Kinsmen of the Dragons
Copyright© 2013 by Gina Marie Wylie
Chapter 10: The Bust is a Bust
Saturday dawned bright — and so evidently did Lieutenant Abbott. A few minutes before six AM he was on the phone to Sam. “Come in early, we have some things to talk about for this bust today.”
“An hour, Lieutenant.”
“Be there,” his boss told Sam.
There wasn’t much of anything new on the TV and Sam heard nothing on the radio on his drive into the office.
Phoenix didn’t have precincts per se, but was divided up into “areas” which pretty much were the same thing by another name. The office was called a “substation” and housed the area commander’s office, and various sub departments such as detectives, SWAT, and the like.
Sam came in, got some coffee and joined James at their desks. “Abbott said ten more minutes,” James told him as Sam sat down. “He’s in there with one of the District Attorney’s munchkins, Pete Harkness.”
“What’s the fuss? It isn’t like this is a big case or where we’re likely to have to shoot our way in.”
“A bird told him about my warrant. The girl’s mother is a wheel in Scottsdale social circles. The lieutenant shit a brick when he saw the name, even before he knew about the kid’s mother.”
“Why’s that, Detective Sergeant, sir?”
“The girl’s name is Amanda. Amanda Feather. The lieutenant thinks this might be personal for me.”
Sam sighed. Of course it wasn’t! These things never were!
Lieutenant Abbott appeared in the door to his office and waved them over. He held the door open while his two detectives came in, and then shut it behind them.
The lieutenant came right to the point. “I came really close to pulling you off this case, Sergeant. The warrant for Amanda Feather is out of line and out of policy.”
James met the lieutenant’s eyes. “It isn’t. I can’t help that there is a superficial similarity in a name — are you going to tell me that you’re going to pull every detective off a case where a suspect has the same name as someone in the detective’s family?
“Lieutenant, Judge Cramer reviewed the probable cause evidence I showed him. Pictures of what is clearly a second level dealer. He had no trouble issuing the warrant.”
“We’d rather hoped the investigation would lead up, not down,” the Assistant District Attorney said dryly.
“So far it hasn’t. I’d like to make sure that we have a couple of cars detailed to us all day long. I’ll make the call on when to do the arrests ... sometime after noon, I imagine, once I’m sure that there isn’t likely to be a drop from a supplier.”
Sam sat silent, his hands resting on his legs, just above his knees, willing his face into a poker set.
“There will be two patrol cars cruising the area around the mall,” the lieutenant told James. “They will be available for the arrests.”
“Has anything turned up on the other warrants?” James asked.
Lieutenant Abbott snorted.
It was the Assistant DA who spoke up. “We’ve gone through the bank records for the business,” he said, pulling out documents from a large briefcase.
“It’s odd; it’s bizarre — that’s all I can say about what we’ve learned to date. The records we have go back a year and a half. Every Wednesday and Saturday there are deposits into an account at Global Bank; thirty-five hundred bucks a pop, cash and checks. Well, actually not thirty-five hundred a pop — the number varies from thirty-three hundred and change to thirty-seven hundred and change. And you know what that change is? In a month it equals the electric bill and kennel bills for the damn kiosk for the month before.
“The only outgo from the account is in the form of paychecks, checks to Arizona Public Service for the electricity, and to Chandler Kennels for the guard dogs. Mustache is paid three hundred dollars a day, Monday through Friday, and four hundred and fifty on Saturday. Time and a half, you understand?” They nodded. “And the Swede gets paid four hundred dollars a day, plus six hundred on Saturday. This comes to sixty-five hundred dollars a week for the payroll. The extra five hundred stays in the account and collects interest. Last December 31st, they each received bonus checks. Seventy five hundred bucks for Mustache, ten grand to the Swede. Three thousand left over for a ‘rainy day fund’ or some such.”
The attorney looked at them. “Last year, Mustache reported an income of nearly $110,000 and the Swede $145,000. Definitely not peanuts. Taxes, social security, all of that were properly withheld. The checks look like they are typed, then imprinted with the amount. That’s pretty much the way all small businesses that do their own payrolls do it.”
“We’ve run the names through NCIC,” the lieutenant amplified, “and found nothing; neither of them have records, not, at least, under those names and Social Security numbers. We’re running the ID’s now for a full background.”
“And,” Sam said thoughtfully, “they are bringing in something like three or four times those expenses. It sure sounds like organized crime to me. Anybody have any idea how many more kiosks like this there are?”
