by Lee Lamothe
“What’s this about? I gotta get someplace. Who you guys? What? I didn’t signal a lane change? What?”
Ray Tate looked at him in the rear view and shook his head. “Ohhhh-kay. We’re with the criminal asset recovery project. We have reason to believe you’re carrying contraband in the form of the proceeds of crime. Either that or you’re legally a pinhead. We will now proceed to our laboratory where our trained phrenologists will calibrate your skull.”
Djuna Brown snickered and checked to make sure everybody was strapped in, then fastened her belt. “Sit back, Abster. You don’t want to obscure the rear-view mirror, okay?”
“Yeah.” Hussey seemed resigned to a day of shit. “Whatever.”
“You know, Abbie, that drives me nuts. ‘Whatever.’ And the shrug. That means the same thing: ‘Go fuck yourself.’ My nephew does it and I go mental. You don’t want to say that to me, okay, Absteroni? Because really soon you and me are going to be in a private situation. I don’t want to reveal who’ll be doing what to who, but one of us is going to be naked and I’m going to be taking pictures of him.”
Hussey was silent.
Ray Tate laughed.
“Let’s take the expressway, Ray, okay? Abbie wants to get home.”
Ray Tate yawned and shrugged. “Whaaaaatevs.”
In an office at the Asset Recovery Project, after emptying Abner Hussey’s pockets, Ray Tate removed the handcuffs and said, “You want us to strike up the house music, Abbo, or you just want to give us a bump and grind?”
“I see …” Djuna Brown intoned, closing her eyes and humming an eerie wooing graveyard tune, “… I see … Wait a minute, Abbinsky, I’m having a vision. I see … Red gauchies and a whole lot of dough.”
The office was cramped, windowless, and furnished with a desk and two chairs. A tiny closed circuit recorder with a winking light was mounted in the corner of the ceiling.
Abner Hussey sighed and took off his suit coat, then his shirt. Bulging white business envelopes were duct-taped to his pasty chest, ribcage, stomach, and lower back. He dropped his pants. Envelopes were affixed to the insides of his thighs and on his shins. He wore droopy black socks and bright red bikini underwear.
“Told you, Ray, red gauchies.” She fussed with a digital camera. “Smile pretty, Abbomatic.” She aimed the camera at Hussey and took a full-length picture. “Turn around, bud.” She took another picture of the envelopes on his back, and then a head-and-shoulders portrait. She took a laptop from a desk drawer, powered it up, attached the camera into it, and started keying.
Hussey began peeling away the duct tape, sucking air as his body hair came off with it, looping it with the envelopes attached and coiling it onto the desk. “That’s it.” He looked disgusted.
“Abbie, Abbie, Abbie,” Ray Tate said. “Man, we could have been pricks. We could have called the feds, let you hit the booths to Canada with all this undeclared cash, and that’s all she wrote. That’s federal shit —”
“Heavy, heavy fed action, that,” Djuna Brown said mournfully. “Yikes.”
“But we said, ‘No, the Ab-Man is our pal. No way do the greedy fuckers get our buddy, take the money, and waste it on bureaucrats. We’ll stop him before he goes into their territory, keep him here, let him hook up with his pals.’”
“Them’s us, them pals.” Djuna Brown said happily. “You know, Ab, if you wanted to chat with us about the source of these funds, we could arrange that some of this money comes back to you, a reward.” She got no response.
Ray Tate began unpeeling the envelopes from the tape. “I have to open one of them, make sure you’re not carrying something else, something nasty.” He slit one envelope and took out a thick wad of bills and ruffled it, making sure the camera picked up his hands. “Whoever you’re working for is desperate, man. He didn’t even boil it all down into decent hundreds. Look at this shit. Tens, twenties.”
“I’m having a moment, here, Ray, like another hot flash,” Djuna Brown said, closing her eyes and humming. “I see, ah, I see a two, and I see a zero, and I see another two.” She gave Hussey a sweet smile. “Two oh two, Ab. My guess? There’s two hundred and two grand there.”
Hussey said nothing.
Keeping his hands in view of the surveillance camera, Ray Tate took a clear plastic bag from a desk drawer and put the envelopes inside. He ripped a strip of self-adhesive from the opening of the bag, sealed it shut, and wrote his name and badge number across it in grease pencil. “Estimated two-hundred-and-two thousand, variegated U.S. currency, pending audit.” He pushed a claim form across the desk. “Take it home and fill ’er out, Abbo, and you can apply to get your money back. No law against Abbie having cash, right?”
