by John Lansing
The glory hounds would barge in as soon as they knew a location was active, take the money, and brag about the bust, put another notch on their belts. From Jack’s point of view that was shortsighted law enforcement. The “office” in Colombia would simply shift some players from Chicago or Texas—or one of the other hubs in the drug trade—set up another money-laundering cell at another address, and be back in business in forty-eight hours. The money would then be used to enrich the cartels, assassinate politicians, and overthrow governments. Not to mention the devastation the drugs created in American society, the families destroyed, the innocent lives lost.
Jack was methodical. He made a database of all the licenses of the cars that frequented the suspect’s house, stayed on top of the wiretaps, and traced the phone calls back to the source. Labor-intensive work. But when it was time to drop the hammer, he was able to cast a wide net.
When Colombia got word of Jack’s arrests from their high-priced American lawyers who were kept on retainer, they knew the “sickness” was so great they were forced to rerack, rethink their strategy, and start again from scratch. That was how Jack liked to play the game. Let the kingpins know that someone had outsmarted them and their Harvard-educated lawyers and MBAs.
Today the surveillance would be different.
J.D. from Bruffy’s Tow had been a man of his word and had made available the parked car Jack was now sitting in, sipping coffee he had purchased at a 7-Eleven before dawn.
The 1970 dark green Plymouth Sport Fury had patches of Bondo around the wheel wells and passenger door, but a gleaming 426 hemi engine under the hood. The windows were so dark, Jack had to take off his sunglasses in order to keep the car on the road. The black vinyl roof had rotted under the California sun, and all that was left was a smattering of old glue, flakes of vinyl, primer, and rust. The car, which looked like it should be up on cinder blocks in somebody’s front yard, wasn’t much to look at, but that was the point. It blended. And ate up the I-10 from L.A. to Ontario like a road rocket. The steering was a little loose, but that was to be expected in a car over forty years old.
Jack wished his body felt as loose as the car’s steering, but the seats weren’t built for comfort and his back was older than the car itself. Suck it up, he told himself.
Tommy Aronsohn had offered to stay in town, but Jack thought his friend looked relieved when he dropped him off at LAX. Couldn’t blame him. Tommy promised to head back on a minute’s notice, but what needed to be accomplished now was Jack’s purview. He made a mental note to check the local hospitals for anyone who had checked in with broken bones or whiplash the night he and Tommy were attacked on the road.
He had exited his building at 5:00 A.M. through an opening in the garage, and he hurried down the concrete path that ran the length of the back of the property. Dressed totally in black, he’d done a quick run across Glencoe and entered Bruffy’s Tow through a shadowed side gate. The precaution was too cloak-and-dagger for Jack’s comfort level, but he still didn’t know if someone was watching his building. Someone could have set up surveillance in plenty of structures in the surrounding neighborhood. He wouldn’t have that answer until he was able to question the man in the photo.
Nick Aprea had done a DMV search on the car and gotten a name to match the face of the driver, David Reyes. Twenty-four, two arrests. One for methamphetamine, one for marijuana. The record he had accumulated as a minor was sealed. One of the local cops had shared a few leads as to the guy’s potential whereabouts. And so here Jack sat.
He had done a drive-by of the apartment building listed on David’s license, but when Jack got up close and personal, the unit was clearly empty.
He was now parked on a side street with a clear view of the Reyes family’s home.
The neighborhood was lower middle class sliding toward poverty. Small, cookie-cutter California bungalows, faded pastel stucco, white gravel roofs, and dry patches of grass that couldn’t be mistaken for lawn. So many electrical wires crisscrossed the dirt alleys running between the rows of houses, they took on the ominous appearance of spiderwebs. Despite how few possessions these Americans enjoyed, they were forced to live with metal bars on their windows.
It didn’t seem right.
