Law and Vengeance

by Mike Papantonio

  “Proceed to 4901 West Cermak Road. That’s in Cicero, Illinois. We will meet up with you there.”

  Diaz repeated the address as Bennie entered it into their own Expedition’s GPS.

  “The bastard is enjoying this,” said Diaz. “He’s got one arm out the window. It’s like the arm of one of those bodybuilders. And when he sees me looking at him through my rearview mirror he lifts his thumb and forefinger towards me like he is aiming a gun.”

  “Listen to me,” said Gina. “I want you to obey every traffic law. I want you to drive as slowly and carefully as your grandmother. Don’t give him any excuse to pull you over for anything, including talking on a cell phone while operating a vehicle. And if he does flash you, pretend you don’t see. We’re on the way!”

  Diaz dropped his phone on the seat next to him, but they could still hear him cursing.

  “So where are we going?” asked Bennie. He was flooring the accelerator, and they were weaving in and out of traffic.

  The GPS told them they were a little more than seven miles from their destination.

  “Since he’s got a dirty Chicago cop on his tail,” she said, “we don’t want to involve the CPD. Cicero has its own police department that’s autonomous from CPD. I’m betting little brother won’t look too fondly on big brother horning in on his territory.”

  “We’re going to the Cicero police station?”

  “You got a better idea?”

  Bennie had increased their speed to numbers Gina had never seen as a driver or a passenger. She found herself kicking at an imaginary brake on the floorboard and leaning into the turns as Bennie maneuvered the SUV through heavy traffic.

  It was Lutz who had sicced Thursby on Diaz. Technically, Thursby worked at the thirteenth precinct on the South Side of Chicago, but he was on “special assignment” to Lutz. It had proved to be a much more profitable duty than his police job. According to Lutz, Diaz was a threat to their gravy train.

  “I think the suspect will need to be ‘tased,’” Lutz told Thursby.

  “Understood,” Thursby had said.

  Thursby had two conductive electrical weapons (CEW). One of them had been issued by the department. The second, which was only brought out on occasions like this, had special modifications. When used, it was designed to deliver a shock that would induce heart failure. Thursby figured with the way he had been playing a little cat and mouse game with the victim, it was likely this Diaz guy was probably halfway to that heart attack already.

  “Where are you going, dead man driving?” mused Thursby.

  By this time, he had thought the presence of a CPD cruiser on his tail would have resulted in Diaz’s exiting from the Ike, but now his mouse was trying to move over to get on Interstate 290 going west. That wasn’t in keeping with Thursby’s plans. He didn’t want Diaz driving outside of Chicago’s city limits.

  Thursby lit him up, but didn’t turn on the siren. Instead of pulling over, Diaz picked up speed and got on the 290.

  “He’s got his light bars flashing,” said Diaz. “He’s pissed. He’s signaling for me to pull over.”

  “Keep driving,” said Gina. “In fact, get in the right lane and slow down to fifty. We’re trying to catch up with you.”

  “What’s in Cicero?” asked Diaz.

  “A cop shop,” she said. “It’s only a couple of blocks over from the 290. You know there are plenty of cameras at police stations. Don’t stop until you get there. When you pull into a space I want you to have your sleeves rolled up, with both yours arms out the window and your hands exposed.”

  “That’s the best plan you got?”

  “You’ll be safe if you do that.”

  Gina sounded absolutely certain of what she was saying and tried not to think about the video images she’d seen of Chicago cops shooting unarmed suspects.

  “And we’ll be there right after you. In fact, if you want I’ll call the Cicero station right now and tell them to be expecting you.”

  “No,” said Diaz. “Stay on the line with me. And if anything goes down, I want you recording it.”

  “I’ll do that,” Gina promised.

  “Shit!” screamed Diaz.

  “What?”

  “That asshole just bumped me again! My car almost spun out of the lane!”

  “How far are you from the Cicero exit?”

  “About half a mile.”

  “When you get off the freeway,” she said, “if you think your life is in danger, don’t stop for lights or stop signs. Just keep on driving until you get to the police station.”

