by Lisa Ladew
Ahh, caught! she thought. She should have just made him an offer. But this was a test, and if she would have done that he would have countered in some other way. No matter what, she was going to be wrong. And the test was could she talk her way out of it?
She hefted the baggie in her hand again, then opened it and sniffed it. She dropped it back on the counter like she didn’t care if she got it or not. “I’ll give you $1000 even.”
The man’s gaze changed, but Jen couldn’t read it. Suspicion? Anger? He gathered up his baggie and put it back in his jacket. “I thought you weren’t going to fuck me over,” he said in a low voice and turned to go once more. Panic exploded in Jen’s chest. She was supposed to buy it! But she only had $1000! She ran through her options as he took a step. She could promise him the rest of the money later. Another step. She thought about what was in her wallet. Maybe $60. Not enough. Another step. He was halfway to the door. She patted herself down. She wasn’t wearing any jewelry. An idea shot through her head and she prayed it was a good one.
“OK, OK, you got me,” she said, her voice pitched low so the panic wouldn’t leak out into it. He stopped, but didn’t turn. “I only have $1000. Just so we know there aren’t any hard feelings, how ‘bout I buy half, and you get $1000 for it.”
He stayed still, considering, and then turned back to her, his face lit up with that smile she didn’t like. “Good fucking deal.”
And with that, he turned around again and walked out the door. Jen’s mouth dropped open and she stared at the closed door with its ugly brown skin. Had she passed? Or failed? Time stretched. She didn’t move. She still had the wad of bills in her nerveless fingers. She played the confrontation over and over again in her mind, trying to decide if she’d done well, or horrible.
And then the door opened. Sgt. Foley walked back in and stood on the other side of the counter where the creep had been moments before. His face was hard, his mouth set in a grim line. Jen flushed, thinking he was about to show her out. She’d blown it.
He took the money from her hand and placed it in a white envelope. His face softened minutely and he said, “Congratulations Miss Mansko. Be here at 8 a.m. sharp tomorrow for paperwork. We start training after lunch.
Chapter 7
Jen hunched over the stove in Jerry’s kitchen, occasionally rolling her shoulders and stretching her fingers, trying to combat the soreness there. She was making Jerry lasagna with a side of twice-baked potatoes, his favorite, in order to celebrate his first day back to work since the horrible accident in which he’d almost lost his leg. That’s what she’d said when she’d called him at work and told him she was making him dinner. But in her mind, she was also celebrating her last day of training. They’d shot over 3000 rounds each today and qualified with both their undercover weapon and the shotgun. Physically she was sore, and mentally she was wiped out. But she was also content. Happy that she’d done well. That she’d qualified. And that she hadn’t done anything stupid.
The front door opened and Jerry walked in, a smile on his face. Jen ran to him. “How was it?” she cried while giving him a hug.
“It was great. We had a jumper, two heart attacks, a stab wound and some little stuff.” Jerry’s face glowed like he was talking about something nice. Puppies maybe … or flowers. Jen smiled and asked after Emma.
“Emma’s great too. It sure was nice to work with her today - you know, for things to be back to normal after so long.”
Jen nodded and got back to her food. “You have time to take a quick shower if you want. Everything will be ready in 5 minutes.”
“It smells great,” Jerry called over his shoulder, already halfway to the bathroom.
When he returned, Jen had their plates on the table. She opened a beer for him and poured some tea for her. No one said anything until their plates were half empty.
“Aren’t you starting soon? They don’t want you to change your hair?”
“Yeah, we start tomorrow, and no, Sgt. Foley said I’m not supposed to change anything. In fact, I’m supposed to kind of dress down tomorrow like I was going out with my friends or to a party or something.”
Jerry nodded. “Do you know what you will be doing yet?”
“Nope, we find out tonight. They’re going to pick us all up and take us somewhere at 8:00. We aren’t allowed back at the police station until our undercover assignment is over.”
Jerry whistled. “Wow. Do you feel ready?” Jen heard the note of concern in Jerry’s voice.
