by Glenn Trust
8. Couple of Pussies
“There. Back in there.” The young man’s voice was a whisper, though the building’s rear loading area was deserted and hidden by a graffiti covered block wall. It would have been impossible for anyone to hear.
The old white Dodge van stopped with a creak as the driver reversed, backing slowly into the space between a large dumpster and the wall. He checked the mirrors on both sides carefully taking extreme care not to put a scratch in the van. It was an absurd concern. The van, old and rusty from years of delivery service for a furniture store, had been purchased in very used condition by the driver and his brother sitting in the passenger seat.
“Jesus, Sam. What the hell you worried about. This piece of shit’s got more dents and rust on it than…” The speaker stopped, searching his mind for an appropriate comparison. “Well, it’s got a shitload of ‘em.”
“Shut up, Dale.” Stevie, Sam’s brother, spoke from the passenger seat. “We bought it, not you. We gonna take care of it. You squat there and keep your mouth shut.”
“Uh huh.” Dale squatted between the two seats. The back of the van was empty, having been used exclusively for hauling cargo. “You boys a little sensitive, ain’t ya.”
The van rocked softly, brakes squeaking as Sam put it in park. Concealed behind the dumpster, no one approaching the back door to Manny’s Mexican Restaurant would see it.
“So where is she?” Sam turned his head and looked down at Dale on the floor between them.
“Man, I told you she comes in early, about an hour before the owners to make the tortilla chips or some shit. Brings the cash box for the day with her. Owners don’t get in ‘til it’s time to get things ready for the lunch people comin’ in.”
Yeah.” Stevie was doubtful.
“Serious, man. She’ll be here. Been watchin’ for a month, like clockwork. She’ll be here.”
“You better be right.”
Or what, motherfucker, Dale thought. What he said was, “I’m right. You’ll see. You take the goods. I jack the car. We hit her, and we’re gone, minute or less. Piece of cake.”
“If it’s such a piece of cake then why the nine in your pants?”
Reaching down and putting his hand on the butt of the pistol stuck in his waistband, Dale looked up at big Sam the football player and grinned. “Never said we shouldn’t have some insurance. Besides, what you gonna do? Ask her politely?”
“There’s three of us,” Stevie said shaking his head. “She ain’t gonna resist. We don’t need no murder hangin’ over us if this goes bad. That’s all I’m sayin’.”
“Ain’t gonna be no murder. Just a little coaxin’. Nothin’ is gonna go bad.” Dale squatted between the front seats looking out the windshield intent on ignoring the two, jock brothers he had tied in with on this job. Football players my ass. Couple of pussies if you asked him. Lookin’ for some easy cash to buy steroids and a new ride. Bullshit.
This was a real job with a serious payoff, not some pussy kid game. He knew the brothers from school, defensive linemen on the football team. Big dumb jocks. He, on the other hand, was a wide receiver, a skill position. Good hands and speed. He had the skills, soon he would have the cash and could get rid of these two and find some real pros for partners.
Leaning across Dale, Stevie reached out and thumped his brother hard on the arm, grab-assing. Sam retaliated, and a round of hand slapping and fake punches ensued, as they play fought in the front seats of the van. Squatting between them, skilled-position Dale shook his head in disgust. Bullshit. He adjusted the nine-millimeter in his waistband to a more comfortable place, in the small of his back, like they did on television.
9. Going to War
“Coffee.” It was a statement. Leaving Fran’s Café on the square in Everett, Georgia, Chief Deputy George Mackey walked up to Sheriff Sandy Davies still sitting in his county pickup parked in one of the diagonal spaces along the curb.
“Thanks.” Davies reached out the window accepting the styrofoam cup gratefully. He had a file folder in his lap going through its contents. Shaking his head, he patted the folder. “Lot of shit been going on in Roydon.” The sheriff was stating what they all knew.
