by Chris LeGrow
Pauli and Tony had made it to the middle of the street when the kid noticed them.
He yelled something in Sudanese.
They yelled back in Italian.
As near as Tiny could tell from the street-level ballet before him, between the shock of being sprayed, the stench of the days’ old urine, and the confusion of two animated Italian men, the thug looked totally confused. He bellowed at his companion. The second one stopped watching Shanese and came running. Before he reached his partner, he skidded to a stop about ten feet away. Three angry men, two languages, one dust up. He didn’t go any closer to his partner whose overlarge white shirt now held yellowish-brown stains.
“Dumbfounded,” Tiny said. “That’s what he is.”
“Exactly what it looks like to me,” the tech replied.
“See,” Tiny said, “those piss bags confuse everyone who gets hit with ’em. It stops ’em in their tracks, which is what we wanted. And his buddy stopped looking for Shanese.” He jerked his thumb toward the opposite window. “She just ran to the back of the building; probably going the patio door, smart girl.”
“I’ve heard you guys love to toss those things.” The tech shook his head as though he’d never seen anything like it. “Do they come in different sizes?”
“Of course they come in different sizes,” Tiny said. “Some are small enough to fit in our pockets or fanny packs; bigger ones go in the compartment on a walker.”
“Isn’t that dangerous?”
“Sometimes—not often—they break.”
The tech scrunched his face in disgust.
“At our age the nurses figure we wet ourselves. They clean us up and that’s that. Except for the occasion when someone does wet themselves,” he said with a frown. “But it’s all worth it to see those hoods’ faces,” Tiny continued with a laugh. “They’re completely disoriented.”
The tech shared Tiny’s laughter.
“In a minute or two, they’ll figure out that the cops might show up. My guess is they’ll skedaddle. That’ll buy us some time,” Tiny said.
“How much?”
“Don’t really know. They’ll be back, and next time with the rest of Clubba’s hoods.”
A long pause hung in the air before Tiny snapped back to the assignment at hand. “We’re going to need more surveillance equipment out here,” he said. “We need to watch everything.”
“Why?” Beckham asked. “Don’t we have enough to collar those two clowns?”
“We will once we get the conversation translated,” Tiny said. “They haven’t actually done anything yet. Hopefully we can set them up with witness tampering. We might get more than just two thrown into jail.”
“Well,” the younger man said, “I got everything he said on the phone recorded.”
“Let’s get it to the lab.” Tiny watched the chaos below. As predicted, Clubba’s boys turned around, said something to each other, and left. Pauli and Tony continued haranguing them, but they didn’t understand a word they said.
Tiny smiled at the brothers. Clubba’s hoods scurried away but not before bellowing something back in Sudanese. Probably a threat, not that it mattered. The Chelinis each cracked a smile at the departing bangers and started to laugh.
Pauli waved at the camera location. “How was that, Tiny? You see that idiot’s face when his shirt got soaked with piss? I almost laughed right there!”
“You guys were great,” Tiny said. “Nolan Ryan couldn’t have delivered a better pitch. Now let’s get this information back to the Sarge and plan our next move.”
“You got it.”
Tiny informed his superior about the afternoon’s events.
“Good work,” the Sarge replied. “We’ll get the boys in the lab to set up additional surveillance.”
“We’ve got good camera coverage here,” Tiny said. “I’d suggest we set up a couple cable repair vans on the perimeter. Those goofs seemed really careful not to cross the street. My guess is that they’ll stay outside the apartment area itself.”
“Afraid to cross the street?”
“Yeah,” Tiny said. “Wouldn’t even come over to follow the girl.”
“You’re probably right,” the Sarge said. “Get back here and we’ll figure out the rest of our plans.”
“Will do,” Tiny said.
