Early in the morning.....The sun was up....There was a crispness in the air...
Yvette Jones walked out to a car sitting directly across the street..
.She tapped on the window...
Former FBI agent, now principal investigator for Attorney Wallace Payton rolled down the window...
He thoroughly liked what he saw... Attorney Yvette Jones was a very attractive, honey brown skinned Black woman...He had been following her for weeks now and making note of her movements and who she met with...Principally, Attorney Mike Pratt, a partner at her firm...He knew her entire life story...
Yvette smiled and passed him a tumbler of coffee.
"I thought you might need this...sitting out here all night watching me...and all." she said..
He had been made as they say in law enforcement circles...He was shocked that she knew he was out here..
"Enjoy!"she said and smiled...
He watched her as she walked to her car....What a lucky guy, Gary Lockwood,
the investigator for he D.A.'s office was...scoring with a babe like that, he thought.. His assignment had been to record her meetings with Michael Pratt...
and in the three weeks he had been shadowing her movements..They had only met twice..
She spent her days in court with us...
Me, Attorney Keith Jones,
My significant other, Attorney Beatrice "Bee Bee" Evans
Attorney Kahlil Ahmed
Attorney Sofia Garcia
And Investigator, Jade Lee..
She spent her nights ,whether at her apartment
or here at his home..
with Gary Lockwood.
He had all of our offices bugged as well as
Mike Pratt's
and Mya Connor-Pruit...
She had received several calls from Mike Pratt, but either hadn't talked long or refused his calls outright..
A few minutes later...Gary Lockwood walked over to the car...
He had a bag full of micro-cameras and listening devices...
''You know...I was a cop...A Lieutenant in both Internal Affairs and Homicide before I started working as an Investigator at the D.A.'s office, so I did this for a living...You could have been a lot less obvious son.." said Gary Lockwood ,who dropped the bag in his lap, causing him to drop his tumbler of coffee and spill it on the crotch of his trousers...
"ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!" he screamed as the hot coffee burned him...."OUUUUUUUUUUUUUU" he moaned....
"Oh sorry! Here, I forgot these." said Gary, who tossed the three GPS units from Yvette's car and two from his car into the seat with Bert...
Gary laughed and walked away...
II-
At our building, Jade Lee walked in with a bag...
In the bag, she had GPS units taken off of all of cars...and Micro cameras and listening devices taken from our apartments...
"That pervert!!!.....He didn't get anything he could use.." said Bee Bee.
"He got enough...He saw us naked...Making love with our boyfriends.." said Sofia..
Bee Bee and Sofia were furious that they had been filmed, especially since they had been intimate and sparesly dressed...
Kahlil was equally angry...
"That Bastard....he better be glad I didn't catch him, bugging my apartment.." he said.
I knew that if they had gone this far, they were really nervous about us defending Mike Pratt...
We met in Ms. Yvette's office...
Ms. Yvette wrote instructions down on a piece of paper of where we were going to meet her and instructions to pack a bag for a few days also.....We were told to leave in our cars at different times and to go in different routes and not to talk about the case at all here or at home...
With that, we all left.....
We Met at the ACLU Headquarters in Bayside, a suburb of Philadelphia sometime later..
Attorney Ben Pena welcomed us with open arms...
"Yvette when you said you needed a favor, how could I refuse?" he said..
We had just finished a successful class action suit with him and our good friends Olivia , Beverly, Donnie Ray, Nelson and Josie...
just a month before.....
''Thank you so much for allowing us to work in this space..." said Yvette..
"I hope that Bert Vandenburg person doesn't find out about this place.."said Bee Bee..
''I'd like to slap his face.."said Sofia..
"Relax babes...We are safe here.."said Kahlil..
"At least for the time being." I said..
"We gave him the slip at least today...."said Ms. Jade...
''Well one thing is sure...He won't get in here..We have this place swept just on GP...Daily...And your cars are secure in our indoor parking lot.."said Ben Pena..
Mike Pratt walked in...
''Nice Digs..." he said.
''Welcome to the ACLU Mike...we can work on strategy here and not worry about being compromised.."said Yvette.
''Well hello guys..."said Luna who brought Hoagies and Cokes and Chips for us...
"Hello Mamasita.."said Sofia , who had been working with Luna in Philadelphia.
''Heyyy Lady" said Kahlil..
''Hey Lady, thanks for lunch.."I said and hugged her..."How you doin?" I said..
"I'm fine...you guys talk to Liv and Bev?"
she asked..
"We were out with Beverly and Nelson and Josie and her boyfriend, Paris
a few nights ago
at Aqua Bar.."said Bee Bee...
"I luvvvvvvvvvv Aqua bar...Especially on Salsa night.."said Luna..
''Next time we go...We'll invite the two of you.."said Sofia....
"Well guys ,let's eat and then get to work.."said Yvette..
''That's what I'm talking about" said Mike Pratt, who high fived me and Kahlil...
