Chapter 7:
The bullets had gone straight through the target's flat, bulbous nose and right into the brain. The 9mm hollow-points had made hash of the interior of the alien's skull. It was an instant kill shot. The other frog was just as dead–from a double-tap to the heart. The coroner was stunned, and he wasn't the only one. "Glad she's on our side," said Tim, as the coroner left the room. Five shots, two dead perps, and one wounded. All in the space of a few seconds.
Mike chuckled. That was his lady. "You actually do it with her," asked Tim? Mike pretended like he didn't hear the question. "Just curious, man," rumbled Tim. As he watched, his friend rolled up the dead frog's sleeve, revealing a series of strange characters tattooed there in red ink. Drawing a scanner from his pocket, he plugged in his own comlink, and scanned the code. The dead man's name, rank, and ID number flashed up along with a warning in Incursean. Mike had been learning to read the language. "This guy was once a cop," muttered Mike. He'd gone dirty. Tim grimaced. Now he was bringing them grief.
"Ex-commando," said Mike. "Drummed out for war crimes..." "How bad do you have to be to get drummed out of their army for war crimes," asked Tim? Mike chuckled. Tim frowned at the sight of the little device in Mike's hand. "Sooo," said Tim. "How come you get to play with all the fancy toys." Absently, Mike replied, "trust..." He'd earned the Plumbers' trust over the last year or so. They knew he wasn't going to take what they'd given him and hand it off to somebody else. More to the point, their Internal Affairs people had approved the deal.
Moving on to the next frog, Mike scanned his tattoo and took down his particulars. Then, he forwarded that on to the Incursean embassy so they could come collect the corpses. Done with the dead, it was time to move on to the issue of the stuff they'd had in their pockets. The two cops headed back to the rickety Chevy Astro Helen had arrived in. Settling into the passenger seat, Tim said, "look, man! I gotta know... Is it good?" Mike's face went hot. Mildly, he answered, "yeah, Tim. Satisfied?"
No. He wasn't. "So she can look like anybody she wants," said the big man. "You ever do the fantasy thing... I mean... Pick up a Maxim and say, 'hey, honey, how 'bout that one?'" "Nope," replied Mike. Tim wasn't sure he believed that. Mike had the perfect solution to the problem plaguing mankind for centuries. He didn't have to cheat to try something new.
"I'd never do that to her, Tim," said Mike, as they drove out of the parking lot. "Lucy spends days and sometimes weeks being somebody else. The last thing she needs after she gets home is a husband who asks her to be somebody else too." And though he knew she would have done it for him–she'd done it before for a previous boyfriend–Mike had resolved never ever to do that to her. She deserved better.
It was clearly time to change the subject, and Tim moved on. Looking around him, he announced, "I expected a flying car..." "Tim, my friend," laughed Mike, "a flying car attracts the eye, and they don't like the attention." But, just for the yucks, he reached under the dash, tapped the control, and transformed Helen's beater-van into a flying spaceship, lifting off into the sky for the short flight across town to the evidence lockup.
Elsewhere, Nick Luchini walked into the Narcotics Division with Helen Wheels at his side to the glorious shock of every face there. With her blue skin, tail, and strange chicken-feet, Helen drew the eye like a supermodel in a room full of fat girls. Nick walked straight up to Inspector Garvey's office, bypassing the secretary, and knocked on the door.
Harry Garvey's eyes bugged out at the sight of Helen coming through the door, and he almost reached for his sidearm. "Morning, Inspector," said Nick. "I'm Nick Luchini. We spoke earlier..." "I didn't expect you so soon." It was a hell of a drive from Flushing to his office. Nick shrugged that off with, "my friend here's in a hurry. Need to see the case files from the frog investigation. "Sure, kid, sure," said Garvey. He summoned his deputy and dropped the job on him.
