by Easton, Don
“What’s that?”
“Not being top dog. I’m no longer a target. Who knows, maybe I’ll even be able to take my wife to bed without wondering who is listening.”
“Unless, of course, you continue your criminal career.”
Damien let out a snort and said, “I’m talking about other people. People with ambition. You got lucky. It won’t happen again. You mean nothing to me.”
“So you agree that I no longer owe you a favour?”
Damien didn’t answer for a moment, and Jack caught the look in his eyes as the flames flickered, casting shadows of light and darkness across his face. He really does look like the devil.
Damien glared at him and said, “Yeah, but don’t ever ask me for another one. If you do, I’m liable to kill you myself.”
Cecil Hinds had his surveillance team hiding near Damien’s estate waiting to video Jack and Damien together when they returned. He sat in his car with his hands in his jacket pockets. The weather had turned unseasonably cold for May, forcing him to shut the car off. Any exhaust coming from a parked car would quickly gather attention from those who were wary.
There was one obvious conclusion that Hinds drew from the covert method the two men used to meet. Hinds was a good cop. Like all good cops, he hated criminals ... but like all good cops, he hated dirty cops more.
Hinds was slightly disappointed when Damien reappeared four hours later driving a rented Econoline van and alone. Interesting. Why the van, and what part did Taggart play?
It was nine o’clock the next morning when Hinds found out what the van had been used for. A striker for Satans Wrath had returned the van to the rental agency. Minutes later, Hinds field-tested the powdery residue found inside. Positive for cocaine!
The chief officer in charge of CFSEU met with Assistant Commissioner Isaac within the hour. Moments later, Legg was also summoned to the meeting. Taggart had just become the Anti-Corruption Unit’s top priority.
“Where are we with the pictures you sent to Mexico, Harry?”
Legg squirmed slightly in his chair and replied, “We passed them on to the LO in Mexico City a week ago Monday. We haven’t heard back yet.”
“Today is Friday. That makes it eleven days. Why the delay?”
“The liaison officer indicated that the Mexican authorities won’t be eager to admit if they made a mistake. If Bishop’s death was not accidental, it would cause them embarrassment. It’s a delicate matter. The LO is trying to be discreet and go through the back door on this.”
Isaac pointed his finger at Legg and said, “You tell the LO to forget about being delicate! I don’t care who is embarrassed! Tell him to send it through channels immediately. If there are any problems, I’ll be talking with the Mexican ambassador myself!”
Danny checked his watch as he walked with Jack through the cemetery. It was early afternoon but some people were getting a jump on the weekend. Rush hour had already started. “You figure we’ll be working late?” he asked.
Jack glanced at him and said, “Guess it depends on what our friend has to say. Hoping to make it home for dinner?”
Danny nodded. “I need a break. I’ve been on edge all week over ... the storage locker thing. I’m glad things worked out for you with Damien last night, though.”
“Me too. Now if we could just find out who sent Connie that note I’d be happy.”
“Wish she had a lead,” said Danny. “Everyone in the office is jittery. Hell, even the building, for that matter.”
“It’s starting to get on my nerves, too,” replied Jack. “Let’s make this quick with our friend, then pop back to the office and head home. Natasha should get home around five-thirty. I want to be waiting for her with a bottle of wine when she does.”
“Sounds good to me,” replied Danny, reaching for his cellphone to call Susan.
“Hey, babe!” said Danny when she answered. “I’ll be home for dinner. Jack and I are taking the weekend off. How about taking a couple of steaks out of the freezer and not eating until after we put Tiff and Jimmy to bed?”
Susan felt relief and joy flutter through her body. This was the Danny she had married. Not the bone-weary, stressed-out, and depressed man she had been putting up with for the last couple of weeks. “I’ll be glad to,” she replied, “except it’s cold and windy. You’ll freeze your butt off if you barbecue.”
“Do we have any wine in the house?”
“A bottle of Pinot Noir.”