III-
Back at our office,
Robert Connor was having a private meeting with Attorney Wallace Payton...
"What has your guy found out so far?" asked Robert Connor..
"In the past week there have been two meetings between Pratt and Yvette Jones.
Both meetings were in Aqua Bar....
My guy didn't get close enough to hear what they were talking about..,.. There has been no conversation at all on the phones from Ms. Jones office or her cell phone...He has all of their residences under surveilience...
Her four young lawyers have been involved in other cases...all unrelated...I don't think she plans to involve them...
Ms. Jones spends her afternoons with Gary Lockwood, an investigator from the District Attorney's office...There has been no conversation at all about Mike Pratt or this case at her apartment
or his home.."said Wallace Payton..
''She's being very careful...She knows we are watching her...That's why she's having the meetings in a bar...I need to know where she is strategizing with Pratt...It's got to be somewhere where there is a law library... .
Yvette Jones is very friendly
with Attorney's Olivia Bennett-Alexander and Beverly West..
They might be using their office."said Robert Connor..
''They're not...They've been nowhere near there since they settled that class action suit with them and the ACLU a few weeks ago...We've picked up chatter on the phone between the two..but nothing relevant to this case."said Wallace Payton..
Wallace Payton chaffed at hearing Olivia and Beverly's names..They were the only attorneys to ever best him and they had bested him twice...They were the only blemishes on his otherwise sterling resume...
"The Law Library?"said Robert Connor..
''Again..No..but they have to be somewhere...They know they can't operate here..."said Wallace Payton..
Bert Vandenberg walked into the office...His trousers were still wet and stained from where he had spilled his coffee...He had a huge stain around his crotch area and down his left leg that gave the appearence he had urinated on himself..
"Damn it!! Damn it!! I'm sorry I'm late...They made me!! I've been made...They've removed all of my devices....and worse...They've all gone missing, including Pratt!!..I have no idea where they are..."he said..
Wallace Payton sighed exasperatingly...
''What happened to your pants?" asked Robert Connor.
"I-I-I had an accident..." said Bert....
"Obviously!"said an exasperated and embarrassed Wallace Payton.."Get yourself cleaned up.." he said.
IV-
Since we were already in Bayside...Gary Lockwood had suggested we use the AirBnB , he and a friend had bought...He and Ms. Yvette had spent a weekend there...
After we finished a days work, we found a local supermarket and bought groceries just like we did in Houston...
It was very nice and like the others we had been in, It had a number of bedrooms, a kitchen and a living room..
"I hope you guys like this...It's not the Marriot, but it will do for a few days...And I hope you guys turned the GPS locators on your phones off.."said Yvette.
''We did and I think we packed enough clothes for a week.."I joked..
Bee Bee hugged me..
"You just like that you can stay with me and have an official reason.." she whispered in my ear...
I just smiled.
Naturally we took a room together..
"You know he does.."laughed Sofia , who was in the room next to ours with Kahlil..
Kahlil was already in the kitchen ,washing chicken wings and laying them out on a tray ,while I was seasoning and marinading them..
Ms. Jade was watching us and preparing plates...
"I love watching men cook." said Jade, smiling.
They weren't staying with us...but Ben and Luna Pena and Mike Pratt had dinner with us..
"This is very nice Yvette..."said Ben
"Yes...Very Nice."said Luna..
"Wow, when you guys go radio silent, you go radio silent...Connor and Payton must be going nuts.."laughed Mike Pratt..
We had Baked Barbecue Chicken...Corn on the Cob and a nice big salad....The door bell rang...
''We have more dinner guests?"asked Mike Pratt.
"Sure do...It's a surprise.."said Yvette..
''A surprise I think you'll like.."said Bee Bee...
It was Mya...
''Hi Michael...Can I come in?" she said softly...
Mike Pratt's face lit up like a Christmas Tree...
"Mya...Mya? How did you find this place?..." he asked..
"I didn't....HE DID!" she said pointing at Gary Lockwood, who was standing behind her with a bottle, two bottle of wine..
"It's not a meal without Wine...and I've got a pasta salad I made in the car....Let's feast folks..." he said..
Gary had talked to her and had spirted her away from her apartment and out to Bayside..where she'd be staying in a Hotel with Mike Pratt under an assumed name..
We did feast that night....Us and our new friends......While in Philadelphia..
"I don't believe this..All of them are gone...None of them are at their residences.." said Bert Vandenberg..
"You incompatant boob!" screamed an angry Robert Connor..
''Really?Mr. Connor, it was you, going in Ms. Jones office, rifling through her files and threatening her that put her on guard in the first place..She wasn't even going to defend Pratt until you tried to strong arm her and then she changed her mind....This is YOUR FAULT! You put this entire case in jeopardy!! Now ...Now we have to do the best we can with what little we have...Good Night Mr. Connor."said Wallace Payton..
Robert Connor called Mya, but her phone went to voicemail...He stomped his foot and kicked the table in anger!
No comments:
Post a Comment