"I see you found a way to get into narcotics after all," rumbled the portly policeman as he led them over to the locked room where they kept their most sensitive files. Nick smiled and chuckled. "For the moment," he said. "They asked for me by name. Didn't think I had that kind of reputation." The old man said, "well don't let it go to your head, kid. These people won't be here forever." To Helen, it sounded vaguely threatening.
The Deputy Inspector's authority got them into the secure files, and he left them there to their work with one last admonishment for Nick not to let this go to his head. "He seemed nice," rumbled Helen. "Yeah," chuckled Nick. "He's one of my number one fans." As they dug into the files, she asked, "what's the story?" "I've been trying to get off the beat for three years," replied Nick. Unfortunately he didn't have the seniority. No matter how many times he tested for sargent, he was not going to get it. Nor had his efforts to be sent to Narcotics born any fruit. He'd as much as been told that he needed to pay his dues, and, until he did, he was going nowhere.
Helen said, "that's the great thing about being a Plumber. More work and responsibility than you could possibly handle. And, if by some miracle, you survive, they throw some more on the pile." She sounded astonishingly cheerful this morning. "You're in a good mood," said he. "Got a good night's sleep," said Helen. She usually self-corrected after a good night's sleep. There was little point in spending time on problems. "Healthy habit to have," said Nick.
The two dug into the files before them with gusto, starting with the earliest information and working their way slowly forward, taking notes as they did–Nick in his trusty notepad and Helen in a computerized gadget she pulled out from a pocket of her suit. As they worked, he found himself studying her. She was surprisingly familiar in spite of the strangeness of her appearance. Without the tail, he thought she'd have had a really nice butt.
Even with the tail, she had a nice butt.
"You looking at my ass again," she asked, as she turned around from reaching up for another box of documents? Laughing, Nick replied, "wondering how you sit down without that thing getting in the way." Hips swaying saucily as she walked back to the table, Helen swished that tail, announcing, "it's not in the way. It's one of my best assets." Nick howled laughter. He believed her.
More seriously, she said, "I'm not sure how much of this we can trust. We still don't know if there are infiltrators. Some of these men have been inside these dope houses without backup. They could easily have been replaced." Nick wondered about that too. He wasn't sure if they dared go through the squad bay and start scanning random cops to look for mud-people. "Don't use that term around Lucy," advised Helen. "She gets very offended." "Roger," said Nick. "Thanks." He didn't really want to step on his own dick with her. Besides being Mike's friend, Nick actually respected her. She was one helluva cop.
Setting down the folder in his hand, he said, "we need to think of something. We'll never know how much of this we can trust if we don't." "What do you suggest," replied Helen. "A trap," replied Nick. "There's five men who were in this investigation that might have been compromised. We bait a trap by dropping information to those five and see if any turn on us."
Frowning, Helen opined, "we could just as easily haul them in and scan them..." "But that assumes it's actually them," replied Nick. "The frogs could have followed them home and replaced their wives. They could have snatched their kids. They could have gotten to one of their informants. If we use a leak, that might get us the whole chain."
Helen's face turned thoughtful as she pondered that. She wasn't really a deep thinker, and she knew that she sometimes rushed into things without really looking at all the angles. "I think you have a point," she said. "Even if it is them, if we hauled them in, they could very easily get wind of what we're doing and run. We don't get our infiltrator then. Just one of his disguises." "I better write that down," said Nick. "You actually thing I'm right." Helen smirked, "you're pretty bright for a human." "Thanks," chuckled Nick. With that decision fresh in mind, Nick decided that they really ought to just cart this whole pile off to peruse later.
With Helen at his side, he went back to the Deputy Inspector's office and informed the man of their decision. The older man's face went livid, and his fists clenched so hard the knuckles went white. Just as quickly, he calmed down. "Ok, kid," said the Deputy Inspector. "We'll play your way..." But it was clear to Helen he was saving that request up as one more reason to be rid of them.
