Mo-Mo licks his thick dark lips, takes off the rubber Vincent Alexandria
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band and fingers through the money. He gives St. Louis a nod of approval.
“We straight, brotha, and we’ll be there tonight,”
Sweet St. Louis promises.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Don’t let me down, fellas. I’d hate to have to come back here on business,”
I say with a frown for effect.
“Joe, that evil-stare shit didn’t work when my mama pulled it on me, so you know it ain’t gonna work with you. You think you Darth Vader or some dumb fool like that. Get your ass on man, staring at somebody like we’re supposed to be scared or something. You got a lot of damn nerve,” St. Louis complains.
“Joe, you do need to take that somewhere, brotha.
You’re trippin’. We better than that. We never let you down before, so go ’head on,” Mo-Mo assures me. We all laugh.
“Well, at least I tried it. You fellas hang loose and thanks for the love.” Vernon and I shake my friends’
hands and head for the car.
The car is like we left it and the kids stand on the corner where we first saw them.
“They good kids, man, just need somethin’ to do,”
Mo-Mo explains.
Vernon replies, “I can believe that, but surrounding people and trying to jack their car is not my idea of something to do, if you know what I mean.”
I place the duffel bag in the trunk as St. Louis Slim comes out on the porch in a black and canary yellow pants-and-shirt outfit, accented with canary-yellow Stacy Adams shoes. He brushes off his sleeve and puckers his lips. “Ain’t nobody bad as me!”
We shake Mo-Mo’s hand again and get into the 128
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Corvette. Vernon rolls down his window and yells out as I pull away, “Get a life!”
Sweet St. Louis gives us the finger as he checks his hair in the small mirror he has in his other hand.
Chapter 8
They arrive by car just in time for roll call at the Nebraska Police Department downtown precinct. Chase tries not to look at Dread, after what he did to her the other night.
She went undercover to get next to him as a crooked cop. They started seeing each other. It was casual enough—a dinner date here and there, Dread always so romantic with flowers, candies and expensive gifts. He even cooked dinner for her on more than one occasion.
She enjoyed riding motorcycles on the weekends, going to the movies, college football games or just shopping.
Dread had been aggressive and touchy every now and then, but he’d never tried to force himself on her sexually. Until now.
She always thought he was sexually dysfunctional.
He would get her excited, but when she would decide 130
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to give him a little of herself, Dread could not follow through and made some lame excuse about not feeling well. She had been sexually frustrated to the point where she stopped trying. Shit, after what he did to her, he is sexually dysfunctional and payback is a bitch.
As the other officers slowly make their way out of the meeting room for morning roll call and duty assign-ments, she stands against the wall rubbing the handle of her police-issued .45 automatic. Cattanno made note of Officer Clark Malone’s absence from roll call and has assigned a couple of officers to find out why he’s not present. Of course, Brutus killed him after the snake bit him in the face, but it’s all a facade.
Everything has its time and place, but this will be the last time that Dread or any of his men will place their hands on her in a violent way. She can’t afford to blow her cover, but if she has to isolate them one by one and kill them, she will.
“Chase, you ready to put in some time on the streets?” Officer Brutus Tucker asks as he approaches her with a small smile.
If Brutus didn’t work for Cattanno, they probably could be good friends, but that slamming-her-into-the-ground incident has him on her hit list, too.
“Sure, Brutus, but let me run to the bathroom first,”
Chase replies as she heads down the hallway. She enters and makes sure no one is in the stalls, then locks the door and turns the faucet on full blast. She pulls out her cell phone, dials and lets the phone ring. He answers.
“Agent James, Chase here. We’re back in Nebraska at police headquarters. If you send some men to Moville, Iowa, there is a field about three miles east of Vincent Alexandria
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town. You will find a Sioux City police officer burned to death in his squad car, and in the nearby field, six men who were massacred, all the work of Dread and his men. I need to get out of this. I can’t take too much more and where the hell is my backup?”