Jen considered. “Kind of. I’m a little nervous to find out what kind of undercover work it will be. And will I be any good at it?”
“What about your partners? Do you think they are ready?”
Jen considered. “Ivy? I don’t know. She’s so quiet, you know? She never says much. She’s got all these tattoos up and down her arms and even on her neck like she’s a biker chick or something, but she acts like a librarian. Ryker though? He’s ready. He was military police in the army, so he knows what he’s doing. I don’t know why Sgt. Sadler gives him such a hard time. Like he doesn’t trust him or something.”
“Sadler? Is that the guy who is a jerk to you?”
Jen nodded, thinking how surprised she’d felt when she discovered the creep who she had to ‘buy’ the marijuana from was actually one of the Sergeants in charge of the undercover unit. But he’d never stopped acting like a creep even when his badge went back on his hip. “Yeah. He acts weird with all of us. But it’s a different weird with me and Ivy than it is with Ryker. With me and Ivy I feel like he doesn’t like us too much. With Ryker I feel like he doesn’t trust him. He talks to me and Ivy with a kind of disdain in his voice. He doesn’t have that disdain for Ryker but he’s always making these weird jabs at him. Like if he says something like ‘most criminals would hesitate to shoot a cop, unless their back is against the wall,’ then he’ll follow it up with ‘but you know all about that, don’t you Wells?’ - meaning Ryker. It’s weird.”
Jerry’s face darkened. Jen already knew he didn’t like to hear about Sgt. Sadler and his attitude. “But don’t worry. Sgt. Foley takes good care of us.” Sgt. Foley. Just thinking about him brought a smile to her face. She’d since learned his first name was Hunter. If it weren’t for him Jen would be downright scared of what was coming tomorrow. But somehow Sgt. Foley made her feel like she could do it. Like she was going to be great. He’d spent a lot of extra time helping her with her shooting. She’d never shot a gun before, but both Ivy and Ryker had, so she had felt at a definite disadvantage. He’d worked with her one-on-one for a day and a half until she was shooting as well as both of them. And he’d been gentle, thoughtful, kind. Not once had he yelled at her or put her down, like she’d seen police recruits get treated in the movies a dozen times.
Jerry finished his food, his face still troubled. Jen didn’t know what to say to make him feel better. She hoped he wasn’t planning on doing anything stupid, like having a talk with Sgt. Sadler. Sometimes people were just jerks and you couldn’t do anything about it.
She finished her food and kissed him on the cheek, then went to her room to lay down for two hours before tonight’s activities. She didn’t know how long they would be tonight, or what their schedule would be like for the rest of the week. She wanted to rest while she had the chance. Her nerves grated and jumped but her mind quickly untethered from her body. Her sleep was hard and dreamless, and when she woke, she finally did feel ready.
***
Jen waited outside, looking for her ride. All she knew was that it would be a van of some sort. The night air felt cool on her face and she smiled up at the rising moon, feeling happy at all the newness in her life. Traffic on the street was light, and she hadn’t even seen a minivan, but when a van turned the corner she didn’t believe it at first. It was a dark-blue, full-size van with a picture of a cartoon-lady and a cartoon-vacuum cleaner on the side, with a large logo reading ‘Westwood Cleaners’. It slowed in front of her and then stopped, but she didn’t approach it
till the side door slid open and Ryker motioned to her to get in. Then she got it. They were undercover already. She ran and jumped in. Sgt. Foley was driving, a blue cap pulled low over his face.
Ryker pulled the door shut and gave her a pair of blue coveralls. “Put this on over your clothes. And hide your hair in this,” he said, handing her a blue cap like Foley’s. Jen did, then buckled herself in next to Ryker. The seat should have held three people, but sitting next to Ryker meant it only held the two of them. Jen marveled at his bulk. He wasn’t fat. Just big. Huge almost. They’d never had a chance to talk like friends yet, but she couldn’t wait till they knew each other well enough so she could ask how tall he was. Her guess was six and a half feet. Maybe taller. And he probably weighed 280 pounds of pure muscle. But his face and voice were gentle. She felt gratitude that he would be working with them, whatever they were going to be doing. She guessed his sheer size would probably keep them safe in many situations.