The Sarge hung up his phone. “And now to set the trap…”
THE OL’ BLUES ESPECIALLY LOOKED FORWARD TO Tuesdays when Smitty’s daughter, Brittany, brought dozens of homemade treats. She’d meander throughout the precinct dispensing small talk and goodies to every Blue but particularly the ones without family or whose family couldn’t make it in for a visit. They returned her smiles and laughed at her lighthearted teasing. Invariably she landed five to six marriage proposals per visit—especially after they tasted her cookies.
Try as they may, none of the guys could ever get the best of her. And try they did. Cops were natural pranksters, but Brittany was used to it; she’d grown up listening to her father’s stories. Armed with that imparted knowledge, she always seemed to know what to expect. But it was more than that; she simply had a way with people. Add to that over a year of her service as a missionary in the Sudan, and she’d returned a remarkable young woman. Always kind and compassionate by nature, those qualities had grown almost to perfection in her father’s eyes. Plus she had the ability to understand and speak fluent Sudanese.
Smitty didn’t know which trait he loved most. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t graduated from college in any of the half dozen majors she’d chosen. He guessed it was a woman’s prerogative to change her mind, but this kid’s educational record was getting ridiculous. She’d try one major for a semester, then change her mind by the summer. It drove Smitty crazy and filled him with concern for his daughter’s future. Marriage wouldn’t be a bad thing either in his mind. He wanted a couple of grandchildren to play with before he died. Knowing his daughter well, it would happen in her own good time.
The main doors of the retirement center burst open. Brittany strode through with boxes of home-baked delights. “Hey, there,” she said with a chin lift of acknowledgment toward the nurses.
Calls of recognition from the staff filled the hall, and she shifted a box onto the head nurse’s desk. “Sweets for the sweet,” she said with a grin.
“Thanks, Brit,” the nurse said. “Again.”
“No problem.” As per her usual routine, Brittany started her rounds in the rear wing where the bedridden officers stayed. Two proposals later, she wound her way through the passages dropping off cookies and a hefty dollop of tenderness. An hour later, she headed into the precinct to see her father and the officers he hung with. She entered through the back doors and trekked down to the officers’ personal rooms.
As often as she’d been there, there was always someone to greet her or announce her visit to the Sarge. That, she thought, was odd. “If I didn’t know better I’d think you guys had an early warning system at my approach.” She said it jokingly, but a current of seriousness lay beneath the surface of her words.
Inevitably, the officers shrugged it off with the standard, “It’s just procedure.”
She wasn’t so sure. They always acted as if they had something to hide.
Moseying down the corridor, she noticed a large group of officers in the Sarge’s office. The lights were off, and rapt attention from all attendees focused toward the front of the room. Heading for the open door, no one even noticed her. Conversation focused on a security video that the Sarge was lecturing on. Not wanting to interrupt, Brittany slipped into a chair in the back and watched.
“This,” the Sarge said, “is the video from the capture of the purse snatchers at the Southern Wheel Mall. Notice how the spike sticks were placed. An excellent job. The punks didn’t even notice you. Bensen, you placed yourself right where you could fill the cab of the vehicle with pepper spray, and Smitty,” the Sarge said with a hearty laugh, “you just couldn’t resist, could you?”
In
the back, Brittany perked up. Smitty? Why was he talking about her dad? With a frown, she focused her attention at the ongoing video. Several old men yelled at a woman who turned and ran back into the mall. The apparent robbers ran toward a car—to get away she realized. One elderly gent with a walker, something he obviously didn’t need, pulled out what looked like a large water balloon. Brittany strained to make out his face, stunned when the camera showed the man with a walker turn and the face was undeniable. Dad!
She watched in horror as he chucked the bag at one of the robbers, hitting him smack in his chest. The room erupted in whoops and hollers like something one hears on Super Bowl Sunday. Some of her father’s compatriots pounded him on his back. Brittany shook her head, unwilling to believe what she’d seen. Not possible. Not her father.