“Agent Chase, calm down. Remember you were trained for these situations. Keep your head and you’ll get out of this. Detective Joe Johnson should get into town sometime tonight, I would think. He’ll get in contact with you at some point when he thinks it’s safe and won’t jeopardize your cover. We found the body of Agent Smelley, just where you said. We brought him here for an autopsy. His body is being flown to his family in Nebraska later today. You make sure you make this case stick, Chase. I want this Dread son of a bitch. I have Mayor Peterson here in my office and he assures me that we’ll get all the resources we need to bring Dread Cattanno and his operations down. This is a priority for all concerned.”
This does not sit well with her. She never has trusted the mayor, not since working on the investigation of the Missouri River Serial Killer when the mayor held up a search warrant the police had asked for. The guy, like the governor of the state, is a major creep and cheesy.
Either of them would sell their firstborn for a vote. What is the mayor’s interest in this case and why all of a sudden is Agent James dealing with him? He doesn’t have the pull to be putting all this money on this case. Somebody has to be pulling his strings. Maybe Agent James is in on this, as well. Chase’s gut tells her something stinks to the high heavens; she shouldn’t trust anyone but Joe at this point.
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“Are we on speaker phone?”
“No, Chase, why do you ask?”
“What gives with the mayor? The last time I checked, he was way low on the creep sheet. Does Joe know that he’s in on this case?”
“You wouldn’t even be on this case if it wasn’t for the mayor and his help in funding the expenses for us to get these dirty cop killers off the streets. You know, next year’s an election year. He’s the one that got us the money to send Joe in to get you. You should be kissing his ass at this point, Chase. And don’t you forget I’m running this show, not Joe. I don’t need the detective’s permission on who we get our funding from.”
Chase begins to get pissed. “You don’t need to tell me whose ass I need to kiss. Right now I’m trying to stay alive. I’m just wondering what’s in it for him. There has to be a catch. Something just doesn’t feel right about Mayor Peterson being involved. How’d you guys get to be so chummy? That’s all I want to know.”
“Chase, what the hell you trying to say? You know what, that don’t even matter at this point. You just worry about staying alive and we’ll worry about the rest after we get Cattanno behind bars in a federal prison. We need to find out who Cattanno reports to. I just don’t feel he’s the brains behind this case. He’s smart, but it would take somebody higher up the food chain to pull this many strings. Do we have that information yet?”
“Not at this point. He’s never mentioned anyone he reports to and no one has come to the house. I would know that.”
“Have you had a chance to look at his accounts or books of any financial transactions?”
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Chase sighs. “Agent James, there are at least five people in the house on any given day, twenty-four hours a day. He keeps his records in the safe in his study. If I ever get the opportunity, I’ll sneak in and take a look. I know th
e combination, I’ve watched him on several occasions. I just need to get in there unnoticed.”
“We’ll need some concrete evidence on this guy, Chase. We have to link him to the black-ring operation.
We need names of all the officers in this black ring so we can get them in one sweep. We’ve only got a few more days to tie this up. I have inside information that Dread plans to head back to Cuba. If he gets away before we nail him, a lot of heads are going to roll. We’ll be forced to explain what happened to the taxpayer’s money. We haven’t released any information to the public or the press, but we can’t keep the lid on this much longer. Reporters are starting to question the excuses we’re feeding them about gangs. We’ve spent a lot of money setting you up and there’s a hell of a lot of it that’s gone out on this case. So do what you got to do to get that information. And pick up the pace, Agent Chase. We don’t have a lot of damn time. I’m counting on you. And remember, people are dying each day this drags on.”
“I’ll do my best. I have to wait on the right opportunity. I can’t risk blowing my cover by getting caught and ending up dead. You won’t have a case if that happens.”
“Well, as of right now, Agent Chase, your best is not good enough. We need that information. You’re the key to this case. Do what we sent you in to do. Detective Johnson should be in contact with you by tomorrow.
I’ll have him check in at the Marriott Hotel in downtown 134
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Omaha, Nebraska. You can contact him there. He’ll be under my name, so you’ll be able to reach him in his room by tomorrow afternoon. Be careful.”
