CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Jimmy gave up on following Preston any further that night. The day had resulted in a lot of notes but nothing that seemed to stand out as suspicious. He called Eva to let her know that he was headed home.

"Hey, Jimmy," Eva said. "Anything exciting tonight?"

"Nope," Jimmy replied. "I tailed him until he went home with some woman he met at a bar. I figure he's probably in for the night. Did anything else good happen at the office today?"

"Nothing," Eva replied. "We tried a few judges for a good-faith warrant but, with the elections just a few months away, nobody will budge on the words of an anonymous street informant. So, if we want a search warrant, we are going to need something substantial."

"That sucks," Jimmy said. "We can follow up with Bronx Narcotics tomorrow and try to get a line on the informant. Or, maybe Preston will lead me somewhere interesting tomorrow."

"Yeah, but he's going to have to make a mistake before we can get a search warrant for his place. Anyway, I'll reach out to the Bronx tomorrow and see what they can tell me."

"Okay," Jimmy said. "Well, I plan to swing by the office in the morning, then I'll get back to following him. He can't take over all of the open sales territory without leading us to something, sooner or later."

"Agreed. See you tomorrow, Jimmy."

Ortiz took five-thousand dollars from the money they had been collecting. It wasn't much, it wouldn't be missed. The money was considered a discretionary fund that anyone could take from if they needed something. Well, he had a real need. The fact that his need was to hire a lawyer for family court wasn't something that he intended to share with anyone. The whole situation with his ex-wife was already bad enough. He didn't need to add shame to this mess, as well.

This was important and Ortiz had needed things to go right, so he turned his phone off when he got to the lawyer's office. It was ironic timing, as Martinez was just calling to tell him that a homicide detective from the task force had called requesting more information about their informant. Having no luck, Martinez checked the GPS location on Ortiz's phone just to check his last location. Checking on each other was something they all did for each other's safety. Sometimes they had to assume undercover roles with only a few moments of notice, so they couldn't always keep other people updated on what was going on.

Martinez saw a Manhattan location come up as the last reported location of Ortiz's phone. That's way out of their jurisdiction, so Martinez switched the map to a satellite view just to see the area. If the map showed a bunch of alleys or abandoned buildings then Martinez and the cavalry would be loading up and heading that way just in case Ortiz needed backup. But instead Martinez found a situation that worried him even more. The only thing at that address was a lawyer's office. Why did Ortiz need a lawyer and how come he hadn't said anything about it before? These guys shared everything. It was probably a lead on one of their drug suspects or whatever. He let it go, confident that Ortiz would tell him about it later.

A few hours later, when they were all out on Ortiz's boat, they were discussing a list of potential dealers from which to pick their next target. When they took a break from their planning, Martinez asked Ortiz, "Hey, boss, everything cool? Tried to get you on the phone earlier, but your battery was dead or something."

"Yeah," Ortiz said. "I was down in Brooklyn, surveilling foot traffic. Trying to follow up on a lead from a few weeks ago."

Martinez froze. Then he asked, "Brooklyn, huh?"

"Yeah, I wanted to pull somebody aside to see if I could find out what's the word in the streets. Just wanted to know if they're saying anything different down there than we are hearing up here. Make sure we're up-to-date and all that."

"Any luck," Martinez asked.

"No. Didn't recognize anyone, and I can't grab people off the street in somebody else's patrol zone. So I just headed back. Didn't realize my phone was off until I was almost back to the office. Did I miss anything?"

"Yeah, a homicide detective from that task force called requesting to meet our informant, the one who supposedly gave us a tip about Preston. I told her I'd try to track him down. I plan to wait a day or two, head over to the Medical Examiner's office, find a street rat who expired recently and give her that name."

"Whoops, sorry detective, guess we just missed finding him," Roman said with a chuckle.

"That's good thinking, Gil. You've got it covered, then?"

"Yeah, boss," Martinez said. "I got it covered."

Jimmy was on day three of following Sully Preston when he finally caught his break. He tailed Preston to a motel in Cypress Hills. When Preston arrived, he carried a briefcase straight to a room where another man was apparently waiting for him. So, Jimmy called the Cypress Hills police and asked for a hand. Jimmy told the duty sergeant who he was, who he was following, and why. He wanted someone to pull Preston over for a traffic violation and then check to see if they could raise any probable cause to search the vehicle. They could keep the arrest if they came up with anything, Jimmy assured them. He just wanted Preston off the street. The sergeant readily agreed and put two units on standby to stop Preston, with two more units at the motel to stop and check out the other guy that Preston had met with.

