Against the Law

by Against the Law (epub)

  When Joe came through the hole in the fence, the black Benz was there. As he emerged, a broad, white guy in a tracksuit was getting out of the back seat, holding a black plastic bag. He stared at Joe in wonder. Alarmed, he yelled, “Sergey!” Another guy, shorter, heavily-tatted in jeans, white sneakers, and a white V-neck T-shirt, opened the front passenger side. Joe went into a slide, and as his other pursuers came through the fence, he rolled under the car.

  Breathing hard, but safe for the moment, Joe pulled the device Juno had made for him from his pants. It was a small tracker, coated on one side with a powerful epoxy. Joe switched it on and peeled off the backing, then stuck it to the underside of the car. It held. Meanwhile he saw feet surrounding him and heard the voices they belonged to.

  “Grab that dumbass!”

  “How? He’s hiding under there like a bug.”

  Joe identified the white sneakers, who he figured to be in charge, and grabbed his ankles, pulling hard. As the guy fell, Joe rolled out, boxing his ear, leaving him dizzy and ringing. Joe scrambled to his feet, and the bagman and the guard both jumped him. He elbowed one in the nose, breaking it, and kicked the other in the shin, trying to disable them without seeming too professional about it, keeping his arms tucked close and taking some hits on the back and shoulders without exposing anything too vital. Then he broke free and ran with the whole crew pounding after him. That’s when the cops showed up.

  As Joe neared the corner, with the two door guys right behind him, the guard limping slightly after, and the rest trailing curiously, a black Impala came swerving across his path, with a red light spinning on the dash.

  “Hold it,” a loud voice that Joe knew was Liam’s fake New York accent boomed over a speaker. “Police!”

  Everyone scattered. But as Joe turned to run, Josh leapt from the car and grabbed him, throwing him onto the hood of the car. Liam jumped out too and held him.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” he asked. “What’s the big rush?” He quickly frisked Joe and pulled the stolen bundle of dope from his pocket. “What’s this?”

  “Nothing,” Joe muttered. “It isn’t mine.”

  “Yeah, yeah . . .” Liam said as he pushed him into the backseat. Meanwhile up the block, the others had vanished, back through the fence or around the corner. The two men from the Benz had climbed back in, and after watching this unfold in the rearview, had decided to slowly pull away, holding their breath the whole time. As they turned the corner and drove off, free, they began to laugh at the whole crazy incident and lit cigarettes, feeling safe as they put more blocks behind them, and oblivious to Cash, who had smoothly pulled out, following from a distance while Juno tracked them on his iPad.

  When Donna came around the corner, she saw Joe getting arrested. She was breathless from dashing around the block, and didn’t want to blow the stakeout unless she had to, so she paused when she saw the black Impala parked on the sidewalk, the dashboard flasher throwing red over the dim street, and the other suspects scampering back through the fence or into other buildings. Two white plainclothes cops were rousting Joe and pushing him into the car. Serves him right, whatever he was or wasn’t doing. She watched them bounce over the curb and head off the other way. Then, as she turned to go, a black Mercedes that had been parked quietly in the middle of the block suddenly pulled out, turning its lights on as it cruised by. Automatically, she noted the plates as she headed back to the van.

  “You okay?” Josh asked Joe, handing him a bottle of water from the front seat while Liam drove them away. Both men were grinning wide.

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” he answered. “The hardest part was letting those mooks hit me and not breaking their arms.”

  Yelena’s voice came over their earpieces. “You away clean?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Liam said into his mic. “We are circling back to get you now.”

  Joe guzzled water, then peeled off his clothes and put on the clean black T-shirt and jeans he’d stashed in the car.

  “What about this?” Josh asked, holding up the bundle of dope. He showed it to Liam too, who caught the symbol stamped on each bag, an angel with lifted wings. Liam’s eyes flickered darkly.

  “I don’t care,” Joe told him. “Just get rid of it quick. Otherwise Yelena’s liable to do a cavity search.”

  When they stopped for Yelena around the corner, Josh leaned out and tossed the dope in the sewer. No more about it was said. Nor did Joe tell them how, for a second, he’d thought he’d caught a glimpse of FBI Special Agent Donna Zamora, running down the block after them, and then fading into the distance as they sped away from the scene.