Meanwhile, out in the East River, Molly was getting a tour of the Big Apple's very own private prison. "Not another town in America with its own penitentiary," said Joe Savage as they stepped onto the island. Every face they encountered stared at Molly in her shiny red protosuit, not least of which was the deputy warden. "You must be the Plumber," announced Deputy Warden Crane. "I am," replied Molly. "We've got the Incursean in North Infirmary. I'll need you to leave any weapons at the entry."
Unclipping the proto-tool from her shoulder, Molly said, "let's get started." The warden handed the strange device to one of the guards. Then he motioned for them to hop into his golf-cart. "He's alive," declared the warden. "We feed him based on recommendations from their Consulate, and one of 'em's been over checking on him..." That had been a chore by itself. The Incursean doctor had suggested they let the prisoner die since he would likely be tortured to death for treason anyway. They had their own people looking after him now, but Crane wanted to vote him off the Island. "Little bastard gives me the creeps," declared the warden.
"We're not exactly fans either," quipped Molly, "but we'll take him off your hands as soon as we're able." She didn't really like frogs and hadn't since the invasion. She was far from thrilled to see them here on a permanent basis. The warden drove them up to the entry of the facility and left them in the hands of one of his officers. As the warden drove off, the officer introduced himself. Molly's eyes were on the terrain. She felt a growing unease about the layout of the prison. She'd have liked to roll the proto-truk as close as she could to the door of the cellhouse.
The duo went inside and followed the corrections officer to the interview room. Molly told Joe, "I'll translate. I'm sure this guy has a translator embedded next to his ear. Just about every race in the galaxy has them..." "...but he's probably going to play 'no-speak the English'," grumped Joe. Muttering curses under his breath, Joe motioned for the corrections officer to go get the perp. While they waited, Joe asked the obvious, "you got one of those gadgets?" "Yup," replied Molly. She pointed to a spot just behind her right ear. "It plugs into the auditory nerve, and injects signals for the language of choice," explained the Plumber. "Snazzy," rumbled the New York cop.
Silence reigned, and he realized he didn't know anything about his partner. "So how long you been doing this," he asked? "Six years," replied Molly. Joe grimaced. She was younger than he was! Guessing where his mind was going, Molly said, "Earth's a backwater, and they need everybody they can get." Before he could ask any more questions, the door opened, and two corrections officers came in, leading their frog, who was hobbling along on a cane. He was a bit pallid, their friend, and the orange jumpsuit wasn't helping that at all.
"Afternoon," announced Joe. "I'm Officer Savage. This is Officer Gunther. We'd like to ask you some questions." The frog croaked something rough that sounded vaguely threatening. Molly translated the officer's words for their new friend. The ugly creature grinned a big, froggy grin that seemed more threatening than his words. In for a dime, thought Joe. "We understand that you're part of an organization bringing narcotics into the city of New York," declared the cop. "We'd like to ask you about this organization, and we're prepared to offer you political asylum and some level of clemency for evidence against the other members of the conspiracy."
The frog croaked some threatening words, and Molly gave him the rough translation, "you mud-dwellers are nothing to us! When Emperor Vanos is restored to the throne, he will reduce this place to cinders and raise the war-standard of the Deathless Incursean Empire over the ashes." "Nice," muttered Joe. Leaning forward, Joe reminded the ugly toad, "well, he ain't an emperor now, is he? Last I seen, he was on the run, and his wife's doing time in the California pen. Now, we can extradite your ass to the other Incursean Empire tomorrow. You know? The one that wants t'put your ass in a torture chamber? I hear that little girl likes the sound of screamin' traitors. Probably take you as a surrogate f'er her uncle."
The frog seemed to think about that for a moment. "The Plumbers would never allow this," rumbled the frog. Joe turned and glanced at Molly. The alien cop's face was unreadable. She had the poker-face of a veteran detective. Turning back to the prisoner, he said, "you're in New York City, my friend. In the Empire State. We're the most powerful of the fifty United States, and the governor of New York's got the President on speed-dial. Right now you're not in a Plumber prison. You're in our prison, and we can do whatever the fuck we want with you. In other words, I'd think about that."
