ROLL CALL ~ A Prison List (True Prison Story) (39 page)

Bob explored Skip’s room and came back with a box full of stuff and told me, “These are the chemicals I gave him. He didn’t even use them yet!”

I watched Bob put Skip’s guns in the box and thought of something. Dennis is fighting a life sentence for taking stuff from Maniac. I looked at Skip and realized I didn’t want any part of his stuff.

“Bob. I’m not driving that stuff out of here.”

“B.J. These are my chemicals! I’ll split it with you. There’s $6,000 worth of product here, plus the guns.”

“I don’t want it.”

I couldn’t believe what I was saying. It was coming from somewhere else. Somewhere that was sick of the sick shit and repulsed by it. I looked at Bob’s confused face and felt the good in me start to erode again. Those impulsive urges screamed, take it! It’s money! You take all of these risks for it, now take it!

Bob looked at me like he understood. “What do you want to do?”

“Call up the Hell’s Angels and tell them to come get it.”

CHAPTER 91

Back at Bob’s house I fell asleep on his couch while Bob called the Hell’s Angels.

My dreams were dark and foreboding. Instead of seeing my restless spirit full of energy, running away from everything in a frenetic circle of motion, I was stuck in slow motion. I felt myself running in the dark but it felt like I was stuck and couldn’t get any traction, like I was running in mud. The harder I tried to get away from the darkness and the evil feeling that enveloped me, the deeper my legs went. I was sinking and fighting against it, up to my waist now. I tried as hard as I could to see myself from above and it didn’t work. Instead, I felt my body sinking further down. My arms struggled through the mud reaching out for something, anything. I had to find something to pull on to get out of the sludge… I heard Bob telling someone what just happened at Skip’s on the phone. Then later I heard someone come over.

“Bob, why in the fuck would you call the Hell’s Angels to come get those chemicals and guns; those were my chemicals to begin with!”

“No they weren’t Ricky… Those were my chemicals. I had to pay myself something for making all of that product for Tiny. You weren’t paying me! I still don’t have any money!”

“I don’t want to argue with you, Bob. We’ve got to take a break and get away from all of this shit. It feels like the walls are closing in on us. Let’s go to the time share in Oceanside I bought us. I’ve got the keys. Let’s take B.J. and get everything ironed out between all of us and come up with an understanding…”

“When?’

“Right now. Let’s wake B.J. up and go.”

I got up from the couch. “You don’t have to wake me up. I was listening.”

I walked to the bathroom feeling vulnerable. Like I didn’t have enough control over anything. I looked at my watch and realized I was only on the couch for four hours. Not much of that was real sleep and I didn’t feel rested. I felt groggy. I pulled out my speed and looked in the mirror and thought, this weaning myself off speed isn’t working. I feel like I’m being guided by an unseen force without enough control of the situation. Like I’m on auto pilot…

I snorted line after line until I felt that same old relentless energy returning that let me know I was ready to compete. I was wired for sound again.

Back in the living room Ricky and Bob just got finished snorting some lines and Bob finished telling Ricky about Skip’s house.

“I heard you knocked Skip out with one explosive right hand…”

I liked the respect Ricky was showing me and deflected it toward Bob. “Yeah, it crumbled him. But you should have seen Bob here. He tied him in a knot that had him in a circle with the back of his heels almost touching his head. We could have taken him outside and rolled him down the hill to Home Depot.”

We laughed and cut it up some more and I saw myself as if from a distance laughing and cutting it up with Ricky, who always ripped Bob off, and I knew would turn on me at the drop of a dime…

CHAPTER 92

I followed Ricky’s Corvette in the Festiva with Bob in the passenger seat. We drove into Oceanside and followed some streets to the coast to some beach parking. Ricky pulled over and parked 50 yards from the timeshare and I tucked the Festiva behind his Corvette. The street we were on was about 100 feet above the beach below. We were in the middle of two piers and there was a boardwalk of pavement beach goers used to walk, skate, roller blade and ride bikes on.

