Shock Wave

by James O. Born

  “What?” Tasker stood, hoping he hadn’t heard this moron correctly.

  Goldman stood, too. “I didn’t mean it that way.”

  “Bullshit. This had nothing to do with legal charges. I was intentionally set up by an FBI agent. I guarantee none of the lowlifes you represent were ever set up like this. And cops don’t pile on charges unless the criminal committed multiple crimes.”

  Nicky Goldman held up his hands in surrender and started to back away.

  “You fucking grave-robbing attorneys complain when your clients are charged, hoping for some sympathy. Let me tell you something, Counselor, you don’t help the downtrodden, you hurt them. Every day. By helping those predators get back into those neighborhoods.” Tasker started to go into his remedy for attorneys when Donna emerged from the rear bedroom.

  “You boys getting along okay?”

  Tasker cleared his throat and Nicky turned his flushed face. Both mumbled, “Yes.”

  She kissed Tasker on the cheek, again saying, “We have to move on. At some point we have to meet each other’s new friends.”

  Then Tasker realized that his ex-wife’s change in attitude in the last month may have been prompted by something other than fear of commitment. Maybe she was just afraid to recommit to him. He froze, wanting to apologize to the still-silent lawyer. He didn’t need this now.

  After Derrick Sutter’s little adventure, he realized just how much he missed working on the bigger cases with FDLE, and missed his partner, Bill Tasker. They had fun together, and even though Tasker wasn’t the most cheerful guy, considering what had happened to him the past few years he seemed to maintain pretty well.

  The Vice unit was finishing the sweep. They hardly made anything of Sutter’s efforts to run down the dope dealer earlier. Pretty common stuff for these tough veteran cops.

  Sutter had placed the guy he had chased in line with all the other suspects, sitting on a curb, waiting to be processed. He had given the gray plastic package he’d recovered to the sergeant, who had opened it to find a load of cash.

  Sutter liked helping out, even though he was still assigned to robbery. This gave him a chance to roam Liberty City and help clear out some of the dickheads that made it hard for the ordinary residents of the area to live and raise families. It also felt good to run after someone once in a while. At least the brothers here didn’t throw little sticks of dynamite at him or cook up all kinds of nasty explosives in their bathtubs. He decided that he preferred to have chicken thrown at him anytime.

  Now, as his shift started to wind down, he was filling out an arrest form on one of the dozens of prisoners. With the other cops in a straight line, sitting at long, portable tables with folding chairs, it looked like a recruiting drive, with people filling out employment applications.

  Sutter looked across at the young black woman, her hands secured behind her back with plastic flex cuffs. He recognized her from the neighborhood over the years but had never spoken to her. She was pretty, with a full-framed gold front tooth and funky, slicked-down hair. He didn’t like it when they just swept up everyone in a big net like this, but he knew it had to be done. Crack sales were killing neighborhoods all over the country. The regular people who lived here had to put up with it every day, and that was definitely not right.

  As Sutter filled out the top part of the form, the woman said, “I gettin’ out tonight?”

  “Doubt it. You’ll see a judge tomorrow.”

  “He just let us out then. Why bother with this tonight?” She wasn’t nasty, just exasperated.

  “ ’Cause this is my job.” Now he really started to miss Tasker and the big cases. He came to the prisoner-information section on the form. Looking up at the woman, he asked, “Last name?”

  “Williams.”

  Sutter wrote in block letters and asked, “First?”

  “Sha-theed.”

  He started to write, then said, “Spell it.”

  “S-H-I-T-H-E-A-D.”

  Sutter wrote it in, then stared at the name until it made sense. “Funny. Now what’s your first name?”

  “That is my first name. Look at my ID.” She nodded toward the small plastic evidence bag containing her personal property.

  Sutter retrieved the official Florida identification card, usually issued if you couldn’t get a license for some reason, and found that the young woman’s name was, in fact, Shithead Williams. Sutter let a smile slide across his face and said, “I bet you have a nickname.” He was about to write “Shitty” before she even answered.

