“They didn’t. At least I don’t think so. We sold him the guns and were planning to track him. Brown said he’d lead us right to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. We’d get a huge bust, press coverage, promotions. I told him he was crazy to try it with just the two of us, but he didn’t want to hear any of it.”
Frank ripped open the broken paper towel dispenser mounted on the wall, tore off a dozen sheets from the roll, and handed them to Stevenson. “Keep talking. Tell me exactly who you sold them to and how you fucked it up.”
Stevenson’s nose was swelling quickly as he struggled to speak. “Brown set the whole thing up. We did it on some side street. We put the hardware in his car and attached a tracking device to the vehicle. He drove away and that was it. I told Brown it was a bad plan. I told him the guy would just …”
“He drove away and immediately switched vehicles,” interjected Frank.
“Yeah. We tracked him. When we found the vehicle, we staked it out for four hours before I could convince Brown it was empty. By then he was long gone. I swear I never wanted to do it, Frank. When it went south, I said we had to tell someone but he wouldn’t listen. You gotta believe me. It wasn’t my fault!”
“Bullshit! You didn’t have to do it. You could have told someone. Hell, you could have told me and I would have stopped it. Now tell me exactly who you sold them to and don’t fuck around. If you fuck around, I’m gonna start breaking shit again. Tell me right now.”
Stevenson raised his aching body and leaned back against the discolored bathroom wall. “His name was Hector. Hector Gonzales.”
“What’s his King name?” asked Frank.
“King Heavy.”
“Why don’t you think the Latin Kings were behind the attack? Do you think this Hector guy fenced the hardware?”
“Yeah. Supposedly he’d been stealing money from the nation for a long time, which is unforgivable in their eyes. My guess is that he used their money to buy the guns, then sold them to the highest bidder and disappeared. Every Latin King in New England is looking for him as we speak. Which means he’s probably already dead or will soon wish he was.” Stevenson winced as he inhaled through his nose and spat out a mouthful of blood onto the grimy floor.
“So you do know for a fact that the guns used yesterday were the same ones you and Brown sold to this Hector asshole?” asked Frank.
Stevenson bowed his head, unable to look Frank in the eye any longer. “One hundred percent, but Brown is moving heaven and earth to cover the whole thing up. He has erased every record of those guns at the office, running interference with all the other agencies, and spreading enough misinformation to spin everybody’s heads. I protested, but he threatened to pin it all on me as well as a whole bunch of other shit I never even did. He’s a fucking lunatic, Frank.”
Frank was trying to absorb all of the information and formulate a plan at the same time. “Hector Gonzales. Latin King. Anything else? If you know anything else, I want to hear it right now.”
“That’s it. That’s everything I know. I’m sorry, Frank.”
“Don’t apologize to me, asshole. There are a lot of other people you owe an apology to, people whose lives have been ruined. I promise you’ll eventually pay the piper for what you’ve done. But for now, clean up and go home. Don’t say a fucking word to anyone, and call in sick for the foreseeable future. If you don’t, I swear to God I’ll find you and pick up where I left off.”
Frank checked his look in the mirror one last time before exiting the bathroom. He walked briskly past the two empty shot glasses still sitting on the bar and shouted above the music to the bartender on his way out the door, “My buddy’s gonna take care of the tab.”
One hundred twelve
John McDonough parked his cruiser in the empty lot of Baba Ghassan’s restaurant and exited the vehicle with his cell phone pressed to his ear.
“I’m telling you, John. I think today’s the day. It feels like there’s a cage match going on in my belly!” said Linda.
John removed the flashlight from his duty belt with his free hand and shined it through the glass door of the dark restaurant. “I’m not surprised. The little guy even woke me up a few times last night. I thought I felt a tremor.”
“Has it been quiet today?” she asked.
“Thankfully, yes. And I hope it stays that way through the night and into tomorrow, because that’s how long I’ll be on duty. It’s a long one, but after that I’m all yours for two weeks. Just the three of us—you, me, and our little man.”
