The Innocents

by Nathan Senthil

  How’d you kill two groups of violent murderers? Pit them against each other, of course. And it wouldn’t be a problem because Lolly’s gang and the Detroit Alliance hated each other, Joshua had written.

  Adequately dry, Gabriel got off the bed and dressed in his usual attire. A white shirt, jeans, and a brown jacket. Then he dragged a chair to a window overlooking the street.

  Calabria was now open, and people were going in. Twenty minutes later, a black Land Rover arrived. The number plate read 80085, prompting Gabriel to roll his eyes. Two tough-looking guys, twins with ponytails, got out and went inside the bar. By observing the crowd thus far, he had surmised that the bar attracted only the types whose faces would be picture perfect for mugshots.

  Another fifteen minutes later, a white Chrysler pulled over. A fat man in a loose-fitting Miami shirt and looser chinos clambered down, followed by a bodyguard. The fatso had a crutch and the unmistakable white-blond hair his dad mentioned in the notebook.

  Gabriel left his post and exited the room hastily. Time to make the first move.

  Gabriel crossed the street, jogging towards the bar’s entrance. When he reached it, the bodyguard tried to stop him. Bad move.

  In the blink of an eye, he grabbed the man’s arm, turned him around, and folded it. If Gabriel applied more force, it would pop out of the socket.

  The bodyguard shouted, “Ah! My arm!”

  “No shit, Sherlock,” Gabriel said, then addressed the big man. “We need to talk.”

  “Who are you?” Roman asked, his eyes just a pair of slits.

  “I’m Gabriel Chase.” He glowered at Roman. “And I’ve come too far to take no for an answer.”

  Something in Roman’s face changed, and he did an almost inconspicuous double take.

  “Alright, fine,” Roman said.

  Gabriel pushed the bodyguard at the front door who threw it open and stumbled in. After fumbling behind his back, he pulled out a tiny pistol. A bit too late. Gabriel already had his Glock drawn, aiming at his center of mass.

  Roman barked something in Italian, making the bodyguard retreat with a sour expression.

  As Roman waddled inside, Gabriel followed closely. He plodded around to the back of the bar counter, and the barkeeper skulked to obscurity.

  “So?” Roman said. “What can I do for you?”

  Gabriel holstered his gun, but neither buckled the strap nor turned off the safety. “Tell me what you know about Lolly and my dad, Joshua Chase.”

  Roman scratched his temple. “Sorry, never heard of them.”

  He was one of the worst liars Gabriel had encountered in his career.

  “I can prove otherwise,” Gabriel said nonchalantly.

  Roman pointed at the CCTV behind with his thumb lazily. “It doesn’t work. The ones outside don’t either. Unfortunately, they are all broken.”

  “No need,” Gabriel said. “We traced my dad’s movement from his cell phone.”

  Cockiness gone, Roman licked his dry lips.

  With a mocking smile, Gabriel continued, “He was around your bar when he made his last call to me.”

  Roman’s Adam apple bobbed. “You’ve got no right to come here and question me. You’re no DPD.”

  Gabriel nodded in agreement. “You’re correct about the second part. I’m not the Detroit PD.” From his jeans, he pulled his new ID out and brandished it. “But you’re wrong about the first. I have the right to ask questions where-ever-the-fuck I want.”

  Roman stared at the shiny shield, as if it were a snake getting ready to spring out and bite him. “You… uh, you’re with the FBI?”

  “Nothing escapes your eyes, does it?” Gabriel put it back. The Mafia and the Feds never got along well, and it always ended badly for the former. Maybe Roman hadn’t expected Gabriel to be a Fed.

  After a few long moments of thinking, Roman said, “Your father told me you were NYPD.”

  “So you do know my dad?” Gabriel asked.

  “He said nothing about no FBI.”

  “He—” Gabriel began but his voice failed him; he cleared his throat and tried again. “He didn’t tell you because he was shot in the face before he knew.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, I really am. Your father seemed like a really great man,” Roman said. “We all need to catch Lolly before he does any more damage.”

  “Couldn’t agree more,” Gabriel said. “First tell me what my dad was doing here.”