Abbott shrugged. “We’ve heard only a few whispers about this from any of our informants, and not many of those. And we’re looking. There are six other similar kiosks like this in Phoenix, another half dozen in the metro area; we’re looking at them hard. For right now, the captain wants to take it slow; he doesn’t want to let this out of our jurisdiction. We’re going to bring these guys in and see what we can learn before we expand the investigation.”
“He’s making a mistake,” James said. “This really stinks, Lieutenant. It can’t be just the one place; it’s too smooth, too practiced. They seem to have all the angles covered.”
“Captain Strong, the area Chief of Detectives, feels we should take them now, what with what’s been happening in the news. There’s a general feel of unease downtown.” Everyone nodded in agreement. “We’ll wrap this up this afternoon and do the interrogations tonight and tomorrow. Monday, bright and early, we’ll have the arraignments. One of them will surely try to cop a plea.”
Sam sneered to himself. Right! Yeah sure, boss! If they had a lead on the next level up, then it would be worth pulling the plug. The fact was that he was becoming more confident every day that they weren’t going to see anything. James was right, these guys were pros and they weren’t likely to make any mistakes, certainly not about anything important.
“Mr. Harkness, if you’ll excuse me, I want to talk to Sergeant Fredericks. Sam, you get things ready; I’ll just cover a few points with James.”
Sam went out and checked the cameras and the batteries, and made sure there were a half dozen memory chips on hand. They had two cameras and four batteries. Odds were, they’d use up only one battery and two or three chips, but it never hurt to be ready in case something went tits up.
James came out and Sam lifted an eyebrow, but James shook his head. In the stakeout van James was more forthcoming. “Abbott says that if we screw this up, he’s going to bust me and put us both under Sergeant Carriker.”
Sam chuckled and James grinned. Carriker was a good man, but he was a sergeant because he was smart and did well on tests. He’d been on the force for five years and while he wasn’t a total rookie, he’d been a detective now for almost a month. Sergeant Carriker was, to put it mildly, somewhat inexperienced.
They watched Dog Boy arrive on time first thing in the morning again, and again, the Swede and Mustache helped him. Sam watched them through field glasses trying to see any possible angles, but it was all routine and humdrum.
Customers started to arrive and it was clear Saturday was their really busy day. There were usually two and sometimes three cars waiting in line at once and a steady stream of walk-ups as well.
The two detectives kept busy all morning, not saying anything beyond the professional minutiae of the stakeout. Around ten Sam turned on the van’s radio, but there was still nothing much. There had been a couple more sea battles, this time with Chinese and Malaysian naval forces versus the critters. No one knew much beyond “Casualties appear to have been heavy, but only a few of the sea monsters managed to get through the Malaccan Strait.”
A little before eleven, the girl appeared walking towards the kiosk. James picked up the tactical radio. “Red rover, red rover! Come on over!”
Sam and James put down the cameras and got up and went outside. Sam could see the girl put the money into the little tray gizmo that the kiosk used to prevent robberies, and it was promptly pulled inside. A moment later cards came out and she scooped them up.
“Now!” James said, moving forward.
Sam followed him away from the van. Two police cars pulled up to the kiosk, lights going, but no sirens. The girl turned and started to run, but she ran headlong into a patrolman, who simply shook his head and pointed his weapon at her. Even from a distance Sam could see the girl’s eyes go round with fear. She froze and put her hands up, much higher than necessary. She was visibly trembling with fear.
Maybe James was right, Sam thought, as he got closer to the kiosk. A movement inside caught his eye. The Swede stared at the police cars, at James and Sam approaching with their weapons drawn. With a flick of his hand, the Swede flipped the blinds shut, blocking Sam’s view of the inside.
James rapped his pistol butt on the window. They’d been close to the kiosk before, and had checked it out and seen nothing remarkable. Still, a plainclothes officer had bought a phone card earlier in the week and reported “bullet proof glass.” It was certainly thick glass.
“This is the Phoenix Police. I have a warrant for the arrest of John Marshall Fields and his associate. Open the door and come out with your hands up,” James yelled at the men inside.
Sam continued around the side, where the patrol officers stood waiting. The window blinds were drawn there, too. Sam stood looking at the little kiosk and smiled. “Preparation is everything.” He waved to the patrol sergeant, now on scene. “Bring up the battering ram!”
The other nodded and Sam went to position himself by the door. There was a keypad lock; one they’d noted before. The Swede was the one who unlocked it; they’d never been able to get film of the combination sequence, because he and Mustache blocked the view.
James appeared, saw the preparations and nodded. He went back and repeated the demand for Swede and Mustache to come out. There was silence from inside the kiosk.
Sam nodded at the door. “Do it,” he commanded.
