The Grey Zone

by Easton, Don

  As Barry waited outside the mall, he casually scanned the sky. He knew that Hawkins was watching from a plane circling above and was relieved that the dot he eventually spotted was far enough away not to be noticed on a casual glance. He was also well aware that the surveillance teams on the ground would be staying at least five blocks away. The Chung calamity, as it had become known, was not to be repeated.

  Barry smiled when Leo drove up and talked to him from the driver’s window.

  “You got the thirty Gs?” Leo asked.

  Barry jingled his car keys. “The money’s in the trunk of a car, like we agreed. Once I see the coke, I’ll give you the keys and tell you where it’s parked.”

  Leo stepped out of the car. “What makes ya think we won’t rip ya then?”

  “Guess you could, but I figure there’s a lot less chance of it if I see the dope. Not to mention, aren’t you supposed to be driving me to where Llanzo and Tarone live? In my experience, people don’t rip you off when you know where they live. At least, not if they know what’s good for them.”

  Leo chuckled. “Okay, pull up your T-shirt so I can see, then turn around. Gotta check ya for wire and also make sure you’re not packin’.”

  Damn. I was hoping Derek would show up to do that with a little more sophistication.

  Five minutes later, Leo buzzed up to Llanzo and Tarone’s apartment. Barry watched Leo push an elevator button. Eighteenth floor.

  Loud music gave Barry an indication of which apartment they were going to. He wasn’t wrong. Wearing his black do-rag, Tarone answered Leo’s knock and motioned for them to enter.

  Barry scanned the apartment. Facing him was the living room, where Llanzo sat on a sofa sucking on a crack pipe. Off to the right were two bedrooms divided by a bathroom. On his left was a closet and an adjoining wall that ran down the length of the living room to an entrance leading to the kitchen.

  The carpet in the living room was covered in an array of grease and footprints of dried mud. Across from the sofa was a balding upholstered chair. The coffee table was cluttered with empty beer bottles and an overflowing ashtray. A large flat-screen television and stereo system looked new.

  “You all set to do this?” Tarone asked, reaching for the crack pipe that Llanzo held out to him.

  “Hell, yeah,” Barry replied. “Maybe after this we won’t have to play these games again. I hope you understand that I didn’t exactly want to go with some guy the size of Leo with thirty grand in my pocket.”

  Llanzo glanced toward Leo, who was entering the bathroom, and smiled. “Don’t blame ya for that, brother,” he replied. “I’ll make a call and it should be here soon.”

  Tarone took a suck on the pipe, then offered it to Barry.

  “Not when I’m doin’ business.”

  “Yeah? Whatever,” Tarone replied.

  “Wanna beer instead?” Llanzo asked, standing up.

  “Yeah, I’ll go for that,” Barry replied. He followed Llanzo around the corner into the kitchen, which held a small table and two stainless steel chairs. The table and countertop were cluttered with dirty dishes. A glass door that opened onto a balcony between the kitchen and the living room was stained with a generous splash of what looked like dried cola.

  Llanzo took a bottle of Budweiser from the fridge and handed it to him, then took out his phone.

  Barry knew he wouldn’t be able to hear the phone conversation from the living room due to the loud music, but to stand in the kitchen and listen would draw suspicion. Instead, he pretended to admire the view, sliding open the patio door and stepping outside.

  “Yo, man. It’s me,” he heard Llanzo say. “We’re ready to go. Where ya at?” Llanzo paused. “Good. See ya.”

  Out on the balcony, Barry looked into the sky. Wonder if Hawkins can see me? Probably not, since there are balconies directly above. He looked down and automatically tightened his grip on the railing. Christ, I hate heights.

  “Yo, Bar. Ten minutes tops,” Llanzo said. “May as well come in and be comfortable.”

  Barry took a seat on the upholstered chair while Llanzo sat next to Tarone on the sofa. Leo exited the bathroom a moment later and opted to grab a kitchen chair and bring it into the living room.

  Conversation for the next ten minutes was light, then finally, someone buzzed and Llanzo answered the intercom.

  Barry tried to act nonchalant when he saw the man who entered. Perfect. Hello, Peter Powers!