  Roman lifted his hands. “Fine, fine. He asked me about a truck robbery that my associates might have had a part on.” And Roman explained about the Livernois hijacking and what Lolly did to their Don. Which Gabriel already knew from the notebook.

  When Roman was finished, Gabriel leaned over the table, and whispered, “Give me your card. I’m sure we can work something out.”

  Roman gawked at Gabriel who winked in return.

  He let out a breath and laughed, muttering something. It was evident that he was relieved. Then he said, “I got no card.” He wrote his number on a piece of paper and slid it across the table. “We want Lolly.”

  “Why?”

  “Just like to meet our old friend is all.” Roman shrugged.

  Gabriel pocketed the paper and stood straight. “Is that wise, though?”

  “Huh?” Roman frowned.

  “I mean, the last time you and your boss met with Lolly, it didn’t end well for either of you, did it?”

  Roman’s face reddened, either in embarrassment or anger. He said, “You just bring him to us, and we’ll make sure you never need to work for money ever again.”

  Gabriel also knew about the humongous bounty Bugsy put on Lolly. It was twenty times higher than the government’s reward.

  “Alright, fine. I’ll bring your old friend here,” Gabriel said, smirking. “But don’t you know what they say? ‘Be careful what you wish for.’”

  Not waiting for an answer, he turned back and walked out of the bar.

  Chapter 29

  May 10, 2019. 10:43 A.M.

  While returning from Calabria, Gabriel placed his ear on Bill’s door. No TV, no crying fits. Just the strong vibration of fatigued sleep.

  Unwilling to wake him up, Gabriel went to his room. He pulled out his rucksack and rummaged through it. Gabriel’s NYPD shield shone from inside. He had requested his old captain that he held onto it until he caught Lolly and the good captain allowed him to. Gabriel retrieved Joshua’s dog-eared notebook and sat back on the bed.

  Its cover was the picture of a snow-peak mountain. The binding must have come loose at some point, which Joshua had tried to fix by stitching with twine. The ill-advised DIY had bound the papers together a little too tight for comfort.

  Gabriel was hit by Joshua’s scribblings. Every time he opened the notebook, the lines, the indentation, the scratches, the side notes, they all hurt Gabriel. As his fingers traced over the words, he thought, why couldn’t your old ass just play Yahtzee or watch reality TV?

  He chortled but felt the corner of his eye prick.

  No!

  Weeping should only be done in the bathroom or at nighttime. Now he had work to do.

  Sniffling, Gabriel skimmed through page one. It contained details of the robbery which the FBI had thought was Lolly’s first until Joshua discovered the 1981 cash van ambush on the bridge.

  However, this page had info pertaining to the 1982 case—the bank Lolly’s gang robbed, the amount of money they bagged, the car they used, where they discarded it, and what possible routes they might have taken afterwards.

  There was also a list of evidence—shoe prints, casings, slugs, GSR, glove prints, the whole nine yards.

  Also included were the victims’ names and their kin; the witnesses and their addresses; the investigating officers’ names and pager/phone numbers.

  Each robbery filled a page, sometimes two. But as the years passed, the number of pages increased, as new criminal investigative techniques came into practice. Still, Lolly beat them all, apparently keeping abreast
with the technological advancements in forensics.

  As Gabriel reached the middle, something rustled: a wrinkled yellow lollipop wrapper, stapled to a paper. Bright red letters on it read ‘Zesty’.

  Whenever Gabriel saw this, touched this, a strong sense of déjà vu assaulted him.

  No, not déjà vu. The vibe was between déjà vu and an actual memory. Akin to the sensation you got when you couldn’t remember a word or a name, but you felt it hanging at the edge of your memory, just millimeters away from your grasp.

  For this reason, Zesty’s wrapper always mystified him, ever since he first came across it when he perused the notebook back in NYC. Under the wrapper, his dad had written: ‘Lolly’s lollipop cover: 1994 Thanksgiving’. No mention of where he had acquired such a significant piece of evidence from. Or why he’d kept it to himself.

  Joshua’s findings about the candy were written on the next page.

  Zesty belonged to a confectionery company named CORBY & HEISZ. This particular lollipop was manufactured only in two different factories—one in Oregon, the other in Maryland—but distributed to 2,036 shops across the country.

