Two sloppily dressed male officers clutched both of my arms, like I was a lamb being led to slaughter, and escorted me through a maze of dreary hallways into the women’s lock-up where a “Two Tons of Fun” female waited for me with a scowl that would have put Mike Tyson to shame.
“Hey Mary,” the policeman holding my right elbow greeted the snow colored Amazonian guard.
She was as wide as she was tall, with a chest that practically poked me in my eyes.
“Chuck, how’s it hangin’?” the burly hostess of the 14th precinct female lock-up smirked.
“More like how’s it bangin’,” the chubby guard with the name Redman on his name plate responded with a chuckle, pretending he was riding a galloping horse. “…and the bangin’ is hard. Giddy up, yee haw,” he yelped.
“Who you got there?” Mary, the macho female asked. She had a deep voice with a raspy scrape as if she had smoked since before she was a teenager.
“Mary Graham,” he called her full name. “There’s a line of people who want to talk to this one,” he said and cut his eyes at me and smirked.
“Humpf, impo’tant crook, huh?” the female guard said.
“Suh’im like that,” he pulled me to her.
She clawed me with hands that were rougher than her male counterpart’s; her palms were tacky like dried Elmer’s glue. She jerked my arms making the handcuffs scrape against my wrist and digging deep into my muscle and bone causing sharp pain. I couldn’t believe that I was handcuffed. The female guard from hell just rolled her eyes and gave a “who cares” turn of her mouth.
What the hell is going on? Why do they have me here? I just kept telling myself that this was all a mix up and it would be all over in a minute or two. Whatever Cutino had done didn’t affect me in the least. So I had nothing to fear.
“Come on, sista and have a squat.” She slurred like a “whister”, which is a white girl that’s a fake wannabe-around-theway sister. I’ve always disliked white people that mock you with your distinctive culture’s attitude and language accent. They try to use it against you to disarm you like they know how you think and feel. Then when you approach them about their actions, they deny it, claiming that “our people” are always looking for some type of excuse to start a conflict. “I got a nice place fo’ you to hang yo’ hat. Come on. Come wit me,” she directed in a firm voice.
We took four steps and were met by another female officer who escorted us to a gray door.
“Here we go,” another female guard said. She was a black lady, maybe in her early twenties. She appeared out of place down there in the dull dungeon. Her face was cut sharp with high cheekbones. Her short hair with wire rim glasses made her appearance studious and nerdy. She opened the heavy metal door and led me into the room where I was met by three suited men.
While the two guards guided me into the tiny room, the three men stared and said nothing. “Sit there,” said the nerdy female guard, whose name plate read Jennings. She pointed to one of the three metal chairs sitting next to a small wooden table. The room was tiny like one in a cheap flop house, only without a toilet. The walls were dark and begrimed, but because of the poor lighting, I really couldn’t be certain of its murky color.
“Okay.” I sat down on the chair, feeling awkward and uncomfortable. At that point, she uncuffed me and I immediately rubbed my wrists trying to soothe my chaffed skin where the cuffs had been tightened.
“Carla.” One of the men began. He hesitated and stared at me with Paul Newman blue eyes, seeming to glare into my spirit searching for a weakness to break into. “My name is Frederick Clausen, Agent Frederick Clausen. I’m with the FBI. To my right, is Detective Thomas Wharton from the Chicago Police Department and next to him is Agent Sam Hicks from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. We need some answers from you. Is that okay?” Agent Clausen spoke with a calm tone, but those ice cold blue eyes said. Don’t fuck with me or I’ll kick your ass.
“Yes, I’ll tell you anything. I have nothing to hide.” With my heart pulsating and head throbbing, I tried to appear composed, but I felt rushed and on the edge losing composure. I knew I was a good person and I didn’t deserve that treatment. During my school years and even after I graduated, I attempted to display the positive attitudes of a black woman. My virtues were sincere, my character intact and I could count on two hands things that I felt ashamed of. As for being involved in crime, I’d never done anything criminal. So why this? Then it hit me. That’s when I wanted to disappear and bust out of that place, because I realized that there are plenty of innocent people in jail! Just being in the wrong place at the wrong time is a tale that’s been told over and over. I didn’t want to end up being one of the many who had maintained their innocence and were still found guilty.
“Good.” Agent Clausen said. He was a middle aged white man, slender and tall. His suit hung on him like his body was a thin metal coat hanger holding an oversized cashmere winter coat. His eyes sat far back into his head leading to a menacing stare. I hadn’t noticed this metal table stuck in a corner, until he strolled over to it and gathered a notebook. He strolled a few paces and leaned against the wall in back of me. “Ms. King, I know you must be extremely uncomfortable, right?”
“Yes, I’m very uncomfortable,” I said, but I didn’t turn around to face him.
He was still talking to me out of my sight. “Well, we’ll make this as painless as possible. All you have to do is tell the truth, and you can get home before breakfast,” Agent Clausen would have made a great radio announcer with his crystal clear tenor voice.
I closed my eyes and said, “Why sure, I’m transparent.
Ask me anything.”
“Ok, we’ll be recording this for our records. Do you give us that permission?”
Unsure I stuttered, “Ye- yeah, okay.”
“State your name, please.”
“Carla King.”
