Necessary Decisions, A Gino Cataldi Mystery

by Giacomo Giammatteo

  “I forgot to tell you. Take the Hardy Toll Road when you get to it. Place this phone on the seat beside you. Turn on the speaker and leave it on. I want to hear what is going on.”

  ***

  Central patched in to all of us. “He’s heading south on 45. You need cars in front and behind.”

  I patched in. “Whoever’s on Rayford Road, you’re on. He’s only a couple of miles away. One of you get on now, get in front. The other one lag on the feeder until we tell you, then pick up the tail.”

  “He could take Hardy,” Central said.

  “If he does, the second car will catch him. We have more following. Everyone else is heading that direction.”

  ***

  Doran got on the Hardy Toll Road entrance and kept in the right lane. Within moments, a voice came over the phone’s speaker. “When you see the sign for the Rankin Road exit, pick up the phone.”

  “Okay.”

  About two miles before the sign, Doran dialed Scott’s number on his second cell phone. He prayed they would be quiet, but just in case, he tucked the phone into his stomach, burying the speaker part.

  ***

  Winthrop’s home phone rang. The tech checked the number and ran to the kitchen. “It’s Doran!”

  I hollered. “Quiet! Nobody talk. We got Doran calling in.”

  I listened, but nothing was going on. I could hear the sound of the car running, a little outside noise, but no talking. On the computer screen the techs had set me up with, I could see Doran approaching Rankin Road. I got on the horn to the rest of them. “He’s near Rankin. Got that? Doran is at Hardy and Rankin, still heading south.”

  ***

  Doran picked up the phone from the seat. “Okay, I’m here.”

  “Take the exit for the airport. Go to terminal C as in Charlie. When you get close, pick up the phone for further instructions.”

  Doran took the exit for George Bush Intercontinental Airport, making sure to keep to the speed limit. That way, Gino’s men could get past him and to the terminal beforehand.

  ***

  “Terminal C.” I relayed the message to everyone. “I want everybody we’ve got on the way to terminal C. No, on second thought, leave two cars trailing Doran, just in case. The rest of you get there as fast as you can.”

  I hung up and smiled at Connors as I called Delgado.

  “What’s up, Gino?”

  “I think we got the fuckers, Ribs. They’re going to the airport, and we’ll have ten cars waiting.”

  Chapter 38

  Motels

  Delgado was on the phone with the team on 45 South. “What have you got, Sanchez? Any dirty rooms?”

  “I got nothing but dirty rooms in this place. You should get your ass down here.”

  “Maybe you and me—”

  “A big no to you and me anywhere, and a fucking big no to me and anybody down here.”

  “What did the deskman have to say?”

  “Only two rooms fit our target, and they both answered the door when I knocked. I didn’t go in, but it didn’t seem like anything wrong. One guy was old, looked homeless, and the other one was a kid in his underwear. From the way he barely cracked the door, I’m sure he was hiding a girl on the bed.”

  “And you don’t think—”

  “If he was eighteen, I’m a virgin.”

  “Don’t you have three kids?”

  “Six kids, Delgado. Six hungry kids.”

  “Okay, move up the line. No way is a kid is involved in this.” Delgado checked the map. “There’s a motel at—”

  “I know where it is. We’ll be there in a couple of minutes. How’s it going on 1960 and Conroe?”

  “Same. We got a lot more to go though. We’ll get there.”

  “How’s it going with Gino?”

  “Don’t know yet, but I gotta go. Call coming in.”

  Delgado hung up and switched to the new call—Dustin from the Conroe team. “Anything good?”

  “Knocked out three already. Got a few junkies, a couple of misfits, and one suspicious couple who claimed they were married, but whose IDs indicated they were not married to each other. How about on your end?”

  “Thought we had something at Greenspoint, but it busted. Nothing on 1960.”

  “Find them, Ribs. Bust their asses.”

  “I’m trying.”

  Delgado wasn’t off three minutes before Julie called. “What have you got for me, chica?”

  “You must have been talking to Sanchez, because I’m no chica.”

