by Brad Parks
And have no doubt about it, it was a substantial threat. To say nothing of the variety of state and federal laws they were breaking by selling unlicensed guns, the officers would, at the very least, be guilty of official misconduct. And in New Jersey, that came with a mandatory minimum of a decade-long jail sentence. No former cop wants to spend ten seconds behind bars, much less ten years.
Then they killed Kipps, which meant they could add first-degree murder charges onto that bill. If caught, they’d be spending the rest of their lives as a guest of the state. It all made the stakes high enough to justify any intervention-killing another cop, like Fusco, or killing the meddlesome newspaper reporter who kept trying to expose their crime.
Until they were all locked up-every last one of them-I was little more than a safe pick in the office Ghoul Pool.
* * *
Ruthie parked around the corner and two blocks down from the bodega, in a spot where none of our new friends would be able to see his car. We walked back up the hill, and I had a brief moment of panic as we approached the store and couldn’t see any lights-had it closed at five o’clock? some of them did-but that was just because of the tinted glass. A YES, WE’RE OPEN sign stuck in the front door eased my fears, as did the sign next to it that established the hours as 6:00 A.M. to 7:00 P.M.
The bodega was called “All Brothers Market III,” which might have suggested it was owned by several brothers, who also owned at least two other establishments. But Newark bodegas changed hands more often than they changed canned goods. It was entirely possibly it had gone through two or three ownership swaps, with each new owner deciding not to confuse his loyal customers by ditching the All Brothers name.
I entered to the tinkling of the little bells tied to the door. The Sikh, the same one who had been there last time, was still manning the cash register. He was probably the owner and only employee, which meant he spent thirteen hours a day, seven days a week, sitting in that lonely little bulletproof box. The bells might have been there to wake him up when a customer entered.
I went over and tapped on the plastic.
“Hi, sir, I’m sorry to bother you,” I said. “We’re reporters with the Eagle-Examiner. Do you mind if we set up in your windows for a little while so we can watch for something on the street? It’s for a story we’re working on. We’ll be out of your hair quickly enough.”
I cringed at the “hair” part because for all I knew he didn’t have any under the turban. But he just shrugged at me. Maybe it was because he didn’t understand why the funny guy in the tie and his tagalong friend wanted to hang out in his store. Or maybe he was just a shrugging kind of guy.
Nevertheless, I felt sufficiently empowered to act like I had the run of the place. I surveyed the windows. One faced north, the other west. Each had a display in front of it, which meant we’d have to do a little shimmying to get access to the windows. Old magazines were the primary obstacle to the west. Chips and fried pork rinds blocked the way to the north. But beyond those impediments, the windowsills were broad enough that we would be able to stand there without disturbing any more than some dust bunnies. If we crouched, we would be out of the gaze of any curious casual shoppers who entered the store. We’d be functionally invisible.
I went outside to test the one-way glass, looking at it from a variety of different angles. It was good. I couldn’t see anything beyond my own reflection.
Returning inside, Ruthie and I reviewed our battle plan. He would take the north window, while I manned the west one, which would give us a fairly full panorama of the street, including all four corners of the intersection. We would each snap a few pictures whenever the action got close, but mostly we were there to observe. We would stay low, hidden in our little sanctuaries. And we would keep our mouths shut-because the glass was see-proof, not soundproof.
It was 5:14. Sixteen minutes to go. I made the call.
“Yeah, it’s Twan,” he said.
“Hey, you guys all set to go?”
“We good. You cool?”
“Yeah. We’re in the windows, but you won’t be able to see us. I’m behind an impressive collection of skin magazines, and I think Ruthie is well hidden by some Andy Capp fries. We’re good as gold.”
“A’ight.”
I ended the call, told Ruthie we were locked and loaded, then got settled into my little sanctuary, with dark glass to my left and seriously cheap particleboard-the backside of the magazine rack-to my right.
