“It’s no joke, he’s sitting inside right now. He was waiting for his lawyer to get here. I figured you’d want to talk to him beforehand.”
“Hell, yes. I’m on my way,” Betts said. He dropped everything and threw his clothes on.
***
Betts was at the wheel, half shaven and slightly disheveled. He sped into the tight one-way alley, lined on both sides by the back fences of houses and garage doors. Taking a blind curve at speed, he soon saw a van parked in front of him. He hit the brakes, tires squealing as he stopped inches from the van.
In his mirror he saw the sedan pull up behind him. He grabbed his handgun, hyper-alert now.
Eyes darting from the mirrors to the van in front, he tried the door, but it wouldn’t open more than a few inches, hemmed in by a back fence. He reached for the passenger door but flinched as the business end of a crowbar burst through, shattering the glass and barely missing his face. It recoiled and Betts looked up to see two ski-masked guys leaning over the fence, one of them tossing a canister onto the floor, passenger side, gas pouring out of it. Betts thrust his gun up and took aim but the masked men ducked out of sight. He fired a couple of shots into the fence, then grabbed the canister and tossed it out the window. But it was too late, the car was already filled with the stuff. With a hand over his mouth, he turned and fired through the back window at the car behind him, his bullets bouncing off the bullet-proof windshield of the sedan. Betts held his aim, waiting for someone to get out of the vehicle. But his vision began to blur and he felt himself sliding down the seat as he lost consciousness. He fired some more, emptying the gun as he slid onto his back on the passenger seat. A blurry, ski-masked head leaned through the window, hovering above Betts, inspecting him just before he blacked out.
Chapter 43
Pyke walked into the reception area of the Police Station and spotted Doc reading a brochure on crime prevention. He handed Doc a large caramel macchiato.
“Thank you, that’s very kind of you,” Doc said.
“No problem. You don’t have to wait out here, come and have a seat in our interview room. It’s a lot more comfortable.”
“My lawyer is such a kluts, he’d probably never find me. I’d better wait here.
“Okay, either way.”
Doc’s phone buzzed in his pocket and he pulled it out and checked a message:
PIG’S ON THE SPIT. COME CARVE IT UP.
“Oh, I’m afraid something urgent has come up,” Doc said. “I have to go.”
“Are you sure? Is there something I can do to help?”
“You’ll have to excuse me,” Doc said.
Doc stood up and Pyke stepped in front of him. “I’d really appreciate it if you could stick around.”
“Thanks for the coffee,” Doc said, and shoved past Pyke.
Chapter 44
Betts was only aware of the darkness, heavy and all around him, smothering him entirely so he couldn’t move a finger or a toe, couldn’t open his eyes. There was no sound except for his breathing, labored and deep.
Then he felt something. A slight stinging, so faint it seemed far above him. But it was definitely a stinging and he noticed that it was accompanied by a high-pitched noise, like a dental drill. Then the stinging and the noise intensified, startling him into consciousness.
Detective Betts lay on his back squinting his bloodshot eyes. Three blurred figures were leaning over him, fixated on his chest where one of them was holding something, doing something. It was painful. He soon realized they were performing surgery. His first thought was that he must have been shot and brought to a hospital. Then he noticed the thrash metal music screaming on a stereo nearby and that the air was thick with cigar smoke, bitter in his nose and mouth. This was no hospital.
As his vision improved he noticed one of the figures was a broadly shouldered, middle-aged woman with a scarred face. Then he recognized the face. It was Carmen Canella. She puffed on the cigar as Betts recognized the younger man who stank of cologne: “Cakes” Canella. Cakes used a handkerchief to wipe the pouring sweat off the face of the scruffy surgeon with wild, unkempt grey hair. Doc!
Doc sliced into Betts’ chest with a whirring electronic tool, holding it like a dagger. A burst of adrenalin hit Betts and his left arm sprung out, clutching Doc’s hand.
With his right, he went for the throat, squeezing as hard as he could, choking Doc. Cakes shoved a rag over his face and Betts thrashed about like a fish on a hook, unable to free his mouth. The chloroform, sweet and strong, sent him straight back to unconsciousness.
***
When Betts came to again, he immediately sat up and reached for the gun on his ankle. The holster was empty. The operating table was in the middle of Canella’s windowless den. She, Cakes and Doc sat with their backs to Betts, murmuring in front of computer equipment and a widescreen TV against the far wall, apparently unaware that Betts was conscious.
Why haven’t they killed me? What do they want? What can I give them? Do they want use me as a drug mule, like they did with Mitch Walker? No, surely not. There’s only thing I can give them: information.
Then he noticed the sharp stinging on the skin on his chest and put a hand to it.
“Don’t touch your chest,” said Canella, still with her back to him. Betts ignored the command and fingered a lump on his chest.
Beneath the skin was a hard round object like a coat button. It began to vibrate silently, tingling and prickling him.
“That’s the warning buzz,” said Canella.
Betts continued fingering the foreign object until he was flung back onto the table, his muscles contracting in violent spasms. Back arching. Face contorting. An intense pain surged from his chest to every nerve ending in his body. He knew he was being electrocuted.
