by Rainer, Marc
“Good. That makes me feel better, I think.”
“You’d want some good Cajun folk with you if you were in the bayous. And a Louisiana cop would want you on his six if he had to look for a perp in Anacostia.”
“I might pay to see that. Detective Boudreaux Goes to Washington.”
Trask laughed again. “Glad to see you’re feeling better.”
There was another knock, and Tim Wisniewski walked in carrying what smelled like some very good barbeque in some sort of flat container. “They try hard, but it’s still hospital food,” he said.
Trask nodded and looked over his shoulder at Carter as he headed for the door. “Shift change, Dix. I’ll stop by again.”
Wisniewski waited until the door closed behind him to pull the folder from under the tray. “Here are the other report copies you asked for, Massa Dixon.”
“When I’m out of here—”
“When you get out, I’m driving. This lump on my head still hurts. Where’s my list of assignments?”
“Right here.” Carter rolled to one side and pulled another folder out from under the sheets.
“Wonderful. You’ve been lying on that,” Wisniewski said. “You don’t have a back on that gown yet, do you?”
“No,” Carter smiled. “And I had cabbage for lunch, too.”
It was a Saturday, and Trask was startled when his phone rang at the Triple-nickle.
“Jeff Trask.”
“I hoped you’d be in your office today, Mister Trask. It’s Mitchell Clark. I represent—”
“Santos. I remember, Mitch.” I have no idea if that’s what your friends call you, but I think I know why you’re on my phone.
“Yes. As you recall, it’s my first case here, and I wanted to see if there was anything my client could do to help himself out of the hole he’s dug.”
“There could be. Let me first ask you, however, if you’ve spoken to him about this yet?”
“No. I wanted to check with you first, to see if it’s even worth the effort to try and persuade him to cooperate in some manner.”
“Good. My answer is yes, he can help himself, and no, you should not talk to him about it.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You couldn’t be expected to on your first case. Let Mr. Santos get used to the idea of spending a significant chunk of the rest of his existence in a federal maximum security facility and hear of the joys of such a life from his current roomies, some of whom have already been to those resorts. Let him come to you with his idea that he wants to help himself. That way you don’t have to try and hard-sell him, and more importantly, if he never has this epiphany, you don’t end up on our victim list.”
“I’m glad I called. Thank you, Mr. Trask.”
“It’s Jeff, Mitch. See you around.”
Chapter Nineteen
Monday, September 11
The dilemma—even after Trask’s application for the installation of a bug in the car wash office had been approved by the Department of Justice—had been how to install the damned thing. Ortega’s Salvatrucha clique always had someone at the place, since the precious marijuana crop in the attic always required tending and guarding. Several straight nights of continual surveillance had failed to identify any periods of time in which an FBI black-bag team could get into the building. Everyone was losing sleep over the problem, both mentally and physically, except for Carter, who remained on periodic injections of “zombie juice” in the hospital. The doctors and Willie Sivella still couldn’t trust him to get any rest at home without the knockout shots.
The break finally came thanks to some creative thinking on the part of Barry Doroz, who had a good contact in the security section of the regional office of AT&T. In discussing some hypotheticals with his phone guy, Doroz learned that the car wash had no phone service. The next morning, wearing an official AT&T sales outfit and equipped with business cards and order forms, Doroz—calling himself “Mike Long”—sold the basic service for a hard-line telephone to Mr. Esteban Ortega, the proprietor of the Qwik Shine Car Wash.
While Ortega was initially a reluctant customer, Mike Long sweetened the deal with a special sign-up offer that included the first sixty days free and a free listing in the yellow pages. Ortega signed the papers, and an installation crew appeared on schedule the next morning to install the desk phone in the car wash office. The Washington field office of the FBI reimbursed AT&T for the sixty days of not-really-free service and—as an extra bonus feature—installed a microphone and transmitter inside the desk set. The mic could pick up any conversation in the room, was powered by the telephone line that serviced the telephone, and sent a signal directly to the digital recording equipment in an electronic surveillance facility: the “wire room” of the Washington field office of the FBI.
The first call received by Esteban Ortega over his new business equipment came from one Timothy Wisnieswski, who told Ortega that he had just moved into the area and was looking for a good place to clean seven hundred miles of road dirt off his prized Dodge Charger. When Ortega hung up the phone, he was pleased that his new listing was driving business to the establishment, providing both some modest income and some cover for the real business being cultivated in the attic. He would not have been pleased to know that by picking up the receiver, he had switched on the concealed mic, which, by order of the United States District Court, was to be allowed to transmit any pertinent conversations in the office for a period not to exceed thirty days. Timothy Wisniewski was pleased to get the dirt, tossed by bucket onto his vehicle by Mike Long, off the Charger, and he opined that the MS-13 clique actually did a respectable job of cleaning cars.
The first week was spent monitoring the normal pattern of conversations in Ortega’s office and provided few surprises. In addition to two prearranged visits from Peewee James, there were sixteen other encounters between Ortega and residents of the nation’s capital who desired something a little stronger than a natural high. The potent marijuana was walking out the back door at the rate of more than two hundred pounds per week, generating a weekly gross income for the Maras of $1,400,000 at $7,000 per pound.
