by Trevor Shand
Chapter 4
As Adrian pulled up a block from the wheel shop, Steve hit end on his phone. “I let the guy who was sitting on the shop know he could have the night off and if anything did happen tonight it’d still be his collar. He’s headed home.” It was early evening, the lights were on inside and an Open sign glowed. The front of the shop was ceiling to ground windows about four feet wide, framed with black metal. Inside were displays of shiny black tires and gleaming rims. A counter covered about half of the back wall. Behind the counter, in the back wall, was a large two way mirror and a door.
The two men stayed in the car. Steve stared at the building, then at Adrian, “Really, must we do this?”
“Not all investigate work is flashy,” Adrian said staring at the shop.
“I know,” Steve sighed. Then he reached down and opened the soft-sided cooler between his feet. He pulled out a can of Star Hill Starr Pils and cracked it open.
Adrian’s head whipped around as if it had been a gun shot, “What are you doing?”
Taking a long pull Steve then scrunched his brow and replied, “Um, having a beer.”
“You can’t drink while we’re on a stake out.”
“No, you can’t drink while we’re on a stake out. I can.” Steve took another gulp.
“Seriously, that’s it, that’s your last one,” Adrian said firmly.
“Remember when we first met, I didn’t even come on stake outs? The only reason I’m here now is in case you need back up,” Steve looked past Adrian to the windows of the shop, “And it doesn’t look like that is going to be the case any time soon.”
Adrian turned and looked toward the shop as well. A sole female attendant stood behind the counter, flipping through a magazine. No cars were out front. The cars they could see in the back looked quiet, as if they had been there a while. “No, I guess not. But still, stop drinking. I can’t have you getting in and out of the car to pee all night. That might make them suspicious.”
Adrian locked eyes with Steve. Steve held his gaze as he finished the can in two more large swallows. He crushed the can and without taking his eyes off Adrian he slipped the can back into his cooler. His hand came back out, only this time with a glass jar instead of a can.
Adrian dropped his eyes to look what was in Steve’s hand. Seeing it was not a beer he said, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” said Steve. He popped open the jar and fished in it with his fingers.
Adrian recoiled and demanded, “What is that smell?”
Steve held up the jar with a smile, “Pickled herring snacks in wine sauce. Delicious.” Steve scooped another piece of herring and jammed it into his mouth.
“Are you kidding me?”
“Kidding you? What do you mean?”
“I won’t let you drink a beer so you’re smelling up the car with those snacks?”
“How would I have known you wouldn’t let me drink on the stakeout and planned this? I simply brought them because I like them,” Steve asked.
Adrian narrowed his eyes, squinting at Steve, “I have no idea, but I am sure you planned this.”
“Whatever,” Steve said as he continued to munch on the soft fish pieces. The two men were here because they had no place else to be. The reason Baskins and Schroyer had not gotten very far was because there was little to go on. They knew there were drugs coming in and out of here. There were a lot of drugs. But they also knew these were all street level players and they were tasked to get higher up. However, the gap between the street players and the next level up, and the routine and procedures were well practiced and tight enough to keep Adrian and Steve from making the leap to the next rung.
Steve continued to eat. He had brought the herring snacks because he did genuinely like them. He did not however, like sitting idle in the car and thought he would amuse himself by annoying Adrian. He began by slowly increasing the volume of his eating. He smacked his lips, slurped the next piece and swallowed loudly. Adrian stared straight ahead for several minutes listening to the ever increasing symphony as if by ignoring Steve for long enough he would stop. Steve would not.
"Alright, you win," Adrian said. But he was smiling too. While it was annoying, he did find Steve’s immaturity and ability to stick with a bit amusing as well. Plus it did break up the dreary time in the car. “What else is in that cooler besides beer and herring snacks; did you bring anything for me?”
Steve put the top back on the jar of fish and put it back in his cooler. He then made an overelaborate, exaggerated show of looking through the cooler. His hand came out with a jar again. At first Adrian was sure it was the herring jar again and Steve was continuing his own brand of humor. But Steve handed Adrian the jar and kept looking. Adrian read the label and was pleased to see it was blue cheese stuffed olives. “I love blue cheese stuffed olives.”
Steve paused his scavenging and looked at Adrian and said, “I know.” He then refocused on the cooler and brought out a collection of Greek olives, some hummus and a zip lock bag of assorted vegetables. He sat back and surveyed what he had exhumed.
“This is quite the spread,” Adrian said with obvious amazement.
“Well, I figure if we’re going to be here, then we might as well eat well.”
“I guess we had,” Adrian agreed and stuck his fingers in the olive jar. He fished out two olives and popped them both in his mouth at the same time.
“So how long are we waiting here?”
“Well, we need to wait until the cars return from picking up the drugs from the street corners. We’ll see if anyone we don’t recognize from that crew comes in before or after the return. Then we’ll wait for a while to see if anyone leaves and where they go.”
Steve thought for a moment and said, “I’m guessing everyone leaves here sooner or later. How are we going to know we’re following the guy who will take us to the next level up versus the guy who is just heading home.”