A loud knock comes on the door and someone is checking the knob. She quickly turns off the cell phone, closes it and puts it back inside her panties. She quickly rushes to the toilet and flushes, goes to the faucet, wets her hands in the water and splashes her face, grabs some paper towels and opens the door while drying her face and hands.
“It sure took you long enough. What you do? Fall in?” Brutus asks as he pushes pass her and looks into the bathroom skeptically.
“I was taking care of business, if you must know.
Since when you been so nosey?”
“Nobody likes a smart ass, Chase. What’s with the attitude? I was simply saying it took you a long time that’s all,” Brutus explains with a sigh, and shrugs his big shoulders.
Chase takes a deep breath and tries to regain her composure, ignoring his unspoken request for understanding. She hopes Joe is on his way with some answers to help her wrap up this psychotic case. Chase and Brutus walk out of the building and toward the squad car.
The morning air is brisk and the bright sun peeks through the clouds. She tries to concentrate on getting on with the day, but thoughts of slowly killing Dread Cattanno continue to dance through her mind. She feels she is losing her grip on reality. Her emotions are a whirlpool of anxiety.
They get in the squad car and Brutus turns to her.
“Dread’s called a meeting. We’re to meet at Denny’s on 12th and Central in two hours, so we got a little time to kill,” he says as they get in the car.
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Chase adjusts her gun and puts on her seat belt. “So who is Dread about to kill this time? It seems that every time we meet it’s about death and revenge.”
Brutus starts the squad car, “No, it’s not. It’s about business. Sometimes people have to be made an example of so business can run smoothly. An action creates a reaction. Some stupid schmuck decides to get greedy and buck our business agreement, and Dread just eliminates the problem,” Brutus says matter-of-factly.
Chase stares at him as though she can’t believe what he just said. “So they have it coming to them, right? We’re all thieves. Crooks are stealing from crooks. So does that mean we all should die? We’re cops, Brutus, and that means what we’re doing makes us even worse than the thieves we’re stealing from.”
Brutus smacks his lips and smirks, rolling his eyes.
“That’s funny, I didn’t hear you talking that stuff when Dread threw you that duffel bag full of money. What happened, you grew a conscience in the bathroom while you were on the toilet?” He laughs real hard and wipes the tears from his eyes. “Just be happy you’re on the side that’s doing the killing and not the side getting killed, Chase. You want doughnuts? I’m buying,” Brutus says with a slight smile.
She ponders what Brutus has said and wants this case to end fast. “Why not? We don’t have any calls to attend to at the moment.”
At the Doughnut Hole they get doughnuts and coffee.
Brutus reminds her of a child as he shyly eyes the assorted confections and points out the sprinkled ones. He orders six and a large cup of coffee. Chase gets a couple of frosted and a small grape juice. They have a seat by 136
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the window so they can have a clear view of who comes in, the car and the street.
“Chase, can I ask you something?”
She partially pulls the lid off her grape juice, inserts the white-and-red straw and takes a sip to wash down a bite of glazed doughnut. “Sure, what is it?”
Brutus devours one of his sprinkled doughnuts in two bites and wipes the remnants from his wide mouth with the back of his hand as he reaches for another and does the same, to her amazement.
“This will be between you and me, right?” he says through a muffled mouthful of doughnut.
“You know that’s gross, right?” she says, smiling.
“Yeah, it’s cool, but that goes for both of us.”
Brutus nods his large head, “Yeah, both of us.” He takes a few sips of his coffee. “You’ll have to excuse me, I was really hungry,” he says, blushing.
“I’d hate to see you when you’re starving,” she answers, laughing.
“Okay, you got jokes all of a sudden, huh?”
“Somethin’ like that, yeah!” she says with a tough-girl smirk.
Brutus gulps down two more doughnuts and washes them down with coffee. “Chase, you’re an intelligent woman. You are very beautiful and seem to have a lot going for you. Why you mixed up with Dread?”
