by Trevor Shand
Adrian was at a loss of words but stammered out, “Um, yeah, good.” Steve went back to looking over the sheets and Adrian glanced around the room as if looking for someone else. No one other than Steve was there. Finally Adrian put his head back down and started reading again.
Three hours later, Steve and Adrian having each read their halves, then switching and reading the other’s half, Steve got up and got yet another beer. “We’re running low.”
“I had a twelve pack in there,” Adrian said. He did not drink much himself but Steve ended up in his apartment enough that he now kept what he felt was a large supply.
Steve pulled his head out of the refrigerator and said, “So I should have said we were low when I walked in?” A large grin spread across his face.
One corner of Adrian’s mouth pulled down, “No. I’d tell you that you’ve had enough but I know you won’t listen, besides, if it works for you what do I care. All I am saying is I’m not buying anymore.” Steve laid the corner of his beer on the edge of the counter and struck the top. The cap popped off and Steve caught it before it could hit the floor. “Where is the bottle opener?” Adrian asked.
“Over there,” Steve indicated with his chin while he took a long pull of the beer. Finished he continued, “It was all the way across the room.”
“So you destroy my counters?”
Steve looked down at the edge of the counter. Rubbing it, he scrunched his brow and said, “It’s fine.”
Adrian did not looked convinced but he did not say anything. He looked back at his screen and said, “Come look at this.”
Steve rounded the end of the counter and headed over to stand behind Adrian. He looked down at Adrian’s screen. The screen showed a blue screen, divided by white dash marks and covered with white text. “What is this? A web site from the early 90s? Prodigy looks advanced compared to this.”
Adrian smiled and nodded his head, “Prodigy, way to go. I’m impressed. But no, this is a modern site, or at least an up-to-date site.”
“I haven’t seen anything on the web look like that recently.”
“Of course not, you surf the web. The web is only part of the internet. The tip of the iceberg, the Disney, family friendly part.”
“I have seen some things that are distinctly not,” Steve stressed the word ‘not’, “family friendly.”
Steve chuckled, fair enough, but what I meant was that while most people surf the web, the web is only a small fraction of the internet. Most of the illegal things are not done on it. Some are, don’t get me wrong, but most are not. Think of the internet as a city, and the World Wide Web is the streets. Most people drive around the streets and say, ‘I’ve seen the city.” A few people get car jacked, but most of the crime is happening in-between the streets, around the streets, under and over the streets.”
Steve thought about it, “That is still a horrible looking site” was his only reply.
“Fair enough, but let’s look at what the ugly site is telling us,” he pointed at a message on the screen, “This is a thread that discusses new methods of getting around wire taps. It used to be, burner phones were safe, or at least mostly safe. But it is getting easier and easier to get judges to let police tap people, now phones and high tech devices can listen in to any phone in the area, so they are not nearly as safe. So the discussion is about how to effectively communicate now, without tipping off the police.”
“So, how are they doing it?” Steve asked.
“Usually either jamming the signal which is tough because you have to target the receiver which means you have to tip the police off that you know they are there, or they are going low-tech and using runners again, but that’s not the point. The point is, if we follow this thread, we find a few users from this area…”
“How do we know they are from this area?” Steve asked.
“Two reasons, one they aren’t smart enough to effectively mask their IP addresses, they are using crappy proxies. Basically leaving bread crumbs. Second, they have made several references to places and local slang. Not a lot, not, ‘Hey, we run the corner at King Street and 6th’ but enough description that as they build up we have been able to identify them as from here.”
“So, let me get this straight. You’re using the internet but more than the internet. You find some bad guys who are all trying to stay anonymous, you trace back their location using a Hansel and Gretel technique, to find guys in our city you think are related to our guy, is that right?” Steve asked.
“Not exactly but close enough.”
“So that’s what you do, yet you were making fun of my car. I think we have an uncool guy here, and it ain’t me.”
“Well, we all have our skillset. You get drunk better than anyone else, I find baddies online.”
“Humph, well I never,” Steve fake pouted, then finished his beer and headed to the fridge to get another one. “So what are our next steps?”
“Our next steps are to understand how they are communicating, tap that, then get some dirt on Will. Once we can do that, since it won’t be legally admissible, we will confront him with it and see if we can get him to give up his suppliers or at least send us in the right direction. Lest we forget, our original goal was not him, but his suppliers.”
Steve stood frozen for a moment thinking. Then he waved his beer can in the air and said, “Well, I don’t think you need me for any of this, I’ll go get some more beer.” With that he sauntered out of the apartment not waiting for confirmation or rebuttal from Adrian.
“…and that boys is the gist of it,” Russ concluded. His small dwelling filled with eight people; Mario, Jeff, Johnny, Alex, Kit, Will, Nate and himself. The paratroopers that the living room seemed to be clones. They were all at least six feet tall, looked forged out of iron and wearing black tactical pants, tight t-shirts and combat boots. They had arrived early and Russ had just finished telling them the story from start to finish. He had started with him looking for a job but it did not seem to matter to the troopers. They continued to be bored through the story about how Bryon had introduced Jeff to Mario and himself. They perked up at Russ mentioning Eric and they all became anxious when he had mentioned the money they had made. Once he explained how they had three keys, the troopers were too excited to really listen to their failed attempt to resell the product.