This was not the first stakeout of my career, but there was always a thrill to watching bad people do things they weren’t supposed to be doing. What kept it exciting is that, for as much as you might think you knew what was going to happen, the details could surprise you every time.
And, yeah, maybe it made me feel a little bit like a badass special agent, and maybe I liked that feeling. Especially when I knew, unlike those guys, I wouldn’t have to spend three straight days in a van, peeing in an empty Gatorade bottle.
We didn’t have to wait long. At 5:28 VWMT (Verizon Wireless Mean Time), Famous, Doc, and Twan made their appearance, arriving on foot from the west side, Ruthie’s window. Twan and Doc continued walking around to my side, whereupon they leaned against the window where I was set up. Twan rested one foot against the glass. Since I was now seated, the underside of his sneaker was practically at eye level.
I heard the bells clanging to signal that someone had entered the store. Then I saw Famous peering over me. Twan had obviously told him where he could find me, and he was checking to see that I was in place and didn’t have any photographic equipment in tow. I looked up at him and nodded, but he said nothing-he wasn’t exactly the kind of guy who was going to stop and inquire how my mother was doing. I heard the sound of his footsteps go over to the other window, where I assume he performed a similar inspection on Ruthie.
Famous went over to the Sikh in the box and said, “Get me some blackies.”
“Blackies” were Black amp; Milds, a brand of cigar popular enough in the hood that their white plastic filters were a familiar sight wherever fine urban litter could be found. After making his purchase, Famous went back out on the street, the bells chiming as he departed. He unwrapped his cigars, casually tossing the cellophane wrapper on the street, then extracted one and lit it. After taking one puff, he peeled off to the right, in the direction of Ruthie’s window. I didn’t know if Ruthie could still see him, but he was out of my line of sight. All I had to look at was the tread of Twan’s sneaker.
Then, no more than ninety seconds after Famous sparked his lighter, a Newark squad car came through the intersection and rolled to a stop in front of the fire hydrant on the corner outside the bodega. I felt a rush of nerves and excitement and, mostly, curiosity: Who were these guys, anyhow?
I expected the cops to leap out and toss Twan and Doc on the hood-to put on a good show, like Twan said they liked to do. But two cops exited their car in no particular hurry.
They were African American, medium height, fairly undistinguished in appearance. One had a mustache. The one without the mustache was darker skinned. I tried to press the image of their faces in my brain in case I needed to identify them from head shots. They were not yet close enough that I could see their name badges.
They moseyed over to Twan and began idly chatting, keeping their distance. It was like they were at a large family reunion, greeting some distant cousins. They weren’t too excited to see them, but they also didn’t mind stopping to gab for a while.
I was absorbed in trying to pick up any small piece of their conversation, concentrating so intensely on a futile attempt to read their lips that I only barely noticed when the bells on the front door of the bodega clanged again. Then I was jolted by the sound of a commanding, somewhat-familiar voice on the other side of the magazine rack, pointed down in my direction.
“Excuse me, sir, you’re loitering,” it said.
I looked up to see six-feet-eight-inches’ worth of Officer Hightower looming above me with a menacing s
neer, pointing his gun at my face.
The call came in like all the others did. One, two rings-long enough to get it on the phone as a missed call-then a hang up.
The associates at Red Dot Enterprises, who were all sworn police officers working out of Newark’s Fourth Precinct, took turns manning the cell phone, almost like it was a pager in a medical practice. It wasn’t terribly onerous: there were ten associates altogether, so someone was always working anyway. Plus, there weren’t too many calls. Their business was based more on chance encounters than prearranged ones. The thug set wasn’t much for scheduling.
So when the second call came in from the same number, the officer testily called it back, starting the conversation with, “What’s up, Twan? I’m kind of busy here.”
“This ain’t Twan,” replied a hoarse voice. “It’s Famous.”