We got out of the vehicles and Ricky said, “There’s Argenta and El Diablo.”

I studied the timeshare’s parking lot. There were valet parkers and bell hops dressed in tuxedos at the ready to guide clients from their vehicles into the lobby. There was a Hummer limo with blacked out tinted windows next to a white van with blacked out tinted windows. Both were blocking other vehicles from entering. Upon further inspection, some of the other vehicles seemed to be part of the same caravan. A Mexican in a black pin stripe suit that looked straight out of a scarface movie stood next to someone in a wheel chair.

Bob said, “That’s Argenta in the wheel chair.”

We watched El Diablo wave the valet parkers away from them while he talked to Argenta like he owned the timeshare. He wasn’t in a hurry.

Ricky said, “What a bust. It looks like a scene out of a mob movie.”

A couple of Mexican hoods got out of the cars behind the Hummer and got in the Hummer and Argenta’s white van. El Diablo instructed them where to park and pointed our way. We watched the Hummer creep down the street toward us. The driver passed us and parked about 50 yards away where another street intersected the street we were on. The driver didn’t get out. I assumed he was staying put to keep watch. The driver of the white van flipped a U-turn and parked in the same fashion the other way. We watched El Diablo instruct the rest of the procession, one by one, where to go. Then we watched him and Argenta walk into the lobby.

CHAPTER 93

“Argenta. What are you so worried about? This little man isn’t going to last on the streets long. I’ve tried to find out his real name and couldn’t, but trust me; I’ve seen his kind over and over. All you have to do is think about what they call themselves. Some of them call themselves Puppet. So you figure out how to be their puppet master. Pull their strings. This little man sounds like he grew up too young. Like he started using drugs and gang banging for his streets before he ever matured. Those kind of people die young or end up doing life in prison by the time they’re 25 years old. You just have to be patient. Bide your time and look for opportunities to steer your enemies into trouble from a distance. You’ll last, they won’t.”

“But El Diablo, what if little man dies, or goes to prison, and the streets just replace him with someone else?”

Argenta watched El Diablo slam his fist against the table in anger. “They will try to replace him! But you’re not seeing the big picture. They are fighting a losing battle. California is locking them all up. That’s why there are 36 prisons with over a quarter million in population. You have to think like I think. Satan is using them to hold down a street. Satan is using us to strangle the world! As long as drugs are illegal and we control the demand for them, and, we stay alive and free, we win. Right now I have a relative who I sent to California to work as a prison guard a few years ago. He’s creating a prison mafia of prison guards as we speak. Whose winning, me or little man? Argenta! Are you forgetting what we did in Tennessee? Do the same thing in your area. Remember the diabolical plan I mentioned to you last time? I brought you an arsenal of weapons from Mexico that have hundreds of murders on their firing pins and barrels. Get those weapons in the hands of your enemies. Let them take the fall for those murders…The other part of my diabolical plan is shrouded in legitimacy. If you pass it on to drug dealers, you can attach your tentacles to their networks. It’s a multi level marketing plan that is in combination with a telephone service provider by the name MLM. You sell it as a legal business that you can retire on because the income is residual. Drug dealers have networks they sell their drugs to so it will attract them because they already know enough people to earn what looks like easy money. They will get all of their clients to switch services and take on a level of the marketing where they repeat the same process again and again. You and I keep all of the money from it and we see a clear picture of their drug networks. Argenta, you have to think like an insidious spirit to serve Satan at the level I do. I’ve also brought you the best speed on the planet to manipulate with. You saw how it worked in Tennessee. Go with Satan.”