“So I am guessing you asked up here to secure you a corner and provide protection,” Johnny conjectured. Johnny was a wiry man whose slim build made him seem taller than he was. While thin, he had taunt rope-like muscles without an ounce of fat.
Alex was as muscular and the shortest of the group. His eyes constantly darted around, scanning his environment. Will was good looking, with medium length, straight dark hair pulled back in a ponytail. Kip and Nate were both large men, both well over six feet with muscles built from hard work rather than in a gym. Kip had a hawkish nose while Nate nearly constantly smiled with bright teeth that would make most movie stars jealous.
“Yeah, basically,” Russ said.
“And you have three kilos?” Johnny asked.
“Yup.”
“And you need this done now?”
“The clock is ticking.”
“Well, when you started this story, I figured it was something along those lines and I was thinking we go 50-50, half for your crew, half for mine,” Johnny explained. Russ nodded his head. Johnny continued, “But now that I hear the whole story, I’m thinking we all need to be equal partners, we take the money, split it eight ways after we pay off, each man gets his split.”
“So we move from a 50-50 split to a 65-35 split in your favor?” Jeff objected.
“It’s actually sixty two and a half not sixty five but yeah.”
Jeff looked over at Russ, “You OK with this?”
Russ smiled, glanced at Mario, then at Johnny, then back to Jeff, “Well, I wouldn’t have necessarily talked about everything in front of people but yeah, I think we’re good.”
“What do you mean we’re good? That s
hift is thousands of dollars.”
“I know, but we can’t do it without them.”
“So maybe we should increase the amount,” Johnny offered.
Russ never broke eye contact with Jeff and said, “We could always sell this stuff at break-even point. Even our customers who have blow would by this quality of product at that price, but it doesn’t take into account that there is risk involved which we should be compensated for. But then again, there are extremes to both sides of everything.” Turning to Johnny, he said, “I’m fine with sixty two and a half for your team, but let me say, what we want is protection and an outlet that can move the quantity of product we need moved. You cover all your expenses and/or cover anyone else you feel you need to add. We keep our portion, we sell and we supply product.”
Johnny’s head bobbed up and down then he said, “Yeah, I think that sounds fair, I mean we’ll want to check out a corner or two, but if they are anything like the ones in LA, they shouldn’t be too hard to take. Other than that your deal sounds fair.” Turning to the other four troopers he said, “Let’s go look around downtown, see if we can find a corner with some traffic that we can kick the little kids off of.”
The group left with a collection of affirmative noises. Once gone, Mario looked at Russ and said, “Think we’ll be able to control them?”
Russ shook his head, “Not really, but I am hoping if we keep hold of the supply we can simply stop the drugs which will stop the money and they will wander off.”
“Here’s to positive thinking,” Mario said.
Steve and Adrian were back in a car. This time they were staking out the corner of 3rd Avenue and South Horton Street, watching the train tracks. Steve sat behind the wheel of the 1971 Dodge Coronet Station Wagon. Adrian had made the usual disparaging comments when Steve picked him up and was unimpressed with the resto-mods Steve had explained on the way to their stakeout spot.
Steve put down the binoculars he had been peering through and asked “Are you sure we’re in the right place?”
“Nope,” Adrian said unapologetically, “As I mentioned, we are going off vague descriptions of areas, but this is my best guess.”
“You know, we can see the tracks from Holgate as well, and there is a Krispy Kreme up there.”
“So you want us, as law enforcement officials to stake out a potential drop from a doughnut shop?”
“I agree it might be a bit stereotypic but hot Krispy Kreme doughnuts are good.”
Adrian turned to Steve and smiled, saying “See? I’m saving you from yourself. If we were staked out there you’d weigh four hundred pounds and let’s see you fight at that size.”
“I could just lay on them then. Of course I’d have to ask them nicely to stop so I could catch them, but I’m sure a few might.”
“Yeah, but not enough.”
“I guess you’re right. Besides, they don’t let you drink in Krispy Kreme.” Steve pulled a flask out of his pocket.
“But they do have coffee,” Adrian said shaking his cup to indicate it was empty.
“Now who is arguing for Krispy Kreme? Wait…” Steve lifted the binoculars to his eyes. Steve stared out across the dark tracks to see an even darker shadow approach a battered junction box on the far side of the track. The figure took a quick look around and then knelt in front of the box. “I told you this car was a great sleeper. He didn’t look twice at it because of the wagon profile,” Steve offered.
Adrian, who was also now peering through binoculars did not argue. He knew there a variety of reasons the figure had not been spooked, the most likely one was that he simply did not see the car tucked in behind a dumpster in the back of a private parking lot for a company that made some sort of industrial packaging. But he also knew that Steve took his cars seriously and more importantly personally, so he kept quiet. “I can’t see what he’s doing, his back is to us.”
“Yeah, a can see that, but it looks like he’s putting something in the box.” The figure moved around a bit more, then stood up and took another hesitant look around. Satisfied, he scurried back off into the night. “Let’s go take a look.”
