The Drop Zone

by Bob Kroll

  Overton’s house was an L-shaped bungalow with blue vinyl siding, surrounded by a manicured front lawn and a stone wall that was losing the battle against the heaving of winter frost. He was in the backyard stringing up a clothesline.

  Overton looked up and saw Peterson and went right on looping the clothesline around a metal pulley. He had a thin, stern face. Late thirties. A jogger’s body. Wearing greasy, grey coveralls with a heavy beige sweater underneath.

  “You slumming it,” he said, without giving Peterson the benefit of eye contact.

  “Checking out life on the outside,” Peterson said and lifted the clothesline to make it easier for Overton to string the pulley.

  “Yeah, I heard you fell off a tightrope.”

  “Word travels fast.”

  “Not so fast that I don’t hear it.”

  “What else you hearing?”

  Overton stopped with the clothesline and gave Peterson a tight look. “Depends. Some I hear real good, and some I go stone deaf. What are you after?”

  Peterson crowded him a little. “A gang called the Posse. Involved in local and long-distance whoring.”

  Overton pointed at two lawn chairs under a spindly birch struggling to survive in this mostly treeless neighbourhood. The chairs were out of earshot of the neighbouring houses. Overton sat hunched over, his elbows on his knees. Peterson leaned back and stretched his legs.

  “What’s in it for me?” Overton asked without looking Peterson’s way.

  “Civic duty,” Peterson said.

  Overton sucked through his teeth. “I’ll tell you what. I’ve been set adrift for a year and a half. No excuses. I know what I did. Nothing more than a lot of others and what goes up the chain of command, but what the fuck, right? I mean, take a look around. Modest house in a low-rent neighbourhood. I wasn’t skimming off the top like some I know. But I’m the one that gets tagged with persona non grata.”

  Overton swept his eyes over the backyard, slyly looking for someone listening in. A habit from his days on the street.

  “I saw you park,” he said, “walk up the driveway, and I thought, here it comes, the all for one and one for all bullshit. I’ve been expecting it. I figured sooner or later someone downtown would want to know what I know. Surprised it took so long. Then again, not too surprised.”

  Overton stood up, his shoulders braced and his jaw set and determined. He laced and unlaced his fingers.

  “I’ll tell you what I want,” he said. “I want the monkey off my back when it comes to looking for work. I want the chart smudged up a bit. You don’t have to clean it so I come off like some fucking choir boy, but enough so I can get a job, doing what I know how to do. I’m not a thief, Peterson. I took sweetener like everybody else sniffing for coffee grounds. I want to work security. That’s not too much to ask is it?”

  Peterson shook his head. “I can promise everything you want, but I can’t keep it. I got Fultz so far up my ass I’m going blind. I’m suspended until I get my head together. How far do you think that’s going to go?”

  Peterson stood and offered Overton his hand. “I can’t pay, and you can’t deliver. No hard feelings.”

  Overton shook his hand. “Does this have to do with your daughter?”

  Peterson didn’t answer, letting his silence play the angle. He turned to go.

  “Sit down,” Overton ordered. “I’ll tell you what I know.”

  They sat as before, Overton talking to the ground at his feet and Peterson leaning back and listening.

  “The Posse is a loose arrangement. Small groups, independent. And tied in with bikers in Ontario and Quebec. Down here, one man calls the shots.”

  “Name?”

  “Tooka. He’s smart. A college boy but street talks when he needs to. Cool and fucking ruthless. Hot temper that doesn’t show. He gets even fast. Does nothing himself. He’s careful that nothing directly ties back to him. We went for him a couple of times and came up empty. He has firewalls between himself and what happens on the street. And he dresses like a bank exec. Same morals, too. Has a dress code for his soldiers: no baggy pants hanging off their asses and no hoodies. Everything under the radar. And no drugs. That’s the key. That’s what keeps them flying low.”

  “Tooka have a last name?”

  “Like he needs one. You want a beer?”

  Peterson nodded, and Overton went into the house and came back with two Keith’s. He picked up where he left off.

  “Drugs are big money and big risk. We make a drug bust and the drugs are evidence, easy to produce at a trial. Trafficking women is safer. Nobody really fucking cares. Most of the big shots go to peeler bars and lap dances, here, Ottawa, Toronto, and that includes judges, lawyers, and our sainted elected officials. That’s why nothing gets done about running girls or busting johns. The movers and shakers like what they see shedding their clothes on stage, and they like the young ass they get off the corner or in the backroom of a strip joint.”

  Overton took a big swallow and then a big breath. Peterson hadn’t touched his beer.

  “We can’t convict a pimp even if a girl turns on him,” Overton said. “No evidence. It’s a year before the case goes to court and by that time the girl is missing in action or no longer willing to testify.”

  He took another big swallow. This time Peterson followed suit. Overton continued.

  “That’s why Tooka turned the Posse off drugs. They net the girls here, break them in, and ship them to the strip clubs and whorehouses in Montreal, southern Ontario, and out west. The older ones they trade off to local pimps. They use long haul trailers to take them back and forth. A rotation. Nobody gets bored. And they’re close with the biker boys up there. Protection and a distribution network to the clubs and whorehouses. Simple and safe as total fucking abstinence.”

