Take the Money and Run

by Drew D'Amato

  TAKE THE MONEY

  AND RUN

  By

  Drew D’Amato

  It happened fast. Things like this always do. The two undercovers pulled over an unregistered vehicle, a 90’s Toyota Corolla, with three young Latino males inside. As soon as the cops got out of the car, they were fired at. Out of the shotgun window of the Toyota, an Uzi rattled off at them blindly. Detectives Gambardella and O’Keefe ducked behind their open doors and grabbed a shotgun each. The car tried to peel out. Marco Gambardella, behind the driver’s side of his car, shot his 12-gauge at the right rear tire. His second shot was at the driver’s window as the car peeled off the shoulder. The car spun back to the right and crashed against a telephone pole. Check the driver’s blood and brain matter splashed inside the windshield.

  The Uzi continued to spray while another Latino fired a handgun from the back window. Marco and O’Keefe stayed behind the open doors of their undercover Ford Crown Victoria. O’Keefe had a shotgun too. Marco leaned back inside and shifted the car into neutral. They pushed the car toward the crashed Toyota a few feet away. The Uzis shot up the front of the car, shattering the windshield and the blue siren spinning on the dash. They got their Crown Vic up to the trunk of the Toyota. There was a pause that might have been for a reload. O’Keefe and Marco didn’t hesitate.

  O’Keefe dashed around his door toward the passenger seat of the Toyota in two strides. It was quick enough. He fired his chambered shell, pumped, and fired another. Marco just needed to fire once inside the back window. The blood exploded like red paint inside a balloon.

  Check the carnage. Two Latinos with most of their heads missing, and one missing his left shoulder and neck. All dead.

  Check the backseat, next to the dead spic. Three black duffel bags. O’Keefe opened the first bag. Blow. 400 kilos of cocaine. They had expected that.

  Marco opened the other two bags. Cash. $5,000,000 in each, in hundred dollar bills. They hadn’t expected that.

  They had gotten the tip from Doc. Doc is a bookmaker who is so cool with the cops that he takes their action for the Super Bowl and March Madness. Doc knew these spics were making a big deal. Doc knew the force had been waiting to crack down on these spics. This gang had been tearing up the streets. Ten murders in New Haven so far this year, and it was only April 10th. That was big for around here. It was not something the mayor and chief wanted to deal with. It was something they wanted stopped.

  Doc didn’t give a shit about the spics. Their gang, the Los Cincos—because you have to have killed five men or served five years incarcerated to be considered in—dominated the Fair Haven borough of New Haven and were threatening to take over the rest of the city. Doc was connected with an Italian mob family, the Consiglios, and the Los Cincos had been hurting their business. When the police, the politicians, and organized crime want a certain element eliminated, it gets done. Just ask JFK.

  Everyone wins in this deal. The mob gets their market back, the mayor gets peace in the streets for the upcoming election, and the chief gets a major arrest. On a personal level, the cops will be totally non-existent about the action Doc gets, and Marco and O’Keefe get to make the caller.

  Doc supplied Marco and O’Keefe with the intel. At the old Starter building, on James Street, the Los Cincos were planning to meet with their connection from Ecuador. The Consiglios wanted in with the Ecuadorians, but there is racism in the crime world—spend one hour in the yard at a federal prison and you’ll know—and the Italians were out of the equation. The plan was to bust the Cincos, but the Ecuadorians could not be touched. Doc stipulated that before he gave up the information. The Consiglios figured once the Cincos had heat on them, the Ecuadorians would then be doing business with the family.

  Doc also told them how the deal was going down. The two sides would pull up, in two disposable cars. Everyone would then get out of their respective car. Next one member from each party got into the other crew’s car and checked inside the bags. If it was good, the drivers of both cars gave palm and swapped keys. Everyone left in the car they didn’t come in and went their separate ways. It avoided anything on surveillance. If any vice squad was watching them, they would just see two groups of Latinos switching cars. Nothing illegal, or even that much unique about it. Doc knew for sure this was how they did business. The cars were throwaways, pieces of shit bought for under a thousand. In a ten million dollar drug deal, cars were expendable. These cars were bought with cash and unregistered, of course. This meant the Cincos would be driving back from the deal with that much coke in an unregistered vehicle. That’s what Marco and O’Keefe used to pull them over, as if the whole bust was just dumb luck. But then the shooting started.