“Absolutely, Ray. This ain’t communist Canada or nothing.”
“Well, not yet, anyway,” Ray Tate said. He started his spiel, first making sure the video camera didn’t record his mouth. “So, Abbo, here’s how it plays. We didn’t have any probable cause to stop you, so this is probably an illegal arrest and seizure. Our bad. So we’ve seen the error in our ways and we’re cutting you loose. But we’re keeping the dough. You can fight for it in court. Nobody’s tried that yet, though, I got to tell you. Mostly because they don’t want to get in the box with their hand on the black book and tell the judge where they got the dough they were packing.”
“And, Ray, how come they got it taped on their bodies?”
“Yep. Then, Ab, there’s those pesky IRS folks come sniffing around wondering how an out-of-work landscaper like you claiming fifteen grand income last year accumulated this little nest egg. And they do a net worth, look at his assets, his house, his car, and go, ‘Whoa, where’d all the money for this shit come from? Where’s our end, taxes paid? What’s up with that?’”
Djuna Brown gaily piled on. “And we do residue and fingerprints on the bills to see who’s been handling them, if there might have been, oh, I don’t know, cocaine? Cocaine in the vicinity?” She frowned. “You think, Ab, this might be dope money?”
“What money?” Hussey dressed quickly, his suit hanging from his thin body, his sleeves obscuring his hands, his belt twisted into a knot. He stared at a calendar on the wall showing a Parisian street scene, a happy young couple sitting at a bistro table under a Pernod umbrella. “Where’s my keys?”
“Well,” Ray Tate said, thinking about Hussey’s pride of ownership, that he got married in the Cadillac, that the dealer serviced it for almost thirty years. “The car. I dunno how we’re gonna play that, yet. Sometimes the ride gets seized as an instrument used in the commission of, sometimes not. This new state’s attorney is moody. One day this, one day that. Let me go check, okay? And I gotta make sure we have updated bio data in the files.” He picked up Hussey’s wallet, took out a wad of bills, counted them, and handed them back. “Eighty-six bucks back to you.”
“Okay, Ray, go,” Djuna Brown said. “Me and Ab are going to chat a little.”
As Ray Tate went out the door he heard Djuna Brown cheerfully ask Abner Hussey if he’d ever been to Paris.
He went down the corridor to the Green Squad bullpen and gave a thumbs-up to a grey-haired man sitting in a glass office with his feet on his desk reading a motorcycle magazine. The man waved him in. Lettering on the door said Commander James Cash; on the desk was an engraved sign that said The Cashman, the S a dollar sign.
“How much did he have, Ray?”
“Looks like two oh two, pending, boss. As advertised.”
“Nice, very nice.” The Cashman stretched luxuriously and glanced at a schematic of a deconstructed Vincent Black Shadow on the wall. “They should all be this easy.” He laughed. “Actually, they are.”
“Whoever’s tipping us off knows a lot, boss, right down to the time, the route, the red bikini underwear, the amount. Three times so far he’s been right on the money. It would be nice to find out who this tipster is, focus him a little. He probably knows a lot we’d like to know. Especially about the source of funds.”
“Any c
hance Hussey might want to help us out with that?”
“You’d think so. We as much as told him someone ratted him out, right down to the amount of dough and the red banana hammock he’s wearing. He didn’t bite. Djuna’s in there now, talking to him about Paris.”
“Don’t start with fucking Paris, okay? Forget Paris. Paris is why you’re working here. Anyway, move him if you can. There’s more dough where that came from.”
Ray Tate went to his desk and turned on his computer and waited for it to come up. A printout of Hussey’s rap sheet was beside the keyboard. Fraud, fraud, and fraud. Possession of fraudulent monetary instruments, possession of counterfeit U.S. currency, impersonation. A paper crook.