Rising, he said, "Officer? Join me in the hall." Molly rose and followed him out, just like he was in charge of this. It was an award-worthy performance. Locking the door behind them, he turned to her and asked, "you read anything from him?" "I think you did rattle him with that last comment," replied Molly. "They don't know the laws or the governments here, but he knows he doesn't want to fall into the hands of Attea's forces."
"Let's work him a bit," said Joe. "Let him stew..." Nodding, Molly said, "we still need to make the arrangements to get the prototruk in here and pick him up." Turning to the guards, Joe said, "leave him there. We'll be back." And the two set out for the administration building to file some paperwork.
Further up the East River in the Bronx, Tom Fascziewski and his lovely companion had been confronting the legendary code of silence that protected organized crime in the Big Apple. Nobody wanted to talk. Not the people on the streets, not the neighbors, and not even Chico's family. In spite of being worried about him, his own grandmother refused to speak up. Lucy guessed the Latin Queens tattoo she'd spotted on the old hag's back had something to do with that.
Walking down from the porch, Tom wore the look of a very discouraged man. "Don't sweat it, Tom," advised Lucy. "We did all we could. We'll just have to try something else." Half-heartedly Tom nodded. The two stepped off the stairs and turned for Tom's car, which sat up the street. As they walked up the street, his keen eyes picked out trouble in the form of a small army of young men headed up the street in their direction. "Think maybe we stirred something up," murmured Tom. While he had first-hand experience that Lucy was good in a fight, he found himself a little worried about the odds here. There were a lot of them. They were cops, but gang-bangers didn't always respect that.
"Afternoon, fellas," said Tom as the swarm of men approached. He had his hands out as he tried to defuse the situation. Lucy had her hands down the pockets of her coat, touching her sidearm. Every man there had either a yellow bandana tucked into his waistband or a yellow-and black cap, or some other bit of gang advertising, and there was a dozen of them. "You need t'come wit us," said the oldest of the group. Lucy piped up with, "you do realize we're cops, right?"
"Yeah," replied the gang-banger. "You should know I'm Corona of the Maya Tribe." Tom's face went very pale, telling Lucy that this man was very important in the gang scene. "We'll play along, Tom," said Lucy. The NYPD cop grimly nodded, but he went along. Lucy was a supercop, and she had far more experience at this than he did.
The two were thoroughly searched, relieved of their weapons, and bundled into a van with blacked out windows. Lucy found herself sitting across from an anonymous thug as the van rolled through the streets of New York City. The young punk across from her was armed to the teeth, with a couple of knives, a pistol tucked down the front of his pants, and even a little revolver taped against his ankle. Lucy guessed he was a bodyguard for the Corona.
His eyes scanned her from head to toe over and over again, and she got the uncomfortable feeling that he liked what he saw. She'd met a couple of men like that in Bellwood, and she'd had to break one man's arm when his interest got a little too personal. She'd scared the hell out of him, and she thought he might still be running. Hopefully it doesn't come to that, thought Lucy. While she thought she'd be alright, she wasn't so sure about Tom.
The darkened van drove for more than an hour, and Tom's fear and apprehension grew, as he realized that they could be going just about anywhere. Indeed, they had no way of really knowing whether or not these men were really Latin Kings or assassins sent by the Frogs to whack them for asking too many questions. His eyes kept glancing to Lucy's face. She had the worst poker-face he'd seen in his life. Instead of being terrified, she looked like she was going shopping! He wasn't sure he could manage being a detective and doing this kind of thing every day.
Finally, after an hour of driving, the van rolled to a stop. Almost as soon as it had stopped, the side doors were opened, and they were rushed outside, finding themselves in a bombed-out old warehouse. It could have been any number of abandoned buildings in the Big Apple. Industry consolidation and real-estate churn ensured a steady-supply of buildings like this. Looking around her, Lucy took note of the exits, finding that most if not all were guarded or blocked.
