The Coldest Winter Ever (12 page)

The driveway to my house was blocked off. It wasn’t a regular police car—you know, the kind with the siren—it was one of them cars like the D.T. drives, undercover. I pulled to the side of the road. I climbed the winding driveway leading up to our home.

“Excuse me, Officer, this is my house and—”

“This house and all the belongings inside are now the property of the federal government. No one is allowed on the property unless he is an agent of the federal government.”

“Who are you?”

“The FBI,” he said with authority and a puffed out chest.

“Explain this to me,” I said, carefully. “How is it that you people can take people’s property, steal their house, and not even allow a woman to get her clothes out or her baby sister’s bottles?” I was going for sympathy. I had no wins running up against the glock.

“In America, miss, all material items purchased with illegal money made from illegal actions and transactions are subject to seizure. Now if you want something in there all you gotta do is bring some pay stubs from your job and prove you have a legitimate occupation. If those items inside the house are within the boundary of your earnings and you can prove it to the judge, you can get them back. You can pick up the necessary paperwork from the precinct or have your lawyer call us up and we’ll send it to him.”

I wanted to spit in his face but for now it wouldn’t be smart. The only thing to do now was go straight to Santiaga’s lawyer. Otherwise all these cocksuckers would give me this official talk and send me away empty-handed. I would get the lawyer involved on my mother’s behalf as well. As the LeCar maxed out at sixty miles per hour, my mind calculated the value of everything in my bedroom—jewelry, clothes, shoes, electronics, TV, etcetera.
Hats off to the motherfucking police,
I thought to myself. They had the best hustle in town. They were the real criminals.

Goldstein’s office was plush. The chairs were buttery leather, the walls walnut. The windows looked out onto the outlines of the city. I
wasn’t surprised. It was my father’s style to be affiliated with the big-timers. I sat down in the big chair. It was reserved for clients and positioned directly in front of the attorney’s chair. I kept thinking that this chair was the hot seat. It got you all impressed. Then just as you started to feel all comfortable, the lawyer would demand a minimum of ten grand just to peek at your case.

“So you are Santiaga’s daughter, beautiful, beautiful?” He smiled like a gentleman. “Where is your mother? I thought I told you to bring your mother.”

“She’s locked up.” His left eyebrow raised up. He reached to his desk and grabbed one of those legal pads and listened to my whole story. He didn’t interrupt me once. Only the lines on his forehead answered. Every now and then he’d scribble on the pad.

“Well now, you’ve got about five different matters here. Your father, that’s one. Your mother, that’s two. Your sisters, that’s three. You want me to look into the matter of your house, that’s four. The cars, that’s five. It’s going to take a lot of manpower to get this job done.”

I could feel him setting me up for the kill, fattening me up like a pig before the slaughter. He just wanted the bacon. “Right. Santiaga says, use the key.” He repeated my message from Santiaga to himself. Then he muttered something like power of attorney. He found the paper he was looking for in the file. He smiled, told me he’d get to work on all these matters. He would use the key and let me know
what else
was needed. He asked for my phone number and address.

“Haven’t you been listening? I have no address. I’ll be drifting. I’ll call you.”

“By the way,” he said as I was stepping out of the door, “how old are you?”

“Seventeen, why?”

“Because my best bet is that the Bureau of Child Welfare will be looking to pick you up as well.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“Yes, but according to the law, the state is your temporary guardian until you turn eighteen years old. You are a minor. Not to worry,” he said smiling again, “we’ll just need to get ahold of your mother to get around this mess. My office will be the meeting point. When I get your mother, I’ll bring her here or at least you can check in periodically with one of my secretaries and they will be able to tell you where to meet her.”

Between the money that I took out of my mother’s pocketbook, plus my own cash, I had a total of $1,480, a diamond necklace, a diamond bracelet, diamond earrings, and the clothes on my back.

