by Blake Banner
“Okay…”
“As the crow flies, it is one thousand five hundred, maybe two thousand miles by road to the Mexican border. It’s going to take him four days at least to get there. How long do you think he lasted before he got drunk? Now, like I said, it’s a long shot, but it has to be at least a fifty-fifty chance that if we run his prints, which are on file, through IAFIS, we might get a hit somewhere.”
She pulled a face. “Like you say. It’s a long shot. It makes a lot of assumptions: he got drunk, he got into a brawl, he got arrested, they uploaded his prints but didn’t look for a match.” She nodded. “It’s a long shot, but what have we got to lose? It’s feasible. I can see it happening.”
I woke up at six thirty with a headache. I was not in bed. I was on the sofa. There was half a bottle of bourbon on the coffee table and an empty packet of Camel cigarettes. I vaguely remembered buying both on the way home, after dropping Dehan at her place. We had not got drunk. I had. Alone. At home.
My cell rang while I was in the shower. I got out, got some aspirin from the cabinet, took two, and called back.
“Detective Stone?”
I recognized the voice. It was José.
“Yeah, what’s up?”
“I gotta make this quick. Carlitos has a deal going down tonight, ’bout two o’clock. Down by the Fulton Fish Market, by the river. You go down past the household waste drop-off site, and there’s some wasteland down there, by the water. That’s where he does his business. He’s takin’ delivery of twenty kilos of coke. You take him down, you can make him tell you where my sister is, right?”
I felt sick, and it wasn’t the hangover. I said, “Okay, José, that’s good. You did good. This is very helpful. But now I want you to stay out of this, you hear me? I do not want you or your mom to get involved. When we get Maria back, I want you both safe and sound for her. You understand me?”
“Yeah, okay. But that’s good, right? You can use that to make him talk?”
“You bet. Now stay safe.”
He hung up.
I called Dehan. She answered with a pillow voice.
“What?” It sounded reproachful.
“You up?”
“No! Go away. What time is it?”
“Seven. Get up. I’ll be there in twenty. We have Carlitos.”
I heard a grunt. “Good. Okay. I’m up.”
She was in the doorway when I arrived, and crossed the road carefully to get in the car. She glanced at me as she closed the door. She looked hungover. She said, “You look awful. How do we have Carlitos?”
I told her about José’s call and then explained as I drove.
“We take them down tonight. We separate them. Don’t let them talk to each other. We keep it about the drugs bust. Make each one thinks the other is ratting him out. At the right time, when they’re getting tired and stressed, we hit them with the murder of Nelson and his compadres. They think they’re facing drugs charges. When they suddenly see themselves facing murder one, times five, somebody’s going to crack and start talking.”
She sighed and managed a smile. “Maybe… maybe a break at last.”
I needed the captain to authorize the raid and the backup, but when we got there she hadn’t arrived yet. So I went to my computer to check if we’d got a hit from IAFIS. We had.
I stared at the screen and sat slowly in my chair.
A minute later, Dehan came in and placed a cup of coffee in front of me. She saw my face and asked, “We got a hit?”
I nodded. “Texas. Drunk and disorderly. Town called Shamrock in Wheeler County. He couldn’t resist it, could he?”
She sat. “We have to play this very carefully.”
I nodded again.
“At least we now know that Mick was not killed at his house. We can assume Maria wasn’t either. Did she go with him to Texas?” I sat back and thought for a while. “We don’t touch this for now. First we see what Carlitos and his pals give us in the interrogation. Then we decide what we say to the captain about Shamrock.”
She agreed.
The captain came in at nine. We gave her a minute and then went up after her. She looked surprised to see us, glancing from one to the other.
“What can I do for you, Detectives?”
She didn’t invite us to sit down. I said, “We have a tip-off about a drugs deal tonight. Twenty kilos of coke. That’s a street value of four hundred K. We need authorization to…”
She didn’t let me finish.
“I’m sorry, John, back up there a minute, would you? I thought I had made it clear that you were working the cold cases.”
