by Mike Bogin
Callie was always slamming drawers and letting out frustrated sighs. Casey thought it was funny when his mother kicked the laundry basket down the stairs into their basement where the washer and dryer were located. Liam, sobbing, felt the jagged edge between their parents.
Tremaine came through the kitchen door carrying the boxed cake from Martha’s. “Who’s ready for chocolate fudge cake with whipped cream?” Casey and Liam perked up right away.
Tremaine sensed the tension, thinking that he had only been away for a half hour and they were at it. Callie refused the cake altogether. Owen, who usually went through food like a giant vacuum cleaner, ate only small forkfuls.
Tremaine watched Callie and wished he could tell her not to go breaking her man’s soul. Much as Tremaine loved her, that was just plain wrong.
* * * * *
“Mr. Elliot, I am reaching out to you. I hope that you will consider me a friend.”
“Another congressman already reached out to me,” Emerson replied.
“I know. It’s my business to know.”
Emerson heard a chuckle coming from the other end of the telephone line. “That Denny. He’s a big bowl of mashed potatoes, isn’t he?” The speaker shifted his tone without waiting for any response. “Advocating killing people isn’t the sort of practice that makes sense in the long run, Mr. Elliot. The public is fickle, but when they turn on you, and they will, they have a lasting memory when it comes to something like what you have been doing. When you champion a killer, your being Jewish does harm to me and to any other Jew who is trying to make his way in this world. Besides that, a disproportionate number of the victims have been Jewish, too. Have you considered that?”
Emerson wasn’t buying. “Just because a person is Jewish doesn’t mean that what they choose to do has anything to do with being a Jew. Look at you.”
“There isn’t a day that goes by without my being Jewish putting a whole extra shade on everything I do,” the congressman said. “I have never tried to escape it. There’s no point in trying.”
“Well what is your point?” Emerson asked. “Your pledge to Grover Norquist is doing a hell of a lot more harm to this country than my radio show, but I’m not calling you to tell you to change.”
“Fine. I’ll get right to the point. I know about the challenges you are having with your sponsors. Provided that you modify your current subject matter, I believe that APA can have significant influence in resolving these problems for you.”
Emerson was neither surprised nor especially impressed. “Sponsors come and go. We’ve had rough patches before and we’ll weather this one just like the others.”
“Mr. Elliot, I get the impression that you think you can stick with the Bullets for Billionaires line until the killer is caught and then your sponsors will come back on their own. On that, you are incorrect. I can assure you of it. You have upset significant people, yet if you cease to glorify the shooter, all can be forgiven. But continue glorifying a man who shoots down innocent people for no other reason than their success, and the enmity you have created will follow you. Stop it now, Mr. Elliot, or whatever time slot your show is in will be populated by the highest-rated competition that money can buy. I can guarantee that for the rest of your career you will be facing an unending series of affiliates dropping your program, declining sponsor participation, and even your current studio lease will not be renewed. Misfortune will follow you like a dark cloud. I represent big checkbooks and long memories. Shut it down right now or we will drop a mountain on you. It will never end.”
* * * * *
Callie was right about the neighborhood. Owen could see the junk cars that hadn’t moved in months. He heard the blaring music. Casey was going into kindergarten in six weeks and there was no way the little fireball was going to take the bullying like Liam. So what would that look like? He’d end up a five-year-old gangbanger? Maybe if they could get Casey into PS 16, things wouldn’t be too bad. Lots more parent volunteers there to keep things on a tighter leash. But then they would be driving the boys to two separate schools.
The driver’s-side window on Callie’s 2001 Tahoe was shattered overnight. Parked in their driveway. Callie had sat up in bed thinking she heard something, but Owen had waved her off. The guy had been inside her car rifling through everything while Owen slept through the whole thing.
Callie sat on the front steps and cried. Graffiti was scrawled on the garden walls in front of their house. The constant bass thumped from speaker systems. Casey already able to let loose with curse words thanks to the kids he was around. At four!
Owen closed his eyes and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly until his lungs were empty. Lots of kids grow up in neighborhoods that aren’t so great and millions of them turn out fine. Two loving parents who care about them can get them through. Another text coming from Al caused Owen’s phone to ping. Perspective. Owen ignored Al’s text along with the rest. It was the weekend.
* * * * *
Trudy, Al’s mother, watched Face the Nation and Meet the Press then drilled Al for his opinions if he stayed home past nine, so Al went into the Bureau instead. There he was, working on Sunday morning. He left Owen four messages without hearing back and then accepted that Owen had a wife, sons, something more than work. Owen’s father had been his mentor and friend for almost twelve years. Now, doing something for Owen was important to Al.
He and Eamonn. Lithuanian Jew and Kerry Irishman, he reflected. An improbable friendship, but the big Irish family dinner tables Eamonn described were just like any big Jewish family gathering. You just had to swap Yiddish for Irish or turn off the sound. Boisterous, argumentative, joking. Mothers pressing more food, fathers with their shirtsleeves rolled up shouting from the top of the table.