Steve and Adrian opened their doors. Steve had disabled the overhead lights, so they continued in the dark, trying not to trip over the rails as they made their way over the myriad of tracks. “Hey, look, there is a new, light mark on the outside of the box.” Steve whispered.
“Yeah, I noticed that too,” Adrian said, “I didn’t see that before.” Finally reaching the box, Adrian risked a small pen light. He shone it on the face of the box and sure enough there was a small but distinct white chalk mark in the lower left corner. He grabbed the front of the box and pulled it open.
Inside they found a small plastic container. In the container was a small note that said, “Need two pillows for room 4.”
“What does this mean?” asked Steve.
“I’m not sure but I would guess two pillows refers to two of some quantity of drugs and room four is a drop.”
“But we don’t know what drugs or where?”
“Nope,” Adrian agreed.
“So we take this note, head over to Carl Marfori’s and question him about it?”
Steve could see Adrian’s disappointed look even in the minimal light. “And what is he going to say? ‘I have no idea what that is. What are you doing bothering me? I know nothing.’ This doesn’t link anything to him. All we have is a cryptic note, left by a suspicious man in the middle of the night in a clandestine location, but that doesn’t account for much in a court of law.”
“So what are our next steps?” Steve inquired.
“Well, I don’t know about you, but I am tired. So let’s contact the two uniforms you had who were running surveillance on the wheel shop before you busted it up and see if they might be willing to help with this drop. They can sit on it, see who comes to get the note and where they take it.”
“Sounds good, I’ll call them as you drive home,” Steve said.
“I’m driving back?”
“Of course you are, I have to make a phone call and I don’t want to drink and drive.”
“But you haven’t had anything to drink.”
“Not yet.” Even in the dim light Adrian could see Steve grinning.
Johnny strolled down Colorado Avenue. Dressed in a t-shirt and jeans, he ambled as if he had no plan and no destination. He stopped in the middle of the block, lifted his foot and placed it on a nearby stoop. Glancing up and down the road, his eyes shielded by reflective wrap-around sunglasses, pretending to simply view his surroundings. But Johnny’s hawkish eyes knew exactly what to focus on. It was not the kids on the corner, dressing in their suit of armor. This armor was not metal, or even Kevlar, it was over stuffed jackets and skinny jeans with Timberland boots. This was not armor from bullets and knives, but from the rest of the real world. It allowed the boys to fit in on their corner and told everyone else to stay away.
Johnny laughed. In the rest of the world, the puffy jackets and Timberlands were accompanied by sagging jeans, not tight jeans. But skinny jeans were hipster and it seemed that even gangsters couldn’t escape a bit of hipster-dom in the kingdom of hipsters that is Seattle. Johnny’s true intent in looking around was scanning to see who noticed him stop.
Through experience with street gangsters, both in the US and abroad, he knew that they were fairly linear. That meant that what they saw was what was. That meant that when one gang wanted to take over a block, they drove past the block and figured out how many people were on each block and figured they had to shoot that many people. They would then come back in either car or on foot or a combination and kill that many people.
Then those who had been vanquished from the corner would lick their wounds, drive back past their corner, do a little math and start the cycle over again. Those that gained the knowledge of the cycle did it first hand and died for the most part. Those who did not die, doubled down on being tougher, and were killed the next time or the time after that. Those who survived, ra
ther than thinking they got lucky and should change their strategy before their luck ran out, instead started believing that they were in fact tougher. They would become what the new guys aspired to be and the cycle started once again, doing what they did, getting what they got.
So there was very little evolution in the way the street folks of any area did business. But they did evolve and Johnny knew what others were doing. He hated the saying “knowledge is power” because it was not true. Knowledge is only power if you can do something with it. But Johnny’s knowledge of dealing with a variety of people throughout the world taught him how things had evolved. As he stuck his leg up to tie his shoe his eyes scanned looking for the watchers in the windows, a block or more away.
He saw what he was looking for, subtle shifts in the blinds on the second floor above and a bit behind him. The movement was quick, and the blinds went back to their original spot. Trying to move his head casually but quickly he glanced behind him and saw the second floor blinds of the window directly across the street moved. Rather than returning to their original place however, they stayed moved. It was not much, the slightest gap, but there did not need to be much movement to train a gun barrel on him. He knew without looking that at least one more gun, from a building near or even past the corner was trained on him.
Being so close to the buildings, the gunners on his side of the road would not have a shot without opening the window and they did not want to give away their position, but if he should make trouble the windows would be opened quickly. These elevated guns, spread wide, gave the defenders additional sentry capabilities, elevated firing positions and an increased number of firing lines. The defense was people intensive, and more importantly, used people with some training and discipline.
Understanding his position, Johnny did not make any trouble. He continued to casually walk down the street. Without getting too close to the corner workers, he crossed the street, to the kitty-corner. Because there was no traffic, Johnny was able to walk a third of the way down the street before rejoining the sidewalk. The corner workers followed him with their eyes but did not say anything nor did they move in his direction. Still keeping his casual gait, he made his way back to his car. He had been out scouting for nearly the entire day. This was the third place he had parked, having moved from one place to another when he felt the general area around his position was spent.