“Yeah, fine, what’s up,” the cop huffed. He knew Famous, or whatever he was calling himself now. His real name was Raynard Jenkins. He fancied himself a real tough guy, with his stone-cold stares and crossed arms. He was like hundreds of other corner boys, with a juvenile record far longer than anyone with that short a life should have. He was unlike most of the corner boys in that he had managed not to get arrested during his first eighteen months as an adult. He was smart that way. He was also smart enough to turn situations like this one-a couple of his boys striking up a relationship with a couple of overly trusting newspaper reporters-to his own advantage.
“Y’all got some people who don’t like you much,” Famous said.
“We probably got a lot of people who don’t like us,” the cop replied, annoyed. “What’s your point?”
“What if I served up two of them for you?”
“Depends who you’re talking about.”
“Some newspaper reporters. Couple of crackers.”
Famous had come up with this plan while he had been listening to his boys arrange this deal and was pleased with himself for it. It was the perfect double-cross. Especially since it would allow him to get payment out of both sides.
Little did Famous know just how pleased the cop would be to hear it, that as soon as he said those words-“newspaper reporters”-he had the officer’s attention. All the associates at Red Dot Enterprises knew full well about Carter Ross and the problem he presented.
“How are you going to serve them up?”
“’Cause I know where they’re gonna be.”
“And where’s that?”
“Depends,” Famous rasped. “What’s it worth to you?”
“It’s worth me not sticking a PR-24 up your ass the next time I see you out on that corner, Raynard, that’s what it’s worth to me.”
“I ain’t playin’ like that, Officer,” Famous said. “Have a nice day.”
“Wait, wait,” the cop said. “Talk to me. What do you want? You want a gun? I got some nines and some twenty-twos. Just came in. Brand-new.”
“Nah, man, I don’t want that kid stuff. I want me a Dirty Harry gun, a big ol’ forty-pounder. Something with some punch to it.”
“Fine, we can do that. It won’t be new, but I can get something out of the locker for you.”
“Yeah. And the next time me or one of my boys gets jammed up, we friends, right?”
“Yeah, nothing too big, but I think we can handle that.”
They made the arrangements, agreeing that when the cops saw Famous walk out of the store and light a cigar, it meant the deal was on.
And just like that, Carter Ross had been sold out. For a used gun and a get-out-of-jail-free card.
CHAPTER 9
What had felt like a sanctuary-my little perch, wedged between solid objects and out of sight-was now my personal mousetrap. I was too hunched down to even think about vaulting over the magazine rack or trying to run. And I suppose that menacing hunk of black composite in Officer Hightower’s right hand made it all something of a moot point anyway.
With his nongun hand, he grasped the upper right corner of the magazine rack and swept it haphazardly out of the way until it ended up leaning at a forty-five degree angle against the bread display. He walked into what had been my box and grabbed a fistful of shirt and tie. His hand was roughly the size of an octopus, and he used it to pull me to my feet with a quick, effortless yank.
“Lace your fingers behind your head, sir. You are under arrest,” he snarled.
I turned to look at the Sikh in the box, to begin protesting the injustice that was about to transpire in his store. But the Sikh wasn’t visible. Bulletproof glass or no, he had probably ducked down the moment he saw that gun come out. He was a shrugger, after all. He didn’t want to be involved.
Hightower dragged me, stumbling, into the aisle, trained the gun at me, and repeated, “Fingers behind your head, sir, nice and slow.”
Since I didn’t have much choice, I complied with the order. “Two steps forward,” he ordered, and I did it.
Just as Hightower went to walk behind me, I saw his nameplate for the first time: LeRioux.
Officer LeRioux. Maybe in Louisiana that wouldn’t be a terribly unusual last name. But up here, there was only one other LeRioux I could think of having met.
“LeRioux,” I said. “I feel like I’ve seen that name on a few billboards around here.”
“Yeah, I heard you met my dad,” Hightower said and began handcuffing me roughly, slamming metal against bone with vicious delight.
