by Ty Patterson
Chloe looked at the roll in Bwana’s hand and grimaced. ‘Bwana, you do realize it’s called breakfast for a reason, and not lunch?’
Bwana took a larger bite. ‘Yup. But I’m a growing boy and need all the vitamins. You’re all growed out, so you don’t need them.’
Bear stifled a chuckle at Chloe’s glare and headed to the counter to get nourishment for the rest of them.
Broker had his laptop running when he returned and was replying to Roger. ‘We lie low for a day or two while we decide which other place to hit.’
Bear paused while handing out their drinks. ‘What about Isakson? Is he in the loop? Does he know about yesterday?’
Broker shook his head. ‘Nope and nope. He might put two and two together, but we have carte blanche to do things our way. That was the condition I insisted on for helping him.’
He went back to studying his laptop. His intelligence business did not need his full-time presence, and he used a light touch with managing Tony and his other managers, but he still studied all the intelligence reports that were collated overnight, and commented on them before they got distributed to various clients.
His phone rang, interrupting his reading. He glanced at it and picked it up. ‘Tony? What’s up?’
He listened for a moment. ‘Did the NYPD approach you?’
‘All right, keep me posted.’ He leaned back and gazed out of the window for several moments, not registering the inquiring glances from the rest.
Chloe finally broke the silence. ‘Spill it, Broker. We’ve been properly respectful for long enough.’
He turned to look at her, grinning. ‘If you guys had been really respectful, you’d have allowed me to speak first.’
He turned his gaze on Bwana and Bear. ‘The warehouse was burnt at night. Late night. The NYPD suspect it’s arson. They’ve found traces of incendiary devices at the site, and the official line is that they’re pursuing all lines of inquiry. Unofficially, they don’t give a damn. They’ve got the gangbangers, they’ve got a shit load of drugs, and they’ve got the limelight. The case will be buried and closed later.’
He held his hand up to forestall them. ‘That’s all we know, guys. Tony is looking into it and will let me know if he has more intel.’
‘Could 5Clubs have razed it to the ground?’ Bwana asked curiously. ‘Maybe they’ll claim damages from insurance.’
Broker shrugged halfheartedly. ‘It’s possible. I’m just wondering why they’d want to bring attention to themselves, if that’s what they’ve done.’
They went at it for a few more minutes without any theory taking shape. Bear said disgustedly, ‘They wouldn’t be a gang if they acted rationally, would they?’
And on that, they put it behind them.
Broker folded his laptop to tablet mode and pulled up Google Maps. He zeroed in on three addresses – in the Meatpacking District, East Harlem, and in Midtown West.
‘The first is another crack warehouse, very similar to the one we busted. The second is a gas station in East Harlem. They own this station… a lot of their customers end up reporting card fraud. They probably use card skimmers to rip the numbers. They use the gas station to also consolidate their daily take from their local businesses. The last one, in Hell’s Kitchen, is a high-end strip club. Business types from Wall Street, corporate honchos, media guys… you know the kind, they all head there.’
Bwana tilted the tablet toward himself to see better. ‘Why don’t we hit all three?’
Bear shook his head immediately. ‘Let’s turn the screw slowly. Let’s do one and then another a few days later.’
Broker nodded approvingly. ‘What I figured. So, guys, which place do we go for?’
Chloe grinned when hers was the only finger resting on the strip club. ‘I thought you guys wouldn’t pass on the opportunity to see some flesh. Are you being righteous on my account?’
None of them replied.
Chloe looked back at the map and frowned. What did I miss?
‘Gotcha. More innocents at the strip club.’
Bear’s lips twitched, though it was hard to make out with his thick facial hair. ‘I wouldn’t call patrons of a strip club innocent exactly, but yes, more people there.’
They went back to studying the map as Broker zoomed in on the gas station. ‘On Second Avenue and has exits to the street on two sides. Other two sides are walled up. A Spanish restaurant, a saloon, and a grocery store opposite, on the other side of the street. All with a clear view of the service station.’