  “I think the bastard is going to hit me again. He’s speeding . . . shit!”

  Over the phone they could hear the sound of a collision. “Rob? Are you okay? Talk to me!”

  “You need to sue this son of a bitch for assault!”

  “One case at a time. But for now you need to focus on what I’m telling you to do.”

  “I don’t want to die in Cicero,” said Diaz. “My father told me nothing good ever came out of Cicero. He said that Al Capone went to Cicero to try and escape the Chicago PD. And now I’m doing the same.”

  “You’re doing great, Rob.”

  “I’m scared shitless. Here comes the exit. Where are you?”

  “No more than a minute behind you.”

  “Don’t be late for the party.”

  As Bennie turned the Expedition into the parking lot of the Cicero Police Department, Gina said, “We’ll do it like we agreed. That means no heroics. He’s got a gun and you don’t.”

  There was no time for Bennie to argue, even though they hadn’t “agreed” to anything. Gina had told him to play the cameraman, though he would have preferred to skip the lights and camera and go directly to the action.

  They both jumped out of the Expedition. A very big man had his very large gun pointed at Robert Diaz. He was in a shooter’s stance. Diaz was yelling, “I am unarmed! I am unarmed!”

  “Officer!” yelled Gina. She was walking as fast as she could, even with the encumbrance of her cast. “My name is Gina Romano. I am Mr. Diaz’s attorney of record. He is the individual that you have your gun trained on. As you can hear, and as you can see, my client is unarmed. At this moment I am on the line with WCPT. They are broadcasting our conversation live. Is there anything you would like to say over the air?”

  Thursby holstered his .357 Magnum and got out of his shooter’s stance. He stood up to his full height and tried to stare down Gina, but the war of eyeballs didn’t work to his advantage. Under her unrelenting gaze, he looked away, but not before spitting on the ground.

  “Officer,” she said, “since you’re driving a Chicago police car, isn’t Cicero out of your jurisdiction?”

  Gina motioned for Bennie to film his police car. As Bennie followed her lead, the two men glared at one another. The tinderbox was ready to go off. Gina was hoping someone would emerge from the tiny police station at any moment, but soon realized instead that she might be on her own. “That’s my co-counsel filming our interaction, officer,” Gina said, trying to avert a fight. “We will be logging this in as evidence. Now, would you please answer my question regarding being out of your jurisdiction?”

  “The violations occurred in Chicago,” he said. “And despite my very visible attempts to pull the offender over, your client refused and forced me to follow him here.”

  “You’re in street clothes,” said Gina. “Where’s your uniform, officer? I’ll need your name and badge number.”

  Thursby didn’t answer.

  Gina continued: “Did you identify yourself as a police officer to my client? You see, Mr. Diaz and I agreed to meet at the Cicero Police Department to discuss any complaint you might have against him. Of course, I was shocked to see your gun drawn and pointed at him even though he was sitting in his car with his hands in clear view. My client did everything he could to show you he was unarmed and no threat.”

  “I observed your client driving erratically on the Ike,” he said. “It was ther
e I first tried to pull him over. I noticed him illegally talking on his cell phone while driving. His unlawful flight certainly gave me grounds to proceed as I did.”

  “Did you inform your dispatch that you were chasing a fugitive?”

  “I didn’t see the need. In fact, before you intervened, counselor, you will be happy to know I had already decided to let your client off with a verbal warning. Have a good one.”

  Thursby turned around, covered the ground to get to his cruiser, and got inside. Gina limped over to his window, Bennie right behind her. “You still haven’t identified yourself to me, officer.”

  He shook his head and placed a hand over his ear as if pantomiming he couldn’t hear. Then he backed out fast enough to lay tire on the ground, pausing only to call out, “Have a good day, Ms. Romano.”

  It was clear he remembered her name.

  20

  NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCE AND TRUE LOVE

  “Lady,” said Diaz, “you got some brass balls.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment,” said Gina.