“Okay, now for case at hand: surveillance from Sixtieth and Etna. Tiny got some good video of what happened there, but we also got great audio. We’ve got surveillance cameras throughout the inner part of the apartment complex here.” He pointed at the schematic. “And here, but we didn’t have a lot outside. That’ll change soon. The boys in the lab are setting things up as we speak. We’ll have converted the vans into cable repair vehicles with twelve cameras and mikes across the street. By tomorrow the entire place will be surrounded.”
He sounded extremely pleased with himself, Brittany thought.
“Tony recorded the punk’s phone conversation,” the Sarge continued. “Unfortunately, we don’t have a clue what he was saying because it was all in Sudanese. We don’t speak it, and those who do won’t talk to us, but you can bet he let the rest of the gang know he found Shanese and where. We doubt that they figured out which specific apartment. Not that it matters because from their behavior, they’ve got orders not to go onto the property. It’ll be enough of a reminder for Shanese that Clubba knows where she is.”
The Sarge turned up the volume and played the audio. Clear baritone words chattered out into the air. The end showed Pauli and Tony throwing yet another liquid-filled balloon at the guy on the phone and yelling their own response.
“So, boys,” the Sarge said. “Who wants to try Google translate on this?”
“Tried it before, doesn’t work so good,” one man said.
“Don’t even bother,” another chimed in. “It can give you a general idea but other than that—” He shrugged his indifference.
“Okay then, since we can’t understand what they’re saying, we’ll have to figure out their plans another way. Makes it doubly hard to combat what they’re doing, but—”
The sound of a female voice from behind them by the front door of his office stopped him cold.
“He said,” Brittany offered from her seat in the back, “that Clubba’s instructions from prison were that he only wanted Sudanese soldiers, no American gangs. They’ll be there tomorrow night, and they’re to stay for the next month until Clubba gets out. He said Clubba specifically said not to go near her, only let her see that his soldiers are there…and she better not talk.”
The lights flicked on. Every head in the room turned around to see the translator. Brittany pulled her hand from the light switch, crossed her arms, and glared at everyone she saw in the room.
“She gets that from her mother,” Smitty said.
She shot her father daggers. “Oh, I haven’t finished,” she said. “In the last part, he talked about getting hit by yellow slime. Yellow slime?”
She glanced at each officer in the room. At least they all had the decency to look chagrined. “What…are…you…all…doing?”
The Ol’ Blues glanced back and forth at each other and almost in unison turned to Smitty in a silent plea. “Um, hi, sweetie,” he said sheepishly.
“Don’t you ‘sweetie’ me.”
It didn’t take much to set Brittany’s ire boiling.
“Oh my goodness…oh my goodness…oh my goodness gracious!” She paced back and forth in front of where her father sat.
“Now, listen, honey. You have to settle down and—”
“Settle down?” she asked through clenched teeth. “Settle down? I just watched my retired father and”—stabbing her index finger at each occupant, she continued her tirade—“every one of you in some sort of vigilante type of…thingie!”
“Actually it’s an undercover operation,” one of the Blues murmured.
“Under…I don’t care what you call it. Have you all lost your minds?”
“No need to freak out,” another Blue said calmly. “It’s not what you think.”
Whirling to face the man, she plopped her hands on her hip like a mother lecturing an errant teen. “It isn’t?”
He squirmed in his chair. “W…well actually,” he began but withered under her glare. “I guess it pretty much is exactly what it looks like.”
Smitty rolled his eyes. “Oh good, Sam. Way to settle her down.”
“Settle me down?” Brittany crossed to face her father. “Tell me you’re not going out and arresting people! Oh, Daddy, no.”
Smitty wouldn’t lie to her and she knew it. “Sweetie, absolutely not,” he said. “We’re not arresting anyone, just getting information to help the police is all.”
“Is all?” Brittany asked, incredulous at what she heard. “I just watched you throw a water balloon at a purse snatcher at a mall parking lot!”
“Actually,” an anonymous voice from the group said, “it was a piss pack.”
“Piss pack?” she echoed and turned in the general direction of the comment. “As in urine-filled water balloons?” Her widened eyes bespoke her disbelief at what she was hearing.
