Blackstone's Law

PROLOGUE:

Mid-January 2023

Ralph Silas recognized the accent of the bulked-up commie juicehead before he saw him and knew he was in trouble. He couldn’t remember his name—Ivan, Igor, Andre—something almost comically Russian.

“You’re a dead man, Silas,” the ogre said.

He hovered next to Silas’s booth at the back of the bar and folded his arms over his chest, his biceps nearly ripping through the sleeves of his track jacket.

“You think so?” Silas asked.

The big Russian’s smaller but nastier partner spoke next. “Shouldn’t have bet against your hometown team. Especially not that kind of cash.”

The two men had to yell to get their message across over the ecstatic fervor that rang throughout the barroom. Euphoric Buffalonians, thrilled that their hometown Bills would head back to the conference championship, their hopes still alive for the team’s first run to a Super Bowl in thirty years, rambled about like patients that had overrun their keepers at a mental hospital.

Silas wished they would all shut the hell up.

The Russians arrived at the tail end of the game, the outcome already inevitable. They knew they could find Silas in his usual spot, and they’d come to deliver a message from their boss.

The smaller one, the wannabe Russian Joe Pesci, said, “Have the cash by midnight or—”

“I’ll have it,” Silas said without flinching. “Now go fuck yourselves.”

With that, the Russians sauntered off, assured Silas had understood their directive. Silas slammed the shot of Jameson that sat on the table of his booth, then signaled the waitress over to order another.

“Are you, uh, sure?” the girl asked.

Silas pounded his hand down on the table and the girl jumped.

“Of course, I’m sure.” He couldn’t stand to be patronized by a college bimbo who was only there to show off her chest.

The girl turned to do as he said.

There were only minutes left in the game. The crowd filed out of the bar, thinning the room, the hot air inside becoming less suffocating with the opening and closing of the outer doors.

After a moment, the waitress returned with Silas’s shot along with his check. He docked her tip five percent for questioning him before signing his name. Then he rose, unsteady on his feet, and stumbled toward the door.

Heading to the exit, he passed along the lengthy bar top. That’s where he saw the little punk. The one that he’d arrested—how many times? As he walked past, he reached over and grabbed the collar of the hoodlum’s shirt.

“You’ll be back in jail soon enough,” Silas said, laughing.

The punk’s eyes went wide, and he grabbed Silas’s arm and pushed it off him. Silas laughed again and kept walking, not listening to whatever retort the thug shouted back at him.

Outside, Silas walked a block to his car, his feet slipping on the snow and ice on the ground beneath him. Another miserable winter. He got in, took out his phone, and dialed his informant—one more delinquent prick who owed his life to Silas.

“Yeah, meet me at the lot,” Silas said when the other end of the line picked up. “Yes, now. Or you know what I’ll do.”

Silas shook his head, rolled down the window and spat. All these kids were ungrateful, the whole generation of ‘em. Not a single one had the proper respect for authority. Especially not for a decorated detective like himself.

Twenty minutes later, Silas pulled into the cracking parking lot behind the shuttered industrial building full of smashed out windows. He’d taken his time on the drive, letting the bastard wait. When Silas stopped the car, his informant, wearing only a hooded sweatshirt, no coat, no gloves, slid into the passenger seat, shivering from the cold. Silas laughed watching him rub his hands together and blow on them for warmth.

“I need to know who’s ready for a re-up,” Silas said. “Who’s flush with cash right now?”

When the informant had given him the information he’d asked for, Silas forced a smile, then said, “Thanks, now get out.”

He thought about driving straight to the trap house, but no, the animals would probably be up and roaring after the game. Better to wait until the early morning hours, hit them when they were at their weakest. After the intoxicants had departed their systems and they were hurting from withdrawal. Then he’d collect his dues—the money the filthy drug dealers owed him for not arresting them. At least the ones that knew how to play the game the right way.

Instead, Silas put the car in gear and headed home. Fuck the Russians. They’d have to wait until morning for their money.

When he turned onto his street, the assholes at DPS hadn’t plowed it yet. Silas hit his brakes and skidded into his own mailbox, pulling it out of the ground and causing his head to jerk forward.

“Goddammit,” he shouted as he slammed both his hands into the steering wheel.

He maneuvered the car into his garage, got out, and staggered up the steps. Inside, he found Ann Marie still awake in the living room.

“Jesus Christ,” she said. “You’re drunk and stumbling like a lunatic again.”

“I don’t need any sass from you,” Silas said. “Why don’t you go to bed?”

But she didn’t. She wanted a fight, he could see it in her eyes. He yelled louder, and she couldn’t handle it, so finally she ran out the front door. Her car door slammed in the driveway and the engine turned over. The sound of tires sloshing down the street faded into the distance.