  Something happened back at the Starter factory. A double-cross. The Cincos decided to make off with the coke and the money. The cash was not supposed to be in the back of this car. It was supposed to be driving away with the Ecuadorians.

  “We don’t have to report this,” O’Keefe said. It was the first time the concept of making off with dirty money had ever been broached in their partnership. It was also the first time they had ever seen more than a couple thousand dollars before them.

  “It will be missing,” Marco said. His nerves twisted. He knew this was bad juju.

  “How would anyone know?”

  “People are going to notice millions missing.”

  “We tell the force the Cincos didn’t bring the money. Why would they, if they were going to double cross them?” O’Keefe looked back over at the money.

  “The Cinco’s will know.”

  “Fuck ‘em, what are they going to do? All we got to worry about is that our bosses do not know that the money was here.” O’Keefe looked into his partner’s eyes.

  Marco started to see O’Keefe’s plan. The idea was burning under his skin. His heart felt like a rock in a pool. It was deep down there, but there was too much water around it to be noticed.

  “I’ll take it,” O’Keefe said. Marco turned to him like he was insulted. “For your sake, Marco. You’re unsure about it. I see that in you. Let me take it. If you decide you want in, you’ll get your bag. I’m not going to do anything with it now, anyway. If for some reason like Catholic guilt, you feel you can’t take it, all you have to do is keep your mouth shut. But if you decide later you want in, one of these bags are yours. I swear that to you, partner.”

  Marco Gambardella turned to Peter O’Keefe, his partner for fifteen years, exhaled, stuck out his hand, and sold his soul.

  Marco’s wife, Gloria, had been fucking New Haven Mayor Steven Thompson for years. She was a court reporter at the courthouse on Elm Street. Professional acquaintances were seldom, only when the mayor went to the courthouse for some dog and pony show. They did not start fucking because they worked together. They started fucking because they were from the same neighborhood.

  They both came from the Cove, an area in New Haven where the richer Italians lived right on the shore. The Mayor was ten years her senior. Thompson was a spoiled pretty boy, who went to Notre Dame in West Haven instead of a public high school in New Haven. He made the right connections while there, made better connections while he attended college for five years, and even better connections during law school. He graduated and got a job with the city’s district attorney because of people his parents knew. From there he worked his way up in the town’s politics, became alderman of the 10-D ward, and at the age of 40 became the mayor of New Haven and has been re-elected twice. He was a popular mayor except to the cops, teachers, and city-union workers. Gloria was not fucking him because he was a popular mayor or even because he was a mayor. She was fucking him because she had fucked him fifteen years ago.

  She was in college then, and he had been out o
f law school for a few years. They attended some of the same parties on the block over one summer, and then it happened. It didn’t last…it wasn’t a love affair. But three years ago, during one of his dog and pony shows for his upcoming election, their paths crossed again. They were both married. He was a politician and had been cheating on his wife for years, but she had never cheated on Marco before. She didn’t know why she did it—maybe because she had slept with him in the past, maybe because she was the one with the crush years ago and he had ended it—but once she did it again, she didn’t stop. It didn’t feel as scandalous to her as she thought it would. She could live with it. She kept sleeping with him because she could also sleep with herself.

  “Political suicide,” Thompson said as he rolled away from her on the bed.

  “What?” Gloria asked playfully as she got out of the bed and started to dress.

  “A mayor sleeping with a cop’s wife—political suicide.”

  “Sleeping with a cop’s wife alone is suicide,” she said as she put on her shirt.

  “Noooo…your husband is a straight shooter.”

  “Yeah, he is. That’s his flaw.”

