Neighbors and Other Strangers

by Gordon Parker

  “Tell your boss to mind his own business,” was the reply.

  “No, I’m not going to do that,” Bat said. “You see I need this job.”

  The driver made a mistake. He reached out to grab Bat by the shirt, trying to pull him forward. The young guard brought his weighted stick around and down, striking the man’s wrist. There was a cracking sound. The driver screamed, his broken wrist going limp.

  The man in the passenger seat leaped out, his hand going under his jacket. Bat was considering how to defend himself against a man with a gun on the other side of the car. He needn’t have been concerned.

  The arrival of the two officers in the first black and white was timed perfectly. Tires squealing as the car slid to a stop, both officers leaped out with weapons drawn. The man on the other side of the BMW had drawn a weapon, which he now promptly laid on the ground as ordered by the officers. He leaned forward to put his hands on the car. This was not the first time he had been in the position.

  The three watching from inside the building took the elevator down to the garage while the men assigned to watch them were distracted by being cuffed and helped into the two black and whites now on the scene.

  Christopher laughed all the way down.

  “That kid is good, Trent,” he said. “We could use him on the force. If he’s interested I’d consider recommending him to the Academy.”

  “He’d be interested,” Trent said.

  After dropping Nancy at Darcey’s office, they parked the Bentley around the corner and two blocks up from Scott’s small building.

  Unfolding his big body from the Bentley’s passenger side, Christopher dropped his sunglasses down onto his nose.

  “I believe you are docent on this tour of the Marina,” he said to Trent, obviously enjoying his role as a Marina resident enjoying a sunny day. “Lead on.”

  Both were dressed casually. Trent was also wearing sunglasses. They talked animatedly as they strolled leisurely down the street. Trent gestured wildly as he told what must have been a hilarious story to Christopher judging by the big man’s laughter.

  When they reached Scott’s building they didn’t hesitate. Trent continued talking, to Christopher’s apparent amusement, as they entered the building. It wasn’t a secure building. The elevator took them directly to the top floor.

  “Thanks for coming, Trent. I’m not sure I deserve much consideration.”

  “It took a lot of guts to make that phone call, Scott.”

  “Well, I was motivated by hemophobia,” Scott said. “I fear the sight of blood. Especially my own. Or, worse, Miles’.”

  “We’ll do our best to make sure you’re not bothered by your phobia, Mr. Douglas,” Christopher assured him, “assuming you’re ready to help us.”

  “I don’t have any choice, Sergeant,” Scott replied bluntly. “I’m not going to do as he has directed. I won’t betray my country by providing funds to terrorists. Rossi has made it clear that if I don’t do what he wants me to do he will punish me. His idea of punishment isn’t particularly humane. If I can help you take him down, I’ll be protecting myself as much as anything else.”

  Christopher nodded. “All right. What can you tell us? What’s Rossi’s game and what role do you play in it?”

  “Rossi formed what he calls a fiduciaria, a trust, if you will,” Scott began to explain, “I’m essentially running his financial transfer operation. His money laundering.”

  “How is it done?” the policeman wanted to know.

  “Through a system known as hawala,” Trent responded. “Am I right, Scott?”

  Surprised, Scott nodded in the affirmative.

  “Hawala is an ancient system of conducting business requiring minimal records that allows the participants to avoid regulation and taxes,” Trent continued. “It’s a system that first appeared in the ancient Middle East and eventually spread as far as Italy, South Asia, and Africa. It’s called hundi in India. Rossi and his partners use independent business people, investment firms, and a few banks in several countries around the world as their hawala partners.”

  “I still don’t get it,” Christopher said. “How is the money moved without being found out?”

  “Say you want to get $10,000 to someone in Thailand. You contact your hawala partner there and request that payment be made,” Scott took up the explanation. “Your partner takes a small commission for his trouble and makes the payment.”

  “So how does that guy get his money back?” Christopher asked.