Jack pulled two Excedrin out of his pocket and swallowed them with a gulp of cold coffee. He thought about taking a Vicodin but was concerned about falling asleep. He booted up his laptop and checked out his loft in real time. Cruz Feinberg had installed two wireless microcameras, one lodged in an African mask that would capture anyone breaking and entering, the second secreted in a smoke alarm that covered the master bedroom and kitchen area. Cruz had the kind of genius and talent Jack would have drafted when he was running a team of narco-rangers in the NYPD. Independently thinking Cruz would have been a good fit.
From the computer screen Jack could see that all was quiet on the home front. When he looked out of the dark-tinted windshield, it was still quiet on the street.
He watched the occasional neighbor exit a house and walk up the road toward public transportation, or open one of their parked cars on the street. After a rough ignition, the vehicle would turn over, belch white smoke, and head off to some forgettable job. Jack did notice something conspicuously missing from this picture besides his suspect.
No paperboy. No rubber-banded papers being tossed from bicycles. Something that had been so important to Jack as a boy growing up on Staten Island was disappearing from modern life.
Jack’s paper route had as many wise guys, for customers, as good guys. His neighborhood was full of Mafia soldiers, button men, you name it. He went to school with their kids. Just an everyday part of Jack’s early education. When he joined the police force, he cut off all contact with childhood friends who went in the other direction, who chose to work for the Gambino crew. But his parents still lived on the same street, in the same neighborhood, and the “made men” kept a watchful eye. Dangerous men who protected their own.
Jack had failed to locate Reyes’s car when he did his reconnaissance around the neighborhood before settling in between a group of other parked cars with a clear view of the house. He knew David’s car might be garaged, or just used for the job, or he might just be wasting his time.
He had to take a leak but didn’t want to jeopardize his cover. He’d force it out of his mind. Jack was never thrilled about having to piss in a bottle, although he’d done so many times in past stakeouts.
He decided that if he saw no movement in or out of the house by noon, he’d go get something to eat and try again in the late afternoon. He wanted to run by John Burroughs High and talk to the guidance counselor Nick had suggested. Aprea had promised to call her first thing this morning and grease the wheels.
Bertolino felt the approaching car before he saw it in his rearview mirror and slid down low in his seat. The thudding bass rattled all the way through the Plymouth’s chassis to Jack’s stomach as a primer gray car ripped by, honked, and came to a chattering stop in front of the Reyes house.
The front door opened and Jack watched as his suspect appeared and took the front steps in one leap. He loped over to the waiting car with the grace of a wolf running in the wild. A good-looking middle-class kid. Dark hair, open face, full-blown macho attitude. Also a face full of cuts, as if he had run through a briar patch or had his front windshield explode in his face. Jack put his money on the latter.
He was wearing a navy blue industrial work shirt, and Jack could read ROYCE MOTORS embroidered in yellow thread on the back. The car peeled out and Jack let it move up the road as he jotted down the car’s license number. When it made a left, he turned the key on the Plymouth and followed.
He one-hand dialed information. When the operator answered, Jack asked for the number and address of Royce Motors and scribbled that information onto his yellow pad as he made the top of the rise. He wasn’t particularly worried about losing his man now because he would enter
the address into his laptop at the next light and be at the location waiting when Reyes showed up for work.
But his blood pressure started spiking. He could feel his heart thudding in his chest. He was now sure that the primer gray car was one of the chase cars that had tried to force him and Tommy off the road. It was time to even the score.
The first stop was Royce Motor Coach Sales and Repairs. Jack drove around the joint to get a feel for the layout. It was an upscale organization. The massive building had the polished look of a Mercedes dealership.
He was securely positioned across from the entrance when, fifteen minutes after he had arrived, the primer gray car pulled into the lot and parked. There were now three men in the car.
David Reyes jumped out of the passenger side and pushed the front seat forward. He thrust his hand into the back, pulled out a pair of crutches, and then muscled out his buddy, who was dressed in the same work shirt.
