Chapter 1 Chapter I

"What's up, Bran?" asked Kingson, answering the call.

"Yo twin, I gotta talk to you about one of my Forum niggas who got knocked last night." Kingson leaned back in his lazy boy armchair, a dull frontal headache increasing its tempo in his brain.

"Who was it that got arrested?"

"The homeboy Get Right." Branson gave a little laugh and he took a few puffs from the blunt he was smoking. The driver side window on his C 350 4MATIC was down and his left arm was draped halfway out the window, gold and bejeweled Rolex and diamond studded silver bracelet refracting in a dazzling light emitting display. The sun was out and Spring appeared to be debuting right on time. An undercover police car slowly crept by the Mercedes with the pigs glaring at the blunt in Branson's lazily outstretched hand. Branson couldn't see the pigs in the burgundy Chevy Impala but he knew they were looking at him, so he took a few more puffs of White Widow and blew it in their direction as they snailed up to the traffic light.

"They calling that nigga 'Can't Get Right' now," laughed Branson, idly wondering how the pigs felt now that Cuomo had legalized marijuana in New York State.

"Huh," Kingson grunted, idly wondering which "they" his brother was talking about. Well, he had a bit of time on his hands so he could afford to inquire into this situation. "He saw the judge yet?"

"Doubt it, but since you ain't too far from the courthouse..." Branson trailed off, knowing his twin brother would get the point. Get Right was one of The Forum members and had to get a lawyer. There were three of them - Get Right, himself and Chulo. They ran the blocks between 125th Street and 145th Street between 7th and Saint Nicholas ("St. Nick") Avenues. They pushed dope, weed and cigarettes (the latter surprisingly outsold both of the former many times so they had been focusing a lot on making a deal with a certain Indian reservation upstate that would sell them cartons of cigarettes for dirt cheap prices; Indian reservations didn't pay State taxes on cigarettes and, after buying hundreds or even thousands of cartons of cigarettes from the company, they could then turn around and resell the cigarettes for a healthy profit).

Chulo had decided to take a trip upstate in order to open a channel of communication for business with the reservation, or reservations.He should have been there by now

already. It was unfortunate that Get Right got arrested but he'd been drunk and creating some kind of disturbance on his block, at 127th and St. Nick Avenue. Allegedly, a woman was involved but when the pigs pulled up on the scene and started searching

everybody, they also found some cocaine and a registered firearm in his Tahoe. Branson explained all of the particulars to Kingson who took notes.

"I'm on the block, bro. Hit me up when you find out what's what with that nigga," said

Branson.

"All right. I'm on the job... But you know my retainer fee," added Kingson, cringing inwardly a bit since this was his twin brother, but he knew Branson could afford it.

"No doubt. I'ma send you the stack through mobile money. We'll chop it up later." This meant that they would speak again later. Branson dropped the call and made the transaction for a thousand dollars. That would hold his brother for a bit. Kingson wasn't a big time lawyer yet but he was damned good and deserved every penny he asked for.

Meanwhile, Kingson finished following up on another of his clients, a rich white lady with whom he'd gone to school who had been arrested some weeks back for assaulting her ex-husband and his new fling. Bail had been granted at fifty thousand dollars and he had bailed her out with half that amount cash - no longer did bail bondsmen do the ten percent surety for clients who wanted to bail out. Due to the increasing number of bail jumpers, bail bondsmen had increased their fees accordingly. If you were going to jump bail and run (usually to neighboring New Jersey or Virginia) it would be worth it to the

bail bondsmen, because you would never again see your deposit. In any event, it would take several court appearances and some money to make it all go away - he had already advised the woman ("Elsie Garfunkel") to start putting together some funds in order to grease the right elbows in the corridors of power.

Kingson grabbed his notepad and sauntered out of his personal office into the small chaired waiting area that was currently empty. His secretary, a young Vietnamese lady called Delilah, in college and looking to make ends meet with this and another job, looked up at him and smiled perfunctorily before returning to some task or other on the desktop. He put on his suit jacket as he left his office waiting area, telling Delilah to take messages and that he would be out of the office for about two hours.

The elevator was slow but at least it worked. After waiting a few fruitless minutes for

said elevator, Kingson decided to take the stairs; he was only on the fourth floor, after all. As he was turning the corner to the ground floor staircase exit, he bumped into a

younger looking woman who went flying. Quick reflexes from years of exercising resulted in Kingson catching the woman as she fell back. His muscles grew instantly

taut with her weight and the woman felt the ease of the strength by which this tall, dark and handsome stranger held her.

Kingson helped her stand erect and picked up some files that she had dropped. "Sorry about that," he apologized.

"Oh, no need to be, I was also in a rush," she responded, gazing at the floor so that her curly blonde highlighted hair would cover most of her face.

"Hey," said Kingson. "You okay, Miss Thang?"

She looked up, smiling and answered: "Just fine, thanks." As Kingson stepped past her, she said, "Although I might need a lawyer for this little accident. You know any good lawyers?"

They shared an easy laugh before he answered. "I might." Without giving any thought to it, he went into his pocket for one of his cards. But as he was giving it to her, he suddenly pulled it back and added his personal number on the back. "At your service." He bowed, smiled and left the staircase. It was only when he left the building that he realized he hadn't even asked her name. Shrugging mentally, he walked to the parking lot directly adjacent to the building in which he rented office space for his fledgling practice at 130 Cooper Square.