  “Any number of ways,” Scott continued. “It might be as simple as returning the favor at a future date. But Rossi’s system has worked so well much more of the gangs’ illegal money has been freed up for investment in legitimate businesses.”

  Trent took up the tutorial. “So, for instance, the gang who owes you the money owns a company that sells telecom gear, much of which will be stolen goods, by the way. They ship you $20,000 worth of high tech gear but only invoice you for $10,000.”

  “That’s right, Trent,” Scott confirmed. “There are many ways to do it. Inflated or deflated real estate transactions are popular. The list is really endless. The key is there is not much in the way of a paper trail and no reporting of transactions to any government.”

  “And when there is a need for a quick transfer of large amounts they simply do a rapid transfer between hawala partner banks or investment firms. Very difficult to catch and the transaction simply isn’t reported. Which all means,” Trent said, honestly, “that at every point along the way someone has to turn his head.”

  Scott had a hard time looking Trent in the eyes. “That’s right.”

  “And you’ve been that guy in San Francisco?” Christopher asked. “You’ve been turning your head as you participated in these transactions?”

  “Yes, Sergeant,” Scott confirmed. “That’s correct. I’m guilty. Am I under arrest?”

  “Let’s just say you shouldn’t make any plans to leave town in the next few days,” Christopher said. “After that, we’ll see.”

  “Scott can help us bust this thing wide open, Christopher,” Trent said. “And I don’t think you have to worry about him trying to run at this point. His best chance to survive is to stay put, work with us, and hope we can protect him. If he runs, Rossi will see that he doesn’t get far.”

  Christopher nodded. “So how do we use this information to shut Rossi’s operation down?”

  Trent looked pensive.

  “When I was a very young boy, my dad took me fishing one day. He had a lightweight .410 shotgun with him. We were walking along a small creek not far out of Baton Rouge. All of a sudden, he stopped and pointed to the other side of the creek. There was a hole over there. He handed me the shotgun and told me to try to fire into that hole.”

  Christopher and Scott listened, wondering where this was going.

  “I aimed and pulled the trigger. Even then I was a good shot,” Trent smiled as he remembered. “Fired a handful of small shot directly into that hole.”

  “And?” Christopher encouraged.

  “And out came rolling a ball of snakes. Must have been thirty or forty of them, all tangled up and striking at each other.”

  Scott shivered at the image.

  Christopher grimaced. “What’s the point, Trent?”

  “The point is as long as there was nothing to stir them up until we came along, those snakes were content to coil up together. As soon as an unknown element was introduced they struck out. They didn’t know who fired the shot into their cave so they started attacking each other.”

  Christopher smiled broadly. He was beginning to get the picture.

  “The key to hawala is trust. Everyone involved has to trust that their money is safe. If we figure a way to break their trust, we can sit back and watch Spitting Cobra, the Barons of Lucifer and the Scourge go first after Rossi, and then for each other. We provide the incentive, then watch them strike at each other like that bed of snakes.”

  “We know who the snakes
are,” Christopher said. “How do we get’em hitting at each other?”

  “We have to think of some diversions, some sleight of hand,” Trent said. “And it’s time to let our friend with the computers get to work. If, that is, Scott can supply us with some names and locations.”

  “I didn’t know what was going to happen today after Rossi called, Trent,” Scott said. “I thought it possible I might not live much longer. To be safe I dropped an envelope containing a flash drive in the mail to you. It lays out every link in Rossi’s chain. You should receive it by Tuesday.”

  “That’s great for a backup, Scott, but we need to move now. Can you send that same information directly to another computer?”

  “Easily.”

  “Hang on a minute.” Trent dialed a number but was careful to mention no names when Ross Brown answered. He spoke quietly to Ross for a couple of minutes. He wrote down an internet address.

  “Scott, can you do a data dump and send it all to this address? It’s an unidentifiable URL. Sort of the computer age version of the dead drop. You won’t know who you’re sending to and it’s untraceable.”

