Again, no mini-essay for this one. Until I find my CJ books, I'm a little short on my sources. The stuff in my head is far from sufficient at the moment.
Ready for a little twist?
"How long have we been sitting here?"
Faith ignored him. The guy whose mug-shot had been handed out at roll call was known to hang around this area. It wasn't a bad guess to think he would go right back to his old stomping grounds. There were people everywhere, making it difficult to see individual faces.
"We could just have Sully and Davis pick him up."
"They're back at the house clearing up some of their paperwork. We can handle this one ourselves anyway."
Her partner made a face and looked out the window at something insignificant. "I still think we're wasting our time."
Faith didn't bother to respond. Her attention was focussed on a guy in a hooded sweatshirt just then sauntering out of the bar they were watching. "There, that's him."
"Do we have to? He's just a street-level dealer."
"Stay in the car, then, I don't care."
With a grunt, Bosco heaved himself out of the vehicle after her. "You know he's gonna run the second he sees us."
"Then we'll just chase him."
"Wonderful."
The two officers closed the distance between them and their quarry. Faith cast a glance at her partner, who took the hint and moved immediately on a tangent, quickly drawing even with their intended prey.
"Hey, Dominic. C'mere."
At the sight of Bosco striding through the crowd toward him, Dominic bolted to his right – straight into Faith's waiting arms. She grabbed the unfortunate dealer and swiftly restrained him before he knew who he'd run into.
"Good morning to you too."
Wickes and Asheby grinned at the two officers escorting a sullen-faced prisoner through the station house. One of them, the female, grinned back as the procession passed the detectives' desks.
"Got another one for you guys to break down."
"Oh good. Fresh meat." Asheby said, rubbing his hands together. "Best make sure the blood has been cleaned up off the floor in there before you drop him off."
His comment drew a smile from the male officer, who was standing guard over the prisoner whilst his partner signed the log. "What, the bucketboys didn't loan you a hose to do the job yourselves?"
"We couldn't be so lucky." Wickes laughed at the ashen expression on the prisoner's face. "Buck up, lad, if there's anything left, a little bit of elbow grease will take care of it right away. You do know how to use a sponge, don't you?"
"That ain't funny." The prisoner muttered as the two officers led him toward the interrogation room.
"Sure it is," Asheby replied, pulling his notebook out of his jacket. "C'mon, let's see what this one has to say."
The wailing chorus of sirens shattered the abrupt stillness that had fallen over the schoolyard. Groups of teachers and kids stood around in numb shock, staring down at the bullet-riddled bodies sprawled on the pavement. A still-warm Beretta lay on the ground several feet away from the carnage, kept company by the scattering of brass casings around it.
Five-Five David screeched to a halt outside the chain-link fence and its two officers bounded out immediately. The day-shift officer who wasFive-Five Edward Foot came flying into view, arriving only seconds after the cruiser. Together, the three officers fanned out quickly into the schoolyard, making sure that it was safe for them to approach the blood-soaked bodies.
"What happened here?" Faith demanded of the nearest person.
"I don't know. I just heard some shots."
"How many?"
"Six or seven, I think. They, they were fast."
"Anybody here see what happened?"
A tall, gangly kid in a Yankees jersey raised his hand timidly. "A guy came into the yard. These two talked to him, like they knew him, y'know? Then the first guy pulls out a gun and started shooting."
"Did you get a look at the shooter's face?"
The kid shook his head. "He was wearing a hoody and a ball cap."
"Hey, Yokas." O'Shea called. "Come look at this."
Faith joined the two other officers by the bodies. O'Shea pointed at the one who was lying on his stomach.
"He look familiar to you?"
"It's Benny." She said in disbelief.
O'Shea nodded grimly. "Aye. Looks like somebody's taken note of his talkin' to us so much."
"Outta the way, comin' through!" Doc and Carlos came running into the yard, their heavy medics' bags slung over their shoulders.
"Don't think there's much you can do for these two," O'Shea commented, straightening up from his crouch. "I've seen doornails look livelier."
Doc quickly checked both bodies before nodding in agreement with the officer's statement. "Guess we should break out the bags, then."
"Detectives are on the way." Faith reported. "Sounds like they might have something to tie all this together."
"That'd be a first," Bosco muttered, casting one final glance at the lifeless dealers on the ground before moving back toward the cruiser parked on the curb.
"Yokas, Boscorelli, O'Shea. Detectives want to talk to you."
