Deadly Assets

by W. E. B Griffin

  Hooks smiled that the manager remembered his artist name, which Hooks had based in part on Philadelphia’s telephone area code, and nodded.

  “Maybe. If I get lucky again. Just looking right now.”

  The manager made a thin smile. “Lucky indeed. Well, we’d be more than happy to accommodate you. Just let us know if there’s anything that interests you.”

  Who’s “us” and “we”? You the only one here.

  Tyrone nodded again, then stepped past the smiling salesman, slowly scanning the merchandise on display in the brightly lit glass cases. He stopped for a closer look at a display on the far right.

  These weren’t here last time. They changed out stuff.

  But what he said is no lie! They got way more necklaces and rings than last time! Look at all them diamonds!

  The two other customers on the opposite side of the room left the store as he started toward them.

  Tyrone saw that the display cases in the middle held the flashy but inexpensive merchandise—the man-made cubic zirconia that sparkled like diamonds, for example, that the manager had first shown him the day he bought the Rolex, before learning that Tyrone had real cash burning a hole in his pocket.

  Then he reached the far left cases.

  And more watches!

  Shit! A whole line of Presidents!

  He looked for a long moment, then walked back toward the entrance, glanced over his shoulder at the salesman, and said, “Later.”

  “Good luck at the tables! I’ll be here until five, or after that if you wish.”

  Tyrone Hooks nodded as he left.

  After entering the casino floor, and nearly knocking over a short, old white-haired woman who was waddling into the mall, he glanced at his watch. He then looked back at the jewelry store and pulled out his cell phone. He thumbed a text message—“1 dude rocks right clocks left skip junk in middle”—and hit SEND.

  He went to one of the cashier cages and pulled the wad of cash from his pocket. In it was a plastic Lucky Stars Rewards debit card, and he gave it and ten twenty-dollar bills to the cashier. She added the two hundred dollars to his card’s account, then handed back the card.

  He then went to the escalators that led to the second level of the casino. As he rode up, he looked out the wall of windows and saw, through a heavy snowfall, the enormous outline of a cargo ship making its way against the current of the Delaware, headed toward the Philadelphia Port Authority docks. On its deck, intermodal containers were stacked twenty high, looking like so many multicolored toy boxes. His cousin who worked at the docks had heard that a lot of meth and coke got smuggled in them, and Tyrone wondered what-all else could be inside. Then he scanned to the left and saw a large swarm of teenagers—at least fifty—moving quickly through the slush of the casino’s huge parking lot.

  Right on time, he thought as he looked at his cell phone screen. The cracked Liberty Bell icon labeled ROCKIN215, which was the social network name he’d created on the Philly News Now website, showed that there were seventy new instant messages under “lucky stars hookup,” and more by the second.

  He sent the text message “rock it” then looked back across the casino floor and, after a minute, picked out one, two, then three and four black males, all more or less dressed alike in black jeans, high-top boots, and heavy coats. They moved at a quick pace—coming from different directions and converging on the entrance to the miniature mall.

  Tyrone knew they had obviously received his group text. He also knew that, concealed under their coats, two of them had short-handled ten-pound sledgehammers and the other two had black nylon bags. And, while he didn’t know it for sure, he would quickly wager against any casino odds that all were packing pistols.

  That bet I know I win, he thought.

  He turned to take the next escalator up to the third floor just as the first of the teenagers entered the revolving doors.

  —

  Mrs. Gladys Schnabel, a somewhat pudgy grandmother with curly, blue-tinged white hair, a deeply wrinkled pale face, and large round eyeglasses that hung from her neck by a chain of tiny fake pearls, stood at a chromed clothing rack at the back of Medusa’s Secret Closet. She was holding up a red velvet hanger emblazoned with the logotype FLEUR OF ENGLAND. Dangling from the hanger was a light tan silk satin undergarment set that consisted of an impossibly thin plunge bra and an even tinier thong panty.

  Mrs. Schnabel seemed to be staring at the ensemble in stark disbelief.

