While the mirror on the bar caught no picture of the guy ordering the drink, the other camera caught one frame reflecting his face and dropping something into the glass.
“Can you get me a copy of the picture?”
“Way ahead of you, Detective,” Beverly said, pulling three glossy copies of the image from a drawer. “Let me save you some time. I ran his facial profile through the system; came up with nothing, no arrests. However, I called Olivia. She came up with an idea.”
Beverly flipped the light on in the room. “She had me run his picture through ATC, Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control for Louisiana. His face matched a name, Brandon Asher. He has a Louisiana bartender’s license.”
Mario flopped down in a chair, “You people are unbelievable. Great work.”
“Gotta give credit where due,” she said. “I was at a dead end until I called Olivia.”
Mario left the building with a few clear pictures of the man responsible for drugging Olivia. It was a good day for police work; Olivia’s department might have cracked her own case. On the drive back to the Eighth Police District, he made a call to Truman, then rehashed in his mind how lucky the second camera came into play at the bar. Beverly’s keen eye might put this thug, whoever he was, away for a long time on attempted murder.
When he returned to his desk, a few more pink sticky notes awaited him. He quickly looked to make sure none were from the chief. He couldn’t have another glitch like earlier. She was easygoing, but he could only push her so far.
Mario dialed Truman’s extension, and he picked up on the first ring. “Anything?”
“Waiting on a callback,” Truman said. “My contact at ATC said Brandon Asher is in the system, and she’d have a list to me within the hour for every bar he ever worked.”
“Keep me posted.” Mario hung the phone up and was startled to see Howard standing behind him.
“I’ll be glad when you’re off undercover work and can enter a room like ordinary people through the front door. Sneaking in through the rear door is creepy,” Mario said. “One day I’ll react and just shoot your ass.”
Mario laughed it off. Howard had played the part of a limo driver using many accents for so long that he sometimes forgot he was an undercover cop. Besides, working with others wasn’t Howard’s strong point. Mario and Ben Stein, his limousine boss for years, were the only two people who could put up with his quirky ways, behaviors they overlooked.
As a courtesy, Truman knocked on the glass panel door of Mario’s office and entered. “I got something,” he said. Placing a single page in front of Mario. “Brandon works at the Crazy Horse. Been there for six months.”
“So he’s only worked at three joints as a bartender?” Mario asked.
“Here’s the catch,” Truman said. “The three buildings on Bourbon Street where Brandon worked are all owned by—”
Mario cut him off. “Let me guess. Lorenzo Savino.”
“You got it,” Truman said, taking a stroll around the room, stopping at a window.
They were sure that Manny, the bartender at Library Sports Bar, knew Brandon Asher, and because Manny took two to the back of the head, it was best to find Brandon before he’d catch a bullet too.
Mario and Howard took by foot to walk the two blocks to Bourbon Street to find this Brandon guy. The plan was that Mario would approach the building. Howard would watch the front entrance and a side door that led to an alleyway.
Mario entered, adjusting to the darkness of the bar and the loud music bouncing off the walls, while a topless woman danced, holding on to a pole. Looking around, the place was buzzing for late afternoon. Most bars didn’t attract customers until later at night. There was no getting close to the bartender to ask questions, and the only person serving drinks was a half-dressed woman. He looked around for any resemblance of a guy who looked like Brandon. No one fit the profile.
He made his way to the back and flashed his badge at who he thought might be a manager. They went to a storage room, where the music was muted so they could talk.
Mario the bad cop surfaced. “You seen Brandon?”
“No, sir,” the guy said.
“Look. Brandon and I have a little business we run.” Mario touched his nose. “You know I get my snow from him.”
Immediately the guy relaxed. “Oh, shit. I thought you wanted to bust him.”
What an ass, Mario thought. He took the bait on the first try.
“He just left. Heading with cases of liquor to the marina,” the guy said.
“Marina?”
Over Mario’s radio, Howard shouted. “White van; looks like our guy.”