  “But you know I love you. Purple hair and all.”

  “Well this chica might have something for you. I’ve been calling all the motels, and there are a heck of a lot of them.”

  “I know. What have you found?”

  “One guy said they’ve got a white male in his thirties who checked in with a young black girl yesterday. Said the girl couldn’t have been more than 15 or 16.”

  “And?”

  “They are still in the room. But the interesting part is that one of the other patrons said they heard screams from there.”

  “What! When?”

  “Earlier today.”

  “You should have called us.”

  “Hold onto your horses, Detective. The manager said he gets complaints like this a lot. Most of them are nothing.”

  Delgado wanted to scream, but it would do no good. “All right. Give me the details and patch it in to the team.”

  “It’s on 45 North, just south of 1960. It’s an America’s Best—”

  “Used to be the old Lexington, didn’t it?” Sanchez asked from her end.

  “That’s the one.”

  “I can be there in five minutes, Ribs. Let me have them. I got a niece same age as this girl. I can’t bear the thought of something like this happening to her.”

  “Go for it, chica. I’ll meet you there with a team.”

  Delgado rounded up the SWAT team. “Off your asses, amigos. We’ve got a possible situation.” Delgado filled them in then looked at his watch. “We leave in five minutes,” he said, and called Gino.

  “Cataldi.”

  “You sound like a man in a rush.”

  “I was going to call you. Why did they pick Terminal C? What the fuck are they doing?”

  “I can’t think of any one specific reason, but it’s not a bad choice. Parking garage is big, crowded, lot of people and cars.”

  “Yeah, but once they’re done, what do they do—exit, pay their ticket and have us pick them up? They have to know we’re tailing them.”

  “Did they try to give you the slip?”

  “Not once. Straight shot from Denny’s to the airport.”

  “You there?”

  “Almost. I stayed at the house until they committed. I’m five minutes away.”

  “And they didn’t take any detours? Change cars? Anything?”

  “I’m telling you, Ribs, all they did was give him a new cell phone at the restaurant. From there, he jumped on the freeway and came down Hardy. He should be pulling into C any minute.”

  “If that’s the case, you’re fucked.”

  “Explain.”

  “These gringos aren’t that stupid. They’ve got something planned. We just don’t know it yet.”

  “Fuck!”

  “What?”

  “I wanted you to tell me I was wrong. That we got lucky, and they screwed up.”

  “You forgot your history lessons. Hector Delgado don’t lie.”

  “That was Davy Crockett, asshole.”

  “Same thing. We both had relatives at the Alamo.”

  “No, Davy Crockett was at the Alamo. You had some tenth cousin of your mother’s friend’s wife’s sister, or some shit like that.”

  “Like I said, same thing. Blood is blood.”

  Gino laughed. “That’s why I love you. I gotta go. Need to figure out what they’re doing.”

  “Me too. We got a potential lead on a motel. The old Lexington.”

  “Whew! The
y’re not spending any of that anticipated ransom on comfort are they?”

  Delgado hung up and called to his SWAT team. “We’re ready.”

  He climbed into the van with the team. The leader handed him a vest. “Wear it if you’re in on this.”

  “Park at the Ramada Inn just north of the motel. We don’t want them to see us.”

  “Just us?” the leader of the team asked.

  “Sanchez is meeting us. Rest of her team is continuing with the other motels.”

  He got on the phone. “Where are you, Sanchez?”

  “Thirty seconds.”

  “Remember, the Ramada. North side. “We’re two minutes behind you.” Delgado hung up and made another call. “Julie, call the Ramada next to America’s. Tell them we’re coming into the parking lot. We don’t want any noise or issues. Do whatever you have to.”

  “Got it, chico,” she said.

  Delgado laughed. He liked that purple-haired, multi-colored-fingernail hippie girl. The van pulled into the Ramada and swung in front of the building. Three muscle-bound macho men and one wiry, tough-as-boar-tusks woman, exploded from the van, vests on and loaded with more guns and ammo than it took to win the war in Granada.

