The Replacements (30 page)

“I need a signed, court-authorized agreement that all charges will be dropped on me and John Mack and Karl Drago.”

“No, not all charges,” the woman said. “Reduced time only. You are not in any position to negotiate.”

“And you said you were told not to negotiate at all. You just gave up reduced time.”

Blue suit pulled a chair out and sat down. He offered his hand. “Special Agent Dan Chulack.”

I took it and smiled. He'd been the man Barbara called and told that we had recovered Eddie. Chulack was the special agent in charge—the boss. He had not broadcast his authority when he walked in. I liked him that much more.

“What do you have?” asked Chulack.

I let go of his hand. “I need a signed agreement first.”

“You were a deputy, a street cop, and, from what I understand, a very…ah, effective one,” he said. “You know how this works. We don't jump through a bunch of hoops with a load of legal red tape until we have a proffer that can be validated.”

“You're right. I do have a great deal of experience. So here's the deal, Dan. If I tell you here and now, I give up my leverage. You'll simply walk out, and I'll never see you again. So I guess you're going to have to trust me.”

“You have evidence?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“There again—”

“This is absolute bullshit,” the woman said. “We are not going to go along with something this thin. Especially not without an offer of good faith.”

“I know I don't have the best reputation but, I promise you, I can deliver to you the SS organization on a silver platter.”

A gold doughnut platter, anyway
.

Dan looked from her, back to me. “We'll bring you the agreement and it will be signed, but I won't hand it over until you give us the information, and then only when that information is deemed satisfactory.”

“It has to be completed within two hours. I have to be walking out the door in two hours.”

Dan was getting up and stopped. “That's impossible. Why two hours?”

“Jonas Mabry has Eddie Crane, Elena Cortez, and Sandy Williams.”

He nodded.

“Jonas also has my wife, Marie. Chief Wicks didn't tell you?”

“No, she didn't. I'm sorry. But what can you do if you get out? This doesn't make sense. Do you know where she's being held?”

“No, and
when
I get out, I'm going to track Jonas down.”

I held his eyes a long time.

Finally he broke, turned, and said to the others, “Let me have a minute.”

They didn't argue, but went out and closed the door.

“You don't know me, but I am going to ask you to trust me,” he said.

I hesitated for a second, worried about the room camera. But he wasn't. I shook my head “no.”

“Barbara told me what she did, how she flew down to Costa Rica to find you.”

I sat down. “Is she in trouble?”

“No, this isn't going any further than me. This conversation goes no further. I believe everything you've told me, and now you're going to have to trust me.
You
know how long this kind of thing takes. The contract has to be drawn up, it has to be reviewed by both sides, supervisors then managers have to approve it, and then we have to get a judge to sign off on it. We'll be lucky to have this deal cut in two days, let alone two hours.”

He was right. “So what are you asking?”

“I'm asking you to trust me.”

“The FBI?”

“That's right.”

He didn't look away for a long drawn-out moment. “My way is the only way you'll have a fighting chance at finding your wife.”

I nodded. “How do you want to do it?”

“Where is this evidence?”

“It's in the clubhouse. There's proof there that will support
a RICO indictment on Clay Warfield and, by extension, all his henchmen.”

He shook his head. “We hit that place with a warrant two weeks ago and tore it up. We didn't find anything, and I mean nothing at all. These people are organized. They have attorneys on retainer, they even have a public relations firm looking out for their reputation. They are being repackaged and rebranded as good guys, community leaders.”

“The evidence is there. You just didn't know what to look for. It's there. Get your old warrant and have a judge standing by to sign an addendum. And get me out of here. We go to the clubhouse, hit it, and if I'm right, you let me walk right then and there.”

“The LA district attorney's not going to be happy.”

“You ask me to trust you, now you'll have to trust me. You let me go, then after I track down Jonas Mabry, I'll surrender myself to you, and we can complete the paperwork on this little deal while I sit in custody. You have my word on it.”

“Barbara said you are one of the most honest men she has ever met.” He offered me his hand.