The man’s bruised forehead was almost as deep a blue as the shirt on his back. The plaster cast that encased his foot and extended up to his knee was covered with colorful graffiti and signatures. He grabbed the crutches and moved forward, swinging with the ease of a circus performer, his body battered but not his ego.
Jack snapped a few pictures and then stopped as a luxury bus pulled into the driveway and motored up to the entrance of the service bay.
An older man appeared from inside, wearing a navy blue sports jacket, and waved the vehicle in. Jack snapped a few close-ups of the man and then of the license plate on the bus.
Too much joy on the gangbangers’ faces for a simple service call, Jack thought.
Maybe Beyoncé was onboard.
Jack downloaded the pictures onto his laptop and e-mailed them to Nick. Then he put in a call to the service department to find out the latest he could drop off a vehicle for repairs. Six o’clock, straight up. That’s when Royce’s service bay shut down for the night.
That gave him at least five hours. He called the high school and spoke with Joan Sternhagen. The guidance counselor had spoken with Nick Aprea, and agreed to meet with Jack after lunch. He’d hit the head, grab some food, go to the school, and be back in plenty of time to find out where the other two players in the primer gray car lived.
Not a bad morning, all in all. Jack was back in the hunt.
30
Jack was ushered into the guidance counselor’s empty office by an officious secretary and told to wait. Like a penitent student, he was doing just that.
Except for baseball, Jack didn’t have fond memories of high school. With the violence he had suffered at home, being a teenager was a rough time, with little joy. He was amazed by how just visiting a school—the sights, the sounds, the smells—could bring the feelings back. The office was Spartan, with pastel peach walls and dark brown wainscoting. A round clock on the wall reminded him that his life was passing every time the second hand jumped.
A buzzer sounded, classes were dismissed, and the hallways filled with the excited voices of liberated teenagers. Lockers banged, cell phones engaged, and the bleed from iPods created an ambient adolescent roar.
Joan Sternhagen walked into the room and smiled, thrusting her hand forward. It was a generous, engaging smile that imparted warmth and a feeling of well-being. She had bright, unblinking eyes, a narrow face, and a scooped chin that threatened to touch her thin, hooked nose. Jack couldn’t miss the fact that she looked very much like a bird. Correct that, a peacock.
Jack stood politely and towered over the petite woman as he shook her hand.
“I pulled the files for the years you requested, Mr. Bertolino. Most everything is in the computer nowadays, but that only dates back the past few years or so. Now, let me get a good look at you.”
She stood back and gave Jack the once-over. Jack wouldn’t bet the house on it, but he decided that her accent was from New Zealand and not Australia. It was lilting and musical, and he couldn’t help but smile.
“You have a strong smile that probably doesn’t get used all that often. You are serious to a fault. The lines on your face read integrity, sincerity, and strength. I wouldn’t want to be a badster going up against the likes of you. How am I doing so far?”
“A badster?” he said.
“Oh, you know, the criminal element.”
“So far so good,” Jack said while she walked around her desk, sat down demurely, and opened the files.
“I’m appalled by that horrible picture circulating on Facebook. Everyone in the school has seen it. That poor boy. Simply terrible. Nobody deserves to die like that.”
Jack nodded in agreement. “Any rumors as to why he was killed?”
“None that were shared with me,” she said wistfully. And then, “Let’s get to work.”
Jack eased down onto his straight-backed wooden chair and glanced at her threadbare padded swiveling office chair with envy. Joan swept her shoulder-length straight blond hair back behind her ears and pulled on a pair of tortoiseshell reading glasses that hung from a red braided cord around her neck.
“The kid I’m looking for was off,” he said.
“Off how?”
“You know, different.”
“You’re not helping me, Mr. Bertolino.”
“I know . . . sorry. I’m looking for someone with the potential to kill. The potential to slaughter the young man you saw on Facebook and be cold enough to post it to send a message.”
“I think I understand.”