“The three of us. I love the sound of that. And I’m telling you, this kid wants out!”
“I know he does. And the doc says he’s been in there long enough anyway, so he’s welcome any time. Listen, babe, let me call you back later, okay? I need to go make a quick welfare check,” said John as he walked back to the cruiser.
“Okay. Be careful, baby. We love you.”
“I love you guys too,” he answered with a smile.
Officer John McDonough pulled out of the parking lot, turned onto the main road, and headed toward Ghassan’s cabin to check on Yasir as he had promised.
One hundred thirteen
“I have some work to do, so I’ll have to talk to you later, Kenny. If I hear anything I’ll let you know,” Mark said as he walked his neighbor to the door.
“Please do that, Mark. Don’t just say it. I want to know who did this. And if I can help in any way, I will. You have my word on that. Anything.”
“I believe you. But my advice is to leave things to the professionals. Don’t get involved where you don’t need to get involved, Kenny. You’ve already put me in a difficult position by accessing information you had no business accessing. What do you expect me to say when someone finds out and asks me about it? ‘Oh, yeah, no problem. That was just my neighbor Kenny the hacker.’ Is that what you expect me to say? Or should I deny it? Maybe they’ll put us in adjacent cells so we can be neighbors forever.”
“I never intended to put you in any danger, Mark. And like I already told you, once I realized whose backyard I had wandered into, I got out quick and covered my tracks. Nobody is ever going to ask you anything.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure of that. You’re betting on yourself against some of the best cyber security experts on the planet,” said Mark.
“The best in the world?” asked Kenny, looking as if he had just bitten into a lemon. “Please, I’ve seen toy companies with better security. And if they’re so good, how come they haven’t found out who hacked them last month?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do,” Kenny said on his way out the door. “Don’t forget what I said, Mark. I’ll do anything to help catch the bastards who did this. And I bring a lot more to the table than you can imagine.”
* * *
Mark sipped his coffee and scrolled through the pictures a third time, although he knew it was an exercise in futility. The catalog of photos sent to him primarily contained headshots, and Mark had never gotten a good look at the fourth shooter’s face. The young man’s build and how he moved his body were seared into his memory, but the combination of hat, sunglasses, and Mark’s angle of view made facial recognition impossible. None of this came as a surprise to him. In contrast, the earlier visit from Kenny had been extraordinarily surprising.
If what Kenny had said was true—and Mark had no reason to doubt him—he had breached security and accessed classified information about one of the U.S. government’s most secretive organizations. The Family consisted of less than one hundred people, and its existence was known by perhaps two dozen more.
How and why did he do it? And what else is there that he’s not telling me?
Kenny had shared enough information and dropped enough buzzwords to convince Mark that he was telling the truth. He had also mentioned that some of his freelance work over the years had been less than above board, and occasionally in collaboration with some pretty unsavory characters
.
“Not so different from your own career,” Kenny had added.
He had a point.
But the raw pain he had seen in Kenny’s eyes as he recounted his father’s last moments and Kenny’s fierce commitment to avenge that loss had compelled Mark to share some limited information. He never confirmed or denied outright the existence of the Family or his alleged affiliation, but he did share his experience with the fourth gunman and Frank Tagala’s suspicions about the weapons used.
Mark checked the time and started to pack up his things so that he could head back over to Luci’s house. He intended to catch a few hours of sleep and have breakfast ready and waiting for her when she got off duty in the morning.
The home phone rang just after he had walked out the door and pulled it shut behind him. He considered ignoring it at first but ended up dropping his bags on the porch, fumbling for the right key, and quickly reentering the house.
“Hello?”
“Mark? Is this Mark?” asked the female caller.
“Yes, who’s calling?”
“Mark, it’s Wendy. Luci’s friend. Her coworker. Remember me?”
“Of course. What’s going on?”
“Do you know where Memorial Hospital is?”
