TEARS OF RAGE

Chapter 47

Pacing the space between the cars, where Gloria and Michelle had been parked, Charmaine was lost in thought.

It had not occurred to her that the cops would attempt to tie her into the plot that had been devised to help Broderick touch Kenny Mathis.

Her only concern, at that time, had been to help Swaylo separate himself from the accusations of murder and robbery, and assist in giving her friend vengeance against the man who had murdered her.

With the knowledge that the cops were planning to target her, Charmaine found it disturbing.

It was one thing to help someone elude the grasp of arrest, but to become a target of a criminal investigation, where a murder was on the agenda, was enough to create a burden of real distress.

Based upon how her sorority sisters had explained what they had heard, the cops were plotting to entrap her.

The most devastating aspect of a conspiracy was the malicious motives incorporated by an unknown enemy.

When she heard about Brad Riner, she knew that the man still had hatred in his heart.

He had reason to want to tear their lives apart.

As the deadline for their meeting began to draw closer, Charmaine decided to try and find out who their informant could be.

When her attempts to contact Swaylo, and inform him about what Gloria and Michelle had told her, had not produced any positive results, Charmaine had gotten restless.

She needed to know who the cops were plotting to use to set them up, and time was running out.

She arrived at the location about five minutes before six.

The afternoon traffic was thick with commuters, heading home from work.

Her eyes surveyed the area, searching for some sign of a white Saab, or any sign of ADA Brad Riner.

She remembered him well, from the interviews that he had given to the media, over the course of Swaylo's encounter with the cops; following his arrest.

Parked at the rear of the ExxonMobil service station, before an industrial vacuuming machine, Charmaine was able to spot Brad Riner when the white Saab pulled into the lot.

She disguised her features with a pair of dark shades, and an Atlanta Falcons ball cap pulled low.

From every direction, about the circumference of the intersection, the night was alive with activity.

Vehicles passed by like salmon, moving through a stream.

As she watched, the white Saab pulled in next to a dark blue Crown Vic, with a police light mounted along the side of the right rearview mirror.

When she first caught sight of the car, she had dismissed it as just another customer; coming to get gas from the establishment.

But, once she saw the Saab pull in next to it, she knew that she had found the men that her sorority sisters had told her about.

There was a white man seated in the front passenger's seat of the Ford.

A tall muscular black man stepped out of the Ford, and a moment later she saw a drug addict, that she knew, by the name of Pie-Man join him.

Both men left the Ford and got into the Saab.

The sight of Pie-Man immediately let her know that he was their informant.

Pie-Man was the type of person, known throughout the neighborhood as a drug addict who specialized in washing cars, cutting grass, and working as a shade-tree mechanic.

He could fix and do almost anything that a person needed to be done.

His personality and pay rate were what made him such a well-known face in the streets of East Atlanta.

For a few dollars or a piece of crack cocaine, Pie-Man would walk fifty miles to build a smokestack with nothing more than a wrench and a bicycle chain.

He could paint a house, fix a leaking roof, and repave a driveway for less than a person would pay for the plumbing.

But, Charmaine would have never thought that he could be persuaded into snitching.

As the full weight of the situation began to develop in her mind, she knew that it was time to warn Swaylo about what the cops were planning...

But, for some reason, she could not find him.

When Brad Riner arrived at the ExxonMobil service station he could feel a surge of excitement come over him.

He had found a sense of purpose.

A target in which to focus his anger.

"Thanks for doing this for me, Don," he stated as the two men entered his car.

"Don't mention it, bro... I'd be feeling the same as you if that little bastard had murdered my brother."

Brad gave a silent nod.

"Who's he?" he asked, gesturing at Pie-Man.

"This is Pie-Man. The guy that I told you about."

Donald Morgan pulled a pistol from his waist and passed it to Pie-Man.

"He's going to help us nail this Mitchell kid."

"I thought that you guys were paying me, Bossman..."

"You're going to get paid," Don assured him and extracted a crisp hundred dollar bill from his pocket.

Brad went in his pocket and passed him another two hundred dollars.

"I've got another five hundred dollars for you if you can pull this off," Brad stated.

Pie-Man stuffed the money in his pocket with a wide grin of delight etched upon his face.

He knew that he was about to get high as a cloud.

The gun in his hand had little value, aside from getting Swaylo to buy it from him.

For over five hundred dollars in cash, Pie-Man found the job to be an easy mission.

As far as he was concerned, the task had minimal risk and a huge reward.

"I've got it covered," Pie-Man assured them, checking the chamber of the .38 revolver. It was empty.

"What about wearing a wire? Would you be willing to help us get this kid on tape, purchasing the gun?" Brad asked.

Pie-Man crinkled his brow with a look of uncertainty.

"I don't know about that," he replied. "If I'm caught with a wire on me, those fools might try to kill me."

"Are you sure that you even know who we're talking about?" Brad asked, looking at Pie-Man as though he had little faith in his reliability.

"Hell yeah. I know exactly who you're talking about. I practically raised that boy." he stated, bobbing his head like he was dancing to a beat that no one else could hear.

"I used to get high with his mom before she died." he added."But, they don't call him by his government name."

Pie-Man informed them, with a grin.

"What do they call him?" Brad asked.

"Everybody knows him as Swaylon's son, so they call him Swaylo." he confided.

What most people fail to understand, when they agree to give the cops their cooperation, is that there are often severe consequences for such actions...

But, money can often persuade a person to do some foolish things, when they think that no one is watching.

When Pie-Man agreed to cooperate with their plot to take away Swaylo's freedom, he had no idea that Charmaine had seen him.