‘We watch tomorrow?’
‘Yup. In turns, every two hours from four p.m. in the evening to midnight. You and Bear go first, then Bwana and Roger. I’ll go last, with Tony. After six hours, we change partners, you pair with Bwana then. We’re looking for one vehicle with a couple of guys, maybe three, though I think two is the most they’ll send. One to drive, the other, the bagman. If they don’t fuel up but drive right to the glass door, one guy going in and coming out very quickly with a bag or case of some kind… those will be our boys. One of our pair will idle in a car nearby.’
Bwana shook his head mournfully. ‘Not even a contest.’
Chapter 24
Bear and Chloe walked down the block on Second Avenue the next evening and, after one pass past the service station, crossed the avenue and headed to the eating joint. The place was empty, the lull between lunch hour and the evening traffic giving it a sleepy feel.
Chloe rummaged in her bag and spread out a large map of New York and started circling the attractions while talking about their plans for the next day, tourists filling in every available minute with things to do and places to go. Bear moved around to sit with her and look at the map better, and watch the gas station across the street.
‘I was thinking we’d struggle to kill two hours. I shouldn’t have worried,’ Chloe commented when their orders arrived. Bear’s tray was overflowing with food, whereas she had ordered just a salad.
Bear grinned, his eyes softening. ‘I’m compensating for you.’
She laid her phone in front of their trays, the head of the phone facing the street. It was a Broker gadget, a long-distance video recorder whose lens was built in the head. ‘I doubt we’ll see them on our watch. Too early.’
Bear nodded silently. His silences had never been an issue in their relationship, Chloe was the talkative one, and he was the listener. Well trained was how Chloe described his silences.
The only excitement during their watch was when an overweight drunk lurched in the pizza joint and waved a long, wicked knife at the cashier, a blade that caught the lights and looked scarier than it was. Weaving on his feet, he shouted at the teenager to open his cash register. The joint was nearly empty, just Bear and Chloe and another couple, and in the sudden silence, the drunk’s loud, labored breathing sounded like the wind across the windows.
The drunk looked around when he felt a hand on his shoulder.
‘Let me take this. Someone might get hurt.’ Bear smiled down at him, his hand gripping the drunk’s fist like a vice. He twisted the arm around, kicked his feet back, and leaned the drunk against the counter. The drunk offered no resistance, and by the time the teenager had overcome his trembling, the owner, who was also the chef and his dad, rushed in from the kitchen.
He stopped short when he saw the drunk. ‘Not again! Mike, I thought you had quit drinking.’ He scolded the drunk in Spanish, who was now weeping, and then turned to Bear. Bear realized this was not a genuine holdup and released Mike.
‘Gracias, Señor. Mike is my brother, and he does this a few times when he’s drunk. But he had sworn on our mother that he’d quit.’ He whacked his brother on his head and pushed him to the teenager, who led him away.
‘No police?’ Bear asked mildly.
The owner shook his head furiously. ‘No, Señor. This is family. Mike is harmless. He’ll be alright once he’s sober. Thank you for helping.’
Bear went back to Chloe, who had kept a watch on the gas station. �
�Anything?’
Chloe shook her head and smiled faintly. ‘That’s low profile?’
Bear grinned. ‘For me, yes.’
They left half an hour later after the owner had waved away their attempts to pay the check. They passed Bwana and Roger on the street and exchanged the barest of nods with them.
It was late in the evening, nearly nine p.m., and Broker and Tony were playing cards on a bench in front of the restaurant when a black BMW sedan circled the service station twice. Broker threw down a card. ‘Maybe something here.’
The BMW went away, returned after half an hour at an idling pace and nosed inside the forecourt, reversed and backed up against the glass doors. A slim man in a loose shirt slipped out of the passenger side and headed inside. They could see him talk briefly to the pimpled guy behind the counter and return to the waiting car with two bulging plastic shopping bags.
The BMW sped off, and a few minutes later, Broker saw a dark Ford SUV merge in the traffic three cars behind it.