“Which marina?” Mario asked.
“I don’t know; wherever Mr. Savino parks his boat. Brandon works the bar when they cruise. He and two other guys are setting up for tomorrow night.”
Mario smiled and gave the guy a wink. He opened the door, and the music overpowered his thinking,
“What’s your name?” the guy shouted at the back of Mario as he walked away. “I’ll tell him you were looking for him.”
Mario caught up with Howard at the edge of the street. He described the van Brandon drove, including the license plate number.
“We’re not going to need it,” Mario said grinning. “Our boy will be serving cocktails tomorrow night on Savino’s yacht.”
Chapter 12
Mario started the morning off with a jog down Magazine Street across Canal to the French Quarter. The run was a way to clear his head, but it didn’t always work that way. A day that would be productive in taking down Lorenzo Savino and his entire organization weighed heavily.
He stopped at a coffee shop, a place he had to visit a few times a month where the barista made his order when she saw him coming down the street. Curbside he would sit, waiting for the delivery of his latte. The place made him edgy; other times an all-out panic attack. Today was a tense day and almost anything could set him off. His latte was delivered, and he tried to pay the waitress, but the owner shook his head from across the counter. Mario gave him a head nod and stuck two bucks in the waitress’s apron as a tip.
Mario had worked the French Quarter for years, and it seemed every merchant thought they owed him something. Whether enforcing the vagrancy law in front of their businesses, holding Crimestoppers nights on their streets, and other things he did all in day’s work. They felt obligated to him. He always told them he was just doing his job.
It was the same table curbside he sat at each time; maybe by accident or through the power of the universe, the seat was kept open until he arrived. Mario, a big believer of the power of thought, held that table close to his heart. It was the table where a few years earlier he sat talking to Carson Watts, a waiter. Remembering the conversation they had, Carson reminded him of when Mario spoke at a halfway house for juveniles.
Carson told Mario he had changed his life when Mario said, “It’s not your fault you were born into poverty with a father you never knew and a mother more concerned about her next fix. You made choices, and they were all bad.” Then Mario took ten juveniles in a van to a cemetery and pointed out three graves and told the group, “You can change your life and make better choices, or in six months you’ll be resting next to these three.”
Mario handed each person an envelope with a job offer from merchants willing to give each of them a new start. Washing dishes in a restaurant, working trash pickup for the city, jobs that paid good money to turn their lives around. Carson Watts thanked Mario for his public service that day. If it wasn’t for Mario, Carson said he would have gone back to crime, and if he was lucky he would be back in jail or he’d be unlucky and dead.
Mario stood and gave the fellow a hug and told him he was very proud of him. That’s when things went wrong. Two bullets from a drive-by, meant for Mario, caught Carson Watts, killing him on the street. It was never proven that Felipe Cruz ordered the hit on Mario, but it was one of his soldiers who died on the scene when Mario chased the car down the street on foo
t, emptying a full clip from his gun into the car’s rear window.
That table curbside was Mario’s personal vigil to Carson Watts. He’d often sit and gaze for the longest time at traffic passing, just thinking about the kid and what his life would have been, if not cut short by bullets meant for him. The police headshrinker told Mario he shouldn’t go back to the coffee shop, or at least not sit at the same table. Mario refused, it was the pain he wanted to feel, and it reminded him of how precious life is and how dangerous a job he held.
Mario took the last sip of coffee, shook off his demons, and jogged back to the condo. It was time to meet with the chief and Howard on strategies to take down another kind of thug—one who ordered people killed, Lorenzo Savino.
At the condo, a shower, a shave, and some cheap cologne splashed on his face took just enough time for his anxiety of remembering Carson Watts to subside. Down the elevator, through the lobby without the doorman noticing and giving an update on the casual gossip of the building. Mario’s usual avoidance of walking fast toward the door holding his badge, shouting, “Sorry, official police business. Gotta go,” worked every time.