  Peter had a backpack slung over one shoulder. He gave Leo a friendly smile when he walked in, then his gaze took in Barry and he stopped short, enraged. “Llanz!” he ordered, nodding toward one of the bedrooms.

  Barry tried to listen, but Llanzo had closed the bedroom door behind them. All he could hear was Peter saying, “Who the fuck is that!” Llanzo’s murmured reply, then Peter again: “You didn’t fuckin’ tell me he’d be here!”

  A moment later they came out. Barry raised his eyebrow at Llanzo.

  “It’s okay, it’s okay,” Llanzo said. “My friend doesn’t like meeting new people. He needs to make a call, but everything’s okay.”

  Barry shrugged.

  Peter took a phone from his pocket, eyed Barry suspiciously, then turned the music up louder.

  Don’t want me to hear?

  Peter glared at him, then spun on his heel, returned to the bedroom, and closed the door.

  Barry looked at Llanzo. “You sure everything’s okay?”

  “Yeah, I guess I wasn’t supposed to bring you here. But it’ll be okay. I told him you were solid.”

  The next few minutes ticked past slowly. Barry decided to tell a joke, hoping to ease the tension. He was partway through it when Peter opened the bedroom door again and motioned for Llanzo to join him. A moment later, Peter walked out, glanced at Tarone, and said, “I gotta go. Llanz wants to talk to you.”

  Barry watched Tarone go into to the bedroom while Peter left. Shit, now what? It was obvious that Peter didn’t want to be there when the deal went down. Hopefully he’ll trust me once it goes through okay.

  Barry tried to appear friendly when Tarone reappeared, followed by Llanzo. But his optimism vanished when Tarone stepped aside and Llanzo pointed a pistol at his face.

  “What the fuck?” Barry exclaimed. “Is this a rip?”

  Llanzo’s lips curled in rage. “Hello, Constable Barry Short.”

  Oh, fuck.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Barry saw the green numbers on the clock on the stove from where he sat on the kitchen chair. He’d taken some comfort when Llanzo told him they were going to gag and tie him up, then take off.

  Two-thirty. I arrived at two … what time will it be before the cover team figures out something’s gone wrong? Five, six, seven? Dope deals never go on time. They may think I’m sitting in here, sucking on a beer and waiting.

  “Use his sock and T-shirt to gag ’im,” Llanzo ordered.

  Barry removed his T-shirt and placed it on his lap. Llanzo moved in behind him, and he felt the muzzle of the pistol at the base of his skull. Tarone and Leo then used the power cord from an electric skillet to tie his wrists together behind his back and secure them to the chair. Electrical cords, still attached to a toaster and a kettle, were used to bind his feet to each of the front legs of the chair.

  Tarone yanked off Barry’s shoe, then his sock. “Open up nice and wide, piggy. That’s it.”

  Seconds later, Barry sat with his sock crammed in his mouth, his T-shirt rolled up and tied around his jaw to hold it in place. Tarone turned his back to him, and he heard the sound of utensils being moved around in a kitchen drawer.

  Oh, God, no. Please don’t …

  Tarone turned back, grinning, and Barry writhed in pain as Tarone cut him with a paring knife, slowly drawing it down from the top of his shoulder, across his nipple, to his stomach, before ending with a sharp twist of the point inside his navel.

  “How ya like that, piggy?” Tarone asked, holding the knife in his bloody fist close to Barry’s face
.

  “That’s enough,” Leo said. “We’re in enough shit. Come on, we better split.”

  “No fuckin’ way Tarone an’ I are goin’ back inside,” Llanzo said. “You can fuck off if ya want. But you’ll be missin’ out on a whole lotta fun.”

  “Yo, bro, it’s school time,” Tarone added. “Piggy is gonna get taught.”

  Leo glanced toward the living room, then back at Barry. His face said he wasn’t happy about it, but he didn’t leave.

  “Yo, bro, let me show ya how it should be done,” Llanzo said, shoving the gun in his waistband as he went to the kitchen drawer. “First of all, you did it too fast. Second of all, a fuckin’ steak knife is better, ’cause it’s serrated.”

  Barry knew his muffled cries brought on more slashes and more amusement on Llanzo and Tarone’s faces, but it wasn’t something he could control. On the fifth jagged cut, this time across his belly, the numbers on the stove read 2:47. Then he blinked, and the numbers read 3:05. The men had disappeared. He heard their voices from the living room.

