the cops had used to subdue the crowd. I’d been in the casino, not the theater, when it happened, so I got less of it. I felt like shit that Jim had been trapped inside, though I was sure Hobie and the boys had looked out for him.
According to Spider, Jim had been checked out by paramedics on the scene, along with at least a hundred other people. The Old Strip had been lit up like New Year’s Eve from what I saw from the back of a cop car.
“I’m aware. Step back or I’ll cuff you again.” The cop, Officer George Shore, was a rude prick, but I believed he meant what he said, and I didn’t like handcuffs.
I stepped away from the bars and sat next to Ders. Officer Shore opened the door and reached out to take Jim’s arm.
“Be careful with him. He didn’t do anything.” I fucking meant it.
Shores waived me off, but he did offer his arm to Jim, who took it because the fucking cops had taken his mobility cane. They walked away, and I sighed.
“Did you hear anything? Cop chatter or shit over the radio while you were sitting at the curb?”
Spider leaned forward. “Ricky’s dead. Someone shot the stupid fucker. Good riddance.”
“How do you know?” I sat forward with my elbows resting on my thighs so he didn’t see my gleeful expression. The fewer people who knew what I’d done, the less testimony they could give.
“I heard two cops talking about what happened while I was handcuffed and on my belly in the dirty fucking street. We can’t let this shit go unanswered, prez.”
I stared at him. “What? We go to war with the cops?”
Hobie chuckled. “No, bro. This must be the doing of the Scorpions. I’d bet they set this shit up somehow.”
“Well, we’ll be here for a while. I can’t figure out how the Scorpions set up what happened after TJ won the fight, and why would they kill one of their own?” In my head, it sounded like a logical question.
“From what I heard, the cops have no idea who killed Marlow. They have the gun, though, so they’ll figure it out. We have a phone call coming to us, right?”
I sat up and stared at him, smiling as I thought of a comeback. “Yeah, and I happen to know a bondsman.”
We all laughed.
We slept sitting up with our backs against the wall, and bright and early the next morning, the deputy brought around a cart with sack lunches and bottles of water. I opened the bag and took a sniff, gagging at the rancid smell coming out of the bag.
“This place fucking sucks,” Ders said as he tossed half of his bologna sandwich in the trash.
“Dude, never eat the jail food,” Hobie said, having tossed his whole bag into the trash where I’d put mine.
Jim hadn’t been brought back to the cell, and none of the cops had come back to give us our phone call. We were set to go to arraignment in an hour.
“Anybody know a lawyer? We need someone to come to court with us so we don’t say stupid shit if the district attorney makes up bogus charges.” I wasn’t joking. I didn’t trust one of those assholes.
A cute young guy walked back with Officer Shores wearing a suit that was too sloppy to pass as his own. It made me wonder who owned it. “Your baby lawyer is here.”
Shores opened the cell door and motioned for us to follow him down the hall to a conference room where he unlocked the door, letting us inside with the lawyer being last.