‘He’s checking something in the bags… maybe counting.’ Roger’s voice was clear in their earbuds over the hum of the traffic. ‘Bear, Chloe, where’re you guys?’
‘Behind you, four car lengths away. You can’t see us, but I can see your black top.’
Broker looked at his cards. ‘Keep behind them. My guess is they’ll collect a few more takings before heading to Hamm’s garage. Tony and I’ll be here just in case we’ve got the wrong car.’
‘What if we’ve got the wrong car? Might be Joe Public picking up stuff?’
‘We’ll flash a wad of cash and make good any hassle.’
They hadn’t got the wrong vehicle.
The BMW stopped at another service station and a strip club and then headed downtown, taking the East Side Highway.
Broker and Tony folded their cards. ‘Take them.’
They all donned black masks, Chloe tucking her hair in, as Roger closed the gap on the Beamer, tailgating the cars ahead till they dropped off, and saw Bear overtake them from the corner of his eyes. The last car stubbornly remained in place and gave way only after Roger drove to an inch of its rear, but not before the driver rolled down his window and flipped them the finger.
Bear’s brake lights flared red ahead, and Roger surged, motion and machine slamming into the Beamer, ramming it against Bear’s truck. The Beamer was strong, German engineering at its best, but it was no match for a Ford SUV sandwich, its hood and trunk grating and buckling under the impact.
Steam and smoke roiled and shadows moved, and the shadows became Bear and Bwana.
They loomed silently, looking down at the hoods, who were dazed and slapping away at the deflating bags and the powder in the air. One of them, Loose Shirt, reached for his waist, and Bwana smiled against his mask – he’d spotted the 5Clubs tat on the thug’s neck. He smashed his Glock in the man’s mouth. ‘Don’t.’
Bear bored his gun in the driver’s temple and gestured silently for his weapon and handed it to Roger without a backward glance. Bwana disarmed Loose Shirt and reached down and hauled the bags out.
‘You fucks–’ the driver started, and Bear slashed his jaw. The driver looked in his eyes showing through the holes in the black hood and saw a world of hurt and kept quiet.
Cars and trucks slowed down and then sped off when Chloe’s hooded face trained on them, her gun shining and hard and visible under the streetlights.
Bwana tossed plastic ties across the roof to Bear. ‘Hands,’ he said to Loose Shirt.
Loose Shirt hesitated for the slightest moment, then put his hands forward, and Bwana secured them tightly with the ties. Bear cuffed the driver, pulled open the glove box, and riffling through the papers, pocketed them. ‘We’re done here, bro,’ he said to Bwana.
Their trucks were dented, but the engines turned over smoothly, and they disappeared into the night.
Broker counted the bundles in the bags. ‘Enough to buy an apartment downtown. Whoever said crime doesn’t pay didn’t know shit.’
They were having dinner after checking into another anonymous joint and handing over the SUVs to Tony and his stringy colleague. The vehicles had untraceable number plates and, after being wiped down, hosed, and valeted, would be left on a crime-ridden street with the keys in them. And would be stolen.
Broker took a long pull of his beer and settled in his chair, the dim light shining off his hair. ‘I made some calls. NYPD picked up those guys within fifteen minutes of your leaving. They got a description of three hooded men and nothing much else to go on. They’ve diligently noted their report and have assured them they’ll investigate the holdup. They’ll probably check camera feeds and ask for witnesses to come forward, but will get nowhere. If we’d left their guns behind, those guys would have some explaining to do their own selves.’ He grinned. ‘We’ve got our first report filed against us, you know.’
Chloe shrugged. ‘I’m sure it’ll keep us awake at night.’ She nodded at the bags. ‘What do we do with those?’
‘What do you suggest?’
‘Maybe some charity can have a pleasant surprise tomorrow?’
‘You got it. Name your charity, and we’ll leave it on their premises at night. Now something else. Remember that phone Roger picked up in Arizona? I juiced it up and went through its history, directory, everything that it had.’