A road deputy for twelve years before ousting the former sheriff, Richard Klineman, he had worked his share of calls in Roydon, particularly at the hub of local criminal enterprises, a bar known as Pete’s Place. Failing to clean up Roydon and Pete’s Place along with his ties to Elizabeth Crestline, the governor’s former aide who had been involved with the election conspirators, Klineman had fallen hard in the election, beaten down by a young deputy with the support and respect of the department and the public. Sandy Davies had made it a campaign promise to eradicate the bed of corruption that nested in Roydon.
“Yep,” his chief deputy nodded, sipping Fran’s rich, black coffee. “We start changing that today.” George turned, leaning his butt against the fender of the sheriff’s pickup, looking out across the court square.
Davies stepped out and leaned against the fender beside Mackey. Standing side by side, the morning sun coming up over the courthouse making them squint, they looked like a couple of farmers scanning their fields, considering the day’s work before them.
“Won’t be easy,” Sandy said, blowing softly and sipping from the cup.
“Nope, don’t reckon it will be.” George’s eyes were focused on some distant point, seeming to stare right through the old brick courthouse that had stood nearly a hundred years.
Statues covered the building’s green lawns, the newest one honoring the Pickham County’s veterans of the war against terrorism, which seemed to have no end. Moving across the grass, the memorials became progressively older and weather worn. Vietnam, Korea, World War II, World War I, the Spanish American War and finally, closest to the old building, the memorial to those who had fought in the Civil War for the C.S.A., Confederate States of America. George’s eyes moved over the monuments. Seemed like a lot of war, lot of people dying, names forgotten, lives forgotten. Just the statues left. Now they were going to war again, their own little Pickham County war.
“What are you thinking, George?” The sheriff’s head had turned towards his Chief Deputy, lost in his thoughts.
“I was wondering if you’re ready, if we’re ready for this…for war.” George spoke solemnly. “That’s what this will be you know.”
Sandy nodded. “I know, George.” He shrugged in the way people do who are committed to action where the outcome is uncertain, but the action is necessary anyway. “I think we’re ready. I hope so. Won’t know until it begins, I guess.” He smiled, “That’s why I have you as a chief deputy, to keep me from screwing up.”
“You won’t screw up, Sandy.” George’s tone remained quiet and solemn. “But those on the other side will have something to say about things.” Turning to look across the square again, he spoke softly. “These people, they won’t give up easy. Wars aren’t that simple.”
Sheriff Davies nodded, saying nothing and following George’s gaze to the monuments on the courthouse grass. Leaning against the pickup until their coffee was gone, there was nothing more to say. Plans had been made, strategy plotted, the time for action had arrived, was long overdue by the reckoning of most of the county’s voters. But the voters weren’t going to be there. Sheriff Davies, Chief Deputy Mackey and their deputies would be there, the thin line. It was their war.
“It’s time.” Sheriff Davies glanced down at his watch.
Straightening their backs, they stood up from the fender. Twenty minutes later, they were exiting I-95 and pulling into Roydon, Georgia, followed by two day-watch deputies. They came to a rest in the parking lot of Pete’s Place. Plan A was take the fight to the enemy.
10. Rednecks and Hornets Nests
The first class seat reclined just slightly, courteous to the passenger seated behind. Ramon Guzman sipped the Bacardi and Coke the flight attendant had placed on the seat tray. Eyes closed, he replayed in his mind the business meeting wit
h the big gringo.
Ramon Guzman had left his family’s tobacco business to strike out on his own. Attending college in the United States, he had earned a degree in civil engineering from Virginia Tech before returning to the Dominican Republic, along with a reputation from his Anglo friends as somewhat of a Latin playboy. Through his work as a contract engineer in Santo Domingo, he came into contact with persons who appreciated his engineering skills. Some of those contacts wielded influence and power at a level in Dominican society far exceeding that of his moderately well-to-do tobacco-growing family.
