He walked back to his car and took off. The driver turned to the other goon and said, “Doesn’t he think we got any brains at all?”
We followed Carpenter’s car. I had thought Smitty might have caught the little hint Josie had dropped about where we were. About the small room we were held in. But now we were being moved. He’d have no idea where we were after we were moved. I couldn’t see any way we could get out of this mess.
At the first corner Carpenter turned right and so did we. When we got to the next corner, Carpenter continued straight ahead. As we entered the intersection there was a sudden loud crash and Josie and I were knocked around in the back seat.
Josie screamed, and the driver yelled, “What the fuck?” Everything was pandemonium.
“Josie, are you okay?” I yelled.
“I think so,” she replied shakily. “You okay?”
Neither of us had seat belts on and we’d been really thrown around. I made a quick mental scan of my body, decided I was all right, and told her so.
Josie said, “What happened?”
Glancing out the window, I said, “We’ve been saved, that’s what!”
CHAPTER 49
Smitty figured out where we were when he got Josie’s phone call. He couldn’t see any reason why she’d tell him about the small room unless she was trying to tell him something. The only small room without windows he could think of was the hidden office in Carpenter’s house. He put two and two together and got the right number.
However he was stuck at home and was sure the house was being watched. How could he get out without being seen? The solution had been a pizza order.
The gang had ordered a dozen pizzas from the place they’d been getting them all along and Smitty’d talked the driver into letting them sneak into the delivery truck when it left.
That worked and Smitty and four of the gang had gotten away without any watchers being the wiser.
Then Smitty cooked up the idea of an engineered car crash. He told us how they’d pulled it off. He knew there were only two streets leading down the hill from Carpenter’s house. He knew they were going to move us and they’d have to be on one or the other of the two streets.
Rather proudly, he described what happened. “I positioned a car at each of the two intersections and told them to wait for my signal. Then I hid up at the top of the street with my binoculars and waited for you to leave.”
Smitty’d been in place for almost an hour when he saw activity around the two cars in the driveway; saw the side door open and the five of us come out.
Even from a distance, he immediately recognized Josie and me as we were being shoved into the second car. He waited until he was sure that Carpenter’s car would lead the mini-motorcade. All he had to do then was to wait and see which street they took. Their choices: either straight ahead or turn right. Both of his drivers were on their cell phones, waiting for his signal.
“I waited until they pulled out and told me guys that they were leaving and that Carpenter was alone in the first car and you two were in the back seat of the second car. At the first corner they turned right. I yelled RIGHT TURN, RIGHT TURN, just as we’d planned.”
He continued. “The guys knew what to do. The one at the intersection that Carpenter would be crossing had his motor running and car in gear. All he had to do was step on the gas and ram the second car. Smitty told me later this plan wasn’t an original Smitty special. It was out of the police play book, a standard maneuver that police often used to stop stolen cars.”
Smitty’s biggest problem was that he didn’t want us hurt. His plan was for his guy to hit our right rear fender hard enough to put our car into a spin, but not hard enough to flip it. By the time the driver had the car back under control, his way would be completely blocked by Smitty’s second car.
It worked just as Smitty planned. The first car hit us to perfection. Our car immediately went into a pirouette a ballet dancer’d be proud of. Josie and I were thrown around like rag dolls, but neither of us was hurt.
I don’t think the guy driving had ever been trained in defensive driving. He did all the wrong things. He stopped the car, opened his door and started to get out. By the time he saw the second car and men with guns pointed at him, it was too late. The guy in the front passenger seat just sat there and was easily subdued.
Ahead, Carpenter’s car slowed to a stop. He started to back into a driveway as if he might turn around and come back, but then hesitated. After a moment, he put his car in gear and took off.
“Let him go,” Smitty said. “We got our kids back and that’s what’s important.”
“You two okay?” Smitty asked, as he simultaneously hugged her and shook my hand.
“Yeah, Dad, we’re okay and ever happy to see you! But did you really have to scare us so much? Wasn’t there some other, less dangerous way to rescue us?”
Smitty laughed. “Aren’t you ever satisfied?” Then, in a quick reversal. “Did these guys hurt you at all?”
I glanced at Josie as she said, “No they were okay. There was a little misunderstanding when one of them pushed me around a little. Case jumped up to help me and Carpenter slapped him down.” She downplayed the incident. I think she didn’t want to inflame the situation.
“Lucky for them,” Smitty said, then gave me a strange look and said, “You did that?”
Back at the body shop Smitty sent out for a huge Chinese lunch and told us about the special delivery the pizza guy had made.
A moment later he followed that with a philosophical, “All’s well that ends well. Of course it didn’t end so well for Carpenter, did it? He had lost two more men and another car. To say nothing of losing Josie and Casey. My daughter and my new idea man.”
I was saved from making a comment by the arrival of the Chinese dinner. It looked like Smitty just told them to bring two of everything on the menu. We gathered around two large picnic tables and dug in. There was enough to feed a small army.
As it turned out wewere almost a small army. A bunch of bikers, a couple of customers, us and the office staff from upstairs. But even with so many mouths, there was plenty left over. That went to our prisoners.
