Legal Mail

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Mail by Steve Gregory

Prison Mail

Lawyer Earl Jones

June 6, 2013

Lawyer Jones,

We all know Machado a narc.  Goin’ on ‘bout how he got some kinda big three-way deal cookin’ with the Colombians.  Filipino dude.  Colombian meth for Filipino girls for Alabama chickens.  Some shit like that.  Said he got the setup on the little girls.  Not my kinda shit, you know what I mean?  But whatever.  I ain’t nobody’s mama.

This Machado dude suppose to be Filipino.  Didn’t look like no Filipino to me.  Not football size but way too big. 

So some o’ them dudes I run with say they gonna set this Machado up.  Say, okay, bring it, dude.  Lessee this Meth Am Pheta Meen.  Do the simple thang.  Your meth, one truck of birds.  Then we see ‘bout some more complex transakshun.  So this one dude, Ears, real name Elbert Monroe, head guy in the rooster trade around north Alabama, he says to Machado to be this certain place with the ice.  Crystal meth.  Call him Ears cause he lost half o’ one in a rooster fight, tryin’ to pull his bird back.  Ears was sixteen.  One ugly sucker.  Lean, like a starved dog.  Head shaved.  Scars all over his face, some bad case of acne or sumpin, pimples on his head.  Aryan brotherhood tattoo on that skinny neck.  Big nose.  Nasty lookin’ dude.  Some say he got that tattoo after he wasted a black dude in a bar in Shreveport. 

Old farm, old barnyard, county road 286.  Nothin’ there now but a big dirt yard where grass won’t grow.  Happy Hollow, old folks call it.  All circled around with pretty good size pine trees.  Ears thinks Machado, whatever his name was, don’t show, or shows with no product, proves he’s DEA.  Ears got distributors there, got some ‘ol boys gonna blow Machado away, Ears says to.  Short-barrels, automatics.  Whatever they got.  Execute if he shows without product.  Execute, steal the product if he does.  But Ears, he had the birds too, coops on the back of this old flatbed International truck.

Ears got this new woman hangin’ around.  Blue eyes.  Long black hair, arm tattoos.  Snakes and vines.  Ears run across her down trade day, I heard, say she lookin’ to score.  Way too purty for a crank whore, ask me.  Healthy lookin’ woman.  Earline, she said her name was.  Ears, Earline, what you figger?  Weird.

So that night I’m sittin’ in the dark next to a pine stump up in the trees.  .357 down next to my foot.  Ready.  Ears raises his arm, we go.  But I didn’t think anybody’d show up, not Machado.

           

Damned if I wad’n wrong.  Machado shows up with a couple other dudes, they don’t look like no Filipinos.  Black dudes.  Machado had balls, bringin’ them guys in there.  Outnumbered, but they don’t know it.  Machado got this plastic case, ‘bout laptop computer size.  Opens it up, hands it to Ears.  Ears just passes it to the woman.  Earline.  Earline takes out a rock, touches it with her tongue, nods.  Ears takes the case, closes it, hands it back to Machado.  Takes the woman by the upper arm and walks her about ten feet, leans in like he’s gonna whisper to her, and raises his right arm. 

And then Earline, she grabs Ears’ right wrist, pulls it back, puts her knee behind his and puts him on the ground.  On the Ground, man.  Same time, I hear about ten shots around me, the shotguns going boom, boom, boom, and loud cracks from handguns.  I see Machado fall, a spot of red on the back of his shoulder.  The black guys on the ground, hit, I think.  I raise my gun, and just then sumpin hits me in the back and I’m down flat, felt like a mule run over me, and then I’m grabbed by both wrists and cuffed, and I twist around and seen a guy must weigh two fifty with a blue jacket and a badge, says, FBI, don’t move.  And I look up and I seen Earline snappin’ the cuffs on Ears, and another big guy handin’ her a black jacket, she puts it on, DEA in big gold letters.

So the narc was not Machado.  Earline.  So now here I am in Kilby doin’ fifteen for attempted murder, and I Didn’t.  Do.  Nothin’. 

           

So this Earline DEA woman, gettin’ close to Ears and all, ain’t that entrapment?  I need you to file this appeal, Lawyer Jones.  I ain’t suppose to be here. 

Sincerely, Your Petitioner,

Billy Rae Chandler

As a lawyer, Steven P. Gregory defended a couple of gentlemen accused of committing capital murder. He finds writing about murder and mayhem much less stressful. He has an indie hard-boiled (or maybe soft-boiled) detective novel out called Cold Winter Rain