The trio broke up their huddle at the fender of the RMP to amble over. Wickes and Asheby nodded their thanks at Christopher as they headed toward the approaching officers.
"Got some news you might find interesting." Wickes said by way of preamble.
"The guy Yokas and Boscorelli collared had something fresh to tell us, once we got him talking. Seems that there's a new big-wig in town who likes to run a tight ship. The two skels who did for Staples worked for him albeit indirectly. Staples, Mikey Boscorelli, Benny, and Dominic do too. Did, anyway, in Staples' and Benny's case." Asheby said. "It seems that the trucker who flattened Malloy's RMP is also on this fellow's payroll, according to Dominic and some others we've spoken to. The whole objective of the accident was to get Benny to shut up, which didn't work out that way."
"At least not that time," Bosco interrupted.
"Lucky for us, not for Benny. Anyway, our buddy Dominic says that this new boss is intent on tying up all loose ends that have cropped up since Staples bought it. Word has it that he's having a helluva time finding your brother, Boscorelli, and one or two others who have vanished from the street. Of course, it's only a matter of time before they surface again – they have to feed their habits, after all. We'd prefer to be the first ones to grab them when they do show up again, as we can see what happens when the boss finds them first." Wickes said, gesturing over at the mess in the schoolyard. "Lieutenant Swersky will circulate pictures and descriptions of each of the MIAs tomorrow, but everyone who has had prior contact is being alerted now."
"We're having a hard time digging up people who are willing to talk, and it will be near impossible now. It's fairly safe to say that our street informants are gone. We'll have to rely on you guys on the beat for our information." Asheby continued. "ACU is gonna get called in on this one, they're pretty good at the undercover thing. Narcotics is loaning a couple officers, too. Guess the powers-that-be have given this one a high priority. Pressure's on, whether we like it or not."
"Watch your backs out there. We don't know how this new boss will react to our presence." Wickes added. "We sure don't want to see the plastic wrap get pulled off more body bags."
"Got it," O'Shea said as the two detectives retraced their steps back toward the crime scene. "Must be important to somebody to call in ACU and Narcotics."
"As long as they stay outta the way." Bosco murmured.
The lean detective dropped into his chair and sighed into his palms. The oversize coffee mug on the desk and his shirtsleeves long since rolled up past his elbows gave away his resignation to another long night at the office. There was a pile of folders and papers cluttered on the surface of the desk, demanding his attention. Attention he wasn't willing to give them.
"Dammit," he muttered to himself, leaning back in the chair and lacing his fingers behind his head. The images of the crime scene he and his partner had just come back from were dancing around his head, taunting him with the current lack of evidence about who the hell was behind all this. All they had was the Beretta found near the bodies. Hardly enough to go on until the lab techs took a look at it. Figures that so much again depended on the lab techs. Poor bastards, he thought as he stood up wearily, coffee mug in hand. So much to run through the whole list of tests and not enough guys to do it.
His partner wandered in from the sergeants' office and tossed a folder unceremoniously onto his desk. "CS is just about finished at the scene. It'll be a few hours at least before we get the benefit of their reports and photos."
"Great. So what do we do whilst we wait? Twiddle our thumbs?"
"We couldn't be so lucky. I have here," Wickes indicated the folder he had brought in, "a list of names that our buddy Dominic gave us, which turns out to be more than what Benny gave up. With that, I also have some reports sent over from BCI on nearly all of them. Seems our buddy Dominic hangs with some real angels."
Asheby reached for the folder. "Hardly surprising, really. But why'd he turn 'em all over to us? That's just asking for trouble."
"He's under the gun from Narcotics on a couple heavy charges. Whilst you were out of the room, I agreed to speak to them about the possibility of cutting a deal."
"And are you?"
"I'll run it by whoever's handling his case. No promises, though."
"Works for me." Asheby leafed through the contents of the folder. "What do we know about this Big T?"
"Aside from the fact that he's apparently running the show in Manhattan? Not much. He's still too new to the game, at least according to Narcotics. I think they're too concerned about us screwing their operations to help a whole lot."
"And that means they can deny us assistance in an open homicide investigation?"
Wickes shrugged. "Their game, their rules."
"Yeah, but this is our game. They should be willing to share something." Asheby protested. "Who's the guy in charge over there?"
"Tony Scalioni. Big Italian guy. Know him from the Two-Seven. Odds are fifty-fifty that he'll break out his case files for us."
"That bad? You said you know him.."
