“Judy. You knew I wouldn’t miss the schedule on the fridge,” she said aloud.
Today was to be front closet day. Sleep would have to wait an hour until she’d eaten and finished the closet. A half-hour into the project she knew she was in over her head and called the office. Judy answered on the first ring.
“Thank God you’re still there. Would it be too much trouble for you to swing by my place on your way home and bring me more boxes? The mailroom always has a slew of them at the end of the day.”
“Charlie, I’m sorry, I can’t. I have to get straight home, and I was just leaving. Gary and I are going out tonight. I could bring boxes over tomorrow morning. How many do you need?”
“Oh, well that’s all right then. I just realized I’ve got more stuff in the closet to give away.”
“Wait. Gil’s here. He wants to speak to you.”
“I’d be happy to bring over some boxes,” Gil said.
“I thought you were going home to rest?”
“I got enough rest last night. Besides, I’d like to talk.”
# # #
Charlie piled coats, jackets, a box of hats, caps, and gloves, and assorted scarves on the sofa. She sat on the carpet, sorting and loading items into the two boxes on either side of her while Gil lounged in an upholstered armchair. He’d accepted the offer of a grilled cheese sandwich, and Charlie had opened a bottle of red wine, which they shared. Gil, like Charlie, was an overachiever, with success in most things except relationships. After years of dating beautiful women he avoided marrying, he’d finally met a woman last summer and they’d been dating regularly.
“Look, I wanted to talk to you because I had to try to explain why I’m putting my life and career on the line to protect someone like Betti. I mean, I wonder if anyone ever tried to help her without judging her?” he asked.
“She’s a likeable character, charming in her own way. I’m sure others have wanted to help.”
“Betti has a real intelligence and curiosity. I think she’s just a product of her circumstances.”
Charlie didn’t respond. Instead, she folded a large Burberry scarf and placed it in the keeper box. She poured another glass of wine and passed the bottle to Gil.
“I can’t take my privilege for granted, Charlie. I’m not wired that way. You know my folks. They come from humble beginnings, yet made huge sacrifices for me and my brother. I know I was damn lucky as a kid.”
“And you’ve used that luck to make your parents and your friends very proud, Gil. Don’t forget a lot of your success comes from your own talents, work ethic, and integrity.”
Gil sipped at his wine, and Charlie continued packing. From a bag of accessories, she pulled out a Department of Homeland Security cap, the one issued to her as a trainee. She put it on, and the old friends and colleagues shared a smile.
“This brings back memories,” she said, shaping the cap’s bill.
“Good and bad,” Gil responded with a head shake. “Who would have ever thought we’d be working with Don Rutkowski? He was such an asshole.”
Charlie laughed. “And he’s still a pain in the ass from time to time, but I couldn’t get along without either of you.”
“I’m really happy for you and Mandy, Charlie. I’ve seen the difference in you.”
“How’s Darla?”
“We’ve been dating for nine months.”
“That’s a first for you, isn’t it?”
“For sure. We have a lot in common. She’s third-generation Mexican American like me and loves sports. She’s a pretty good basketball player.”
“I love it.”
“And I believe I love her.”
“I’m glad for you, my friend.”
Their visit ended when the last of the wine was gone. They shared a hug at her front door, the kind of gesture that could happen away from the professional environment of their office. Gil turned toward the elevators, and Charlie closed the door, heading for a three-hour nap before what she hoped would be her last overnight in the Corridor. One that would end safely for all of them.
Chapter 14
Reggie stood outside the ground-floor office of Detroit police headquarters. He shifted his weight from foot to foot and looked up, then glanced away from every person who left the room. He was sweating profusely, and his stomach hurt. He hadn’t had food since the apple pie this morning, but food wasn’t his most urgent need. He stepped to the doorway and caught Charlie’s eye. She left the office immediately.
“How much longer, do you think?” Reggie asked.
“Gil is testing out the microphone. It shouldn’t be much longer. Do you need to step outside?”