  “I don’t need to know,” Scott said. “I don’t even want to know,” he added as he sat down at his computer and started striking keys.

  “Christopher, can you round up a few of your guys, ones you know you can trust to help us? We need someone to keep an eye on this condo but we can’t let Rossi’s men see them. We also need a couple of guys to watch Darcey’s office. And they have to be very discreet.”

  “I can find some volunteers.”

  “Get on that, if you don’t mind. Then we need to take a look at what investigations might be lurking around on Spitting Cobra, the Barons of Lucifer, and the Scourge. Maybe we can start to disturb our nest of snakes. We don’t have to make any arrests that will stick. All we need to do is bring some bad guys in for questioning. Maybe hold’em for 48 hours, or for as long as we can. If Rossi’s mole in your office sees it going on, so much the better.”

  They left separately. Christopher went first. He would wait in a bar near the Bentley until Trent joined him.

  “Do you want a gun, Scott?”

  “No, Trent, but thanks.”

  “Are you sure? I can provide you with a pretty effective semiautomatic handgun.”

  “I’m not a brave man, Trent,” Scott said, self-effacingly. “I don’t know anything about guns. I’d do more harm than good.”

  Trent nodded.

  “Besides, if your spouse was as excitable as Miles would you want a loaded gun lying around?”

  Trent had to laugh. And he had to admire Scott’s sense of humor in the face of menacing forces.

  They saw no lookouts on duty when they turned onto Trent and Darcey’s street. Trent stopped at the security booth. Christopher leaned over to tell Bat he was impressed with the way the young man had handled himself. He handed his card to Bat, telling the guard to call if he was interested in an appointment to the Police Academy. They left Bat with a grin that threatened to split his lips.

  Upstairs Darcey and Nancy waited for them. Trent mixed rum and cokes for each of the four. They sat on the terrace as the two men briefed their mates on the day’s activities and on their plans for destroying Rossi’s fiduciaria.

  Both men thought it only fair that the women know what was going on as, like it or not, they were as involved as anyone. Also, since Burgess had murdered two people in Nancy’s jurisdiction, she was professionally involved. That wasn’t lost on her.

  “Maybe I should talk to my chief to get permission to work on this with you, Christopher, as a joint operation.”

  “You can’t talk to the Rooster about this. He’d probably call a press conference,” Christopher said, truthfully. “The last thing we need is for our plan to become public knowledge.”

  “No, I’ll go over his head. We do it all the time.”

  “I can talk to my captain,” Christopher said. “I’ll do that tomorrow. We can use all the guns we can get.”

  Earlier that day, before all the excitement started, Trent had split two mirlitons and softened them with a few minutes in boiling water. There was lump crabmeat in the refrigerator.

  Since Nancy was anxious to begin her apprenticeship in the kitchen, the men stayed on the terrace with their second cocktails. In the kitchen Darcey showed Nancy how to make the “Trinity,” the sautéed onion, celery, and sweet pepper that is the basis of so many Louisiana dishes.

  They added the crab, some garlic, and other spices to the pan, mixing it all well and allowing it to heat through. Scooping the seeds from the mirlitons, which Darcey told Nancy were also called chayotes, they filled the hollow squashes with the crab stuffing, sprinkled them with bread crumbs, and put them in the oven to bake.

  Feeling quite proud of herself, Nancy accepted another rum and coke. She and Darcey joined the men on the terrace.

  In the hills of Atherton, Don Rossi was furious. He tossed the burner he was using across the garden. One of his security team rushed to retrieve it. And to stay out of the don’s way.

  First, that dunce of an ex-cop Burgess, dumb as he was, outsmarted the two Barons of Lucifer sent to take him out. Today Rossi was told he murdered two women in Richmond. And now the drunken slob had disappeared, leaving Rossi with two police forces nosing around in his business

  Then the two halfwits he assigned to watch Marshall managed to get themselves arrested. One of them had assaulted a security guard. A kid, no less. The kid had broken the big, brave Mafioso’s wrist with a stick.