“Ms. King, you are waiving your rights to an attorney?”
“Yes, I told you that upstairs. If I ask for an attorney, I’d have to wait in the cell until one is brought here, or would I have to call my attorney and wait for her to get here, right?”
“That’s right; you’d have to wait in the holding cell until the attorney arrives.”
Deep down inside, I knew I should call my attorney, but at the same time I hadn’t done anything that warranted an attorney. I could answer their questions and go home. I made my one phone call to Natalie so she could come down, we could go home and they could continue doing their job and catch Cutino’s ass. As a matter of fact, I’d help them in any manner towards putting his no good lying ass under the jail. I didn’t care if they sent him below the bowels of Joliet State Pen or the mattress detail at Marion Federal Correctional as long as they put that no good so and so away.
“I just want to get out of here,” I said to Agent Clausen, eager to get the whole ordeal over with.
Sounding like John Wayne in a cowboy movie, Agent Clausen said, “What is your relationship with Archer Moore?” “Who?”
“Archer Moore,” he repeated in a Texas drawl.
“I- I don’t know an Archer Moore.”
“Who was the man in your condo?”
“Cutino.”
“So he called himself Cutino?”
“Yes, Cutino Grigsby.”
There was a pause in the conversation. “Okay, what is your relationship with Cutino Grigsby?”
“We’re good friends. We date.”
“How long have you dated him?”
“Oh, I guess a little less than a year or so.”
I heard him shuffling his feet and moving about behind me. “Do you know him well?” he asked.
At that point, I turned toward him and said, “Hell, no. You just busted my door down and he jumped out an eighth floor window to escape. So, hell no, I don’t know the man.”
“Right, right.” Agent Clausen stopped talking for nearly a minute. The air was thick and sour like a room full of day old dried puke after a frat p
arty. I was going to speak, but I would have only fumbled and stepped over words that may or may not have been pertinent. So, I just sat there. Then he continued, “But before that, did you think you knew him?”
I spun back around and faced the bare wall. “I don’t know.
Sometimes I felt like I knew him in a dating way.” “Were you intimate with him?”
I turned and stared hard at him. “What?”
“Were you intimate with him?”
I raised my voice, “That’s none of your business.”
Agent Clausen remained calm and said, “So, you weren’t intimate with him?”
“That’s still none of your business!” I felt my neck swirl as I told him. I noticed that my neck moved in that sister girl way. I didn’t practice it and don’t recall ever using the swirl but there I was swirling my neck just like the rest.
“Why do you call him Cutino?”
His Texas drawl annoyed me. He kept asking me these dumb ass questions? “That’s his name. That’s the name that he gave me!”
“He gave you that name when?”
“When I first met him at the Fandango Supper Club.” “What’s a Fandango Supper Club?” he repeated.
“Yes, sort of a restaurant, club, bar. You know…”
“How long ago was that?”
“I told you. Almost a year, I guess.”
“Uh huh.” Agent Clausen stalked around me until he met me face to face. “How did you meet him?”
My head hung down so my eyes met the floor. “I was introduced to him.”
“By whom?” he asked.
“My friend, Natalie. Well, actually it was Walter McKay, Natalie’s boyfriend.”
“What’s Natalie’s last name?” “White,” I said.
He repeated, “Natalie White.”
Damn, I didn’t want Natalie tied up in this. She had nothing to do with my situation. But I said, “Yes.”
He scribbled something on his pad of paper. It was probably Natalie’s name.
“So, Natalie and Walter introduced you to Cutino. Is that right?” Agent Clausen asked, only this time his speech pattern was slower appearing to study each word.
“Walter introduced me to Cutino,” I said.
“How did Walter know Cutino?”
“I don’t know. The Fandango Supper Club seemed to be the only reference that I recall.”
Agent Clausen then asked, “So you and Cutino started dating?”
“Yes.”
Detective Clausen slid over to a black briefcase sitting on the gray tile flooring. He flipped the lock, opened it and extracted a manila folder and flipped through the pages. “Ms. King, did you and Cutino travel to Toronto?”
I thought for a second back to the time when Cutino and I stayed in a fabulous suite at the Toronto SkyDome Hotel overlooking the indoor baseball field of the Toronto Blue Jays and riding to the top of the CN Tower, then visiting Royal Ontario Museum. “Yes. We visited Toronto.”
“Did you travel to the Bahamas with Cutino?”
“Yes.” We actually stayed at the Atlantis Royal Towers on Paradise Island and played craps and twenty-one all night long. I left the casino a winner with a four hundred dollar profit.
Detective Clausen continued in a monotone voice, “Then did you fly to Brazil and places in South America with Cutino?”
Now he was getting under my skin. “Yeah, why?” My tone cut through my fears and pleasantries. “Is there something illegal about that?”
He didn’t answer, but instead replied, “The last place you traveled with him was to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. Is that right?”
“Yes, we traveled to Punta Cana.”
He was deliberate with his question. “You stayed in a well-armed and protected villa with a Mister Policap.”
I thought back to Punta Cana. “I don’t know about wellarmed.”
“Well then, it was a villa and his name was Policap?”
I pondered his question for a moment then answered, “I don’t know, maybe…Yes, that could have been his…I believe that was his name.”