“I guess we won’t. We’ll just have to follow one of them, see where they lead us. If they lead us to their home, or what we guess is their home as opposed to the boss, then we try someone else the next night.”
“Seems a little tedious,” Steve offered.
“To say the least.”
Several hours later, the Impala and the Camry arrived as before. No other cars had arrived at the building between when Adrian and Steve had arrived and then. The two men continued to wait in the car but packed up their sprawled lunch. They sat and watched the site for another hour. Finally two men came out and headed to cars already parked in the lot.
“So, want to follow one of these two?” Steve asked.
“Might as well, no time like the present I guess. Which one?”
“Hmmm,” Steve watched as one man got into a murdered out, all black Camaro. The other man climbed into a powder blue Nissan Cube. “Dude, we gotta follow that guy in the Cube. What grown ass gangster drives a Cube?”
“So we’re picking the guy just because he drives a car you don’t think he should?”
“Seriously, what man drives a Cube?”
“Well, I guess that is as good a reason as any to pick this guy,” Adrian replied, “Besides, the guy in the Camaro is most likely going out to do gangster things. The other guy might be the secretary, since he’s in a secretary’s car.” He smiled over at Steve who smiled back. They waited for the Cube to pull out and head down the road before Adrian fired up their car and followed.
The car headed back to Aurora Avenue but rather than head south, the car turned north. “This looks promising,” Adrian commented. The Cube continued up Aurora to 85th Street, then headed west. Adrian made sure to stay several cars back. He knew they really should have several cars to effectively tail leads, but lacked the manpower to do this right. Without any leads he did not want to go to Sam and ask for more resources.
Following the Nissan, Adrian made a turn onto 8th Ave, then turned into Blue Ridge Apartments. “Do you think this is the next level up?” Steve asked as they loo
ked around. The Blue Ridge Apartments were clean and neat square buildings: each building had six units. There was a pool in the center of the complex but it was covered. The cover sagged in the middle and was filled with green water.
The man in the Cube pulled up in front of one of the buildings. Adrian and Steve continued on. Steve followed the man in the side mirror. He headed to the second floor and into one of the apartments. “I’m doubting this is where drug kingpin lives,” Adrian snorted, “Well, I guess we go back tomorrow and try again.”
“I guess,” Steve said dejectedly. Then he reached down and pulled a beer from the cooler and, as he popped the top, added, “And tomorrow I’ll bring curry with a side of roasted Brussel sprouts tossed in fish sauce.” Adrian just groaned.
It had been a few hours, several drinks and a couple of lines. Russ sat in his recliner and looked over at Jeff, “So let me get this straight, you want to go around our current supplier, start dealing on a larger scale and have me provide the protection?”
“Yup, that about sums it up.”
“But temporarily, right? I mean I am looking for a real job and when I find it, that’s what I will do, and not provide protection anymore,” Russ stated, pointing a finger at Jeff, though the finger waved back and forth due to the alcohol and drugs.
“Of course, I completely understand,” Jeff held up his hands in surrender.
“So what is our next course of action,” Russ inquired.
“Well, we need to find out who is above my contact, so we can buy in larger quantities.”
“You don’t know?”
“No, I told you, my contact is very protective of his source, specifically because of this.”
Russ sank deep into his recliner, closing his eyes. Without opening his eyes or moving he asked, “Does it have to be one of your guys? I mean your pipeline?”
Jeff looked confused, “Well no, but who else are we going to get?”
Sitting up, Russ said, “I might know someone.” Russ suddenly looked a lot more sober. He scurried into his room, then into the closet. Digging to the back he pulled out a military issued ruck sack. Pulling out insulated clothing, camelbacks and other assorted paraphernalia, he finally found the cigar box he was looking for. From the box he produced Eric Crawford’s business card and headed back to the living room.
Handing the card to Jeff he said, “This is a contact I had in Afghanistan, well, his son. Don’t let the card fool you, the main thing his family imports is drugs. But his father was a good informant.”
“A direct pipeline to a source in the middle east? Holy crap, Russ, this is amazing,” Jeff looked between Russ and the card several times.
“Well, let’s hold off the celebration until we call him,” Russ cautioned.
“No time like the present,” Jeff encouraged. He handed the card back to Russ.
Russ scrunched his brow, “What do you want me to do with this? I don’t know what to say.”
“Yeah, but he’s your contact, I can’t call him out of the blue. ‘Yeah, you don’t know me, but a friend of mine said you sell drugs, can you sell me drugs?’ I’m pretty sure he’d hang up on me.”
“Fine, what do I say?” Russ asked.
“I’m not sure, I’ve never done this either. Why don’t you just put him on speaker phone?”
“Sounds good,” Russ said as he dialed the number. When the phone started ringing he set it on the table and knelt on the floor next to it. Jeff sat on the lip of the couch staring intently at the handset. Three rings, four rings, five rings, the phone clicked, they heard a beep and the phone disconnected.
“Well, that was anti-climactic,” Jeff said flopping back into the couch and looking at Russ.
Russ picked up the phone and dropped it into his pocket. Shrugging his shoulders and tilting his head momentarily he said, “Well, I guess he changed his number. Back to square one. Beer?”
