by Brad Parks
Ruthie nodded. Any further discussion was squelched when the double doors swung open and Officers LeRioux and Jones—Hightower and Baldy—came stalking through them.
“Hey, guys,” I started, “why don’t we—”
“How many times I got to tell you to shut the hell up?” Hightower growled. “You say one more word I’m busting up that other knee. And this time I’ll go for the front of the knee, not the back.”
Baldy Jones slid open the door to the cells. Ruthie and I stood there, frozen, uncertain, a couple of scrawny newspaper reporters well out of their weight class.
“All right, come on out, ladies,” Hightower said. “We’re going to take a little walk up to the interrogation room, ask you a few questions about all that dope we took off you. Let’s go, let’s go.”
At least he didn’t noticed that our cuffs were unlocked. Ruthie eased out of the cell first, and I limped out after him. As we walked toward the interrogation room, I kept telling myself there was no way they would get away with this. No one would believe that Ruthie and I had smuggled weapons into a police station or would know how to use them even if we had. What were they going to do, put metal shivs in our dead hands and claim we tried to stab them? Give themselves superficial wounds to make it look more convincing? It was absurd.
But to a certain extent, it didn’t matter. Sure, there would be an investigation into our deaths—the paper would put up a hell of a stink—but as long as the cops stuck to their stories, what would there be to contradict them? Ruthie and I would go down in history as a bizarre cautionary tale: a pair of dope-dealing newspaper reporters who got killed by the cops.
“Keep walking,” Baldy said, as we passed through the double door and were led upstairs and down a hallway. We took a left turn down another hallway. I could see the emergency exit at the end of it. My heart started pounding and, strangely, I felt the urge to urinate. I guess there’s something to the old saying, after all, about being nervous enough to pee your pants.
I limped a few more steps down the hallway until Hightower said, “Stop here.”
We had reached the interrogation room. I casually positioned myself so that neither cop was between me and the emergency exit and saw Ruthie do the same. The exit was perhaps thirty feet away, a distance I could cover in, what, a few seconds? Would that be fast enough?
Baldy Jones started going for his keys. Hightower was resting his hand on his gun, an ominous development. Was that just a reflex for him, or was he expecting trouble? Was the gun strapped in or was it loose? Could he draw it during those two seconds I was running down the hall?
Ruthie and I agreed that the moment the key touched the door, we would both make a break for it. I bent my legs to prepare for our mad dash down the hallway and glanced over at Ruthie, who returned my gaze with eyes that had doubled in size.
Then the lights went out.
This being an interior hallway—in a building where the windows had been bricked over decades ago—we were plunged into immediate and total darkness. There was not a shred of ambient light. Not even the pinprick of a single LED. It was like being in a mineshaft.
Hightower swore and Baldy uttered a panicked, “What the…?”
I heard the creaking of leather, like a gun being removed from a holster, and I dropped to the floor. If Hightower started firing in the dark, I wanted to be as small a target as possible. I began desperately crawling in the direction of the emergency exit—how long would it take to get there on my hands and knees?—when I heard a lot of shouting and slamming coming from the front of the building. No, maybe it was the back. Or maybe it was just all over. It was hard to tell.
I had traveled perhaps eight feet when I bumped into the far wall, which I used as a guide to keep going. Then the emergency door light kicked on, casting an orange-yellow hue on the hallway. I could see over my shoulder that Baldy Jones had grabbed Ruthie. The shouting and slamming was getting closer.
Hightower had been groping in the dark for me, never realizing I had gone low. But even with the dimness of the emergency lights, he couldn’t miss me crawling along the floor. And sure enough, from the way his body turned, I could tell he had locked onto me. As he swept his gun in a smooth arc in my direction, I tried to get my legs back underneath me to scramble away—at least it would give him a more difficult shot—though I was having trouble getting my bad leg to respond with the necessary urgency.