Detective Clausen continued, “Who was there with you?”
“I don’t know.” I wasn’t sure what he wanted. “I mean, I’m not sure what you’re asking me.”
Agent Clausen paced around, circling me like a shark on chub. He must have thought I was hiding something. He pulled one of the chairs from under the table, crashed it to the floor in front of me and sat down so close that I thought he was going to mount me right then and there. “It had guards protecting the home, right?”
“Guards? I don’t know anything about guards.”
“Who was there, Ms. King!” he yelled.
“In Punta Cana?”
“Damn it! Yes, in Punta Cana.”
I reflected back to the trip not too long ago, maybe five or six weeks in the past. Punta Cana was a beautiful island with friendly people, full of warm breezy air, exotic deep green foliage, beautiful palm trees and delicious cuisine. I was flying high, not only from sitting in first class on Delta, but the good life I was experiencing since meeting Cutino. The trip was typical of all the getaways that we shared together. The best of everything in travel including shopping sprees and adventure into the forest and cultures of the places and people we met along the way. After a while, I thought nothing about the money it cost or how he got it. At the beginning of our relationship, I did ponder about finances and felt a little guilty about all the money he spent, but when I asked him if he wanted me to pay half, he just pooh poohed it. I’d offer to pay for dinner or tickets to events, but he’d just push it off to the side and the next thing I knew, he had already taken care of it. I couldn’t have afforded to travel to all the countries or cities we’d visited, but I could pay my way to dinners and local entertainment events and would gladly offer. Then, not too long after I asked him more than a few times about paying, he emotionally explained to me that his parents had been killed in an accident and that he inherited a substantial amount of money from his parents’ life insurance, along with other family assets. He then invested the inheritance in the stock market and made out big with some tech stocks. Not to mention other entrepreneurial activities like real estate investments and his import and export business.
But out of all our escapes, that particular one had a twist and raised a little curiosity. When Cutino planned the getaway, he said that we were going to stay in a villa or hotel which was not unique in itself. But when we arrived, it was more like a compound. The property was exquisitely manicured hosting a variety of palm trees, exotic plants and flowers landscaped to perfection. There was the main house, adorned with marble flooring throughout the entrance and chandeliers placed in assorted areas, sometimes two or three in a room. I don’t know how many bedrooms, but at last count, I stopped at twelve. There were 2 swimming pools, multiple saunas, steam rooms, a tennis court and guest houses larger than most homes in Chicago. But even in these ginormous living spaces, it didn’t take long before I felt trapped and confined, living behind seven foot brick walls with surveillance cameras stationed over every inch of the property, probing our every move left me wanting for the other side of the wall where freedom reigned. Heck, I couldn’t leave the estate without notifying Cutino and he would then ask the guest host. The opulence was astounding, but nonetheless weird. I never felt threatened and was treated with the utmost respect and even adoration from the host and his staff. But I definitely felt confined.
“Who was there?” I heard him ask.
I snapped out from underneath my subconscious and uttered, “I said I don’t know. What’s that got to do with anything, anyway?” I stared down at my trembling hands and tried to remember the names of some of the people. “Everything was moving so fast. As you already know, Cutino took me everywhere. He’d just show up or call and say, ‘Come on we’re going to such and such tomorrow. He’d say, don’t worry about clothes and stuff, we’ll buy them there. First class flights and four- and five-star hotels. He’d even
rent luxury cars like a Jaguar, Mercedes or something like that.”
“And you never asked him any questions about where he got the money to do all of this?” Agent Clausen asked.
“Of course. I already told you that he told me he inherited it from his parents. Plus he owned some real estate and dabbled in other businesses.”
“His parents? How so?” Agent Clausen said.
“He said his father was an avid flyer and owned a small plane and that they were flying from New York to Tampa and never made it. Heck people inherit money all the time. Maybe it was his season to have some money. I mean I wondered about his money after the first couple of trips, but after he explained to me about the accident and inheritance, I didn’t think too much of it.”
“So, did you ask him?”
“Ask him what?”
“How much money inheritance did he have?”
“It was none of my business. I wasn’t after him for money.
Most of the men I’ve dated didn’t have a lot of money. They’re hard working people with dreams and aspirations who toil day after day trying to make a living.”
“But Cutino didn’t work. Did he?”
“Yes, he was an entrepreneur.”
Agent Clausen said with sarcasm, “Oh, is that what he told you?”
“Exactly.”
“So, did you ever see him?”
“Did I ever see him where?”
He rubbed his clean shaven chin. “Yes, did you ever see him in his office?”
“No. Well, maybe one time I thought I saw him,” I said.
“But you weren’t sure?”
He was frustrating me. “Right, I wasn’t sure if it was him or not.”
“So, he made all this money through his real estate, stock market and his import and export?”
I raised my voice. “All what money? Listen, I took the man at his word. Why shouldn’t I take his word?”
“What you’re telling me is that you never asked him about his money?”
My voice rose for the first time. “I told you about his inheritance and the businesses! Now stop asking me about it!”
“Let’s go back to Punta Cana. Who were the people at the house?” Agent Clausen insisted.
I was too upset and nervous to think. I noticed my hands were shaking out of control so I held them tight in my lap. “I don’t know.”