Silas filled a rocks glass half full of Jameson, neat.

“Good riddance,” he said to himself.

He sipped the drink until he passed out on his couch. He wasn’t sure how long it was before he was snatched from his sleep by two gloved hands that pressed hard into his neck.

Silas’s eyes flitted rapidly, trying to make sense of it. The aroma of fresh pizza hit his nostrils. In a blur, he saw a man in a mask wearing a Good Neighbors delivery coat. Silas grabbed the man’s arms, tried to free them from his neck, but the iron grip wouldn’t budge.

He gasped, trying to catch his breath. Unable to resist, he stopped fighting. He landed on the man’s eyes, ready to plead for his life. Then he recognized them. Eyes he despised.

In a flash, the man maneuvered behind him, the crook of his arm covered Silas’s neck and squeezed. Harder, then harder still. A crack echoed through the room, and in an instant, the grip loosened, and Silas no longer felt the air hitting his lungs.

He grasped at his throat while the man moved about the house. The scent of pizza was replaced with the smell of gray smoke that hovered in the air.

Silas saw the infernal orange and yellow flames lapping toward him from down the hallway and his world went black.

CHAPTER 1:

Three Months Earlier

The day I first heard Antoine Blackstone’s name, things were looking up for me. It was a gorgeous October afternoon and change floated on the crisp Autumn air. My two favorite words—Not Guilty—rang in my ears. Those words energized me all the way back from the courthouse to the Hamilton Law Office, the home base from where I plied my trade as a criminal defense lawyer.

I bounded up the steps of the limestone covered historic bank building in Buffalo’s Black Rock neighborhood that had been converted to office space decades ago. Nearing the door to the reception area, I glanced down at my watch. Almost 4:30 p.m. I hoped I wasn’t too late to catch Jack Hamilton, my boss and namesake of the office, to brag to him about the day’s courtroom conquest.

The case was a new take on the classic drunken bar fight that the prosecutor never should have brought to trial in the first place. But nobody asked my opinion about that. Once my client was charged, I could only defend her.

Two roving bachelorette parties had run into one another in the early morning hours when the trouble started. Each respective bride vied for supremacy on the dance floor of the nightclub. My client was a wing-woman who had been charged with intervening with a broken beer bottle in hand, cutting the rival bride and causing a gash so deep she needed stitches.

But the DA had slim pickings as far as hard evidence to actually prove my client did anything wrong. Among the drunken witnesses, someone had said she did it, and it became telephone game gospel among those in the opposing group of women.

My client refused any plea deal, and we pushed the case to trial. The prosecution couldn’t produce a single frame of video evidence to show my client holding a glass bottle, nor could they find anyone else in the bar outside the warring factions to corroborate it. In fact, my client’s bar tab showed she had been ordering two-for-one cans the entire night. The only so-called proof put up against her was the recollection of the drunken Bridezilla. And when pitted against my cross-examination, she crumbled. It embarrassed the prosecution when the jury came back to deliver the big N-G in less than an hour.

As soon as I pushed open the front door to the office, our receptionist, Jessie Gray, immediately greeted me.

“Nice job, champ,” she said.

“Thanks.” I gave her a sincere grin. “How’d you hear so quick?”

“There’s an article up on the Courier website.”

I shook my head in astonishment. They wasted no time getting their clickbait online.

“Where’s Jack?” I asked.

“He’s still in his office, but you better hurry. I think he’s about to take off for the weekend.”

I rounded the corner and found Jack’s office door shut. I poked my head inside and Jack waved me in. He stood behind his desk, pulling his coat onto his slim frame. His hair and full beard were almost completely gray now, with only flecks of brown holding out against the change.

Jack said, “Elijah, we missed you at Bruno’s this morning.”

Bruno’s was the mom-and-pop store where Jack had his coffee each morning. A chance meeting with him there six years earlier landed me my first job as an attorney, and I’d been working by his side ever since. Lately I’d been skipping the morning routine, and the ground Folger’s that came with it, to go my own way, usually to grab an espresso at the craft coffee roaster near my apartment.

“I got a cappuccino before my closing argument this morning.”

“Waste of money, if you ask me,” Jack scoffed. “And the company’s better at Bruno’s.”

I nodded, acknowledging what he said without agreeing with it.

Jack, with his coat fully on, walked around the desk and held a hand out for me to take, which I did. “Nice job today, Elijah. Congratulations.” He had heard the news already, too.

Jack was stoic and stingy with praise. So even the small gesture and little sentiment he expressed meant a great deal coming from him. Even after six years of working side by side, Jack was still a mystery, and in a lot of ways, still intimidating to me.

I thanked him for the encouragement.

“Is that three acquittals in a row now?” he asked.

“Four,” I said. “But who’s counting?”

He gave me an amused, wry grin.