  As Donna climbed back into the van, Fusco and Parks both turned from the screen.

  “Anything?” Fusco asked.

  “Maybe so,” Donna said, taking her seat. “An unmarked department car just snatched someone up fleeing the scene. Two plainclothes. Can you call in?”

  “Sure,” Fusco said and got on the radio.

  To Parks, she added. “Let’s check the footage again. See what we got at least.”

  Parks nodded and began to rewind the recording, then cursed under his breath as he hit static.

  “What’s wrong?” Donna asked.

  “I don’t know.” He sped the video back and forth and then with a sigh bent down to examine the equipment. “Goddamn it!” he called out.

  “What?” Donna asked, getting frustrated. “Goddamn what?”

  “This,” Parks said, waving a cable, which he then plugged in. Sheepishly he sat back down. “The cable was loose. Sorry. It was my fault. I forgot to check.”

  “You mean we weren’t recording? For how long?”

  “I don’t know, five minutes.”

  “Really?” Donna asked, thinking, How could anyone be that lucky, when Fusco also spun back on his stool.

  “Nothing,” he said with a shrug.

  “What do you mean? Nothing at all? Total peace declared in Brooklyn?”

  “As close as it gets. Uniforms responding to a domestic. A D&D at a bar. Car thefts. Vandalism. One assault on a bus. But no undercover activity or plainclothes busts anywhere in this sector. At least nothing’s been called in. Sorry.”

  Sorry was the word, all right, Donna thought, her anger cooling and hardening into something more steely.

  Fusco sipped from his Diet Coke and belched, loudly, like a roar. “Let’s check again in the morning. See what came in.” He offered her the bottle.

  “No that’s okay,” Donna told him, calm now. “I have another idea for the morning.”

  23

  “WATCHING YOU GET CHASED around by those kids was feckin’ classic,” Liam called over his shoulder.

  “When you crawled under the car,” Josh added. “They had no idea what to do.”

  As the Impala sped through Brooklyn, Liam and Josh were laughing uproariously, and even Yelena smiled slyly in amusement and relief at how well the trick had worked.

  Joe grinned. “My biggest worry was that Yelena would get impatient and start blowing their heads off.”

  She laughed. “But no, I was very entertained. I can watch you get beat up by children all night.”

  Juno called in, “Looks like they’ve gone to ground,” and sent an address.

  “It’s in Brighton Beach,” Josh said as he drove. “I can pick up some borscht for Rebbe while we’re there.”

  Joe and Yelena exchanged a look in the backseat.

  “Okay guys,” Joe said. “Let’s not break the champagne out yet. That was amateur hour. Next stop we might be dealing with pros.”

  Juno and Cash had tracked the black Benz to Zena II, a Russian nightclub in Brighton Beach, where the two men had valet parked and gone inside. Josh pulled in behind Cash’s car, up the block from the club, so that they could all observe the crowd outside. Shining cars came and went. Couples stood waiting at a velvet rope, men in expensive jeans or suits with women in miniskirts and heels, while a row of double-wide bouncers in black suits stood behind it, like troll
s guarding a castle.

  “You think that’s the main stash?” Liam asked.

  “A lot of extra muscle just for a club. Even a Russian one,” Cash said.

  “I don’t know,” Joe said. “It kind of makes sense. Thugs can come and go all hours without drawing suspicion.”

  “And they can keep close control of the entrance,” Josh added.

  Juno eyed a parade of young women, all hair and curves, who bounced and giggled as the door guy waved them in. He elbowed Cash.

  “Yo Joe, you want me and Cash to check it out?” Joe frowned. Juno continued: “I know last time we got grabbed up, but that was because Cash here had to go ordering appetizers and shit.”

  Cash shoved him. “You the one had to piss so bad. You got snatched up in the bathroom.”

  “No thanks,” Joe said. “That was fun but not tonight. Something’s bugging me.” To Yelena he said, “Let’s take a walk.”