“Let’s just go down the list, and if anything comes up, anything jogs your memory, we’ll talk about it.”
“Fair enough.”
She read the names of the teenagers Jack had provided and showed him the pictures that were on file.
Jack recognized Raymond Higueras as being the man on crutches. He looked at the file and took notes.
They were all teenagers-turned-men, sixteen-year-olds with the countenance of killers, and now all members of a notorious street gang. Joan went down the list and gave Jack her recollections or handwritten notes if the young men’s case files had crossed her desk. He learned that most of the boys were latchkey kids, lower income. If there were two parents, they both worked. The 18th Street Angels provided these kids with emotional, personal, and financial security. Same story, different city. The common denominator was that the young boys had to kill to gain entrance to the promised land.
Joan’s eyes softened when she reached Johnny Rodriguez’s file.
“Good kid. No, great kid. Had all the potential in the world. Strong family, two sisters who graduated from John Burroughs with honors. It says here that he was enrolled in college prep classes, and then he dropped out of sight. I take that as a personal failure. These kids. When they fall, they fall very hard, Mr. Bertolino. I wrote a note in the margin.”
She spun the file on her ink blotter to read her handwritten scrawl.
“His sister blamed a friend of his for . . . Oh.”
Joan Sternhagen stopped at a particular name, looked up over the top of her reading glasses, and stared into the distance, trying to conjure up a memory.
“Hector Lopez.”
“Who?” Jack asked. The name wasn’t on his list.
“I don’t remember too much. He was assigned to me, a habitual truant. A lot of kids, a lot of faces, a lot of problems,” she explained.
“What do your notes say about Hector?”
Jack felt he was finally on to something and didn’t want to stop the flow. Joan flipped through another folder until she located Hector’s file.
“ ‘Would rather be anywhere but sitting across from me,’ is what I wrote at the time. He would say whatever was needed to end the interview. No college aspirations, tested in the lower seventy percentile.”
“Was he in the gang?”
“Not as a matter of record . . .”
“B
ut?”
“It seems likely. Hector’s father abandoned the family in his junior year. It says he moved to Guadalajara. Hector dropped out his senior year.” Sternhagen peered at Jack over her reading glasses. “I remember that he was big for his age. If there had been a football team at John Burroughs, he might have played.” She added with regret, “I can’t get through to them all. But I do what I can.”
“Big, huh,” Jack said to himself. And then, “Do you have a picture of Hector?”
“No, if it’s not in my files, one didn’t exist.”
Jack wasn’t sure he could accomplish anything more, and the loud ticks of the clock reminded him that he had to get a move on. He jotted down Hector Lopez’s last known address, his father’s work history, and then the current addresses of the various 18th Street Angels on the list, photocopied their pictures, and thanked Mrs. Sternhagen for her time.
He listened to the echo of his shoes as they reverberated on the scuffed linoleum floor and walked out of the school with increasing speed; he did not look back. He thought he’d hit a vein. He just had to see where it led him.
—
Jack was driving with one hand, eating a bean, cheese, and rice burrito with the other. He had made a quick stop at a roadside taco stand; the Excedrin and caffeine were burning a hole in his gut, and he realized that the burrito might just create the perfect storm. But he kept on eating.
The late-afternoon crosstown traffic was bumper to bumper, and two blocks from Royce Motors the primer gray car raced past him driving in the opposite direction.
Nobody worked a full day anymore, Jack thought.
He tried to execute a one-handed U-turn after their car had made a left onto the main thoroughfare. But he couldn’t make the turning radius. He dropped the greasy burrito in his lap, banged the car into a tire-spinning reverse, and then nearly clipped the cars parked on the side of the street as the Plymouth lurched forward.
He picked up his food about the same time he caught sight of his quarry and then eased up on the gas, staying five cars behind. He finished off the burrito in two quick bites, wiping his hands onto his already stained black jeans. He’d worry about the salsa spill later.