  “That goon wanted to kill me. That goon would’ve killed me. I mean you see a cop’s flashers and you pull over, right? And that’s what I would have done. And something tells me if I had, I wouldn’t be alive now.”

  “And that’s why you need to come with us, Rob. Someone has targeted you. And if that someone can get the cops to go after you, then you’re not safe from anyone. You’re going to have to fly to Florida with us today.”

  He shook his head. “I can’t.”

  “You can and you will. I told you what happened to Angus. And now you had your own near-death experience.”

  “I’m in love,” he said.

  Bennie made an exasperated sound akin to a steam whistle and then said, “Do you want me to hit him over the head and carry him through the airport terminal?”

  “I am talking about true love,” said Diaz. “When ‘Officer Steroids’ had his cannon pointed at me, all I could think about was her. And I thought how unfair it was that I’d finally found love, and the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my days with, and how I was going to die.”

  “And what’s to stop you from having that same thought tomorrow when someone else shows up and puts a hit on you?” asked Bennie. “If you want to live, it’s time to get out of town with no delays. And that includes love.”

  Surprisingly, Gina was more sympathetic than Bennie. Diaz’s talk of what had gone through his head when he thought he was going to die had reminded her of what she had felt during her last ride with Angus. Like Diaz, she had been thinking that death had called at a time that was most unfair. She had thought of Bryan and how against all odds she might have a chance for happiness and love.

  “Do you think you can talk your lady friend into flying out of Chicago today?” Gina asked. “And you can’t sugarcoat what that will entail. She needs to know the two of you are going into hiding. That means for the next month or two neither one of you can be making calls, or sending out emails, or even going out in public. You’ll also be assigned a security detail. Someone from our firm will be staying close to you.”

  “Will we be in Florida?” Diaz asked.

  “Yes,” said Gina.

  “Can you set us up at a beach house?”

  Gina looked at Bennie. He shrugged his shoulders and then reluctantly nodded. “I guess for at least the first few days we can put them up at that beachside B&B where the firm sometimes stashes witnesses before a trial.”

  “Is Louis okay with staying there with them?”

  Louis was Bennie’s younger brother who also worked security for Bergman-Deketomis. “After I talk to him, he will be.”

  Diaz had been closely following every word of their conversation. “You can deliver all of that from your end?”

  “This isn’t a vacation, Rob,” said Gina. “The whole purpose of getting you out of town is to protect you from some very bad people.”

  “That might be,” he said, “but what my sweetie is going to hear is a trip to Florida and a stay at the ocean.”

  “Make the call and sell her,” said Bennie. “We need to get moving. Tell her she has to be packed and ready within the hour.”

  21

  A SOLDIER’S STORY

  As much as Cara Deketomis loved working for her father’s law firm, the life of an associate wasn’t easy. Bergman-Deketomis believed in a “sink or swim” philosophy for its associate lawyers, even if you were the daughter of one of the firm’s founders. There was no guidebook on how to proceed. She’d been sent to North Carolina on a “fact-finding” mission to talk to one particular soldier. No one had advised her as to how she was to accomplish this task. Everyone at the firm just expected her to get it done correctly.

  What Cara hadn’t expected was how immense Fort Bragg was. She’d had no clue that its boundaries consisted of two hundred-fifty square miles and extended into four separate North Carolina counties. It wasn’t only the size of the place that was daunting. There was somewhere in the neighborhood of forty thousand active duty personnel stationed there, and that number could go up to fifty thousand depending on what was happening around the world.

  Fact-finding, thought Cara? Fort Bragg, she now knew, was the largest military base in the world. Among those that called it home were Delta Force, the 3rd Special Forces Group, the Joint Special Forces Command, the Joint Special Operations Command, and the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School.

  And she was expected to find and talk to one soldier. She might as well try to find a needle in a haystack while she was at it.