  The woman said, “Yeah, my brothers call me Anita.”

  Sutter stopped writing and looked up at her again. “Anita, where’s that come from?”

  She shrugged.

  “Is that what you use everywhere?”

  “No, I likes to be called Sha-theed. It’s prettier.”

  Sutter was about to explain the mean joke her parents had played on her when a big sergeant walked over, rotated his head on his massive shoulders and said, “Sutter, can you run down to the Gables and see if that guy is staying at the address he just gave us?” He pointed to the small, dark, Latin-looking man at the end of the row who Sutter had caught earlier. His head drooped down and shoulders hunched.

  Sutter said, “No problem, Sarge.”

  The big man said, “That package you found had eight grand cash in it and we need to know who he is for sure. He may be a good link to something else. Figured you caught him, you’d want to do the follow-up. I know you been kicking around in south county with your FDLE buddy. I send one of my guys out of the city, he’s liable to end up in Tampa.”

  Sutter laughed. “I hear ya. I’ll call when I find anything out.”

  “If it looks like he lives there, see if we need to get a search warrant for the house.”

  “How do you want me to do that?” Sutter asked.

  The sergeant just looked at him. “You’ll know what to do.”

  Sutter nodded and handed the lovely Shithead, or Sha-theed, off to another cop and found his issued Buick parked around the corner. There was a good-sized crowd on the street watching the cops complete the search and haul away the prisoners.

  Half an hour later, Sutter had determined that the address provided by the suspect was a Publix shopping center. He cruised the lot and asked a few questions about the man in case he was homeless and really did live here. The Publix produce manager explained that Coral Gables didn’t have any homeless people and assured Sutter that he had never heard of the suspect.

  After Sutter reported this info back to the Vice sergeant and was told to head home for the night, he found himself driving south on US 1. Since his adventures in the southern Dade area, he’d found he liked the idea of there being such a diverse and different place only a few miles from the city that he loved. He would’ve liked to have Tasker with him now, but his friend had agreed to watch his girls so his wife could get away for the weekend. That made Tasker either one of the greatest guys he’d ever met or a sucker. He’d seen the FDLE agent’s ex-wife and figured she could’ve turned him into a sucker, too, if she wanted to.

  Sutter noticed a bar attached to the end of a little strip mall in what Sutter believed was South Miami, a separate little town just south of the Gables. He was about to pass it when he saw it was a nude bar. His favorite kind.

  The bar had no visible name until he entered and saw it was called the Tittie Shack. Probably not a name the landlord of the shopping center wanted outside the club. He paused, looking past the sign, and the doorman demanded a ten-dollar cover. The vibe the big man threw Sutter’s way wasn’t positive, but Sutter ignored him. The small façade hid a good-sized place with two stages. He thought, What the hell, and handed the giant bouncer a ten-dollar bill. There were only five customers and at least ten girls, most sitting around in skimpy outfits, looking bored. A pretty Latin girl with too much makeup smiled and patted the empty space next to her on a bench by the rear wall. No one else seemed interested, so he strutted over, letting the gi
rls look him over, and took a seat on the padded bench. As he sat, he realized that the table had hidden the girl’s substantial lower body, but to Sutter that was a plus. She introduced herself as “Diamond,” and Sutter said his name was “Gold.” She accepted it just as he had accepted her stage name. Half an hour and two drinks later, Sutter felt his groove coming on. He thought this girl might be good for a party. As he worked his mind around how to ask if she’d like to see his South Beach apartment, he noticed the blond dancer on the far stage. She had a body but not many moves. Still there was something familiar about her. He stared at the light-skinned dancer until his Latina flicked his ear. The rest of the night was a blur.

  Daniel Wells cringed as he squished the last cone under the wheels of the big tractor-trailer. Counting the two garbage cans before he’d even entered the course, he had hit twenty-two objects. He didn’t figure that to be a passing score. He looked over to the fifty-year-old heavyset instructor.

