Fuck all y’all!” was Dutch’s emphatic verdict on the entire courtroom, and the Charlies stood ready to impose his sentence. Bullets filled the unsuspecting courtroom. Dutch pulled out the twin forty calibers strapped under the defense table and fired into the face of the bailiff to his right as he reached for his service revolver. The second bailiff was spun off his feet by a Charlie in the front row. People leaped and ducked, but to no avail, because there was nowhere to hide.
Gripping both pistols like death’s sickle, ready to claim his next victim, Dutch cut the judge down with a shot to the chest. “Guilty, muthafucka! Guilty!” Dutch laughed, firing a second shot that exploded the judge’s head like a melon. “Gavel that, pussy!”
Anthony Jacobs felt the muzzle at the back of his head, and before he could even pray, lead filled his thoughts.
The jury was mercilessly sprayed with a barrage of gunfire by four Charlies. All the while, Dutch searched the frenzied rows looking for Frank Sorbonno. He found him crouched under a row at the rear of the courtroom. Dutch smiled down on him.
“Frankie Bonno! It’s the black Al Capone, muthafucka!” Dutch quipped as he aimed the muzzle at his bald dome. “Happy Valentine’s Day, sweetheart!”
“Dutch please! I-”
Bonno’s cowardly plea was silenced by six hollow-point messengers of death.
Meanwhile, courthouse officers had begun to converge on the room. Shots flew through the door, killing two Charlies, while Dutch and six other Charlies made their way to the exit and out the door.
Three more Charlies, positioned in the rear of the building, were exchanging fire with several officers, clearing the way for Dutch and his team.
“Dutch, this way, baby,” one of the Charlies beckoned before her lungs filled with blood from a gunshot in the back. She fell, silenced forever, as Dutch and the others made it to the stairs.
Outside, police and ambulances had arrived.
One of the ambulances, however, arrived with two Charlies dressed as EMT workers and was conveniently parked adjacent to the rear of the courthouse.
With eyes alert to the police and all their activity, Craze cautiously emerged from behind a Dumpster and opened the back door.
To the average eye, the ambulance didn’t appear out of place. The melee had panicked everyone, and no one knew what to expect next… Certainly not an ambulance escape.
“The basement!” Dutch ordered the remaining three Charlies with him. “Make sure my man is compensated for his assistance,” he smirked, then shot out the rear door and hopped into the ambulance.
Craze looked at his longtime friend, relieved that he had made it, then screamed at the Charlie in the driver’s seat, “Fuck you waitin’ for, tomorrow? Drive!” She flipped on the siren and sped off. As the ambulance turned the corner, Detective Smalls and his partner, Detective Meritti, skidded up and jumped out of their car, ready for war.
“Where is Dutch?” Smalls demanded, but he became distracted when Detective Meritti entered the courthouse behind him. Smalls could tell by the look on his partner’s face that he was the bearer of bad news. Smalls had been dealing with the press throughout the ordeal, keeping them informed of what was going on. But he had postponed leaking any information concerning Dutch until the chief of police got back to him. And today Meritti was the chief’s messenger.
“What’s the world coming to, eh?” Meritti asked in his Brooklyn Italian accent. “First 9/11, now this?” He scanned the crime scene in disbelief. “This is the beginning of anarchism.”
Smalls agreed. “So?” he inquired, studying Meritti’s blue eyes.
Meritti sat down and lit a Winston. “I can see the headlines now. ‘Gangster kills judge and jury and escapes,’” he bitterly remarked with a flourish, tapping the ashes from his cigarette.
“Do you know what kind of message that would send?” Meritti continued his rant. “Every fuckin’ nut with a gun and half a heart will think he can do the same thing!”
Smalls nodded. “No courtroom in America will be safe. The next thing you know, people will be shooting DAs and judges in the street!”
“And rioting in county jails to bust out the kingpins,” Meritti added in a tone of disgust.
Smalls knew where Meritti was going with the conversation. “I take it chief feels the same way?” Smalls asked, already knowing he did.
Meritti nodded, watching his partner of six years, knowing what the chief was asking of him, and he knew Smalls didn’t like to lie. To Meritti, Smalls had always been an annoyingly honest detective.
“If I go out there and tell those people that James is dead… if we cover up his escape and it gets out…”
“It won’t get out,” Meritti said cutting him off.
“But if it does?”
“It won’t.”
Smalls saw the logic in the decision.
Even though Dutch had committed a heinous act, if the world thought he was dead, potential copycats would think twice because Dutch didn’t survive. But to Smalls, a lie was still a lie.
However, if the truth was told, Dutch would become a legend-the gangster’s hero, the outlaw that blasted his way to freedom. No, Smalls’s heart decided, the truth couldn’t be told-yet. Not until James was firmly in his grasp. For the sake of justice everywhere, the truth had to be concealed.
Smalls rose slowly, feeling the full weight of his fifty-four years in his arthritic knees.
“Okay, let’s go meet the press,” he said, smiling at Meritti weakly.
Meritti took one last look at the room and wondered aloud, “But HOW did he do it? There are metal detectors on every floor, even right outside this door, and he smuggled in a fuckin’ arsenal? How?”
Smalls looked at Meritti with steel in his eyes. “I don’t know. But I promise you, I will find out.”
With that, they left the courtroom.