by Mike Bogin
At this point we know only that we have had two sniper shootings and that in both events rich people were shot down. Major, what do you think about the weapons and methods?”
Major Eduardo Gonzalez had three tours of duty under his belt, one Iraq, two Afghanistan, where he had served as commander of the army’s sniper forces under deployment across every battalion. A year before, Gonzalez had been posted in pre-fab housing at the far end of a dust-covered airfield, where he was tasked with sniper optimization, conditioning and training. Now retired, he had spent six months training field teams at Quantico and held a two-year contract to supervise tactical operations for FBI snipers across the Northeastern U.S.
“.300 Win Mag ammo is used in both military and civilian weaponry,” he began. “The .270 series ammunition is civilian use, deer hunters, mostly. Sands Point required infiltration and suppression at a high standard. Sag Harbor was a matter of shooting fish in a barrel. There are five hundred thousand rifles in circulation in the U.S., minimum, using .270 ammunition. Well over one million weapons use .300. I could get hold of one of those rifles 24/7 every day of the year in every state in the Union.
Shooting four victims in rapid succession, all single-kill shots, is a challenge,” he continued. “Doing so in a close environment involves training and calculation. I understand that we do not have any photography of the shooter, nor do we have the professional photography taken during the event?”
Al nodded in agreement without interrupting. “Audio only. None of the photographs have been distributed to the Bureau.” He wasn’t holding his breath for NSA help.
“Controlling targets across four shots involves directing attention-response, which is amongst the hardest factors in efficacy,” Gonzalez continued. “Within advanced sniper training courses, I teach for two kill shots. For four kills, we use our TL, our Team-Leader, and our ATL, Assistant Team-Leader, to take simultaneous fires on pre-selected targets. After the second shot, targets react, variables increase, result rates diminish exponentially. Our Sands Point shooter is of a very high standard. He also collected his casings.”
Al interrupted to ask whether it was prudent to assign gender without proof in hand.
“I have trained more than six hundred military snipers across the past fifteen years. I have not yet seen a female graduate from advanced sniper training,” Gonzalez explained. The United States Army did not train women snipers.
“I also am inclined to disagree with your hunch that the Sag Harbor shooter is a copycat,” he added. “Suffolk PD using dogs located trace amounts of powder residue amongst the trees along the southeast shoreline. No casings were found. After shooting down two people, I don’t see a deer hunter retrieving his casings. Do you?”
CHAPTER FOUR
Across New York City and syndicated stations nationwide, two million listeners were hearing Emerson Elliot’s latest exclusive. Emerson Elliot was obsessing over the note. I Kill Rich People. Bullets for Billionaires. So far as he knew, he had received the only note. The shooter was literally channeling through Emerson Elliot.
The Robin Hood angle was so juicy; the economy in the toilet, cutbacks everywhere and here was somebody finally making the rich guys feel pain, too. They were already panicked and torturing the ears of every politician they knew. Hell, you’d think every Michelin-starred restaurant in town was turning into a take-out restaurant. The only people going in for food were chauffeurs and servants.
This was his story. It was meant for him, right from the moment Levy fell from his hands. Who knows, maybe he could make a difference, be a voice to penetrate Fortress Wealth? The court jester could say something meaningful; stranger things had happened. Getting mileage from Larry Perlman’s murder made him hesitate, but only momentarily. Not that Larry deserved a lot of consideration. For thirty years he had been a selfish prick.
Ninety-nine percent of his listeners weren’t rich people, so why not? The sponsors might make some waves, but so what? How much soap and how many cars did they actually sell to that top one-tenth of one percent? It wasn’t like yacht and jet companies were buying ad time on his show! The Kochs didn’t own everybody!
Crazy Thumbs hated the idea, of course, reminding him again that conservative talk radio pays six times as much as liberal.