The three men said nothing for what seemed like half an hour, as I searched my memory about Punta Cana. I remembered when we ascended up to the inconspicuous location sitting atop a hill. It was a simple Spanish ranch style, but with a magnificent palm tree-laden landscape. There were a few luxury Hummers and a Volvo SUV that, for the most part, looked out of place sitting in a graveled parking area large enough to fit a hundred more like them. Then a name came to me.
“Somebody named, Cecile,” I blurted. “Yeah, Cecile. She was a Haitian lady. Real classy, almost snooty, ya know. She wore this thick black eyeliner, with too much foundation on her face. It almost made her appear to look like a breathing black mannequin. Then there was…um… Moby, or something like that. He was Cecile’s man or husband or something. Moby was quiet, didn’t say much at all. It seemed like Cecile did enough talking for both of them. I think the owner of the home was named Richard. It was pronounced Ri’-chard, like the French would say it. Cutino seemed to be very close to him. I can’t remember his last name, if I ever knew it at all. He wasn’t a tall man, almost short, with dark skin and a wide smile like the jazz trumpeter, Louis Armstrong. Yes, he reminded me of Louis Armstrong. He spoke with a tenor’s voice in broken English, but when I listened closely I could understand him. He took us snorkeling off the coast of Punta Cana in this magnificent cruiser named “One For All.” And the name was perfect because that had to be the only boat of its kind in all of Punta Cana. Its length was that of a tractor-trailer with a crew of five, not including the cooks and waiters. The galley was state of the art with stainless steel refrigerators, stoves and other appliances. We walked on plush carpet, sat on leather couches and chairs and played dominoes on marble tables. It was outfitted with high tech satellite TV, video/telecommunications, night vision telescopes and other technologies too many to recall. “That island was one of the strangest places I’d ever been. You know, while the Dominican is more or less thriving, at the other end of the island those living in Haiti were poverty stricken, destitute and starving.”
Agent Clausen stopped in his tracks, paused and stared at me like I was guilty of murder. He turned to his colleagues who remained motionless and silent. Then revolved his hating eyes back to me, curled his brow and asked, “What do you mean Haiti? Did you go there?”
I couldn’t forget the trip to Haiti. It was right before the earthquake when my vacation trip turned into an adventure into a dark past of deprivation, poverty, ignorance and violence so vast that it brought me to view the horrors of my nightmares; starving, laying prostate on a busy street corner while the well-to-do free citizens stepped over me and continued their apathy from the world. With beautiful landscapes and foliage as green and lush as lush can get in the Dominican, while Haiti was dirt barren and muddy. Dusty was the earth with little vegetation and it seemed that if you were placed on that corner of the earth that you were being punished by God. It was an island where the two sides dividing the Dominican Republic and Haiti were as different as fire and water.
“Yes. We boated there. Around the island.”
This seemed to perk Agent Clausen’s clandestine genes up a notch. “What did you do once you got there?”
“They made it all so cool. After arriving at a private dock, an SUV met us where we had deboated and drove through some tiny villages and towns, if you can call them that. I mean if these towns were a person, they’d be on life support. I still can’t fathom why, in this day and age the majority of people in a country were living like nobody can do anything about their situation. Hell, I know plenty Haitians in the States and they’re outstanding people, smart, strong family, studious, I just can’t understand it…and we’re here in the United States filled with blacks not lifting a hand to help. It’s unbelievable!”
He wanted to transcend my feelings and get right to our activity. “Okay, then what?” Agent Clausen said in a way that brought me back from the island.
“What?”
“Then what happened?” he asked again.
Reaching back to that time, I drifted back to the island trying to remember the salient points of it all. “It was a short lived trip. I didn’t know where we were, but I told Cutino that I wanted to return to the boat and head back to Punta Cana as fast as possible. He just smiled back at me and said we will, we’re going to pick up one guy. Then not so much further down this dirt road, we picked up a man and drove him back to the boat. I’m not sure what they saw or who saw them but all of a sudden we turned around like we had stolen something and returned to the boat in a third of the time that it took us to get to the location.”
“Was that all the things you did in Haiti?”
“I hate to say it, but I didn’t want to see Haiti like that. But that was enough.”
“Then what?”
“We returned back to the house in Punta Cuna. I never saw the guy we picked up once we got on the boat. I sat down in the lounge area, had a glass of wine and tried to wash the experience from my mind.”
“We’ll get back to that at another time,” Agent Clausen said.
I yelled, “Another time? That was it. That’s all there was!”
Agent Clausen scooted a little closer to me and swallowed my space. “Did he say anything while you drove back to the boat?”
“Who?”
He continued, “The man that you picked up.”
“No, none that I heard.” My mouth was dry. “May I have a glass of water?”
Agent Clausen nodded towards the other men. Then with a tranquil tone, he asked, “This guy Ri’chard, what did you talk to him about?”
“When we returned to Punta
Cuna, we had dinner and that’s where I met Moby and Cecile. There was a policeman or an army man there, too.”
He raised an eyebrow, “An army man?”
“Yes, he was a captain or general or something. He was a large man who rarely spoke.”
“His name, you remember his name?”