One man in particular awed young Guzman, demonstrating to him the power and influence that was possible if one possessed money, large sums of money. This man approached him about designing fresh water and drainage systems for the barrio where he had grown up. Cholera had ravaged the children of the neighborhood when he was a boy and continued to plague those unable to escape the desperate poverty. Successful beyond any possible imaginings he may have had as a youth, he wanted to return something to the place of his roots.
Guzman, fascinated and moved by the project, had thrown his heart into it. Money seemed to be no object to his patron. Whenever a roadblock was met, his sponsor was able to resolve it.
Permits denied. A conversation with city officials and the permits appeared almost magically. Laborers refusing to work. A word to a union official and men and equipment were on site moving and laying pipe within hours. Contracts for equipment and supplies delayed. A business meeting and the materials were on site the next day.
As much as the project fascinated and motivated him, Guzman was even more fascinated by his patron’s ability to get things done. The money that produced such power became an obsession. He became a student of the ways and means one could accumulate such enormous wealth. His obsession eventually drew him away from engineering and into more lucrative activities.
In time, Guzman was introduced to others like his patron, and he began making his own connections. Appreciated for his knowledge of the Norte Americanos and his ability to communicate and move freely among them, as one of them, he was often used as an intermediary in sensitive business arrangements. Eventually, he became a trusted member of the Dominican underworld, which was primarily involved in the Caribbean drug trade.
His business meeting with the gringo, Roy Budroe, was not his first foray into the North American market, but it was potentially the largest. It held greater possibilities for profit than other arrangements he had facilitated. Dollars in the States seemed to have no end. Even the poorest seemed to have money to spend on their vices. Guzman and his partners wanted those dollars.
It was a matter of delicate negotiation, opening the lines of trade. Like an import and export agreement between nations, there were arrangements to be made, concessions secured. The discussions required finesse. Guzman was an expert in finesse. The meeting with Budroe had solidified their trade relationship satisfactorily and had set the stage for the next phase of Guzman’s expansion into the North American markets. He was a very ambitious man. One day, soon, he would have money and the power that accompanied wealth, perhaps even surpassing that which his patron had demonstrated a decade earlier on the water project. Even now, their men were with Budroe’s working in unison. They would learn what there was to learn about the operation. When they did, things would change for the big redneck.
Guzman smiled and closed his eyes, leaning back in the seat. Redneck. He had learned the word during his days at the university, but had not been clear what it meant at first. Thinking of the big man in the shorts and Hawaiian shirt sitting at the pool, he thought the term applied perfectly. The redneck had a big surprise coming.
*****
“Talk to me.” Roy Budroe leaned his bulky frame back in the Escalade’s leather seat and steered delicately with the thick fingertips of one hand, the cell phone held to his ear by the other.
“Took care of business.”
“Problems?”
“Nope. Not a one, for us at least.” The man on the call chuckled. “Of course, Jobie and Elma didn’t have a very good night.”
“Hmm.” Budroe nodded. “They should have taken the offer.”
“Shoulda, woulda, coulda.” He shrugged, sitting in his own vehicle, half a state away. “It’s done.”
“And things at home?”
“Not good. You should stay away for a few days.”
“It’s starting then?”
“Yep, just like he promised. Word is it starts today.”
Roy Budroe, owner of Pete’s Place in Roydon, Georgia and first citizen of the small community, felt the annoyance boil up inside. He had other issues to tend to, bigger issues. Newly elected Sheriff Davies had made it his mission to clean up Roydon. Budroe had built Roydon and Pete’s Place into the hub of criminal enterprises, not just in Georgia, but across the southeast. It was a shabby, seedy place sitting astride I-95. The shabbiness was its disguise. The extent of the reach of its criminal tentacles was unknown to even the Pickham County deputies.
Locally, the law saw Roydon as the hub of crime and corruption. But none suspected that it served as the major hub for virtually every type of criminal activity passing north and south or to the west across the southern states. Roy Budroe, was not just the owner of Pete’s Place, his personal headquarters, he was the head of an extensive criminal network that had started modestly and then spread across the country. Hard work had achieved that questionable success.