  The older man said, “Mr. Westerly, that was god-awful.”

  “Don’t pass yet, huh?”

  “I’m not sure you should be allowed to drive a car.”

  “I just need to get a feel for the distance from the driver’s seat to the bumper.” The big Freightliner Coronado made him feel like he was driving from the second floor of a building.

  “No offense, but I seen fellas drunk on moonshine calculate distances better than you. Once, for a prank photo, we put a monkey behind the wheel. I believe he did a better job than you.”

  “Need more practice, that’s all.”

  “Mr. Westerly, I don’t usually say this, ’cause the school needs students and the income, but you been coming for lessons a long time and you ain’t ready to drive a pickup, let alone a semi.”

  Wells nodded. The only thing he’d done right at this school was use a fake name and answer to it when someone addressed him. “Just let me work on cornering and some narrow lanes and I’ll be happy.”

  The big driving instructor hesitated.

  “I’ll pay the full tuition again. Start from scratch.”

  The instructor shrugged. “Okay. I think you’d do better finding other work, but we can try again.”

  Wells slapped him on the shoulder. “Thank you. This is all part of my dream.”

  fourteen

  Bill Tasker threaded his Monte Carlo through the typical Kendall-north-to-Miami traffic with his mind never once registering what he was doing. A hundred other things seemed to press in on him as he tried to get control of his life. He needed to figure out exactly what he wanted. What would it take to be happy? The answer kept coming back to his girls. He needed to spend more time with them and less time worrying about the million things a police job can throw at you.

  Pulling onto the 836 expressway headed toward the office, he barely noticed other cars as they whipped past him or slammed on the brakes. He just wrapped his head around the thought of raising his girls right. He’d start today. After a short day at the office, he’d surprise them with a quick trip to the house in West Palm Beach. Maybe take them out to dinner. He immediately felt the change in his mood as he became more determined to complete this simple act by the end of the day. By the time he pulled into the front lot of the FDLE Miami Regional Operations center, he actually had a smile on his face.

  Five minutes later, Tasker sat next to the criminal-intelligence analyst in his squad bay. He looked down at the pile of paper which contained all kinds of information on Daniel Wells. He had past addresses, even one from Gainesville when Wells had attended the University of Florida. The printouts also showed that Wells might have been married once before Alicia. There was so much information it was daunting, but still nothing pointed to where the former engineering student had disappeared to so completely.

  The analyst, Jerry Ristin, looked up from his computer screen, his thick, tinted glasses obscuring his eyes. “Well, kiddo, you got a lot to work with, but nothing that jumps out. He had a lot of jobs.”

  “I thought he owned his own business.”

  “He did. Looks like he contracted out as part of his business.”

  “Anything interesting?”

  “He worked at the Port of Miami for three weeks about two and half years ago.”

  “Yeah, I knew that. When I have time, I’ll check it out. I’m planning on canvassing his old neighborhood today, see if anyone has anything to add. We didn’t do it the day of the warrant because we were hoping he’d come back.”

  Ristin asked, “The couple of times you talked with Wells, did he ever say anything that might tip off where he’d go? I know you had to think of this, but I’m seeing if I can jog your memory.”

  Tasker had gone over that question in his head a thousand times. “I remember him saying something about sending the kids away, and maybe Tennessee. Shit, he could be anywhere.”

  “True, but you can look anywhere.”

  Tasker smiled at the older man’s confidence. He’d been around a long time and had cracked a lot of cases that other people got credit for over the years. “Got any suggestions?”

  “I knew you’d ask.”

  “I’m ready, let’s hear ’em.”

  “Call someone over at the FBI. See if they have anything on him. See if they can contact agents in Tennessee to follow up the lead there.”

  Tasker frowned.

  “I knew you wouldn’t like it, but it needs doing.”