  Delgado looked them over, shaking his head. “I feel inadequate.”

  Sanchez stood a few feet away, a smile on her face that made her look like Howdy Doody from the fifties, but better armed. “You’re just recognizing that,” she said. “Rosalee told me—”

  Delgado put his hand on a gun. “Remember, Sanchez. Sometimes cops get shot in operations like this.”

  The SWAT leader, Lance, came forward with a rigid posture and an even more rigid expression. Delgado assumed he didn’t appreciate the banter. Maybe because he didn’t need it. He got to kill the bad guys. Delgado and his teams usually only saw the victims and their families. They worked their ass off to catch the bad guys, only to see them get released early, or worse, get off. That shit made a person crave a drink at night. Some guys took it further, craving it all the time.

  Lance was right, though; it was time for action. Delgado got everyone in close. “Sanchez and I go in first. When we exit the office, move into position. I’ll signal you from the front of the room.”

  Sanchez pinched Delgado’s ass as they crossed the street, arm in arm.

  “What the hell was that about?” he asked.

  “Good luck.”

  “You could have just said buena suerte.”

  She picked up the pace. “Not as much fun.”

  Delgado and Sanchez entered the lobby, his badge out before he was halfway across the room. “Detectives Delgado and Sanchez.”

  The clerk was a medium-guy—medium height, weight, and hair color. Not pasty white or tan, just medium all the way around.

  “I was expecting you,” he said, in a medium-ranged voice. “They’re in room #164.” He reached for the key. “It’s around back.”

  Delgado took the key. “Who reported the noise?”

  “Two rooms down, #168. The rooms on either side are empty. I don’t know how #168 could have heard noise from there…unless it was really loud.”

  Delgado nodded. “Thanks. We’re going there now. Make sure no one bothers us. If anyone questions you, say it’s police business.”

  “Don’t worry. I want them out of here. This is normally a quiet place.”

  “I’m sure it is,” Delgado said. “Sir, do you think we could borrow a maid’s uniform?” He felt certain Sanchez was glaring at him over the comment, but he didn’t turn to confirm it. When the clerk gave them a uniform, Delgado grabbed Sanchez by the arm, and they walked outside. “You want to be the maid?” he asked.

  “I don’t think you’d pass for one,” she said.

  “Okay, here’s what you do—”

  Sanchez turned to look at him. “I’ve got six kids. I know how to be a maid.” She started around the corner without me, then turned and said, “And I know how to speak Spanish too.”

  “That’s cruel, Sanchez. I’m reporting you.”

  “To which cousin?”

  “That’s crueler.”

  She changed in the manager’s office then left with Delgado, setting a fast pace to the room. “Cover me,” she said, all humor gone from her tone. Delgado stayed close behind, crouched low.

  Sanchez walked up to #164, key in one hand, the other clutching a gun. She took a deep breath then knocked on the door. When no one answered, she knocked again. “Hola! Housekeeping.”

  The curtains moved—just barely, but they moved. One more time, she knocked. “Hola! Maid service.”

  The curtain closed. She reached for the lock with the key, but Delgado shook his head. They’d let Sir Lancelot and the mighty SWAT team handle this.

  Delgado let her take the lead back while he brought up the rear, just in case whoever was in there decided to come out. He called Lance on the phone. “Need your special brand of talent, amigo. The gentleman in room #164 is not feeling sociable.”

  By the time Delgado turned the corner, Lance and his crew were there. He didn’t know how they got there that fast, but they did. “Room #164. And try not to kill the girl.”

  Lance looked at him. “What do we know for sure?”

  “Nothing. This could be a plain old asshole who didn’t feel like answering the door because he was getting a piece of tail. Or it could be a wired-up junkie ready to blow his—and your—brains out. Or, it could be the kidnapper with an innocent girl in there. So be careful.”

  Lance nodded and gave some kind of mysterious hand signal to his men, the kind only Special Forces, and CIA, and FBI, and SWAT team guys—all of the acronym people—do. They moved along the wall like fucking spiders.