“Perfect. Then between you and the wine, I don’t expect to notice the cold. See you around five-thirty.”
Jack saw Lance pacing back and forth as they approached. Not a good sign. He’s not the type to be easily upset.
“What’s up?” asked Jack as they met.
“You guys have really done it this time,” replied Lance. “Damien is really in shit. Basically a vote of non-confidence. The club is out $6 million U.S. Damien has to cough up $1.5 million of his own bread as a penalty.”
“Where will he get the money?” asked Danny.
“Don’t know. Probably from the Caymans, but he could just slap a mortgage on his house.”
“Is he still boss?” asked Jack.
“In name only. The Toad is taking over in the interim until we do a proper election. He’s going to handle things personally for the next shipment. This time the dope will be split up before it ever leaves the port.”
“Which will be when?” asked Jack.
“The Toad arranged for the $3 mil down payment to be made a couple of days ago. The ship is due to arrive in about a week. The Toad is arriving here again tomorrow, along with a couple of his own guys. We pay the other half as the ship is unloaded.”
“Where does The Toad stay when he’s here?” asked Jack.
Lance shrugged. “Different hotels and motels. No place for long.”
“Anything else?” asked Danny.
“Think that’s about it,” replied Lance. “You guys screwed Damien good. I expect things might be a little different around here with The Toad.”
Danny checked his watch again and thought about Susan. To hell with Damien! Let’s go! He looked at Lance and said, “Stay in touch. We want to know every move The Toad makes.”
“You got it,” replied Lance, turning to walk away.
“Not so fast,” said Jack. “What else is going on?”
“About what?” asked Lance, turning to look at Jack.
Jack stared back but didn’t speak.
Lance returned his stare, then swallowed and said, “Oh, yeah. Guess I should have mentioned it. Noon yesterday, Damien called a meeting with Whiskey Jake, Rellik, and me.”
“What about?” asked Danny.
“About who ripped off our dope. Damien is pissed. Anyone we know dealing pounds or kilos who didn’t get it from us is getting whacked. Damien wants names. I gave him two guys and Whiskey Jake knew four. Rellik’s crew has already taken care of three of them. The other three will be next. I think Rellik has a few names of his own as well.”
“You what!” shouted Danny. “Jesus Christ! You can’t be working for us and tossing out names of guys to be murdered!”
“Thought you might be pissed,” said Lance, “but what was I supposed to do? You guys put me in this position. You wanted me to become prez? Well, now I am. With power comes responsibility.”
“Yeah, but...” Danny stopped as Jack held up his hand.
“I understand,” said Jack. “Don’t worry about it,” he added, while placing a hand on Lance’s shoulder.
“Don’t worry about it!” said Danny, as his face took on a mottled effect.
“I appreciate that you’re in a tough spot,” continued Jack, speaking quietly to Lance. “Know that we won’t do anything to jeopardize you, but at the same time you don’t have immunity from any other cops. All I can promise is that we won’t help them.”
Lance nodded that he understood.
“Now,” added Jack, “give us whatever details you have. Who, when, where.”
Susa
n prepared a baby bottle for Jimmy. If I want him to go quietly to bed tonight I better wake him soon. She glanced at Tiffany, who had been on her riding toy for an hour. Her feet sounded like a galloping centipede as she raced around the table on the linoleum floor while working her arms to steer. She’ll sleep tonight!
Jimmy let out a high-pitched scream and Susan abruptly stopped what she was doing. It was a sound that all mothers instinctively knew. It wasn’t a cranky cry. He was in pain, and she ran to his crib.
Jimmy was lying in his crib on his back, his face red and contorted in pain. Susan reached for him as she noticed a bloody pinch mark on his cheek. At less than three months old, Jimmy wasn’t even able to roll over.
“Jimmy! What...”
Susan pulled the blanket back but never succeeded in picking up her baby. She felt a man’s hand choke off her windpipe and heard him say, “Now be quiet, my little bird. I don’t want to hurt your baby again.”
