Straight Life - Art Pepper [77]
I stripped. I got everything off but my shoes and socks. In those days you could take your pants off over your shoes. I thought once this was over maybe they'd stop, but as I started to bend over one guy said, "Hey, get your shoes off!" And my heart sunk. I had loafers on. I took my left shoe and sock and pulled them off in one motion. I did the same with my right. Then I stood up and spread my cheeks and waited. They weren't even looking at me. They were looking at my shoes. One guy grabbed the left one, hit it, pounded it, threw it aside. The other took the right one, pounded it, threw it aside. Finally they got up. "Bend over." They looked. "You're clean, motherfucker." I grabbed my clothes and started to put them on, but as an afterthought one fed went over and took my sock, my left one, and shook it. He stretched it out and threw it down and I thought he was going to give me a pass, but he went on to the other one, shook it, stretched it, and the ten caps fell out in the cellophane.
The cops were so happy, man. They looked at Susan and they said, "See what we were talking about, little girl?" "Yeah, well, there it is! There it is! Now what have you got to say?" They told me that the guy who'd turned me in had said I was a big dealer. I said, "What kind of a big dealer?" I pulled out the pawn ticket. I said, "I went and pawned my saxophone, man. Here's the ticket. Today's date." I had pawned the alto for twenty-five dollars. I had bought a gram of stuff for twenty dollars. I had bought a couple of packs of cigarettes. I had put some gas in the car. And I'd bought a burrito. What kind of a dealer could I be?
I said, "I spent the night with this chick. She doesn't even know that I use. This guy is a friend of hers. He doesn't know nothing. I spent the night here, got sick, grabbed the car keys off the table, went out, hocked my horn, and bought the gram. I never even got a chance to fix. Here's the gram." They realized they'd gotten some bum information but they said, "Alright. Great! Great! We'll add car theft to that."
I had told Susan that if anything ever did happen to say she didn't know about my taking the car, to say I stole the car and file a stolen report on it. That way they couldn't take it away from her. I wouldn't have gotten any more time; the charges would have run concurrently. And it was such a beautiful car, this Cadillac. So after they found the stuff, I immediately said that I had taken the car, but then the chick jumps in. She says, "He didn't steal anything from me! He can have anything he wants! Anything he wants he can have! He can have anything of mine! I love him! I told him he could use the car anytime for anything at anytime! He didn't steal the car, and I gave him the keys. No matter what he wants it for he can have my car!" The cop said, "Ohhhh! So you told him he could take your car? You knew he took your car? You gave him permission to take your car?" She said, "Yes!" So that was it. She had voluntarily given me her car; I had used it for transporting narcotics; and they ended up getting the car.
They went to Joe and looked at his arms and found four or five marks. They said, "Alright, we're going to book you for marks." The feds didn't have a law for marks, but they were going to take him down and turn him over to the state. They looked at Susan and found two marks. "Oh, you don't know anything about it, huh?" They really got rank. I said, "What's wrong with you guys? You've got me. Give the girl back her car and take me down." So the guy said, "Well, I'll tell you what we'll do. If you cop out that the stuff was yours and sign a statement, we'll cut 'em loose." I said alright.
We all went downtown to the federal building. I signed the paper. I said that I'd gone down to the Central Market, the produce market, and I saw a Mexican there in a leather jacket, and I thought I'd seen him someplace before. I went up to him and asked him, "Hey, you got any carga?" He said, "How much you want?" I said, "Un gramo," And he