“I’m heading out,” he said, leaning over and grabbing an envelope off his desk. “But take a look at this before you go out celebrating.”

The markings on the outside of the envelope made it obvious the letter had come from an inmate incarcerated at a prison somewhere within the confines of the State of New York.

Jack said, “I think what this letter says has some merit. I vaguely remember the case from when I was in the DA’s Office. If it’s the one I remember, an assistant DA named Frank Nigel, who was asked, not so nicely, to exit the office, handled it. He had a reputation for skirting the rules which was not looked upon kindly by my old boss.”

I flexed the envelope back and forth between my forefingers and thumbs, studying it. “Alright,” I said.

“It might be good for our office to do some pro bono work and look into it.”

Pro Bono. As in for the public good. As in free of charge. As in no money to be made. This from Jack, who, soon after I met him, asked me why people decide to go to law school. When I sheepishly responded, “to help people,” he laughed and said, “No, to make money.”

And as crass as it sounded, he was mostly right. Most people, unless independently wealthy, didn’t go to law school to become destitute.

As I played with the letter in my hands, I pictured the massive pile of files that had been building on my desk while I’d been in trial.

“I don’t know, Jack,” I said. “I’ve got a pretty full plate. It might be better suited for somebody else.”

He patted my back and led me to the threshold of his door. “This will be good for you. And for the office.” His tone made clear that I had no choice in the matter. Then he tried to sweeten the pot. “And, hey, if any money ever comes out of this client, you can keep it all. One-hundred percent.”

Unlike some bigger firms, Jack’s small office couldn’t pay a big base salary. So, I got to keep a percentage of profit from any client I brought into the firm. Jack was going a couple of steps beyond our usual agreement by saying I could keep every penny this client might generate, even though I didn’t deliver the client. Even still, the chances of a pro bono client bringing in any money was like finding a sunbather in a Buffalo blizzard.

Jack departed without another word, and I headed to my office. I grunted at the pile of files on my desk that had continued to grow. Next to the pile sat a stack of missed phone call memos torn from Jessie’s spiral notepad at the front desk. I ignored them both and fired up my desktop computer.

Opening the web browser, I went straight to the Courier’s website. I scrolled down the front page and found the headline I sought, only it wasn’t what I’d expected. It read: “Accused Stabber Let Off the Hook by Jury.”

“What kind of bullshit headline is that?” I muttered to myself. How about “Jury Agrees Woman is Innocent of Stabbing Accusation,” or “Prosecutor Has No Proof of What They Alleged.”

Against my better judgment, I read on. “The defendant’s lawyer, Elijah Ramirez, used crafty and cunning arguments to sway the jury against the prosecution’s case.”

“Oh, come on,” I said loud enough that anyone left in the office could hear me.

The article made me sound like an unethical scumbag for doing my job. And that’s one thing I prided myself not to be. Real or imagined, I always thought there was a perception among certain crowds that prosecutors do good and defense lawyers try to subvert justice with scams and tricks. That had always kept me on edge, extra careful not to cross any lines.

I scrolled back to the top to check the byline on the story. Vanessa Strobe had written it. I’d never heard of her, so I assumed she must be new to the crime beat. Having seen enough, I closed the browser.

I picked the letter that Jack had handed to me back up. It was addressed generically to the Hamilton Law Office, not to any particular lawyer. The envelope was battered, creased, and dirty, like all letters that come from prison somehow are.

In the upper lefthand corner I read the name in the return address line for the first time—Antoine Blackstone. It meant nothing to me at the time, and I couldn’t know it would soon become a household name throughout the City of Buffalo and beyond. A name that would have the potential to divide or unite entire elements of the city. A name almost everyone would ultimately take a stance on in one way or another.

When I pulled the letter out of the envelope, I had no idea how it would change the course of my life. It began: “Please help. A crooked cop named Ralph Silas of the Buffalo Police Department set me up and falsely accused me of murder. They have incarcerated me for twelve years. I am innocent.”

The handwritten letter went on to detail the sham trial the man had been given, how he’d lost each of his appeals, and how he had still not given up the fight to clear his name. He wrote that he would continue to fight for his innocence until the day he died.

When I finished, my heart rate had risen, and I truly felt for the man and the plight he found himself in. With superb penmanship and clear writing, the letter’s author told a compelling tale. I could see why Jack had wanted me to look into it. Without question the claim seemed credible on its face and came with a righteous call to mend an injustice.

I sat up straight in my chair and my eyes wandered back to the pile of files sitting on my desk. Files from clients that I’d already agreed to represent, for real fees. Fees that paid for my car, for my apartment, for my groceries. Not to mention my cappuccinos. On top of all that, I didn’t want to be late for happy hour.

I took Antoine Blackstone’s letter and stuck it at the very bottom of the pile.