His dad. Of course. They were both unusually tall, and now that I knew about the connection, I could see they bore some resemblance. It had just been hard to see because one was a uniformed cop and the other was a pastor in two-thousand-dollar suits.
But it made sense. Pastor Al had started his noisy, blustery call for an independent investigation, then had suddenly backed off-probably right around the time his son came crawling around, explaining to dear old dad that maybe some stones were better left unturned.
From there, the elder LeRioux had been acting more like a father protecting his guilty son and less like a pastor aiding his grief-stricken parishioner. That was the real reason he had instructed Mimi Kipps to avoid me. He knew she would just help me stir the pot, and he didn’t want that. Even when he showed up at her house moments before the BMF wannabes came cruising by, that was likely because Hightower-having used LoJack to tip off BMF as to my whereabouts-had told Dad that perhaps it was best to remove Mimi from the scene of the crime.
By the time I had all that figured out, Hightower had finished fastening the cuffs behind my back. I looked across the store and saw Ruthie was getting the same treatment, only his arresting officer was another familiar figure-Baldy Jones.
“You get that report written on my car yet, Officer Bryson Jones?” I called out. “What about that gun with the red dot on it? You put it in the evidence locker yet, or did you just sell that to some thug on your way back to the station?”
Hightower thumped the butt of his palm into the back of my head hard enough I thought my skull was going to separate from my spinal column. “Shut up!” he yelled.
“Oh my goodness, what have we here,” Baldy called out, holding up a freezer-size Ziploc bag filled with a white substance. “It looks like this gentleman had a big ol’ bag of heroin. I bet he’s going to go away for a long time, selling this much heroin.”
“That’s not-” Ruthie started, but I couldn’t hear the rest of it because Hightower was yelling in my ear.
“Not as long as this guy,” he bellowed. “Look at all the rock I found on him.”
Without bothering to look, I could guess that Hightower had magically found crack cocaine on me. Because, yeah, I always like to carry a few hundred grams on me. Gets me through the day when I need a little pick-me-up.
“Crack and heroin. Looks like these punks had a major distribution network set up,” Baldy shot back. “Good thing we got them off the streets.”
Baldy shoved Ruthie out the door. Hightower and I soon followed. I was slowly overcoming the shock of having my perfect hiding spot disco
vered and was reaching the obvious conclusion: the corner boys had flipped on us. I had even paid them five hundred dollars to do it. And that was on top of whatever they were getting out of the cops.
As if to confirm this fact, I heard the grating, raspy sound of Famous laughing at me as I was herded out on the sidewalk.
“See you later, Mr. Newspaper Hustler,” he said, the Black amp; Mild dangling from the side of his mouth. “Have fun with the five-o.”
Blocking him out, I did a scan of the sidewalk and nearby area, hoping to see a bystander gawking at me. A grandma. A workingman. A schoolkid. There had to be someone normal passing by at this time of the day, someone who might just listen when I screamed that I was a newspaper reporter being wrongly imprisoned by corrupt cops; someone who would act when I hollered for them to call Tina Thompson, the state police, the attorney general, or some combination of the three.
But there was no one in sight. The Fourth Precinct building was maybe forty yards away. And having been shoved off the sidewalk and onto the street, I could see that was where I was being led.
It was around this time I felt a real panic setting in. I was stuck in this netherworld where the cops and the crooks were indistinguishable. And there wasn’t anyone who was going to save me from them. The pit of my stomach was dropping quickly out of my body. I was, not to put too fine a point on it, screwed.
Up until that moment, I had been walking on my own across the street, albeit prodded by Hightower, who had a bruise-inducing grip on my right arm. No more. It was time to put up at least a token effort at resistance, if only so someone coming along realized the funny-looking white guy was being taken against his will.
I yanked my right arm, planted my right heel in the asphalt, and tried to make a break for it, pushing off as forcefully as I could. I didn’t know how far I could make it, running with handcuffs on, but I at least had to try.