  The notes ended, not having arrived at a conclusion. It was unjust to expect more. This was back in 1994, when the PDs hadn’t used computers to cross-examine monumental data.

  Gabriel studied the wrapper. Again.

  There was neither a manufacture nor an expiry date, and no ingredients list. The FDA wouldn’t approve any brand to retail their products with such minimal information. But the words not to be sold individually were printed on the cover. So the likely scenario was that it came from a pack.

  Gabriel pulled out his phone and opened the image he had already downloaded and looked at a thousand times.

  It was Zesty’s box and the ingredients list was printed on it. But the photo was not HD; hence he could not zoom in and see what they were. Google couldn’t educate him on it either.

  Gabriel moved on.

  He thumbed through to the last page where Joshua had summarized all of Lolly’s crimes:

  1982 – 1994: 14 robberies, 21 murdered. Lolly - 14 and Red Mask - 7.

  1994 – 2001: 8 robberies, 12 murdered. Lolly - 7 and Red Mask - 5.

  2001 – 2008: 10 robberies, 15 murdered. Lolly - 9 and Red Mask - 6.

  Note: Blue Mask never shot a gun. He manned the entrances, threatened hostages (he’s physically the most intimidating of the three), and drove cars.

  The shade of the ink was dissimilar in the next lines, meaning it was written a while after the other entries were made, with a different pen.

  2019: 1 robbery, 1 murdered. Lolly - 1.

  1981: 2 robberies, 3 murdered. Lolly - 3.

  A knock on the door distracted him. “Agent Chase?”

  “Come in,” Gabriel said.

  Bill tottered into the room, his crutch supporting a half of his weight.

  “What are you doing?” he asked in an enervated tone.

  Gabriel showed him the notebook.

  “Please, tell me you got something,” Bill said, his voice cracking.

  “I do.” Gabriel shot to his feet. “Let’s go.”

  Chapter 30

  May 10, 2019. 12:01 P.M.

  The I-94 took them around Lake St. Clair, and twenty minutes later, they exited on Harper Avenue.

  Gabriel was amazed by Downtown Detroit, a victim of selective reporting. The sensationalist media led many to think of the Motor City as some sort of crime-ridden, post-apocalyptic dystopia. But nothing could be farther from the truth. There were no prostitutes on curbs, flagging down cars; no sign-throwing thugs, flaunting pistols in their waistbands; no low-riders bouncing off the tarmac, blasting loud music.

  Instead the sidewalks bustled with people rushing to work, coffees in hands and cell phones on cheeks.

  As the Camaro entered East Lafayette Street, a ladder-like monolith passed by on Bill’s side. Gabriel hunkered down and looked at it. The awe-inspiring structure was erected in front of a multi-storied headquarters of BCBS Michigan. On the right, an even bigger edifice greeted him. Greektown Casino.

  But sign-throwing thugs, low-riders, and hookers didn’t entirely disappear, did they?

  Detroit had come a long way since it filed bankruptcy, Gabriel cynically thought, because the politicians had simply defeated one evil with another. Crime and poverty were cured by gentrification. It was the timeworn story with government representatives. Got a problem? Let us migrate it to some place out of sight, cover it with a blanket, and hope that it magically disappears. But in reality, the problems festered into meaner and uglier ones, which always resulted in the loss of precious human life.

  “Is this our first break?”

  “Could be,” Gabriel said.

  “Okay?” Bill lifted his brows.

  “Remember the cash van ambush in 1981? That bastard was treating himself with a lollipop even back then. And he was still sucking on the damn thing as recently as 2019.”

  “At the Bristol robbery.” Bill frowned. The thinking broke a little of his melancholy. Good. “Seems like he’s used to it.”

  “Yes,” Gabriel said. “As you know, my dad somehow got hold of his lollipop wrapper.”

  “We’re gonna track Zesty?”

  Gabriel nodded.

  “How do we even know if Lolly’s stuck to the same brand?”

  “We don’t but there is nothing else we can do right now, is there?” Gabriel said.

  “No, I guess not,” Bill said. “But you don’t think he changed his preference?”

