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“That’s fine.”
Once again, Akilah reached in her briefcase and produced a valid firearm permit. “I think that takes care of criminal possession of a weapon and we can move on to the next charge,” she said as Monroe examined the permit.
“Agreed. Mr. Arcus had a valid firearm permit,” he said and since he had no intention of taking the case to trial, he was not only satisfied with that, but happy about it. I tried to make it happen, but you really didn’t have much I could go on, he imagined himself telling Bautista over dinner.
“Now, let’s talk about the unlawfully discharging a firearm charge, shall we?”
“Yes,” Monroe said gladly because she was making this easy for him to cut Baby Chris loose.
“As Christopher Arcus is an employee of a private security agency defending his place of employment, I believe that the unlawfully discharging a firearm charge should be dropped as well as the murder charge.”
“He did kill four men,” Monroe sat back to say.
“After those men attempted to rob the establishment, had killed four men and fired at my client.”
Monroe remained silent.
“You will have to excuse me for saying this so bluntly, but you know as well as I do that this case will get thrown out if you took it to a judge.”
The murder and all other charges were dropped, but Bautista was able to keep him in jail a little longer by convincing a friend to misplace his release papers for as long as he could so that she can have one more shot at getting him to flip.
Not happening.
When Baby Chris was released, Jackie and Rain were there to meet him.
Chapter Ten
Detectives Kirk and Dawkins arrived at the residence of Rona King at the luxurious Baccarat Hotel and Residences on West 53rd Street in Midtown Manhattan. They were there to arrest her for conspiracy to commit murder after being implicated by Joachim ‘Jocko’ Eisenbraun as the person that hired him. He provided the contractors that carried out the hits against The Family.
“This is a nice place,” Dawkins said looking around as she and Kirk walked through the lobby.
The elaborate lobby was decorated in earth tones of creamy white and beige and featured opulent chandeliers and rustic pictures on the wall.
“Wellness and aqua center, a grand salon, you got the Baccarat signature bar and the Chevalier Restaurant; she even has housekeeping with turndown service, and twenty-four-hour room service.”
“Not exactly what I was expecting,” Kirk said as he pressed the button for the elevator.
“What were you expecting exactly?”
“Not this.”
“Well, her profile says this is exactly the type of place she’d be living. Miss Rona has a Ph.D. in business from the Columbia School of Business. She’s a market research analyst with a company called Trend Source Qualtrics where she earns a high six-figure salary. The company studies market conditions to analyze business strategies, that type of shit.”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Kirk said as the elevator arrived, and they got on. “That is not the profile of a criminal mastermind.”
“I know, right. After she buried her father and brother, she seemed to have turned her back on her family’s business and went back to Cali to finish her master’s at Berkeley. Then she came back to the city and got her Ph.D. at Columbia.”
“But, she is Robert King’s daughter, so here we are.”
“From what I could tell, she has no part in their business. Her father’s right hand, AD, took over after Robert and Sonny Hill were killed. According to their phone records, she has little or no contact with him or anybody on that side of the family business.”
“What about the King Family Restaurants? She got any contact with those?” Kirk asked, knowing that they did business out of some of those spots.
“I couldn’t tell you that. But give me some time.”
“Then all we really got is Jocko’s word that she’s the one who hired him. But it was enough to get us a warrant, so like I said, here we are,” Kirk said, as he and Dawkins exited the elevator and walked to the apartment. As they got closer, Dawkins unholstered her weapon.
“Really?” Kirk said and chuckled.