Burke's War: Bob Burke Action Thriller 1 (Bob Burke Action Thrillers)

by William F. Brown

  After the two police cruisers left, Tony Scalese stepped over to Linda Sylvester’s car. She started the engine, with every intention of driving away as fast as she could. “No, no, honey,” he told her as he bent down, reached inside, and pulled the keys from the ignition. “You and me got some talkin’ to do, before you go drivin’ away.”

  “Let me go,” she told him as she tried to get the keys away from him, but she would have an easier time if they were stuck in a vice.

  “Cool your jets, little girl. I ain’t like the Doc,” he told her as he motioned toward Greenway standing in the building doorway. “I don’t go where I ain’t wanted, but we both know what he’s like, don’t we?” She looked up at him and then at Greenway and nodded, terrified. “So, if you don’t want an extended stay on his couch some afternoon, you keep your big mouth shut. Stay away from the cops, stay away from the FBI, and stay away from that little prick Burke. He’s gonna end up in more trouble than he knows what to do with, and you don’t want to go down with him. You got that, honey?”

  Linda Sylvester looked up into his dark, dead eyes and quickly nodded, terrified.

  “Not good enough, Linda. I wanna hear you say it. I wanna hear you say, ‘No, Tony, I don’t want no problems like that.’ ”

  “No, no, Tony, I,” she managed to whisper. “I don’t want no problems like that.”

  “Much better,” he said as he dropped her keys in her lap. “I think we’re finally makin’ some progress. Now you get on home before the Doc comes over and decides to undo all the good work we’ve been doin’ here.”

  Linda Sylvester didn’t need to hear anything else. She was already spooked when she saw Greenway standing in the doorway, grinning at her. She jammed the key in the ignition, started her car, and drove it over the landscaped median and out of the parking lot as fast as it would go.

  Scalese watched her drive away, and then turned and walked back to the rear door of the office building, where Greenway stood watching him.

  “You let her go?” the Doctor asked. “I would have liked to talk to her.”

  “Yeah, I bet you would,” Scalese chuckled. “But you’ve done enough of that crap lately. It’s time you keep it in your pants for a while.”

  “Who are you to tell me what to do?” Greenway huffed indignantly.

  “Ain’t me,” Scalese took a deep breath and straightened up to his full height, where he could intimidate even a taller man like Lawrence Greenway. “What I’m tellin’ you is what Mr. D told me to tell you, personally, you got that?” Scalese poked him hard in the center of his chest with his index finger.

  Greenway backed up a step and blinked, knowing he was way out of his league and way out of his weight class tonight. “Okay, okay, I get your point.”

  “Good, I hope so, because we don’t want no more ‘misunderstandings.’ Pretty soon they get real messy, if you know what I mean.”

  “No, there won’t be any misunderstandings, but what are we going to do about that troublemaker Burke? He saw me up on the roof last night. I know he talked to Travers, and now he’s pressuring that damned receptionist. He’s becoming a major pain in the ass. We need to shut him up, permanently!”

  Scalese looked at him and smirked. “Permanently? You mean, like the way you got rid of that Purdue woman?”

  “Yes! Before he brings us all down.”

  “The answer is no! I already talked the situation over with Mr. D. Things are too hot right now, and you need to learn to cool your jets, Doc. With that Grand Jury convening, Mr. D says, ‘No more waves.’ ”

  “No more waves? He saw me kill her, you dolt!”

  Scalese stepped closer, well inside Greenway’s space, and poked him in the chest again, much harder this time. “Dolt? You piece ’a shit! You callin’ me a dolt?” he asked as he grabbed the doctor by the lapels on his expensive suit and turned him toward his beautiful blue glass office building. “Sounds to me like you’re lettin’ all this go to your head, Larry. If you’re not careful, it can go away as fast as it came, and suck you right down the rabbit hole with it.”

  Greenway looked into Scalese’s threatening, dark eyes, and felt his blood run cold. “Sure, Tony. Sure. I understand, I understand.”

  “Good. I talked to Bentley. He can get Burke locked up for thirty days easy, maybe more. Once he gets him inside that cracker box jail of his, him and that moron deputy can use some ‘police magic’ to make Mr. Burke go away for keeps. No muss, no fuss, only a little ‘shot while attempting to escape.’ All nice and legal, but it’s gonna cost you twenty ‘large’ for me to get Bentley to fix all that, Doc. You understand me?”