After Preston was pulled over, the patrol officers found out that the man whom he was meeting with was from out of town and actually staying at the motel. Both men had documents on them detailing a real estate deal that Preston was working on. Having nothing to hide, Preston gave them permission to search his vehicle. He was much too smart to drive around in a vehicle that he used for his other business ventures. So, when they pulled a clip full of bullets that fit a submachine gun out of his trunk, he was instantly angry and confused. The bullets were not illegal and not enough for Cypress Hills PD to detain him. But it was enough for Jimmy to detain him while he obtained a search warrant for Preston's home.

"How long are you going to keep me in here," Preston whined. "I told you, I don't know where those bullets came from, I don't own a machine gun, and this is all bullshit."

"Look, you can't account for your whereabouts on a few specific evenings when various murders occurred. You were found in possession of the same type of equipment and ammunition that was involved in those murders. And word on the street has it that you are about to take over a lot of new drug territory. We got plenty to hold you on."

"But I didn't do anything," Preston persisted. "I don't know where those bullets came from. I'm not a drug dealer. And I've never killed anyone."

"We'll see," Jimmy said. "Those bullets were enough for us to get a search warrant for your apartment. I wonder what else we're going to find that you don't know anything about."

"Oh, oh, this is such bullshit," Preston said, desperately trying to remember if he had left anything incriminating at his home.

"Well, we're just going to sit here awhile and wait to see what they find."

"Hey, don't I have the right to a phone call, a lawyer, all that stuff?"

"You will if you're arrested. Right now, you're just being temporarily detained while we verify your identity. Have to make sure that you're not one of those terrorist types."

"Do I look like some damned terrorist?"

"I don't know. What does a terrorist look like?"

Jimmy leaned back and put his feet up on the table. As he unfolded a newspaper, he thought to himself that just the paint color of this interrogation room was enough to make someone crazy. The little box of a room was intentionally designed to make suspects uncomfortable during questioning. But after a few minutes, Jimmy began to realize just how much he didn't like it, either.

Pretending to study a crossword puzzle, Jimmy vocalized a few clues and then answered them himself. At one point, he announced, "A Russian negative. Four letters. Damn, I tried to use the word 'life', but it's not the right answer."

"Nyet," Preston said.

"Huh," Jimmy asked, pretending like he wasn't paying attention. "What'd you say?"

"Nyet. N-Y-E-T. It means no in Russian."

"Wow," Jimmy exclaimed. "It fits perfectly. Damn, you pulled that out of thin air."

"Not really," Preston said. "It's pretty common knowledge."

"I don't know," Jimmy said. "I've never heard of it. You study Russian in school or something?"

"No. Like I said, it's pretty common knowledge."

Jimmy folded up the newspaper which contained no crossword puzzle at all and said, "You live in a Russian neighborhood or something? I mean, you seem familiar enough with the language."

"Screw the language. How long are you going to hold me here?"

"Probably not much longer. Are you worried about us finding anything?"

"No, I'm not worried. Except for maybe you guys trying to set me up or something. Make it look like I had something to do with a murder, maybe."

"What makes you think we're setting you up for murder," Jimmy asked. "I mean, if that were true, why would we choose you?"

"I don't know why. But I know I never had any bullets in my car before tonight and, yet, here we are."

Jimmy was about to say something else, slowly antagonizing Preston so that he might slip up and say something incriminating. But there was a knock on the mirrored window of the interrogation room. So, Jimmy stood up, walked over, and pounded on the door. The door opened and a uniformed officer let Jimmy out before slamming the door closed again.

As Jimmy rounded the corner into the observation room, Eva said, "Well, good news and bad news from the apartment."

"Yeah," Jimmy asked.

"It's clean for most anything that we're interested in. He's too smart to keep anything at home," Eva said. "One pistol there, and it's registered in his name."

"Damn it," Jimmy said. "I just now tried to bait him, but he didn't fall for it."

"Well, here's something interesting," Eva said. "He had a ten-thousand dollar case of caviar in a crate in his closet."

"Closet," Jimmy asked. "Isn't that stuff supposed to be refrigerated or something?"

"Only if it's been opened. It ships in specially sealed containers that preserve it."

"What, are you some sort of caviar expert," Jimmy asked.

"Not even close, not on my salary," Eva said. "But I do know people…"

"So, what about this caviar," Jimmy asked. "How does this help us?"

"Well, this particular brand is not only expensive as fuck, but it is also not imported into the country. Nobody sells this brand here, Jimmy. So, either he left the country and brought it back, or…"

"Or somebody gave him a really expensive gift," Jimmy interrupted.

"So, we don't have any solid evidence of crimes, yet. But I'm pretty sure this locks in the Russian connection we were wondering about

"I would have preferred a smoking gun," Jimmy said. "But, yeah, I'm pretty sure we can confirm at least part of our suspicions so far. He's definitely connected to some Russians."

"Well, we can't hold him for just a magazine," Eva said. "And I'm not even sure if the caviar thing actually breaks any laws. We're going to have to cut him loose, Jimmy."

