“Yeah, yeah,” The Businessman said, extracting a hand from his pocket and waving it in front of him, moving back toward the door. “You’re the man, can fight your way out of anything, we all know.”
Knowing that he had seen The Muscle destroy people for far less, he kept moving, grabbing the cold doorknob and jerking it open, the full effect of the outside air hitting him again.
“Just keep your eyes open, okay?”
Chapter Forty-One
The number of people in the room had increased by fifty percent, though the vibe was noticeably lighter, the demeanor lower than it had been all morning.
Seated at the head of the table were Reed and Grimes, still using the same chairs they had been in a few moments before when speaking with the FBI. On the floor between them was Billie, her body pressed flat against the tile, her head resting atop her paws.
In the corner were the remains of a bowl of kibble and some water, a few ropes of saliva and drippings extended away from them, nobody particularly caring about the small mess.
Before leaving for the day Reed would see to it with some paper towels or a sponge, but at the moment his focus was just on making sure her energy levels were maintained, needing her to be ready for whatever the coming hours might hold.
Seated to the left of them were McMichaels and Jacobs, each with a sandwich from Subway rolled up in front of them, a pair of matching cups sitting with clear straws extended upward.
Across from them were Greene and Gilchrist, the two having eaten in the brief period Reed and Grimes were speaking to Tucker and Gott, both leaning back in the chairs, attention aimed at the head of the table.
“Well then, that was interesting,” Reed opened, aiming the comment at Grimes before glancing toward the rest of the table.
“Extremely,” Grimes replied, his voice low, his gaze fixed on nothing in particular, eyes glazing as he stared at the bare surface of the table.
On either side, all four men remained silent, waiting for further information, their focus fixed forward.
Waiting a few moments to see if Grimes would take the lead, Reed sat and replayed the previous conversation in his head, trying his best to avoid the smell of warmed meat and mustard wafting up from the sandwiches beside him.
If his instincts were correct, the 8th had not-so-subtly just been pushed to the side, welcome to ride shotgun, so long as they didn’t get in the way.
Beside him, he sensed Grimes roll his head his direction, gazing at him beneath heavily lidded eyes. “You first.”
Nodding once, Reed recognized the expression enough to know that the man beside him was still processing.
Whether that meant he was trying to wrap around his head around the enormity of the situation or was simply trying to tamp down any lingering dislike for the agents before speaking Reed couldn’t be certain, though he had a pretty decent idea that there were parts of both present.
Matching the look, Reed launched forward, moving his attention toward the others as he spoke.
“I’m sure you all noticed that of everybody in the room, Agents Tucker and Gott from the FBI were the only two to stick around,” Reed opened.
Beside him he could hear a small snort from Grimes at the name of Gott, though no words came out.
The sentiment was more than shared.
“Reason being, it appears that our floater might have been a part of something with much, much larger implications.”
“How much larger?” Jacobs asked, the first officer to speak, drawing a few gazes in his direction before quickly flicking back to Reed.
“Interpol larger,” Reed replied, watching as the man’s eyebrows rose slightly in response.
There he paused, letting the words permeate the air for a moment, before moving straight ahead and retelling what had been shared. Moving as quickly as thoroughness would allow, he recapped the model that had been popping up around Europe and how it was now being tracked in the United States.
Sitting in rapt silence, the officers listened intently, unable to mask some surprise as Reed reached the punch line, stating that it appeared the jump across the ocean had been made, Columbus looking to fit the bill for the existing pattern.
Adding no personal commentary – on the agents or the situation – he pulled up just after finishing the debrief, allowing the officers to chew on the information, waiting for Grimes to insert himself back into the discussion.
For nearly two full minutes nobody said a word in the wake of his diatribe, all acutely aware of the time and the fact that in just over an hour the room would again be full with participants from the varying organizations.
To his Reed’s surprise, it wasn’t Grimes that spoke but Greene, the elder statesman of the assembled officers.
“So if I’m reading this correctly,” he opened, the first words he’d spoken since arriving that morning, “the FBI had found a new collection of street walkers working out of the North End.”
Pausing, he checked each of the men before him, finally settling his gaze on Reed.
“Given that they were new, and Chinese, they tipped off the FBI, who decided to start taking a look.”
Feeling his head bob slightly, Reed matched Greene’s look, remaining silent.
“The problem being, the information Tek-Yen supplied to you seems to indicate that there is more afoot than just a street corner business.”
There he fell away, allowing Reed and Grimes to continue as ever they saw fit.
“Correct,” Reed said. “She said repeatedly that there was an entirely different side of the business, some of the girls she arrived with being pushed that direction, having not been seen since they got here.”
“And that’s where our victim was?” McMichaels asked.
“Looks that way,” Reed said, turning his attention to the opposite side of the table. “Tek-Yen said they lived in adjacent apartments, but that she never saw Bethanee at work.
“None of the FBI surveillance photos showed her either.”
