The Three Dollar Phoenix by Walt Sautter (rooftoppers .txt) 📖

business when he talked about Rita. He didn’t want to get her involved with these guys, this was sure. He watched powerlessly, as the destruction was completed.
“The car’s clean” Hollar announced.
“I’ve got enough here I guess” said Mercer, as he pulled the plastic bag from his pocket.
“Put the Doc in the car and get the boys.”
Ed was guided towards an unmarked gray Chevy and pushed into the back seat. Mercer slid in next to him. In a few moments, Hollar and one of the other cops climbed into the front seat and the car headed downtown.

Chapter V

They let Ed make a phone call between the finger printing and the booking. He didn’t have much of a selection from which to choose. At this point, the only people he could trust were Rita and Charlie. Charlie didn’t even want his name mentioned in the same room with the word drugs and for good reason. In spite of that Ed knew he would help if he called. He didn’t want Rita involved either but she wouldn’t be under the same pressure as Charlie.
He remembered he and Rita had met a lawyer from the legal aid office down on Prince Street a few times. His name was Mike Woodall. He came to the clinic to investigate some police brutality charges. One of Ed’s patients had claimed that he was beaten by a couple of cops in a gambling raid. It turned out that he was beaten alright, but by a guy he owed six hundred bucks. The cops happened to raid the place just as he was being worked over in the back room and they saved his ass. The guy who was doing the beating talked the other guy into filing phony charges against the cops as a lever to get himself out of the gambling raid. In return, he was going to let the six hundred go. Needless to say the charges didn’t stick.
He and Mike had talked quite a bit about social conscience and the needs of the community during those meetings. They found they had a common ground. From those conversations, he felt Mike had a sense of morality as well as competency. Maybe he could do something.
He called Rita. He spoke to her under Mercer’s watchful eye. He explained to her what had happened that he was charged with heroin procession and the clinic had been destroyed by the police search. Ed spoke in a rapid, nervous manner. The whole incident was so astounding that it was difficult expressing it in words. Rita listened in disbelief. She said little. He asked her to call Woodall and tell him the story and see if he could help.
That night was one of the longest he could remember. He was led down a long, windowless, corridor with dirty yellow walls. At the end was a door fitted with a small wire mesh glass. On the other side of the door stood rows of cells each measuring about five by eight feet, containing two or three men. On the rear wall of each was a stainless steel toilet and sink.
His arrival was unheeded by the jail’s residents. Some whispered to each other but most were uninterested. His cell was already occupied by two other men. A tall, thin black with sunken eyes and a shorter Hispanic. The latter spoke no English. Periodically, he walked to the door of the cell and yelled in Spanish, in a loud, high pitched voice.
Ed knew a little Espanola from high school and a little from his work with Puerto Ricans at the clinic. From what he could tell it was strictly Spanish profanity mixed with frustration. The black was groggy and said almost nothing. He appeared to be either drunk or drugged. Ed didn’t smell any booze so he assumed drugs.
From down the hall, came screams at intervals of every ten minutes, followed by a chorus of shouts for quiet.
The air had the smell of a five day old undershirt. He wasn’t sure if that was the general odor of the whole jail or if one of his cellmates was the source.
He picked the bunk that was unoccupied and laid down. The paper thin mattress did little to cushion the hardness of the metal bed. His mind drifted towards the unbelievable events of the day. How could all of this have happened to him? Where did the heroin come from? It was obviously planted but by whom? Maybe the cops themselves put it there. But why?
Ed slept on and off that night, mostly off. He was awakened the next morning by the screams of one of his cellmates. As he opened his eyes he saw him standing on the upper bunk in a crouched position gesturing fearfully at the floor. His cries made repeated references to imaginary creatures below. The guy had evidently come down off whatever he had taken and was in the DTs. After a few minutes guards entered the cell and attempted to quiet him. He flailed violently as they tried to remove him from his precarious perch. Shortly, two additional men arrived with a straight jacket and after several minutes of struggle, they successfully wrestled him into it. They proceeded to handcuff his one leg to the chain supporting the lower bunk. In a little while, a man came into the cell carrying a hypodermic needle and injected him with it. Within moments he ceased his shouting and fell into a drowsy calm. Later that morning, he was taken from the cell.
It was early afternoon before anyone spoke to Ed.