Two chunky patrolmen slammed the hundred pound lead and concrete battering ram into the door. It bounced off with a loud, metallic sound, leaving a small ding in the paint on the door. Sam sighed. The problem with a battering ram: it worked only on doors that it worked on. Given a tough door, it was pretty much useless. Sam waved the two patrol officers back and went to the door.
He used just his knuckles this time.
“One way or another, at some point in time, you’re going to come out,” Sam said loudly. “So let’s just make this easy on everyone. Come out, keep your hands where we can see them and no one will get hurt.”
Nothing happened.
Sam walked up to the door and ran his fingers over it. It was bad procedure — they could shoot him through the door. Except, his fingers told him that they’d need a tank cannon to do that. The door was a lot heavier and more solid than he’d imagined.
The lieutenant appeared and walked up to Sam. He too hammered on the door. “This is Lieutenant Mark Abbott, Phoenix Police Department. Open the door and surrender!”
Again there was no sound; no sign of life from inside the kiosk.
The lieutenant waved at the two men with the battering ram. It was obvious their hearts weren’t in it, but in the next minute they put two more small nicks in the paint on the hard steel door. Not very big nicks — mostly paint scrapes.
“I don’t think that’s going to work, Lieutenant,” the watch sergeant said cynically. “I’d just as soon have the use of my men tomorrow.”
The lieutenant glared at the patrol sergeant, but knew the sergeant was right.
Once Sam had been on the battering ram taking the door at a meth lab. That door too had been heavy steel; hitting it with a battering ram left your hands and arms buzzing for minutes afterwards.
“Besieging a kiosk is going to look really bad on the evening news,” Sam opined. “We’d better call the department locksmith.”
A half hour later the locksmith appeared. She wasn’t at all what Sam expected. She was about twenty-five, a medium build with rather short black hair and dark brown eyes — and very cute. She walked up to the lock and looked it over carefully, taking her time. She examined the door, doing like Sam had, running her fingers over it.
After a second she stepped back, looked at the lieutenant. “Are you in charge?”
Lieutenant Abbott averred that he was.
“That’s a serious door and that’s a serious lock. There’s about a ninety percent chance that I’m not going to get through it without having to use a cutting torch. What’s inside?”
“Two men wanted for selling stolen phone cards. Obviously, they are barricaded suspects.”
“Are they armed?”
“We don’t know,” Sam told her honestly. “But you’ll want to be careful.”
“I’ll try the lock first,” the woman said confidently. “I need to get my vest and all that crap.” She waved at her van. “I’ll need a hand with my gear and the torch.”
Her competent bearing, her deliberate and confident actions impressed Sam; listening to her standing in front of the lieutenant, talking about cutting open a door with possible armed perps on the other side — well, she went up another few steps in his estimation.
“I’ll help,” Sam said mildly, and she flashed him an unfathomable glance, then she started walking to her van. When she got there she unlocked the back doors and got in, pushing a set of short gas bottles onto the hydraulic tailgate. Then she started donning extra padding, followed by more body armor, then a set of heavy goggles, pushed up on her forehead, and last a heavy helmet and mask.
She lowered herself and her equipment to the ground and then grabbed a large, floppy canvas bag and turned to Sam. “Wheel the bottles over there.” She pointed to a site around the corner from the kiosk door, not in the line of fire. The woman suddenly lowered her voice and said, “I’m queer,” as they started back to the others.
Sam laughed. “And I’m not. Right now, I need a locksmith.”
“I just wanted you to know,” the young officer told him.
“Well, gosh thanks! I think that comes under the heading of ‘too much information.’ What I want is that door open and the perps in cuffs.”
“Is this your case?” the woman asked and Sam nodded.
She smiled slightly. “Sometimes I forget; detectives are like momma bears protecting their cubs when it comes to their cases.” She waved him forward. “Let’s roll.”
Sam rolled, and she waddled, trailing her equipment. At the kiosk, she dropped her bag and studied the lock once again and then glanced at Sam. “You standing there, buck-ass naked, is dampening my enthusiasm,” she told him.
“It’s a lock. Besides, I’m not naked, I’m wearing a vest.”
“Sure, it’s a lock. Sure, your balls will be able to stop a lot of the shrapnel, being as they’re so big. Let me tell you something Mr. Hotshot Detective. Do you see the four screws in the faceplate of the lock?” She pointed at the lock.
Sam nodded. “I was thinking you could just undo them, cut the wires and we’d be in.”
“When was the last time you saw a lock, any lock, much less an expensive electronic lock on a heavy steel door that you could take out four screws and disable from the outside?”
Sam looked at the innocuous screws, frowning.
“Those are either dummies, just meant to waste my time — or they are booby traps.”
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