  “Is that why you’re here?”

  “I’m here because I want to be here. Whether that is because of something you have or something he doesn’t, I don’t know, but it wouldn’t be in your best interest for me to re-evaluate this situation.”

  Gloria pulled up her pants and sat on the bed to put on her shoes.

  “You won’t stop, the sex is too good,” Thompson said smugly.

  “Don’t flatter yourself. When Marco actually wants to fuck, he is better. Marco wants to start up a family. That’s why we just bought a new house, to raise our future kids in.”

  “And you’re not too crazy about this idea?”

  “No. I do want to be a mother at some point, but until then I guess I just want to have my fun. I think I’d feel a lot worse cheating once I was the mother of his kids.”

  “So once you start having kids this will all be over?”

  “Don’t worry about it. Unknown to Marco, I still take my birth control.” Gloria got up, kissed Thompson, and went in the bathroom to fix herself in the mirror.

  “I just got married for political reasons. Single politicians don’t have a long shelf life.”

  “You don’t have to defend yourself. I know you. I knew about you when I was growing up. You were always looking for a good time. The rich playboy.”

  “I wasn’t that rich. I was rich compared to the rest of the neighborhood, but I wasn’t rich. I’m not set for life. I have to work.”

  “Oh, even if you didn’t have to work, you still would’ve heard the call to lead the city into a better future?”

  “My campaign speech. No, if I was set up like that I’d probably be blowing coke off some stripper in the Caribbean, or maybe dead.”

  “The Charlie Sheen of New Haven.”

  “Ha! He’s the Steve Thompson of Hollywood.”

  Gloria, with her long tan hair and tight 34-year-old body, that had never carried a baby, bent down to him. “Honey, you’re not that cool.” She kissed him. “I’ll call you in a few days.” She turned away and walked off his boat.

  After their third tryst at a local hotel, they both decided hotels were not a good idea. He was the mayor. Even though they had done it a few towns away, it wouldn’t be too long until someone noticed him checking in with a woman that was not his wife. Thompson had an idea.

  He had a boat docked on Long Wharf. Now, in the off-season, the place was empty. They never arrived together. The Mayor had a right-hand man who was officially listed as his personal bodyguard, but was more of the crypt keeper of the mayor’s secrets. Nights at a strip club in New York, envelopes being passed from union reps and construction companies at Italian restaurants. Reggie Walker was the man for this job. Reggie was a low-level drug dealer when Thompson started out as an assistant D.A. He used Reggie as an informant back then and the relationship has grown over the years. He now worked outright for him.

  Reggie waited out in the car throughout the sexual escapade. Thompson called Reggie before Gloria left and Reggie told him the coast was clear. Gloria got off the mayor’s ship, The Honeypot, and walked down the docks to a tinted black Town Car. Reggie drove her back to her car in the courtroom garage on Elm and Temple. Reggie was wise enough to know it didn’t matter how close he dropped her off to her car—what mattered was that he dropped her off out of sight from anyone. The sixth floor was clear, and she walked down another three flights to her Hyundai. Just a casual good-bye was said as she exited. Not much was said on the ride over. She vibed that she didn’t want to talk. He didn’t judge. He wasn’t paid to.

  O’Keefe was right. Well, mostly right. The force had no idea about the missing money. Two dead men from Ecuador were found in the Starter factory parking lot. One was found in the back seat of a piece of shit unregistered ’98 Chevy Lumina, with a bullet in his head from point blank range. The other was stabbed and found on the ground a few feet away from the Chevy.

  O’Keefe and Marco put together what had happened and it explained why the money was there. The Cincos wanted it to appear as though the status quo was being maintained. An Ecuadorian went into the back of the Chevy to check the money. He checked it out, nodded to the driver outside, and then zipped up the duffel bags. And then it all happened so fast. BANG BANG. The driver was stabbed, and the bag man was shot. Of course, in the official report there were no suitcases full of money, and they reported the man was shot once he got into the car. Everyone on the force believed it. It made sense, and O’Keefe and Marco had a flawless record. It worked. Over lunch at a diner, while Gloria was riding the Mayor, Marco told O’Keefe he wanted in.