Ten minutes later, Susan found herself duct-taped to a kitchen chair. Her mouth had been taped but not her eyes. She believed there were at least four men, maybe five. They all wore ski masks and latex gloves. Two of them had their jackets undone and she saw pistols stuck in their belts.
Tiffany started to cry behind her and she twisted in her chair but was bound too tight to see. Moments later her crying stopped; Jimmy still sobbed from his crib. What have they done! What have they done to my Tiffany!
As if reading her thoughts, one man partially spun her chair so she could see that Tiffany was being held by a man who had his hand over her mouth.
None of the men had spoken a word except the one who grabbed her. His eyes were dark brown, maybe black, and he spoke with a British accent. She saw him nod at a man behind her, who then dragged her chair over and sat her facing her patio door.
Susan looked past their barbecue and at a metre-high above-ground pool that Danny had set up in the yard. The yard was well treed but Danny had built their fence extra high for even more privacy.
What do they want? Is it Danny? Are they waiting for him? She glanced at the clock on her oven. It was 3:ffl. An hour and forty-five minutes before Danny...
“Now then,” said the man with the British accent, bending over her. “I suppose you are wondering why we are doing this. The reason is rather simple, really. You have befriended a particular policeman who has taken it upon himself to bring an overzealous approach to his work. A chap by the name of Jack Taggart.”
He stared into her eyes. Susan stared back, too afraid to move.
“There is no use denying your friendship to this man. As I recall, you had him over for dinner not long ago. I believe you served him Yorkshire pudding. An excellent dish. Something I rather fancy myself.”
He motioned with his head and another man carried Tiffany into view. Her mouth was now taped, as were her hands behind her back. Her ankles were also bound. Susan wriggled and tried to shout through her own tape. The only sound she made was a murmur.
“Now, as punishment for your friendship with Officer Taggart, I have decided to kill one of your babies. You can decide which one!”
Danny kept his thoughts to himself until they returned to the office. Once they parked and got out of the car he couldn’t contain himself any longer.
“Damn it, Jack! He’s a party to murder! We can’t let him be doing this! Throwing out names for people to be murdered! This isn’t right!”
Jack leaned back against the car and folded his arms across his chest. “So what do you expect him to do? If he doesn’t act like one of the pack, it won’t take them long to figure out what’s going on. Then he’s dead.”
“Then maybe we should drop him as an informant!”
“What? You’ve got to be kidding! After all the work we went through just to turn him ... forget it! It’s our job to find out what is going on. You can’t send a poodle into a wolf pack. We need him. Next to Damien, he’s the most valuable source we could ever get.”
“And what’s it gotten us? You’ve seen The Toad’s file. He makes Damien look like a choir boy! We haven’t accomplished squat! All we’ve done is made things worse.”
“How is taking down boatloads of coke and costing the club $6 million making it worse?”
Danny didn’t reply, so Jack added, “This is still the beginning. We’re barely started. With our friend in the position he is in, we can really do some damage to these guys.”
“I don’t know,” said Danny. “I don’t know how much more of this I can take.” The anger had gone from his voice. He sounded tired and beaten.
“Things don’t always turn out the way you figure,” said Jack. “When you first start this job you envision yourself wearing a white Stetson and riding in to catch bad guys. You tend to think things are either black or white. That’s a fantasy. In real life, if you’re effective in this job and expect to survive, then your Stetson tends to get a little grey after awhile.”
“Yeah? Well I think your fucking cowboy hat has turned black!”
Jack was quiet for a moment, then said, “You’re tired ... I’m tired. It’s almost four. It’ll take you half an hour to get home. Go now and I’ll tidy up in the office. Spend some time with your family and get some rest. Let’s both just calm down and we can talk about it on Monday.”
Susan gasped and her eyes widened with terror when she saw a third man appear, holding Jimmy in his arms. She tried to scream but sucked saliva into her lungs and gagged and coughed as the tears streamed down her cheeks.
