Lady Justice and the Lottery

by Robert Thornhill

  “Seems like a never-ending battle,” I said.

  “I prefer to look at it as job security,” he said, smiling. “Anyway, one of our snitches gave us a tip that Alejandro Alvarez, a new Mexican cat from Ensenada, was bringing a carload of coke into town and that he was going to hook up with Benny Esposito, a Northeast punk who’s going to distribute the stuff. Both of these guys are relatively new on the scene so we don’t have enough against either of them for a shake down.

  “Problem is, Esposito owns a junkyard off Front Street that’s surrounded by a high wooden fence. Word is that the meet is going down inside the yard. We’re gonna use the X8 drone to get a picture of the buy. Once the deal is on film, we’ll hit the place with everything we have.”

  “So how can we help?” I asked.

  “Like I said in the beginning, this is a courtesy thing for helping us get the drone, but since you’ll be there, you’ll be available in case we need backup.”

  It seemed like a sweet deal, but like the wise man said, “If it looks too good to be true, it probably is!”

  Front Street is on the north side of the Missouri River and runs east and west, parallel to the river. It is an industrial area and the street is lined with manufacturing plants, truck depots and the occasional eyesore. Esposito’s junkyard was one of the eyesores.

  Winkler had deployed his men in unmarked cars parked in adjoining lots. Ox and I as well as Winkler, a driver and two tech guys were in an old United Parcel truck across the street where we could see the entrance to the junkyard.

  The X8 was a compact machine, thirty-six inches square with eight rotor blades and a thermal FLIR camera with a video down-link. The whole thing was operated by a hand-held controller like I’ve seen kids use to operate toy race cars.

  Once launched, the operator would guide the drone high in the air over the junkyard and activate the video camera. The video would be fed to a screen in the van where it could be viewed and recorded.

  An hour after we were set up, Winkler received a call from one of his advance lookouts. “Alvarez is five minutes out.”

  “All units! Get ready,” he barked. “No one moves until we get the exchange on film and I give the order.”

  Right on schedule, a black SUV rolled up to the big wooden gate and honked. A moment later, the gate swung open and the SUV disappeared inside.

  “Okay,” Winkler ordered, “let’s get that bird in the air!”

  The two tech guys hauled the drone out of the van. It weighed a mere sixty ounces. One of the guys flipped a switch on the hand-held console and pushed a few buttons. The eight blades whirred into motion and the craft lifted vertically off the ground. It was quiet as a whisper.

  “Camera’s on,” he said as the drone entered the airspace high above the junkyard.

  We all headed back inside the van and huddled around the TV screen. The controller operator made a few adjustments and soon the image of Benny Esposito shaking hands with Alejandro Alvarez filled the screen.

  “Hot damn! We’re gonna get ‘em!” Winkler declared. He turned to Ox and me. “This thing will be going down pretty soon. We’re going to bust through that gate and hit ‘em with a full frontal assault. If the two of you want something to do, you could go to the back of the junkyard. There’s a back gate that leads to an alley behind the dump. I don’t think anyone is going to slip by us, but I would feel better if someone was watching the back door.”

  I nodded and we headed across the street and followed the big wooden fence to the rear of the property.

  About thirty yards from the corner, we found the back gate.

  “Are we supposed to wait out here?” I wondered aloud.

  “Winkler didn’t say,” Ox replied, “but since these old junkyards are full of old crushed cars stacked three high, if someone does slip through he’d have a million places to hide. We could spot him if we were on the inside.”

  It sounded like a reasonable plan, so we approached the gate. It was secured by a chain and a rusty padlock that looked like it hadn’t been opened in years.

  “Think you can pop that old thing with your picks?” I asked as Ox looked over my shoulder.

  “Probably not,” he replied, “but it’s kind of a moot point since I don’t have my picks with me today.”

  “But you always have your picks!”

  “Not today! Remember, I’m still recovering from a colon scourge. I’m lucky I remembered my badge and gun. So much for getting inside.”

  “Maybe not,” I said, spotting a loose board.

  The old plank and the one next to it were loose at the bottom. The wood had rotted up past the nails that held it to the frame. The top nail was still intact, so when I swung the board to the right, there was a twelve-inch hole. I repeated the process with the second board and soon there was a triangle-shaped hole twenty-four inches wide.

  I knew that I could wiggle through with ease, but Ox was another story.

  “Shall we give it a try?” I asked.

  “Gee, I don’t know,” Ox replied, looking at the hole skeptically.

  “Remember, you are twelve pounds lighter than you were this time last week. It’ll be a piece of cake.”

  We decided that Ox should go first. That way, if he got stuck, I could help pull him back out.

  He got down on his hands and knees and stuck his arms and then his head through the hole. Everything was going just fine until he reached his midsection. I could see that if we could get him past his gut, the hips and legs would be no problem.

  “You pull, I’ll push,” I said, placing my hands on his butt.

  “No! Not there!” he exclaimed. “Remember --- fire in the hole!”

  I quickly retreated.

  My other choice was to enlarge the hole, so I grabbed the end of one board and placed my feet against the other. “Okay, I’m going to pull these boards apart. When you feel them give, pull yourself through.”