“Where’s everyone else?” she asked.
“We’re going to get Ivy right now, then we’ll pick up Sadler.”
Sgt. Foley drove for 10 minutes to a broken-down neighborhood right in town. He cruised up and down Clifton Street, then made a disgusted noise in his throat. “There’s not even a 700 block on this street. Someone look this up on their phone.” He handed a piece of paper backwards and Jen grabbed it. 710 Clifton St.
“Google says there is no such address,” she told him.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Call Ivy. Anyone got her number?” Neither Jen nor Ryker did. “You guys all exchange addresses and phone numbers tonight. It’s important that you can reach each other at anytime. I’ll call Sadler. He’s the one who wrote down the address. He’s slightly dyslexic — he probably got the numbers or the street wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time.”
Two minutes later he hung up. “It’s Clifford street, not Clifton street. Jen look it up for me and give me directions please.”
***
35 minutes later, Hunter pulled up in front of their destination and killed the engine. A group of four tough-looking young men shot them appraising looks from the covered bus stop a block away. Hunter wished they would go away, and quickly. The motley crew he had inside the van didn’t look much like a cleaning crew, especially Ryker, who wasn’t even wearing coveralls since they couldn’t find a pair big enough to fit him. Hunter had pulled very close to the door and angled the van so the men at the bus stop couldn’t see them if they all got out the side door. That would have to be good enough for now.
“Take all the equipment inside,” he told the three recruits in the back, hoping Sadler would also follow. He saw all three recruits eying the establishment warily, not quite sure where they were yet. The neon sign was dark, but in the morning they’d see it said Westwood Harbor Pawn and Loan. His eye fell on Jen and he was pleased to see her working quickly and efficiently. And looking cute as a button in her coverall and hat.
He kept one eye on the recruits and one eye on the men at the bus stop, and when the boxes and plastic containers were all inside he locked the van and jumped out himself.
Inside the pawn shop, he blinked at the glaring lights. He looked around at the wall shelves of DVDs and video games, the glass cases full of guns and knives, the shotguns and rifles bolted to the back wall, the glass cases full of jewelry, and the deeper shelves full of power tools. Everything looked great. Briefly he wondered what his recruits were thinking. He grinned to himself and followed everyone else into the very back of the pawn shop, which was actually a modified bank vault. Sadler already had them sitting down at a white, plastic table.
He nodded to Sadler. Sadler tipped his head slightly. OK, I’ll start, Hunter thought. He dug into the largest plastic container and brought out three binders, dropping one of them in front of each of his trainees.
“As you’ve realized, this is a pawn shop. You three will be working here for the next 3 to 12 months. We’ve bought the shop from its former owner and had it out of commission for a few weeks now, with an Under New Management sign out front. Tonight we run through operations, teach you how to run a pawn shop, issue you your guns, and lay out objectives. You need to pay close attention tonight, because tomorrow you are on your own. Sgt. Sadler and I will not enter this building again. We will be doing full-scale observation from a block away.” He pointed out the cameras in the ceiling.
“Ivy, you are the manager. Jen, you are a clerk. Ryker, you are both a clerk and security, but your most important position will be security. You’ll be a bit of a bouncer. People get irate inside pawn shops more often than you would imagine and your job is to make sure nobody gets a hand on either of them, ever.” He pointed to Jen and Ivy and hoped Ryker understood just how important his job was. “You can pitch people out in the street at your discretion. They always come back.”
Ryker nodded. “Got it, boss,” he said in that quiet way of his.
Hunter glanced at Jen. Her eyes were wide and pinned on him, sending a tiny thrill through him. He pushed it aside and went on.
