Citycide

by Gary Hardwick

  Danny asked for all of this and was surprised when Seba didn’t give him any resistance about it.

  “This murder victim, who is it if I may ask?” asked Seba. Nicki turned to look at his boss at the sound of word murder.

  “A girl,” said Danny. “She was young. That’s all I can say.”

  “A shame,” said Seba and he looked genuinely concerned.

  It occurred to Danny that Seba understood his company’s relation to local crime. The businessman probably read many accounts of death and destruction and wondered if his services had been used.

  An hour later, Danny left Ayar Mobile Tech with the letter, the flash drive and 248 pages of information.

  Danny got into his car and drove towards home. He would turn in this evidence but not before he went through it and made a copy for himself. Somewhere in what he had just obtained was the person who ended two lives.

  

  Danny poured through the evidence in his kitchen that night. Rashindah Watson’s last days were catalogued in calls and text messages. In the digital age, records like these were as good as memories, a printed history of the deceased’s last moments.

  AMT listed Rashindah’s number and the one she was calling or messaging to. It wasn’t long before Danny noticed patterns. Calls to her job and to what had to be friends. He noticed calls to a number that they had assigned to Quinten, her deceased friend. Even if a number was unlisted or blocked, AMT still showed the number in a column they listed as BUDC which stood for blocked, undisclosed caller

  But there was one number she called that was not listed or revealed in the BUDC, it did not have seven digits, only a code: gac-2837-cod. This rang no bells for Danny of any kind.

  In the second half of the documents, were the text messages. They were routine, except those Rashindah sent to gac-2837-cod. These messages made even Danny blush. Rashindah was obviously having an affair with whoever belonged to this coded number. In the exchanges, Rashindah was called AU or account user:

  au: when can i come bk to your crib?

  gac-2837-cod: no time soon 2 dangerous

  you know who been around a lot

  fucking up a nigga’s game lol

  au: i need to go shopping what u got on it?

  gac-2837-cod: nada you been getting

  enuf lately. smdh

  Au: even 4 lingerie shopping?

  gac-2837-cod: damn lol. What you need?

  Au: not much. the usual.

  gac-2837-cod: okay gimme a day

  and ill get it to u you betta come

  correct when I see your ass

  au: we’ll both be cumming and

  it will be correct lol.

  gac-2837-cod: ima hold u to that.

  “Damn,” said Danny out loud. He was sure his face was red and at the same time he had to admit he was a little excited.

  Rashindah was having a torrid affair with a married man. This was a motive for murder that was compelling. Maybe she pressed too hard or had tried to blackmail him and she had to be shut up. Now it made so much more sense. The violent death made it look like a robbery and then the supposedly unrelated fire was to clean up any loose ends. But if the killer or killers were still on the hunt for something, then Danny had the way he would catch them.

  He checked the clock. He’d been at it for hours but it had paid off. He couldn’t resist reading another highlighted exchange he found particularly juicy:

  au: we hookn up again?

  gac-2837-cod: fo sho

  au: cant wait to get that dick lol!

  gac-2837-cod: it be soon

  if u gimme what i asked 4.

  au: what? you ask 4 a lot

  gac-2837-cod: you know what, woman.

  au: sorry im a virgin back there

  exit only lmao

  gac-2837-cod: u know

  im gonna hook you up girl

  au: you crazy smh

  gac-2837-cod: fine ill

  get someone else to do it

  au: shit ask your wife!

  gac-2837-cod: u know we got issues

  on that kind of freaky.

  au: poor baby okay im yours.

  gac-2837-cod: thats what im talkin bout.

  Danny was modest when it came to this kind of thing. He and Vinny had sex very regularly. They even used to play “Bad Cop, Bad Cop” when they’d first started dating. But this kind of external display, away from the sweet privacy of the relationship made no sense to him. If you had to do this kind of shit to get turned on, then maybe you shouldn’t be together.

  The code for the lover had to be cracked, he thought. Danny was thinking that he had to go back to AMT when he heard Vinny enter.

  Dread crept into his belly. She would surely want to talk about the baby and he was not ready for that.

  “Hey,” said Vinny coming in and kicking off her shoes. She was in a skirt that Danny thought was a little short for work. “Went to court today,” she said and that explained the skirt. The firm liked their female attorneys to dress sexy for court.

  “You look nice,” Danny said.

  “Oh I know,” said Vinny. “A judge flirted with me.”

  “Do I need to have a talk with this man?” Danny smiled as she kissed him.

  “No. She doesn’t interest me,” said Vinny laughing.

  “I see,” said Danny. “Player for the other team.”

  “Big time,” said Vinny. “I caught her checking me out in the hallway, creepy but flattering. Whatcha got there?”

  Danny was relieved that there wasn’t going to be any mention of the “B” word tonight. So he told her everything and after Vinny read some of the sexting in the evidence, she gave him a curious look.

  “Damn, these two were really into some serious fucking,” said Vinny. “They’re doing it all. Any idea who the man is?”

  “No but I’m gonna find out as soon as I can get back to AMT,” said Danny. “I was so excited to find this evidence, I never thought to get him to explain anything.”