“You think Rush or Hannity or Beck is going to trade paychecks with Rachel Maddow?” he’d said. “EE, all the stats in the world won’t make any difference; you don’t want to go there. Every person in America wants to be the lottery winner, the Fifty Cent character breaking out from the ghetto to ‘Get Rich or Die Tryin’.’ Americans don’t even dislike the rich, much less hate them… we want to be them. I’m telling you, EE, you start down this road and you’re going to lose.”
But Elliot would not listen. The one saving grace Crazy Thumbs felt sure about was that EE could never stick on anything for long. He had about as long an attention span as his audience; a perfect spokesman for the people, passionately interested in global warming for about ninety minutes.
When it came to reading the public, EE was certain that he had it going on all over Crazy Thumbs. There was an audience out there. He knew it. He could feel it. A whole lot of people would love to see the rich running scared. The news was already working on spreading fear to everyone, but if he could separate the rich from everyone else so most people wouldn’t get scared at all, people would listen: The guys who could never afford to take the kids to a Yankees game ’cause it cost more than a month of groceries to go. Every person who ever waited hours outside a club only to see somebody famous get out of a limo and walk right in. They would listen, respond.
“What do you think, people?” Elliot asked his listeners. “We might finally see some job creation coming from the rich! Think about it…every time a billionaire drops dead, it’s like a money dam explodes. Boom! Forget about trickle-down. That’s a flood. All that money stacked up in one guy’s pocket and then down comes Hoover Dam and out it comes. Whoosh! Widows, spoiled children, charities, alma maters… everybody gets a piece. Cash flow, baby! How’s that for a liquidity event!”
Emerson lowered his voice to a whisper then continued, sounding like he was now telling a bedtime story. “Right now, somewhere out in the Hamptons, there is a pretty mommy who won’t let the nannies take the kids out to the pool or to the beach. Mommy won’t take any chances with her precious, special little wonders. No no no! Not with her unique, talented, beautiful children. She’s mad at Daddy because Daddy can’t make the bad man go away. Why is Daddy letting the bad man ruin their summer fun?”
Elliot’s voice shifted. This time he sounded like Daddy. “Keep the children inside and keep those curtains shut.”
Emerson giggled. “I’m not hanging out with any billionaires right now. Thanks anyway. Man, who wants to be near them? They’re lepers! How many of them are even real to us, except that they move around all of our money and keep sweeping off the top putting more and more into their own greedy pockets. Bunch of hedge fund and private equity parasites who have never built anything. They’re the hole in the ground where our money goes to die.”
Crazy Thumbs looked troubled as he passed across a note from the marketing department. Johnson Chevrolet had pulled its ads. EE reacted by smiling.
“Check this out, people. So I just got this note from the marketing department. You know what, audience; Johnson Chevrolet there on Penner Parkway has stopped sponsoring this program! I guess I’m not out here telling the world that rich people are all nice and good and stuff. Now, Johnson Chevy is terrific, a great place to get a car. But I’m going to play patty cake with that politically correct BS? I don’t think so!”
Elliot crumpled the note and arched a long shot toward a wastebasket that fell three feet short. “You know what, Johnson Chevrolet? I’m firing YOUR ass off MY show. Listeners, you decide. Do you want to buy cars at Johnson Chevrolet? You know what, Johnson Chevrol
et? The people buying your Chevys are my listeners. Nobody who comes in your place to buy what you have to sell is ever going to be one of the bazillionaires Bullets took out. People, what in the F is Johnson Chevrolet doing sucking up to the rich and forgetting about YOU?”
Elliot stood up and paced as he continued. “‘I KILL RICH PEOPLE’ he says, and we got it here, right here, exclusively on the Emerson Elliot Media Universe. So Richie Rich, somebody out there doesn’t like you! Next time you step over the homeless dude or you let your foot off the brake so the guy who’s trying to wipe your windshield for a buck has to jump out of your way, you might need to think beyond ‘Let them eat cake.’”