The squad monitored the mic twenty-four hours a day, rotating in eight-hour shifts. Ortega did most of his business in English, since most of his customers (both for marijuana and car washes) were American by birth. The conversations usually shifted to Spanish in the after-hours chats in the office, so Wisniewski and another Spanish-speaking agent were assigned the four-to-midnight shifts to provide real-time translations. Trask monitored the calls and the shift summaries as they came in, returning every day to his office computer to prepare the required status reports for the court, and for one very interested Ross Eastman.
The first “tickle” orchestrated by Doroz was an ATF arson team. As expected, when the two agents pressed Ortega for any information about the fire at the deli, they came away with nothing but denials and assurances by Ortega that the deli had been a profitable business, one he never would have thrown away had it not been for his enemies torching the place. The agents’ conversations over the bug were duly recorded as several knowing nods and eye-rolls were seen around the wire room. It was the follow-on session between Ortega and his lieutenants that they wanted to hear.
They weren’t disappointed. Within minutes after the ATF agents’ departure, Ortega and two others were laughing it up in the car wash office. Wisniewski had the office on speaker for a moment, then switched the speaker off to concentrate on the conversation through his headphones.
“What a couple of morons…That’s Ortega speaking,” Wisniewski translated, doing his best to provide a real-time interpretation. “I told them we were turning a profit and had no reason to burn the joint down. I told them I had enemies in the Eighteenth Street gang. Real criminals. I’m an honest businessman, I said, and I just couldn’t take that neighborhood any longer. They just nodded and apologized for disturbing me.
“Yes, it was the Eighteenth-street girlies, Esteban.” Wisniewsk
i explained there was a second voice, unknown speaker. The three Mara troops in the office were laughing their asses off.
“Yeah…This is Ortega again…Me and a gallon of gas from my own pumps. Best torch job the Eighteenth-Street idiots ever did. Those stupid bastards would have probably just tossed the gas on the concrete wall and scorched it a little while they ran off like little girls.”
Wisniewski looked at Trask and grinned.
“There it is,” Trask said, smiling and nodding in acknowledgement toward Doroz. “Nice work and two counts on the indictment even if we get zilch from now on. Arson and insurance fraud. If your other tickles work as well, we’ll be adding some dope deals and a few homicide counts. What’s next on the agenda, Bear?”
“Run Peewee back in at the end of the week for some more dope conversation, I guess. Build the drug conspiracy evidence pile a little higher. We might be able to ID some more weed customers we can spin later for additional testimony. We’ll save any interrogation on the murders for next week. Let ’em get real comfortable about their little sessions in the office.”
Trask nodded. He allowed himself to lean back in his chair and took a couple of deep breaths. He finally had some real progress to report to Eastman, who would then report it to the Department bigwigs, who would then stay out of their hair a little longer. He watched Wisniewski making notes on the shift report.
“Ortega’s leaving for the day,” Wisniewski said, still listening on the headphones. “He’s leaving someone named Mario in charge.”
“I’m leaving for the day, too,” Trask said. “This office at least. I’m looking forward to giving Eastman and Patrick some good news for a change.”
“I’m heading out, too.” Doroz was piling some papers into his briefcase. “Tim, you get to match wits with Mario for a few hours.”
“I’ll give it my best shot.”
Trask took the elevator up to the squad room. Lynn was looking at the murder file on the M-18 victim. She looked up and smiled when he came in.
“How’s it going down there?” she asked.
“Pretty well. Some good conversation about the arson at the deli. I was just heading across the street to brief the bosses. Anything jumping out at you on that homicide?”
“Nothing other than a couple of loose ends to tie up; I’ll work on it. What time are we heading home?”
“Fivish, barring some emergency.”
“Great. We need to walk the dogs, and there’ll still be some daylight.”
“See you at five.”
He didn’t have to pick up Patrick. The Criminal Division chief ’s office was empty, and when Trask looked at Patrick’s secretary, she nodded in the direction of Eastman’s office. They waved him in when he appeared in the doorway.
“How’s the bug?” Eastman asked.
Trask recounted the translations Wisniewski had made of the conversation between Ortega and his underlings in the car wash office.
“Excellent.” Eastman was nodding. “This ought to keep the buzzards from circling for a while. I was starting to look for them out my window. I’m due to go over and give the AG a status report today.” He stopped nodding and looked at Trask. “Any talk about the ambassador’s son yet?”
“Not yet. We haven’t thrown anything at them to prompt that discussion.”
“You might move that up on the timetable, Jeff. I anticipate I’ll be asked that question when I make my status report. When do you think you can work that in?”
“Next week, probably. We didn’t want to spook the bad guys by throwing every tickle at them at once.”
“That should be soon enough. Nice work.”
“Thanks. I’ve got some more reports to write for the judge.”
“Of course, thank you for the update.”
Trask headed back to his office, getting an approving wink from Bill Patrick as he left.
