by John Etzil
“Both.”
“You can make it up to me later. Get any info on Catherine?”
“It appears that she departed for New Jersey.”
Debbie grimaced and did an exaggerated full-body shiver. “Jersey? What the heck? Why would she go there?” She pointed an imaginary gun at her temple and finger-clicked a round off. “Just kill me now.”
“Be nice, now. It’s not so bad.” I thought of Cheryl and Princeton, where I’d first met her at that Italian eatery. I flashed back to her condo, where we’d had that great dinner on one of our first dates, and smiled.
Debbie caught on and frowned. “Sorry, Jack, I wasn’t thinking. It just came out…” She touched my left arm, the one without Ernesto’s drying blood caked all over it.
“That’s okay, baby.”
“So now what? What should we do with these guys?” She nodded to the heartless one and his headless compadre. “We shouldn’t just leave them here. Some innocent person might stumble across them and be scarred for life.”
“I noticed a few empty fifty-gallon drums when I was walking through the warehouse. Want to just drum them up and roll them in the Hudson?”
“Let’s do it. You get the drums, I’ll pick up the pieces. I know how much you dislike that…”
“Yeah, thanks.” I jogged over to get the fifty-gallon metal containers. When I returned with the first one, we picked up the heartless one and folded him into the barrel. At one point in the lifting process, I feared that he might come apart, leaving Debbie and me looking at each other, each holding a half. But the bands of skin holding the two halves together held, and I felt relief as I compressed his upper half on top of his legs in the barrel.
I attached the top of the drum by bending over the tabs, but left them loose so that the barrel would fill up with water and sink. Last thing I wanted was for this thing to float down the Hudson River and bump up against someone’s party boat.
I retrieved the second barrel, and we dumped the headless one into it, ahem, headfirst. Once I had the top loosely fastened, we rolled them out the back door, down the handicap ramp, and into the Hudson River. They floated for a while and then disappeared.
We headed back to the warehouse. “What about Roberto?” Debbie asked. “Think he has any more info on Catherine?”
“He’s got to. Hopefully we can wake him. I’ll shoot him up with the truth serum if we have to.”
Debbie grimaced. “Oh God, is he going to nonstop profess his love for Catherine and her gigantic tits too? I don’t know if I can handle any more of that. Men are so freaking weak… except you, of course. Dear.” She elbowed me in the side, a love tap if there ever was one.
When we got back inside the warehouse and walked to the front, a police car pulled up and two officers got out. They entered through the side entrance with their guns drawn.
Debbie darted to her left, and I to my right, to hide behind some shelving. In my haste to get behind cover, I tripped over some garbage and crashed into a stack of plastic pallets, knocking them over. They crashed down and made enough noise to wake the dead. I whacked my head pretty good, and must have been out of it for a minute or two.
When I looked up, I saw the two cops standing over me, their guns pointed at my face.
16
Cosmo reached over and placed his hand on Catherine’s thigh. “So how’d my lady do up in Newburgh?”
“Eh, it was okay. Roberto and Jorge run a pretty tight ship. Do I think they’re skimming some cash off the top? Probably, but if they are, it’s not much, and they kept me well fed and supplied me with good shit.”
“How was the sex?” He inched his hand higher up her thigh. She wasn’t really in the mood, but she spread her legs a little wider to allow easy access. Cosmo liked to be in control, and as long as she let him have his way, he took good care of her.
“Good. I kept them happy, just like you told me.”
“That’s why you’re my number one girl. You know that, right?”
“Of course I do.”
She felt Cosmo’s fingers touch her, and she closed her eyes and sighed. She was still wet from her last time with Roberto, and Cosmo inserted a meaty finger and noticed right away. “Wow, you’re ready for action, aren’t you?”
She opened her eyes and smiled at him. “I’m always ready for you, Cosmo.” She undid his pants, reached in with two hands, and tugged him out. She swung a leg over and straddled him. In one smooth motion she slid all the way down on him, a deep groan of pleasure spilling from her lips. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him.