I searched my mind for the answer then stuttered, “Ah, Captain. No, no General…humph, I can’t remember.”
Clausen pointed his knobby index finger at me and raised his voice. “Come on, Ms. King, you can remember anything you want. Now I know you can remember his name.”
I didn’t know at the time, but I was running on fumes and I began to feel faint. “When I do remember, I’ll call you as soon as I recall it.”
His question was more in line with a demand. “Call me from where?”
“Home,” I said.
“Home?” He gave a sly smirk and laughed which made me lift a slight grin, and then he soured stone cold again. “Who said you’d be going home?” His voice rose higher.
“What? I have to go home. I’ve got a daughter that I have to take care of.”
He pressed right past my needs. “Ms. King, we need some answers!”
Pleading I said, “I’m giving you answers.”
“Those were not the right answers and you know that. Now give me the fucking answers,” he bellowed.
I was weak, my strength to remember and recall was just about finished. “I...I don’t know the right answers.”
He bull rushed towards me and met me eyeball to eyeball. He had a one day old cabbage smell emanating from his body. Up that close, I saw some odd brown pigmentation on one eye and burnt red blood vessels careening recklessly throughout his other eyeball. “Now, Ms. King, now!” His voice was violent, and his breath smelled of garlic, which reminded me of my favorite Italian restaurant, Luigi’s on Belmont Avenue.
“I don’t know, I don’t know,” I shouted back and squeezed my eyes shut hoping to open them and find myself tossing in bed. But when I cracked them open, he was still there staring at me with anger crawling all over vicious eyes. He really had me frightened, and I didn’t want this battle. “What are you looking for?” I barked back.
“I need some answers. Who was the other man at the table?” he commanded.
I stared back hard and said, “Why don’t you ask Cutino?”
“Because I’m asking you,” he barked.
“Well, I don’t know.”
He scolded back at me, “Tell me the truth!”
“I am telling you the truth!” Right at that point, I thought the whole situation was crazy. What was it like being a cop? There he was yelling and causing constant conflict and fear to an innocent person. I looked at the man, who was about to pop an artery trying to get me to speak on things that I have no idea about. He considered me a guilty criminal of some sort, trying to make me feel as if I’d done something horrendously wrong.
Would he hit me? How about water boarding or shock treatment? I wondered how Agent Clausen treated his loved ones at home. Did he feel that his wife cheated on him when he was away from home? Does he interrogate her every time he returned, searching for evidence in her cell phone or emails?
Agent Clausen pounded his fist on the table, “I’m giving you one last time to tell—.”
“Okay, okay,” a calm voice rang through Agent Clausen’s hostility.
“That’s enough.” It was Detective Hicks’ deep timbre that broke the craziness. A handsome black man with freckles and brown-reddish hair. If he had on black horn rimmed glasses, he would have resembled Malcolm X.
Agent Clausen was agitated and called him out like a father would a son on a dare. “Hicks!”
But Hicks paid him no attention and eased towards me.
“Ms. King, can you remember anything else. It’s really—.”
Clausen threw up his arm and flashed the palm of his hands and said, “Hicks, I got this.”
“I know you do,” Hicks confirmed. His calmness soothed me and reassured me that sanity was still in place. “It’s really important that you remember these things. Anything you can remember would be great. Now, in Haiti, there was you and Cutino, Moby, and…”
“Cecile,” Agent SoandSo blurted out from a dark corner of the room. He was reading from what I would assume were notes that somebody had taken.
“The Captain and Ri’chard. Right?” Hicks said.
I nodded, “Yes.”
“Okay, the Captain’s name. Did he have a name plate on or anything?”
“Mmmm, maybe. It wasn’t the best uniform; it was kind of wrinkled and worn. But—”
“But?” Agent Hicks mocked.
“But there was another man.”
Hicks folded his long arms to his chest and leaned back.
“Another man? Who?”
“Nick Sherman,” I said.
“Nick Sherman?” Hicks repeated.
“Yes, I almost forgot to mention Nick, because it seemed like everyplace we went, Nick was there getting his party on.”
Hicks turned and glanced at Agent Clausen who turned his back and walked away. “So Nick Sherman was hangin’ in Haiti and Punta Cana?” asked Hicks.
“Yep, Nick and Cutino were like Mutt and Jeff. They’d scuba dive, ride those little water Ski Doos or whatever and hike the mountains. A few of the trips, Nick would be there before or arrived after.”
Hicks pulled up the vacant seat under the table and sat next to me. “Really? Tell me more.” He stretched his lengthy Daddy Long-legs out and clasped his hands behind his head like he was resting on Chicago’s North Avenue beach on a July 4th evening, waiting on the fireworks show.
“Uh huh, I think Nick had some real money. Cutino said he’d known him since just after high school or something. It seemed like Nick was always paying for things. I don’t know, everything’s so confusing now. But all I know is that Nick was there, too.”
Hicks asked me, “You say Nick was there at other places with you and Cutino. Like where?”
“Brazil, California, Toronto… heck, everywhere.”
“What did you discuss?” asked Hicks.
I felt a calm rain over me. “Just everyday life. Cutino and Nick talked sports, the best cigars, or the best whiskey, the worst whiskey, sex talk, you know everyday things.”
“No business,” Hicks asked.