I heard Dehan sniff and sensed her staring down at her boots. I said, “Yes, Captain, this is a cold case. The deal relates directly to our investigation.”
“You want to explain that to me, John?”
I smiled. She didn’t. Dehan bit her lip and stared at the wall. I said, “We’re investigating the Nelson Hernandez murder. It’s a ten-year-old case.”
“Nelson Hernandez…? I thought that case had been closed.”
I frowned. “No. It couldn’t be closed. It was unresolved.”
“I thought Sam had attributed it…”
“It’s still open, Captain. But we are pretty sure that the guy who is doing the deal tonight was responsible for the murder.”
She looked at me sharply, and her answer was a little too quick. “Really?”
“Yeah. If we bust them tonight and play the interrogation right, we can probably get a conviction on the Nelson case. If we don’t get a confession, maybe we can get them to rat each other out.”
She was quiet a moment, thinking. Dehan couldn’t stop herself. “Is there any reason, Captain, why we can’t make the bust? It’s twenty K of cocaine, and it could secure a conviction on five unresolved homicides. Am I missing something?”
I saw the captain’s jaw clench. She narrowed her eyes and turned to me. “You have your authorization, John, and your backup. Get your partner out of my office before I change my mind.”
I turned and shoved Dehan toward the door. “Come on, get out of here.” She stepped out and I went to follow.
“John?” I stopped and looked back. “How wide is your investigation?”
I held her eye. I made no secret that I knew she knew. “Not that wide, Jennifer. We’ve eliminated the Triads and the Jersey Mob. So it’s got to be the Sureños, right? Who else is there?”
She nodded. “Right.”
“I hope to close the case with Carlitos in the next forty-eight hours.” She kind of smiled and stared at her desk. “Is there anything I need to know?”
She shook her head. “No. Good work.”
I left and closed the door.
Outside, Dehan was leaning against the wall looking sour. She gave me a glance that challenged me to say something. “Your mouth has two positions, Carmen. Two. Open and closed.”
She fell into step beside me as we went down the stairs.
“Give me a break! Twenty K of coke and possible closure on five unsolved homicides—and she’s going to think about it? Like there’s a fucking downside?”
“Confucius say, if ritoo glasshopper, no keep big fucking mouth shut, Sensei Stone smack lound head.”
“Pff! I’d like to see you try.”
“Do or do not, there is no try.”
And so saying, I smacked her around the head.
Fourteen
It was dark. We were on Food Center Drive in Hunts Point, and the streetlights cast a listless amber light over the warehouses and the bare concrete of the road. There was no moon and there were no stars, only a low ceiling of dirty-orange cloud. And silence, the dead silence of the urban desert—the silence of concrete and blacktop. Far off, a ship moaned out of the darkness from another world.
We had four unmarked cars. Two were in the fish market. Two more were parked on Food Center Drive, ready to block each exit. And there was also a patrol boat standing off on the river, keeping out of sight. I’d left my c
ar at the precinct, and we’d used Dehan’s Focus. We had a total of eight officers plus me and Carmen, and the guys on the river.
Dehan took the radio.
“Unit one in position. Unit two copy, please.”
“Copy. Unit two in position.”
She checked on the other three. Everyone was in position. The patrol boat checked too. “All units, radio silence until I give the go.”
It was one thirty. We sat without talking for twenty minutes, and then we saw the headlamps in the rearview mirror. The car cruised past slowly. It was a black BMW 6 Series Gran Coupe with tinted windows. The kind of vehicle you’d use if you wanted to let everybody know you were a real bad boy dealing coke. We could just hear the throb of their sound system.
It slowed at the end of the road, and instead of continuing up the west side of the drive, it pulled into Farragut Street, where the fish market was, and disappeared from view. We waited another ten minutes, and a second set of headlamps flooded the car from behind. It was another BMW. This one was a Z4 with the hard top up. It was dark blue and also throbbing. At the end of the drive, like the other, it turned into Farragut and vanished into the shadows, down by the river. I took the radio while Dehan fired up the engine.
