Crescent City Detective

by Vito Zuppardo

  Built more than fifty years ago was a string of warehouses backed against the river, allowing ships to unload cargo and trucks to back into the dock for distribution. For the age, the building was in good shape and stretched for three blocks. The Luther Marks Company was a third-generation business now run by his grandsons. Only a solid financial business plan with the best of the best employees could keep a business going and thriving for three generations. Luther Marks had policial power and protected the business and clients from being approached by outside companies, which many had unsuccessfully tried.

  With the two names Perry had given him, Mario headed inside the warehouse and bypassed the office, walking right into the middle of the truck loading dock. Forklifts ran from one end of the building, dropping pallets of boxes in front of the loading dock and ran back to the warehouse for another load.

  “Excuse me,” Mario said to a man sitting in a makeshift cubicle overseeing the area.

  He was directed to the dock where Calvin was loading a truck. Mario shouted, and the man took his earplugs out and smiled.

  “Mario!”

  “How have you been, Calvin?”

  “Very well, sir,” Calvin said, shaking Mario’s hand. “What brings you here?”

  “Just in the neighborhood. Knew you worked here.”

  Calvin showed a little nervousness like any ex-con would when a police office popped in. Even when you knew you were clean and had a good work record, you always thought someone was going to take that away from you. Once out of prison, you were still on the defense.

  “Man, I owe you big-time.”

  “You don’t owe me. Everything you did to turn your life around was all you.”

  “Life’s crazy. Five years ago I was in prison, now I load trucks that deliver food to the very jail I was in for years.”

  Mario got lucky. What he needed to know flopped right into his lap. “Is that so? This truck goes to Calabar?”

  “No, not this one—that big trailer over there,” he pointed.

  Wow, that was easy, ran through Mario’s mind. “That’s a long-haul.”

  “Yeah, that’s why they leave about four in the morning. Beat the traffic and get to the prison before the sun gets too hot. Every Tuesday and Friday.”

  Mario hated to think Calvin was involved with a drug ring and dug a little further. He learned someone else pulled the order and dropped the products for Calvin to load. Mario was relieved Calvin wasn't involved, and was just doing his job and keeping his nose clean.

  “I’m happy for you, Calvin. Keep up the good work,” Mario said. There was no need to stick around and cause suspicion. He’d learned all he needed.

  “Nice seeing you too, Mario.”

  Pulling a notepad out of his pocket, Mario wrote “DOT 376215,” the Department of Transportation’s permit number off the side of the truck. All oversize vehicles were required to file for a permit. A large part of the license money helped pay for state and federal highway maintenance and future expanding.

  Getting all the information he needed from his warehouse visit, Mario headed to Riverside to see Zack, Dave, and Howard.

  They met in Andrew’s garden area by his apartment at the rear of the main house. Privacy was necessary. There was no need for Emma Lou and Pearl Ann to be a part of the meeting. The last thing Mario wanted was too many people knowing what was about to go down, much less have the two ladies outright disturb the meeting with their off-the-wall questions and what ifs.

  Laying out a paper map of Louisiana, Mario routed the distance from the River Front warehouse to Calabar Prison—about a two-hour drive, maybe longer in a truck that size.

  “Tomorrow is Tuesday, and I need you posted on-site by three in the morning. Howard in the limo and Zack, see if you can borrow Andrew’s truck. We need close surveillance, and that time of morning there will not be many cars on the road. Take these radios and follow the vehicle with a crisscross approach—that will keep the driver from discovering one of us.”

  “Crisscross?” Dave said.

  “I’ll explain later,” Zack said to Dave.

  Mario slipped the DOT number to Zack, making it clear that was the truck to follow.

  Howard wasn’t sure the drugs were in the truck when it pulled from the warehouse. That would involve a lot of people.