In Hussey’s wallet was a black-and-white photograph of a younger Abner with a full head of red hair in a baby-blue tuxedo with a tall thin woman with a blond bouffant, wearing a tight white miniskirt, holding a clutch of posy. The couple were arm-in-arm, laughing at the camera, leaning on the Cadillac. A wedding bouquet was mounted on the hood. Ray Tate stared at the photograph for a few minutes, wondering if the woman might be a pressure point. He computed her rough age and loaded her, last-name-only, into the database. A moment later she came back. Jane Hussey, traffic drunk, traffic drunk, traffic drunk. A year-old failure to remain at scene, without resolution. He picked up the telephone and called Traffic Services.
“Hey. Any smash-and-dash guys do a Jane Hussey, about a year ago? Undisposed-without?”
“Yeah, I know it. Fail-to-remain Jane. Great lady, everybody liked her, even the people she crashed into. She couldn’t keep off the bottle. Married to a mutt, a scammer. Tragic case, but the bright side was anybody who wanted an easy overtime in court, just park outside her house and wait for her to come out and get in her car and run it into something.”
“There’s no disposition, there, in the system, on the last one, the hit-and-split. We might want to put the arm on her husband, maybe deal her charge away.”
“Too late. Suicide. Pills and booze, ah, six months ago? Something like that.”
Ray Tate went back to the glass office. “Boss, we offered Abner some dough, but he declined. We said we might have to put the grab on his car, beauty old Cadillac, and seize it as transport and carriage in commission of. It looked like we broke his heart. He got married in that car. I want to deal it back to him, see if that moves him.”
“Screw the car. We were illegal stopping him, we were illegal seizing the money, we were illegal seizing the car. We’re keeping the money by default, but the car? Let it walk.”
Ray Tate held up Hussey’s wallet. “He loves that car. Look in your wallet. What pictures you got, that makes you hard?”
“My first knuckle-head Harley.”
“I got me and Djuna sipping champagne at the Brasserie Lipp. But Abner’s got his wedding picture, him and the bride and the car. Still got the same car, wife died, suicide, six months ago. There’s some sentimental value here.” Ray Tate stared at the wedding photograph. “I’m going to work it.”
“Well, work it if you think it’ll get more dough for us.”
Djuna Brown was chatting with Abner Hussey as if they were old chums. Ray Tate slipped into the room and put the wallet on the desk.
“I never thought I’d eat raw meat, Ab,” Djuna Brown was saying. “What’s up with that? Beef tartare. But they do it okay. They put in the spices and stuff, you eat it off a little piece of toast, raw eggs, some onions. Glass of champagne, man, heaven. You gotta go, Ab. There’s a whole world out there.” She looked up. “Right, Ray? Paris?”
“Yep. Ab, you know why they call it beef tartare? This is good. In the old days when meat was really tough, the Tar Tars, or something, Genghis Khan’s guys, used to put a piece of tough meat under their saddles, ride around plundering and stuff all day, to tenderize it. Then eat it raw, no cooking fire in case someone’s after them, sees the smoke. That’s what they say, anyway. Beef tartare.”
“I didn’t know that part, Ab, when I first ate it. Sounds kind of gross. I mean you wouldn’t eat a raw hamburger, right, that got plastered to a sweaty horse all day?” She looked at him intently as if she really wanted to know. She could do this all day. “Anyway, don’t get me started on snails.”
“So, Ab, the news.” Ray Tate sat down. “They’re seizing the car. Transport and carriage. State’s attorney says crack down on you guys, you drug money guys, the facilitators. Hit ’em where it hurts. If you want to fight for the car in court, you’ll probably win. In fact, I know you’ll win because they don’t want it. They just don’t want you to have it. But until then?” He shrugged. “A year, maybe. I’ll ask the impound guys to throw a tarp over it, park it inside, but I can’t guarantee it.”
“But the pound gets filled up, Ab’,” Djuna Brown said, “and sometimes they gotta move stuff outside.”
“Or the drug squad needs wheels for a couple of days, they go down and give the impound guy a bottle of Canadian Club, get the keys, take ’er out on a surveillance or a takedown. Can’t help that. That’s policing in a time of budget restraints.” He stood and shrugged. “You’re an okay guy, Ab. I mean this, I feel bad about it. That car, well … Sorry, man. Myself, I’m not into cars, I’m a from A to B guy, but I know quality, I know art. That’s a masterpiece.”
Hussey blinked rapidly. He bit his lip.