"Yeah I know him. That doesn't mean he's gonna pull strings for me. He runs his own shift." Wickes dug around in a desk drawer for a long-lost Snickers bar. "It won't hurt to ask him, but we better be prepared to roll up our own sleeves to find out what we want to know."
"Haven't we been doing that all along?" Asheby asked, not looking up from the report he was taking notes from. "Look how far it's gotten us."
"Point taken. I'll call Tony."
"Ready for this?"
"As ready as I'll ever be," Faith replied, her right hand resting on the butt of her gun. Her partner nodded and tightened his grip on his own weapon. The two officers exchanged transparently confident glances as the ESU team formed up around them.
"Ready?" The team sergeant hissed. Faith shot her partner a look over the hunched back of the entry man huddled behind his shield. Bosco nodded mutely, knowing everything that the look told him without having to hear it in words.
"Go!"
The short battering ram swung forward, knocking in the door with careless ease. As soon as the splintered remains of the door were out of the way, the entry man charged in, covered by two officers with shotguns. Bosco and Faith followed the second pair in, guns now drawn. The room was filled with armed and shouting officers. Everyone in the room froze in surprise and fear at the muzzles of the weapons suddenly shoved in their faces. One man raised his hands slowly, reluctantly, as an officer stepped forward to grab the pistol from his waistband.
Faith, Bosco, and two ESU officers had moved into a room adjacent to the main room. There was nobody inside, but there had been. Rumpled bedsheets and two full ashtrays that were still giving off light wisps of smoke meant that someone had been here. Someone had definitely left this room in a hurry.
"Clear!"
The one-word announcement was echoed by two other officers as they secured the remaining rooms of the small apartment. Faith breathed a sigh of relief as she lowered her gun to her side. The less eventful a shift was, the better.
"It's okay, Detectives." The team sergeant said to the waiting men in the hallway.
Wickes and Asheby entered, slipping Latex gloves onto their hands. Asheby already had evidence bags ready. "Line 'em up."
With remarkable compliance, the group of captured drug-heads lined up in the middle of the room. Wickes nodded at the team sergeant, who waved two officers forward. Without a word, the two so summoned and the detectives went from person to person, carefully and thoroughly patting each one down.
"You think they'll find anything?"
"Let's hope so. I'd hate to think we're wasting our time here."
Asheby drew one of the users forward. "Cuff him." Seconds later, his partner did the same. Slightly baffled, the two ESU officers attempted to mimic the detectives, but Wickes shook his head.
"This one, and that one there." He corrected, pointing out the ones he was referring to. "Send the rest straight to lockup. These four are coming with us. The paddy wagon should be here by now."
"Yessir." The team sergeant said. "Get 'em in irons and downstairs."
"Guess that means we're outta here." Bosco said, holstering his gun and fastening the strap.
"Not so fast, Officers. We're gonna need some help getting these winners back to the house."
Bosco rolled his eyes and groaned. "Do we have to?"
"We're on it," Faith told Wickes, ignoring yet again her partner's whining. "Are we any closer to figuring out who killed Staples?"
"We're working on it," Asheby said.
"His brother is getting out tomorrow. We can't hold him more than seventy-two hours so he's a free man again as of 5:30 tomorrow evening."
"Great. That means he can scare away even more informants."
"We'll just have to get as much out of them as we can before he hits the streets. Any ideas?"
"Shake down the guys we know of around Fifth Avenue. There's bound to be some nuggets down there somewhere. The trick is findin' 'em."
"Good plan, Bosco, and what do you propose we do after driving off everybody who might have talked to us?"
"Start bustin' heads."
Wickes chuckled ruefully. "If only it were that easy, Boscorelli."
"The most we can really do at the moment is simply patrol and keep our eyes open. Until we get some of these jokers to crack, there's nothing else we can do. The DA would have all our shields if we went on a witch-hunt." Asheby said. "As much as I would love to knock down doors and keep a steady parade of unlucky souls headin' for lockup, we can't do squat without warrants."
"And we just used up our only probable cause getting this one. The ball's back in your court, guys." Wickes added glumly. "This has gotten a whole lot more complicated than a druggie's murder. What happened to the days when a guy getting stabbed on the street was just that?"
Faith attempted a grin. "They're alive and well in Hollywood, I hear."
The two detectives smiled wearily as they followed the last of the prisoners from the apartment. With the adrenaline-induced energy of the raid draining quickly from them, Bosco and Faith took a final, cursory glance around the room. Without a word, they shuffled across the worn carpet to get to the hallway. It was time to get back to work.