"Okay," Frank said. "We're done here." He handed a confused-looking Reynaldo the file and said, "Get this piece of shit out of my sight. I tried to be nice, I tried to offer help, but instead, all you're sitting there doing is lying to me. Go home, enjoy the rest of your last few miserable days, and at six o'clock in the morning me and a dozen of my best friends are going to dress up like ninjas and kick your fucking house to pieces to arrest you."
"Wait a second," Moses said.
"No, I'm done waiting. I gave you a chance, you said 'fuck you, Frank. I'm not telling you shit. I want to go to jail for forty years. I want to get ass-raped by black Muslims and white supremacists and Mexican Mafia motherfuckers who can't wait to get their hands on my stupid little cornbread whiteboy suburban ass!'"
"I didn't say that!" Moses cried.
Frank looked at Reynaldo with exasperation and threw up his hands dramatically, "You know what the sad thing is, Officer Francisco? If he said, 'Frank, please, I need help. What can I do to make this right? Please give me a chance.' I would have helped him. I've helped worse people get out of worse things. Instead, he treated me like an asshole."
"Frank?" Moses said. "Listen, I'm sorry. What kind of help are you talking about?"
"A lot," Frank said, looking at him from the corner of his eye. "For instance, if you gave him the bundle to sell but not to shoot up with, or had no idea he'd shoot up with it, I think that takes you out of the murder charge. It might still be a delivery charge at most, but there's ways to work around that."
"Can you do that?" Moses said.
Frank cocked his eyebrow and said, "Uh, yeah. We do it all the time. In fact, I'd be willing to write in my report that you came into the station voluntarily, right after you heard that your good friend Jessie Pincher who you used to play t-ball with died of an overdose, and told us that exact same thing. Judges and juries tend to believe people who are up front about what they did wrong, Moses. It makes it a lot more believable when they say what they didn't do."
Moses took a deep breath and lowered his head again.
Frank cocked an eye at Reynaldo, reminding him to keep his mouth shut. This was The Silence Frank always told him about. The crucial moment in any interrogation when you've laid out your cards for the suspect and he is taking it all in. If done right, his entire world is collapsing around him and he knows there is no escape. The tiniest interruption could be fatal.
Reynaldo zipped his fingers across his lips and sat motionless until Moses's head finally came up again and he said, "I had no fucking idea he was going to shoot that bundle. It was strictly a business transaction. Will you help me?"
"Ok," Frank nodded. He reached back into the case file and pulled out a yellow legal pad and a pen. He slid them across the table and said, "Write, in your own words, how it was a business transaction. I'm not telling you what to say, but you might want to be real clear how bad you feel that your friend died."
Moses took the pen and stared down at the yellow pad as Frank tapped Reynaldo and said, "We're gonna step out for a minute. You want some water? Coffee? Anything?"
"I could use a cigarette."
"You give me a good written statement talking about what we discussed and I'll get you a cigarette."
"Can I have one now?" Moses whined.
Frank's face hardened, "I said after. You hear me?"
"All right."
Reynaldo followed Frank out of the interrogation room and clapped his hands together, "I can't believe it! We got him. I’m gonna sink that little prick with a murder charge. You are the man!"
"It's not over yet," Frank said. He looked at Reynaldo and said, "Do you know what you did wrong in there?"
"Yes, boss," Reynaldo frowned. "Never be the one to break the silence."
"I don't care how long it takes," Frank said. "Once, I waited an entire weekend with a homicide suspect, just the two of us sitting there staring at each other. No bathroom breaks. No food. We didn't even blink. We just stared and stared, two men locked in mortal combat to see who would crack first. It was like two samurai swordsmen facing off, each of them so deadly with their skills that the other can't find a way to attack. After four days, he finally cried out, 'All right, I did it! It was me!' And that case was the reason I was invited to Washington to meet the President for the first time, Reynaldo."
"I thought you said it was a weekend?"
"It was," Frank said. "A weekend that lasted four days. That's how long weekends were before you were born, Reynaldo. That was back in the days when we needed four days to get all the fun things done that we had to do."