If there hadn’t been a flashing pink sign that read DINER, when I walked out of Goldstein’s office, I wouldn’t’ve remembered to eat. I had been three days without thinking about food. I had a chance to eat but I kept trying to get my head to think of answers to all these situations. Soon as something clicked into place something else popped out of order. Making a plan was complicated. When would my moms get out? What fee would the lawyer charge? I couldn’t come up with a good plan because I couldn’t relax. I was cool on the outside, but inside I was in a state of panic. Normally I’d be plotting on a party. Now I was plotting on survival, something Santiaga always took care of for me. If nothing else was clear, the fact that I had to take care of myself was. The girls were little and cute. Somebody would give them shit for the time being. I, on the other hand, would have to get mines myself.

I wasn’t sure if I could go back to Brooklyn yet either. I tried not to get paranoid and start thinking there was a hit on me or something crazy. Out of respect for Santiaga and my moms, I decided to wait. Besides, Brooklyn represented too many unanswered questions for now. Aunt Laurie would be vexed because we never called her back about Uncle Steve. By now she would’ve found out Santiaga got knocked too. Everybody would be expecting our family to roll out the dough, bankroll everybody’s situation like normal. We were no longer in the position to get down like that ’cause money had to go toward our own problems, especially Santiaga’s case. I wasn’t about to put
myself
in the position of having to borrow shit from them either. I could see them tryna flip attitude on me something lovely. Bowing down was not something I do.

I knew I could always chill at Natalie’s. Her moms wouldn’t give a damn and probably wouldn’t even know I was there. But the shit Natalie pulled with Bullet had me looking at her like she couldn’t be trusted. Realistically Natalie was a lifeline. She had information. What I could do, I decided, was play her. Get to know what I needed to know. Tell her as little as possible and even throw her a curve ball now and then. I definitely wasn’t gonna give her the pleasure of feeling like now me and her was on the same level. I would focus on the loochie, the cash, the loot, and just how I was going to make it.

I picked over my cheeseburger deluxe for an hour and a half before I came up with a plan. The impatient waitress tried to clear me out of the diner by exhaling real loud like I was taking up too much space for the amount of money I was spending. The key to getting back on top was Midnight. He had the fifty thousand dollars Santiaga told me about. Even though it was Santiaga’s money and I didn’t know how much of it he would need toward legal fees, there would be no harm in me getting my hands on the dough. I was not in jail so I might as well be useful. The smart thing to do would be to flip the cash. Invest it and double it at least. Then I could deliver the fifty grand to the lawyer and have a nice piece of change to set myself up as well.

I would use Sterling for as long as possible, at least until I got answers to the big questions about my mom, pop, and sisters. I couldn’t see him minding. He seemed to enjoy being used. I’d just pretend that all of a sudden I realized he was the one for me. He’d stare at me with those big dumb eyes and be happy I had finally seen the light. Whatever chick he had there before I came last night, she’d just have to wait. Eventually she could have the man, I just wanted the pockets, the apartment, and access to his little putt-putt to handle my business.

Goldstein located Moms swiftly. He told me she was being charged with resisting arrest, insulting and assaulting a police officer. From his estimation those charges were just a means for them to hold her for questioning about Santiaga and his operation. He put in his notification of representation. The court was backed up and she wouldn’t be arraigned until Monday morning. He said this was a good thing because he needed time to get to Santiaga’s safety-deposit box at the bank to see the status of things so we could settle the financial matters. He told me he was 98 percent sure he could get the
prosecutor to lessen the charges on Mom, drop them completely or at minimum get her out on her own recognizance since she had no previous charges. This way she wouldn’t have to post bail. She’d just have to show up for her court date. He sternly told me to call him around three o’clock Monday.

Things were out of my hands. I had two hours before I had to pick Sterling up, so I went shopping. Nothing expensive, the Gap, Banana Republic, basic shit to get me through the weekend and the following week. Three hundred dollars was the budget I gave myself.

Why waste words on Sterling? Know that he was quick to dump the female friend he had over the other night. He was glad I decided to stay with him for the two weeks “my parents were out of town.” He said he couldn’t blame me for not wanting to stay in that big house alone and that he was happy I chose to spend my spare time with him.