  “Twenty, sure, sure, Tony. Whatever it takes. I understand.”

  “See that you do. It’s your last warning.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Chief Bentley personally walked Bob Burke up the front stairs and through the glass doors of the small but new Indian Hills Police Station. With a firm hand on Bob’s elbow, he steered him through the lobby, past the Duty Sergeant’s tall, imposing front desk, and into the rear service hallway, trailed all the while by the ever-eager Bobby Joe Leonard, his hand riding on his pistol butt like Wyatt Earp entering the O. K. Corral.

  "Book him on 'Drunk and Disorderly,' Patrolman."

  "I'm neither drunk nor disorderly," Burke countered.

  "You are if I say you are, boy. Pretty soon, you'll learn that. And add 'Trespassin' and Resisting Arrest.' I'll think of a few more by mornin,' but that'll do for now."

  When they reached the booking table, the Chief motioned for Bobby Joe to fingerprint Burke, which caused the fat patrolman to frown. With his hands still cuffed behind his back, Bob glanced at the equipment on the table. It was too clean and neatly arranged to have been used very often, if ever. That became obvious as he watched Bobby Joe pick up what appeared to be a fresh tube of “old-school” black ink and try to read the instructions. There were no digital fingerprinting pads or water-based ink in this jail like the Air Force used; no Sir, not while 4-Star Police Chief Cyrus T. Bentley was on the job. Unfortunately, that didn’t help Bobby Joe much. First, his thick fingers couldn’t uncap the tube. Then, when he did get it open, a thick gout of black ink squished out and got all over him. He wiped what he could on the glass inking plate and tried to wipe the rest off with a handful of paper towels, but that only spread the ink even further. He ended up with the black glop all over both hands and on the front of his shirt for his trouble. Finally, he grabbed the rubber roller and vigorously worked the ink back and forth on the glass plate to try to spread it out as best he could, grabbed a standard fingerprint ID card from the shelf above the table, and secured it in the cardholder getting his own fingerprints plus the excess ink smeared all over it.

  Frustrated, Bobby Joe finally turned and faced Burke, frowning again, as if he knew there was something else he was supposed to do, but couldn’t remember. “Well?” he asked.

  “Well, what?” Bob answered.

  “Well, gimme yer goddamned hand!”

  “Can’t.” he shrugged.

  “Wudjumean you cain’t?” Bobby Joe pleaded, uncertain whether to cry or to shoot him.

  Bob looked at him, leaned forward, and politely whispered, “You gotta take the handcuffs off first.”

  This got Bobby Joe even more flustered. He jerked Burke around sideways and began flipping through his fat key ring looking for the odd-shaped little one for the handcuffs. Burke said nothing. He didn’t have to. He looked at Bentley, and rolled his eyes. That was all it took.

  Bentley, already embarrassed, snapped. “Jeezus Christ, Bobby Joe! I coulda fingerprinted the whole goddamned Purple Gang by now!”

  That only made Bobby Joe angrier. He grabbed Burke’s right hand, slapped it down on the inked glass, and slapped it on the fingerprint card, pressing hard, and aiming more for speed than artistry. Bob picked up a handful of paper towels and tried to wipe off the thick black ink. “Your sister’s boy, right?” he said quietly to Bentley.

  “Ah
told you, he ain’t my uncle!” Bobby Joe answered angrily.

  Bentley said nothing. He picked up the fingerprint card and examined the gooey black smudges for legibility. “Nice,” he commented. “Real nice.” He turned toward Burke and looked down at him over the top of his glasses. “I don’t suppose there’s a bunch of ‘Wants and Warrants’ on you in the VICAP data base waitin’ for me to run your prints against, is there, son?” Bentley asked as he tore the illegible card in two and dropped it in the trash.

  “I doubt it, Chief,” Burke said with a smile.

  “Didn’t think so.”

  “Then why are we doing this? Do Greenway and Tony Scalese have this much clout with you?”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t exactly put it that way,” Bentley replied as he gave him a long, appraising look. “Let’s say CHC is a big business in a little town, and you stuck your nose in places where it don’t belong.” With that, Bentley turned back to Bobby Joe and said, “Take the prisoner on back to his cell, Patrolman, and I mean by the book, you hear me! You screwed up enough for one day, and when I see this man in court tomorrow morning, he best look exactly like he does now — no scuffs, no bruises, and not one hair out of place. He’s probably gonna be with us as the guest of the town for a good long while, more than enough for the two of you to get acquainted. You got that?”