Reynaldo looked down through the one-way mirror as Moses set his pen down and folded his hands on the table. "I think he's ready."
He moved to push the door open, but Frank stopped him and said, "Hang on. What do we do now?"
"We make sure the statement describes the crime and that it's signed. Then we cut him loose and file charges."
Frank nodded and said, "Wrong."
"We arrest him? I thought you said we weren't doing that."
"We're not, but first we're gonna wring out the mop."
Reynaldo frowned, "I don't understand."
"You always, always give skells a real good squeeze before you let them go. You'd be amazed at what falls out of them."
"Sounds more like wring out the mope," Reynaldo said.
"The mope?" Frank looked at him for a moment, then smiled approvingly, "I like that. I'm using that one from now on." He pushed the door open and said, "All right, Mr. Moses. How we making out?"
"I'm done."
Frank spun the notepad around the table to read it.
Too Who It May Consern
I gave my good frend Jessy Pinsher (Not sure how to spell it) stuff to sell too make MONEY not use. If I had new he wood use it too get hi I wudnt have gave it too him. We new each other since we where kids end I fel terabil about it.
Senserely, Paul Moses
Frank nodded and said, "That's good. One thing though, by 'stuff,' you mean heroin, right?"
"Yeah," Moses said, taking the notepad back. He circled the word 'stuff' and wrote, HEROIN!!! above it. He slid the statement back to Frank and said, "Can I go now?"
"You can go anytime you want. I told you that. I think it's a bad idea though. See, we need to take this case in front of the DA's Office. They're the ones who make the charging decisions."
"Okay."
"I wish it was okay," Frank said. "Unfortunately, they can be hit or miss sometimes. Maybe they need an easy win, something to show the papers they are fighting a war on drugs. Nothing looks better in the newspaper than convicting some scumbag drug pusher who murdered an innocent victim."
"That's bullshit!" Moses cried. "You told me we'd be cool if I wrote that."
"And you are. With us, you're cool. If you weren't, I wouldn't be looking out for you, Moses. I'm just trying to eliminate the potential for any problems down the road."
"Jesus," he whimpered. "What else do you want from me? I'm not being a CI. I'm telling you that right now. I'm not testifying, I'm not setting anybody up, nothing. I buy from niggers down the city who will kill my whole fucking family, so forget it."
It was one too many n-words for Reynaldo and he let it show. Paul Moses looked at him with wide eyes and said, "Hey, no offense, man. Are you black?"
"Never mind," Reynaldo muttered. "Just keep going."
"I mean, you don't look black."
Frank snapped his fingers, "Hey, David Duke, pay attention. I'm trying to keep you out of prison, even though we all know which gang you'd be joining for protection now."
"I told you I'm not being a CI."
"Okay, so what else can you do?"
"What else is there?"
Frank shrugged, "I don't know, genius, or else I'd ask you about it. I've had people get major credit for helping us solve everything from armed robberies to burglaries to blackmail. For all I know, you could tell me where a body was buried and clear out a homicide."
Moses leaned
forward and said, "What would I get if I helped you clear a homicide?"
Frank's eyes narrowed, "Can you?"
"No," Moses said with a high-pitched laugh.
"Stop yanking my chain and think!" Frank shouted. "Out of all the people you know some of them have done something at some point that we'd be interested in. Tell me who and what, and I'll tell you if it's good enough."
Moses lifted his eyes toward the ceiling for a moment, then he said, "My neighbor has a pot plant in his living room. You could go over there and probably see it through his front window. He's a real asshole, always calling the cops about our dogs shitting on his lawn. You should bust him."
"You want me to trade up a heroin dealer for a guy with a pot plant?" Frank said. "How about, go fuck yourself."
"That's all I've got!" Moses said. He smacked the table in frustration, "You said telling you about Jessie was all I had to do. You guys suck, man. For real."
"All right," Frank said. He shrugged to Reynaldo and said, "I'll see what I can do with the DA's office. It's not your fault, but it's not my fault either. Just remember I tried. Officer Francisco, please see this young man out."