“I’m thinking that your little one would fit in your outside grill ... then again, I don’t know if I have a match. Hmm, let me think. Perhaps the pool? Yes! Perfect! Which baby do you choose? Tell me now ... or I will presume that you want them both killed.”
Susan continued to cry and shake her head.
“Oh, how silly of me. You can’t talk.” He took Tiffany from the other man’s arms and held her up and said, “Shall I drown this one? Or ... oh, I see by the way you are shaking your head that you’ve obviously chosen the little one.”
It was almost four o’clock when Susan watched the man carry Jimmy out into the backyard. He flipped up a corner of the pool’s blue plastic cover and turned and looked at her. Seconds later, she watched as he dropped Jimmy into the water. Briefly she saw the shape of his body wriggling at the bottom of the pool before disappearing from view. The man waved at her and then they all left.
chapter sixteen
“Hey, babe! I’m home.” Danny didn’t get a response but he heard a thumping sound coming from his kitchen. He entered and saw Susan, taped to a chair that was lying on its side. She was banging her head against the floor. Tiffany was taped to the pedestal of the kitchen table.
He drew his 9mm and rushed over to kneel by Susan. She stared up at him. He expected her eyes to look frantic. They didn’t. They looked glassy ... lifeless. He grabbed the telephone on the kitchen counter and dialled 911 while covering off the entrance to the kitchen with his pistol. He was conscious of Susan’s methodical banging of her head on the floor. Sorry, babe. Just a few more seconds ...Tiffany crying and squirming ... everything is going to be okay.
Danny gave quick instructions into the telephone, and then left it off the hook as he knelt beside Susan and peeled back the tape from her mouth.
“Jimmy!” she choked. “They killed our Jimmy!”
Caution disappeared in a flash as panic sent Danny racing across the kitchen toward Jimmy’s room.
“No!” cried Susan. “Outside,” she added softly. “They drowned him half an hour ago.”
Danny turned abruptly. He saw the blue cover on the pool flipped back and drooping over the edge.
Assistant Commissioner Isaac thought about the meeting he’d had a few minutes earlier. Inspector Crana was sharp. His position on the Vancouver RCMP Drug Section demanded it. Isaac brooded over what he had been told. No, the narcs hadn’t heard of any large influx of cocaine hitting the streets this week. It was the opposite. Many major players were pullin
g a disappearing act.
Inspector Crana had assured Isaac that he would tell his people to canvas all informants and sources to find out what was going on. He would also check with VPD to see if they had heard anything unusual.
Isaac was just putting on his raincoat to head home when Inspector Crana called.
“Sir, I checked with VPD. Their Vice Unit doesn’t have anything, but their Homicide does. Three high-level cocaine dealers have been murdered within the last two days. A couple more are missing. The dealers don’t appear to be connected with each other.”
“Are they affiliated with any groups? Satans Wrath, Indos, Russians...”
“No, sir. Not that anyone knows of. It might be coincidental.”
“I don’t think it’s coincidental,” replied Isaac, with a noticeable edge to his voice. “You said earlier that many major players were pulling a disappearing act. What do they know that we don’t? Get on this!”
Isaac thought about it as he drove home. Taggart has a secret meeting with Damien, who then returns in a van that had been used to transport cocaine. Now dealers are being murdered? Isaac shook his head in frustration. There always seemed to be one common denominator when people were murdered. Taggart!
Jack was also on his way home when he received a call on his cell.
“Jack! What’s going on?”
He recognized Connie Crane’s voice. “Hey, CC. I was just thinking about you. Anything new on whoever sent the note? I’ve been in contact with Holly and —”
“Forget Holly! What the hell is going on with you and Danny?”
“What are you talking about? I’m just on my way home. Danny left over half an hour ago.”
“You haven’t heard? He didn’t call you?”
“Who?”
“Danny! Damn it! There was a home invasion at his house this afternoon. Bunch of guys. Tied up his wife and toddler, then decided to kill their baby and dropped him into the swimming pool. He didn’t call you?”