  Mario pointed out two red dots on a map showing truck weight scales. One on I-10 as you went through LaPlace and another just outside of Baton Rouge. He’d be in the third car at the foot of the Interstate entrance on Claiborne Avenue. Coming from the river, that would be the best route for the heavy-duty truck to get on the open road quickly, if that was the plan.

  “Tonight we stakeout?” Howard asked.

  “Yes, and we only observe—we follow him all the way to the prison if necessary,” Mario said, gathering the map. “One more thing. Has anything been said about Dr. Ross?”

  Zack gave him a strange look. “You mean other than hoping he never comes back?”

  “The tenants that realize he is gone seem happy, the staff is thrilled, overall—that piece of crap isn’t missed by anyone,” Dave said.

  The group broke, and Zack and Dave spent the rest of the day uneventfully, putting gas and checking the tires on Andrew’s vintage vehicle, even cleaning the windshield.

  Dave and Zack spent some time with their lady friends and turned in early. The way Zack figured, they would be back by the time the girls were ready for breakfast.

  There was an essential piece of the puzzle that had to be in place for this to work, and it all depended on Elijah and Woody. Mario called Woody and filled him in on the plan. He was a little apprehensive. It took some talking by Mario, and he assured him this was the only way to take down Felipe and Dante, giving Elijah a new life outside of prison.

  By three in the morning, everyone was in place, parked on side streets with views of the warehouse. Zack and Dave waited in the pickup truck and Howard in the limousine. There was little activity on the road with a few people coming and going from the warehouse. By four a.m. the lights came on, and the overhead doors opened. You could hear the sound of forklifts running and the start of a new workday.

  Now that the area had a little movement, Dave strolled over to the trucks and spotted the DOT lettering on the side of the cab and matched it with the numbers in hand. He walked casually back to Zack and reported the description of the vehicle they were to follow to Howard over their radio.

  Dave added the cab of the truck was blue. Its headlight came on, and the engine cranked, exploding with the power that made the international diesel engine famous. The engine would have to run for a few minutes before the driver attempted to pull the load, so he rested against the truck fender and sipped his morning brew.

  Mario’s voice came over the radio letting Zack know he was in position at the foot of the entrance Interstate ramp. At this point, it was a waiting game.

  The driver stepped on the steel plate next to the front fender and boosted himself into the cabin of the truck.

  “We have movement,” Dave said, hitting the button on the radio that would send his voice to both Howard and Mario.

  The diesel engine sounded as the truck wheels slowly moved from the loading dock. Zack made the turn and followed the blue cab truck two blocks back. The limousine stepped on the gas, speeding down a back street and keeping an eye on the truck at each corner.

  Dave called Howard. “The left turn signal just went on.”

  “Got you. You know what to do,” Howard said, turning the limo left at the next corner.

  The blue cab truck turned left, and Zack continued going straight. Within seconds the limo was now behind the trailer, and Zack turned left at the next corner, following in the same direction but on the side streets. “That, my friend, is the crisscross,” Zack said.

  “What a move,” Dave said. “Down the road, you’ll do it again?”

  “Once more before he hits the entrance ramp to the Interstate and then Mario will pick him up. The
driver would have to be military trained or the CIA to know he was being tailed.”

  “That’s for sure,” Dave said.

  Zack spotted the semi on Claiborne Avenue about a mile from the entrance ramp, and Howard turned off and took to the side streets. They were moving along when the blue cab truck lowered the speed and pulled to the side of the road.

  Zack passed the truck, which was now stopped with its hazard lights blinking. He took a right turn at the next corner. “We have a situation. The blue cab pulled over on the side of the road,” Dave said over the radio.

  Where Mario had parked gave him a view of the rear of the truck. He stood behind his car with his arms resting on the hood, supporting night-vision binoculars.

  Mario observed the driver of the semi-standing at the back of the truck. He thought it might be a tire problem or some gage displaying hot or low oil.

  “What are you doing watching that truck?” a voice said in the night.

  Mario looked around but didn’t see anyone.

