by Chris LeGrow
“Got it?” Sarge asked.
They nodded.
“Word is he has his bangers looking for them; it’s just a matter of time before they find them. His usual MO is to have his gang prowl around so the victim sees ’em before making their move. Terror’s the precursor to the violence with these mopes.”
“Clubba’s the one who loves the terror. Likes people to be scared of him. He’ll wait till he’s outta prison and finish those girls his own way. That way he keeps the respect of his community and his other pallies,” Tony said. “You sure he doesn’t have some Italian in him?”
The Sarge cracked a grin. “You may be right; he’ll just keep ’em terrified to step outside and avoid any new charges. He’ll leave the bashing for himself.”
The Sarge clicked his tongue. “I love hating that punk. Well—” he yelled into the air again, “we ain’t gonna let that happen will we, boys?”
A chorus of grunts and cheers of agreement filled the squad room.
“Pauli,” Sarge called out when things settled down. He slid off his chair and walked to the middle of the tiled room.
“Yo!” he replied.
“Set up an over/under surveillance on this. For the over, get an apartment above the grandmother’s—the closer the better. Keep the windows dark; set up the audio and video equipment with a full view of the courtyard surrounding the apartment.” The Sarge paced between the desks. “The under will be you two harmless old Italian men playing chess in the courtyard. Can you still speak Italian?” he asked the brothers.
“Grandma Chelini’ll haunt us for sure if we don’t,” Pauli said with a wink at his brother.
“Good,” Sarge said. “You can waltz around the grounds with your special hearing aids specifically designed with video recorders and directional microphones that can pick up anything within fifty feet. You’ll be transmitting to the audio-visual center in the over. All anyone wearing these things has to do is look in the direction of the subject and everything they say gets recorded.”
“Mama mia, I love this stuff!”
Sarge took a deep breath and sighed. “I want everything Clubba’s punks do and say recorded when they’re in the area. Get it all set up for the gang unit to cuff ’em and stuff ’em.”
“Got it, Sarge,” the brothers said simultaneously.
“Tiny!” the Sarge barked over his shoulder en route to his office. “Fill out the forms for the equipment we need and get it to supply. The Ol’ Blues are gonna be loosed on those punks—finally.” He bit the last word off through gritted teeth.
Surveillance at the apartment on Etna ran as smoothly as the Sarge could ever want. A new crime spree in South Omaha now held his attention—standing in front of a big-screen television where a local news anchor, looking particularly serious, read her teleprompter. In the background over the anchor’s left shoulder a picture featured a woman on the ground raising her hand and pointing toward two robbers in dark clothing running away with her purse in tow.
“A rash of these thefts has hit the metro area,” the reporter stated. “Police tell us the gang unit has been assigned. As you can see in that security video, the male suspects approach the victim, speak briefly to her before knocking her to the ground and grabbing her purse. This woman and several others have been hospitalized.”
The female reporter added, “Unfortunately, there is no concrete description of the assailants. They have been described as white, black, and Latinos. After knocking their victim to the ground and taking her purse, they run to a waiting vehicle for their getaway. Anyone with information about these suspects is asked to please contact the Omaha Police Department.”
Sarge watched the two surveillance videos released to the public through narrowed eyes. “Can’t see anything from those angles, but there’s a different vehicle at each scene. Sometimes a sedan, sometimes an SUV.” The Sarge took his cigar from his mouth. “Smitty!” he bellowed into the precinct war room.
“Staff took him; they’re doing somethin’ with him, Sarge!” A Blue in the precinct office said. “I think the staff is bathing and changing his piss ’n shi—er…I mean—uh, ah,” the anonymous voice stuttered. “Poop bag. Sorry, Sarge. I know ya don’t like cussin’. He should be finished pretty quick; they took him away about forty-five minutes ago.”
“Fine. Have him report to me soon as he gets back,” he snapped. Sarge re-ran the surveillance video several times. “If anybody can get anything outta of this, it’s Smitty.”