Crazy Thumbs put through a caller, showing EE that it was Mauricio, one of their regulars.
“Mauricio. Hey man, are you scared of this guy?” EE asked.
“What the bleep I got to worry about, Double E? He’s shooting rich people; he ain’t shooting in my direction. But I got to ask you, EE, you the one with the deep pockets, youz know what I’m saying? You rich!”
Elliot laughed. “I’m not one of those fat jerks thinking like I’m all high and mighty because I’ve got mine,” Elliot said. “Keeping it real, baby. Keeping it real. For three days, all The Times and NBC tell us is about the tragedy. Well, boo-hoo. Bottom line is some Wall Street bigwigs got popped and who really gives a crap? Meanwhile, we’ve had protests all across the country and our police get overtime as off-duty paid protection for the banks and Wall Street. What kind of BS is that! These are our police and every one of them is in the 99%. How about you leave our police out of it?”
* * * * *
Emerson Elliot’s ramblings left Owen steamed. Where did he get off with this crap? He drove across the bridge and was well into Queens before he realized that he was driving a two-thousand pound vehicle at fifty miles an hour on surface streets. He couldn’t picture the trip he had just made from the Federal Building garage to Flushing Meadows; everything after using his new fob to get out from the parking garage was a blank. Too much was happening in his head all at the one time. FBI Taskforce. I Kill Rich People. Emerson Elliot.
Owen switched off the radio and drove home in silence. Callie and the boy’s haircuts.
He anticipated how Callie would give him the silent treatment, silent at least until he reacted. Then she would let it all out, how she couldn’t stand another minute in North Corona, how they were the only white people still around (not true), how it was unfair to the boys (he could teach them to box), how Owen was living in a dream world if he thought they still could fit in (maybe so).
OK, maybe he should never have taken out the credit line on the house (true, but who knew?). They should have sold it and paid for the nursing home with the money so they wouldn’t be trapped now (hindsight is 20/20). How they could declare bankruptcy, move, and be done with it (no!).
It wasn’t six yet, and Wilson’s Barbershop stayed open until six-thirty on Saturdays. Owen didn’t like to rely upon being a cop to let him speed, but he just wanted to get home fast and get the boys in for haircuts and, maybe, avoid the whole argument he could already hear in his head.
They already knew that their options to get out from under the mortgages were lousy. If it were only a first mortgage then they could have done a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure, handed back the keys, and their credit would be OK again in a couple years. But with two-hundred thousand on the equity line, giving back the house would mean either having a judgment and garnished wages for years and years, or declaring bankruptcy. They couldn’t get enough for the house to pay off the first and the second. No way. To get the bank to agree to a short sale would mean having to let it go to foreclosure and their credit would be screwed anyway. But it was the Old Man’s house before it was his house and nobody had planned for his dad to get sick. Seemed like the Old Man was made of granite and then he wasn’t solid anymore, leaving the fire on the stove, losing his car at the mall. If they hadn’t moved in, he would have burnt down the house. Right now, burning down the house felt like a decent idea.
Owen turned off Roosevelt at 99th. Jamaican kids were in their usual spot on the corner, hanging, maybe dealing, texting and listening to music like any other kids. Marchetti’s was closed down, replaced by a Laundromat that remained open all night. During winter months it was staked out as permanent territory by six homeless men who protected the late-night customers from hassles as their own quid pro quo for being allowed the guaranteed warmth that came off the dryers as they slept on the linoleum floor. During summer, that steam room was the last place anyone wanted to sleep.
All along 99th, the houses were a combination of derelict older properties in need of TLC alongside brightly-colored homes carefully kept with plentiful flowers contrasting the caged doors and windows. A two-foot brick wall along the sidewalk was covered with tags, graffiti art, the occasional insult to someone’s sister, a homosexual slur, but on the inside these properties reflected the people living in them. Owen reckoned you could eat off the floor in most. Some cops figured the worst about people, telling themselves that expecting bad was the best way to stay on their toes. Not Owen. OK, he might not cozy up to gays or Rastas or the rag heads in Little Lahore, but he was OK with all of them deep down.