After arriving at Chief Parks office, as usual, they were waiting for Howard. As an undercover cop, he couldn’t just walk through the front door like everyone else. It took time to meander through side streets and up alleyways into a back door of the police station.
Mario always gave him a hard time, but the truth was that Howard was a great cop and the person you wanted next to you when you’re in trouble.
“Good morning, Chief,” Howard said. Then he looked at Mario with a wrinkled nose. “You outdid your smelly stuff today.”
“Got it at Woolworth department store, sixteen ounces for a buck,” Mario joked. “Got you one for Christmas.”
“Are you two girls finished insulting each other?” the chief said, opening a folder. “What do you have?”
“We have enough evidence to storm Lorenzo’s compound with a SWAT team and take them all down,” Mario said.
Howard held his face with both hands. “Do we have enough proof for this asshole to be convicted?”
“That’s my concern,” Chief Parks said. “We only get one shot, Lorenzo, before his attorneys rip through the evidence putting uncertainty in a juror’s mind.”
Mario slipped a picture of Brandon Asher across the table. The chief looked it over and passed it to Howard. Mario read from his notepad. “This creep is on tape dropping something into Olivia’s glass. Whatever it was, caused her to run off the road.”
“How does it tie to Lorenzo?”
Mario looked at the chief. “It doesn’t really. Brandon works as a bartender for Lorenzo.”
“We need to drill Alton Simmons,” Howard added. “We know he called Lorenzo when Olivia pulled the Tony Nazario file.
The chief stood, started to speak, then walked to the coffee cart in the corner of the room.
“Say it,” Mario said, looking her way.
Howard and Mario had heard the story a few times of when Gretchen Parks was a young girl visiting her grandfather on his farm in Mississippi. Talking about it was her therapy.
Lorenzo’s father owned a piece of land separated by a fence adjoining her grandfather’s property. It was well-known by local law enforcement on the take that the Savino family’s hothouses grew and processed marijuana. Fresh plants were flown in by helicopter. Once leaves were processed, a small, single-engine airplane flew bundles of finished products to distribution cities. Savino needed more space for processing and offered to buy old man Parks’ land. He clarified often to his wife and his brothers that the property would never be sold to a Savino family member, even if he died. Emphatical about his choice, he put it in his will.
One day, old man Savino invited her grandfather over for coffee. Reluctantly, he went. Gretchen went for the ride and stayed in the truck. Her grandpa had no plans for coffee with a man he hated and said he would be right back. It had been a wet summer and mosquitoes were out in forceful numbers, especially in the backwoods. She got out of the truck, hoping that moving around would calm the mosquito attack.
A few minutes later, hearing arguing coming from the house, Gretchen got closer. She peeked in a window and saw old man Savino at a table in front of her grandpa, shouting. “You’ll sign the sale of your property, or you will die at this table.” Gretchen ran to the truck, and a few seconds later two gunshots were fired. Both hit her grandpa in the chest—he died at the table. As she ran home, she heard a third shot fired. Savino was never charged for the murder. The testimony of a young girl didn’t hold up in court when two guns were found in the room, one that Savino claimed the old man pulled on him first. That was all a jury stacked with Savino devotees needed to hear. The ruling was self-defense, and old man Savino walked.
“Chief?” Mario said. “What about White Jerry? We have Savino on tape pulling the trigger, and—”
Gretchen stopped him, raising her hand. “I want the Savino family business closed down. For good!” She returned with coffee in hand. Taking a sip, she thought for a second and said, “Give me just a little more proof—another murder, organized crime, or racketeering. I want him put away for life.” She leaned against the wall, a calm smile came across her face. “Prison for life, or he dies on the street—doesn’t matter which way it goes.”
Chapter 13
Mario and Howard left the meeting invigorated, knowing the chief had their backs if a shootout ever came between the detectives and the Savino family. If the opportunity arose, Mario was sure he would save the taxpayers money and not put Savino in jail, paying for his existence for years to come. If it came to Savino dying on the street or in prison, Mario had already made his choice.