Their host led them upstairs to the warehouse's office, and Tom's terror grew. Sensing his fear, Lucy opined, "if they wanted us dead, Tom, they could have whacked us the minute we were inside the building. They want us to meet somebody." Indeed, as they walked into the room beyond the office door, they found the man himself, King Tubby, Inca of the Latin Kings.
Rico 'Tubby' Fernandez was a big, big man, all of six-foot six, and looking like a wall of meat. He was hardly the fat man his nickname suggested. In point of fact, Lucy found him kind of hot. War-scars scattered across his body told her he was worn into the gang-banger's life-style, but his eyes held a malevolent cunning that went far beyond the impotent little toadies that had picked them up. He was the heart and the soul of the gang, and everyone in that room knew it.
The nasty little bodyguard put Lucy's badge and side-arm on the table alongside Tom's. "Sig-Sauer," commented Lucy? Sheepishly, Tom replied, "wanted t'be more accurate..." "Lose the twelve-pound trigger," said Lucy. Turning to their host, Lucy sweetly asked, "so what brings us here?" King Tubby's eyes narrowed on her. She was like some girl from a TV show–too pretty to be a detective. "You been lookin' for Chico," announced Tubby. "So have you, I'm told," retorted Lucy. The Inca's face went hot.
"I hear New York's finest are interested in talking frogs," said Tubby. "Maybe," replied Lucy. "You know where to find some?" "I might," rumbled Tubby. Leaning forward, the Inca declared, "we done our best to cooperate with you guys. When King Blood and my cousin got busted, we cut down on the killings, and we negotiated with our enemies." Lucy gave him that. She still didn't like him as a person, but she gave him that. Truth be told, she understood him better than he realized. Her people were also descended from undocumented immigrants, and many of them had turned to crime out of anger and feelings of isolation.
"Chico changed things on the ground," said Tubby. "He's turned hell loose on the street, and the body-count's only going up..." Tom interrupted with, "get to the point. Do you got something, or do ya just wanna flap your gums?" King Tubby glanced at the woman, who seemed to be lead detective. With a shrug and a smirk, Lucy said, "what he said..." The Inca gave vent to a heavy sigh. It was clear to Lucy this was killing him. Cooperation with the police was against everything he stood for.
Finally, when Tom was considering leaving, the Inca said, "the stuff's being shipped in from somewhere in the meadowlands. There's a laundry-truck goes out every Saturday night and returns every Sunday morning. They hit town in the middle of shift-change..." Now they were getting somewhere. Lucy sat back in her chair and asked, "where in the meadowlands?" "Don't know," replied the Inca. "They made my guys and two of your spacemen tried to whack them..." Only one man made it back. "I do know they bring the product into an old laundry on 82nd and Baxter in Queens. We think they cut it there and distribute it."
It was good information, and Lucy made mental note of that. "Where's Chico," demanded Tom?! "How should we know," retorted King Tubby?! "He was your boy," growled the young cop! Lucy shushed him. Calmly, she asked, "do we have numbers? Are there any other sites that you've seen?" "That's all we know," admitted King Tubby. After a long pause, he added, "the Bloods might have more..." It was a helluva admission that he was talking to them. "Names," said Lucy. "I need names." "I don't have names," admitted King Tubby, "but I have a phone number..." Lucy was happy to take that too, and then it was time to go.
The two cops were put back in the van for the long trip back across town to Chico's old neighborhood. Nobody said anything. Tom was stewing. He wanted Chico. The Kings were scared and jumpy. Lucy played it cool, even bantering with the thug that kept trying to x-ray her clothes with his eyes. He was about her age and worn into the thug-life, a life he would have been happy to teach her about. Lucy just smiled sweetly as if she didn't hear that, and kept talking about the weather in Bellwood. When they got dropped off, she was relieved.