  Arm in arm, like a couple headed out for the night, they crossed the street to where the crowd was most dense. Multiple languages were shouted through a cloud of smoke and perfume. An old, white-haired man in a custom-made suit shook hands with the door guy who nodded at a bouncer big as the door he blocked. The crowd parted as the entourage came through—three girls whose ages just barely added up to his, plus two bodyguards of his own—the door opened, releasing a blast of ice-cold air-conditioning and throbbing bass, then resealed. The bouncers closed ranks like cyborgs in their wrap-around shades.

  Joe muttered, “This could work as a pickup point for re-ups, and for bringing back cash. But where are they bagging the stuff, stepping on it? For an operation this size that must be a team of people. I can’t see it all going down in here.”

  “The basement?” Yelena asked.

  “Maybe.” He considered the building, a cinder-block box painted black. “If this even has a basement. Looks like a converted warehouse on a concrete slab. Plus you’d need ventilation. Someone to watch the workers. And even then you’d still have your whole crew working right under the nose of the legit employees, with a few hundred people, some of them thieves, dancing right above you. Word would get out.” He shook his head as they continued strolling, down the block and around the corner, where the darkness and quiet grew. “It’s not safe. I wouldn’t do it like that.” He turned to her. “What would you do? If you were trying to protect your stash from someone like you?”

  “Very difficult,” she said with a smile. Then she nodded at a gated-up shop. “I’d hide it someplace like that.”

  Joe took the place in as they walked by. Grosskoff Caviar & Sturgeon, the sign read. Although the shop was closed, with a gate pulled over the front, the AC was humming. There were no other windows, but he could see dim light glowing in a skylight. There were security cameras at the building’s corners. It fit. The shop was essentially a giant climate-controlled vault and no nosy passersby would question the security or the air-conditioner and power going night and day. There was a narrow alley behind it, where a small, refrigerated truck with the shop’s logo was parked. Joe called loudly to Yelena in a drunken voice.

  “One minute baby!” He veered into the alley, unzipping his fly, and saw that it also ran behind the club, which had a back door, for loading and unloading. Another hulk in a black suit stood guard, and he shouted as he saw Joe coming.

  “Hey!”

  Joe ignored him, drunkenly leaning against the truck.

  “Hey,” the guard yelled, coming closer. “This ain’t the toilet. Get out of here.”

  “Sorry, sorry, no trouble . . .” Joe mumbled, waving an arm, and swayed back down the alley. As he passed the truck, the guard turned away to open the club door for someone coming out and Joe dropped, lying on the ground behind it. At first he just saw white sneakers. Then jeans. Then he saw the tattooed Russian from the Benz, a black satchel over his shoulder, approaching the rear door of the caviar shop. He unlocked it and went in. Joe crept back to Yelena.

  “Bingo,” he said. “I knew there was a reason I liked you.”

  She laughed. “I can think of a few.” She took his hand as they walked back. “One is that I know how to sneak in and get those fish eggs.”

  Joe laughed as they passed back by the club, another happy couple. “Just like a good alley cat.”

  Yelena stepped back into the alley, in a spot where she knew the streetlight hit her hair and traced her silhouette. She lit a cigarette, pretending to be hiding from the wind. Immediately, the guard by the door took the bait. One thing about big, dumb, rude men: they were predictable.

  “Pssst, pssst,” he hissed, and made a kissing sound.

  She regarded him, blowing smoke.

  “You think you are talking to cat?” she asked, letting her Russian accent thicken.

  He began to saunter over. “I know I am talking to good pussy.”

  She smiled. “Be careful trying to pet. You might get scratched.”

  He came closer, grinning dumbly. “Don’t worry. I can handle this little kitten.” And indeed he was twice her size, maybe three times her total mass. He put a big hand out, as if to stroke her hair. In a flash, her left hand was reaching between his legs, grabbing his balls and twisting as hard as she could. As he gasped, her right came up, wielding the cigarette, which she stubbed out into his ear. He howled in pain, lifting his hands to brush the burning coals away, giving her a clear shot, and she punched him, hard, with an uppercut to the nose, which broke with a crunch under her fist. He grunted, as the blood gushed, and reached for her in blind rage, but by then Joe had stepped from the shadows and knocked him out with the crowbar from the pack he wore on his back. The man dropped, and Joe caught him as he fell.