  “Over here—on the porch,” the raspy voice said again. Then a man walked to the edge of the steps, not twenty feet from where Mario was parked. “I’ve watched that truck stop in the same place for the last six months.”

  Mario glanced his way. “Is that so? Why are you up so early in the morning?”

  The man coughed then took a drag off a cigarette. “Can’t sleep, like every morning.”

  “You might want to back off the cigarettes,” Mario said, turning back to the man now visible sitting on the step.

  “Why? I have stage four lung cancer. Going to die anyway, and soon. Just enjoying what got me in this condition.”

  Mario put the binoculars down. “That’s one way of looking at the problem.”

  A service van with On The Road Again logo painted on the door pulled behind the trailer. Mario grabbed for the binoculars and focused on the semi. “Hold tight,” he said into the radio. “A repair van pulled up.”

  They all sat silently while Mario watched the two men talk.

  The old man took a puff. “Right on time. Same truck shows up Tuesday and Friday.”

  Howard broke the silence from the limo. “Mario, that truck wasn’t on the side of the road for five minutes, and a service van arrived. Something is up—the best of road service vehicles will take an hour to get to a location.”

  “Might have a point,” Mario said.

  The driver stood by the back door of the trailer, while the other guy rolled a dolly with several boxes stacked.

  Mario gave commands over the radio for everyone to sit tight until he gave the word to move. They got lucky—this was the drop. The two trucks swapped boxes of the same size. The boxes were in the trailer, and the driver locked the rear doors. The other driver loaded the boxes into the van.

  “Okay, go—I’ll follow the blue cab,” Mario said.

  “I have the van in sight,” Howard said.

  “I’ll pick you up a few blocks down,” Dave said, working the radio while Zack drove.

  Making a note of the address, Mario asked the old man, “What’s your name?”

  “Earl,” the man said. “Yours?”

  “Mario.”

  “You’re a PI or a cop?”

  “I’m a detective—can you keep this to yourself?” Mario said with an eye on the truck. “Don’t need anyone knowing I’m watching.”

  “No problem, sir. I’ve been watching them for months.”

  Mario gave him a look. There was no doubt this was how the drugs were being delivered to the prison.

  The sound of the engine from across the street roared as the semi cranked in the quiet morning and slowly moved forward, going through all thirteen gears rolling down the highway at full speed. Mario followed to the Laplace weight scale. He watched from his car parked on the shoulder of the road. Nothing was out of the ordinary, and the semi was cleared by the state inspector. There was little traffic on the highway, and the semi pulled out and went through his gears again, gaining momentum and cruising at seventy-five miles per hours. At that speed, the truck looked like it was on a roll with no stops planned until reaching the prison. Mario followed for a few miles then took an exit and headed back to New Orleans.

  Howard's voice sounded over the radio letting him know the service van pulled into the side yard of the Cornerview Gang’s flophouse.

  “Can you see any movement?”

  “No, as soon as the van stopped the wood gates were closed. Definitely gang-related.”

  Mario pointed out that on the back street of the flophouse you could gain access to the yard. Dave responded he was already in place and would check it out.

  “Be careful, guys. I’m ten minutes away,” Mario said, then floored his vehicle, putting his red and blue flashing light on the dashboard.

  Zack and Dave stepped cautiously through an alleyway. The neighborhood was silent. It was barely five in the morning. The sky started to brighten enough for them to see down the alley. Zack came to the rear of the house first and peeked into the only room that had a light on, and it was bright. He quickly bowed down when one man walked by the window. Dave slid along the ground and tried to get a view from a different angle. He did and got an eyeful—Zack, wide-eyed, acknowledged with a head shake that they had seen enough. Then with their heads lowered they backed out of the alley into a man with gang-colored neckerchief hanging from his neck. Even in the dim of morning light, they could easily see the barrel of a chrome-plated handgun pointed to their faces.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” the man said, cocking his pistol.