Then it stopped and he gasped for breath, his chest burning now.
“I told you not to touch it,” Canella said.
Gasping, he rolled onto his side and pushed himself upright. Canella, Doc and Cakes turned to face him. Canella sat in the middle, holding what looked like a remote control to a toy car, with a cable running into the wall.
I have to get that remote.
Betts launched himself off the table towards Canella, but she hit a button on the remote before he got within reach of her. The electrical blast that followed sent Betts face first onto the cold concrete floor. The pain stopped the moment Canella released the button.
Betts rolled onto his back, sucking in his breath. His chest felt like it had been under a blowtorch. Cakes and Doc were chuckling.
“It works, alright!” said Doc.
“That was awesome! Do it again!”
Canella shot Cakes a look that said grow up. Be professional. He got the message. She turned to Betts. “You catching on? You do as you’re told or you get a blast,” she said. “Now get up slowly and come over here.”
Betts staggered towards them.
“Stop right there,” Cakes said, and Betts stopped.
Remembering the surgical work Doc had performed on Mitch, and aware that he had just been under his knife, Betts felt a wave of panic coming over him. He put a hand to his head, checking his scalp. It was intact.
“Don’t worry, we’re not looking for another drug mule,” Doc said.
Canella gestured towards the TV and Betts saw what looked like a home video image of the three criminals sitting at the desk. Strangely, it was showing what Betts was seeing in real time, as if the TV was getting a live signal from his own eyes.
“That vision is coming from a camera we just planted on your chest,” Doc said. “A chest-cam.”
Betts looked at his chest.
“It can see straight through your skin,” he continued, “in full HD.”
“That’s Jap technology for you,” Cakes said.
“It’s also got a built in mike, so we can hear every conversation you’re involved in. And, here’s the kicker, it’s got a taser, activated by remote, as you just discovered. Can you guess why we put i
t there?”
Betts remained silent.
“I think he knows,” Canella said. “Either way, you just go about your day as usual, and we’ll leave you alone. But if you get clever, try to remove the camera, or tell someone about it, I’ll burn a fucking hole in your heart. You see this?” she gestured to the cable that ran from the remote to the wall. “It’s wired to a sixty-foot antenna. You could fly to the fucking moon and I’ll still get you. Got it?”
Betts nodded.
“Your stuff’s by the door. Cakes will take you to your vehicle and you can go to work,” she said.
Betts turned towards the door.
“Oh, and Detective,” Doc said, “don’t shower or get it wet for forty eight hours.... unless you want to get electrocuted.”
Canella and Doc turned back to the TV screen and Betts walked over to a crate by the door. Inside were his shirt and jacket, phone, palm-sized pistol and Glock. He picked them up and could tell by their weight the guns were empty. He gathered the rest and Cakes led the way up the steps and out through a heavy iron door into the workshop.
Sitting in the back of a van, Betts remained calm as Cakes drove him out of the workshop. He mentally analyzed the implications of what had just happened to him.
Now I can take them all down. Kidnapping a police officer will get them at least twenty-five years behind bars, on top of time for their other illegal enterprises. Just got to find a way to get this thing out of my chest.
A short time later the van pulled up by an arcade and Betts peered out the window to see his sedan parked nearby. Cakes tossed his keys in the back and Betts grabbed them and climbed out. He watched Cakes drive away, then put a hand to his chest. He fingered the edge of the camera, careful to keep his fingers away from the lens, out of sight from his observers. Then he heard the warning hum. He removed his fingers but the shock came anyway. The electricity hit him like the back hoof of a bull. It was brief this time, but long enough to buckle his knees and make him stagger. His phone hummed, signaling a new text message. He pulled it out and read the message from a nameless number. But the message left no doubt about whom it was from.
THIS IS REAL
Chapter 45
Betts walked into the Rampart Police Station, which was bustling with uniformed cops, some of them escorting prisoners. Pyke came out of the toilet and saw Betts wandering towards his office.
“Hey Betts. What happened?”
“Hey Pyke, er…traffic. Stuck in traffic.”
“Damn, missed an opportunity there. Braun’s holding a meeting, he was asking about you.”
“Okay, thanks,” Betts said. He wandered to the meeting room where Braun was giving a power point presentation to a room full of cops. On the screen was a mugshot of Ray Slater.
“This scumbag was peddling the stolen haul of Rituxan, Detective Betts was the arresting officer.”
***
Inside the basement den Canella, Cakes and Doc sat riveted to the TV screen as the camera on Betts’ chest relayed video images Braun and his power point presentation with near perfect audio-visual clarity.
***
Back in the police station, Betts shuffled in his chair, trying to angle the camera in his chest away from the screen.
“In the raid on Doc Roberts’ office Betts also recovered a rolodex with this deadbeat’s name on it. So it’s pretty clear this quack is directly involved with Slater, and most likely involved in the carjacking of the pharmaceuticals truck. Ray is not talking at this point, he’s just chilling…in the morgue.” Braun got a few laughs for the gag and clicked the remote, bringing up a slide of Ray’s dead face, which was so bad it made a few of the cops turn away. It looked like it had been doused in battery acid. The skin was bloated, blistered and dark red with burn holes that went right through the cheeks and lips. “Last night he was poisoned in prison with snake venom. Nasty stuff.”