She rode him hard as the big Cadillac SUV did ninety down the New Jersey Turnpike, her ponytail brushing against the roof of the vehicle with each thrust. When she felt him tense up, she climbed off and took him in her mouth. She swallowed every drop, devouring him like a gourmet meal. Cosmo liked that.
She waited a few minutes, gently put him back, and zipped him up. He opened his eyes, took out a joint and gave it to her. She lit up, and after the first few tokes, the pain went away.
Life was good.
17
“Freeze, motherfucker! Don’t move!” the male cop screamed so loud my ears hurt. He looked like he was wired on too much Red Bull. I tried to lighten the mood with some levity.
“Easy, son, you’ll have a stroke,” I said.
He didn’t seem to appreciate my humor. He screamed even louder this time: “Put your fuckin hands in the air!”
“Hold on now, son. Do I freeze or put my hands in the air? Which one is it?”
Debbie finally arrived. Thank God I wouldn’t have to deal with this clown anymore. Nothing worse than someone who doesn’t appreciate a sense of humor.
She called out to them. “Hey!”
They turned and she fired twice. I could tell by the way they folded in half and flew backwards that she nailed them both in the solar plexus, and I knew by the sound of bullets hitting Kevlar that they both had their vests on. I still felt bad for them. Getting shot, vest or not, hurt like hell.
When the male cop got hit, he squeezed off a round into the concrete by his feet, and I got peppered in the face with flying chunks of cement. I knew enough to close my eyes when Debbie called to them, so at least my sight was saved.
My hearing didn’t fare as well. The non-silenced gunshot inside the cavernous building rattled my eardrums so hard that I couldn’t hear anything aside from a loud ringing noise. I saw Debbie come over and pick up their guns. She said something, but I didn’t hear anything, which was scary.
The two cops rolled around on the floor, holding their stomachs, agony all over their faces. Debbie’s perfectly placed shots had succeeded in rendering them harmless, without hurting them permanently. I’d been kicked in the solar plexus in a Tae Kwon Do tournament once, and man, did that hurt. My whole body had shut down and I couldn’t breathe for five seconds, enough time for my adversary to pummel me and have the ref step in to stop it. I couldn’t imagine how much a bullet, vest or not, must have hurt.
We sat them up and used their own handcuffs to secure their hands behind their backs. When they started to come to, I explained the situation to them.
“We’re special agents with the FBI, working undercover,” I lied. “You stumbled into something way over your pay grade.”
The male spoke first. “I don’t believe you. Why would you shoot us? Where’s your ID?”
The female added: “You could have killed us.”
I didn’t have any time or patience for this, so I took their IDs and went out to my truck. I opened my iPad, logged in to TOR, and researched them on HFS.
In ten minutes I had enough info on them, so I went back into the warehouse.
I started with the man. “Here’s the deal, Juan Pablo Escobar,” I said, using his video game screen name. “Your wife isn’t cheating on you, yet. But you better start paying attention to her, or she will. And you don’t have to worry about that fellow Chuck that she works with. He’s gay. Your daughter missed
her period, which is why she’s been so cranky the last few weeks. Your son has been watching porn on RedTube. His favorite categories are threesomes with MILFs, and amateur pegging, but I’d guess that’s just a phase he’s going through.
“Your wife’s favorite category is just straight one-on-one fucking, a little on the rough side. Smack her ass once in a while. She loves when you do that from behind, but she’s reluctant to admit it because she feels that you don’t respect her wants, which is why she’s, ahem, let’s just say on the verge of an anonymous Tinder account.
“Your promotion didn’t come through because your sergeant has it in for you, ever since you made that comment about ‘fat chicks need loving too’ while you Michael Jackson’ed your crotch seven weeks ago. His daughter is overweight.”
His mouth opened so far I could see his tonsils.
His female partner just looked at him, as if trying to figure out if anything I said was true. His silence proved it was.