"Whatever," Jimmy said. "Let's at least wait until morning."

Detectives Gil Martinez and Roman Georginski were the only ones in the office this morning. Martinez looked over and said, "Rome, let's take a ride. I need to check on something."

"Give me a sec," Roman said. "Almost got this arrest report finished. You believe this? Freaking guy sees me come around the corner, he's got drugs in one hand and money in the other, dealing with some crackhead. He actually tells me to hang on as I'm walking towards him. The crackhead grabs his dope and takes off running, but my dealer just stands there smiling. I ask him, 'Hey dumb fuck, what the hell are you smiling about?' You know what he tells me?"

Smiling ear to ear, Martinez asks, "What did he say?"

"Customer service, officer," Roman says. "I ask him what in the hell he is talking about. He says he's not gonna run because he's headed to jail regardless. No use in making my day any worse by having to chase him. But as long as his customer got the crack and got away, that crackhead now had a dealer for life. Believe that shit?"

Martinez was chuckling loudly now.

"I ask this genius, hey, how are you going to serve your customer from behind bars? He says he can't, but when he gets out, he'll have a bunch of customers waiting for him. He said something about brand-loyalty or something. Turns out that he read a business book in the prison library after he got caught last time. I don't know, Gil. They must have left out the chapter on the risks of selling crack."

"I guess everybody wants to be a success, even if they have to do it on the installment plan. I don't know what the hell is wrong with the world. But as long as there are stupid people, we'll have jobs."

"Amen, to that, brother," Roman agreed.

A few minutes later, they were driving across town, and Roman asked, "Hey, where are we going?"

"Nowhere," Martinez replied. "Just wanted to run some shit by you outside the office."

"Okay, what's up," Roman asked.

"Short version is, the other day I tried to get Ortiz on the phone and his cell was off. So, I did what we always do, I hit the GPS for his last known location, to make sure he's cool, ya know? Turns out he was at some lawyer's office in Manhattan. I didn't think anything of it. You know how this job sometimes leads to some strange fucking places."

"Huh, tell me about it," Roman agreed.

"Well, the other night I said something about it because I was trying to tell him why I called. But before I could tell him anything, he blurted out that he'd been driving around Brooklyn. He knows if his phone is off, any of us are going straight to the GPS. That's how we watch each other's backs, right?"

"Sure thing, man," Roman said. "Great damn tool, too."

"Yeah, well," Martinez said angrily, "If he knows that, then why does he lie to me straight out like that? I mean, normally he's got to know that I know he's lying. But he seems too damn distracted to even notice what just happened. So, my question is this? Does he have something going on? Some reason for him to be distracted?"

"No, nothing that I'm aware of," Roman said. "But obviously something's up."

"Well," Martinez said, "I've been just a little concerned about our off-duty stuff, ya know? I believe in what we're doing. But I don't like this minimal contact with the Rabbi in the shadows, ya know?"

"Yeah," Roman agreed. "There's nothing there to fall back on except hope. We're the ones out on the front lines and, if an operation goes pear shaped, then we're the ones out in the cold. Everyone else is protected and insulated from what we're doing except us."

"Exactly," Martinez said. "And now this mess. I trust Ortiz, or least I did. Right now, I just don't know what's going on. We've done some good work lately. Stuff for the greater good, right?"

"One-hundred percent," Roman agreed.

"But what the fuck was he doing with a lawyer just out-of-the-blue like this? Is he making a deal or just getting prepared in case shit goes bad, or what?"

"I don't know," Roman said. "It's like the Wizard of Oz or something, except maybe it's Ortiz behind the curtain pulling all the strings."

"Nah, the Rabbi is real," Martinez said. "It's Assistant Chief Miles, if you can believe that shit. I needed him when I had to replace my vest, so Ortiz made the introduction. And he sure as shit came to the rescue."

"Really," Roman asked.

"Oh yeah," Martinez said. "Put the fear of God into some moron at the quartermaster. I think I could probably go in there and requisition an Army tank or maybe a helicopter, right now."

"Straight up," Roman asked. "Because we could really clean the streets up in about twenty-four hours if we had that kind of firepower."

Martinez joined Roman's laughter. It was nice to break the tension a little.

"But, seriously," Martinez asked. "What do you make of all this shit, bro? Is Ortiz getting ready to bail on us or just making a safety net or what?"

"Hey man," Roman said. "The person to ask is the Rabbi himself. He seems like he's on the level for now. Ask him what he thinks."

"Yeah," Martinez agreed. "That's a good idea. I guess I just needed to hear it from someone else"

Roman turned his head to stare out the window, and said, "Fucking Assistant Chief Miles is our Rabbi, huh? Did not see that one coming."