***
In Canella’s den, Cakes was feeling queasy. “Christ! Poor Ray. Did you have to torture the guy?”
Doc slapped Cakes on the back of the head.
“Hey!” Cakes said, standing up and bracing for a fight.
“You fucking hypocrite! Now you feel sorry for him? You wanted the liability eliminated, you got it! I didn’t want to do it, I lost an associate. A good one at that! You don’t have the right to be squeamish, you just say thank you, and shut up!” Doc said.
“Both of you shut up!” Canella said. And they did.
***
Betts cringed as Braun continued unwittingly giving more information to his clandestine listeners.
“And even better yet,” Braun said, “the rolodex also contains the name of Becky Cox, the mule packing heroin in her boobs who died in Jakarta,” he said, bringing up a photograph of the deceased. “Could be just the tip of the iceberg,” Braun went on.
“We have our suspicions that the other members of this freak show of a family…” he paused and flicked up images of Canella and Cakes, “…are also involved. In fact I personally think Carmen Canella is the mastermind of this importation business. So we’ll let the Doc relax for a while until we get enough to bring down the whole syndicate.”
***
“Son of a bitch,” Cake said.
“And you said it was all in my head!” Canella said.
Doc shrugged his shoulders, not knowing what to say.
On the screen, Braun clicked to the next page, containing several shots of Kim Dover, her buttock wound, and the offending bullet.
“As some of you know, this unlucky lady was hit in the buttock by a stray .303 caliber bullet while loading her shopping into her car at a shopping center.”
“That fat ass saved her life!” Forrest called out.
“That’s correct. More interesting than the size of her butt though, is the fact that the trajectory of the .303 caliber bullet which, allowing for wind, can be traced directly back to Canella’s Smash Repairs,” Braun said, referring to a picture of the shattered remains of the drone. “Even more interesting is that our beloved drone, Crimcam, met its demise outside Canella’s Smash Repairs just moments before Miss Dover took one in the ass.” This got some belly laughs from the male cops.
Braun continued, “This attic on the top of Canella’s workshop is most likely the place where the shot was taken. Her son “Cakes” was behind the wheel of the truck that finished off Crimcam, so we believe it was the old witch herself who pulled the trigger.”
“What about the grassy knoll?” somebody called out.
“Never heard that one before. How long have you been a cop?” Braun said. “As Detective Betts has correctly pointed out, all of this is surely substantial enough to justify a search warrant, find the rifle and nail her for destroying police property, grievous bodily harm etc., and find out what she’s doing in that workshop of hers. We now have full intercept warrants for Canella’s place of business, for her phone, Cakes’ phone, and Doc’s phone. We’re also monitoring internet activity. I want proof of organized criminal activity, preferably heroin importation. Shake down your usual sources for direct, incriminating links between the not-so-good doctor and this freak show of a family.”
“Son of a bitch,” Cakes said. Canella pulled out her phone and began typing a text message.
***
Okay, get out there and get busy, people!” Braun said.
Betts got up, wishing he had missed the meeting. He began towards the door when his phone vibrated - another text message from Canella:
Go to the pin-up board.
Betts ignored the message and headed for the door. Then he felt the device in his chest vibrating, prickling him. The warning buzz. He turned back and walked to the crime- board.
***
Canella, Doc and Cakes watched the TV screen as the whiteboard came into focus. Their mug shots were at the top of the board, with various lines connecting them to photographs of Becky Cox, Mitch Walker, the carjacking crew, the victim of the carjacking and her severed hand, Ray Slater, Canella’s
workshop and many more. Canella took a sudden interest in the photographs of Mitch, Lauren and Peter Walker.
“Christ, they’ve been busy,” Cakes said.
Canella raised a finger and Cakes shut his mouth. Braun stepped onto screen, between Betts and the whiteboard.
“You okay, Betts?” Braun asked. “You look like something my dog vomited up after eating his own shit.”
“I’m fine, just tired.”
“Well, get caffeinated and get busy!”
Betts turned and walked away.
“Did we record that meeting?” Canella asked.
Cakes went to another video deck and rewound the vision. “It’s all there.”
“Good, keep it,” she said. “They know more than I thought.”
“They know shit about your mail fraud scheme. No pictures of your telemarketers,” Doc said.
“Yeah, but for how long?” she asked.
“They won’t catch the telemarketers now. Those guys are clean, no records. I don’t think they have a fucking clue,” Cakes said.
“I agree. And like I said, it’s highly unlikely that they’ll be able to access your email attachments, so I think you’re in the clear there. They’re looking for drug related stuff. You heard it from the horse’s mouth!”
“Maybe. But you still need to take care of your liabilities,” she said.
“It’s impossible to get the Walker kid, now, that ship has sunk,” Cakes said.
“Doc will figure something out.”
“Will I? That kid’ll be covered in cops now.”
“You’re a clever man, you’ll think of something.”
Brazen Violations Page 10