by Warren Court
“Where’s the shit?” I said.
“Huh? What?”
“Don’t fuck with me. The shit. Where it is?” Rico looked in the back seat. Nothing was visible. These guys weren’t that dumb.
“Pop the trunk,” I said, and the driver complied.
I went to the trunk, knowing Rico would keep an eye on them. I half expected some Puerto Rican/Mexican with a shotgun to pop out, but there was nothing but a few empty magnums of white wine and a spare tire. Rico came back.
I knocked around the trunk, looking for a hidden compartment. Then I saw something plastic in the corner, just a smidge of something sticking out from under the spare tire.
I fiddled with it and got the tire up. Bingo. I gave them a score of five out of ten for hiding the dope. I saw two bags. I pulled them out and there was another two under it. And then another two.
“Wow,” was all I could get out. Six kilos of coke at about $30K a kilo. When this was stepped on and put out to the street, I was looking at three or four million in coke. What a score. I started stuffing the bags into my jacket.
“We good, partner?” Rico said.
“Yeah, we’re good, partner. Real good.” I zipped up my jacket and slammed the trunk. I shredded the guy’s rear tire with my KA-BAR, then tossed the driver his license and keys. “Have a nice day. Just slow down a bit for us, okay?”
Rico laughed and we backed up to our car, keeping our eyes on the driver and his woman. I reversed down the off-ramp and we were gone.
“Why’d you slash his tire?” Rico said.
“Didn’t want him coming after us blowing bullets up our butt.”
“Holy shit,” Rico said.
I reached into my jacket and tossed him one bag, and then threw the other five into the back. “Put that blanket over them,” I told him.
“Nice little score,” Macintyre said.
“Where’s Estrada?” I asked him. Macintyre took his glasses off and looked at me. “Just wondering,” I added.
“He’s out. Doing an errand. How’d this go down?”
“Fine. My guy at the border gave me a call and twenty minutes later we had the mule pulled over. He had this real sexy black chick with him. She was blowing him when we turned on our lights.”
Mike laughed, probably the first time I’d ever heard that sound come out of his mouth. Macintyre took the kilo bags and weighed one in his hand. They were solid. We didn’t care about the purity of the coke; we were just going to move it on to the Scallas for a flat fee. We had no idea whose coke it was. That would have required putting that Puerto Rican/Mexican driver on ice for a few days and working him over. And what would we do with his girl? And at the end of that, we would have had to take them both out and bury them in the lake or the woods.
The people who had sent this coke across the border could take the loss. There was so much white powder moving across it, or coming directly from the Caribbean and South America, that a few kilos here and there would not faze them. Although that mule might get shot for letting the load go so easily. Then again, he might not. Not my problem.
“Where’s Estrada?” I asked again.
“He’s down at a warehouse checking on something. Doing some legitimate police work for a change,” Macintyre said. “Why? Do you want to go join him?”
“Sure. He could probably use some backup.” Anything to get out of Macintyre’s presence.
“Here.” He grabbed a radio from the table behind him. “Channel nine.”
“Thanks.” I looked at Rico and we left. We knew Macintyre was good for the coke. In about a week or two, we were going to get an envelope each with four thousand bucks for me, three for Rico. Our cut. Two months’ salary for half an hour’s work. I took Rico and we went to find the rest of our team. I radioed Estrada.
“Where you guys at?” Estrada said.
“About six blocks away,” I said.
“Come in on the south side. Keep it quiet. We got surveillance running. I want to put these guys in the bag tonight.”
“Sure thing, boss,” I said and smiled at Rico.
We pulled up a block from the strip mall where Estrada and a couple of other cops from our squad were. We came up on a door and Estrada opened it.
“Hey. Get in,” he said. He looked around after we moved past him.
“What’s the score?” I said.
“Jamaican roti shop. They just got a new shipment of weed, and they’re dishing it out to their dealers. We can get them all and the dope in one go.”
“Great. They armed?”
“These guys are using more of their own product than distributing it. I can practically smell the pot from here,” Estrada said.
I smiled. I liked the easy ones. We moved through the back of a shoe store that looked across the street to the Jerk Store roti shop. We had cameras on the street, grainy black and white, and one in the rear. I saw guys coming and going. The shop was closed down but there were at least three guys in it. I saw someone coming up the street on the camera, a black guy with one of those huge bulging Jamaican hats holding in his dreads. He was ambling slowly towards the roti shop.
“Here comes another one,” Estrada said. “We’ve seen two guys so far come and go. They’re loading up for tomorrow. Means there’s probably a couple of kilos of weed in there. And cash.”
“And rotis,” I said.
Estrada smirked. “We’re hitting it from the front.”