I took it. A lump rose up in my throat as I recalled that I had promised her I would not take Mack with me, and I had let her down. This was my chance to redeem Mack too.

The concealed FBI radio speaker under the dash spoke continuously, the voices eager and anxious, setting up the raid I had orchestrated. I sat in the rear of a sleek black Cadillac Escalade with the windows blacked out in reflective limo tint, in a rundown neighborhood with tired houses and weed-filled front yards. Kids rode bikes and skateboards back and forth, waiting for something to happen, trying to peer in. The air conditioner ran on high.

The clock tick-tocked in my head. I didn't want to look at the digital time on the dash, the little red numbers that never stopped marching on and on. I couldn't take my eyes off them. Six-oh-five. I had less than two hours to find Marie. How could I do it in two hours? I couldn't think of any past scenario when I had worked on the Violent Crimes Team that fit into what had to happen and allowed a resolution in less than two hours. I wished Robby Wicks sat next to me to lend some of his arrogant confidence. He'd have a plan, no matter how cockeyed crazy or over the line into the gray. But he'd have a plan and be able to sell it to me. “A cake walk,” he'd say. “We'll take these bastards down and be drinking a beer in one hour and twenty-five minutes.” No way could he back up his outrageous claims, not with credible reason. Even so, I'd find myself saying, “Yeah, I'm with you, let's do it.”

I tried to peel my eyes off the clock and force my brain to think.

I didn't even know if the golden doughnut would still be there. We had the safe open, but we had fled before taking that
extra step to check. The golden doughnut could possibly link the SS organization to the armored car robbery. Planned and executed by them. Robbery was a predicate crime. The statute of limitations was up on the robbery. But the guard had been killed, and there wasn't any statute limit for murder. The worst part about the plan, I had to throw Drago under the bus. He would have to testify. He wouldn't, of course. He had that misplaced loyal gangster code coursing through his veins. I only hoped Dan Chulack would let me go pending trial. If nothing else, the recovery of a million two had to be worth something, a big feather for the FBI.

The FBI agent assigned to watch me sat in the front seat, his jaw set tight from anger at having to babysit. I said, for the fifteenth time, “Where's Dan Chulack? The deal was for two hours, it's been almost four.” The inactivity and the inability to control the situation made me want to smash the window, climb out, and run down the street, moving somewhere, anywhere, at least doing something.

Finally the FBI SWAT team arrived in a long caravan. They got out already suited up, dressed all in black. Their long guns hung from team slings across their chests. The ballistic helmets and goggles made them look like aliens from a foreign world.

Okay, here we go. From another car, Dan got out and walked up to the SWAT team leader. They spoke a few words. Dan shook the man's hand, wishing him luck. Dan walked up to the Escalade, all too slowly. Couldn't they all move a little faster? Just a little? Didn't they know what was at stake? A woman's life and three small, helpless children?

Dan got in.

“What the hell? You said two hours.”

He held up his hand. “I know, I'm sorry, I had a lot to coordinate. I just got the warrant addendum signed. We had to do this right. We want it to hold up in court later.”

“What, at the risk of the lives of a woman and three children?”

“I said I'm sorry. After we do this, I'll personally put every
possible resource at your disposal. Is there something I can do right now, something we can get started on?”

I couldn't think of a thing and it gave me a headache.

“How's my friend John Mack doing?”

“I'm sorry, I should've told you, but as I said—”

“Just tell me.”

“He's out of surgery and his prognosis is great.”

I sighed and sat back. I took a breath, “What about Drago?”

“Banged up. He's got a broken leg. He's shot in the foot, that one's recent, and he's got a gunshot wound to the leg.” Dan smiled, “You know anything about the gunshot wounds?”

I didn't answer and said, “That's great about Drago. What about Roy Boy?”

Dan shook his head, “He's alive, but they think he might be paralyzed from the chest down.”

Dan paused, then said, “Well?”

He wanted the information about the evidence for the predicate crime needed for the RICO indictment.

“Can you call Chief Wicks and have her meet me at the clubhouse—”

“Here she is now.”