Then a flash blinded me and smoke filled my lungs. The world went yellow and gray and burnt-smelling. I closed my eyes and my mouth and tried to stop inhaling, too. But I had been breathing too hard. I couldn’t help but take gulps of air, even though I knew it was bad.
I was immediately consumed by what had to be the worst allergy attack in human history. Some combination of tears, sweat, and snot began pouring out of every opening on my face. Then, as if there wasn’t enough moisture in the mix, the building’s sprinkler system went off. I kept gasping for air that just wasn’t there. All the oxygen had left the planet, replaced by poison gas and spraying water.
It was pure misery, but even in all the confusion, I knew it was still preferable to being shot. At some point, my brain finally grasped the idea that someone had tossed tear gas, a flash-bang grenade, or something similarly loud, bright, and smoky into the hallway. I didn’t know whether this was a mission of mercy or just a different kind of offensive from a yet-unknown enemy, but I was struggling too hard to survive to make that much sense out of it.
I kept trying to get my eyes to unscrew, but every time I did there was just more stinging and, besides, even when I could force them to open more than a slit, I couldn’t see much. Between the tears and the sprinkler, it was like being underwater.
I felt someone—no, make that two someones—grab me by the armpits and the crotch. Out of instinct, I thrashed against it, but the action was fairly futile. The pepper spray or mustard gas or whatever the hell it was had taken the fight out of me. As I allowed myself to be carried along, I could only hope that one, it wasn’t Hightower and Baldy Jones doing the dragging, and two, the officers had been just as incapacitated by the smoke as I was.
Soon I was outside the building, not that I was sure how it happened. Through my watery eyes I could finally see that I had been seized by a pair of guys in gas masks that made them look like some kind of bug-eyed aliens. They carried me in the direction of two more bug-eyed guys, who each grabbed a side of my upper half and then dragged me to a spot of empty sidewalk, where they laid me facedown.
I was beyond resistance at this point—that gas packed an indescribable punch—and I actually relaxed as I felt my hands and legs being fastened by strips of plastic. After a lifetime of never once being handcuffed, it had now happened to me twice in one day. Suddenly I knew what it was like to be a character in Fifty Shades of Grey.
Then I was left alone. I tilted my head to the right and finally began to gain focus on the surreal scene unfolding around me. There were several handfuls of other people—some of them cops, others dressed as civilians—arrayed on the street and sidewalk around me, also facedown. I spied Ruthie, lying a few bodies away from me. Otherwise, none of them looked especially familiar.
Beyond all the prone figures was a small army of men in gas masks and dark commando gear. Their job was to accept victims from the smoky building. The commandos seemed to be intent on getting everyone out. They would leave the sorting of who was who—and who was on what team—to some later time.
I was starting to feel like I had been saved but still couldn’t figure out who my savior had been, how they knew where I was, or what had tipped them off to the idea that there was someone in need of saving.
Then, in the distance, I saw a man in a dark blue windbreaker with ATF in yellow letters. Then another. Then a guy with an ATF hat. Okay, so they were employees of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. I could imagine they were folks who wouldn’t take kindly to a group of cops selling guns to thugs. That might just be their kind of case.
Did they already know about red dot? Had they been keeping an eye on the precinct and then moved in when they realized something was amiss about Ruthie and me being dragged into the building?
At that point, I couldn’t guess how it had all come down. I just knew I was safe.
I was so happy I didn’t mind when, seconds later, another wave of nausea slammed me and I vomited all over the sidewalk.
* * *
The next two hours or so were something of a muddle. I spent the first part of it lying contentedly on the sidewalk, enjoying the Newark night air, which had never tasted so sweet and clean. The action and commotion continued around me, but it now felt more like a pleasant distraction.
Slowly, the number of people being led from the gassy building diminished. There were perhaps thirty of us by the time it was done, all suffering a variety of unpleasant symptoms from whatever version of bug spray they had used.