When we got our fortune cookies, mine said, “Beware of strangers on motorcycles.” At least that’s what I told Josie.
She said, “Humph!”
The first chance I had, I cornered Smitty and asked him what he’d meant when he said I was his new idea man. “I don’t remember giving you any new ideas about what to do next,” I said.
“The FBI, remember? You said you would call their PR person and find out about any federal offenses Carpenter might have committed. You need to get going on that ASAP.”
It wasn’t a request, it wasn’t a suggestion, it was an order.
CHAPTER 50
At the top of the stairs I saw several women at computers and phones in one of the office spaces. The offices had large windows so that the staff could oversee the entire downstairs operation. Downstairs I’d heard names being broadcast over a public address system. “So-and-So, you’re wanted on line two,” that kinda’ thing.
Smitty led us toward the rear of the building. Just past the offices, the rest of the building was walled off. He opened a door in the wall and led us into a house. Well, it wasn’t really a house; it just looked like a house – made of concrete blocks and with no windows. A large living room and dining room lay directly ahead, and off to one side was an equally large kitchen. Along the rear wall were two more doors. Josie, who’d caught up to me by then, told me that the doors led to three bedrooms and two bathrooms.
“Dad used to live here before he bought the house in Oakland,” she explained. “Occasionally he still uses it. More often he lets friends use it. It’s kind of a hideaway.”
The guys immediately threw themselves onto the many sofas and chairs scattered throughout the room. There were more sofas and chairs in that room than I’d ever seen in any one room in my whole life, other than a furniture showroom. And ma
ybe the rec room at Smitty’s house.
“The guys like it here,” Josie said. “It’s comfortable.”
I could see why.
Another reason they liked it was quickly apparent. The kitchen was really more of a bar than a kitchen. A huge refrigerator, dominating one end, started disgorging beer at an alarming rate.
Smitty yelled for the guy’s attention.
He asked them about the prisoners from the raid on his house.
“Did anybody find out what these goons had in mind for us last night?”
“Yeah,” one of the guys volunteered. “They seemed to be pretty happy to rat out on Carpenter.”
He continued.” They were supposed to surprise us with their sheer numbers. Then they were supposed to search the house, find some private papers of his, and finish up by trashing the place.”
“That idiotic son of a bitch sent a vigilante group of kids up there?” Smitty said, sounding genuinely astonished. “Armed with loaded guns? And he expected them to overpower us without a shot being fired? Jesus H. Christ, it’s a wonder we weren’t all killed.”
Smitty turned to another guy and asked him if he’d contacted the chief with the information about the guys we’d caught.
“Yeah, I did. He was out when I called yesterday so I left all the names and stuff with the desk sergeant. Today when I called back, he was out again, but the sergeant had a message for me. Turned out that a number of them had minor records of one sort or another. A couple more were on parole. A few had outstanding warrants for things like traffic violations or worse. He told me to tell you that he could take seven off your hands at least temporarily.”
“That’s all?” Smitty asked. “I was hoping he’d take all of ‘em”
He thought for a moment, then said to the same guy, “Sort those seven out and get rid of them. Seven down, eleven to go. Use one of the vans in the shop and run ’em over to the chief”
Dave asked if he had a plan for the other eleven.
“I really don’t give a fig for the rest of the guys, but we need to do something. Anybody got any ideas?”
A bunch of silly ideas were tossed out. Strip them naked and maroon them way up the coast. Make a very convincing show of supposedly murdering one of them and tell the rest that’s what’d happen to them if they didn’t forget what happened.
“Then we’d only have to hold one guy,” the fellow with this idea said, clearly quite pleased with his cleverness. “The guy they thought we’d murdered.”
Smitty told him he’d been watching too much TV. “C’mon, get serious. The rest of these guys aren’t criminals. They’re probably just poor dumb jerks that Carpenter hijacked some way or other. We know by their wallets they’re all local. They got wives, parents, people that’ll worry about them.”
Gradually a consensus emerged. It was really quite simple and seemed somehow right. A plan that would get them off our hands immediately, yet keep them quiet. And nobody’d get killed in the process, for realorpretend.
“Okay then, here’s the plan,” Smitty said. “In their wildest dreams, these guys never thought what might happen if they got caught. Their wallets were stuffed with everything from drivers’ licenses to Social Security numbers, pictures of family and friends, bank cards, you name it. A couple of them even had the passwords for their bank cards in their wallets. A bunch of freaking idiots!”
“We can use all that information against them. We’ll tell ‘em we’re making copies of everything we found in their wallets and that we’re gonna keep it forever. We’re also gonna destroy all their guns. On top of that, we tell them that Carpenter’s a murderer and it’s only a matter of time before he’s arrested and convicted. They should be grateful to us for keeping them from being charged on accessory to murder charges. We’ll tell them to stay away from Carpenter and his house, or else.”
All eleven of them promised fervently we’d never hear of them again.
CHAPTER 51
I was still trying to figure out what to say to the FBI on my call to them, when I had a better idea. I asked Smitty if there was a computer I could log onto and do some research.