Barbara pulled up in a maroon Crown Victoria. She got out and came up to the Escalade as the SWAT team mounted the step-sides of the SWAT vehicle and held on to the exterior rail at the top. We were finally rolling. Barbara got in the back next to me, cool, not catching my eye. I didn't blame her. The Escalade started up. We moved in behind the SWAT vehicle. We were two miles away from the clubhouse. I didn't know what to say to her.

“Mack's going to be okay?” I asked.

“Define okay. He's going to prison, and he won't ever be a cop again.”

“I made a deal.”

Her head whipped around. “You what?”

“That's what this is all about. I made a deal that Mack walks if we find enough evidence to put away the SS.”

Hope in her expression faded as I said the second part about evidence and the SS. “Evidence?” She said, “Did you actually see anything at all while you were in there?”

I looked away.

“That's what I thought. This is a fishing expedition.”

“It damn well better not be,” Chulack said.

We rode in silence for a few seconds. Every increment of time went by far too slow. Tick-tock.

“Do you have the file on Jonas, the one that was in the back of his T-Bird?” I was grasping at the least little bit of intel that would help bust through the mental road block.

She still didn't look at me. “No.”

My mind scavenged around for something, anything at all to keep her talking. I had the need to hear her voice. Maybe we would happen on something of mutual interest, and that would once again bring us close together as friends. And, as friends, we could figure this thing out. I had an itch, a niggling in the back of my brain, that I had missed something. Something vital and I just needed it to float to the surface. Talking with her could trigger that effect if we could put aside this emotional wound between us.

We rounded the last turn and headed for the clubhouse one block away.

“What happened with the car?” I asked.

“What car?”

“The Rent-a-Wreck Jonas rented two years ago?”

“That was a dead-end. It comes back to a vacant house on Roswell Avenue in Montclair. No one's lived there for years. He used it as a dead drop, an address only, for the rental forms, social security, and a fake driver's license.”

“Roswell?”

Ahead of us, the SWAT vehicle smashed through the wrought-iron gate to the clubhouse and sped right up to the front door. The team jumped off and ran. The lead man threw the ram through the door as men lined up and entered, long guns at the ready, all of them yelling, “Get down. Get down.”

We pulled into the parking lot and stopped, waiting for the “all clear.” This time the parking area was loaded with Harleys of every style and model. Most had the ape-hanger handlebars. Toys, stuffed animals, and games were strapped to various parts of the bikes with bungee cords, highly visible on purpose, the rebranding, their attempt to shift the public's perception. I could only hope the public did not easily fall prey to such elementary school tactics.

Six fifteen. An hour and forty-five minutes left.

Within seconds, the SWAT leader came out and gave Dan the thumbs up. Dan and Barbara got out. I opened the door and put a foot on the ground. Dan blocked my exit.

“The location is secure. I fulfilled my end of the deal, now tell me where inside? What are we looking for?” He wore anxiety like a wild, unwanted monkey on his back, an emotion that didn't suit him. He liked to be in control, and now everything depended on me. He'd gone way out on a limb, and I still held the saw.

Barbara came up behind him. I lowered my voice, said to him, “No, your end, the difficult end, is when you have to let me walk.”

He nodded and didn't say anything else. He didn't want to risk my anger, or to hear me suddenly burst out in laughter, that this had all been an elaborate gag just to ruin his career and make the FBI out to be a bunch of buffoons.

I pushed past them, my hands cuffed in front. “Follow me,” I said.

For the second time in the last seven hours I walked into the Sons of Satan clubhouse. This time at least sixteen bikers sat on couches in the front room, hands zip-tied behind them. Another eight lay face down on the floor amongst their biker detritus. Most had shaved heads, all had ugly antisocial tattoos that blared out to the world that they would not cross the street to help a person and that they'd rob you while you were down. Some wore bandanas around their heads or hanging from pockets. All wore their denim ‘cuts' with the SS rocker and death head accented with their evil, angry scowls. By not wanting to look like everyone else, they'd ironically created their own conformity. What a bunch of lost sheep.