“Yeah, why?” he answered. Memorial was about fifteen miles away and had been handling all emergency overflows since the attack on the local hospital.
“Can you come here right away? It’s Luci,” she said. “I found her in her car … she was parked in her garage with the engine running …”
Before Wendy could finish her sentence, Mark hung up the phone and raced out the door.
One hundred fourteen
Frank Tagala stood inside the unlit doorway of an out-of-business pawn shop across the street from Lourdes’s apartment. He scanned the area to become familiar with the poor neighborhood’s sights and sounds. Loud music came from a second-floor apartment above Frank’s position. Traffic was light. Most of the drivers kept their doors locked, windows shut, and their eyes straight ahead as they rolled through the sleazy neighborhood. Few passers-by noticed the tall man standing in the shadows with the black eye and swollen knuckles. Those who did paid scant attention. Frank reached for the fifth of cheap vodka in his back pocket and took a long pull from the bottle. He winced at the taste, but it was the best he could find at the dive that passed for a liquor store just a few blocks away.
The previous hours had been a whirlwind of hunting, identifying, and interrogating scumbag after scumbag. He had taken one good punch to the head from a guy in Quincy and barely escaped getting stabbed by another guy an hour later in Dorchester. But the damage he sustained paled in comparison to the fury he had unleashed across the city. He had spent two decades on the streets without ever getting too emotional about the job; this time it was one hundred percent personal. Frank Tagala was unhinged and there was no turning back.
Hector Gonzales was a psychopath, but he wasn’t entirely stupid. He had kept his girlfriend out of sight and mentioned her only once or twice in front of other Latin Kings. Frank had been extremely lucky that the King he had interrogated an hour earlier in Lynn just happened to be one of them. He held his Glock to the young man’s head as he called a girl who knew a girl who knew a girl. Now Frank was across the street watching Lourdes’s third-story apartment and wondering if he should wait outside or just kick in the door.
He finished the vodka and threw the empty bottle on a pile of trash on the sidewalk next to a rusty fire hydrant. When he peered back up at the third-story window, the lights had been turned off. Two minutes later, a Latina woman in her mid-twenties exited the building with a bag over her shoulder and two more clutched in her hands.
Lourdes turned left and walked slowly for half a block. She stopped to look in both directions before approaching the vehicle Hector had instructed her to use. She opened the trunk of the beat-up Honda Civic with stolen plates and dropped the bags inside. When she opened the driver’s side door and slid behind the steering wheel, the passenger door flew open and Frank Tagala had his Glock pointed at her ribs before she knew what was happening. He held up his badge with his free hand.
“Just relax, Lourdes. I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to talk to you.”
“Who the fuck are you? Get out of my car, man!”
Frank grabbed her by the bicep and squeezed tightly. “Do exactly what I say and everything will be fine. But fuck with me and I promise you’ll regret it. Understand me? All I want to do is talk to you. Now drive straight, take the first right, and turn into the first parking lot on the left. Do it now.” He squeezed harder and pulled her closer. “I don’t want to hurt you, Lourdes. But I will if it becomes necessary.”
Lourdes nodded and started the car. The two rode in silence to the dark lot Frank had staked out. “Park over there,” he said, pointing to the far corner behind an empty guard shack. When they arrived, Frank reached down, put the car in park, and removed the keys from the ignition.
“What do you want from me?” she asked.
“Shut up and listen. We don’t have a lot of time and I’m not in the mood to screw around,” Frank began. “Look at me. I could see to it that you spend the rest of your life behind bars, okay? That’s what you’re looking at here if you don’t cooperate with me. Do you understand that?”
Lourdes looked at Frank with glazed eyes and spoke in slow, slurred speech. “I’m on probation. My probation officer says one more time and I’m going to prison. So you know I’ll do anything,” she said, reaching over to put her hand on Frank’s thigh. “You want a blow job or something?”