  Peterson let it sink in before saying anything. He took a few sips of beer then said, “They have a favourite club in town?”

  “The Posse used to deal dope out of the Rendezvous. That’s what got me looking in the first place. Now it’s just girls. Tooka has a stake. My guess is the partners are just paperboys. He works out of the Flame, a late-night bar off the Strip. Like I said, he’s careful. Plays nothing close to home.”

  “What about private dances? Top secret? Men that like them just out of the cradle?”

  Overton drained his beer. He waited a long time before answering, rolling the bottle between his hands all the while. “Very private. Big shots.”

  “They above the law?”

  “From what I heard, they make the law.” Overton glanced around his backyard again. “A few like them young and unused. We’re talking kids. Tooka supplies.”

  “You have details?”

  “Nothing definite. Taxi squad. Home delivery. Loosey goosey so nothing feeds back. Drugs and sex. The drugs are what caught it on the radar. Not the johns, they’re home clean and stay clean. It’s the girls they keep high, so they can use them any way they want. Raunchy. Cruel. I never got close enough to know more. Didn’t care. Whores doing drugs wasn’t what I was after. You know the story in this business — whores don’t count. One gets out of line, she gets buried somewhere between here and Manitoba. No body. Half-assed investigation. Just another whore the boys in blue can’t find.”

  “Names?”

  “Never asked. Like I said, I didn’t care. I’m talking way more than I wanted.”

  “Did you report on this?” Peterson stood to go.

  Overton almost laughed. “Turn over little stones, and nobody gives a shit. Look under big ones, and you start looking over your shoulder. I had enough worries without creating new ones.”

  Overton walked Peterson back to his car. Peterson climbed in and Overton leaned through the open window.

  “Don’t poke the Posse without a halo,” he said.

  “They overlooked that when they suspended
me.”

  “A badge isn’t body armour. It may get you in, but you’ll have a fuck of a time getting out.”

  Peterson offered his hand and Overton took it.

  “Thanks,” Peterson said.

  Overton stayed beside the car. “After forty-eight hours the girls won’t shit without Tooka saying so. Get one early, and you have a chance. I hear anything, I’ll let you know.”

  “Thanks again.”

  “Thank my nine-year-old daughter. I worry like hell because I know more than I should. But I’ll tell you this — and I’m not telling you what to do — anyone ever gets their hooks into her, and I’m loading up a scoped Springfield 30-06 and picking them off one at a time.”

  Overton nodded sharply, turned, and went back to stringing the clothesline. Peterson watched him for a moment or two before he drove off. He’d travelled a few blocks when he noticed a dark sedan following him. He recognized it as department issue and pulled over to let the car draw alongside.

  Tommy Amiro was at the wheel; Andy Miles was riding shotgun. The passenger-side window went down and Miles leaned out. Peterson lowered his.

  Outside the station, Miles had a habit of spitting through his teeth and he did so now, spraying the back tire of Peterson’s Jetta.

  “Hey, Peterson, funny thing finding you out here holding hands with a scumbag,” Miles said. There was no warmth in his smile.

  “You tailing me?”

  Miles feigned innocence. “Why would I be doing that?”

  “I don’t know,” Peterson said. “You’re the one who can’t juggle more than one ball at a time, so I figure you have nothing to do.”

  “At least I’m doing nothing on the company’s clock and not ragging my ass playing at private eye.”

  “Who says I’m doing that?”

  “Rumour.”

  “The thing about Mr. Rumour,” Peterson said, “is he gets it wrong ninety percent of the time. But then again, that’s pretty much how you do police work.”

  Miles faked a laugh then leaned farther out the window and patted Peterson’s arm. His voice fell so what he said was between him and Peterson. “Why don’t you just sit on your hands for a while, collect your check, and tell your shrink how you wet the bed? Better yet, go somewhere. Sort things out and let the world go by.”

  Peterson slowly removed Miles’s hand from his arm. “I’ll think about it.”

  “I’m telling you for your own good,” Miles said and raised his window.

  Tommy Amiro shifted into gear and drove off. Peterson watched them go.

  Chapter

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Bony set the time and place: two that afternoon at the Drop Zone. He had information and something for Peterson to see. He had sounded jumpy, insisting he would get across the harbour and along the waterfront to the condemned dockside warehouse on his own.

  He was peeking between the broken boards that covered the doorway when Peterson arrived. Peterson was ten minutes late and Bony was itchy from having to wait.

  “I stopped for refreshments,” Peterson said and offered Bony a pint. Bony took a deep swallow then held the bottle up to the light and saw none but the heel was left.

  “Hitting it hard,” Bony said.

  Peterson faced it off. “It files down the edge.”

  “Right now, mine needs filing.” Bony drained the pint and tossed it among the rubble. Peterson raised his eyes.

  “I scratched on something that don’t like being scratched.” Bony said. He waved Peterson to follow him.

  Daylight through the smashed windows eased the stress of Peterson’s last nighttime visit. They passed the body-shaped pile of burlap and the graffiti-covered brick wall. Peterson couldn’t help looking for and finding his daughter’s angry scribble.