“Units three and four close in. No lights till I say.”
The cars on Food Center Drive began to move down toward Farragut, slow and quiet. By the river, Carlitos wouldn’t see or hear a thing till it was too late. When we were fifty yards away, I said, “Go. All units close in. Go! Go! Go!”
Suddenly the place was alive with lights and squealing rubber. Dehan hit the gas and we entered Farragut doing fifty and our headlamps on full beam, with two units just behind us. Beyond the fish market barrier, two cars came screaming up to cut off any escape through the parking lot. We could see the two BMWs parked side by side. Carlitos was staring at us, shading his eyes. Next to him was Chema, his right-hand man and enforcer. There were two other guys, also shielding their eyes from the glare.
The vehicles had their trunks open, and Carlitos was holding a large package. Chema had another. We screeched to a halt and threw the doors open. I had my weapon in my hands, and I got out taking aim over the door. I bellowed, “Freeze! You are under arrest! Do not move!” Within seconds they were surrounded and had ten officers training their guns on them, and a moment later they were floodlit from the river.
It was textbook. I shouted, “Take out your weapons and lay them on the ground!”
They were staring at us, with their hands in the air. Carlitos was the first to move. Cautiously he pulled what looked like a Desert Eagle from his waistband, behind his back. He held it up for us to see. Chema did the same. It looked like a Colt .45. Then things started to go wrong. I could see from their faces that the other two were not happy. There was an older guy, maybe in his forties, with a moustache and an Italian suit. His younger companion was also going for the Armani bad-boy look. They both reached in their jackets. I said to Dehan, “They’re going to try it. Carlitos must not die.”
I was right. Suddenly they were taking aim at the headlamps, and there was the crack of gunfire. Carlitos and Chema were looking this way and that, unsure what to do. And I was running, screaming, “Nooo!” Dehan was right behind me, shouting, “You take Carlitos!”
As I ran, I saw everything in slow motion. I saw Carlitos point his Desert Eagle straight at my chest. I saw Chema mouth something and turn his weapon toward Dehan. In my peripheral vision, I saw the back of the moustache man’s head explode in a shower of gore. I saw his pal kind of whiplash as he was hit by a volley of bullets. I saw Carlitos’s face contract with hatred, and I saw his finger tense. At the same time, I saw Chema’s grip tighten on his Colt, and I could see it was leveled at Dehan’s heart. I guess my stupidity saved all four of our lives.
I leapt at Chema, cutting across Dehan’s path. I seized the barrel of the Colt and levered down savagely. The gun went off, but the bullet struck the blacktop. Next thing my instep connected with his crotch and his eyes bulged with pain. I’d done enough, but a moment of uncontrolled rage made me put a savage right cross through his jaw. He did a wobbly dance and sank to the ground.
Dehan seemed to have read my mind. As I crossed her path and took Chema down, she had dodged behind me and exploded into a scissor kick that sent Carlitos’s Desert Eagle spinning into the night air. She had landed in a perfect rider stance and delivered four devastating blows to his floating ribs. He was now vomiting while she cuffed him. The best Chema could do was to keep repeating a high-pitched, “Heeeee… heeee…” I had no idea what he was trying to say.
I cuffed him, dragged him to his feet, and pulled him staggering and limping to one of the cars. I handed him over to the officers.
“Take him back to the precinct. Book him. Lock him up. Get the doc to look at him. Keep him isolated. He is not to talk to anyone except you, the doc, and the jailer until I get there. Understood?”
“You got it, Detective.”
They put him in the car and drove him away. I saw Dehan stuff Carlitos in the back of the Focus and lock it. She came toward me. I found the sergeant.
“You called the ME and CSI?”
“They’re on their way.”
Dehan came up beside me. “Let’s look at the dope,” I said.
I pulled on some surgical gloves and picked up the packages. I guessed twenty kilos was about right. There was a small incision in one of them where I figured Carlitos had been testing it. Dehan took some on her finger, sniffed it, and then tasted it. She nodded. “Gasoline.”