  Rossi was tempted to let them sit in jail. He knew he couldn’t do that. No telling what they might say to the cops. He had already dispatched a lawyer to get them out. When they got here, he would see to it that they would both beg to have only their wrists broken.

  He was at the end of his patience. Douglas had better get money moving Monday or there would be more than broken bones. There would be bodies.

  Monday, August 1st

  Captain Fess Albright was already at his desk when Sergeant Booth tapped on his door at seven o’clock Monday morning. He had got into the habit of arriving early when he first began to rise in rank on the force. He felt obligated to be on the job when the first of the day shift began to arrive.

  Christopher briefed the captain on the status of his investigation. Albright was surprised at how much Booth had accomplished. Surprised and impressed.

  Then Booth told the captain what he had in mind. He asked permission to put together a multi-force team, including the San Francisco and Richmond police departments, as well as some federal agencies. They would also, he said, be working with police in Great Britain, France, and Italy, as well as with Interpol.

  “You’re asking for a lot, Christopher,” the captain said. “You’re describing a big operation and you want to do it in a week.”

  “No sir,” Christopher replied. “I want to do it today.”

  Albright didn’t blink. He turned his chair to stare out the window. He admired Booth. This was the kind of operation that would have excited him when he joined the force more than thirty-five years previously. Now he was near retirement.

  He had been ordered to assign the investigation into Rossi’s activities to Booth. He knew that was deliberately done with the expectation that Booth’s inexperience in rooting out money laundering schemes would result in the investigation going nowhere. Now Booth was asking permission to begin an operation with the potential to destroy Rossi’s alliance and cripple four of the leading criminal organizations in the city.

  He had compromised in the past and wasn’t proud of it. He was inclined to approve Christopher’s plan and go out of office feeling good about being a cop. But he wasn’t dense either. If he made a misstep, he could wind up with no retirement at all.

  “Let me think about it,” he said, as he turned back to face Christopher. “I have to go downtown for a meeting. I’ll be back in an hour or two. We’ll talk again then.”

  As he left the captain�
�s office, Christopher hoped he hadn’t made a mistake speaking to Albright. If he had, people could die. He respected Albright. He knew the captain sometimes had to play a political game, but he thought at heart the man was a good cop. He didn’t think he had made a mistake.

  Darcey watched Trent closely as they had coffee before they each began their busy days.

  “Are we in trouble today?” she asked.

  “No more than usual,” he said.

  “And we’re not in the Witness Protection Program?”

  “Not yet,” he said, “but the day is just begun.”

  She thought it would be a day without symptoms.

  Albright knew he was walking a fine line as he strolled into the Third Street headquarters of the San Francisco Police Department. The cop in him wanted to tell Christopher to go for it. The old man in him wanted to protect his retirement. He honestly didn’t know which of them would win.

  He raised his hand to tap on Deputy Chief Amanda Justice’s office door, but it wasn’t closed. It was standing open by only an inch. Just enough for him to hear the conversation going on inside the room.

  Justice had her back to him as she spoke on the phone. Though she was trying to keep her voice down he could clearly hear her side of the conversation. He felt himself grow cold as he heard what she was saying.

  “Please, Mr. Rossi, I’ll take care of this. I set it up as you wished. I regret that mistakes have been made. But I assure you I will get things under control. You have nothing to worry about.”

  That was enough. Albright was still cop enough to make his decision. He walked down the hall to the Chief’s office. He and Charles Marvin had started on the force together almost four decades ago. He trusted him without reservation. Albright thought that if his trust in Marvin was misplaced then his entire life was a waste. He had nothing to lose.

  “Good morning, Diana,” he said as he entered the chief’s office. Diana had guarded the chief’s outer office ever since Marvin was appointed to the job more than a decade earlier.

  “Well, look who decided to go slumming today,” Diana teased. “How are you, Fess? Haven’t seen you in a while.”