  I passed out.

  The front of his jeans was sodden with blood and he felt his bare foot slip in a bloody puddle on the linoleum floor.

  Llanzo’s voice came from the living room. “We need to get rid of ’im. If we’re grabbed we can say, yo, man, he was here but then he left.”

  Barry struggled with his wrists, trying to slide them up and down in a desperate attempt to free himself. I can feel the cord in my fingertips. Work it … loosen the knot.

  “Figure he’s got the thirty large?” Tarone asked.

  “Fuck, if he does, you can bet the cops are watching his car,” Leo stated. “I’d stay away from it.”

  “What we should do is gut ’im out in the tub,” Llanzo said.

  A moment of silence was broken by the sound of someone sucking on the crack pipe, then Tarone said, “That’d be good. Maybe one of us go out and get a hacksaw and some fuckin’ garbage bags. Once he bleeds out we could cut ’im up and suitcase him outta here.”

  “You’re readin’ my mind,” Llanzo said. “Also get a bottle of bleach to pour down the drain later. Maybe on the kitchen floor, too.”

  “You guys are fuckin’ crazy,” Leo said. “I ain’t hangin’ around to watch that shit.”

  Llanzo blurted out a laugh. “What, no stomach for it?”

  “Yeah, don’t ya wanna see what piggy had for lunch?” Tarone asked.

  The door slammed, then Llanzo and Tarone laughed.

  Leo’s gone.

  “That fucker givin’ us the finger,” Tarone said. “Next time we see ’im I’m gonna tell ’im what a pussy he is.”

  My hands are almost … yes, they’re free!

  “Let’s go do it,” Tarone said. “We can gut ’im and leave ’im to bleed out while we go get what we need.”

  Barry clenched his teeth in pain as he bent forward to fumble with the cords around his ankles.

  “Yeah, yeah. Give me a sec,” Llanzo said.

  Barry heard the pipe crackling again as he slowly rose to his feet. His arms and legs were trembling from a combination of shock, fear, and blood loss. He knew he’d never be able to run past them in the living room and escape out the door alive. He looked at the balcony.

  “We’ll leave the hot water runnin’ in the tub to help wash things down,” Llanzo said, followed by the sound of the crack pipe being placed on the coffee table.

  Barry slid open the balcony door and rushed out. He heard Tarone scream at Llanzo to grab him, but didn’t look back as he swung himself over the railing, clinging to the wrought-iron balusters with his bloody fists and sliding down to the bottom rail. Briefly, he felt his body swing freely in the air, then Llanzo’s face appeared above him and his fingers slipped from their hold.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Corporal Bradley was parked a kilometre away from Llanzo and Tarone’s apartment when Hawkins phoned.

  “I see two uniform cars with lights on heading toward the apartment,” Hawkins reported over the drone of the airplane. “You hear anything?”

  “My window’s down,” Bradley replied. “I can hear the sirens now, but I didn’t hear anything leading up to it.” Nothing like a gunshot.

  “Call Telecoms and find out what the hell is going on.”

  Bradley’s call to a woman in their Telecommunications office was short.

  “Yes, we received a 911 call,” the dispatcher said. “A woman reported a half-naked man covered in blood landing on her balcony. She’s on the seventeenth floor, so —”

  “Oh, fuck!” Bradley shouted as his adrenalin kicked into high gear.

  “Listen, that sort of language isn’t —”

  Bradley disconnected to make a conference call while the tires of his surveillance car howled into action.

  * * *

  Alicia spent a good portion of the day on surveillance with Jack and Laura, following Satans Wrath member Buck Zabat around. Jack had said that although he didn’t expect Buck to be up to anything conspicuously illegal, he still wanted to see how Buck put in his day.

  Jack was right. Buck wasn’t up to anything illegal. In fact, he didn’t appear to be up to anything at all besides driving over to the Satan’s Girls Entertainment Agency and returning to his apartment with a young woman.

  “It’s time to call it a day,” Jack said when they met together in a mini-mall parking lot. “Tomorrow we’ll pick another target.”

  “Maybe go back to Linquist and see what he’s up to,” Laura suggested.