  Gabriel shook his head.

  “Why?”

  “Let’s analyze what kind of a man Lolly is.”

  Bill shrugged.

  Gabriel said, “All his robberies were committed using only one method. Kill first, intimidate, then demand money. The reason behind his success is that he doesn’t deviate from his routine. Even his gun, his attire, his mask, he’s changed nothing.”

  “A man of habit.”

  Gabriel nodded again. “It’s possible that he didn’t switch brands.”

  “I agree. There could be a slim chance at Lolly here.”

  Gabriel looked at Bill, a glint in his eyes. “And a slim chance is all I need.”

  * * *

  Gabriel turned onto Beaubien Street and crossed a restaurant named Niki’s Pizza. The smell of fresh food bypassed Gabriel’s hurting heart and crept down to his stomach, making it rumble.

  He stopped in front of the location they’d programmed into the GPS. A small glass facade with a name board reading CORBY & HEISZ.

  “Are you hungry?” Bill asked.

  “Let’s get it over with.” Gabriel reversed the car and parked in front of the pizza joint. Then he helped Bill down.

  Gabriel bought a square pizza with plain mozzarella cheese, and Bill got something called Greek Pizza. His face brightened as soon as he took a bite. He wolfed it down in a few minutes and ordered a second slice. In those fleeting seconds, Gabriel saw the glimpse of the old Bill. Curious, child-like, and full of wonder.

  And it broke his heart.

  For the millionth time, Gabriel promised himself that he would be the end of Lolly.

  * * *

  As they crossed the threshold into CORBY & HEISZ, a draft of cool air blew down on Gabriel and ruffled his hair. Both the lobby and reception were empty. There was a glass door on the left, but it required an access card to open. Beside the door, a beige couch was pushed up against the wall, a coffee table placed in front. Tabloids and newspapers were strewn above it. One headline read: Lack of funding. Several libraries in Detroit at risk of closure. The other screamed: The first Kardashian BILLIONAIRE!

  As Gabriel considered sitting Bill down, a beep sounded and the door opened. A woman was laughing and chatting to someone behind the door, before closing it.

  “Um… can I help you?” she asked, then walked to the reception desk and positioned herself behind it. Her laughter ceased and her expression turned grim.

  G
abriel didn’t blame her. He sported a two-inch thick unruly beard and rampant hair that flew out in all directions like Einstein’s. Emma, his partner in the NYPD, had said that Gabriel looked like a recovering drug addict who was on the verge of slipping. It was true to an extent. Except his drug of choice was alcohol.

  The receptionist’s eyes travelled to Bill’s face, then settled on his legs. And she relaxed a little. No criminal came on a crutch, she might have assumed. Most people were under the presumption that a wounded or handicapped man was harmless. This bias made them vulnerable, and killers capitalized on it. Just ask Bundy.

  Gabriel showed her his badge. “We’d like to talk to someone from logistics.”

  “Sure,” she said. “Let me call Dave.”

  She lifted the telephone and murmured in it.

  A minute later, the glass door beeped again and a young man appeared. He wore glasses, carried an iPad, and dressed in what these corporate types called business casuals.

  Dave greeted them, motioned to the couch, and helped Bill down before sitting.

  Gabriel said, “I need something from your sales records. If you want a warrant, I can get one faxed here in ten minutes.”

  “Nah.” Dave waved it off. “It’s not like I’m gonna give you information about our ultra secretive project.”

  Gabriel frowned. “Huh?”

  Dave lowered his voice. “We’re disguising as a candy factory but actually building a lunar base for world domination.”

  Gabriel slowly shook his head, without offering even a twitch of a smile. He was not up for Dave’s funnies.

  “I-I’m…” Dave managed an embarrassed grin. “My stupid attempt at a joke. But I see it’s a serious matter.”

  “Very.”

  “So… um, do I really not need a warrant before giving out information?”

  That was the one question you never asked a cop who wanted to look into your house. So naturally Gabriel said, “No, you don’t.”

  “Alrighty then. What do you need?” Dave unlocked his iPad.

  “Tell us about Zesty.”

  Dave brought up a program on the tablet. “It used to be one of our bestselling lollipops but not anymore.”