“No. I’m good.”
Reggie clutched the strap of his backpack with both hands to steady the shaking, and when he turned he took slow, measured steps across the marble floor to sit on a backless bench, Charlie heard the clanging of bottles in his bag. She sat next to him.
“We’re close to a resolution on this case, and it wouldn’t have happened without you.”
“I just wanted to find out who killed Eddie. I didn’t know it would lead to all this.”
“Are you afraid?”
“I’ve seen death before. In the war. I’ve also known people who turned their heads away from terrible deeds to protect their own power, but it’s difficult to imagine how anyone could purposefully burn someone. No, I’m not afraid, but I’ve been reminded how savage and heartless humankind can be.”
At eleven-thirty, Gil and Reggie walked into Grand Circus Park and joined a group of men listening to a harmonica player. The young white man with long brown hair performed for a half hour, using a neck holder to play while he picked on an acoustic guitar. The crowd loved it, and a few people, probably tourists, put tips into the hat the man passed around. Reggie introduced Gil to a few of the regulars, and they moved to the outskirts of the park to pass around a joint.
Gil was in character, weaving an exaggerated story of how he had relieved Monty of drugs, which included the marijuana they were smoking. He was selling the joints for a buck each and pills at two dollars apiece. Detective Scott had advised him on street prices, and Gil knew he was undercutting the prices of L2D. According to Scott, that would ensure word traveling fast through the Corridor that inexpensive drugs were available from the dealer calling himself “Slick Gil.”
Gil led the way while walking to Cass Avenue, followed by Reggie, who was drinking heavily. The Avalon Bakery truck passed them on Woodward Avenue, and Gil recognized the driver as the manager who had hidden Betti a few days ago. Reggie asked to stop a couple of times, and Gil was getting antsy to get to the tent city.
“Maybe you should go a bit easy on the gin. I’ll still need you to be my eyes and ears when we get to the tent city.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll be okay. But if I don’t have this,” Reggie said, recapping the bottle, “I won’t be any good to you at all.”
“Charlie said you’d given up trying to stop drinking. She wasn’t gossiping. I asked her about you.”
“That’s right. But only because I’ve already given up so many other things.” Reggie lifted himself from the bench they’d rested on. “Let’s go, Mr. Acosta.”
Gil had momentarily forgotten the microphone taped to his chest, and decided not to push the conversation any further. They walked another eight blocks in silence. There was no rain in the forecast, but it was windy, and paper and other debris skipped along the empty streets like children on a playground. They could see the tent city’s barrel fires two blocks away, and as they moved closer, Gil counted at least three dozen people in the glow of the flames.
“When we get to the fire, should I just start talking?” Gil asked Reggie.
“No. No. Follow my lead. We’ll say our hellos, stand there for a while and listen. I’ll offer a drink to those standing near me. If anybody is passing a joint, you can light one and start sharing yours. The idea is to blend in. I’m sure someone will bring up Monty, and then I’ll steer t
he conversation your way. You never know who’s warming themselves around the fire, but there’s always somebody willing to squeal to Monty’s boys, the police, or both.”
The talk around the fire ranged from the upcoming NFL draft and the Chinese president’s visit to the White House, to Jay Z and Beyoncé. Finally, topics turned closer to home, and a mention of the murder of Monty Valenzuela.
“I didn’t even know that boy’s last name was Valenzuela until I read it in the papers,” one of the older men said.
“The newspapers don’t know shit. I heard he was stabbed eight or ten times. The papers didn’t even know that,” another said.
“Well, it don’t really matter if Monty is dead or not, with them drug boys still driving around in those expensive cars,” the older man said. “Business as usual.”
It was windy, and the flames licked at the cool air. Reggie opened a fresh bottle of gin and shared it generously. Gil did the same with the marijuana.
“You’re right about the drug dealers,” said a woman with a scarf wrapped around her head in a turban. She had two heavy laundry bags propped on either side of her legs. “They still act like they own the neighborhood, selling that shit to men, women, and children.” She took a generous pull from Reggie’s gin bottle.