“No. That’s not what I’m here for,” he replied, brushing her hand away. “I want information. But first I’m gonna put my gun away so you know I’m not here to hurt you, okay? But don’t get stupid on me, Lourdes. So far, you’re doing good. Let’s see if we can keep that going.”
Frank returned his badge to his back pocket and his Glock to the holster behind his right hip. He unrolled the window to let in some air and shifted in the seat so that his whole body was oriented toward Lourdes.
“I’m going to ask you one question. It’s the only question I need answered. If you answer it, we’re not gonna have any problems. Here it is. Where’s Hector Gonzales?”
“Who’s that?” she asked as she struggled to keep her heavy eyelids from falling over her glassy eyes. “I don’t know who that is.”
“Yes, you do, Lourdes. He’s your boyfriend. I already know that, so don’t bullshit me. I need to know where he is right now. Where is he?”
“You talking about Heavy? He left me a long time ago. Haven’t heard from him in I don’t know how long. For real,” she answered.
Frank removed a rolled-up newspaper from his back pocket and held up the front page. “Have you heard about this, Lourdes? The terrorist attack just north of here? Did you know Hector played a role in this?”
She squinted at the headline and gruesome photos. “Listen, I don’t know where Hector is and he wouldn’t do nothing like that anyway. He may be an asshole, but he ain’t no terrorist. Now you’re just lying to me and it ain’t gonna work.”
“Do you know anything about guns he might have sold lately? Did you ever hear him talk about it? Because the guns your boyfriend sold are the same guns that were used to kill these innocent people. Here, look at the pictures. Men, women, kids.” Frank held the collage of victim photos up to her face. “Look at these people, Lourdes. They’re all dead because of Hector. And if I don’t find him soon, more people may die. So tell me where he is.”
She reached for the door handle, but Frank grabbed her by the arm and squeezed as tight as he could. Lourdes shrieked and he loosened his grip. “Stay put! I told you I wouldn’t hurt you, but you’re not going anywhere. If you try that again you’ll regret it.”
Lourdes put both hands on the steering wheel and rested her head on top. “That’s the kind of shit Hector says—‘I don’t want to hit you but you make me do it.’ ” Her eyes
became teary. “But that was a long time ago. I don’t know where he is these days.”
Frank looked down and flipped through the pages of the paper. “Do you have kids, Lourdes?”
She nodded slowly. “Three girls. My mother takes care of them, and Hector always said he was gonna help them out too.”
“Forget about Hector. You and I both know he’s a liar. He’s never going to lift a finger for those girls. Do you care about them?” asked Frank.
“Yeah, they’re my angels.”
“Do you ever want to see them again?”
“Man, don’t start that shit! Hell yeah, I wanna see my babies again.”
“Then you’re gonna have to tell me where he is. But first, look at this picture right here,” he said, tapping his index finger against the newspaper. “Her name was Julia. She was eighteen years old and had just graduated from high school. Tough life. Raised by her grandmother. No money. But she dreamed of a better life. With a little guidance and some hard work, she had just gotten her first job and was about to start her first college course. She was on her way out of the projects and had a whole new life to look forward to. Then some asshole shot her three times with an assault rifle he got from Hector.”
Frank reached up and turned on the car’s interior light. He slowly stretched out his arm, touched Lourdes gently on the chin, and turned her head in his direction. He examined her eyes and glanced at each side of her face. “Your bruises and scars read like chapters in a sad book, Lourdes. And believe me, I know how it ends. Hector’s a fucking nightmare. As soon as he’s done using you for what he needs, you’ll be dead too. And deep down you know I’m right.”
Bloody mucus burst from her nose and tears gushed down her cheeks. “I got nowhere to go! I got nothing. Shit! He was the only one who did anything for me.”
Frank handed Lourdes his handkerchief and touched her tenderly on the shoulder. “Listen to me. It’s not too late for you, but there’s not much time, so you have to make up your mind quickly. I can help. Lourdes, I can help you and I will.”
Wrong Town: A Mark Landry Novel Page 28
