JUST BUSINESS

JUST BUSINESS BY ANTHONY GORDON INTRODUCTION Four friends bound together by love, trust and devotion cleverly steal 20 million dollars from a card club in southern California. Little do they know that one person’s greed could be the death of them all. It’s an old game called the Oke Doke. Who will survive and who will stay true to the game? Back page • What do you do when your best friend wants to kill you? • What do you do when you find out that you received seven life sentences without the possibility of an appeal? • What do you do when you let 20 million dollars slip through your fingertips? • What do you do when you put a hit on someone and find out that you have one on you too? It’s just business. CHAPTER ONE George Bailey Correctional Facility (G.B.C.F.) in San Ysidro was the newest facility in San Diego, California’s history for holding prisoners with light weight misdemeanor offenses. It stood tall in its fourth year by serving as a revolving door for the justice system. With the growing population of San Diego over the course or ten years, the crime rate grew as well and so did the population at San Diego’s new holding facility. The ‘Big House’ which was named for San Diego’s maximum security prison was so overcrowded with inmates lodging side by side on rubber mats in the gymnasium that G.B.C.F. opened four modules to accommodate many of their prisoners serving life sentences. In 1983 Frank Franks is incarcerated at G.B.C.F. for the deaths of a store owner, an innocent shopper (mother of five children), a middle age couple, a young man, a State Trooper and indirectly causing the death of a police officer. The first two of his victims were viciously killed at the Imperial Beach Liquor Store and the rest of his victims died during a car chase off Hwy 805 N, and on the city streets of Normal Heights. Frank held his head low and closed his eyes as the judge gave him seven consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole. Frank was a pimp, a hustler, and a card shark. He was one of four partners in the Just Business (J.B.) crew that was respected and feared in the community. He stood six feet one inches tall. He was dark skin, a rough neck, with a broad jaw from upstate New York. His eyes were brownish black. His hair was black course. He kept it short and neat. He had a long nose with small lips. Women found him attractive at two hundred and fifteen pounds. Dee Dee was Frank’s best friend and lover. She owned five hair styling salons in La Mesa, and El Cajon, along with a beautiful ranch style house in the college area of San Diego. She drives a forest green 850-I BMW and at night she moon lights as a hooker on El Cajon Blvd’s track. She had been a part of Frank’s life for four good years. Vincent Terry was Frank’s road dog. Together they called the shots of the J.B. crew. They called each other, “Down by law.” Vincent is a player and a drug dealer. He is of a black Cherokee heritage. He’s five feet nine inches tall at 190 lbs. He has black hair, dark brown eyes, a long nose, and full lips. His hair is long and braided. On the streets Adrian (his wife) likes it permed and in a ponytail. It’s symbolizes their lost daughter. Debra Rose was Frank’s longtime friend from upstate New York. They stood side by side on a lot of issues and she always looked at him as a brother although Frank at one time wanted them to be more than that. She was a sergeant correctional officer at GBCF. The J.B. crew trusted each other. They were loyal to one another, and they loved each other until nineteen months ago. Frank’s outlook on life changed as he started to drink heavy and smoke dope. He slowly became greedy. The crew did not notice it until it was too late. His love for Dee Dee changed. She started disliking Frank as he started to disrespect her. She used to cry from the beatings which came later, then she stopped crying and started hating. She once asked the crew, “How can you love and hate someone?” It was a thin line between love and hate, the D.J. (Disk Jockey) sang, as the music played. One day she would just snap or just pack her bags and leave him. Frank’s inescapable habit made the crew drift apart as lovers, but they still trusted each other and were loyal, to a certain extent. The California Card Club was a 20 million dollar job that was to make it all right. So they thought. Debra also took it hard, but as a Trojan, she took a deep breath and moved on with her life. Her words were, “and you can kiss my tight ass goodbye Frank!” Vincent was worst hit because he had known Frank for many years. He believed his partner was losing it and that he couldn’t see the forest from the trees. While under the influence of alcohol and drugs Frank thought that his woman and Debra betrayed him, but kept hope that Vincent would hang tough. Now eighteen months have passed and Frank loathed them all. There was only one thing on his agenda and that was paying them back for dismissing him while he was incarcerated. This was not just business as everything else was, and had been. This was personal. Some say that Frank paid the devil to get even. This is Vincent’s story of a road dog turned mad. Frank Franks sat in the huge dining hall at GBCF with one hundred and fifty other inmates in module5. All of the tables and chairs were bolted to the floor due to an accident with an inmate the year before. An inmate whose name is Jack Blank aka: Swa Zee stacked two tables on top of one another, then climbed on top of them and waved at the CO in the control booth before he executed a swan dive into the dining hall’s sixty four inch big screen TV. He was diagnosed as a manic depressive person. Swa Zee owed Frank Franks a large sum of money and could not pay it. Frank threatened his life, so Swa Zee ended it before Frank could. Frank became well known throughout the module and people feared him. Some people called him a shot caller, a king pin. Some called him an asshole or worst underneath their breath. He prayed on the weak and the new arrivals entering module 5. He believed that one day he would run the whole module including the correctional officers he was paying under the table. Every day he sat at a table in the far corner of the dining hall with two inmates pondering the thought of how to get out of G.B.C.F. He was hell bent on getting the California Card Club (C.C.C.) money no matter what the risk was. He was dressed in a two piece dark blue jail uniform with the letters GBCF printed on the back of his shirt. His last name was printed on the left front pocket. GBCF was printed vertically on the left leg of the trousers. The time was 7:50pm as Frank looked at the huge wall clock in the dining hall. He stood up and walked toward the big screen TV. He looked around at his fellow inmates to see if anything would be said as he turned the channel to eye witness news at eight o’clock. He stood at ease in front of the TV as the news caster reported the highlights of the evening concerning a homicide of eight people in east San Diego. The news caster stated, “We are broadcasting live in front of a house on College Avenue and Seventieth Street, a few blocks from San Diego State University. The neighbors are frantic and scared as this once beautiful ranch style house is now bullet ridden. There are bodies in and outside the house. They were all shot to death.” The cameramen took shots of the bodies as well as the house. The news caster continued, “By the looks of things all hell broke loose in this quiet neighborhood. The neighbors are saying bullets were flying everywhere. The door of the house was blown off of its hinges. The furniture was tossed about the room with blood stains, and bullets holes as well; there is a lot of rubbernecking going on as police are trying to keep the crime scene clear.”