“Open your binders to the third page. These three men are our mission. Study them. Know them well. The three of them run individual fencing rings here in Westwood Harbor. They have been responsible for 4 deaths, 38 assaults, and 17 commercial thefts and robberies that we know of in the last year and a half. And we can’t prove any of it. Not well enough that some hotshot lawyer won’t get them off. So that’s what we are doing here. A pawn shop can be a hotbed of information about operations like these. You will probably never see one of these men in the pawn shop, but you will see the people who work for them and try to sell crap to them. They come to sell something the fence wouldn’t take, or they bring in something from the latest robbery that they aren’t sure where else to sell. Maybe it’s impractical to ship so they can’t sell it on eBay. Maybe it’s something they don’t think can be traced to them and they want to turn a quick profit. Maybe it’s something they’ve brought in from an operation outside of Westwood Harbor. Sometimes they do that - pull a job and then trade the spoils with a fence from a different city, so the local cops don’t have anything to get suspicious about. Your job is to take everything, and to keep your ears on the ground. Sgt. Sadler and I will worry about analyzing the items you buy and making arrests, but you are the front line.”
He pulled in a deep breath and analyzed Jen, Ivy, and Ryker. They looked excited. Ready. Good. “This is the chief’s baby. He wants to at least spook these three men enough that they leave town. But my goal is different than that. I want each of these men behind bars, with enough evidence on them to put them away for at least 20 years. And if we can put them away in federal prison that’s even better. In federal prison there is no chance of parole. So they won’t be coming back in five years, looking to get the old gang back together.” Hunter started pacing back in forth in front of the table. He heard his voice get louder, deeper and was helpless to stop it. He’d called this the chief’s baby. And it was. But it was his baby too. It had been his idea. The amount of crimes connected to these three men disgusted him. Hunter wanted them gone. He turned back to the recruits, just barely stopping himself from banging his hands on the table for emphasis. Instead, he knocked it lightly. All of their eyes were focused on him. “And to do that, all we need is one, solid piece of evidence connecting them to something like a semi-truck robbery on the interstate. But again, you let us—” he gestured to himself and Sadler — “worry about that. Your job is to buy whatever they are selling, become friendly with everyone you can, and keep your ears open. Don’t ask questions for now. In a few weeks, you’ll have a better feel of the operation and we can talk about what kind of questions you might ask.”
Hunter looked at each of his recruits in turn. He turned to Jen last. Her nostrils flared slightly as she breathed deeply. Her color was up again. Those two red spots high on her cheekbones. To Hunter, she looked like a beautiful warrior ready for battle. Or for sex. He looked away quickly, before anyone read the though
t in his eyes. The next few months were going to be the longest and shortest of his life.
Chapter 8
Fiore Savoy smoked his cigar and looked out over the ocean in his number 2 house. This was his favorite house, but he didn't get to stay here as often as he liked, so when he came he made sure to enjoy it. A dog barked faintly from the house to his left. A sweeping plantation with glass wraparound windows. He didn’t know the neighbors, and he didn’t care to, but if that dog kept disturbing his morning contemplation in his favorite house, he would have to have one of his men kill it. He made a note to tell Bruce to buy some rat poison, just in case.
He puffed his cigar and thought about his day. He hated to write things down, it was too dangerous. But sometimes it had to be done. And today was one of those days. The fencing operations had expanded to the point that he might need to bring in more operators from down south. Huey, Dewey, and Louie had done good. He laughed to himself. Huey, Dewey, and Louie. They weren't as incompetent as the nicknames made them sound; actually they had brought in a lot of profit over the last several months. Now if they could just keep the money rolling — his thoughts were interrupted by his private line ringing. Most people didn’t have this number. And because of that it was almost always bad news when it came in on this phone.
He picked it up but didn’t say a word.
“Boss, it’s me. I have news.”
“Go.”
“Your new guys, they are being investigated by undercover.” Fiore felt his blood rise at this simple statement. He grunted his displeasure. “Look I’m sorry, but I can’t put a roadblock up in front of everything. And this would have looked suspicious. They can just take the fall. They can’t be connected to you, right?”
“No,” Fiore said. They don’t know who brought them here. They don’t know who outfits them, informs them, or where exactly the money goes.”