  She had arrived at the casino that morning with her daughter, forty-five-year-old Anna Cottrell, and her twenty-six-year-old granddaughter, Marie Cottrell. The two elder women had come down from Durham, a picturesque village that was a two-hour drive north. Marie lived in Philly. It was Mrs. Schnabel’s seventieth birthday, and having a “girls’ celebration” in the big city had been Anna’s idea. A little gambling fun, some shopping, a nice meal and a show, then back to the peace and tranquillity of the rolling hills of northern Bucks County.

  “You have an eye for quality—that set is one of our best sellers,” the saleswoman, an olive-skinned brunette, said as she approached. She looked to be in her mid-thirties, and wore a tight black dress that accentuated her athletic body. Her small golden badge read SAMANTHA. “It’s our finest silk, in the color that is called ‘nude.’”

  Mrs. Schnabel’s skeptical gray eyes went from Samantha to the hanger, where she tugged the hidden price tag into view.

  “My goodness!” she blurted. “How times have changed. I’m going to have to get really lucky at those one-arm bandits. Two hundred dollars?”

  Samantha reached out and softly stroked the fabric of the bra. “But just feel this luxurious silk! And note that the ring and slides are of eighteen-karat gold.”

  The look on Mrs. Schnabel’s face suggested that she was neither impressed nor sold.

  But she then said, with obvious pride, “Well, even if I were to be so lucky today, it would be a gift for my wonderful granddaughter. Marie and my daughter are off powdering their noses. It’s our girls’ day—we’re celebrating my birthday.”

  She looked past her, to the entrance, then put on her eyeglasses.

  “Here comes my beautiful granddaughter now.”

  “Well then, let me wish you happy birthday!” Samantha said, smiling. Then she looked toward the entrance and saw an attractive bright-faced brunette about her age approaching. Then Samantha’s eyes darted beyond Marie—and became suddenly huge.

  “Oh no!” she said.

  “What?” Mrs. Schnabel said, and then her head swiveled when she noticed that there suddenly was a loud commotion, the sound getting louder by the second.

  The source was in the casino, coming from near the revolving front doors. She focused in that direction and saw that a huge pack of young kids, mostly teenagers, was flooding in through both revolving doors. They were laughing, shouting, whistling—and knocking over chairs and pushing people out of their way as they went.

  “What hoodlums!” Mrs. Gladys Schnabel said, her voice almost a hiss.

  “A flash mob,” Samantha said.

  “A what?” Mrs. Schnabel said, not taking her eyes off the crowd.

  “Bored teens get together, cause trouble, then scatter,” Samantha said. “They call it a flash mob.”

  “No fooling? We don’t have those up in Bucks County.”

  They watched as terrified patrons fled the mob’s path. At least those patrons who could. One older man, struggling with a walker made of aluminum tubing, rushed to move to the side but slipped and was knocked to his knees.

  Security guards, and then a couple of uniformed policemen from the nearby Twenty-sixth District, gave chase. They tackled a pair of kids, then a third, at the back of the pack. But they were vastly outnumbered—and it was clear that they would remain unable to contain the rampage until backup help arrived.

  There
simply were too many kids to stop.

  Mrs. Schnabel stood still, stunned by the sight as the mass pushed toward the retail mall. She made eye contact with one kid, then another, and suddenly became fearful that they not only could but likely would rush into the mall.

  And why not? That other hoodlum almost knocked me over when I came here!

  There then came from nearby the ear-shattering sound of heavy glass breaking. And then more glass breaking.

  Mrs. Gladys Schnabel snapped her head to look.

  “Robbers?” she whispered, not sure she believed her squinting eyes.

  Working in pairs, young men in dark clothing had what looked like huge hammers, bigger than any she’d seen, and were smashing through the glass tops of display cases at opposite ends of the jewelry store. After two of the robbers cleared away the broken glass, their partners, wearing black gloves, quickly pulled jewelry and watches from the cases and stuffed it all in black sacks.

  The store manager stood frozen, his hands covering his bald head.