After a while, I was unbound and led into a large tent that had been hastily erected as a kind of mobile command center. I was asked for identification but, of course, didn’t have any—my wallet was still stewing in the stink somewhere inside the Fourth Precinct. But when I told them I was Carter Ross, Eagle-Examiner investigative reporter, they seemed to accept it without question, almost like they knew they were going to find me inside somewhere.
There was just as much chaos inside the tent as outside. At one point, I overheard a guy in a suit telling a woman in a windbreaker that Captain Boswell had started spouting names and details just as soon as she had been able to get her nose to stop running. I didn’t know whether she’d get sanctioned for her inaction—the failure to report a crime has rather dire consequences for those in law enforcement—but if she was able to substantiate the threats made against her son, I was hoping the ATF would cut her a break. I doubted she’d be allowed to continue as precinct captain, but maybe she’d find a soft landing somewhere else until she got her twenty in.
As for the other cops, there would be no mercy. And it was only time until one of them—or, perhaps, all of them—started informing on one another. Cops will talk endlessly about the blue wall and brotherhood and solidarity and all that lovely stuff. But when lawful push came to legal shove, I’m sure they knew when they were defeated. They were going to do whatever they could to save their own hides. It was only a question of who would take the hardest fall. I was hoping for Hightower, the brutal bastard. I was also hoping his old man might be in on it, just for good measure.
I thought I’d have to wait my turn to be interviewed or interrogated, and given the number of people they had fished out of the building—and how low a priority I would be—I figured it might be a while.
Instead, the guy in the suit eventually came around, looked perplexed to see me there, then asked for, of all things, my phone number. After I gave it to him, he told me I’d be contacted in a few days and my cooperation would be greatly appreciated. In the meantime, I was free to go home.
Actually, that’s not quite accurate. It’s more like they were kicking me out. When I tried to ask a few questions—the journalistic instinct dies hard—I got a friendly smile and a hardy no comment. Then I got an escort to the perimeter that had been set up for the operation.
As I approached the barricade, I understood why: on the other side, there was a hungry horde of content providers the size of which you’d be unlikely to see anywhere except for perhaps Super Bowl media day. When I passed through the checkpoint, a good portion of them mobbed me.
Unfortunately for them, the Eagle-Examiner has rules about its reporters giving interviews (basically, we’re not allowed unless we have permission). So I held my tongue. From their questions, they seemed to think the raid had something to do with terrorism, because they have been trained to think every unexplained occurrence in the New York/New Jersey area has to do with terrorism. Eventually, when they realized they were only going to get two words out of me—“no” and “comment”—they left me alone. The gauntlet around me dissipated and waited for other fresh meat to emerge from the scene.
The only one who remained was Buster Hays. I never thought I would admit this, but I was actually happy to see the man.
“Blotches. Red dots. I think I understand why it matters now,” he said, allowing a knowing grin.
“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but how did you figure it out already? Everyone else around here seems to think Osama bin Laden got reincarnated and was cooped up in there.”
“You see a guy in a suit in there? Seemed to be running the show?”
“Yeah.”
“Let’s just say he owed me a favor or two,” Buster said, the grin growing a little wider. “Hey, before I forget, that girl from the library has called me four times since I’ve been out here. She wants to know if you’re okay.”
I smiled. I could get used to Kira worrying about me. For whatever happened between Tina and me—that would need to be sorted out—Kira and I seemed to have some kind of future.
“Oh,” he continued. “And Tina Thompson told me as soon as I laid eyeballs on you, I was supposed to tell you to give her a call.”
“Yeah, I might have to borrow your phone, mine is still in there,” I said, gesturing toward the battered-but-still-standing Fourth Precinct.
“Sure,” he said. “But it’s going to cost you a Good Neighbors.”
I drew breath to start my protest, then he grinned and handed me his phone.
Tina, naturally, wanted me to file a story immediately. In the coming days and weeks, there would be a lot more of the same. The thrilling first-person narrative. The hard-hitting follows. The put-all-the-pieces-together takeout. Ruthie and I were kept busy.