An hour at his computer left him feeling even more like a cop. For every half an hour of the “fun side” of an investigation (the successful field work), he had to spend double the time writing about it. In this instance, it was the ten-day report required by statute for the bug. The pertinent conversations had to be summarized and presented to the judge who had signed the Title III authorization for the hidden microphone, the Honorable Waymon Dean.
Drawing Judge Dean had been a pleasant surprise. Trask liked the man, and felt that the judge had some positive regard for him as well. Judge Dean was one of the old breed. There were certain attorneys he trusted, and his review of pleadings submitted by those favored few could be very cursory. Trask wondered if the judge would even read the report he was typing.
Probably not. He’ll just ask me for a quick verbal summary and sign these thirty pages after I talk for two minutes. It’s worth doing, anyway. His signature will say he approves the report, and that’s what the law requires. It’ll make it easier for me down the road in the case, having these summaries in the can. Electronic cut-and-paste, the new practice of law.
The phone jarred his concentration away from the computer on his desk.
“Did you wear your watch today, hotshot?” Lynn asked.
“Yeah…oops!” Trask saw it was already 5:20.
“I was beginning to think you’d left me.”
“Sorry, got buried in a ten-day. I’ll see you in five minutes.”
“I’ll meet you in your garage.”
One of the few benefits of being an AUSA who’d been attacked in his home was the temporary underground parking spot that Trask had been assigned in the office’s guarded garage. Spaces there were usually a perk reserved for upper management.
Lynn was waiting beside him at the Jeep.
“How’d you beat me down here?” Trask asked.
She kissed him as he held the door open for her. “I called you from here after I took the elevator down,” she said. “I figured you just had that brain of yours immersed in some concentration pool.”
“Sorry.”
“Just take me home, handsome.”
He started the car and switched on the radio as they pulled into traffic. A classic rock station was the selection du jour.
“Nothing funkier today?” she asked. Lynn’s preferences were for heavier beats that gave her happy feet.
“I prefer music with a melody,” he said. “Not just bad poetry shouted out by somebody who wouldn’t recognize a key signature, backed by a scratcher who can’t play anything more than a turntable.”
“I suppose it’ll do then.”
The radio began to blare disco, the high falsettos of “Stayin’ Alive.”
Trask wasn’t talking as he drove. He made the turn southeast on the Indian Head Highway.
“What are you thinking about, Jeff?” Lynn asked.
“I was thinking that at least one of the Bee Gees’ parents must have been a sheep, and that disco is the direct and proximate cause of gangsta rap. Somebody had to bitch about this stuff.” He pushed the seek button on the tuner. Led Zeppelin’s “Ramble On” filled the car.
Much better. Long John Bonham kickin’ syncopated accents on the bass drum. Tolkien’s Ring set to some great rock music. These guys put the Beatles to shame. They just didn’t have the same marketing department.
They pulled into the driveway, and Trask walked to the mailbox while Lynn went to get the dogs and their leashes. He was inside the front door and tossing the mail onto a table as she brought them in from the backyard.
“Anything of interest?” she asked.
“Just bills and what looks like an invitation to the next Air Force Academy reunion in Colorado Springs next month.”
“Wanna go?”
“We’ll have to see what this case looks like a little closer to the date.”
“Some folks you want to see again?”
“Several I’d like to see, sure, even if a couple of ’em are raving liberals.”
“Liberals at a service academy?”
“An equal-opportunity institution. I even liked ’em.”
“I never would have guessed that.”
“You go through enough stress with somebody and you respect how they react to it, even if you’re on the other side of a political aisle. Let’s load the pups.”
The White Plains dog park, just south of the Saint Charles subdivision in Waldorf, Maryland, was open seven days a week, 8:00 a.m. until dusk. With the summer season and daylight savings time, that usually meant about 8:30 p.m. Big as their backyard was, Boo could still lope from one side to the other is about six long strides, and the park’s six acres gave her room to run. The Trask family had tried to make trips to the park a part of their regular routine, whenever their routine was at all regular.
Boo and Nikki jumped into the backseat of the jeep on a sling-style blanket that connected to the headrests of the front and rear seats. Five minutes later, the Jeep pulled into the parking lot of the dog park. Trask opened the rear door and endured the usual tow to the gate, straining to hold the big dog back. Once inside, he removed the leashes and watched in awe as both dogs raced happily toward the center of the park.
“Why aren’t you running with them?” Lynn poked him in the side.
“You mean chasing them. No way that I could keep up with Boo at full throttle.”
“You always told me you were pretty quick.”
“Not that quick. Not even twenty pounds and ten years ago.”
Both dogs came running back to them, the initial sprint having momentarily satisfied their need for speed. Trask and Lynn started walking counter-clockwise on the paved path that ran around the edges of the park. Nikki trotted along just in front of them, her tail curved over her back. Boo performed her usual scouting duties, running ahead fifty yards, then running back toward them, letting them know she had cleared the way of any threats and that the trail was safe ahead.
They were a quarter of the way into their first lap when Trask noticed a figure approaching them on the path about a hundred yards away. A tall man, dressed in dark slacks and a black windbreaker, was walking a leashed dog that was every bit as large as Boo. As the distance between them closed, Trask felt the hair on the back of his neck start to bristle. The man was wearing an eye patch.