  “Pig,” Yelena said, and spit on him.

  “A heavy pig,” Joe grunted, handing her the crowbar and trying to balance. “Let’s load him up.”

  With the crowbar, she popped the rear doors of the truck open and Joe dumped the unconscious guard inside. They rolled him in, removed his gun and phone, then bound his hands behind him with his own shoelaces. As they shut the doors, Joe spoke into his mouthpiece.

  “Okay Juno, give us two minutes then knock out the cameras. Liam, get ready.”

  They strolled past the caviar and sturgeon shop to the building next door, a closed spice shop with a couple of apartments above it. This lock was so flimsy, it was beneath Yelena; Joe simply loided it open with a card himself. They moved quietly to the roof access, which was unlocked, then climbed down onto the roof of the caviar shop. Now they could see the skylight, the alley where the truck was parked, and the busier street out front. The cameras, pointed downward, could not pick them up, but they tread softly so as not to be heard inside.

  Meanwhile, Juno and Cash were parked around the corner, and Juno had been hacking into the shop’s Wi-Fi, which was on the same network as Zena II, allowing those inside the club to see the security cameras. When Joe said, “Ready,” Juno hit a button and crashed the network. To anyone watching, it would appear that their internet service had dropped and needed to be rebooted.

  “Cameras out, folks,” Juno said.

  “Think I’ll stretch me legs then,” Liam said over his mic.

  He had been loitering on the corner, with a brown paper grocery bag in his hand. Josh had parked further up the block as lookout, in a spot that gave him a view of the shop and the cross streets. Now Liam sauntered across the street and along the side of the shop, pausing about six feet from the vent to the AC unit, which was humming away. He pulled a sealed plastic bag from the paper bag: it contained a liquid chemical with another, smaller, sealed bag floating inside it. He threw it hard against the vent, bursting both bags and mixing the fluids, which drenched the vent. Then he ran like hell.

  The bag had contained military-grade “Malodor,” heavy doses of chemical compounds that when mixed released a noxious, repellent, and intolerable but essentially harmless gas; in other words a stink bomb so foul that the US and Israeli armies considered them weapons. In this case,
the fumes were sucked into the vent and pumped into the sealed interior of the shop. Inside, four people were busy bagging dope: One mixed the raw heroin with cornstarch and powdered caffeine on a large tray. Another used a small scoop to weigh doses out on a digital scale. Two more packed these little scoopfuls into the small glassine envelopes, taped them shut, and stamped them with the angel logo. Another guy, the only one armed, watched over them: he was guarding the workers from anyone looking to rip them off and guarding the stash from greedy workers. He also had a rather delicate nose and was the first to react when a powerful scent of human feces began to fill the air.

  “Jesus what’s that smell?” he called out to the workers gathered around the table. “Was that you Louie?”

  Louie, who was in his undershirt and surgical gloves, mixing, looked up. “Not me!” He sniffed and made a face of disgust. “Smells like a sewer pipe burst.”

  Sonya, who was bagging, stood up, covering her nose. “It’s coming from the vent. I think a rat died in there.”

  Louie stood too. “Or a bum who’s been eating rats took a shit in our air-conditioner.”

  Ronnie, the other bagger, was gagging. “I can’t stand it. I have to get some air.” She moved toward the back door but the guard waved her back.

  “That door’s locked from outside for security. Come on.” He led them through the inner door, to the front of the shop, which was decorated with displays of caviar tins and vodka bottles. A long refrigeration unit held smoked fish and other treasure, worth slightly less than the heroin in back. Hurrying around the counter, he threw the deadbolt and opened the front door, then unlocked the gate and pushed it open.

  “Hurry!” Sonya yelled. “I have to get out of here.”

  On the roof, Joe and Yelena were waiting. Then they heard Josh laughing over their earpieces. “Here they come,” he said. “They look traumatized.”

  “Thank God none of that shite got on me,” Liam said. He was making his way back around to join Josh in the car.