  They got into position on both sides of the door. The guy from the rear, the one who looked like a couple of trees, moved up with a battering ram that Santa Ana would have paid a bucketful of gold to have had at the Alamo. Delgado presumed Coop knew she would be paying for a few motel doors. Good thing they weren’t at the Ritz.

  The battering-ram guy swung his tree-trunk arms back then swung what probably was a tree into the door. It went down like the houses Delgado used to build out of cards. He rushed to give them backup. Before the door touched the floor, they were inside, and judging from the resulting noise, #168 would have more than a few complaints.

  “Down! On the floor! Drop the gun! Drop the gun!”

  Delgado heard a shot then several more as he raced through the door, low. A white male lay on the floor, bleeding. More than bleeding, his head was almost blown off. No rush on a bus for him. A gun lay on the floor next to him. Delgado hoped it was actually the guy’s gun and not one from the arsenal Lance and his crew had. The girl lay on the bed, face buried in her hands, screaming as if she had a limb severed. Lance and his men cleared the bathroom, closet and under the bed, then announced the area to be secure. Delgado stood, went to the girl on the bed, and sat next to her.

  She shrieked and pulled her legs up tight against her. If she could have crawled into the wall, she would have. It wasn’t until Sanchez arrived that she showed signs of calming down.

  Sanchez turned to Delgado, whispering. “Get them to step outside. I’ll see what I can find out.”

  Delgado got Lance and his men to follow him out. He took out the cell and punched in Gino’s number. He wanted to wait for Sanchez, but there was no sense in it. The girl on the bed was not Jada Hackett.

  Chapter 39

  Terminal C

  Doran made the turn from the toll road extension onto JFK. He was fast approaching the airport. He picked up the phone. “I’m on JFK Boulevard.”

  “What kind of car are you driving?” the kidnapper asked.

  The question took Doran by surprise. Did these guys really not know? “I’m in a Ford Flex. Black.”

  “Good. Listen closely. The next instructions are very important. If you fuck them up…well, you don’t want to do that. Clear?”

  Doran wanted to clear this guy’s head out rig
ht now. “Clear.”

  “I am going to give instructions. Take the phone off speaker. I will be whispering, so it may be difficult for you to hear. If the radio is on, turn it off. Turn off the air conditioner too. Do not—I repeat—do not repeat what I say. Do not put the phone back on speaker. Do not question anything I say. Clear?”

  Doran gritted his teeth. “Clear.”

  “You will answer me with simple sentences. Yes. No. Okay. Clear. Such as that. Clear?”

  “Clear.”

  “Oh, one more thing. Take the other cell phone you have and drop it out the window now. Right now.”

  A sickness crept into Doran’s stomach. These guys had been fucking with them the whole time. They knew he had another cell with him. How? He dropped the phone out the window. “Okay.”

  “Roll up your window.”

  “Okay.”

  “Go to the Terminal B parking garage.”

  The sickness spread throughout Doran’s body. Gino would be set up at C. They still had the GPS in the car, and the GPS in his boot, but no communications. He prayed Gino picked up on that.

  When the turn came up for Terminal C, Doran went straight then turned left toward B.

  Come on, Gino. Look at the GPS. Somebody look.

  ***

  I was doing almost ninety down the Hardy Toll Road when I caught a little slip of the wheels as I negotiated the turn onto JFK. Watch your ass, Gino. Don’t need a wreck.

  The phone rang. By the fourth ring, I straightened up enough to grab it. It was the guy from Central. “Cataldi.”

  “We lost Doran’s phone.”

  “What?”

  “The signal is gone.”

  “What does that mean? Did he turn it off, or…”

  “Even if he turned it off, we’d have a signal.”

  “So…what?”

  “Doesn’t matter. We still have the GPS devices in the car and on Doran. The bigger problem is, he’s not headed to Terminal C.”

  “What!”

  “He turned toward Terminals A and B. Driving slow.”

  A or B. Why? They could be making a detour. They might suspect a tail, and if so, the garage would be a good place to spot a tail. No stopping in front of the garage on entrance or exits. I got back on the phone.