Imagine My Surprise! (30)

In which Bart tells his side.

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30. Bart, Adieu

Things get real when the law’s involved.

My only scrape personally with the law was two DUIs thirty years apart. A far cry from the sort of trouble I could’ve gotten into, with all the shady characters with whom I’d kept company; the drug deals in ratty apartments, street corners, coffee shops and bars; with all the air travel while holding contraband in secret places. That’s not even counting the real crime I’d got up to in that last five years: brokering fraudulent loans using doctored assessments, lying on federal forms, buying and transporting Schedule 1 and 2 drugs around California in bulk, roughing up a couple guys, committing all sorts of conspiracy-related crimes. Getting away with such things for a good long time has its own kind of seductive power; it is its own kind of drug, lulling you into a sense of invulnerability, a criminal privilege. And thus, you get caught.

Bart getting popped was a shot across my bow. My reaction wasn’t to stop, of course, it was to remove myself from the process and arrange for myself to do little more than manage the money and shoot heroin — itself a foolhardy combination.

A few hours after I had stashed all the contraband, after Bart’s arraignment, we all met in Larry’s law office on Bryant. Bart and I sat on a brown leather couch and across the mahogany coffee table sat Larry, in a blue high-backed armchair. We were arranged marriage-counselor style, with Bart and I being the unhappy couple.

Larry quickly poured us all a little bourbon, neat, and said, “This is to equalize us before Bart spins his tale of woe. Bottoms up.” We all drank. Then our host poured us all cups of coffee. “Everybody comfortable?”

“Yep,” I said.

“Sure,” said Bart. He was doing his best to take all this in stride.

“Good. Let me get my notebook.” Larry sat down with a legal pad. I was impressed that he was going to take this story down longhand. “Okay, Bart — I want you to tell me everything, starting with why the hell you were doing an errand for this Frankie Irish Guy to begin with. Include all details, don’t rush it — any detail might prove important. Especially the interaction with the supposed customer and then the arresting officer, and the phone incident — ”

“Phone incident?” I interjected.

“You’ll like this, Kurt,” Larry said.

So, Bart spun his tale of how he ran an errand for Franks, who was away at Giants’ Spring Training in Arizona. And when Bart got to the meetup (a sidewalk café on Russian Hill) to do the deal with this customer named Jericho, it turned out to be a full-on San Francisco Police Department narco sting operation, except they were expecting “The Irishman”, a storied drug dealer who was moving a lot of product around town.

Bart said, “Jericho must’ve been wired, because right when I made the deal, I heard a metal chair scrape backward, and a chick stood up from the next table and she was looking at me and I could tell that she was totally a cop. Hard face, boy haircut, clocking her crew and everybody. Then my phone randomly buzzed and I looked down at it and I knew what I had to do. I just let it fall to the ground. It worked great, like I’d practiced or something, because right when it hit the ground, I looked back up at the cop and crunched my boot super hard into the phone, totally fucking it all up, and I don’t know why but I smiled at the cop-lady who shouted ‘Motherfucker! Stop him!’ because they wanted my phone, of course, so they can get everything off it. And I fucked them out of it. At least for the time being.”

I looked at the bruise on the left side of Bart’s face. “Oh, shit,” I said.

“Yeah, so right when I did that, the lady-cop and three other guys grab me, and two cop cars with their rollers blazing come up and give everyone on the sidewalk that loud squeaky cop horn blast. It’s the whole fucking cop show and I’m the fucking star. And that bitch cop lunges for my phone on the ground and picks it up and it sort of crumbles in her hand and I can’t help but laugh and she gives me a big ol’ fucking smack to the side of my head.” Bart touched his cheek.

“Epic move with the phone,” I said.

“Yeah, well, my face didn’t think so. So anyway, the lady-cop actually apologizes and says, ‘Sorry, about that, I got excited,’ and she throws me a handkerchief, like that’s going to help me, and she says ‘I guess you’re not the Irishman.’ And I say, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ And she says, ‘Sit down and put your hands on the table, please.’ She sits down next to me and says, ‘I’m Lieutenant Jacey Sloan. I’ll be your arresting officer this evening.’ I think she thought she was funny. ‘You may not be Irish, but you’ll do.”

Bart finished the rest his story: they got the dope in his Subaru, all baggied up, but he didn’t let them railroad him into saying anything. Larry tried to be gentle as he laid out the bad news that his prior intent to distribute might lead to a 10-year sentence.

Larry let out a grim sigh and told Bart, “If I had my guess, because the cop hit you, I can get it down to five years and with any luck you’ll be out in 30 months. Also, there’ll be a $10,000 fine.”

Heavy, heavy silence in the room.

“Fuck,” Bart cursed grimly.

Larry continued, “If we plead guilty tomorrow morning with a deal, we can get the sentencing hearing pushed a couple weeks, then we can get a couple weeks on top of that before you start your sentence.”

Then Bart did something I hadn’t expected, and it brought it all back to the fact that we were humans and we made horrible decisions and Bart was about to really be locked up and have his upside-down life turned upside down another direction.

Bart cried into his hands.

I was at the other end of the couch, and I scooted over right next to him and put my arm around him and he put his arm around me and Bart literally cried in my arms, this sketchy dealer dude, petty criminal. But I knew him by this time as my friend, confidante, my number one; he was funny and smart and he knew a shitload of stuff unrelated to the Life. For instance, he could tell you what every tree or plant was that you saw. Like a naturalist. He was well read. He did three years at San Francisco State University. But this dangerous and exciting life caught up with him, and now his only recourse was a good cry in his buddy’s arms.

More proof of my brokenness was that I didn’t cry. Crying had pretty much left me after the Month of Darkness.

I grabbed a napkin from the table and gave it to him. He straightened up, wiped his tears and blew his nose. “Sorry, guys.”

“Dude, you wouldn’t be human if you didn’t cry.”

Bart said, “We gotta contact Franks and tell him to lie low.”

I stood up, feeling the rising anger. “That fucking Irishman is going to do more than lie fucking low.”

“No, no, Kurt. I been thinking about this,” Bart said, pouring himself another shot of bourbon. All the ice in the bucket had melted. “At first, I was pissed, of course. But the way it all went together, I don’t think Franks could’ve known. I mean, what would he gain by sending me in there to make a deal only to risk exposing our whole operation?”

Larry cut in. “Look, Kurt will handle Franks, Bart. Let’s focus on what we can do for you. First order is getting you to bed. I’m going to have my secretary get you an Uber.”

“Thanks.”

Larry got up and opened the office door. “Jody, can you call Bart here an Uber? Fella needs some shut-eye.” To Bart he said, “What’s your address? Kurt and I will figure out all the rest. I need you rested for tomorrow. I’ll pick you up myself at seven.”

Bart stood. “So that’s it? For now, I mean?”

“Yep”

Bart and I went back to the bro-shoulder-hug. “I’ll call you later, Bart. Don’t worry about Larry’s bill.”

“Thanks, man.”

And so, Bart left.

That’s when Franklin Franklin O’Donnell, The Irishman, finally called back. Faking calm, I set a meeting at my house for the next day.