  “You’re sure now?”

  “I thought about it last night. Gloria and I want to start a family. We’ve been trying for about a year now, and still nothing. We went to the doctor. We are both good so I don’t know what it is. Anyway though, at some point we will have our kids. When that happens we will need money. We’re struggling now just to make ends meet with the house, how are we going to get by with children to take care of too? I want us to not have to worry about money. I don’t want her to work as the kids are growing up. This is our chance. Why not? It’s found money, it’s not like we planned to double cross these guys. We can either keep it or just give it away to evidence where it will probably get used on some bullshit social program. I want my half.”

  “Deal. We’re in this together. However, none of us should do anything now. We have to think of it like it doesn’t exist.”

  Marco got a little tense. Yesterday he trusted his partner with his life. But apparently his life wasn’t worth $5 million dollars. There was something in his partner’s eyes that made him feel like he wouldn’t see his share.

  “I’m not going to spend it. You can trust me. But don’t you think it would be better to hide it two ways than with one person?”

  “Not really, I got it in a real safe spot right now. Moving it so that you can have a nest egg that you’re just going to sit on doesn’t seem so smart. Do you need some money, some bills you gotta pay? I’ll give you something, but let’s not do anything drastic.”

  The story sounded like more bullshit, and Marco felt worse.

  “Where the hell do you possibly have this money that you can’t just get to it? This just happened last night. You didn’t open an offshore account, did you?”

  “No, of course not. The whole time at the station while we did the paperwork, I was worried about ten million illegal dollars in my trunk. I didn’t want to keep it anywhere were there stood a chance of it getting robbed. When we left the station at 3:30, I went straight to my parent’s house. I moved fast. I buried it in their back yard.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t worry, those bags were high quality, waterproof. The money won’t get ruined. My parents live in Deerfield, in the woods. That’s where I buried it, no one will notice it. Besides,
I also don’t trust myself. That much money is kind of tempting to spend right away. I think for now, ‘til we know exactly what do with it, it’s the best thing to do. Besides, you have a wife. Keeping five million dollars in your house means one more person would know about it.”

  “You don’t think I’m going to tell my wife?”

  “You think you should?”

  “That’s my wife.”

  “Yeah, and God forbid in the years to come something happens. Something like she wants out of the marriage? It happens every day. You want her fighting in court for half of the money you took from a drug deal gone bad?”

  “She’s not that dumb, she won’t bring that up in court.”

  “No, she’ll just ask for all of it to not bring it up in court.” O’Keefe had heard the rumors of Marco’s wife and the mayor. Marco knew of them too. O’Keefe didn’t want to push the subject, he just wanted Marco to vibe what he was talking about. “You see Marc, there’s a lot of elements at play here and a lot on the line, and once we do anything we can’t take it back. Let’s just keep it buried in my parent’s back yard for now until we know exactly what we want to do and who we want to tell about it. It’s safer that way.”

  Marco started to feel a little relaxed. He started to see the sense in all of O’Keefe’s precautions. He probably wasn’t trying to rip him off. I don’t even want to think about what to do if he’s planning that.

  But of course, that was exactly what O’Keefe was planning to do.

  O’Keefe never buried the money in his parents’ backyard. When he made his vow to Marco last night, he had every intention of carrying through on his part of the deal. But then he drove home and looked at the $10 million dollars in his car and decided that sight was too good to split up. $10 million dollars was enough to just say fuck it, leave town and start his life again. He didn’t bring the money into his house though. He kept it in his trunk. He lived in a condo complex, and did not have a garage to park his car in. He parked in a visitor’s lot last night. He knew on the off chance that internal affairs came with a warrant to check his house, the scope of the warrant probably would not cover his car parked in a public parking lot and their search would turn up nothing. He’d rather risk losing the money than getting caught with it.