Mario ran an idea by Howard. They decided it was worth a try and headed to the warehouse to request a case file from the archives. If lucky, Alton Simmons should show a reaction to the name.
Mario fine-tuned his plan, while Howard drove the limousine to an unmarked rundown building in the Warehouse District. Mario strolled into the musty basement of the building; Howard stayed back behind the stairwell. The entrance was secured by an eight-foot wall of studs spread six feet apart with heavy wire attached and a door that remained open. Didn’t look like the police department put much effort in protecting court cases.
“Alton, you here?” Mario shouted. He talked into the caged room and saw a pair of legs propped up on a desk. “Alton?”
The legs moved out of sight, and a few seconds later, Alton appeared, blinking his eyes into focus. Clearly, he’d been sleeping. “Sorry, I was doing some paperwork at my desk,” he said. “What can I do for you, Mario?”
“We’re reopening a case.”
“Sure, fill out the form,” Alton pointed to one on the counter. “I’ll get my hand truck.”
Mario checkmarked all the boxes on the form and printed, in dark pencil at the top, Tony Nazario’s name. Alton returned with a small hand truck and took the paper. He turned his computer on and typed. His eyes were roaming the computer screen, but his hands stopped typing. “I think this case was checked out a few days ago.”
“You’re sure?”
He typed the full name in. “Yep. Checked out by Olivia Johansson,” Alton said, not making eye contact with Mario.
“Really, we only decided to reopen this case this morning,” Mario said straight-faced, keeping the conversation official. “Sorry to disturb you,” Mario said, and turned away, then stopped. “If Olivia returns the file, give me a call.”
“Sure thing, Detective,” Alton said, looking down at his shoes.
Mario wanted to reach across the counter and slam Alton’s head into the wire walls. He wasn’t even a good liar. Never looked him in the face. A useless cop who screwed up, and the job stuck him in an underground cellar doing minimum-wage work.
“Take care, Alton,” Mario said pleasantly, doing his best to keep to the plan. He walked out to meet Howard.
Mario looked at his watch and counted out
silently fifteen seconds. At fifteen, Mario pointed for Howard to go back in and pay Alton a visit.
Howard walked through the open-caged entrance. Alton couldn’t be seen. He strolled slowly and followed a voice coming from behind a wall of boxes on metal shelving. He reached the corner and could hear Alton saying, “All I know is Mario asked for Tony’s file. The same one Olivia checked out. Said something about they were reopening Tony’s case.”
Howard was ready to rip the phone out of his hand and demand who Alton was talking to when Alton said, “I’ve got to go, and, Little Pete, keep my name out of this.”
The phone was slammed back on the cradle. Sounds of footsteps and a few son-of-a-bitches repeated as Alton walked to the front counter. Howard made it back to Mario without being seen. They took to the stairs and made their way to the main floor.
“Alton is on Little Pete’s payroll,” Howard explained to Mario. “I thought it was best not to rip his head off his shoulders and use the info to build our case.”
“Good idea,” Mario nodded his head. “But I wouldn’t have stopped you from beating on him. This asshole started the ball rolling in Olivia’s attack.”
They had fifteen minutes to meet the chief at the district attorney’s office on Broad Street. The DA’s office wanted to drill Gaspar Ricci on White Jerry’s murder before deciding about immunity.
Howard drove the limousine and parked in a no-parking zone in front of police headquarters. Howard stuck a sign with the New Orleans Police Department logo on the dashboard. An unauthorized sign that read Official Police Business. The sign had deterred tow trucks for years, although the sign raised eyebrows among police officers. The city couldn’t afford pay raises, but some official was driving around in a limousine, some cops speculated.
When the detectives arrived, the chief and the DA’s assistant were already discussing the case. Chief Parks introduced Leah Cook, a lawyer with the DA’s office to the two detectives.
“Please, take a seat,” Leah said after the introductions.
Vieux Carré Detective Page 6