"Absolutely," Reynaldo said. "Come on, Moses."
Moses watched Reynaldo get up to lead him away and said, "What if I know a guy who deals in kiddie porn?"
Both Frank and Reynaldo stopped moving and immediately looked at Moses. Frank took a long, deep breath that he let out very slowly before he waved for Reynaldo to sit back down. "Start talking, son. From the very beginning, and don't leave out a single goddamn thing."
"All right, I don't exactly know him. He's this guy I heard about from a friend of mine who says it's real."
Frank rolled his eyes, "In other words, a total wild goose."
"I don't think so. My friend watched him pull up a list of files with seriously sick names. Evil Child Rape, Anal Kiddie Force, Satan's Lust, Oral Toddler."
"Enough," Frank said. "I get the picture."
"He was wigged out. It wasn't like he was telling me about it to brag or anything. He was sick to his stomach."
"What's your friend's name?" Reynaldo said.
Moses shook his head, "No way. I'm not dragging anybody else into this. I'll tell you everything I know about it, and you do what you can from there."
"That's not good enough," Reynaldo said.
"Then I guess I'm fucked because that's all I got."
"Hang on," Frank said, touching Reynaldo's arm to calm him down. "I want to hear the rest. What's this other guy's name, the one with the files?"
"Freddie. Freddie Phelps. He manages Burgorff's."
"That dumpy old clothing store?" Reynaldo said.
Frank rotated his finger sideways and said, "Keep talking. Ignore Officer Francisco's constant attempts to interrupt you."
"Right," Moses said. "So, my buddy was working there last year and right away, he picks up on this Phelps guy as some sort of oddball. Mid-forties, not married, kind of quiet but kind of creepy, right? At first, he thinks the guy's a faggot." Moses shot a concerned look at Reynaldo and stopped speaking.
"What?" Reynaldo said.
"Just making sure. You ain't look black either."
Frank barked with laughter and Reynaldo said, "Oh, very funny. Both of you go to hell."
"So my buddy's job is to clean up the bathrooms and the dressing rooms. Every day he's pulling used maxi pads out of the toilets when they get clogged and putting back all the clothes people try on and toss on the ground. I don't know if you ever been to Burgorff's but it's straight up ghetto, for real. And on top of all that, he starts to think this Phelps guy is following him around. Every time he's back in the dressing rooms he sees this dude lurking nearby, like he wants to take him in the back and sick his duck or some shit."
Frank tapped the notepad in front of Reynaldo and said, "Keep writing. That was 'sick' and 'duck.' I want notes on all this."
"Anyway, all of the dressing rooms are the same size, but the one on the end is covered in stickers and shit like, Spongebob, My Little Pony, Pokemon, that stuff, so of course, that's the one all the little kids like to go in, right?
"'This was my idea,' Phelps told my friend. 'It helps us compete with the bigger stores. I got the idea at a children's dentist's office.'
"Inside the dressing room, there's stuffed animals mounted in each corner. They're stacked on top of each other from the floor to the top of the dressing room dividers on all four corners. Dozens of these things, but cheap shit, like the kind you get out of a vending machine with a claw.
"So one day my buddy's in the back vacuuming and he hears this woman yelling at her daughter, 'Be careful! You broke that!' and he goes to investigate.
"He knocks on the dressing room door, 'Excuse me, is everything okay in there?'
"'Yes, but I think my daughter broke one of your stuffed animals.'
"'Oh, that's no big deal. We can just replace it.'
"'I think it's an expensive one. Do they make Tickle Me Elmo's this small?'
"The lady opens the door and she's holding this tiny, cheap-ass Elmo doll with some kind of electronic device hanging out of it. Neither one of them can figure out what it is, but then this Fred Phelps guy comes running through the store shouting, 'Don't touch that! Don't touch it!'
"He snatched the doll out of this lady's hand and starts screaming at her, 'What the hell are you doing? Why were you messing with them? They aren't there for you people to destroy, they're there so everyone can enjoy them!'
"'I'm sorry,' the lady says, 'It was an accident. We'll pay you for it.'