I brought my carry bag with my clothes in it and put it in the suite Bob and I were to go in. Bob looked pissed off at Ricky and told me he needed to talk to him. I gave them some space and walked down to the beach. I found a mountain bike rental shop and rented a bike. It felt good to pedal away some of my excess energy and discontent. I rode the boardwalk on the beach and found a route to circle past the timeshare and look for El Diablo’s caravan. I found Argenta’s van. Somebody was in it watching. I rode past the timeshare to where the Hummer was parked and saw a Mexican attentively watching the perimeter from the driver’s seat. I pedaled away and explored further inland and found another one of El Diablo’s henchman posted in another car watching. A half a mile away at another intersection another henchman watching. I pedaled further away and found two more of El Diablo’s vehicles at locations to watch from. I wondered, did he use a map to find all the best vantage points? On my way back, the vehicles were gone. I made it back in time to see the Hummer picking up El Diablo in front of the timeshare with his caravan of vehicles behind him.

Bob watched B.J. get on the mountain bike and ride away.

“Ricky! What the fuck is going on? I thought we were coming to this time share to get away from everything! Is this even our timeshare, or is it Argenta’s or El Diablo’s?”

Ricky avoided eye contact.

“Argenta owns a master suite upstairs. We own these two downstairs. I didn’t even know El Diablo was meeting Argenta here or I wouldn’t have brought us. I don’t think El Diablo is staying here. He’s probably staying somewhere else.”

I returned the mountain bike and went into our suite to shower. I got out of the shower and Ricky knocked on the door.

“B.J. Our host, Mr. Argenta wants to meet you. He’s upstairs in room…”

Walking upstairs I realized I didn’t know much about Mr. Argenta. Bob hadn’t said anything about him and Ricky had said little. Just that he was mob related. I knocked on the partially open door.

“It’s open! Come in.”

I pushed the door open. Mr. Argenta was facing me in his wheel chair. I noticed the big gold cross on his neck. Then I noticed his bed. It was full of automatic weapons. Then I noticed a table with a big pile of speed and an open brief case on it.

I looked back at Mr. Argenta and saw he was following my eyes.

“Do you want any of those machine guns?”

“No.”

“Do you want any of that speed?”

“Yes.”

I looked at the pile of speed and estimated it at a pound. It had a purple color to it and I’d never seen any like it before. I smashed up enough to snort good lines and vacuumed them.

I felt the same pain along my nasal membranes traveling into my brain that had my eyes burning like that first time with Paul. I clamped my teeth against it like I had at Paul’s and watched Mr. Argenta grab some papers out of the brief case.

“I have a legal business for you if you’re interested. You can take the networks you have built up in your drug empire and turn it into a legal one. You take your five biggest components and have them switch their phone service to this company. Then you have them lock in their five biggest components to do the same thing. That’s how this service does its advertising. Word of mouth and multi level networks. Since they advertise that way, they save a ton of money in costs and pass that on to the consumers. That’s what makes it so easy to get people to switch services, you’re saving them money. Nobody argues with that kind of savings. Once you build up three levels of five people getting five people under them, you make $600 a month in residual income for the rest of your life as long as your networks stay on the program with our company. Once you get five levels of five under you, you’re over a $1,000 a month in residual income. It’s a no brainer.”

Mr. Argenta handed me the M.L.M. phone service provider brochures. I looked it over and saw that Standard and Poor’s had given the new company a strong rating. The rest of the information explained in more detail what Argenta had said. I thought about it. It looked good but I didn’t have time to dig another hole to have to get out of. I thought about my investment/partnership with Mr. Dudley and looked back at the pile of speed, like it could somehow help me problem solve it.

“Can I buy some of this speed and take this M.L.M stuff with me to study?”

“Sure.”

CHAPTER 94

I drove back to Orange County with Bob and stopped at Paul’s house, and then Tom’s to dump some of the new product off. At Tom’s he filled me in on what had transpired with Dennis.

“B.J., Natasha is in jail. She showed up to court for Dennis with Misty’s notarized statement. The D.A. took her into custody as an accessory to Dennis’s crimes. It gets worse. The D.A. is taking the position that it hasn’t been proven Misty was in the garage, so her notarized statement isn’t admissible. They are saying it’s all a fabrication. The worst part is Natasha has cancer. I guess she found out a while back and hasn’t followed up on it. I think it’s spread too far and is too late. I’m sorry B.J.”