  I pushed and pulled as best I could and the boards parted just enough for Ox to wiggle through.

  When he was clear, I followed him into the yard.

  Once inside, the place was just as Ox had described. There was a road through the yard that led to the back gate. On either side sat the remnants of once-grand old cars.

  As we made our way up the road, we spotted many of the classics of years gone by --- a ‘57 Chevy with its hood up sat rusting along side a ‘60 Thunderbird.

  “What a shame,” I lamented, pointing to a Studebaker Golden Hawk.

  “We should be hearing something soon,” Ox said. “Winkler ought to be hitting the place any time now. Maybe we should find someplace to get out of sight.”

  We rounded a curve in the road and found ourselves face-to-face with an eighty-pound German Shepherd.

  I don’t know which of us was more surprised, but I know which one recovered first. The German Shepherd lowered his head, bared his teeth and snarled.

  Suddenly, the words from Jim Croce’s Bad, Bad, Leroy Brown popped into my head --- ‘meaner than a junkyard dog’!

  I heard Ox mumble, “Oh, crap!”

  I tried to remember everything I had ever heard about canine confrontations.

  “Okay, let’s not panic. Try not to show fear --- I’ve heard they can sense fear --- and don’t look him directly in the eye. They take that as a challenge.”

  “I’m afraid it’s a little late for all that,” he replied. “My fear meter is pegged out right now. In fact, if I hadn’t just had a cleanse, my undies would probably be in a bad way.”

  That wasn’t what I wanted to hear from my partner.

  “Maybe we could shoot him,” I suggested.

  “Can’t do it,” Ox replied. “If Esposito and Alveraz hear a gunshot, we could blow the whole bust --- and sure as we shot him, we’d have PETA and the SPCA all over our asses.”

  I hadn’t thought of that.

  Ox slowly turned his head and looked back the way we had come. “It’s about fifty yards. Do you think we could outrun him?”


  That reminded me of a joke that Jerry had laid on me one evening. “Two guys were walking in the woods and came upon a grizzly bear. ‘Run!’ one of them shouted. ‘You can’t outrun a grizzly!’ the second man replied. ‘I don’t have to,’ the first guy said. ‘I just have to outrun you!’”

  I knew that I could outrun Ox, but that just wasn’t how you treat your partner.

  “I doubt it,” I replied, “and even if we did, he’d have your rear end eaten off before you got it through the fence.”

  “Oh, right!”

  Apparently sensing that we weren’t much of a threat, the big dog started slowly advancing.

  “Time to shit or get off the pot,” I said.

  “Please don’t use that metaphor,” Ox responded, grimacing. “It’s hurtful!”

  I spotted an old Volkswagen Microbus a few yards away. “Can dogs climb?” I asked.

  “Damned if I know,” he replied.

  “You got any better ideas?”

  He shook his head.

  “Then let’s do this!”

  We both headed for the VW with the Shepherd hard on our heels.

  Being more agile than my partner, I scrambled up first and grabbed Ox’s hand. I gave a heave just as the dog lunged. The big jaws closed around the heel of Ox’s shoe. One more pull and the dog toppled to the ground with the shoe in his mouth.

  We watched from the top of the bus as the dog shredded the leather shoe.

  “I’d just gotten those broken in,” he muttered.

  When the mutt had finished mauling the shoe, he sat on his haunches and gave us the evil eye.

  “You wouldn’t have a T-bone in your pocket would you?” I asked. “Something to distract him?”

  “Very funny!”

  The dog didn’t move a muscle. He just sat on his haunches staring at the two buffoons on top of the bus. I figured that he had been through this drill before and knew that eventually we’d have to come down. He was willing to play the waiting game.

  Just then we heard a crash as Winkler’s men assaulted the front gate of the junkyard. The air was filled with shouted orders and expletives.

  “Shouldn’t be long now,” Ox observed. “Surely someone will come looking for us.”

  A few moments later, we noticed that something had captured the big dog’s attention. We followed his gaze and saw the X8 hovering above his head. The dog leaped into the air and snapped just as the drone lifted vertically out of his reach. In the minutes that followed, the drone teased at the dog. It was like looking at a cat trying to catch one of those laser lights. We could see that the drone was leading the mutt down the road away from us. He had become so obsessed with catching the thing in the air, he had completely forgotten about us.

  When the dog was around the bend in the road, Ox said, “Let’s get out of here while the getting’s good.”

  We were about to climb down when I spotted a figure running through the maze of old cars.

  I pointed him out to Ox. “Isn’t that Esposito? It sure looks like the mug shot Winkler showed us.”

  “Sure is!” Ox replied. “He must have had an escape plan ready just in case. Looks like he’s heading for the back fence. I’ll bet he’s got another way through the fence that we didn’t know about.”

  “Maybe we can get to him before he gets through,” I said, climbing down the side of the old bus.

  We snaked our way through the old rusting derelicts and headed to the back of the lot. We got to Esposito just as he was prying a second board off the fence.

  “Drop the crowbar, Esposito!” Ox ordered. “On your knees with your hands behind your head. This is the end of the line!”

  Surprisingly, Esposito did as he was told. For some strange reason that doesn’t happen often with us.