  “Grammy, get down!” Marie said, rushing up to her grandmother.

  Then one of the robbers ran out of the jewelry store. He carried one of the stuffed sacks into the main casino and was swallowed by the marauding mass.

  Then a second robber followed, and he also blended into the mob, and then a third.

  They heard shouting from the jewelry store, and turned in time to see the chubby, balding store manager, who must have decided he had a chance against just one man, reach for the stuffed black bag that hung from the last robber’s shoulder.

  As the manager yanked on the strap of the bag, the robber spun, pulled something from under his shirt, and then, off balance, pointed it in the direction of the manager’s chest.

  A gun! Mrs. Schnabel thought just as Marie rapidly tugged on her arm.

  And then there came a series of loud shots—Pop-Pop-Pop! Pop-Pop!

  As one of the glass mannequins shattered, Mrs. Schnabel saw the chubby bald man let loose of the bag strap. He crumpled to the marble floor as the robber, bag still on his shoulder, ran out of the mall.

  She then felt Marie’s grip ease and watched helplessly as her granddaughter collapsed at her feet.

  And then she suddenly felt light-headed. Everything became a blur. She closed her eyes.

  Samantha turned back to look at Mrs. Schnabel just as the elderly woman went limp, her knees buckling. She hit the floor first with her left shoulder, then rolled onto her chest, crushing her big round eyeglasses that had fallen from her face on impact. Her cheek came to rest on the bra and panties where a crimson pool of blood from her granddaughter had begun to form.

  “Someone please help!” Samantha cried, kneeling beside them and starting to tremble.

  Her plea was lost in the screams of patrons running out the emergency exit doors and in the blaring of alarms.

  Samantha looked out through the glass walls and saw that the mass of teenagers in the flash mob, no longer laughing, were racing back through the casino, then out the doors.

  Samantha then saw, closer to the mall, a middle-aged woman forcing her way past the fleeing mob. The woman ran into the mall, then into the store, then looked in Samantha’s direction.

  “Oh my God!” she wailed. “Mama! Marie! Oh my God!”

  —

  On the third floor of the casino, Tyrone Hooks was seated at one of the cocktail bars. He had ordered a beer, put his cell phone on the bar—he saw that the ROCKIN215 instant messages numbered more than two hundred—then swiped his Lucky Stars Rewards debit card in the video game machine embedded in the bar and began playing poker.

  After a moment, the bartender slid a glass of draft before him and said, “Let me know if I can get you anything else, Mr. King.”

  Hooks again pulled the cash wad from his coat pocket and took from it his Lucky Stars debit card. He pushed the card across the bar.

  “Close me out. Gotta go after this one.”

  III

  [ ONE ]

  Police Administration Building

  Eighth and Race Streets

  Saturday, December 15, 2:01 P.M.

  Homicide Sergeant Matthew M. Payne, standing with a cell phone to his ear, listened to Homicide Detective Dick McCrory’s update while looking out from the third-floor hallway windows of police headquarters.

  The half-century-old complex, commonly referred to as the Roundhouse, was built of precast concrete and consisted of a connected pair of four-story circular buildings. Interior walls were also curved, including those of the elevators. The imposing design of the exterior, some said, resembled a massive pair of handcuffs.

  Payne raised to his lips a coffee mug that had STOLEN FROM THE DESK OF HOMICIDE SGT M. M. PAYNE in gold lettering, and took a sip. He had had the cheap mugs custom-imprinted—there was a representation of his badge in addition to the wording—after his regular heavy china mugs had repeatedly wound up in the possession of parties unknown.

  He had expected that the personalized ones would bring the disappearances to an end. They had had, in fact, the opposite effect—the one he now held was the last of the original dozen—the unique mugs having become trophies of a sort around headquarters.

  There was a faint chanting coming from below, and he looked down.

  At least fifty protesters marched up and down the steps past the mottled bronze statue—“A Friend,” its plaque read—of a uniformed Philadelphia policeman holding a small child on his left hip in front of the Roundhouse.