So was the justice system. It eventually came out that poor Darius Kipps, working late that Saturday night, had seen Hightower unloading guns from his trunk after a trip down south to purchase a load from a prearranged straw buyer. Kipps immediately confronted Hightower about what he had seen. Hightower had tried to bribe him, threaten him, whatever he could do to ensure Kipps’s silence. But Kipps, ever the good cop, wouldn’t back down. He called Internal Affairs and left a message that night. By the next night, he was dead.
In the end, there were charges filed against eight officers, all of whom had been active participants in the conspiracy, all of whom would wind up with multiple life sentences—and only because there is no death penalty in New Jersey. We tried taking another run at Pastor Al, but with his church still behind him in what he characterized as a smear campaign by the Great Satan newspaper, he found a way to survive the scandal. Guys like him always do. Darius Kipps and Mike Fusco were buried with full honors. Mimi had to put back together the pieces of her life, although at least she’d be doing it with the aid of widow’s benefits and a life insurance policy.
All that was to come. But at that point, standing outside the Fourth Precinct, I needed to figure out how to get back to the newsroom—and then, eventually, to my empty home and lonely cat—without the aid of my car, which was still in the custody of Mickey the mechanic. I was starting to look around for someone to give me a ride when, of all people, Gene and Uncle Bernie shuffled up to me.
“I told you they were bad men, but did you listen? Noooo, of course not,” Bernie said, doing a dismissive shooing wave. “You had to be Clint Eastwood, huh? You’re lucky Gene had that Best Buy receipt to do. Otherwise, we might have gone home and you’d be kaput.”
“That’s Yiddish for—” Gene started
“Yeah, yeah, I don’t need the translation this time. Thanks, Gene,” I said. “So, wait, you guys are the one who called this in?”
“I was doing the receipt,” Gene said. “Bernie was watching the camera and—”
“Tut, tut, tut, he doesn’t need all the details,” Bernie interrupted. “Geez, Gene, someone asks you for directions and you pave a damn road for them.”
“But,” I stammered, “but how do you guys know ATF agents?”
“How many times do I have to tell
you, kid: in this business, you gotta know everyone,” Bernie said.
“I don’t know what to … I mean, thank you.”
I reached my hand out and clapped Bernie’s shoulder. “You’re lucky you had the Ginsburg boy with you,” he said. “If it’s just you, a goy? Well, maybe I call, maybe I don’t. But nobody messes with a member of the tribe on my watch.”
“We would have called anyway,” Gene assured me.
“Anyhow, enough of that,” Bernie said, then fixed me with a look of genuine concern. “You chilly? You look chilly, scuffling around without a coat on. You’ll catch the death of you from cold. Lucky for you, I got coats. I got in a London Fog the other day—just your size, too. Forty-two long, am I right? What do you say? London Fog makes a good coat, you know, and Uncle Bernie gives you only the best. The best, I tell you.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am forever mystified by authors who whine. They whine about how hard it is to write a book, about how hard it is to sell a book, about their publishers, their publicists, their critics, their manicurists, their dog trainers, and everyone else who apparently thwarts them in this world.
Not me. I have a great life. The best. I get to write books for a living and I love it unabashedly. (Maybe it helps that I don’t have a dog and don’t get manicures.)
But I am constantly aware that I wouldn’t have that life were it not for the support of many hard-working people.
That starts with my terrific editor, Kelley Ragland; her undaunted assistant, Elizabeth Lacks; and everyone else at St. Martin’s Press/Minotaur Books, including—but not limited to—Hector DeJean, Jeanne-Marie Hudson, Kymberlee Giacoppe, Matt Baldacci, and Talia Sherer. Thanks also to Andy Martin, Matthew Shear, and Sally Richardson. I’m proud to be one of your authors and am deeply grateful for all your efforts on my behalf.
I’m also fortunate to have the kind and thoughtful counsel of Dan Conaway of Writers House, who is a big part of the reason I don’t have anything to whine about.