I smiled. I had all I needed to start the interrogation. I turned to the sergeant.
“You need me for anything?”
He shook his head. “We got this.”
“I’ll see you back at the station. Thanks for everything. Good job.”
“Sure.”
I climbed in the back with Carlitos, and we pulled away. He was wheezing like an asthmatic smoker after a marathon. As we moved up Halleck Street, he said, “Who told you? Who ratted?”
I laughed. “Pal, you’ve got more leaks than the Titanic. But after today, that is going to be the least of your worries. Today, Carlitos, a whole new chapter of your life begins. Think of it as an opportunity.”
I smiled at him. He didn’t smile back.
Fifteen
We put Carlitos and Chema in separate cells and left them for an hour to wonder what was going on. They were both in a lot of pain, but the doctor had said they were basically okay. After an hour, I had them both brought up to interrogation rooms at the same time so they would see each other being taken in. I then had them both wait another forty-five minutes. Finally I went in to Carlitos and gave him a cup of coffee. The first thing he said made up in predictability for what it lacked in originality.
“I want my lawyer.”
“Don’t worry, Carlitos, you’ll get one. This is one case that is not going to get thrown out because of procedural impropriety. You’ll have your lawyer.”
“I ain’t sayin’ a word till he gets here.”
“That’s just fine. Your pal Chema is doing all your talking for you.”
“Bullshit!”
I smiled and shrugged. “Come on, Carlos. What is this, Alice in Wonderland? It ain’t a question of whether you go down. You both know you’re going down. The question here is how hard? If Chema wants to sign a waiver and get his plea in early, I ain’t gonna stop him. Let’s face it. You’re the one I want.” I glanced at my watch. “Let’s see, four a.m. You’ll be getting some kid fresh out of college doing legal aid ’cause he can’t get anything else, taking his first trembling steps in criminal law. This’ll be quite a coup for him.”
I chuckled. He looked worried. “I want my lawyer, Pendejo…”
“You want your lawyer? You want to get him out of bed at four in the morning? To tell him what? That you’re going away for the next ten years, can he please get out of bed and come and say goodbye?” I laughed. “Expect to see him ar
ound midday. By that time we should have Chema’s confession and his deal all signed and wrapped up.”
“Fock you! You ain’t gonna scare me. Fock you!”
“I am reliably informed it’s pronounced fuck, with a u. Fuck.”
The door opened and Dehan leaned in. She was smiling with just a hint of triumph. She gave me the nod, and I went out with her. In the hallway, I said, “How’s Chema coming?”
“He’s nervous. What about Carlitos?”
“He’ll crack in the next half hour. Let’s put some pressure on him. Give me five minutes. Then come in and ask if I can help you take a statement.”
She smiled and I went back in. I sat opposite him.
“It’s hard to get a lawyer at this time of the morning. You should do your drug deals at a more sociable hour.” He didn’t answer. After a while I asked him, “Were you wearing gloves when you handled those packages? It’s good stuff—gasoline!” I drummed the table. “Your pal wasn’t well up on the law. He thought he was going down for two to five. When my partner explained that with his record of violence he was looking at anything from eight to thirty, I tell you, he turned a whiter shade of pale. But you, you’ve managed to avoid arrest till now. You’re a smart cookie, right? So you’re looking at what, eight, with good behavior out in two or three years…”
The door opened and I turned to look at Dehan. She said, “Boss, can you help take a statement?”
Carlitos said, “This is bullshit…”
Outside, Dehan said, “I think we got them. Chema’s sweating so hard he’s going to dehydrate.”
“Okay. Give them fifteen to sweat, and then we’ll hit them with the homicide. You want a coffee?”
She followed me to the machine, and I got two espressos. We held each other’s eye for a long moment while we sipped. I said, “What if it wasn’t him?”
She shook her head.
Fifteen minutes later, I went back in. Carlitos looked pale and sick.
“Where’s my fockin’ lawyer, man?”