  Howard stepped behind the gang member, pressing his Smith and Wesson 9mm to the back of the fellow’s head, promising him he would splatter his brains on the side of the house if he made a sound. The thug put his gun down, and Howard walked him out of the alley.

  “What’s your name?” Mario said to the man now handcuffed to the door handle in the limousine. “Don’t make me work for your name,” he threatened, pointing the 9mm between his eyes.

  “Pedro, Pedro Lopez,” he said.

  “How many people in the house?” he said, pushing the gun deeper into his face. “I want quick answers! How many?”

  “Four inside and one out front. When I go missing, all hell is going to break loose.”

  “Let me worry about that,” Howard said. “Zack, drive the limo and Dave you follow with the truck—let's get out of here.”

  Zack was given directions to the old construction area where they pressured Rodney Day and called Mario up on the radio to meet them. They all arrived at the same time, and Mario opened the door to the trailer.

  Mario, puzzled as to why they were at the trailer, got a nod from Howard as he opened the rear door of the limo, introducing Pedro Lopez, the hostage.

  Mario carried a suitcase in one hand and pushed Pedro into the trailer with the other. He cuffed Pedro to a steel bar and set his bag up on a table. “Now let's talk.”

  Back outside, Zack filled Mario in on what he saw in the flophouse. The service truck came back with two large boxes. In it, Zack estimated there were well over fifty breakfast-size cereal cartons. They heated the bottoms to loosen the glue, then slipped a little ziplock bag of cocaine in the bottom. They closed the lid with glue and dried it with a hairdryer.

  “They go through the process again on Friday and switch out the cocaine-filled boxes, and those get delivered to the prison,” Zack said, rubbing his face. “Elijah is right: they’re moving the drugs through the breakfast line.”

  Mario got a wave from Howard at the doorway of the trailer. “Pedro is difficult, but I’m confident he will see it my way soon,” Howard said with a smile.

  Mario nodded his head in agreement. He needed information and didn’t care what it took. He had to have solid proof Felipe and Dante were behind this to put them away for the rest of their lives, but he didn’t plan on a hostage.

  CHAPTER 53

  The rundown construction trailer was getting warm and was musty-smell
ing. Howard stood at the table with two battery packs and attached cables to the terminal’s ends. Touching the other two ends, a spark lit the room up. Mario watched, letting Howard take control in handling the hostage.

  With a clip, Howard attached one wire to each of Pedro’s ears. Pedro flipped his head around, fighting back until Howard grabbed his jaw. He thought about connecting the cables to Pedro’s testicles, but that pain stopped as soon as the electric current went off. What was going to happen here was the current would go from the earlobe into the ear canal to the eardrum. That pain was excruciating and would last for a good while after the current was off. It would make the top of your head want to blow, and if left on for more than thirty seconds, your brain would fry. Howard pointed out these were not your regular batteries purchased at your local auto shop. It was not the volts that would kill, it was the amp, and this cell was modified to one hundred and fifty amps—enough power to fry you.

  Pedro flinched and looked wide-eyed. “What do you want from me?”

  “Did you feel a little tingle when I turned the battery on?” Howard said with a grin, almost like he was enjoying the process. “This is how it’s going to work. I’ll ask the question, then hit you with a few volts, then you’ll answer. Understand you’ll only get one chance to give the right answer.”

  “Felipe will order you dead. Dante will kill you himself,” Pedro said, grinding his teeth.

  “Ready? Here is the question. Do you want to be kept in a safe place until trial, where you will testify against Felipe and Dante’s drug enterprise?”

  “Man, you’re fucking crazy,” Pedro said with anger illuminating his face.

  Without a word spoken, Howard hit the battery button to twenty amps for ten seconds.

  Pedro tried to reach his ears with his hands—the handcuffs prevented him. He let out a scream, his head flipped from side to side. His ears turned bright red before Howard switched the button to off. Pedro continued to cry out uncontrollably.