Out front in the office there were several laptops I could use. I went online to find out exactly what the FBI does. In a few moments, I was on the Wikipedia page about the Federal Bureau of Investigation. From there, it was a hop, skip and jump to what their “top investigative priorities” were.
It wasn’t much help. Way above my understanding of the law. Smitty suggested we take the list with us when we see the Chief later this afternoon.
“We really need his cooperation. He says a lot of what we’ve got can’t be legally used ‘cuz it’s ‘tainted.’ Tainted as in we stole it. He’s a good guy, but he doesn’t need to know everything.”
Josie spoke up. “Dad, don’t you think you should wear something else to see the chief. Something other than your boots and jacket? And for goodness sake, neaten up your ponytail!”
“Spoken as a true daughter. Okay, I’ll do my best. You guys hang on. I’ll see what I can rustle up so you won’t be ashamed of me.”
In a few minutes he emerged from the back bedroom, did an amazingly agile pirouette for his size, and said, “How’s this?”
Light tan slacks, blue blazer, cordovan shoes, light blue sport shoes. He was a different man!
“Wow, Dad. You’re beautiful!”
“The old man don’t look too bad, does he? The hell with the chief. I’m much more concerned with how I look to my daughter”
“Well, I’d go out to dinner with you anytime!”
“Okay, it’s a date. As soon as we get this mess over and done with!”
We left in one of the many cars parked in the repair area. It was missing its front fender but it ran just fine. On the way we passed a great looking hamburger joint, but Smitty said we didn’t have time to stop.
Gus was driving, Smitty beside him. Josie and I shared the back seat. Josie hadn’t said much to me since I’d asked her what her fortune cookie said, so I asked her again.
“Do you really, really want to know?”
“Of course.”
Looking me right in the eyes, she slowly reached into her blouse pocket and withdrew the little folded piece of paper. “Last chance. You’re sure?”
“Josie, quit teasing me.”
“Okay, you asked for it. Here it is! Read it yourself.” She handed it over.
I unfold the paper and read, “Everyone loves you, specially the one you’re with now.”
A moment or two of silence, then I whispered one of the great comebacks of my life. I blurted out “That may be one of the few times ever that a fortune cookie got it totally right!”
That potentially life changing statement went unanswered as Smitty interrupted us. “We’re getting close. Just a few blocks more.”
We’d been driving out the freeway from Richmond and turned off at the El Cerrito exit. Now we were on San Pablo Ave.
Smitty had called ahead and the chief was expecting us. He quickly ushered us into his office and closed the door. Smitty introduced Gus, Josie and me. He looked surprised to be meeting Smitty’s daughter.
Smitty told the chief he could call us Casey and Josie. The chief told us that we could call him Chief O’Meara. So much for immediate familiarity.
“So, what’s up,” he asked Smitty.
Smitty turned to me and told me to take over. I pulled out the list of FBI priorities and show him the areas we thought might apply to Carpenter. He looked them over carefully, then said, “I think several probably do apply to Carpenter, but I don’t see any way we can use them.”
I didn’t know what he meant. “Can’t we call and make an appointment to show them what we have, Chief?”
“One of my closest friends is an FBI agent. We went to college together. I can tell you they get who knows how many hundreds of tips every day. Most of them are thrown away at first glance. The few that make the cut are only taken seriously if they can identify the source.
If they don’t trust the source, they usually reject the tip. Most tips from the general public get rejected. Too many people try to get even with someone by way of the FBI. ‘And once the FBI found out your relationship with a motorcycle gang? No way they’d listen to you.”
I must have looked a little crestfallen. The chief tried to soften the blow.
“It’s a good idea. You just need someone with credentials to get it to them. An attorney or something.”
So much for that idea – totally shot down. They might not find out how I was involved with the gang, but I’m just a boat bum and, on top of that, I’m a suspect in a murder case. Hell, I not only don’t have credentials, I’ve got negative credentials.
Maybe Smitty had a friend who had a friend that might be credible. Except he’d still be a normal tax-paying citizen, the kind the chief said would pretty much ignored by the FBI anyway. We needed someone already in law. ‘An attorney or someone in another department of the government.
Suddenly I realized I was looking at another department of government. A police chief!
“If the FBI got information from, say, a police chief, would they pay attention to it?” I asked him.
There was a long, long silence. Smitty had told me the chief was tough and smart. He stared at me and I was sure he knew exactly what I was thinking.
Finally, “No question. They’d definitely pay attention to information brought to them by a police chief. But I can’t think of any way I could do that. The information you have is definitely tainted.”
Another idea shot down.
He turned to Smitty. “I’m sure all four of you know about the blackmail I’ve been threatened with. Needless to say, I really like the idea of getting out from under that nuisance. But I can’t, and won’t, do anything illegal. I’ve even been toying with the idea that I should just resign and admit my mistakes. But that’s difficult too. In part because I don’t think I’ve done anything really wrong, and also because I think I’ve done a good job here.”
That gave me another idea.
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