Monster

A nice balmy spring day in Philly... I was standing outside of Rita's Water Ice enjoying the first water ice of the spring...A Hawaiian punch flavored number....I wasn't there alone by long before Assistant District Attorney ,Keith Wallace joined me...He was about my age, my height...same complexion...Nattily dressed. I liked him. He had just become the Assistant District Attorney of the Major Crimes Unit here in the city...He was doing a pretty good job of cleaning up the bad guys....

He walked over and bought himself a water ice...He sat down and began reading a newspaper at one of the little outside stands....I sat down and opened my briefcase...Inside was Audio and video evidence...As well as names , records and home addresses of close to 70 people. This was the result of a two month long surviellance I had been running.

"I'm not going to ask you how you got this Kevin..." he laughed as he looked at the contents of my briefcase.

"Good Counselor, because I wouldn't tell you anyway....Just say it was the work of a very good neighborhood town watch." I laughed.

"You know...Special Agent Frank Cotton of the FBI told me that you would say that." he laughed.

It all started with the sudden deaths of two young girls from an overdose of a high grade of pure heroin..Heroin that had not been mixed properly and the discovery of a lab in West Oak Lane. The word on the street was that a new playa, a guy known only as "Monster" was running dope and coke and had taken over a large territory in Germantown, West Oak Lane, East Oak Lane and parts of Chestnut Hill.

Clerow, Kool Kat, Sean Jackson and I started renting cars and tinting the windows and following the young street corner dealers and thugs around...We had Chance Howard, Anita Jenkins, Cherish,Paris and Blake..who were young enough to pass for buyers making buys from practically all of the dealers. Always, Sean Jackson got good photos of the buys going down without them knowing...We also had the drugs as evidence. We followed them to their homes and their stash houses and with the help of Lockpick Johnson, a few of his associates and of course Peeping Tom...We wired their residences for audio and sound and cloned
a few of their cell phones... It would have taken the police too long to go through legal channels to get all of this done as fast as we had.

Within a month, we located 14 guys...14 guys who were supplying these guys and actually running the operation..These guys all seemed to answer to a street boss...a cat named Tony Dio...Him, We knew!! He had been an active player in West Philly and in Chinatown for years in one way or another....He was the man who got the money and who approved the count and who handled distribution....He was always shadowed by a guy named Dice...Dice was Monster's number two....a cold hearted killer who's calling card was a pair of dice...left at the scene of all of his murders.....People on the street knew this...The police however didn't.

"Well Counselor...I hope you can use this evidence to take down these people...but I'm sorry I never got close to this "Monster" fellow....It seems like everything stops at Tony Dio and Dice....He never talked on the phone to them and I never saw either of them interact with them..." I said.

"Oh he's real...His name is Frank Watkins....He's about six foot four and heavily muscled mean...Only problem is...He has no police record...Not one arrest...He used to play semi-pro football..He was pretty good...Then he was a bodyguard/leg breaker for a guy named "Big Daddy"...You remember him? I heard you helped put him away.." said Keith Wallace.

"Yeah...I remember" Big Daddy" I said.


"Yeah, well Frank "Monster" Watkins is the present "Big Daddy" right now...but with what you gave me Kevin...He's about to take a big hit...I can't thank you enough." he said and finished his water ice. We shook hands...I liked him.

"Go get em law man." I said and waved as he walked away.

II-

Within a few days...agents of the FBI, DEA, ATF, U.S. Marshals and Philadelphia Major Crimes detectives rounded up 56 of the drug dealers I had profiled and 14 of  Monster's Lieutenants....They were all charged with a number of RICO charges as well as conspiracy to manufacture and distribute controlled substances...Based on the evidence I supplied...All of them were eventually convicted!! The strange thing was that despite deals being offered to lighten a few sentences for evidence against Frank "Monster" Watkins, Charles "Dice" Florence and Anthony Dio....Not one person took a deal!! It seemed as if they were scared to death of this Monster guy...

I just happened to be in court one day watching the trial of one of the defendents... I saw a huge six foot four, muscular guy sitting in the back of the courtroom with sunglasses on..Sitting next to him was a tall ,slim man...
brown skinned with cold beady eyes...No facial hair at all..and tossing a pair of dice up and down...He saw the two of them and looked as if he was going to urinate on himself..He was scared to death...He denied working for anybody...Lied and said (despite evidence to the contrary) that he was selling on his own. He was sentenced to 25 years!

At the end of the trial...The big man laughed....His crony, Dice smiled too...They both got up and walked out. I had just laid eyes for the first time on the Monster!!  I knew that he and I were destined to dance...

(To Be Continued......)