  Alicia’s phone vibrated. It was Bradley. What he told her made her swallow hard to keep from being sick. When she ended the call, she saw Jack and Laura staring at her.

  Jack’s voice was sombre. “What happened?”

  Her voice shook as she relayed what she’d been told. “Barry’s condition is apparently not life-threatening. They say he’ll require hundreds of stitches and I don’t know how many blood transfusions, but he’ll live.”

  “Llanzo Brown, Tarone Smith, and Leo Ratcliffe?” Jack asked tersely.

  “In custody. They’re not going after Peter because they don’t want him to know that they know who he is. Solving the kidnapping case takes precedence over finding out how Peter found out about Barry.”

  Jack and Laura looked at each other for a moment.

  “Maybe we should go to the hospital,” Alicia suggested.

  “No,” Jack replied firmly. “We’re undercover operatives. If the media gets wind of it, they’ll be there filming. You stay clear. Got that?”

  “Yes … I understand.”

  “Oh, man. I can’t go home right now,” Laura said, looking at Jack.

  “Likewise,” Jack replied.

  “What are you going to do?” Alicia asked. “MCU is handling it.”

  “We’re going for a drink,” Jack stated.

  “You feel like drinking?” At a time like this?

  “We’re both married,” Laura explained. “We need to unload. Some … emotional baggage, especially concerning another HQ number, is best left outside the home. Our spouses suffer enough as it is.”

  “Are you coming?” Jack asked.

  “Uh, do you want me to? I don’t mind if —”

  “Yes, we want you to.” His voice softened. “You’re an operator, too. We’re like family. You’ll feel that way, too, once you get some experience. What happened to Barry is personal. Personal to all of us.”

  * * *

  At 9:00 a.m. the following morning, Assistant Commissioner Lexton gestured for Inspector Crimmins and Sergeant Hawkins to take a seat across from her desk.

  “What is Constable Short’s condition?” she asked brusquely.

  “He’s been given something to ease the pain and help him sleep,” Hawkins replied, “but before that I was able to meet with him about three hours ago and get a statement.”

  At least he’s alive. She looked at Crimmins. “Anything of particular interest that you didn’t already know when you called me yesterday?”
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  “Nothing of significance.”

  “How’s his wife doing?”

  “Karen’s understandably distraught, but managing to hold herself together,” Hawkins replied. “She was with him until midnight, then came back again this morning while I was taking the statement. They have a four-yearold boy. I understand the neighbours are babysitting him.”

  “Okay, I’d like to hear what happened yesterday in detail. Start from the beginning.”

  Crimmins did most of the talking, turning to Hawkins once in a while for clarification. When they finished, Lexton focused her attention on Hawkins.

  “Let me get this straight,” she said. “You were — what? Two kilometres up in the air and the closest members on the cover team were a kilometre away when Constable Short was attacked?”

  Hawkins removed his hands from the arms of the chair and clasped them over his groin, perhaps subconsciously.

  Come on, Sergeant. I’m not going to castrate you.

  “Yes, uh, that’s uh, you see —”

  “Two years ago our office worked on people associated to this group who’d kidnapped an eight-year-old boy,” Crimmins stated. “At that time we conducted a similar surveillance with the cover team. Despite our precautions, we were spotted, and as a result, the child’s fingers were chopped off. This time our members were slightly farther away. Bearing in mind what happened last time, I believe the action taken yesterday by Sergeant Hawkins was prudent.”

  Nice to see you back your men. “I’m familiar with the Tommy Chung kidnapping and the mutilation he suffered. You may’ve forgotten that I gave final approval for the expenditure to purchase a kilo of cocaine for this investigation.”

  “Yes, of course … sorry,” Crimmins replied.

  Lexton refocused on Hawkins. “I’m not blaming you for what happened. I was simply trying to get a clear picture of events as they unfolded. Where do we stand on the investigation? Didn’t you have wiretap on their phones?”

  “We’ve had wire on Derek Powers’s office phones for almost a week, but there haven’t been any calls of interest, and no calls from Peter,” Hawkins answered. “We’re presuming that they’re using disposable phones, and we don’t know their numbers. Furthermore, if they do have cellphones, they’ll likely be encrypted.”