  “You been cleared in the shoot yet?” asked Vinny.

  “I’ll find out tomorrow,” said Danny “but I’m not worried about it.”

  “You know, that code rings a bell, GAC.”

  “Really, because I would love to talk to this man,” said Danny. “If he’s still alive,” he added.

  “Let me ask Doris.” Vinny whipped out her cell phone and dialed a number.

  Doris was Vinny’s boss at the firm and a full partner. Danny was so glad that her boss was a woman and not a man. He didn’t want to be up nights thinking that his woman was being ogled by some rich asshole.

  “Hey Doris... do you remember that case when we subpoenaed phone records and saw that code we couldn’t figure out... right the Yates case.” Vinny looked at Danny’s evidence then repeated the code into the phone. “Yes, I’m sure,” said Vinny. Suddenly, her brow furrowed and a look of worry entered her eyes. “Jesus.”

  “What?” asked Danny in a whisper. It was killing him not knowing what they were saying. Vinny quieted him with a hand.

  “Really?... Okay, thanks.” Vinny ended the call then turned to Danny with a look of shock on her face. “That code, gac-2837-cod is for government accounts. GAC stands for government account centrex. The suffix COD stands for City Of Detroit.”

  “That makes sense,” said Danny. “So it’s a city worker. That makes it easier. Tomorrow, I’m gonna call the department liaison, Kowalski. He can help me narrow down the list.”

  “Hold on to your ass,” said Vinny. “Doris is pretty sure the 2800 block belongs to the Mayor’s office.”

  Danny was silent for a second. It didn’t take long to process this information and relate it to the case.

  “The Mayor’s office, you sure?” he asked.

  “Doris is never wrong,” said Vinny. “She’s weird like that.”

  Danny felt his senses heighten. He looked over to Vinny and could see she was feeling the same thing, that old police instinct that something
was bad and you had the answer.

  The Mayor’s office had many well-heeled and powerful men in it, but only one that now occupied his thought, the Mayor himself.

  12

  LAMARIS & BOB

  Jangle could always tell when trouble was coming. He had this thing, this tingle in his belly, like a tiny, cold spike that ran from his navel to his breastbone. When it kicked in, his senses would fire up, filling him with awareness.

  He’d first felt the tingle when he was just a kid and his mother’s boyfriend would come home high, drunk or both and rained violence on the house. Jangle lived with his mother and sister and they dreaded the big man coming home intoxicated. Since those days, Jangle had always relied on the tingle to tell him when to run, fight or get the hell out of the way, a very useful thing in Detroit.

  Once when he was just a kid, he was in the Greektown mall and had sensed something wrong. He’d bailed just before a shoot out between some drug dealers and that old crew, The Nasty Girls, broke out.

  Jangle was sure trouble was coming these days and it was not because of the tingle but because people were dying. Rashindah was dead and no one knew who had done it. He couldn’t bring himself to go to her funeral and see her bloated and dead in a coffin.

  He also heard that Rakeif Simms was killed by a cop while torturing some fag. Rakeif was no one to mess with. He was a stone killer, just like the other two.

  Back in the late 90’s, three kids were orphaned and put into the system, Rakeif Simms, LaMaris Simms and Robert Mack Ali, whom everyone called Bob.

  Rakeif and Bob became fast friends in the male system. LaMaris, Rakeif’s cousin went into a girl’s home. She was female but she had never acted like one. Big and homely, LaMaris had never found girlishness of any use on the street where toughness and guts were the currency.

  After a few years in state foster homes, Rakeif and Bob ran away and made a living on the street, hustling in their early teens.

  LaMaris had joined them later when she heard about their escape. It was particularly easy for LaMaris to get away. She was at a minimum-security facility for troubled girls and had literally walked out of the front door.

  The three inevitably started selling drugs, but in truth, the dealer’s life didn’t pay very well and you were always in danger.

  Bob, the leader of the group, decided that there was more money in enforcing debts and so at fifteen; they put themselves out for hits.

  The three excelled at this. Most of the time, they delivered beat-downs and jackings on people who held out on payment. But occasionally, they’d have to turn someone’s lights out. When this happened, it was usually Rakeif who got the call. He actually enjoyed inflicting pain on others.

  Soon, the three kids had a nice profitable business. They terrorized neighborhoods and skirted the law. And after one particularly brutal summer, people were afraid to utter their names.

  The trio was perfectly balanced. Bob was the leader and brains, LaMaris the strategist and intuition and Rakeif, the enforcer.

  They sold drugs, dealt in stolen goods and even did a robbery or two but everyone on the street knew when you needed to make someone go away, you called the three.

  LaMaris and Rakeif had done time but not for long. But Bob had been caught on a federal weapons charge and did a year for it. When he got out, he shocked everyone by going into the military. He was discharged after training and a year of combat. Bob came back to the game an even more deadly assassin.

  And now one was dead.

  It was inevitable that one of them would die. Hell, Jangle hoped they would all get killed or carted off to jail. He disliked violence and resented those who tried to be big men using it.