  Gina had tried making calls, but Fort Bragg seemed to be set up to rebuff inquiries like hers. She wasn’t family of the soldier, nor was she on army business. Because what information she had on Cary Jones was scant, it was hard to bluff her way through. She tried going through the switchboard, but that got her nowhere. After that she tried to find a way past the gatekeepers by attempting to work through visitor information, newcomer services, the soldier support center, on-post housing, and the reception company services.

  The bureaucracy was overwhelming and it also kept Cara out. She needed to find a way to outflank that wall of paperwork and regulations.

  Cara did an internet search of restaurants, looking for a microbrewery-type restaurant in Fayetteville. Good beer and good burgers, Cara reasoned, were sure draws for soldiers. Her search area excluded Bragg Boulevard. In her short time in Fayetteville, Cara had discovered that hookers worked that street 24/7. The Hooah House on Sycamore Dairy Road though looked promising for her purposes.

  Cara had brought business attire for the trip, but now she tried to make it look more casual. She didn’t want to appear older and more mature than her twenty-four years. She wore her blond hair down and shucked her jacket. The minimal makeup she’d been wearing was now enhanced, particularly around her eyes. When she set out for the Hooah House, Cara looked every inch the attractive young woman that she was.

  The brewery/restaurant wasn’t exactly a sports bar, but it was a place that catered to males and the military. Team USA was its target market. There was a bar section as well as a restaurant section. Cara chose to sit in the bar section. There was a good late afternoon crowd, but Cara was able to get a table of her own. The big screen televisions were tuned into different sporting events, mostly baseball and basketball. That didn’t stop most of the viewers from taking notice of Cara sitting alone.

  The beer list was daunting, and Cara was nowhere near finishing reading the menu when a petite brunette server with a pony tail and a name tag identifying her as Britt came up to her.

  “Y’all want something to drink?” Britt asked with a thick southern accent and a smile.

  Unlike most Floridians, Cara had a bit of a southern accent herself because of having been born and raised in the Panhandle, but it wasn’t anywhere close to Britt’s.

  “I was trying to figure out what beer to order,” Cara said, “but I’m afraid it would take me all day to read your
beer list.”

  “What kind of beer do you usually drink?” asked the server.

  “I like lighter beers.”

  “Then I’d recommend our ‘Blonde Bomber,’” she said. “We brew it on the premises.”

  “Sounds good to me,” said Cara.

  When the beer arrived, Cara took a long swallow. It was good, and besides, she needed the liquid courage. When she’d come up with her plan, it had seemed reasonable to her. But now that she was acting out her plan, it seemed stupid. There was probably some easy way for her to contact Cary Jones that didn’t involve wishful thinking and a cock and bull story. She took another swallow of her beer.

  I am not going to cry in my beer, she thought.

  “You picked a beer that matches your hair, ma’am,” a voice said.

  A soldier in camos was standing next to her table.

  Cara looked up at the soldier and smiled, and then looked back at her beer. “You’re right,” she said. “I just hope my beer doesn’t have split ends.”

  She and the soldier shared a laugh.

  “Are you waiting for anyone, ma’am?” he asked.

  “No, I’m not,” said Cara. “Would you like to join me?”

  “I certainly would, ma’am.”

  “Please don’t call me ma’am,” she said. “It makes me feel old. My name is Cara.”

  “I’m Jesse,” he said.

  Suddenly, Jesse wasn’t alone. Two other men in camos had come up behind him. “And I’m Bobby,” said one of them. “Darrel,” said the other.

  “Well Jesse, Bobby, and Darrel,” said Cara, “I’d be pleased if all of you would join me.”

  The soldiers didn’t need to be asked twice.

  Playing the “damsel in distress” might not have been the most professional way of getting word to Cary Jones, but the three soldiers helped her navigate through military obstacles that would have left most civilians in the lurch.

  Cara told the soldiers that she was a “friend of a friend” of someone who knew Cary from Gaffney and had been entrusted to pass on a message to him. Of course, she had lost his email address and had hoped (“silly me”) to be able to enter Fort Bragg where she could ask around for him. That plan, she admitted, had been stopped at the entrance gate, where she’d been turned around along with her vehicle.