“You guys aren’t helping here,” Smitty said loud enough for everyone to hear.
“Helping?” She continued. “Help me what, Daddy? Settle down? Calm down? Understand this insanity? How much? Enough that I’ll meekly go back to being a good little girl who brings cookies to all you poor little men in desperate need of visitors?” She said through gritted teeth.
A chorus of, “I like your cookies,” rebounded through the room.
Brittany glanced up toward the ceiling. A long breath of exasperation flew through her lips along with a hearty, “Arrggh! I can’t believe this—you guys,” she said as she glared at first one Blue then another and another until she’d eyed them all.
“And you—” She pointed to the man seated by her father. “With the walker. You use that to fight off crooks when they attack you?”
The Blue pulled the walker close to him for fear she may take it away from him. “I—that is,” he struggled for an answer. “Well,” he finally said, “it does shoot pepper spray.”
Spinning around she focused on another Blue. “And you…with the cane. I suppose that’s really a…a…gun or rifle or something,” she raised both hands in growing frustration. “Right?” she hoped her words sounded as sarcastic as she wanted.
He opened his mouth, closed it, and thought for a moment. “It’s a camera and shoots pepper spray.” The Blue tried to show her how it worked.
“Brittany!” Smitty called across the room. “Let me explain.” He stretched out his hands as though trying to calm her.
“I don’t need your explanations,” she snapped back. “I heard all I need and I am going to—” She halted, information finally connecting in her brain filtering through her outrage. She turned and looked back at the first Blue she’d yelled at—the one with the walker. “You,” she said and pointed directly at his nose. “Did I hear you right? That thing shoots pepper spray?”
Nodding, he pointed to a nozzle out of the handle and smiled. “Yep.”
Brittany pulled her hands up to her temples. ”Seriously! And you?” She shot a scathing glare back at the Blue with the cane. “Camera and pepper spray?”
A huge grin split his face; his upper dentures started to fall out. With a practiced hand, he grabbed them. “Uh-huh,” he said with an affirmative nod and gave her a thumbs-up.
Her mouth dropped open and she closed it again. “I don’t believe
it,” she said and glanced around the room again seeing the walking aids with new eyes. Her anger dissipated as her understanding increased. “This is incredible.”
Her gaze lingered at a man with a fanny pack. He reached in and pulled out a triangular black container about six inches long. With a self-satisfied smile, he held it up. “Stop sticks,” he said with a toothless grin. “They flatten car tires.”
Glancing from one man to the next, a wave of dizziness enveloped Brittany and she weaved to one side.
“She’s gonna faint,” one of the Blues said.
The Sarge and Smitty grabbed her arms and helped her to a couch.
Brittany blinked and shook her head. Everything started coming back into focus. She watched the ceiling fan circle lazily overhead. Lots of fuzzy, round objects moved around and made noise. Keeping her head still and taking deep, long breaths, she tried to bring the faces around her into view. The Sarge, her father, and five other Blues hovered around the sides of her vision speaking in rapid succession.
“Give her air!”
“Hold her hands above her heart.”
“Is she okay?”
“That’s her feet elevated, you idiot, not her hands.”
“Oh, yeah…put her feet up.”
“Get her some water.”
“What are you going to do? Pour it on her face?”
She recognized the Sarge’s voice.
“I don’t know. I’ve always seen people get water,” came the reply.
“Never mind, you knuckleheads.” Her father’s voice sounded like it came from down a long tunnel. “Just back away,” he said. “Back away. Hey, sweetie…look at me. Brittany.”
Head still spinning she tried to do what he asked.
“Honey, look at me.”
Still trying to get a grasp on what had just transpired, she focused on her father’s voice.
“Right here…look at me.”
Squinting to help her concentrate, it took a minute before his face came fully into view. “Daddy?” She pulled herself up and ran a shaky hand through her hair. “I’m okay; I’m back now,” she said and gave him a half smile for reassurance.