“Sure.”
Russ walked to the kitchen, grabbed two beers. On his way back to the room, his phone rang. He reached in to his pocket as he set the beers on the table. Retrieving it, he saw the number was unavailable. He hit the answer button, “Hello, this is Russ.”
“Hello, this is Eric Crawford.”
“Um, hello,” Russ scrambled to change to speaker phone and put the phone on the table, “Um, yes, this is Russ Evenhuis. Um, you don’t know me, but I met you father…”
“Yes, he said you would call,” Eric said calmly.
“Yeah, anyway, I heard you are in the, um, family import business.”
“Russ, are you a police officer?”
Confused, he said, “Um no, I worked in the army…”
Cutting him off Eric asked, “Are you working for the police?”
“No,” Russ said cautiously, waiting to hear where this line of questioning was going.
“Specifically, Russ, what are you looking for?”
“Um, drugs,” Russ responded looking at Jeff and shrugging, obviously not knowing what was going on.
“I said specifically.”
“Um,” then whispering, “cocaine.”
A chuckle was heard across the line, “Russ, you are doing well. I assure you, the reason I called you back was so that we could get this call set up without being listened to. This is a VoIP call running through multiple proxy servers in and out of the country. Now I just need to make sure you yourself are not working for the police and we can talk. What you are doing here is setting yourself up for entrapment, if you are in fact working for the police. If not, then these are all questions I will need the answer to anyway.
“Now, how much for how much?”
“Oh um,” Russ looked over at Jeff.
“Hi, my name is Jeff, we are looking for about half a kilogram for about 12 grand.”
“Russ, I didn’t realize someone was in the room with you. From now on, please identify all the people in the room when we start our conversation.”
“Yes sir.”
“So now, Jeff, let me ask you a couple of questions,” Eric said, then repeated the basic questions asked to Russ earlier. At the end of the questions he added, “Where are you gentlemen located?”
“Seattle,” Jeff said.
“Really? I have no footprint out there.”
“Is that an issue?”
“On the contrary, it is beneficial. It means you won’t be taking clients from an existing distributor of mine. So is this a onetime buy?”
“We’d like it to not be,” Jeff offered, “We have a small delivery service but hope to grow it."
"Have you done this before?"
"Not on this scale, well, to the scale we're planning on," Jeff said.
"And your current competition? How are they going to take this?" Eric asked.
"We don't know," Russ said.
"I am assuming this is where you come into the equation," Eric asked Russ.
"Yes, sir. Though I plan to try and set it up so we don't fight. I'm one man, they have more. While I'm skilled, that can only do so much. So for us, thinking ahead is key," Russ explained.
"I agree," Eric spoke, "Fine. I’ll send along half a key. If all goes well, I can send more. Give me the address and FedEx will deliver tomorrow.”
“FedEx?” Russ asked.
“Yup, the largest drug delivery service in the world.”
Not missing a beat, Jeff told Eric the address and they hung up. Russ looked at Jeff and said, “Well, we’re in business.”
Devon walked up to the corporate offices of Kid Valley on Alaska Way. It was a behind an Ivar’s Seafood restaurant on the pier. Ivar’s and Kid Valley were both owned by the same family. The building was a rustic, aged wood that looked like it was made from the pier itself. He pushed through the front door and found the receptionist.
“Hello, may I help you?” the middle aged woman asked.
“Yes, ma’am. My name is Devon Taylor. I am here to see Julie Dahl.”
“OK, please have a seat and I’ll let her know.” Devon found a s
eat on the plain gray couch. He had just picked up an old Sports Illustrated when a well dressed woman came through a glass door located next to the receptionist.
She marched straight over to Devon and said, “Hi, I am Julie. Devon?”
Devon gave a slight nod and said, “Yes, ma’am.”
“Excellent,” Julie said beaming, “Come this way.” Julie pivoted on her heel and headed back through the door she had just used to enter. She did not look back to see if Devon was following her. Devon scrambled to catch up. Julie walked briskly but the pace seemed natural. Shortly down the hallway, Julie turned right into a small windowless room with a few small lockers, a small counter with a sink and a coffee maker.
“This is the break room. You can store your things here if you’d like,” Julie finally stopped and faced Devon. Devon looked down at his empty hands. Julie followed his gaze then straightened and said with a smile, “Well, if you bring something tomorrow, you know where it is.”
She then led Devon down the hall to another small room with a table and a few chairs. “Wait here a moment, I’ll be right back.” Julie walked down the hall and Devon heard her ask, “Do you have the HR package for Devon? Yes, the new kid. Yes, he’s the one Katie sent over. Yes, I will keep an eye on him.” Devon feigned interest in an OSHA poster on the wall as Julie re-entered.
“Please take a seat,” she said. Devon took a seat at the table and Julie set a large stack of papers in front of him. Devon looked at them. Julie sat next to Devon and took the top document and said, this is your W-4, it is for your taxes. This is the employee handbook, you need to read it then initial at the end of each chapter and sign it at the end…” Julie went on, Devon only half listened and only a quarter understood.