Rico said, “Jack and I can take the rear.”
“We’re always in the back,” I said.
“’Cause you take it in the ass,” Estrada said.
“Not lately,” I said.
Rico and I took two bulletproof vests off the shoe store counter and strapped them on. We checked our weapons and zippered everything up.
“We’ll go in half an hour. The go word is Marley,” Estrada said. “As in Bob,” he added.
“Nice touch,” I said.
This was like that biker takedown a year ago: us in the back, Estrada and the rest of the group going through the front door. I guess he thought this was my specialty. I did not complain; I always got queasy thinking of going in through the front door into the dark. Just wasn’t my thing. Though I had never made my thoughts clear on the subject, I think Estrada had picked up on it. One thing that did strike me as odd, though, was the lack of a tactical team for door entry. I guess Estrada had calculated the risk and decided to go without them.
I yawned. It was two in the morning. I had been going at it for sixteen hours straight and the coke was wearing off. We had a couple of lines left back in the car, but I was done for the night. Do this bust and then the paperwork and I could crash for at least a day.
The sound of the machine gun barked into the night, sending bullets of vibration through my spine. It came on again and my teeth chattered from the sound.
“Christ, Jack, let’s go!” Rico screamed.
My partner pulled at me and I was on my feet. We plunged into the back of the store, our weapons at the ready. Rico led the way and had the door down with one kick. I went in behind him. The place was empty; the front door was banging on one hinge. I could smell the cordite and saw the spent shells glittering on the pavement as we stepped inside. I knew instantly that was a mistake, as a shot rang out in our direction.
“Hold your fire! It’s us!” I yelled. My senses were clearing now, and then I saw his body. Estrada was sprawled in the street, a syrupy string of dark blood flowing from him into the sewer, his face pockmarked with three black holes.
I saw several of our guys step out of the shadows and come at us. When I was surrounded by my men, I went over and looked at Estrada. I knelt to check his pulse, a futile effort. He must have taken that first blast of the machine gun in its entirety. Some of the rounds had hit his vest, but the rest had caught him in the face as the weapon arced up. Estrada’s eyes were open, staring at the night sky and already turning glassy.
I did not see anything else. No drugs, no guns. Just Estrada
’s Glock, still in his hand.
I grabbed one of our guys.
“Carl—what happened?”
“We were coming up on them from the side. Estrada was point man. They opened up on us—I don’t even know where it came from.” He motioned toward Estrada.
There were sirens in the distance. Lights were coming on in apartments up above the shops that lined the street. Heads stared poking out of windows.
“Right—everyone back off. Secure the scene. Get your badges out,” I said. We were a scruffy-looking group, and the reports of machine-gun fire would have the responding officers in the approaching cruisers on high alert. Two cruisers came at us full speed now and I went back into the street, my tin out and above my head. I put my gun away.
We spent five hours at the scene; the exhaustion I had been feeling earlier drained away from me like Estrada’s blood into the sewer system. We went over and over what happened with the homicide detectives and SIU, the civilian investigative unit that looks into any incident that involves a police officer and a shooting, whether they’re the perpetrators or the victims.
There had been two shooters. They had run in the best direction possible, immediately away from Estrada and his men, who were frozen solid by the sound of the machine gun. If the shooters had come out the back way Rico and I would have gunned them down. But they had disappeared into the night.
The submachine gun was found three blocks away in a garbage can. It was spirited away by the forensics team.
Macintyre was not on duty that night, but he showed up two hours into the investigation. He looked haggard, and I realized he had been drinking heavily and had probably swallowed three cups of coffee to sober himself up after getting the call about Estrada. I could smell the whiskey on his breath as he talked to us in the confines of the police van where our crew had been placed.
He asked the same questions the other homicide detectives had. Though he wasn’t on duty, he assumed the role of head of the investigation and everyone gave way.
We briefed him on the operation, what had gone wrong, as far as I knew from my vantage point. When I came to seeing Estrada dead on the ground, I choked up.
I rubbed my face. Macintyre grabbed my arm.
“You feeling sorry for yourself, Jack? Is that it? You going to cry? You angry now?” I clenched my jaw. “Good. I don’t need a bunch of crybabies.”
“I want to kill these bastards,” I said.
“They’ll be dealt with, but not by you. You’re part of the investigation. You’re on leave until SIU is finished with you.”
“Like hell I am,” I said.
“We’re not going to have you running around on some vigilante crusade. You’re suspended.”
“You’re afraid of who I might kill, is that it? Was this our friends’ doing?”
“Shut your mouth,” Macintyre hissed. Spittle flew from his lips and his face grew red hot.
“The Scallas might know something,” I said. “We should be talking to them right now.”