“No, not really.”
“You all were always together.”
“No. At times at least once or twice every trip they’d disappear and do their own thing. You know men things. But I wasn’t disappointed. I was glad that they left. I could cool out around the pool or shop in town with one of Nick’s dates of the moment,” I said.
“Did you and Nick have any other type of relationship?” Agent Hicks asked.
“What?” I didn’t understand what Hicks was trying to say to me?
Then he stood up and began to pace in front of me, back and forth and back and forth. “Did you have a relationship with Nick?”
“Hell, no. What the hell kind of question is that?” “Did you see any type of guns?” he continued.
“Guns? Why no, not at all. We were vacationing,” I said.
“Did they send you anywhere to deliver something?”
Emphatically I said, “No!”
He continued pacing back and forth, back and forth. “How about to pick up a package or something?”
“No.”
Hicks did not hesitate. “Did you see any cash?” “Nothing but transfers of U.S. money into the necessary foreign currency. You know, transfer cash into the currency of whatever country we were in.”
“Uh huh,” Hicks stared at me wanting more information and remained silent for what seemed like a day. Then he ambled back over to Clausen and whispered something I couldn’t hear.
Clausen stormed back over to me. His face was beet red, his forehead splashed with sweat and sagging eyes flashed with the kind of anger that only a crazed egomaniacal maniac could possess. “Okay, Ms.
King,” he bawled and slammed his fist on the table so hard that I thought he had broken his hand. “Enough’s enough of this shit. Out with it. You know you were part of it all! We’re going to lock your ass up if I don’t get some answers and I mean soon! Fuck this shit. Bring that big dike bitch in here and have her take this black bitch into solitary confinement until she decides to come up with some answers.”
What the hell!? Solitary confinement!? When he spoke those words I felt the spirit of hate that had slowly formed for my captures, dissolve into a yellow streak flowing down the middle of my back. I felt my bowels loosen to the point of almost letting lose a number two. Just the thought of confinement brought the nightmare of a musty room filled with rats the size of Siamese cats and fresh rat feces on the floor. It was enough to make me vomit.
What would my daughter do without me? How could I keep her safe? Lord, Lord, Lord save me please save me, please save me. I began feeling woozy and about to lose consciousness.
My heart started racing in a manner unlike any I’d ever experienced while sitting down. I reached out and held the table to right myself. Carla relax, just relax. I just kept telling myself to push back and take control of my emotions. Then suddenly it stopped just as quickly as it had started. In retrospect, I regretted the travel with Cutino. Duhh. Now I say that, but I was all in his face, traveling any place alongside of him as long as he paid the load. They say that hind sight is twenty-twenty, but I think hind sight is a swift kick in the butt. “I haven’t done anything wrong, so why are you doing this?” I implored, confused at the law enforcer’s attitude. “I’m not the bad guy here, Cutino is the one that should be sitting here. I’ve tried to do everything right in my life by being a good mother, lover, friend, daughter, and law abiding citizen. This just isn’t right!”
“Ms. King,” Clausen stood directly in front of me with his arms folded.
“Yes?” I peered down examining my spine lying on the grimy tile flooring.
Clausen’s face was pale and then started to turn strawberry red again and I knew something explosive was going to happen.
“Why the hell were you traveling with Cutino?” He exploded. “Just for the fuck?” he yelled out the word fuck for emphasis.
That was enough. “I want my lawyer. Get me the phone!”
“You waived your Miranda rights. Don’t you remember, or did you forget that like you forgot all the wrong you’ve done?” Agent Clausen said. Hicks slung the paper that I signed down on the table.
I couldn’t believe I did that. I didn’t even look at it because I knew that I did. My God, you take advice from friends, family and professionals, sit down and stare at the TV screen shaking your head at simple people making stupid legal mistakes and then you’re put in a situation that requires some judgment and you blow it just like every numbskull that you’ve seen on TV, read or gossiped about with you girlfriends. “The only wrong I’ve done is waiving my rights to an attorney. There’s nothing wrong with traveling, and you know it,” I said.
Agent Clausen chiseled at his chin with his index finger and thumb, “Only if you’re conspiring to sell weapons.”
Immediately, my heart dropped into deep despair. “What? Weapons!? What weapons?”
“Aw get off it, you’ve been with Archer Moore, aka Cutino Grigsby, also known as Abid X, aka Black Dragon, Jim Alexander, Michael Bell, Jamal Bryant, all over the northern and southern hemisphere runnin’ guns and you’ve forgotten everything?” Agent Hicks’ rhetorical question had said it all.
They thought I was in on whatever Cutino had done.
“What? I don’t know any Archer or X. Who are you talking about?”
“Why, sure you do. You know everything, Ms. King,” Agent Hicks said.
My patience had expired and I wasn’t going to take it anymore. Finally, they had pushed me into a corner and I was going to fight back. My angry glare met Agent Clausen’s probing eyes to show that I was ready for a fight. “I don’t know anything.
I work hard for a living and I’m no criminal and you know that. There’s nobody named Archer what’s his name, or X, or anybody like that. I’ve tried to be cooperative, but you guys are wrong. I know my rights and I’m not answering anything else. I want my lawyer now!”