The Sarge and William Smith had joined the force together in the late sixties. They’d kept in touch through the years but didn’t socialize together much. Smitty loved the graveyard shift and worked it for twenty-five years until he was gut-shot chasing two punks who robbed a liquor store. As they fled, one turned and fired. The shot hit the ground three feet in front of Smitty and ricocheted up. The bullet splintered and damaged his colon, and he ended up wearing a colostomy bag and riding the front desk at headquarters for the remainder of his career.
He was the quintessential cop. Married three times, his life was typical of too many police officers. Wives hardly survived their spouse working midnights, drinking too much, missing birthdays, anniversaries, school programs, and recitals let alone living with the hard-nosed cop attitude Smitty wore like a second skin. Everybody lies! Only believe what you can verify and only half of what you see, he’d always said. That worldview worked wonders on the street but not in a marriage.
Out of three marriages, Smitty had two daughters. One hadn’t spoken to him in nineteen years and still didn’t. The other, Brittany, adored him. At twenty-nine she was a gorgeously stubborn redhead with a fiery temper. Guys stared at her, but she always had other things to do besides date. She was a criminal justice major at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and—in Smitty’s mind at least—taking entirely too long to get her degree.
Along the way, she’d become a Mormon. Smitty didn’t mind; they didn’t drink or smoke, and he actually admired those young guys in suits. Even Smitty admitted they were a cut above. If anyone seemed honest, it was those guys although Smitty never quite admitted it out loud. Five years back, Brittany caught the missionary zeal, quit college against her father’s wishes, and served an eighteen-month mission in Africa. Working the refugee camps, she helped refugees from South Sudan who’d escaped their war-ravaged country.
Surprisingly, she picked up the language quickly. She’d become a local celebrity with her red hair and milk-white skin. Sudanese children and women loved to touch her hair and would press her arm and squeeze. Once they let go, capillary filling occurred, and they’d watch in awe as her skin would go from white to pink. They’d never seen anything like it and never tired of the new game.
Brittany was the only person who really understood her father, other than Sarge, and she was also the only one who could talk sense into him. Smitty had the uncanny ability to see little details everyone else missed. Having worked the streets all those years, little details were important to him, and Smitty was the one who could always figure out what any bit of information meant.
Before retirement, the Sarge had made daily mail runs to headquarters that always included a stop by Smitty’s desk. If he had a particularly troublesome case, he’d run it by Smitty to get his take on things. Nothing was one hundred percent, but Smitty was a good ninety-nine percenter—exactly why Sarge had chosen him as one of the first in the Ol’ Blue Unit.
Within fifteen minutes, Smitty walked up. Tall at over six feet, his flowing white hair still bore a touch of the deep brown on the sides… remnants of a more youthful time. “Hey Sarge. What you got?”
Smitty was still in his classic hospital robe—no back. Sarge suppressed a hearty grin and smart-aleck remark. It was all part of the precinct façade. They all hated it and would rather wear regulation clothes, but that wasn’t happening. This was the mother of all undercover work, and they had to dress the part. No more blue uniforms for street officers or shirt and tie for detectives. There’d almost
been a full-scale riot over the issue.
Patients, the medical staff explained, wore the medical robes; the cops demanded professional attire. Eventually the Sarge negotiated a compromise. Cops wore the top of their uniforms specially built with snaps in the back for easy opening, but the bottom had to be the robe.
Uniform shirts were worn over the robes, but the bottoms were those awful tush-exposing cotton things. The Blues called them indignity bottoms. Baring an adult diaper or occasional urine bag or two wasn’t all; their skinny legs, black shoes, and black straps holding up their black socks also saw the light of day. Uniformed officers kept their hats on with their matching shirts. The arrangement had been going for a couple of months, but it still made the Sarge chuckle to himself at the sight. The precinct was a hub of activity with officers scurrying around, yelling back and forth as if the whole scene was completely normal.
Smitty, too, wore his cop uppers and his indignity bottoms. Sometimes, Sarge thought, you just have to bow to the absurd.
“Good grief, Smitty! What did you do?”