Djuna Brown looked at Ray Tate and raised her eyebrows. “Can we do anything, Ray? For Abbie? That beauty car will just die in custody. That ain’t right, Ray. Rust, pigeon shit, winter salt, vice squad drunks banging hookers in the back seat.”
Hussey knew he was being fed into the grinder. He was bitter. “How much? How much do you want? There’s a lot of dough around. I know those guys. I can tell you when a guy’s moving something.”
“What we’d really like to know,” Ray Tate said, sitting down, “is whose dough it is. Some back-end guy we grab his stash, stir some fuck into his life.”
Chapter 2
In a white condo in Stonetown, Jerry Kelly watched as Marko Markowitz snapped his cellphone shut and screamed at the ceiling. “Fuuuuuuuck.” He pounded his fists on his head and walked in a circle. “They just grabbed Abner at the bridge. Two hundred G. Cockfuckingsucker.”
With a smirk Jerry Kelly wondered if Markowitz was going to jump out the window. He waited calmly. He was a placid-looking, sandy-haired man, twenty years younger than Markowitz and average in every way. He deliberately fashioned himself as a mid-level schoolteacher at a mid-level school, with a mid-level split containing a nagging wife and frustrating children with middling grades. His mouth was curved up into a perpetual smile of sad disappointment. He cultivated a resignation as though life had done so much to him that another kick in the head wouldn’t make him blink. Marko’s rant amused him. Marko being haunted by nightmares of Colombian midgets twirling chainsaws. The legendary necktie, the throat slit and the tongue flapping out through it.
When he spoke his voice was at odds with the innocuous appearance. It was deep and rough and toneless. “We should have used skanks, Marko. Skanks with big tits get through. But Abner told me: no question, Jer’, I got the face on, it’s as good as in Canada.” He burped loudly and scratched at his stomach through his plain white dress shirt. “That’s three-sixty-nine we lost, between ripoffs and seizures. At this rate we’re going to each crash the border with a roll of quarters, offer ’em to Pavo for a line each before he takes us to the biology lab. I told you, Marko, we gotta get your legendary pal Preston, and put his variations to work, or the dwarf Colombian is going to come up here and do chainsaw wheelies inside our chest cavity.”
“Forget Bobby. He knows what kind of dough it is.”
Bobby Preston was a master smuggler. A truckload of cheap chickens on one side of the border, and presto!, he’d come with a variation to move it across. Booze, smokes, anything. Anything except anything to do with dope.
Markowitz felt a creepy unease at hearing Jerry Kelly talking about Bobby Preston. “He lost a bunch of C
hinks in the river last winter. It broke him, he’s finished. He’s out.”
“He lost, what? Four Chinamen?” Jerry Kelly shook his head. “Man, we did in more than four people last year that pissed us off. Bummer for poor old Presto, it was a fucking tragedy I’m sure, but four Chinamen, man, is only a little bit interesting in only a limited way to very few people. You know how many fucking people there are in China? Relative, man, it’s all relative. We got to get Presto on our bus.”
“Won’t happen, Jerry.” Markowitz was firm. “Presto’s out of it. We need something else. And fast. How much went through today?”
Jerry Kelly sneaked a glance at his watch. His shirtsleeves were rolled halfway up revealing tattoos: 13 printed on the left, above his watchstrap, M on the right wrist under a gold chain. Both meant marijuana, good old tats from good old times. On the inside of his left wrist was a faded tattoo of a motorcycle shooting flame, a gargoyle astride it wearing goggles and a Nazi helmet. FTW was bannered beneath it. Fuck the World. He had long jagged rips in his left forearm and he had other stuff going on under his shirt, including a wide blur of flesh across his upper back where a tattoo of his biker colours had been removed with a cheese grater.
“Between Rosie and Pat and Georgio and Juke, we got one-point-six ems out. But all the dough’s in little bills. Pavo wants big stuff, fifties, hundreds, money orders, to his cousin in Toronto. He’s getting pissed at what we’re sending up there, so he’s discounting the count by ten percent for boiling it down into something he can move. That broke-ass Canadian buck is fluctuating, so that’s okay, it averages out par, what we lose on the swings we make on the merry-go-round. But with what’s still coming in from retail product and what the cops are grabbing off us, we’re fucked.” He shook his head. “Marko, we gotta stop selling until we get this thing fixed. We’re drowning in dough.”