Early Monday evening, Momma was released. She had on the same clothes she went in with. Overall she looked busted. Wig off, hair in bad need of Earline’s, mouth permanently twisted, I guess. She went off about the feds seizing her leathers, furs, suedes, jewels, furniture, and house. She was enraged by the loss of her record collection, which she had carefully acquired over the past seventeen years. “Whoever heard of the legalized robbery they orchestrated?” she cried. “And whoever thinks they can steal my babies got to be crazy ’cause I’m going to get them first thing tomorrow when the Bureau of Child Welfare office opens. And Magdalena needs her ass kicked. She should of known better than to let some woman in the house who was not in our family. And let me see some motherfucker driving around in my red Benz, sporting my wears. They’ll get their ass car-jacked right on the spot.”

“Where are you going to live?” I asked Momma.

“Don’t worry about me. What else can they do to me?” she asked. “They already shot me in my face. What they gonna do next,” she started laughing like the Penguin on
Batman
.

“Are you going to stay with Aunt Laurie?”

“Yeah.”

“She’s gonna be pissed about Stevie and money and everything,” I warned. She waved her hand in the air as if to say none of that mattered.

“After all I did for her. Santiaga gave that worthless husband of
hers a job when nobody else would. She better recognize. She just better make room for me. Treat me like the queen I am and just help out till Santiaga gets home. He’ll straighten all of this out.” Speaking Santiaga’s name put her in another frame of mind. I saw her eyes switch and her voice did too.

“I saw Santiaga,” I said. “He’s alright. He asked about you, of course. He wants you to come down to see him on Thursday. Dress your best he said. He wants to show you off.” Mamma cried.

The twins were divided. “We don’t like to do it, but all of our facilities are overburdened. We had a space for Mercedes Santiaga in Manhattan. The other one, Lexy, is in Brooklyn. Porsche Santiaga is in Queens. There will be no problems getting them ready for release, but we have to release them to a stable environment. As it stands, Ms. Santiaga, you are still under criminal investigation. You have no residence. The address you’re listing here, your sister’s apartment, is a section eight residency. This means it must meet federal regulations for living arrangements. Your sister already has three children in her apartment. There are only three bedrooms; therefore it would be a violation of federal codes for us to release three more children into this apartment, or even one for that matter. Your sister has one daughter and two sons. Under federal regulations, a male and female child cannot share a room together after they reach ten years of age. You stated your sister’s sons are twelve and fifteen. We just can’t do it. Do you have a relative who can speak up for the children who has extra rooms in a non–rent subsidy, federally regulated building or house?” All of our peeps were in the projects. So that question didn’t deserve an answer.

“Look miss, I just want my children,” my momma said. “Now I’m good for raising hell. But I’m tryna be nice, work with you here. I’ve been through a lot, I’m innocent. I’m not perfect, but I just need to have my babies with me. I’m not a drug addict, crackhead, or criminal. I just need to have my girls back today.”

“You’re presently unemployed,” the lady said, as if we didn’t know it. “The only option we can offer is the emergency assistance program. We can put you and your children up in a family shelter with a kitchenette so you can cook your own meals. We would allocate you food stamps and medical coverage for the children, but there’s a waiting list for these type of facilities. There’s no way we could release the children
to you with no income and no apartment. To be honest with you, Mrs. Santiaga, there are also some more problems with this case. The girls are five years old, but they’re not registered in kindergarten. Why? Did they attend private schooling?”

“No. If you check the birth date on my girls you’ll see that they turned five after the deadline for kindergarten registration.”

“Oh, I see, OK. Anyway, Mrs. Santiaga, we are willing in the meanwhile to place you in a women’s shelter while you try to pull things together. Sometimes it’s better to check into a shelter than to move into another problematic environment. The girls tell me, and our records show, that there is another child, one Winter Santiaga. Is that you?” she asked, eyebrow raised.

“No, I’m Rosie, a friend of the family,” I lied.

“We’ll need to know the whereabouts of the other child. Legally she is still a minor and we are responsible for her. We can place her in a group home with lenient rules and regulations since she is an older child. We can help her to complete her schooling. As long as she has no history of emotional problems, violent behavior, or educational dysfunctions she would not have to live in a restrictive or reformatory facility. When can you arrange to bring her in or provide us with an address so we can have her picked up?”