Neil Pincus said he did it.
Al Pincus said he did it.
What kind of case could be made based on the hearsay testimony of Lawanda Lewis, a drugged-out crack whore who might be dead before any of this came to trial?
I answered my own question. If each of the Pincus brothers took credit for killing Bagman, if each said he did it alone, that could give a juror reasonable doubt. One juror was all it took for a mistrial — and I doubted the city would stomach more than one trial for a lawless freak like Rodney Booker.
And then I got it.
The Pincus brothers had planned it this way.
Conklin and I marched the two men down the stairs, my mind racing ahead to separating them, interrogating them, trying to get one to flip the other. But when we got to the bottom of the stairs, my train of thought was derailed.
A crowd was waiting at the open doorway — and that’s when things got really crazy.
Chapter 109
A MOB OF PEOPLE had poured out of From the Heart onto the street. There were homeless people and there were volunteers, and in the thickening crowd I saw people who didn’t look like they belonged: businessmen and women from the surrounding area.
I shouted, “Stand back! Let us through!” But instead the crowd tightened around us, jostling us, threatening to turn ugly. I fumbled for my phone, pressed numbers without looking, and somehow managed to get the desk sergeant on the l
ine.
I gave him my badge number and location, said we needed crowd control. Forthwith.
A man wearing a good suit pushed toward us, calling out to me, “Sergeant, Sergeant, I’m Franklin Morris, a member of the Fifth Street Association. I can’t let you arrest these men because I shot Rodney Booker — and I can prove it. Neil tried to stop me from doing it, but I had to do what was right. Tell her, Neil.”
It was the beginning of a chain reaction, the likes of which I’d never seen before — and could have never imagined.
“I’m Luvie Jump,” said a black woman wearing purple frames and a dashiki over her tights, turning her thin body sideways, edging toward me as she talked. “Don’t listen to Mr. Morris, Sergeant. He’s Neil Pincus’s best friend. Listen to me.
“We called the police repeatedly, and they did nothing. Rodney Booker was a one-man plague. He sold drugs. He turned nice girls into druggies and whores. I shot him because he was the devil. Ask anyone. I did it with Neil Pincus’s dirty little gun and I’m ready to come in.”
I was getting dizzy and a little sick.
The car was only twenty yards away, but the crowd was so deep, I couldn’t see it. I listened for sirens, but I heard nothing save the uproar around me.
And yet another man confessed, grabbing at my sleeve, saying his name was Harry Bainbridge. He was black, with Rasta hair and gold teeth, looked homeless, said he beat Booker with a two-by-four after he blew the man’s brains out with Pincus’s Saturday night special.
“Those newspaper stories saying what a good man Bagman Jesus was? He was dog shit. Where was you people when we called you? Why I have to be the one to get blood on my hands? But I did it, lady cop. I stole Mr. Pincus’s gun, and I shot that mother. He was begging for his life, and I didn’t care because of what he did to my girl, Flora.”
A woman stepped forward, or maybe it was a man dressed as a woman, I couldn’t be sure. Said her name was Mercy.
“That bastard turned my little sister into a whore. He pumped her full of meth and she died on the street. Right over there. I had to kill that fucker, you see? I’m already certified as crazy — so I wasn’t worried about no jury.”
“Mercy! Shut up. Don’t admit to nothing. I did it,” said a man who looked like a young prizefighter.
His nose was smashed to one side, and he had the look of a person whose brain had been rattled against his skull too many times.
“I shot Bagman six times with the lawyer’s gun. Bam-bam, bam-bam, bam-bam, and when Bagman dropped, I kicked him. I hit him with these,” he said, shaking his fists. “I terminated that piece of crap for what he did to our neighborhood.”
A familiar blond-haired girl, gaunt-faced, pretty as a cheerleader on meth, came forward.
“My father, my uncle Al, they’re not guilty of anything but trying to save me,” said Sammy. “I said I loved Bagman, but that was a lie. After I killed him, we all lied so the police wouldn’t suspect any of us. But he was a tyrant. He enslaved me. That’s why I took my father’s gun —”
It was clear to me now, clear as glass. This chaos had been organized. Had the Pincus brothers planned this since the day they — or someone — killed Bagman Jesus?
Cruisers and police vans, all with sirens whooping, flew up Fifth Street and braked on the sidewalk, scattering the crowd. Cops jumped out, swinging their bats, shoving the crowd back.