  Tasker said, “You’re right, but I’ve already been thinking about it. I just need to decide who to call. I’m not sure the Great White Hope will talk to me.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Jimmy Lail-just some young agent who was born in the wrong culture.”

  Ristin shrugged. “Do what you need to do. I know you want this guy. I’ll check his phone books and see if they lead us anywhere.”

  Tasker sat for a minute, looking at the printouts and watching the analyst attack his computer. Ristin had saved him once with that thing. Tasker hoped he could do it again.

  Tasker was eager to finish talking to the people in Wells’ neighborhood, so he could start his ride to West Palm and the girls. He’d even decided he’d ask Donna to go to dinner, too. Screw Nicky Goldman.

  The afternoon sun kept the temperature a little over ninety as Tasker stood in front of the small wooden duplex next door to Daniel Wells’ house. He had spoken to two neighbors so far, and neither had any useful information. They agreed that he was a good family man, always rough-housing with his boys out front. The only problem seemed to be that the kids were a little wild. The family had lived there about a year and a half, and Alicia didn’t say much to the neighbors.

  The warped door squeaked open and a man of about forty, in shorts and a Marlins T-shirt, assessed Tasker. “Help you?” asked the man in a clipped Florida-cracker drawl. His thin neck and protruding Adam’s apple marked him as at least third-generation redneck from the area.

  Tasker produced his badge and said, “I need to ask a few questions about your neighbors next door, the Wellses.”

  “Saw you guys going through the house last week. What’d he do?”

  “We’re looking into a couple of things. No big deal.” He’d learned to keep things low-key and not give out more information than he got.

  “I saw you arrested him for the wrong thing a few weeks ago. You just sore he beat the charges?”

  “No, sir. Just need to find him. Mainly to ask him a few questions. Got any idea where he might be?”

  “Nope.”

  “Know anything might help me find him?”

  “Nope.”

  Tasker looked over the slim man’s shoulder into a fairly clean house. “You know Mr. Wells at all?”

  “Talked to him once in a while. He fixed my lawn mower after one of his boys set off a big-ass firecracker under it.”

  “That’s it?”

  “I know he had a serious piece of ass for a wife.”

  That was something Tasker was already aware of. “When’s the last time
you saw him?”

  The man thought about it, then said, “Probably the night before you guys searched the house.”

  “Is there anything you can think of that might help me?”

  “Naw. Daniel, he’s a pretty good guy. Smart as a whip, too. Can fix anything. Learning to drive a big rig. Does all kinds of stuff.”

  “Learning to be a truck driver? Where?”

  “No idea.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, Mr. State Policeman, I didn’t go to no police academy, but I guess so he could drive a big truck.”

  Tasker laughed out loud. The redneck was probably right.

  Daniel Wells loved making little things like this. In the tiny trailer he rented for four-fifty a month, he’d arranged a pulley system to provide a surprise for anyone who tried to get in the front door unexpectedly. This was his true gift-engineering the unusual out of the usual. If the door handle was turned so it faced down past eighty degrees, it would start one spring working with another, ending with a length of wire pulling a safety off a device hidden on the porch. Following that course of events, a scene of bedlam would develop that would surely ruin someone’s day.

  He liked this musty trailer west of Homestead but didn’t completely trust the floor in the bedroom. He went as far as the bathroom in the hallway most of the time. He set the old thermostat to seventy and settled onto the soft couch in the main room, chuckling about his booby trap as he picked up his Popular Mechanics.

  The sun was starting to drop to the west as Tasker maneuvered his Monte Carlo through rush-hour traffic. He had avoided the motionless vehicles on the interstate and was now in sight of his destination.

  Sutter, in the seat next to him, had been happy to work in the city with Tasker, because he could show him all the wondrous sights and tell him the funny stories about working with Vice the night before.

  “Stay in this lane,” snapped Sutter. “People turn toward the arena from the left.”

  Tasker obeyed. “I wanna get there before five to talk to the management.”