Clausen paused for a moment, his eyes crawled around the room peering at his colleagues seeking some response for his next chess move. “Is that it, Ms. King?” His voice again was firm. But I refused to answer. Agent Clausen threw up his hands, then I heard him mutter, “Fuck it.” Daddy Long Legged Hicks stepped in to pick up the slack. Again, Agent Hicks slid over to my chair and sat his butt on the table, then folded his arms. “Alright, Ms. King, we’ll let you call your attorney.” Agent Hicks stood and left the room followed by Clausen and the other man who remained silent.
After hours of interrogation, badgering and lies by the “Serve and Protect” crew, I was left alone in the room. I didn’t deserve this, I really didn’t. Why me? I told myself not to hate them; it’s nothing but a mistake by the police. The only wrong that I’d done was had a relationship with a common everyday jerk like Cutino. My neck and back muscles were extremely taut and aching from the stress and strain of my captives’ interrogation that seemed to last for days. So I stood up to stretch my legs and started a few limbering exercises by doing jumping jacks, touching my toes, then twisting my back and neck, turning them until it pained. During my brief ad hoc work out, I found a couple of bruises and scrapes on my arms and legs from my tussle with Cutino. I couldn’t believe it all happened. Cutino, my friend and lover and a man that I admired for his kindness and down to earth sense of humor, had portrayed himself as a hard working guy, taking care of business and treating people with love and respect. My desire for him both emotionally and physically was a giving relationship, but now everything had turned topsy-turvy with pretense, trickery and crimes that were labeled terrorist by the authorities. Cutino was a terrorist of sorts, committing crimes worldwide with me by his side. A terrorist in my midst, in my bed, on my couch and in my spirit? But still I pondered, was he actually a man with a perverse mind and wicked soul? If what the cops said was true about Cutino being “most wanted”, then I had to be the biggest fool ever. He must have seen some emotional weakness in me. In my search for Mr. Right, subconsciously I might have given some kind of loneliness vibe. But I didn’t think I was desperate and lonely. Or was I? I mean everybody wants companionship and love. I wasn’t running up to men with my legs flung open begging to be sexed up. God, I am a complete idiot.
After what seemed like ages, Agent Hicks finally returned, and slammed shut my experience of negative introspection for the time being. “Ms. King.” He fastened the door behind him, and carried a chair up to the table and sat down next to me. “Cutino’s real name is Archer Moore. But he has many aliases, Charles Grey, John Chaplin, Benjamin Grigsby, Crawford Richmond and more. However, his legal name is Archer Shakespeare Moore, from Washington D.C.”
“Shakespeare?” I repeated.
Agent Hicks chuckled. “Yep. Archer is a chameleon and a real threat to our country. One of his most notorious monikers is Blagon. Did you ever hear anyone call him Blagon?”
“You said Blagon? No, I never heard anyone call him that,” I said.
Agent Hicks took a deep breath and scrubbed his head, then said, “Blagon is short for Black Dragon and he has evaded us time and time again. I mean just like tonight, there he was on the eighth floor with no way out. But he pulled that Mount Everest escape, and we haven’t caught him yet. I’d say he’s Houdini, Evel Knievel, Capone and Scarface all wrapped up into one.”
“Unbelievable…so you’re telling me that Cutino Grigsby is really Archer Moore?”
Agent Hicks nodded. “That’s right.”
I shook my head in despair. “Humph. And that Cuti… or Archer doesn’t work for the city?”
Agent Hicks gave me a handsome smile, with teeth so straight and movie star white that they had to be held by braces when he was a child. “Ha,
no, Archer certainly doesn’t work for the city.”
Although he was coming at me graciously, his perfect teeth made me feel uncomfortable again. “So what did Archer do to make the Federal government come after him?” I asked.
“Like I said, Archer is a terrorist.”
Again, I shivered at the sound of the ‘T’ word. “A terrorist?”
I’m not sure how he could become more serious, but he did. Agent Hicks hunkered down closer to me and whispered in confidence. “He’s the worst kind of terrorist.”
I tilted my head back, and tried to make more space.
“What do you mean? A terrorist is a terrorist. Right?”
“Not exactly, Archer’s an American terrorist and in our mind, that makes him the worst kind of terrorist. I consider him a traitor, one that circulates in our own backyard. He doesn’t blow up buildings or anything like that, but Archer sells weapons to terrorist groups, international drug cartels in Mexico, Latin America, warlords in Africa, Asian terrorist in the Philippians and other nefarious groups around the world and they commit the crimes,” Agent Hicks said. “And let’s not forget the gangs in the states. He’ll sell to the Crips and Bloods for jokes, just to see if the guns he sold were in today’s murders on the six o’clock news.”
“What? That’s sick. Cutino would do that? That’s just hard to believe. I mean he didn’t act like he hated anybody in any part of the world. Why would he cause suffering and chaos around the world? He never spoke ill of any religion or culture. As a matter of fact, it appeared as if he enjoyed cultural diversity.
He never referred to the word nigger or demeaned white folks or Latinos, East Indians or any race that I can recall. That was just a few of the reasons I enjoyed his company. He maneuvered around people of all races and ethnicities with ease and confidence,” I said out loud to Hicks.