After pulling in, stopping with the back end of his car still in the street because Casey’s toys littered the driveway, Owen entered the house determined to not fight. He had left his laminated FBI Associate Law Enforcement badge clipped to his belt for the boys to see.
“I’m home,” he called out. “Haircuts, big dogs!” Both boys turned the corner in a close heat, slamming into their dad. Liam still wore his baseball t-shirt. Casey, as usual, was bursting to tell about the amazements of his adventurous afternoon, but instantly discovered the badge and removed it, zipping backwards too fast for Owen’s reach.
“F. B. I.,” he read aloud. Casey knew his letters. He could also tell that this was something different and important. Callie descended the stairs in time to hear Casey’s enunciation.
“Haircuts, then how about Kennedy’s Fried Chicken?!” The boys jumped with excitement and before Callie could say a word Owen had a kiss planted on her mouth that made their younger son shiver with embarrassed delight. All three were out the door, with Callie left glowering at the boiling water on the stovetop and the pot of spaghetti sauce bubbling alongside. Owen meant well, she knew that, but couldn’t they have planned together for Kennedy’s?
Later on, after haircuts and chicken, baths and bedtime stories, Owen and Callie sat on the bed enjoying the novelty of being upstairs and cool in the summertime. The new air conditioner was spectacular. Callie moved in front of the plastic grill, pulled up her top and let the cold air pour over her breasts. Owen crawled across the bed to get beside her; the sloping ceiling was just tall enough along the center ridge to handle his full height.
“I’m on an FBI task force,” he told her.
“The shootings?”
“Um hum.”
“How did they pick you?”
“Dunno. Nassau PD and Suffolk PD have jurisdiction. I’ll ask around tomorrow.”
“I thought Intel Division and FBI wouldn’t work together.”
“Whoever decides all that is way above my grade. It’s pretty cool, though. Good analytical minds, real investigative focus.”
“What was that like?” Callie asked. Her erect nipples showed through the t-shirt she wore to bed as she fell back from the air conditioner back on top of the mattress.
Owen unbuckled his belt and let his pants drop, then unbuttoned his shirt before answering. “It was a little intimidating,” he said matter-of-factly. “Mostly, I shut up and listened. But I was following along OK. I still don’t get it? Why me?”
“Because you’re you. The best.”
Owen flopped back onto the bed with his head beside her, happy to be married, happy that his bo
ys had their mother. In that mood, he was able to see some dividends to being unsupervised. He had never had a good lunch to bring with him to school, not once, but no mother would have let them have the fun they got into. Oh man, though, the things he was able to get away with when he was a kid made him chuckle.
“What was that?” Callie wanted to know.
“What?”
“The laugh. What’s so funny?”
“Did I ever tell you about the boat?” Owen could picture it, all of ten feet long, white paint where the paint wasn’t flaked off exposing yellow fiberglass, the crude patches they put on it. Man, they loved that boat.
“Maybe. Tell me again.”
“Me and Mikey. We were both like twelve. We had this little boat, a dinghy really. I’m not sure how we even got it. Anyway, we had to work on it for long time, at least a few weeks, to get it patched up. So Mikey got this five-horse outboard motor and we were collecting bottles for the deposits until we had money for a gas can and gas to go in it. And then we had ourselves a boat. I wonder what happened to it.”
“What would you do with a boat around here?”
“Not here. We made a deal with some warehouse guy up at Bowery Bay to let us keep it there. We rode our bikes. We had this flat dolly we made out of two skateboards and a piece of plywood and we’d put the motor in the boat and push it over to the dock and then the dock guys put it into their sling and used their davit to drop it into the water. We would slide down the sling ropes to get into the boat. Oh man, the other kids were jealous.”