  In the game, most people were small, weak and dependent. It didn’t take much to lord over them. Jangle could threaten and get what he wanted; rarely did he have to hurt anyone.

  When iDT came on the scene, he had contracted the three to enforce his will. The story was iDT had given each one a bundle of cash just as a retainer on services. And even though they had never met their employer, they had done his bidding without fail.

  Rakeif had looked like so many thugs on the street, tall, dark and menacing. LaMaris was thick and hulking and rarely smiled. He could not think of a more unattractive woman.

  But Bob had been a real surprise. He was a truly odd looking man. First, he was mixed and you couldn’t tell what race he was. His skin had just enough color to tell he was not white and his features were blandly neutral. His eyes were set wide and his nose was snubbed at the end. His head was large and he favored a shaved head. He looked sort of like the benevolent aliens you saw in sci-fi pictures.

  It was this same odd face that Jangle now saw coming to his house. LaMaris lumbered behind the taller Bob as they approached.

  Jangle had guards outside the house. Alarm leaped into him as he remembered that one of the guards was a new man to Detroit.

  Jangle hustled to the door to tell them to let Bob and LaMaris pass, but it was too late. Jangle saw the new guard step in front of Bob and put a hand on Bob’s chest, stopping his advance.

  “No!” Jangle yelled as Bob’s hands shot out and clamped down on the guard’s arm.

  Bob twisted the guard’s arm upwards and then snapped a kick to the guard’s left leg. Before the man could fall to his knees, Bob spun and kicked the guard in the head knocking him backwards on his ass. It had all happened in about three seconds.

  “Shit!” said Jangle. He moved to the fallen guard and grabbed him as he was reaching for his gun. “No, goddammit!”

  When Jangle glanced up, Bob stood calmly looking at him. LaMaris had whipped out a gun.

  “It’s cool,” said Jangle. “I got it.”

  Bob and LaMaris calmly walked inside the house. Jangle pulled up the fallen guard and yelled at him and the other man who had just stood and watched in fear. Jangle quickly told the new man who had just kicked his ass. Jangle then went inside the house where he found Bob and LaMaris waiting patiently.

  “That was my bad,” said Jangle. “He’s new, Bob. Sorry, man.”

  The menacing looking couple said nothing. Bob looked pissed but obviously he could handle himself. LaMaris still had the gun out. For a moment, Jangle was afraid. Maybe his number was up and they had come for him.

  “Rakeif dead,” said Bob in that thick, stagnant way so many inner city people did and leaving out the verb. “We want you to take his piece of the hustle in yo’ area.”

  Jangle knew Rakeif had a small selling operation, mostly weed and pills. He didn’t mind taking it but he sensed there was more.

  “Cool,” said Jangle relieved. “But seriously, you coulda texted me that.”

  “What’s yo problem, nigga?” said LaMaris as she put the gun away. Her voice was husky from years of smoking and it had a sexual quality that was undeniable. If you could not see her, that voice would conjure the most potent fantasies. But hearing that luscious voice come out of the fat, mean face with the snarl of a mouth was disturbing.

  Despite her homeliness, everyone knew LaMaris liked men but she’d always had difficulty getting them to lay with her. She was often hit on by lesbians and always reacted badly to it. It was sad, Jangle thought. A fat, ugly man could buy sex but a fat ugly woman had problems.

  Jangle knew this well because LaMaris had stepped to him once, asking to hook up. He was just starting out and she had offered to pay him for it. He laughed in her face and then it had gotten ugly. Thankfully, no one had gotten hurt but there was still animosity between them.

  Jangle held his ground after LaMaris’s insult. You could not show fear with these kinds of people. “You heard me,” he said. “He coulda texted the shit.”

  “Man just making a point,” said Bob. To Jangle, he said: “We want half of it for Rakeif’s babymama for two years, then it’s yours.”

  “She good people,” LaMaris added. “A woman got to be looked out for.” She looked at Jangle for a moment with what for her served as vulnerability
.

  This hustle split was not a choice, Jangle thought. If he refused, Bob and LaMaris would make things hot for him. Rakeif had a baby with a local girl, and Jangle agreed she was decent, so he said yes to the deal.

  “Cool,” said Bob. “Sorry about your man out there. But you should let him know what’s up.”

  “Shit, I love watching Bob go Jet Li on a muthafucka,” LaMaris said laughing.

  “What you know about this white cop that shot my man?” asked Bob casually. He betrayed only the slightest bit of sadness.

  “Danny Two Gun they used to call him back in the day,” said Jangle. So, this was the real reason for the visit, he thought.

  “They be calling him dead if I had my way,” said LaMaris, and Jangle heard pain in that sexy voice. He remembered Rakeif was her cousin.

  “He ain’t the one to mess with,” said Jangle. “He white but he from the ‘hood you know, and I heard he was deadly with them guns. Eyes in the back of his head and shit.”

  “The fuck is that supposed to mean?” asked LaMaris in the same aggressive tone.

  “It mean, he’ll shoot your ass dead like Rakeif if you come at him weak,” said Bob. “You know Rakeif was good and this dude got him.“