She eyes Brutus and wonders if he is wired. She wouldn’t put it past him. “I have a thing for him, I guess. He takes good care of me. He buys me nice things and he provides me with a beautiful house.
There’s more money than I can shake a stick at and I get whatever I want,” she explains cautiously, suspi-Vincent Alexandria
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ciously, and tries to be as politically correct as the situation permits.
Brutus looks her deep in the eyes and frowns. “Yes, but he does the same things for the dogs. What makes it different for you? ” His eyes gaze deeply at her as if he’s trying to see inside of her.
Chase quickly takes offense. She stares back at him, trying as hard as she can to hide the hatred for Dread she holds deep within her. She puts on her best poker face and takes a deep breath to gain her composure.
“Unlike a dog, I choose when to stay and when to leave. I am not obedient by any means, and I do have a choice. And the last time I checked, Dread has you on a leash like a little bitch, jumping at his every beck and call. So what makes you so different from me?” she says pointing her small finger at him.
Brutus stops chewing and then bursts into a thunderous laughter. “That was cute, Chase, and that’s what I like about you. You have spunk. I’m using Dread the way you’re using Dread. We’re a lot alike, you and me. We do what it takes to get what we want. We don’t get too attached and move on when people outlive their useful-ness.” Brutus says as he strokes the back of her hand.
Chase pulls her hand away, drinks more juice and doesn’t say a word. She tilts her head curiously. Sometimes if you let a person talk long enough, they’ll tell you where they are coming from, she thinks. She runs her fingers through her hair and put her elbows on the back of her chair. “So you got it all figured out, huh, Brutus?”
Brutus shoves the last of his dou
ghnuts in his mouth and nods. “Chase, when I was a young boy, I remember my daddy as a drunk. A real son of a bitch. He would 138
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slap my momma and me around. We took it for a long time. Shit, after a while you start to think that’s what love is—ten bottles of beer, a pint of Jack Daniel’s, cussing, fussing, a slap or punch to the head, a bloody nose and my daddy dragging my momma to his room in that shitty trailer to fuck her and pass out.”
“So, you’re saying that to say what? I’m sure at some juncture in this conversation you’re going to make a point.” Chase says, beginning to get restless.
“I’m saying that to say when a man has had enough, he puts an end to the misery. Like my dear old daddy.
When I was thirteen, my daddy pulled a sawed-off shotgun on my momma and made her give him head in front of me. To this day I don’t know why. But at that point, I’d had enough. The next day I was cooking chicken because my momma was so ashamed of what had happened she couldn’t face me. My daddy loved chicken legs, so I dipped a couple in antifreeze and battered them up after that, and when he came in I had them on his plate with some mashed potatoes. He ate the food on that plate so fast, it scared me. That was one of the few times I remember my father thanking me for anything. He went to bed later that evening and never woke up.” Brutus leans toward me. “You and I both know we’re not getting out of this alive, unless Dread is taken out. I know who’s pulling Dread’s strings. He has a boss and I know who it is.”
Brutus winks at her as he wipes his mouth and sees if any interest shows on her face.
Chase feels she’s being set up, and she has no reason to trust Brutus. She’s suspected that Dread was not the brains behind this black ring, but she can’t afford to blow her cover.
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“You know this is dangerous talk, right? You saw what Dread did to the last person who tried to cross him, and he has this thing about loyalty. My life has not been a piece of cake. My mother and father died when I was sixteen. I was left to live with my father’s brother, my uncle Learie Chase. My parents had left everything to me, but Uncle Learie thought it would be best if I were to move in with him and my aunt Elizabeth. About a month after my parents were buried, Uncle Learie came to visit me in the middle of the night. He tried to rape me. I snatched the wire from the base of my lamp and sent the electrical charge into his left testicle. My uncle Learie has one nut now. He was the only family I had in the world and I haven’t seen or spoken to him in over ten years. So I can sympathize with what you’re telling me, but Brutus, trust is not one of my strong traits. I think we should drop this conversation, while the ball still has air in it, if you know what I mean and excuse the pun.”
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