“And you, ma’am. Your son Pedro’s a great kid. He’s just going through some tough teen years, no father figure and all. I know he’s all you have, but you’ve got to let him go to Dartmouth. No more of that ‘oh, it’s so far away’ crap. Their engineering program is a perfect fit for him, and he really wants that. He needs that. He hasn’t told you that yet, but mark my words, he has his heart set on that scholarship. And his friend Andrew, the one who’s so polite and prim and proper? The one you really like? He’s a pot head. He deals on the side—not big amounts, but he’s a borderline felon if he gets caught. You don’t want Pedro hanging out with him anymore. And that guy you’ve been chatting with online—what’s his screen name again? ‘Great to be with me 69’ or something like that? He’s been married three times before he turned forty. He’s not a good fit for you. I know he’s a great talker and all, but he’s cheated in every relationship that he’s ever had. Ever. And he doesn’t even have an IRA.”
The two cops sat there, stunned. They looked at me, then at each other, then back to me. The silence was deafening, so I continued.
“So here’s how this plays out. Roberto over there is a big-time drug dealer. You guys caught him in the act of dealing, and a shoot-out ensued. The others got away, but you recovered heroin, weapons, and cash. Capiche?”
The two of them looked at each other again. I opened the backpack and tossed a few bags of heroin at them. Then some stacks of twenties. Then a few more.
I kept tossing heroin and cash at them until I saw their eyes light up, and I knew I had them. Never mind this “you had me at hello” stuff. I had them at multiple pounds of heroin, tens of thousands in cash, and certain promotions, along with cushy job assignments in the Newburgh Police Department.
I told them how Roberto had killed two men tonight and stuffed them in fifty-gallon drums and tossed them in the Hudson. I let on that Roberto also killed Jorge. By the end of their shift, they had arrested a one-handed drug dealer who’d killed three people in cold blood, and recovered millions of dollars in heroin and tens of thousands in cash. #Heroes
Debbie and I showed the two cops the handcuff keys that we’d left by the back warehouse door. All they had to do was make it to the back door, grab the keys, and unlock each other’s cuffs, and they were home free. And we’d be long gone.
I heard their chairs sliding across the concrete as we left.
18
By the time we got back to our apartment, it was daylight, but I wasn’t worried about being spotted anymore. We knew our stay at Newburgh was over. I did a quick change of clothes, and without a word between us, we tossed all of our bags into the bed of the Toyota. We decided to keep the pit bull puppy, who I named Buddy, and after letting the two dogs in the backyard to take care of business, we put them in the extended cab. They sniffed around in tight circles and collapsed next to each other. They looked exhausted. Must have been a tiring night for them, all that roughhousing and all.
Once we were safely out of Dodge and on the New York State Thruway, Debbie started the conversation: “So, what else did you learn?”
“Catherine is living with a fellow named Cosmo in Camden. She was up here visiting, but we just missed her.”
“How bad is it?”
“Very. She’s an addict and a kept woman who does sexual acts for drugs.”
“Oh God, that’s awful.” She hung her head in her hands.
“Yeah, but we can save her. We will save her.”
“What if she doesn’t want to be saved? I’ve reached out to her a few times, but she never answered.”
“That was a while ago, right? Maybe she wasn’t ready then. Maybe she is now. Either way, we can’t not do this. No matter what, whether she wants us to or not, we are going to get her and bring her home.”
Debbie reached over and traced her fingers over the back of my hand, then rested them on top of mine. “When I first met you, I knew you were something special.”
I didn’t say anything. I looked at her and smiled, bathing in the rare compliment she had given me.
We rolled into Eminence around noon, and even though we were starved, we decided to shower the Newburgh grime and nut-squeezer’s blood off us before we ate lunch. I hadn’t had a good meal in a while and was looking forward to it.