  Two uniformed officers of the Mounted Patrol Unit were across Race Street, standing by in support of the half-dozen uniforms of the Civil Affairs Unit who were on foot and creating a safety zone for the protesters, in effect defending their First Amendment rights of assembly and freedom of speech.

  Payne watched as a young woman with a little girl—the latter licking a candy cane; they had just left Franklin Park—walked up to the officers on horseback. The woman then spoke to the closer of the two, and after he smiled and nodded, she lifted the toddler onto her shoulders so the girl could pet the horse’s rich brown mane. The young woman then held out her camera and snapped a photograph of them, with the smiling officer looming in the background.

  “Dick, you’re right,” Payne said into the phone, “if you don’t try, you don’t get. Maybe we’ll get lucky if the CI is really onto something. Go find this guy he says wants to talk and bring him in. Lord knows no one else is talking about who took out Dante.”

  He paused, listened, then said, “Okay, and have Kennedy do his dramatic routine when you’re slapping on cuffs, so all those watching from wherever they’re hiding don’t miss it.”

  He listened again a moment, chuckled and replied, “Yeah, right. Nice try. If all else fails, I am not going to ‘just shoot the knucklehead,’ as much as he might deserve it,” then broke off the call.

  The use of confidential informants was strictly regulated by Police Department Directive 15. First and foremost among its rules was that there had to exist an absolute professional relationship between an officer and a CI.

  The CIs were paid for tips that, it was hoped, led to arrests. Money was also made available to them for street purchases of, for example, drugs and firearms—and even of, say, the renting of a row house needed for an undercover operation. Because these funds over time could run into the tens of thousands of dollars, procedures had to be followed to ensure that the police officers kept a distinct arm’s length from the informants.

  There’s more than the usual BS going on with this, Payne thought, taking another sip of coffee.

  Why wouldn’t McCrory’s CI just tell them what the other guy knew about the drive-by?

  And why does this guy say he needs to see me?

  He slipped the phone into his pants pocket. His Colt Officer’s Model .45 ACP, snapped into a black leather shoulder holster, hung under his left
bicep, and his shield—Badge Number 471, which had been his father’s—was midway down his striped necktie, hanging in its black leather holder from a chromed bead chain looped around the button-down collar of his stiffly starched white shirt.

  The Colt did not technically meet Philadelphia Police Department regulations. When Payne had begun carrying the semiautomatic, during a stint with Special Operations, .38 caliber revolvers were still the department-issued sidearm. Payne disliked wheel guns in general and .38s in particular. He argued that the smaller caliber did not have the stopping power of a .45 bullet and that the Officer’s Model carried more of the powerful rounds and could be reloaded more quickly.

  Because of the nature of Special Operations cases—especially its undercover work; Payne made the point that the blued steel .38 caliber revolver screamed “Cop!”—the department had made an allowance for him.

  After Payne left SO, if anyone asked about the .45, he waved the allowance at them, arguing that his Colt had been grandfathered. That particularly annoyed those who—wrongly—believed it was another case of his connections getting him preferential treatment.

  But what really annoyed them even more was that Payne had then appeared vindicated in his assessment of the underpowered .38 when the department was given approval by the city council to issue Glock 9-millimeter semiautomatics as the standard sidearm. Officers who passed muster on the department’s shooting range with a .40 caliber Glock were given the option of carrying one—if the officers paid for the optional weapon with their own funds.

  The magazines of the Glocks held three times as many rounds as the revolvers they replaced, and put the police officers on more or less equal footing with the bad guys, who (a) were not subject to the whims of the city hall politicians who had been against replacing the .38s and thus (b) had long been packing the more powerful semiautos.

  Once again Payne had bent the rules to his needs—and once again had not only gotten away with it, but proved that he thought ahead of the conventional curve.

  Payne wasn’t sure which pissed off his detractors more. But he really didn’t give a damn. He was right. And he knew it. And he wasn’t going to risk his life because of some outdated bureaucratic rule.