“That’s right, Archer is quite the character. He’s been hard for us to catch. We’ve been tracking him for just over a year and you’ve been with him since he’s been on our radar. We know he’s been to South America, Russia, the Caribbean, Mexico, Africa, the Philippians, dealing in weapons with some of the planet’s most notorious underworld criminals.”
“That couldn’t be!”
“It’s true. When you traveled with him to Punta Cuna, Dominican Republic, he met with Omar Simon. Omar’s been on the international underworld scene for years. Weapons, drugs, sex slaves…” Hicks said.
“Nooo...not that nice old man. He was peeling apples and feeding them to me and singing such happy folk songs at dinner. His grandchildren were all around him.”
“Yeah, well he’s found his way into a world of trouble,” Hicks said.
I closed my eyes and wished for Christmas. “Wow. This is unbelievable.”
“Then when you vacationed in Brazil, that’s when you first met Nick Youski, a Croat from a warring tribe in Eastern Europe. Nick’s a real bad man. He started out in the Croatian army in the early nineties where he helped Croatian’s gain independence from Yugoslavia. He served in the Croatian military, rising to Captain, fought many battles and helped to maintain Croatia’s independence. Then he clashed against the Republic of Serbian Krajina in major offenses like Operation Storm and Operation Flash.”
“You are talking about Nick?” I asked.
He pulled a picture from one of the files that he brought with him, “Is this him?”
I examined the black and white, eight and a half by eleven photograph of Nick in a military uniform, and smoking cigars, standing next to two BMW’s with palm trees in the background.
I nodded, “Yes, that’s him alright.”
“I’m surprised he gave you his real name. He must have been very comfortable around you. Then Nick started following the wrong people for some reason.” He flipped photos of Nick from the folder. “Beginning in 1995, he fought in the war with Herzegovina and Bosnia. Led some major field battles, from my understanding. Nick’s a real bad dude. Then for some reason he followed the fugitive General Ante Gotovina. That’s when we believe he started involvement in mercenary activities in Africa, South America and even the Middle East. He may have had knowledge of the weapons black market before then, but we think that’s when he started learning the international weapons trade and making the big money that lured him into the business fulltime.”
“Wow… Slick Nick,” I murmured.
“So you see why you’re being questioned?”
“Of course, and I’ve got nothing to hide. They pulled the wool over my eyes. I’m not even sure why they kept me around,” I said.
“Maybe for the look.”
“The look?”
“Sure, traveling with a female companion around the world gives a better appearance of a tourist or vacationer. Do you recall that ol’ man Cutino and Nick met in the Dominican?”
“Who? Omar?”
“Right. For starters, Omar first had been connected to Arafat and the Hamas for years, shuffling arms to the Palestinians for terrorism in Israel.”
“Damn.” This is just unbelievable.
“Not only that, Agent Clausen and the U.S. Government think both Nick and Omar have ties to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda.”
“Ohh no, no, no, no, no that’s bullshit! Y’all ain’t tying me up with no Osama. I’ll never get outta here. No! That ain’t happening. I swear I didn’t know anything. Please. They are incarcerating people for years without a trial at just the suspicion of being tied into al-Qaeda and Bin Laden,” I said as my stomach quivered behind that statement. I understood that our rights were far less than they were before 9/11 and the Patriot Act. God, they could lock me up and throw away the key for just the possibility of being involved with some terrorist organization. Damn, what have I gotten myself involved in?
Hicks ceased giving a history lesson and deadpanned, “Don’t worry, Ms. King. Nobody is going to put you into a hole and throw away the key. But we do need some answers.”
I opened my arms with palms out, flailing towards Agent Hicks for grace. “So, what do you want from me? You want me to be a spy?” I pleaded.
He tapped out with his index finger on the crudely constructed table every word, “No, Ms. King we don’t want you to be a spy. But—”.
“What? But what?” I asked.
Hick’s obstinance continued, “We feel that you know something that you’re not telling us about.”
I shook my head in futility. “I told you and your people from the beginning that I don’t know anything. They fooled me, too!”
Hicks didn’t respond to my plea. He just scrutinized me by being pensive, trying to read me, searching my eyes for a fact that he could believe. So, I just glared back at him, showing him that I wasn’t hiding anything and if he could actually read truth in eyes, then he knew I had told the truth by not speaking a word.
“Alright, Ms. King. You’re free to go.” Hicks said.
Holy, holy! “Right now?”
He shuffled his papers in order and placed them back in the folder. “That’s right. You’re free to go.”
I pushed the chair away from the table and stood. “Thank you, sir.”
Agent Hicks just nodded, walked towards the exit and grabbed the metal knob on the door to my freedom. “Stay out of trouble, Ms. King.”
“Nig-“, I caught myself in mid-word, trying my best not to curse that sucker out. The gall of these people, who would try to pin something like gun running and terrorism on me. But I knew that silence would be more than golden, it was freedom. I made my humble exit and followed him into the administrative offices to complete the paperwork for my release.
CHAPTER 6
It cost everyday
Sometimes with money
And other times with lives
Some use it as a crutch when others disagree
King walked the streets to obtain it
Wars to take it
The current times have changed it
With more restrictions we live to protect it
But fro
m the poorest to the richest we are still owed it
CK
‘09