The Hispanic had stopped his ranting and spent most of his time lying on his bunk in silence as did Ed. Ed had attempted to talk to him a couple of times but it was futile. Ed didn’t know enough Spanish and he knew no English.
Suddenly, a guard appeared at the cell door.
“Bennett” he said inquiringly.
“Yes” Ed replied.
“You’ve got visitors. Come with me” he said as he unlocked the door and slide it open.
He was led to a large room separated into two sections by a heavy wire screen from ceiling to floor. Chairs were placed on both sides of the room close to the screen. He saw Rita and Mike at the far side of the room. They moved quickly towards each other and pulled up the metal chairs on opposite sides of the wire partition.
“How are you Ed?” Rita tearfully blurted.
“I’d be better if I was on your side of this thing” he replied, grasping the screen with one hand. A guard in the corner moved to them.
“Get your hands off the partition” he commanded in a stern voice, while waving his baton at Ed. Ed tried to look as unaffected as possible.
“We went by the clinic or what’s left of it. The only thing they forgot to do was break the windows and tear down the sign” said Rita.
“It’s awful. I don’t think we’ll ever be able to open again, not there anyway” she added.
“I brought Mike. He said he would help.”
Mike was dark haired, about thirty or so, with a full beard and deep set blue eyes. He wore a neat blue suit, with extra wide lapels and a slight flare in the trouser leg. The shirt, with its long pointy collar and the wide tie completed the outfit. He carried a large, black briefcase with scuffed corners and a frayed handle. His wire rimmed glasses were hung halfway down the bridge of his crooked nose. He looked like a guest star in ‘Mod Squad’, the old nineteen sixties TV show.
“Man, they really did a job on you Buddy” he started.
“You must have been stompin’ on some big toes to cause all this nastiness. Tell Uncle Mike the story.”
“There isn’t any story” replied Ed.
“The cops showed up yesterday at the clinic with a search warrant, looked around, pulled some heroin out of my toilet tank and then wrecked the place along with my car. Then they brought me here. That’s it. Some story, huh?.”
“Why did they search the place to begin with?” asked Mike.
“I don‘t know. They said they were looking for drugs.”
“And they found them “ added Mike, “Where did they come from?”
“God knows” replied Ed. “I certainly didn’t put them there that’s for sure.”
There was a long pause in the conversation as Mike looked straight into Ed’s eyes.
“The whole things a set up” said Mike.
“I just wanted to hear it all from you. I saw the papers on the charge before we came in here. The judge that signed that search warrant would sign one for a strip search of Mother Theresa, if he was paid enough by the right people. He’s under the control of a lot of high power money men in the state. He’s let big time drug dealers off more than once. Meanwhile, the little guys I defend get it up the poop shoot every time. The man’s been bought and paid for a hundred times over. That’s what makes me think you’ve been pokin’ a stick at the wrong dog lately. The heroin’s a plant. The cops that arrested you.”
Mike stopped to think for a minute.
“Hollar and Mercer” interjected Ed.
“Yeah, Hollar and Mercer. They’re the hired hands down here. They do educational seminars, so to speak. If somebody does what he’s not supposed to, they teach him a lesson. Private tutoring if you know what I mean. That’s their stock and trade.
They’re controlled by the same people that call the shots for Blackman, the judge who wrote the warrant. The question is, what did you do to invoke their wrath? They don’t do this kinda stuff to people for double parkin’. It must be something pretty serious.”
“What about the heroin? Where did that come from?” asked Ed.
“Either the cops themselves brought it or they sent somebody to plant it before hand. Maybe somebody posing as a patient could have done it. In any case it was put there so they could find it and then have an excuse to destroy the place to teach “What happens next?” asked Ed.
“Well a lot probably depends on what you’ve done.”
“I’ve done nothing” said Ed almost instantaneously.
“That might be what you think but you’re involved in something that some important people don’t like.”
“Maybe I could just ask what the problem is” suggested Ed.
“Who are you going to ask? The President? The Governor? Write a letter to the editor of the New York Times? It’s not that easy.”
“What about the cops or Blackman?” asked Ed.
“They don’t know. They just get instructions and do what they’re told. It doesn’t make any difference to them as long as they get paid. We’re gonna have to figure this out on our own.”
“What do I do in the meantime?” said Ed.
“You stay right here. Don’t leave. Don’t go on any trips” joked Mike.
After a second, they all laughed, more for the relief than the humor.
“I don’t think you’ll even go to trial on this. The way they wrecked that clinic, gives you an out and whoever set the whole thing up knew that to begin with. They just wanted to make a real good point” said Mike.
“Does that mean I’ll be out soon?” asked Ed.
“Not necessarily soon, but you’ll be out. It all depends on their next move. No bail has been set. If they want to