Chapter 5

The two men were on the ground. She was holding my .32 caliber automatic. I grabbed the gun from her. I figured we didn’t have much time before the police arrived. I had to think fast.

“I shot them not you. I was here to protect you from your former employers and they intimidated us. I got it in the mouth and shot them down. Got it!” I said.

“But...” she started.

“Just do what I tell you. We don’t have time to argue, Lea. I mean it, and stick to that story,” I said, she nodded. She was crying. And then they were there, the men in blue.

I dropped the gun and raised my hands. We, me and my woman, were separated by the cops, read our rights, and briefly questioned on the spot. They cuffed me, but not her; I breathed a sigh of relief.

Lea was released, and told she might want to hire a lawyer. I was jailed and told I would be seeing a judge to be arraigned on the morrow. Oh, and the charge: the killing of two unarmed men with my own registered gun, bad news. I hadn’t even known that Lea knew that I had a gun. But, well, she did know and she’d used it to kill her pimp, her ex-pimp and some other guy. The cops would undoubtedly find out about her previous career and question her or try to. I needed to talk to her. She was my one call.

“No honey, you say nothing to anyone until I say it’s okay. I killed the man because he was threatening you, and me. You did not know what I was planning is to be the party line. If we are lucky, I will get manslaughter. If not, things might be getting really dicey.

And then I was arraigned. And the charge wasn’t manslaughter it was second degree because the two men were unarmed. My court appointed attorney advised me to plead out. I did.

It was two weeks before the court calendar had an opening even to allow me to plead. I got me ten to twenty-five. I fell into my chair sick to my stomach. Parole would be possible, if I were lucky. I was fucking sick.

Weldon Yardley was the man’s name, the judge that sentenced me to forever behind bars. Well, ten to twenty-five years seemed an eternity to me. I’d fallen into my seat at the defendant’s table when he’d pronounced it. My lawyer, Jesse Russo, a fine-looking Italian fellow, had tried; but he was too young to do for me what Clarence Darrow or Jerry Spence might have been able to do. But Clarence was dead and Jerry was way out of my price range even if he was still trying cases.

I’d turned to look back at my woman. She was seated in the row right behind me. As the guards, two of them, stood me up, cuffed, and shackled me; she watched and seemed lost. Her tears actually made her eyes kinda glow. Well, mine would likely do a lot of glowing in the not too distant future, no not too distant at all. She moved her lips in a goodbye kiss and I nodded my appreciation thereof. I knew that my love for this woman would never die, no matter what happened in our common unpredictable futures.

My woman, my kid, I had no idea when I would be seeing either of them, Kari for sure; she was still a baby. But Lea? Ten years minimum! She’d be moving back to her mom’s place. I was certain to be looking real bad to her mom and to Anna: well, I was a killer. At least ten fucking years!

And what of my woman, who was not yet actually my wife. Would she remain faithful? Could I expect her to? She was so beautiful. She was certain to have men chasing her, hitting on her; she was just too pretty for her not to be. Yes, I was taking the fall for her, but would that be enough, even for her, us, to guarantee she’d be faithful to me. I needed to talk to her.

I was still in county when I got my first visit that wasn’t from my lawyer; it was her.

“Oh my God, my darling and you’re doing this for me. I was such a fool! What am I going to do! I can’t let you do this. It was me, not you,” she said. She went on for some minutes before I could get a significant word in edgewise. Finally, I got her to stop crying and to listen to me.