  “I’d like a phone,” Bob told him. “I need to call my lawyer.”

  “Somehow, ah figured you’d say that,” Bentley answered. “Bobby Joe here will take you to the phone so you can make your call, but it won’t do you no good. The Mayor’s the Town Court Hearing Officer, and he won’t show up from his Kiwanis meeting until 9:30, maybe 10:00 o’clock tomorrow morning, dependin’ on how he feels.”

  “So I get to sit back there all night?”

  “Sit, lay down, or stand on your head, that’s your choice; but you ain’t goin’ nowhere. If you want to pay your lawyer over-time, that your choice to, but there ain’t no sense him comin’ around ’til at least 9:30 tomorrow.”

  Bob Burke spent that night in the Indian Hills jail, booked on the phony charges. There were four cells, and Burke was the only prisoner. From the looks of the place, he may have been the first prisoner, other than an occasional drunk driver, the high school seniors from nearby Elk Grove Village who got caught painting the water tower for Homecoming, or a burglar who drove up from the city and ran into a silent alarm he didn’t know about. Still, when you add in the town’s reputation as a speed trap on the two major state routes that ran through the area, Bentley’s little operation was probably a major cash cow for the town treasury.

  Chagrined and infinitely wiser by the time George Grierson was able to get in and see him shortly after 9:00 o’clock the next morning, the only good things Bob Burke could say about his stay was that the mattress was soft and the breakfast and coffee from the diner across the street were not half-bad. Fortunately, Bobby Joe’s shift ended at midnight, and it was another of Chief Bentley’s “nephews” who marched him from his cell in the new Town Jail to the equally new Town Hall next door. Obviously, times were good in Indian Hills, he observed, as he saw the new landscaping, streetlights, sidewalks, and generally spruced-up Main Street in daylight. Money must be pouring into the city coffers, and no self-respecting mayor or police chief was about to rock that boat. No, this is why they continued to be re-elected. Fraud? Dirty money? Organized Crime? The last thing any of the good citizens out here would question was the source. No one wanted to bite the hand that slipped it in their pockets.

  Town court proceedings are about the lowest rung on any judicial ladder, and are supposed to deal exclusively with misdemeanors, such as speeding, drunk driving, zoning violations, littering, animal complaints and trespassing; most of which plead-out with a fine, but with no official record, they can usually do whatever they want. In fact, the Town Council’s meeting room doubled as the Court Room, and the Council’s Conference Room was its Jury Room should that ever be needed. Today, it was not, so that was where the police officer delivered Burke to meet with George Grierson, his attorney.

  Grierson sat behind his big open briefcase, thumbing through the charges as Bob took one of the chairs across from him. He looked up, and saw the rosy-cheeked police officer still standing in the doorway. “Mind if I have some time alone with my client, officer?”

  “Your uncle said it was okay,” Bob added with a smile.

  “Oh, sorry, I forgot,” he said as he quickly backed out of the room. “And he told me to tell you that the mayor will be here in a couple of minutes, so don’t take too long.”

  “I’ll try not to,” Grierson replied deadpan as the young cop stepped out and closed the door behind him. Grierson turned his steely eyes on Bob and asked, “What’s going on?”

  “Hi, George, good to see you again, too.”

  “Drunk and disorderly, trespassing, refusal to obey a lawful order, and all the rest of this stuff? What the hell?”

  “Never mind all that. Get me out of here.”

  “I will try my damnedest, but you don’t make it easy.”

  “That stuff is all bogus.”

  “I have no doubt, but this is Indian Hills, Bob. In a town court, the hearing officer, as he's called, and the police chief can damn well do anything they want. You played some ball at West Point, so you know what ‘home-court advantage’ is, don’t you? Well, the dumbass sitting up front in the black robe isn’t really a judge and he's barely even a lawyer, but he can pretty much do anything he wants with you. They aren't even supposed to hear cases like this, but who's going to stop them? Do you understand?

  “I figured that out all by myself last night.”