Al sipped at his coffee and went over the old-fashioned case-board he still used with its pins and notes. It wasn’t that he couldn’t use the software and assemble multiple views on his computer screen, but getting the big picture required a big picture.
What wasn’t he seeing? Al wondered.
Al wanted the kid there. The kid should have been there. They should have been working the case together and not getting ordered around by bosses who didn’t think, didn’t take the time to assemble the pieces. The kid used his brain. Like with the shoes sizing up differently. Nobody else thought of that!
Al reviewed the intelligence profile he had pulled from Timothy McVeigh’s pre-trial interviews. Psychiatrists had had to confirm McVeigh’s mental capacity in advance of his prosecution for the Oklahoma City bombing in April, 1995, seventeen years earlier.
McVeigh had believed he had superior awareness of secret governmental practices. Believed that global economics was selling out true Americans. Believed the federal government was fostering illegal immigration and off-shoring jobs to destroy the working class. Believed himself a leader by example, that his actions would be vindicated by history. He had gone to his execution convinced that his actions demanded no explanation and convinced that anything he said would be manipulated by his enemies.
Timothy McVeigh was a decorated U.S. soldier, Al read. Winner of a Bronze Star in the first Gulf War and one of the elite members of the 1st Infantry Division. McVeigh had no intention of lowering himself to offer explanations.
Their shooter, I Kill Rich People, had offered no explanations.
Al grappled with every angle, searching for patterns as though he were examining the moves on a chess board. Waiting for a mistake was not good enough. There had to be something more. But what was it? What was he missing?
There was so little to work with in profiling this shooter. No “tells” of childhood hurts. No hints about his education or age or where he was from. No political beliefs except through his actions. Without the access to military personnel records, it was appearing now like the Bureau would have to wait for NSA to stop the shooter him
. Why would NSA take that on?
“What the hell am I not seeing?” Al griped aloud.
The war produced adrenalin junkies. So, Al asked himself, where is your next fix?
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Monday, July 30
The on-shift detectives inside The Bunker reviewed photo data and decreased the persons of interest equation down to nineteen names. Owen was surprised to see Escari’s name on the shortlist. What was up with that? Hadn’t he been called off from Escari? “Low priority?”
Owen waited until Dansk appeared free, then questioned her about Escari.
“Lieutenant, you had the weekend off. Some of us didn’t. That was Thursday. This is Monday. Get with the program,” she said.
It seemed like nothing he did was right. Dansk acted like they were opponents rather than on the same side.
An electronic file was distributed, supplying each Intel cop with a list of the ammunition used during the attacks, alongside weapons using each type of ammo. Both facial and full-body photos of every person of interest were supplied to each two-man team. Owen and Tremaine were ordered to get inside seventeen gun shops across locations in Newark, New Jersey, starting with Caso’s Gun-a-Rama.
“I want to see cooperation out there, Detectives,” Dansk demanded. “Keep it light and happy, and limit it to the sus…the persons of interest. But the second you smell any of these vendors holding back, let them know they’ll be getting full ATF and IRS audits by Wednesday. Shake ’em up and don’t give them three seconds to decide. Then walk out. They’ll come after you faster than a used car salesman.”
Instead of pounding at the source to get the camera footage, Dansk was sending them to interview people behind the counters inside gun shops? Owen didn’t get it.
“Man, she knows as well as anybody how easily you can pick up every rifle the military uses, even fifty-caliber Barretts with a mile-long range,” Owen complained. “He could have bought them at any gun store or gun show or from any private collector in forty-nine out of fifty states. What the hell is she sending us on a wild goose chase to Jersey for?”
They drove out 78, looping south to the first stop with Tremaine using his smartphone to get them to the address. Behind the double doors, the manager was an older Italian wearing a .32 caliber Beretta on his hip. Another four employees were carrying in the open. The manager fixed on their NYPD gold badges without showing any expression, knowing that NYPD couldn’t serve a warrant if they had one. Did they sell these types of guns? Sure. What gun store doesn’t?
That first stop burned up forty minutes. Each of the staff took a thorough look at the photos. No winners. On to the next store. By the fifth store, they were getting faster. In and out in under twenty minutes, but still no matches. They left the first store at 11 a.m. It was ten-to-one before they broke for lunch at Subway. They didn’t run into their first full-on Jersey a-hole until afterward.
The guy would not talk, would not gather his two employees to review pictures. Leaning into Owen’s face, he made his position crystal-clear. No, he didn’t give a shit for Homeland Security. No, he wasn’t going to screw his own customers, the people who paid the money that fed his family, and no, he wasn’t taking off his shoes to get on an airplane, neither. He’d drive or he wouldn’t travel.
“Take your stinking badges and fuck off back to New York.”
The store owner was packing a .45 in a speed holster on his hip. Tremaine stepped between Owen and the other man as Owen’s face reddened. Coolly lifting his phone, Tremaine photographed the guy.
“What the fuck?” he shouted. Tremaine held up his hand to indicate that he needed a second while he entered something onto the phone. “Nobody in Jersey is gonna help you dickheads.
“The fuck you doing?”