“You make one move towards them or anyone else and I will destroy you,” Macintyre said. “You’re suspended. Be suspended. Go home.”
Macintyre clomped out of the van and slammed the door. I looked at Rico and he said nothing, just stared at the side of the van.
Chapter 35
I came into our bedroom and stripped my clothes off. Gloria was under the covers and she moaned when I turned the light on. I let her sleep; plenty of time to tell her about Estrada. In the past I would have woken her for some comfort, to talk it out. Not now. Our marriage was broken, but it was the farthest thing from my mind that sad morning.
I was off shift, suspended, while SIU did its thing. It was ten in the morning and I was home for a quick shower and change of clothes before heading back out. Macintyre had made it clear that I was not to be a part of the investigation or manhunt for the two shooters, but to hell with that.
Rico, who had also been suspended by SIU, along with the rest of our squad, and who had also been ordered personally by Macintyre to not to upset the apple cart, was going to meet me in twenty minutes at a coffee shop. From there we’d start working our contacts.
After showering, I started to dress and heard another moan from under the covers. I finished dressing and went over and pulled the cover back. Gloria squirmed away from the light and moaned again. I bent down and kissed her head. On the way out the door, I saw an empty bottle of Chivas whiskey on the coffee table.
The coffee did Rico and me good, but we passed on breakfast. It didn’t seem right.
“What do we do, Jack?”
“We start working our contacts. Don’t you want to get your hands on those guys first?”
“I don’t know,” he said, and slumped in the booth.
I frowned at him, puzzled by his reaction. I pulled out my notebook and found Garigue’s most current number. He moved around a lot. I stepped over to the phone booth and was just about to dial Garigue’s number when my pager buzzed. It was Macintyre’s mobile number, so I called him instead.
“Where are you?” Macintyre said.
“At home. Why?” It was dangerous lying to Macintyre.
“Start packing.”
“What?”
“That course in Ottawa—advance investigative techniques. Spot opened up and you’re on it. Starts day after the funeral.”
“You got to be kidding. Why?”
“Because I want you out of town, you meddling fuck. Look out the window.”
I looked out and saw Macintyre sitting in his car in the parking lot staring at me.
The phone went dead and his tires squealed as he roared out of the parking lot.
I told Rico the news. He seemed uninterested. I went back home and Gloria had gone into work. She’d left a note on the coffee table: Tina came over for some drinks last night. It got a little out of hand. See you tonight? The whiskey was back in the sideboard.
The funeral for Estrada was two days later. It was raining that morning and our shiny uniforms with medals and ribbons were covered over by those cheap plastic raincoats we were issued as constables.
Gloria was beside me and she jumped when the rifle salute rang out over the misty fields of Hamilton Cemetery. There were cops as far as the eye could see, from Texas and New York, Ohio, and every Canadian province. Even a group from the Northwest Territories had made it down.
Estrada’s grieving widow and her family were seated by the grave. Everyone else stood around it in a uniform square. A piper on a hill started up with “Amazing Grace” and I groaned inwardly. That song was so overplayed. I knew Estrada well, but knew also that he did not walk in the grace of God. He and I and the others in our select group were criminals, dealing drugs, ripping people off and snorting everything we could lay our hands on.
My bags were packed and I would be on my way to Ottawa for two weeks immediately after the funeral. No cops’ piss-up at the Crazy Horse Saloon for me. I had checked out an unmarked car and it was waiting back at the house. I couldn’t take a work car from the drug squad to Ottawa.
Macintyre stood alone after the funeral and I went up to him after the final prayers.
“What’s the word on the shooters?” I said.
“They’re gone. Probably back to Jamaica. I have my guys down there looking for them,” Macintyre said.
“You have guys in Jamaica?” I said.
Detective Macintyre gave me a hard look that questioned whether I was really that stupid.
“Will you keep me informed?” I said.
“No,” Macintyre said, a little annoyed. “Go do your course. When you get back, I’ll brief you. Until then, read the papers.”
I shook hands with so many cops my hands hurt. My shoulder was sore from the pats on the back, mostly from strangers. The Americans seemed to be the most boisterous, and I was amused to see that they had worn their guns to the funeral. Our dress uniforms did not have holsters.
I said my goodbyes to Rico. “Keep an eye on things
,” I said. “Let me know how it’s going.”
“Yeah, sure thing. Will do. Watch out for that Ottawa pussy—it’s as cold as ice.” My wife was in earshot and Rico blushed. “Sorry,” he said.
Gloria smiled at him and put her hand on my shoulder. “Time to go, Jack.”
I made record time to Ottawa. I snorted another line of coke just before getting on the highway and I put the flashers on and drove in the fast lane the whole way there. Three hours, twenty minutes.