I let the dogs out into the backyard, and Buddy was in his glory with all the fresh new scents to tackle. The rabbits threw him for a loop though. He saw them, they froze, he approached them tentatively, with his nostrils twitching like mad, and when he came too close for comfort, they hopped away and disappeared under the shed. He followed them and sniffed around a little, then came steamrolling back to play with Saber.
Debbie and I watched them from the dining room table while we ate some lunch.
“We should give him a real name,” She said. “You can’t just keep calling him Buddy.”
“I think the name fits. He’s like Saber’s best bud.”
“You lack imagination.”
“He followed me home, so I name him. Buddy it is.”
We took a nap, and then it was time to get to work on this Cosmo fellow. Debbie ran some errands while I used TOR and HSF to find out all I could about him.
Holy crap, was it ugly.
His base of operations was in Camden, and he controlled all of Camden’s north end, from I-676 and Route 30 on up to the Delaware River. While Newburgh certainly had its share of problems, Camden was in a league of its own. At one point last year, they were so broke they’d laid off fifty percent of their police force. The unemployment rate was almost twenty percent, and most of the jobs that were in Camden were low-paying. It always ranked near the top of the United States in murders, rapes, and other violent crimes. It was unbelievable that we had cities like this in such a great country.
Cosmo’s biggest-earning heroin house, bringing in about $30K a week, was on Bailey Street, a one-way street so decrepit that almost every house was either abandoned or boarded up. He stationed a few men on the corner to steer addicts his way, and to warn of any cops that weren’t on his payroll, of which there were few.
As good as Camden was to him and his cash hoard, he chose to live in Chairsville, a nearby suburb to the east, on a couple of acres of land with a well-manicured lawn. His two favorite nonsexual passions were hoarding cash and playing golf, both of which played a prominent role in his backyard. One buried underneath it, the other spread across it like a mini PGA course.
His entire kingdom was protected by an eight-foot-high black wrought-iron fence. His security was topped off by a driveway gate operated from either a keypad on one of the stone pillars that supported it, or from inside the house. It was an old standalone system, and since it wasn’t connected to the outside world, there was no way to hack into it.
The entire property had high-tech security cameras that covered every inch of it. It was impossible to gain access to his house without being picked up by the security cameras, unless you hacked into the system. So I did.
Once inside, I got a feel for the
house, a five-bedroom colonial with a full finished basement. He had the latest in electronics and furnishings, some over-the-top design pieces, and a room full of mounted animal heads with an occasional armless statue thrown in for poor taste.
After a few hours of studying the layout, I had everything figured out. Except the front gate. How was I going to rescue Catherine if I couldn’t hack the front gate? Then it came to me…
19
After a great home-cooked dinner, Debbie sat on the couch next to me and took a sip of her wine. “So let’s go over our plan.”
I swirled my bourbon around the ice in my glass. “We head out tomorrow. Why don’t we Barry White and chill tonight, and we can go over the plan in the morning?” Barry White was code for that whole Netflix and chill thing, which we took to a level that those Netflix aficionados could only dream about.
“No dice. I’ll be thinking about it all night, and I won’t be able to enjoy myself. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”
I thought about it for a second, knowing full well that I once I got started pleasuring her, I could take her mind off a nuclear explosion in our backyard, but decided against pushing it. “Okay, fine. Here’s the plan. I fly down to New Jersey in my Cessna. I’ll rent a van for you before I leave. You drive the van down and meet me at the airport.
“With the HFS intel, it was easy to hack into Cosmo’s smart home, so I can program the AC unit to turn off and the heat to go on. They have a service contract with Axis Heating & Cooling, and after they fiddle with the thermostats and have no luck stopping the hot air, they’ll call and schedule an emergency service call. I’ve tapped into the house phone, and after the AC starts blowing hot air, I’ll redirect the house phone calls to a burner phone.”
I stood up and retrieved an old-style flip phone from my go bag. “You’ll answer on this and set up a service call. In the meantime, we’ll break into the Axis parking lot and steal one of their vans. They have quite a few, and it’ll be over the weekend, so no one will notice the missing van.”