Twice Reed had been through the images before the agents left, hoping desperately to find her, but spotting nobody that much resembled the girl that had been pulled from the river.
Most of the females in the pictures were just like Tek-Yen, much closer to girls than women, trending in their mid-to-late teens. Most were below-average to average in appearance, fitting a particular category more so than a specific look.
Bethanee Ing was none of those things. Just shy of thirty, she was certainly a woman, a classy and educated one at that, with an appearance that bordered on beautiful.
How she had managed to get so close to the organization without being ferreted out earlier Reed could only speculate at, figuring that she must have been able to use those very same assets to trick her employers into overlooking them.
“Any idea what that other side might be?” Gilchrist asked.
Glancing to Grimes, who was still seated with his head aimed down, his eyes closed to almost slits, Reed continued, “I think they have some ideas, but nothing concrete. Given their product, and the resulting clientele, it bears to reason that the place is probably a gentleman’s club or lounge of some sort, but they haven’t found it yet.”
“Which is why they stayed behind,” Greene said. “They’re asking us to slow play things until they can figure out where the other side is.”
Nodding slightly, Reed said, “Not in as many words, but that’s the general gist of it. They thought they had a handle on things, were about to move in.
“Heck, the only reason they even showed up today was to make sure we didn’t step on their toes in the process.”
“And now you’ve turned that theory on its head,” McMichaels said.
“Inadvertently,” Reed said, “but yeah, pretty much. They know if they make a move now, they’d only be getting half of the operation.”
“And that it would just grow back, here or somewhere else,” Greene finished.
All of this was things that the agents hadn’t bother
ed to state out loud, their approach making it clear that they were spoon feeding the local police just what they absolutely had to, not thinking much of their abilities or even their logic.
The fact that the officers around the table had managed to put things together in such a short period of time only served to underscore just how much the bureau had undersold their counterparts.
“Are they demanding the girl yet?” Jacobs asked.
Reed paused for a moment to determine which girl was being referenced, before realizing he was alluding to Tek-Yen and shaking his head.
“Not yet, but I have a feeling it’s coming. She was in more than a couple of the pictures they showed us, always in the background, but there nonetheless.”
The fact that they hadn’t yet asked for her was something he had already thought on himself, knowing it was either coming or that they may try to jump him entirely and nab her themselves.
Judging by the frightened child he had shared dinner with the night before, he couldn’t see either eventuality playing out well.
“So they want us to wait,” Greene said, “for how long, and while they do what?”
Neither question had been answered during the brief meeting with the agents, each being thoughts Reed had as they walked away.
“Best guess,” he said, “long enough for them to figure out where the secondary base is.
“Again, this is all conjecture, but I’m willing to bet they’re thinking that there can’t be many establishments in that part of town matching the criteria.”
In his time in Columbus, he’d never heard of a single one. Uncovering the place should be as simple as a couple nights of working the pavement, though very rarely did things play out that easily.
“And while they do that?” McMichaels asked. “The rest of us just stand around and do what?”
“Not a damn thing,” Grimes said, his voice drawing the rest of the men quiet, every eye turning to look his direction as he continued to stare down at the table.
Chapter Forty-Two
It had taken everything The Muscle had not to tear across the floor of his living room and rip The Businessman apart. More than once during their encounter he had envisioned just that, even once allowing a small smile to appear as he entertained the idea, feeling the smaller man’s thin facial bones crack beneath his fists, imagining blood spatter ruining the front of his fancy suit.
Not doing so had required a level of self-control The Muscle wasn’t aware he even possessed, the simple thoughts of money and the future being the only things that kept him from acting.
Prior to this arrangement, he had been working the docks in Baltimore, just another nameless, faceless foot soldier as a part of a larger empire. While he was compensated for his time, it was closer to pauper’s wages, certainly nowhere near enough to get ahead.
Making matters worse was the fact that nobody ever even looked as far as his face, seeing only his size and the color of his skin before dismissing him, writing him off as a thug and nothing more.
While it was true that his true skill set did trend in that direction, there was far more to him than just that.
Things such as goals, and ideas, for the future.
Things that required money, the kind that this partnership was bringing his way, even if it did mean putting up with The Businessman for a while longer.
Despite knowing all that, The Muscle could do nothing to tamp down the anger that had welled within him. Since the moment The Businessman had left his temperature had been running hot, so much so that he had stripped away the leather coat he so often adorned, braving the winter cold in nothing more than his standard corduroy slacks and a black ribbed tank top.
The information that had been imparted was mildly concerning, though it certainly wasn’t anything on the level of what The Businessman seemed to intimate.
Together they were in the business of importing girls and pushing them into the sex trade. Even someone with as narrow a worldview as his could see the inherent pratfalls to such a vocation, knowing full well there were probably dozens of different organizations and task forces across the country that would love to shut them down, even more than that if they knew about their existence.