  Ox was about to cuff him when we heard a low growl. We turned and the Shepherd was back, bare teeth and all.

  “Looks like we may have no choice but to shoot him this time,” Ox said. “You take the dog and I’ll watch Esposito.”

  “No! Please! Don’t shoot him!” Esposito begged. “I’ll take care of him.”

  “Then you’d better do it quick!” I replied as the dog began to advance.

  “Dino! Sit!” Esposito ordered.

  Immediately, the dog sat back on his haunches.

  “He’s really quite docile,” Esposito said, apologetically.

  “Docile my ass!” Ox bellowed. “He ate my shoe!”

  “He’s been trained to do that --- like the dogs in your K-9 corps. He’s actually quite a lover boy. We call him Dino because he loves Dean Martin songs. If you sing one of Dean’s songs for him, you’ll have a friend forever.”

  I was surprised that Esposito was so chatty given the fact that he would soon be on his way downtown in a paddy wagon.

  At that moment, Winkler came around the corner flanked by two of his men.

  When he saw Esposito on his knees, he breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Good job, guys. I thought we had lost him.”

  A few minutes later, Winkler and his men led Esposito away leaving me, Ox and Dino alone in the back of the junkyard.

  The mutt and I just stared at each other wondering what was going to happen next. At last I couldn’t resist. From the moment Esposito had mentioned Dean Martin, I had been searching the big music catalog in my brain trying to remember one of his songs.

  Finally, I found one.

  I leaned toward Dino and started singing.

  “When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that’s amore.”

  The big dog cocked his head to the side, rose to his feet and licked my hand. Then he buried his nose in my crotch and gave a big sniff.

  “Looks like you two have a thing going,” Ox observed. “If you sing him the second verse he’ll probably be humping your leg.”

  Thankfully, that was all I could remember.

  The courtroom was packed as Ox and I made our way to the seats that had been saved for potential witnesses. The prosecution had subpoenaed us since we were the ones that had actually apprehended Esposito as he tried to escape.

  Alvarez and his attorney sat at one end of the defense table and I was surprised to see Suzanne Romero sitting at the other end with Benny Espisito.

  Even though she was a defense attorney, she didn’t usually take the cases of known scumbags unless there was some bigger issue on the table. The fact that she was here today was not a good sign for the prosecution.

  The judge entered the courtroom and the bailiff called the case.

  The prosecution’s first witness was Rocky Winkler.

  The DA led Rocky through the investigation up to the point where the drone was deployed. He was about to tell the court what the X8 had recorded when Romero rose to her feet.

  “Objection, Your Honor!”

  “On what grounds, Ms. Romero?”

  “On the grounds that the use of the X8 drone constituted an unlawful search.”

  The DA jumped to his feet. “Judge, that’s ridiculous!”

  “Sit down, Counselor,” the judge ordered. “Ms. Romero, do you have case law to support your objection?”

  Romero smiled at the judge, “Knowing that you’d be handling this case, Your Honor, I’m sure that you reviewed case law yourself and know that the use of drones is so new that there are currently no statutes on the books governing the use of such aircraft for surveillance. Until such time as our legislators tackle this gap in our legal system, court decisions like the one you will render today will set a precedent for future court cases. It seems only reasonable that you would want to explore this issue in depth.”

  The DA jumped to his feet again. He could sense that his slam-dunk case was heading for trouble.

  Before he could object, the judge said, “Sit down. I’m inclined to agree with Ms. Romero. What is decided here today could definitely impact future litigation. I’d like to hear more. You may proceed Ms. Romero.”

  “Thank you, Judge. The use of UAVs, Unmanned Aeria
l Vehicles, or drones as they are commonly called is already a fact of life in America. We often think of them being used by the government, which is true, but in fact, anyone may obtain a license from the FAA to operate a drone. Already over two thousand permits have been issued to domestic drone operators. The FAA estimates that at this moment over ten thousand drones could be flying over our country at any given time and they estimate that number will rise to thirty thousand by 2020.

  “It is common knowledge that federal agencies like the Department of Homeland Security have an arsenal of drones that can conduct surveillance, intercept communications and even determine whether or not a person thousands of feet below the aircraft is armed. The Electronic Privacy Information Center has even determined that the Predator B drones have the capacity to recognize and identify a person on the ground. All of this seems a bit Orwellian, but I think there is legitimate concern over privacy issues and the potential for abuse of power. That is the crux of the matter facing us today.

  “Your Honor, may I approach the witness?”

  “You may.”

  Romero walked to the witness stand. “Sergeant Winkler, you testified that you are a twenty year veteran in the department.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Then undoubtedly you are familiar with routine police procedure.”

  “I am.”

  “Have you ever put a wire tap on a suspect’s phone or installed a hidden camera for surveillance purposes?”

  “I have.”

  “Exactly what was required before you could install those devices?”

  “We had to obtain a court order,” he replied.

  “And what does a judge require before he issues the order?”

  “We have to show probable cause.”

  “Thank you, Sergeant Winkler. On the day you raided Benny Esposito’s junkyard, had you obtained a court order to deploy the X8 drone?”