  “Good. So, when we go in there, you shut up and let me do the talking — not that I haven’t asked you to do that any number of times before, and not that you’ve ever listened to me before, but this time you damn well better. You got that?”

  “Yeah, I think I do,” Bob stared at him. “So, you’re saying I’m screwed?”

  “Oh, Indian Hills is the least of your problems. I hope we can plead this thing out. Decorated soldier, no record. Maybe we can get you off with some money, quite a bit, probably, some community service, an apology, and a look of sad contrition. Think you can do that?”

  Grierson pulled another thick file folder from his briefcase. “Know what this is?” the lawyer asked as he held up the file for Bob to see.

  “Don’t tell me. Angie?” he shrugged without even looking.

  “A 'Call for a Board Meeting.' Her lawyers must have been up all night working on it, because they even added your escapade over at Consolidated Health Care as one ground to have you removed. I got served at the crack of dawn this morning, and I’m sure they would’ve served you too, if they knew where you were.”

  “I was hiding right here in plain sight,” Bob smiled innocently.

  “Yeah, well, they’ve dotted all the i’s and crossed all the t’s this time, and you’re going to have to hold a Special Shareholders Meeting within 48 hours. There’s no getting around it now, and you and I are gonna spend most of today figuring out how to play it.”

  “She told me yesterday she was going to do this, so I phoned the Pension Plan trustees and the banks. They were pretty noncommittal, so I suspect she already has them in her pocket.”

  “They wouldn’t talk to me last night, either, but who knows?”

  “True, but Angie knows how to count cards, and how to count votes. Ed taught her; so if she went this far, she thinks she has it wrapped up.”

  At 9:30 a.m., Bob Burke and George Grierson were sitting in the Indian Hills Town Council Meeting Room waiting at one of the side tables for Hizzoner the Hearing Officer to arrive. At 9:55 a.m., a side door near the front of the room finally opened, and a short, potbellied, half-bald “used car salesman” in an ill-fitting black robe entered and took the center black-leather chair on the tall dais at the front of the room. Right behind him came a buxom brunette in a tight dress carrying a steno pad, with three
long yellow pencils stuck in her hair above her ear. Behind her came a man in a gray suit, Police Chief Bentley, and Bobby Joe Leonard. The woman took the chair at the far end of the dais and opened her steno pad. The three men continued on to the other table and took their seats. A nice, cozy relationship, Bob thought, but he kept his mouth shut, as he promised. He knew he was screwed regardless of what he thought or said.

  The hearing officer began to fidget, moving things and looking around and under the dais. “Wilma?” he asked. “Where’s that damned nameplate? And my gavel? I gotta have the goddamned gavel.”

  “Oh, the janitors must have put that stuff away again, Mayor,” Wilma answered as she quickly got up and stepped over to where the magistrate was sitting. He pushed his chair back a foot or two as she bent down over him and began opening and closing drawers. Both of her hands were out of sight for a moment and Bob swore he saw him jump a few inches. “Here, I think I found them, Mayor,” she grinned up at him.

  “Yes! I do believe you did,” he grinned back as she placed the nameplate down in front of him and they exchanged a quick glance as she scampered back to her seat. “I believe you did.” He coughed, looked out at the nearly empty room, and dropped his gavel on the dais with several loud Bangs! Burke and Grierson both rose, as did the other three men.

  “I am Mayor Hubert… uh, I mean Hearing Officer Hubert Bloomfield of the Indian Hills Town Court. For the record, Mr. David Schwartz, Town Counsel, Police Chief Cyrus T. Bentley and… Patrolman Third Class Bobby Joe Leonard of the Indian Hills Police Department are also in attendance. We are here this morning,” he said as he looked down and shuffled through the papers. “Oh yes, here we are, Case #72 ― drunk and disorderly, trespassing, disregarding a lawful order, resisting arrest, hindering a police officer in the furtherance of his duties, and a whole bunch of other things like that; alleged to been perpetrated within the boundaries of the Town of Indian Hills, Illinois, by one Robert Tyrone Burke of 847 Poplar Dr., Arlington Heights.” Bloomfield droned on until he finally put the paper down and looked up at Burke, smiling like the cat that ate the canary. “That you, son?” Bloomfield asked, already thinking of how much money this little piece of business might bring into the city’s coffers, and his.