  “I talked to a hooker all strung out,” Bony said as they stepped over damp mattresses and broken boards. “Bouncing off the walls at Gainer’s, doing one line after another and backing them up with a needle. We’re talking four o’clock in the afternoon, and she’s going on the street for the hurry-ups on their way home. A kid for fuck’s sake.” He turned to face Peterson. “You know what I’m talking about.”

  Peterson winced and let it go.

  “So I followed her to see if I could help. She thinks I’m a john and cuts up an alley to this junked out Chevy in some backyard.”

  They walked through the brick archway where the heavy sliding door had slipped its rollers and lay on the floor.

  “She’s pissing her pants, Peterson. Leaning against the Chevy and pissing her pants. She can’t be twenty years old and stoned so bad, so fucked up.”

  They entered the long hallway with the sagging boards underfoot. Daylight streamed through the open door at the far end. Bony trod carefully, and Peterson did the same.

  “I stayed with her an hour at least. Sat her in the car. Dreamland conversation. Making no sense. Then she said something that made me listen. She said, ‘Tee fie,’ and then a lot of other shit I didn’t understand, until she blurted some craziness about the Drop Zone. She was talking blood, Peterson, and about another girl seeing it and telling her about it.”

  Bony stopped at the open door, the one Peterson had shouldered open several nights before. “I should’ve stuck to listening,” Bony said, “but I didn’t. I pressed her. And now someone knows I asked one question too many.”

  He led Peterson into the massive room with the collapsed back wall that opened up a ragged view of the harbour mouth. The daylight was intense. They rounded the pile of mortar Peterson had sat on in the dark, then around a mound of rubble.

  Bony pointed to an inside wall where Peterson saw large yellow spray-painted letters: T-Fi.

  Peterson stared at the words. “It wasn’t here that night,” he insisted. He thought for a moment. “Or I was too drunk to see it.”

  “Or too caught up with your own memories about this place.”

  Peterson gave the truth a side-glance then looked back at the letters. “The girl, what was her name?”

  “Asking names is your job.”

  “I should talk to her.”

  “Yeah,” Bony said, “like the working girls all stand in line to bleed their hearts out to you. You know better than that. You’ll get nothing, and you’ll get someone hurt. And that someone could be me. Especially if someone saw me talking to her. Take what I gave you and be happy.” He pointed at the yellow letters. “Besides, you got what the caller wanted you to get.”

  Peterson rubbed his face and head. It took him a few minutes to accept Bony’s silence on who the girl was. It went with their arrangement. Then he said, “What about you?”

  “Uncomfortable feeling,” Bony said. “Not much more than that, but it has me thinking about slipping away for a little bit.”

  “How long?”

  “Long enough.”

  Peterson leaned back and covered his ears as though that would keep the cell phone from vibrating through every nerve in his body. He was sitting in his car in an underground parking lot. Windows up, car running. Eyes wide but unfocused.

  “I’m not answering,” he said to the empty car. “Katy stop! Please stop!”

  The phone kept ringing. Then it stopped. A moment later it started ringing again. Peterson lowered his hands from his ears and reached down between his feet to retrieve the phone from where he had dropped it. “Katy,” he said. No response. He refused to click open the Skype image.

  Then he heard the disconnect and breathed out slowly. It was over.

  Not long afterward, Danny pulled into the parking lot and parked in an empty space nearby. He sat for a moment then climbed from his car and into Peterson’s.

  “Bernie ran T-Fi through Missing Persons and drew a blank,” Danny said. “If the girl ran away and holed up in the Drop Zone, nobody reported it and she never caught enough attention to
get pinched.”

  “Hard to believe.”

  “Nothing’s hard to believe,” Danny scoffed. He popped open the glove box and pulled out a pint of Johnnie Walker. He held it up. “Case in point.”

  “Don’t start.”

  “You know what you’re doing to yourself?”

  “I bought it yesterday,” Peterson said.

  Danny checked the seal then pursed his lower lip and nodded. “I’m impressed. But not that impressed. Keep it sealed for six months and then you can brag.” He returned the pint to the glove box.

  Peterson shrugged. “You check on Miles?”

  Danny nodded. “From what I heard, he wasn’t tailing you. Overton gets a close watch now and again, usually before a drug bust is going down, and you just happened to drive into the radar. Surveillance ran your licence, made a call, and Miles responded. He says he was just busting your chops.”

  “You believe it?”

  “Not for a New York second.” Danny said. “I don’t know what it is, but something’s not right.”

  Chapter

  TWENTY-NINE

  “Auld Lang Syne” woke Peterson from a drunken sleep. He rolled off his couch to the floor to find it, his arm knocking aside the now-empty pint from the glove box and half a dozen cans of beer. No caller ID. He checked his watch: 5 a.m. He answered anyway. It was Overton.

  “I think I got what you’re looking for,” Overton said. “You do breakfast?”

  “Where?”

  “I got a job interview downtown.”

  “Reggie’s?’

  “In an hour.”

  Overton was waiting in a booth toward the rear of Reggie’s Place. Six o’clock and the diner was packed with young lawyers and business execs getting a head start to impress.