When the man was finished, Tremaine played back what the owner had just said about Homeland Security and the confidentiality of his customers.
“ATF is going to appreciate your viewpoint,” Tremaine explained calmly. They’ll have this and our report in ten minutes or so. If I were you, I’d be getting your records in shape for a security review.”
“Get outta here. The fuck you talking?”
Tremaine then tapped several times on his phone and brought up a series of oscillating colored lines before placing the phone face-up on the glass countertop. “Sir, place your hand onto the screen,” he told the owner, who instantly crossed his arms with his fingers clasped inside his armpits.
“Fuck that.”
“Sir, this screen allows me to test your responses. Failure to comply means an automatic Type Four audit of your records since July 2002.”
“The store hasn’t even been here since 2002.”
Owen began to inhale stiffly, fighting back the giggles.
“Come here and give me your fingers.”
The owner hesitantly showed his left hand.
“Remove your ring,” Tremaine instructed. The owner switched hands instead, with Tremaine taking his hand and guiding just the fingertips onto the screen, ever so gently. Owen held his breath and bit the inside of his lip to keep from laughing out loud.
Once the fingertips were in place, Tremaine adopted an even more mechanized tone to question the now-trembling owner.
“When did the store open, sir?”
“2005.”
“Sir, we need specific information. When in 2005?” Tremaine kept his eyes glued to the screen as the colored lines jumped and bounced.
“May. No, March. It was March.” The owner’s eyes were also now glued to the screen.
Owen placed the photos in front of him again and, with all three watching the screen, Tremaine calmly asked him, one by one through all nineteen, “Have you seen this man?”
When they were through, the guy’s face was turning purple. Owen and Tremaine left without questioning the employees, struggling to keep their cool.
Once they were inside the car, Owen cried with laughter while Tremaine’s entire body shook from his prank. The oscilloscope app left Owen curious. Could somebody come up with a real lie detector application for smart phones?
They were through eight stores by four, with nine to go. The nine could wait for Tuesday. Owen and Tremaine were headed back into Manhattan by five, pointing the car toward Queens with the radio on.
“Another bazillionaire had his happy balloon popped,” Emerson Elliot excitedly announced. Owen listened and pictured Keaner’s naked corpse. Tremaine had missed that and the helicopter ride.
“Yes, we have passed the twenty-five-billion-dollar mark! You can’t take it with you!” Bullets had “bagged” a bushel of billionaires.
Elliot liked the alliteration and repeated “Bag the Billionaire” four more times. Elliot reasoned that these guys had all the money because there wasn’t anything they wouldn’t do to get it.
“Hey, if you had ten thousand dollars that you needed to hand over to somebody for safe-keeping, who you trust it to, a rich guy or to a poor one? Think about it. You know that the rich guy is into money or he wouldn’t be rich, right? That ten thousand is nothing to him. Maybe he got rich by taking other people’s money. Now the poor guy, he really can use the ten grand, but you also know that he appreciates that it is a lot of money. Do you trust him less because the temptation is bigger? Maybe he isn’t into money.”
Why did they listen? Owen wondered what compelled him to put on Elliot. Like drivers slow-rolling past a car accident.
“How many is it now, Thumbs? Sixteen?” Then Elliot teased Montclair PD, telling them how, “You don’t make the count by blowing up homeless veterans. Bullets for Billionaires rides on!”
“You got to love how they state the wealth of these guys,” Elliot observed. “Once you’re really rich, they don’t use all the zeros; you just round to the nearest hundred million. Anything under that is just a r
ounding error. Take Mr. Keaner, the latest billionaire who bought it. Two-point-six billion. Could be he had two-billion six-hundred and thirty-million, but we’ll call it two-six to keep it easy.”
“Hello!” Elliot shouted across the airwaves. “Can I just have the rounding error? Come on…pretty please? Thumbs, you want a piece of the rounding error? Oh no you don’t. Thumbs, how long you figure it’s going to take you to get to your first billion?”
Elliot perused the press shots of the spectacularly beautiful and lethally-trained guard dogs that Thumbs had sent over to his iPad. Beside each of the photos were links for placing orders to reserve dogs that were now in various stages of training. “Check this out. Keaner had two of these super dogs, Schutzhunds; guard dogs that cost…you won’t believe this…two-hundred fifty-thousand dollars, EACH! A lot of good they did. People are losing their homes and this schmuck is buying quarter-million-dollar dogs. “
“EE,” Thumbs interrupted, “these people are dead. Shot, killed, dead. Keaner gave millions of dollars to charities that used that money to do a lot of public good.” EE really needed to dial it back already.
“Oh boo-hoo, Thumbs. Piss on ’em. They had no right to that much money or the power that goes with it. You think any one of them ever had to pass on a meal or sleep three kids to a bed because they were giving money to others? It ain’t much to give away the shirt off your back when you have a thousand more shirts in the closet. For every billionaire like a Steve Jobs, who made his money by making something new, we get fifty or a hundred Keaners, guys buying and selling and squeezing out every drop of benefit for themselves out of everything they do.”