The thing that allowed them to succeed, kept them pushing forward day after day, was that they had a product that would always be in demand. There would always be men looking to stray outside the white lines of society, whether that be a club they could go to and watch their fantasies on stage, or a corner they could pull up alongside and act out those same fantasies.
The key was for the partnership to operate in a way that never drew too much attention to itself, providing those much needed services.
And if there was anything The Muscle had learned in his conglomerated years in the profession, it was that nothing served to draw attention faster than panic.
Replaying the conversation over in his mind, a scowl found The Muscle’s face as he parked his Caprice along the curb and stepped out, feeling the whip of the wintry chill pass over his exposed arms. Ignoring it completely, he slammed the door shut and stalked down the street, The Businessman’s sniveling face fresh in his mind, the condescending tone he used grating on his nerves.
Overhead, the afternoon sun had already dipped below the horizon, a heavy layer of cloud cover bringing about an early nightfall. With it had come a garish hue of neon lights from the various establishments lining the streets, the sodium lights on the corner kicking to life, providing a pale orange backdrop to everything.
Careful to avoid the most obvious spots of illumination, The Muscle felt his hands curl into heavy balls as he walked forward. Marching in exaggerated strides, he covered a few yards with each step, his shoulders rotating with the movement, his hands swinging like pendulums by his side.
The Businessman had been explicit when he said to lay low for a few days, but The Muscle had never been one to wait for things to happen. A man didn’t live to his age – not in the places he had been - by waiting for the other party to be the aggressor.
Instead, he would take a more proactive stance, finding out exactly what they were up against, using that information to determine his next steps.
Rounding a corner, The Muscle stepped out onto High Street, traffic just beginning to thin out as the last of the working crowd fled for the night. In their stead, the late crowd had not yet started in earnest, the roadway as close to desolate as it would be for the next ten hours or so.
Knowing that, The Muscle kept his pace high as he marched toward the place where he knew the girls would just be arriving for the night, hoping to grab what he needed and be away before any customers started to arrive.
Under no circumstances was he a pimp, the system they had worked out ensuring that that wasn’t necessary, but that didn’t mean that any potential johns wanted to see him standing by.
Lord knew sex would be the last thing on his mind if he ran into somebody looking the way he did.
Parked a few blocks away, the walk took the better part of five minutes, The Muscle moving fast, covering the ground even quicker than usual. By the time he arrived, more than half of the girls were already on site, all dressed for the occasion, fishnets and metallic miniskirts covering their bottom half, puffy jackets keeping the blood circulating.
For a moment, none seemed to notice his approach, all standing in a loose cluster, lost in conversation.
Once the first saw him circling their direction, it took only a moment for the others to turn his way as well, the information passing through the crowd without a word being said.
With his fists still drawn up tight, The Muscle moved forward, stopping just a few feet away from the girls, letting them see the anger bubbling just beneath the surface.
Swinging his gaze from side to side, he swept his focus over the group in front of him before slowly raising his right hand and extending his index finger.
“You,” he grumbled, jabbing the finger at a girl in the center of the crowd, slowly rotating i
t to the far left side, “and you. Come with me.
“Now.”
Chapter Forty-Three
The rest of the afternoon had gone just as Reed suspected it would, much the same as Tucker and Gott had alluded to during their private lunch meeting.
Once details of what the FBI was already doing were released, every other agency in the room immediately became more interested by a factor of ten. Any previous trepidation they had held melted away as they saw an opportunity to climb aboard a high priority case, especially one where their own level of work required would be minimal.
Also as expected, the FBI had been prepared for such an eventuality, digging their heels in. When everybody first convened, they had held firm to wanting to be the sole organization on the ground.
Once it became immediately apparent that that wasn’t going to work, they had begrudgingly extended the inclusion of the CPD – namely Reed and Billie – since they had already been working the case.
Not one to be played for a fool, and it being far from his first experience with competing organizations, Reed instantly saw through the sham, knowing his role was for no other reason than his existing relationship with Tek-Yen, though he said nothing.
By and large, he and the others from the 8th remained silent throughout the back-and-forth, a strategy Grimes had put in place prior to everybody else returning. The goal was that by doing so, it would unnerve some of the others around the room into showing their complete hand, an approach that had proven to be quite prophetic over the course of the afternoon.
Now with the clock ticking well on toward six, the official work day over, many of the government employees started to get hungry, repeatedly checking their watches, tensions beginning to rise.
Hours of heated discussion had produced little beyond exacerbating whatever rivalries and animosities had first walked into the room that morning.
“Look,” Elyse Buchanan from the INS said, slapping a palm down on the table in front of her. Having long ago shed her grey sport coat, the unbuttoned sleeve of her blouse hung lank around her forearm, the silver color matching her hair perfectly, “we can accept that here in the Midwest, we take a backseat to the FBI. This isn’t New York or LA, where people arrive in droves every day.
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