Smitty had several pieces of toilet paper attached to his face, each with a red speck dotting the middle. Obviously, in his haste Smitty tried a quick shave after his bath.
“Oh, this.” He touched a spot and grinned. “Trying to stay pretty for Boss Nurse.”
Boss Nurse, as she was known to the Ol’ Blues, was actually nurse Betsy Carroway. A large woman at millimeters over five foot eleven, she weighed three hundred pounds if she weighed an ounce. Raised in Mississippi, she could speak with the sweetest gentility and in the next breath, if needed, verbally assault an unruly patient. Her pointed Southern drawl, quick instruction, and wide-eyed stare made every cop in the unit jump.
If an officer didn’t want to take a shower and tried to argue, her eyes got wide, hands went to her hips, and a barrage of rapid-fire words flew out of her mouth, starting with, “Wha’d you say?” Or “Get your diaper-wearin’ self up to that shower right now, you hear? Or I might just join ya’ll.”
Everyone took his shower.
“I’m sure she’ll be duly impressed, Smitty,” the Sarge said with a wide grin.
Smitty echoed his good humor. “The last thing I want is her mad at me. I heard she actually picked up a Blue and shoved him in the drink, clothes and all. She’d make a pretty mean cop, don’t you think?”
“That she would.” Finished with the small talk, Sarge clicked on the DVD. “Here’s what we got on those South O snatchers.”
Smitty watched intently. “I heard about this. There’s been a slew of this stuff recently.”
Sarge pointed to the split screen. “This is surveillance on two of them; the department isn’t sure if they’re related or not. The news makes it sound like they’re different groups of guys, possibly different gangs that are randomly hitting victims around town.”
“How many?”
“Twelve victims so far. Three are still in the hospital with broken ribs. Four got concussions when they hit the pavement.”
Smitty raised an eyebrow. “Not from getting punched?”
The Sarge shook his head. “No, the perps knocked them to the ground so hard, the women got concussions.”
Smitty tapped his index finger at the now blank television screen. “Anything else for surveillance?”
Sarge shook his head. “No.”
“Only two tapes?”
“For now. More are coming. Our lab guys are—hacking or whatever they call it—at police headquarters. We should have more in a couple of hours.”
“Until then,” Smitty pulled out a chair and settled in, “I’ll rewatch what we have.”
“Then I’ll leave you be. I know you like to study tape alone. I’ll check with the other squads too. You’ll let me know if you get anything.”
Smitty waved Sarge off without taking his gaze from the screen. “Sure,” he said absently. “And don’t forget the original reports…and backgrounds of the victims.”
“Vic—?” Sarge caught himself short. If Smitty wanted backgrounds on the victims, Smitty would get backgrounds on the victims. “Whatever you need,” Sarge said and closed the door behind him.
CLUBBA SIGHED AND CLOSED HIS EYES. HIS COMFORT level with the many prison groups hit its zenith. They talked about girls, other inmates, life in prison, and what they were and did in their individual gangs, and then the talk turned to how they’d gotten caught.
“Urine?” LaTrey, a banger from Sydney, Nebraska, all but retched at Clubba’s recitation. “Two old guys threw a bag of urine. At you?”
The entire table roared with laughter. Some made explosive gestures with their hands complete with a splashing sound. The laughing went on for what seemed like eternity to Clubba. Before he had a rational thought, he punched his thigh with his fist. Thud…thud…thud.
Chrisz nudged LaTrey. “What he doin’?”
“Don’t know,” Trey said, “but he does it whenever he talk about gettin’ caught.”
“Your new name should be Clubba-Pee,” the youngest of the crew, Pypa, said. “Get it?”
The table shook with renewed laughter.
Clubba glared down the row of inmates. If he didn’t need these punks, they wouldn’t ever see the light of day again. He held his temper and his tongue. Revenge was best served ice cold.
Two days later, Smitty pushed back from his viewing. “Hah!” he said and jutted his finger at the screen. “Again with the four-door escape vehicle.”
The lab boys had successfully hacked copies of all videos from headquarters. The additional five clips could be played repeatedly giving Smitty a bigger picture of the ongoing chaos of the different crime scenes. After an hour of comparison, he pushed the call button and paged Sarge.