That pissant Sheriff Davies and his chief deputy, Mackey, had picked today as the day to begin their crusade against Pete’s Place, Roydon and Roy Budroe. Fine, if they wanted a war, he would give it to them and in the process teach young Sherriff Davies a lesson he would not forget, if he survived it.
“Okay. I’ll spend the night somewhere out of the way, Tifton or Albany maybe.” Trusting no one, Budroe was reluctant to tell even the man who had eliminated the Nicks for him where he would be resting his head tonight. “I’ll make a stop on the way. Tie up loose ends with the girls.”
“Good idea. Things should cool off here in a couple of days.”
“Maybe.” The face of George Mackey crossed his mind. Mackey had never been one to let things cool off once he was in the fight. Budroe didn’t expect he would let things die down now, at least not for long. He had a plan for dealing with Mackey too. “The meeting set for tomorrow?”
“Yeah, I got it fixed up. Told him you would say where and when.”
“I’ll call you in the morning and say where. Tell him to be ready.”
“Right.”
“Anything else?”
“Nope. Things are going to be getting crazy around here in the next hour or so. I’ll just keep my head down and take care of business.”
“You do that.”
Budroe disconnected and put the cell phone on the car’s console. Fucking Davies and Mackey, he thought, stirring up a hornets nest. He would make sure they got stung for their efforts.
11. A Good First Step
“What are you doing?”
“Working.”
“Bullshit.”
Smiling, Sharon adjusted the phone, holding it propped between her ear and shoulder while she flipped through the pages of a file on her desk. “Seriously, I am actually working. Going over case files.”
“Hmm.” Bob Shaklee her former partner and boss at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation thought about that before continuing. “So, are you happy in your work, Sharon?”
Looking around the small office in the basement of the Pickham County Courthouse, Sharon considered the question and then answered. “I am, Bob.”
“What if I could make you happier…in your work, I mean.”
“Cut the shit, Bob. What’s this about?”
Good old Sharon, no bullshit, get to the point, he thought smiling. “I’ve got something for you.”
“Bob, we’ve had this discussion. I’m not coming back to the GBI. George and I are together, and whether you believe it or not, we�
�re happy. Life is simpler now.”
“This involves George too. I just wanted to talk to you first.”
“Another task force?” Her hand slipped down to scars on her belly that she could feel even through her clothes. “Don’t know that either of us is interested.”
“Don’t you think George ought to answer for himself?”
“He will. You know George.”
Shaklee nodded to himself. He did indeed know George. No bullshit from him either. “Well, to answer your question, no this is not another task force. This is something more long-term, permanent even, and not with the GBI.”
Sighing, Sharon took the phone from between her cheek and shoulder, leaned her elbows on the small metal government-issued desk and pressed it against her ear. “Bob, please get to the point. I have work to do.”
“I met with the governor today.”
He had Sharon’s attention. “Yes?”
“What if I could offer you a chance to make a difference? What if you were part of a team that could pick cases that needed attention, cases that would probably fall through the bureaucratic cracks otherwise? Important cases.”
It was an investigator’s dream. Stacks of case files covered law enforcement desks across the country, far too many for all to be given their fair share of investigative attention. To be allowed to focus on a few cases, important cases, was a temptation hard to resist.
Looking at the stacks of files on her desk, Sharon said nothing for almost a full minute. Bob knew better than to interrupt. He let her think. He wanted Sharon on board, and if he got Sharon, he was hopeful that he could get George, as well.
Eyes roaming over the reports, Sharon thought. Petty thefts, small time drug busts, burglaries, reckless conduct, assaults. The files were full of victims whose cases were important to them. Working for the Pickham County District Attorney, Sharon gathered background information, fleshed the prosecution’s case out with facts, coordinated with the Sheriff’s Department. It was the kind of job that any competent investigator could handle. It was a mill, grinding through the files and processing them, helping to prepare cases. There was only so much time to give any particular case. To be able to select an important case and devote time to it, the concept was alluring.