“My friend here showed those youngsters a piece of street justice,” Reggie spoke up.
Heads turned to look at Reggie who had put his arm over Gil’s shoulders. Gil put on a smug smile for the audience and crossed his arms.
“What you mean, street justice?” the woman asked.
“Well, Slick Gil here had a run-in with two of Monty’s boys when they messed with one of his friends. He had to teach them a lesson.”
The people around the fire studied this new guy. He wore a baseball cap, and his face didn’t show much sign of hard times, but in the dancing light of the fire, this tall man with piercing eyes and confident demeanor seemed to be someone who could take care of himself.
“Hey, I think I’ve seen you around,” someone said from the second ring of the circle.
“Yeah, you might have,” Gil said. “I’ve been moving around.” He held his hands over the fire for a few seconds and then squared his body. “I mind my own business. But the other day, one of Monty’s young runners pulled a gun on me, and that was his mistake. I even took his inventory to teach him a lesson.” Gil reached inside his jacket, and briefly dangled a plastic bag of rolled joints and some pills.
A murmur sounded in the crowd, and a few more people moved up to the fire. Gil made a big show of removing one of the joints, refolding the bag and returning it to his pocket. He lit the joint, and handed it to the man next to him.
“It’s pretty good weed, and my prices are better than Monty’s.”
A few people sidled up to Gil to buy weed and pills, and he stepped away from the fire to negotiate purchases. Now people moved in and out of the fire circle. Some turned away to make their way to sleeping bags and tents while newcomers stepped closer to the barrels to share in the banter, drugs, and alcohol. The conversation about Monty’s murder picked up again, and someone mentioned the latest burning death. Then, across the fire, the older man asked Reggie about the whereabouts of his new buddy, the one they dubbed Eddie’s Replacement.
“He’s been staying in the shelter. I saw him yesterday,” Reggie lied nonchalantly.
“Anybody seen Betti lately?” someone asked.
There were variations of “no” murmured throughout the group, and Reggie took a step back to make himself less visible. He noticed two men, younger than most of the people in the circle, who stood on opposite sides of the fire. They wore knit caps pulled low on their heads and baggy jackets, and were lighting joints and passing them, listening attentively to the conversation. From Reggie’s vantage point, he saw the regular eye contact between them. A few positions away from Reggie, a girl with dirty blond hair and a puffy parka took a pull on a passing joint and handed it to the man next to her. Reggie heard her ask the man if anyone was selling reefer. One of the Hispanic guys also heard the question.
“Hey, where’d that guy go who’s selling the weed?” the man asked the inner circle.
Reggie watched as the two young men stiffened and put hands into their jackets. They looked around the circle, then shifted into the crowd behind them. Reggie made a beeline for Gil, who was handing a few pills to a thin, jumpy guy wearing only jeans, a tank top, and flip-flops. Reggie grabbed Gil’s arm.
“Come on. They’re here.”
“On the house,” Gil said to the slight man, who first stared wide-eyed, then spun and quickly walked away before Gil changed his mind.
Gil followed Reggie to a row of sleeping bags before stopping short and turning back toward the fire. “Where are they?”
Reggie strained to see, and it took a moment before he spotted the two young men moving around the perimeter of the circle together. They studied the faces of the group, and occasionally spoke to one of those in the circle, who shrugged. Finally, someone pointed to the spot where Reggie and Gil had been standing.
“There,” Reggie pointed. “Moving around the group together. See them?”
“Yeah. I see them. Go back to the fire, Reggie, and point them in my direction.”
# # #
Charlie sat in the backseat of a patrol car with two members of the gang squad. The plexiglass partition was open, and she could hear the car’s dispatch calls and closed-circuit transmission from Gil’s microphone. The Corridor was dry, dark, and windy tonight, and they’d been parked several doors away from the Avalon bakery for almost two hours. Don and Detective Scott were in a car on the opposite side of the Corridor, and a third unmarked car had been trailing Gil and Reggie since they left Grand Circus Park.