The Sarge stalked into the office. “The gang unit can’t place any of these goofs. They’re trying to isolate footage of each suspect to identify and place them in their various gangs across town. What a pain. Now the media’s pressuring the Chief, and he’s leaning on the gang unit for answers.”
“And how are they doing with the matchups?” Smitty asked.
“Terrible—”
“Because those aren’t gangs,” Smitty said matter-of-factly.
The Sarge stopped midsentence and slowly turned to Smitty. “What? They’re all young, male, use the same MO, and they love to hurt their victims. It’s their own gang calling card.” He cocked his head as though he knew there must be more. “And the Chief, the media, and the guys in the gang unit all say it’s a gang. But you look at the video and say they aren’t?”
“You know I hate it when cops jump to conclusions,” Smitty said. “Especially the young know-it-alls.”
“Like the ones that called you ‘just another Old Blue’?” Sarge asked. “Someone who was just playing cop until he can retire?”
“I hate that phrase,” Smitty said. “Can’t wait to prove the little buggers wrong.”
“Okay, you worthless Ol’ Blue geezer,” the Sarge said with a big smile that grew even bigger. “I knew you could crack this case.” The Sarge pulled the chewed cigar out of his mouth. “So why do you say they’re all wrong?”
Smitty turned back to the television screen. “Watch this,” he said with a smirk. He showed the getaway vehicles of each crime. “Do you see it?”
Sarge glanced between the screens. “A different vehicle each time?”
“Yes.” Smitty blew out a breath. “But what’s the same about each car?”
Brows knit together, the Sarge shook his head. “Don’t know,” he answered. “All I see are different cars in each incident.”
“You got the first point right, but,” Smitty continued, “gangs don’t have five or six vehicles…newer vehicles. Drive it around once and trade it off to commit another robbery? Maybe they could steal one every time they pull off a robbery, but their chances of getting caught increase exponentially. Even if they bought or rented cars, there’s still a high probability of discovery.”
Sarge folded his a
rms across his chest. “Not to mention expensive too.”
“Exactly, and where’s the money in that?” Smitty walked to a whiteboard and picked up a marker to pull it all together. “Each time we thought we got a license plate number, it was wrong or we couldn’t connect it to any suspects. Nothing fit. The family that owned the vehicle were law-abiding folks, and we chalked it up to a bad lead.” Smitty crossed to the video screen and pointed. “Each vehicle was a late model with four doors.”
Sarge nodded. “Easier to jump into after robbing the ladies.”
“And,” Smitty continued, “most gangs here in Omaha are divided on neighborhood boundaries meaning they have the same racial makeup for the most part; each group is nothing but black, white, Hispanic, or Asian.”
“And the Sudanese,” the Sarge said. “Who don’t connect with the ‘African’ American groups.”
“They consider themselves Africans, not Americans I heard,” Smitty said.
“So all these robberies had a mix of Hispanic, black, and whites.” The Sarge frowned. “Not what we usually see in Omaha.”
“No.” Smitty paused. “It’s not.”
“Hmmm,” replied the Sarge.
“Our average banger gets angry if the woman puts up a fight and punches her in the face, maybe kicks her for good measure,” Smitty said and punched the DVD play button again. “Look at these guys. They work in twos. One grabs the purse while the other lays the woman out by getting a couple of steps ahead and shoulder checking her. Some of them whacked the ground so hard their heads snapped back on the cement. These aren’t your average gang thugs. These are athletes.”
“And you got all that from watching them knock the ladies on their heads?”
“Look at this, oh, dearest sergeant of mine.” Smitty clicked through a video frame by frame. “Here,” he pointed at the TV, “they have the purse.” He zoomed in closer. “Look how they hold it.”
The Sarge leaned in for a closer read. “He tucks it like a football.”
“Exactly.” Smitty pushed back into his chair. “Excellent observation, Sergeant.” Smitty swiveled back around. “Now look how they run toward the escape vehicle, how they approach it.”