"And now the little kid's crying, and my buddy's all embarrassed, and Phelps tells her, 'Get out of my store right now. You are banned.'
"I know, right? He banned that bitch from muh fukkin' Burgorff's. That's like being told your kind isn't welcome at the Swap Meet.
"So the lady leaves, and Phelps tells my buddy, 'In my office. Now.'
"Like I said, Phelps is this skinny, kind of Queer dude, but he's filled up with some kind of geek-rage at this point, and my buddy is scared. He's thinking he did something wrong. He follows Phelps back into the manager's office and stands with his back against the wall as the guy slams his office door shut and locks it.
"Phelps takes this deep breath and says, 'I'm sorry you had to see that. I wish you hadn't, but since the cat's out of the bag, I'm going to have to bring you in on my little secret. I'm working with the FBI to take down an organized retail theft ring.'"
Frank let out an involuntary laugh. "No he didn't."
Moses held up his hand, "I swear to God, that's what I was told."
"Actually, it's not that much of a stretch," Frank said. "I've worked with the FBI before. This seems like something they might do."
"So Phelps says, 'We're trying to obtain evidence of a group of people who travel up and down the East Coast stealing children's clothing. I've been asked to try and film them in the act so that the FBI can prosecute. You are officially sworn to secrecy, because to reveal a federal investigation is an immediate lifetime sentence. Do you understand?'
"'Okay,' my buddy says. 'Do you need me to help? Is there anything I should be on the lookout for?'
"Phelps put his hand on his shoulder and says, 'You've done enough. I'll take it from here.' And that's what happened," Moses said.
"That's how what happened?" Frank said. "Where's the part about the file names?"
"Oh, right. So my buddy is curious about the camera and he says, 'Do you have to plug this thing into a computer?'
"And Phelps gets all offended. "Do you think the FBI would use anything less than the top of the line stuff? This sends a signal directly to my iPad.'
"'Sweet,' my buddy says.
"'It's uploading now,' Phelps says, and he shows him the iPad screen with a green bar or some shit where the file was downloading. 'All right, let's go back to work. Remember, don’t say anything.'
"And just as they go to leave, one of the cashiers knocks on the door and s
ays there's a problem with the schedule. She's this real loud chick and she starts chewing him out, saying, 'Mr. Phelps, you forgot to give me off next Tuesday and I told you I have to take my son to the doctor. You always do this shit to me, Mr. Phelps! I show up every fucking day on time unlike all the other people in this shit hole, and all you do is fuck me over!'
"Phelps stands there trying to get her to calm down, and while he's distracted, my buddy looks down at the iPad. The File finished downloading and the rest of the files popped up. All that sick baby rape shit. I guess Phelps realized what was going on, because he all of a sudden turned around real quick and grabbed it off the desk and told everybody to get out."
Reynaldo was scribbling words across the notepad, trying to keep up with Moses' story, and Frank leaned back against the wall, trying to collect his thoughts. When Reynaldo finally laid down his pencil and shook out his hand, Franks said, "I've got one question. How come your buddy never told anybody about any of this?"
Moses shrugged, "He told me."
"Yeah, but I meant somebody who could do something about it."
Moses looked back at him in confusion, "Because he couldn't."
"Why the hell not?"
"Didn't you hear me, yo? The FBI would put him in jail for revealing a federal investigation."
Chapter Four
"That was the single stupidest person I have ever met on this job," Reynaldo said.
"They get stupider."
"So what is the plan?"
Frank kicked his foot up on his desk and massaged his knee, wincing at the sharp pain that shot across his leg the moment he touched the jagged bones under his skin. It must be getting ready to rain, he thought. That's the only time it really hurts. He looked at the clock, "Well, it's almost three now, and I've got to get on the phone and let everybody know about this meeting tomorrow. How about we head over first thing in the morning and see if Mr. Phelps still works there?"
Reynaldo shook his head, "I don't think that's a good idea. We'll spook him."
Frank nodded gravely and said, "You're right. That would. And here, I thought our main goal was to alert the target well in advance of even getting started with the investigation, just to give him a fair shot at fighting back."
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