He took another swig, letting the silence build and, when Chloe rolled her eyes, continued. ‘Wasn’t much in it, other than a few numbers. Four numbers, in fact.’ He nodded at Roger and Bwana. ‘There were three other numbers you guys didn’t spot. Two of those were numbers in L.A., one of them a New York number, and the last was a voice mail number.
‘Now the two L.A numbers belong to a scrap dealer… a junkyard where they make scrap out of old bangers. This junkyard is owned by 5Clubs; the LAPD know about it and have a watch on it.
‘The New York number is an untraceable one, most likely a disposable one. And the last one is interesting, a mailbox number. I think that’s how they pass messages, by leaving messages on a voice mailbox that everyone can access.’
‘Have you tried these numbers?’ Bear asked him.
‘Only the New York one, and that turned out to be a dead one. Shall we try the others?’
Bwana’s emphatic, ‘Hell yeah,’ made him chuckle. He dug into his pocket and pulled out the phone, a Nokia model that smart phones had rendered almost obsolete.
Bwana picked it up and scrolled through the history. He frowned. ‘This isn’t…’ and the phone rang.
He turned on the speaker and placed it in the center of the table.
A young voice came out, tinny and hesitating. ‘Zeb?’
Part 3
Chapter 25
They filled Elaine Rocka’s dining room, Bwana silent and large at one end of the table, Bear bookending at the other end, and Roger, Broker, and petite Chloe in the middle.
Elaine sat in silence, her eyes narrowed, her dogs, German shepherds, sitting either side of her, ready to attack at a word. Shawn had called the number every day, increasingly in despair than hope, and she had seen his face transform when the phone was finally answered.
‘So run it past me again. Just who the fuck are you?’
No one was going to meet her babies without her approval.
‘Ma’am, we’re friends of Zeb. We all served in the army together, and once we left the army, we set up a security services firm.’ Broker was economical with the truth with strangers, and this was the strangest situation he could recall having been in.
They had blurred through the city after hanging up, each one of them lost in their own worlds.
‘Zeb’s phone was dead and lying in my room for ages. Looks identical to the phone Roger had. I must have charged it by mistake and brought it with me,’ Broker said after a long while.
No one replied, and he sped faster, allowing the traffic to imprint itself back on them, keeping the memories at bay. His phone rang just as they reached the Bronx.
‘To
ny, what’ve you got?’
‘Elaine Rocka, early forties, lives alone in the Bronx, owns her house. Divorced several times, received quite a payoff from the last one. No kids. Works part-time in the mayor’s office, in the payroll department. Now, get this. This is where the connection could be.
‘Has a sister, Coralyn Rocka, who was married to one William Shattner. Shattner was an E-5 in the army… was dishonorably discharged. Served in Iraq at the same time as Zeb.’
Tony paused and carried on when there was no reaction. ‘Shattner and his wife separated when he was in Iraq; she’s now in Miami with some other dude. Shattner got custody of the kids, two of them, a boy, eleven years old, and a girl, eight years.’
Chloe broke in. ‘Tony, any specific connection to Zeb? We had enough feet there to populate a small city, and Zeb would have interacted with many.’
‘As of now, nothing’s come up. Will keep digging and call if I get anything. Broker, let me know if you need anything else.’
Elaine Rocka lasered Broker. ‘So why isn’t this Zeb here?’
‘He’s dead.’
Elaine Rocka didn’t like it one bit. It showed in her face, in her body language, and the dogs sensed it. One stood and walked around them, the other growled.
‘So if he’s dead, why are you fuckers here? You could have said that on the phone.’
‘Ma’am, we wanted to see what the connection to Zeb was. Why would the boy call Zeb?’
‘He called because the SOB who passed for his dad left him a message to call this Zeb if anything happened to him. He doesn’t know anything else.’
‘Did he say how he knew Zeb?’
Elaine Rocka shook her head. ‘You aren’t hearing me, mister. Shawn doesn’t know anything else. The prick, his dad, didn’t say much in his entire life.’
Broker chose his words carefully. ‘The boy’s father, he’s not around?’