“Sounds like something is about to go down, Ms. Mack,” the driver said, twisting his body toward the backseat.
“Right,” Charlie responded.
“But we have to wait for Scott’s directive to move in.”
“Understood,” she said.
Just then Scott’s voice squawked through the closed-channel radio. “All units remain in place until we hear the distress word.” The driver provided the tap-tap on the radio designating the command had been heard, and a moment later came the tap-tap from the unmarked vehicle. Sounds coming from Gil’s body mic suggested he was moving quickly. Charlie had experience being wired and knew any kind of moisture, like perspiration, was not a friend to a body mic. Last year, when she had cooperated in an FBI operation on Belle Isle, the rain had all but made the sophisticated wireless radios inoperative.
Any surveillance was almost always unpleasant, but this kind of waiting, where a team member was in danger, was unbearable. Charlie tried to focus on Gil’s military training. He’d survived his share of assaults and ambushes. In those cases, he wore body armor and carried an assault weapon. Tonight, he was armed with only a revolver and his wits.
Charlie watched a delivery truck from Redford Gardens back into the alley next to the bakery. It was one-thirty, and the manager would be starting her morning baking preparations while a helper unloaded fresh fruits and vegetables. She texted Don, hoping he would know enough about his phone to recognize that he’d received a text and be able to respond. For a guy who understood the ins and outs of automobile and gun technology, he was a Luddite when it came to mobile phones. Within minutes, Charlie’s phone vibrated with Don’s response:
Yeah, I’m sick of waitin too.
Charlie typed, I know Gil can take care of himself, but he’s been reckless lately.
Don answered. Scott an his peple no what theyre doing can get to gil within minutes, he fumbled through this last text.
# # #
While Reggie returned to the circle, Gil kept his eyes on the L2D guys. He pulled his handgun, a Glock 26, from his sock and tucked it into his waistband. He watched the two sidle from person to person, asking each a question, eliciting shrugs and shaking heads. When they reached Reggie, he pointed out i
nto the darkness, and the men moved toward the sleeping area.
Gil crouched low in the grass and when the men were within twenty feet of him, he raised himself up noisily and dashed across the lot, crashing around tents and leaping over resting people. Shouts from those sleeping got the gang members’ attention, and they sprinted after him. He hoped to draw their gunfire, but so far neither of the guys had shot at him. When he reached the open part of the lot, he zigzagged, and at a fence along the side of a house vaulted over, bracing himself with one hand on the bar of the chain link.
He squatted, pausing to look behind him at the men, six feet apart, in pursuit. Their arms, held together in front of them, suggested they had weapons drawn. He needed at least one of the men to fire at him to signal Charlie and the others. Then Detective Scott would send out a radio alert, hopefully drawing Anderson into the action.
With the men getting closer, Gil picked up an empty paint can and threw it like a football to his right, then pressed himself between a shed and a tree on his left. The first man came over the fence in a thud and fell to his knees before quickly righting himself and moving in the direction of the sound. The second man, a few seconds behind, climbed over and down the chain link rather than jump it. When his feet touched the ground, Gil tackled him and with two thrusts of his elbows knocked the guy out cold, but not before he let out a shout. Then Gil scrambled back over the fence, heading toward the street. Now two shots rang out from behind him, and he dove into the grass, rolling. “Incoming,” he calmly said aloud.
“Your partner is one cool customer,” the driver said over the seat to Charlie.
“Marines special forces—he knows how to handle himself,” Charlie said, with false assurance.
Scott’s voice squawked over the car radio: “Shooting involving L2D gang members and a civilian, Gil Acosta, at Stimson tent city. All area gang unit patrol cars report.”
The patrol car in which Charlie was a passenger revved to life and, without lights or sirens, sped up West Willis toward Cass Avenue. The delivery truck driver looked up as the police car streaked by the bakery.
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