CHAPTER TWELVE

Assistant Chief Miles reached out to Sgt. Ortiz and filled him in on what was going on so far. He relayed that a task force had been formed to investigate the dead drug dealers and what they had come up with so far. Ortiz mentioned to Miles that his office had received a request from the Brooklyn Homicide detectives for information about certain drug dealers, and that he had forwarded some information to them. Miles seemed satisfied with what Ortiz and his crew had accomplished so far.

Ortiz got his detectives together on his boat later that night and updated his detectives on what he now knew about the task force and its investigation. "This means we are going to have to make sure we are covering our tracks. They're on to our tactics and part way on to our goal. Things would work out much better if we could throw 'em a bone to keep 'em busy for a while."

Martinez was the first to speak. "Well, it seems like the ideal solution would be to give 'em someone they already have their eye on. People tend to get blinded by the things that they already want to believe. How about that mystery guy they were asking about? The one that already sells weapons."

"He's got a good point," Hodges agreed. "If they already believe this guy has something to do with all of this then we can use that. Hell, we can derail them for months if we plant just the right evidence for them to find."

"Yeah," Ortiz said. "That does seem like a pretty good idea. The question is, how do we plant something convincing, but not too obvious? Something that definitely implicates him, but nothing that seems too easy."

"Hell," Roman said. "I'd like to give them something, plus connect them to something else. Remember those Russian cigarette butts? Why not engineer some sort of Russian connection to this guy, too? The connection may never pan out, but just like the cigarette butts, they'll never be sure of that. Just another clue that never leads anywhere."

"I don't know," said Ortiz. "I'd love to really confuse 'em as much as possible. But I don't want to over-complicate things on our end. We could screw this up if we add too much."

"Well, boss," Hodges said. "Rome might be onto something. New guy trying to take over, possibly supplied by Russians. It would fit with the mystery of why supply has been drying up, etc. The Russians are trying to force the market in their direction. In the meantime, most of the other sources that have been supplying the city for a while now are going to be trying to reestablish their place in the food chain, with all the high-end dealers falling off dead."

"Keep going," Ortiz said.

"Well, if they get wind of the Russian angle, they're going to be distracted trying to maintain control of something they never lost. That's going to translate to even more busts for every precinct in the city."

"Agreed," said Martinez. "But didn't the cigarette butts start off as a prank?"

"Now that's ironic," said Ortiz. "What started off as a prank is now actually going to stir the pot."

"It's just too bad we can't ever tell anyone about it," Roman said.

On Monday morning, Eva got to the office early and found Curtis Jefferson there reading gang intelligence reports from the weekend. He was comparing the names of known gangbangers against previous drug arrest records that were listed in their newly created database.

"Hey, early bird," Eva said. "How in the heck did you manage to get here so early?"

"I don't know. Kind of funny, she divorced me over spending so much time on the job. But since she left, I seem to spend even more time on the job."

"Sounds kind of dangerous, actually," Eva said. "But, I guess you wouldn't be NYPD material otherwise. Did anything interesting come up over the weekend?"

"No, nothing stands out," Jefferson said. "But I'm going over run sheets and gang-intel, anyway. Never know when you're going to strike gold. Look on your desk, there. It looks like ballistic reports finally came in from the Harlem murder scene."

"Good. Hoboken said they were probably going to fax me their ballistics today, as well. Honestly, I'm not holding out much hope. These suspects seem to do everything right."

"Well," Jefferson replied. "It only takes one mistake, and then we got their asses."

Knowing that they were in a race with the newly formed task force to find Sully Preston, the Detectives of the Bronx Narcotics Borough now began their hunt for him. They proceeded on the fictional premise that Preston was about to take over some territory that was formerly under the control of one of the murdered drug dealers.

"You sure we're alright running him like normal," Roman asked.

"Yeah, man," Martinez replied. "It's just like any other tip we run down. Plus, we don't have any plans to eliminate him, so it doesn't matter if he traces back to us. As a matter of fact, after we plant this stuff on him, we're going to alert the task force that we found his ass. So, after a normal day of investigating a tip, he'll be connected to us anyway."

"He's right," Ortiz said. "This is just a normal investigation. We're going to pass his name over to the task force as if we had no idea they were even looking for him. Just a complimentary tip from us. When he turns out to be interesting to them, we're going to act surprised and tell them they owe us a round of beers."

A few hours later they had an address for Preston, information about his car, and then began running a GPS trace on his cellphone to find his whereabouts. While he was out of his apartment, Hodges and Roman picked the door locks and entered, hoping to find a place to hide a crate of very expensive Russian caviar that Hodges had gotten from a friend.

"Explain to me, again," Roman said. "Why did you spend so much money on fish eggs? I mean, sure, they're illegally imported. But how is that going to do anything to set him up? What is this, like a misdemeanor offense or something?"

"Actually," Hodges chuckled. "It's a red herring."

"Oh, I thought this was caviar or whatever."

"Oh damn," Hodges was laughing loudly now. "A red herring is just an expression. It just means something to throw them off the real trail. It was your idea to screw with them to begin with by putting those Russian cigarette butts outside that house. Well, we're just building on that now. It's another fake clue that will connect him to Russians that don't exist. But, it will stand out to the original detectives, because they're still wondering about those cigarette butts."

"Okay, got it," Roman said. "So, they don't sell this stuff here anywhere in the country? I guess, if you combine that with the price you paid for it, this Preston character is going to look like he's got some pretty important friends."

"They sell caviar here," Hodges said. "Just not this brand. But it's really expensive no matter where in the world you get it. But, you're right, this is some of the best caviar on the planet, if you're into this sort of thing. So, yeah, important friends."

"Not me, brother. I'll take a good porterhouse or a T-bone, any day of the week."

"I'm with ya," Hodges agreed. "That's what happens when you get filthy rich. You lose your mind, collect garbage and call it art, and start eating really weird stuff."

They managed to find a closet that looked like it wasn't used often and stashed the crate of caviar up on the shelf inside. They let themselves out, re-locked the door, and checked in with Sgt. Ortiz.

At the same time that Hodges and Roman were entering Preston's apartment, Ortiz and Martinez had found Preston's car outside an expensive Manhattan restaurant. They proceeded to gain access to the trunk of the car, and they placed a magazine half-filled with subsonic 9mm bullets under the carpet, beside the spare tire. The magazine was made to fit an MP-5 submachine gun, though the gun it fit was currently sitting on the bottom of the Hudson River. They secured the trunk and got away without anyone seeing what they had done.

"Are you guys good with the apartment," Ortiz asked Hodges. He was walking back to his car when Hodges had called to update him. "We just dropped the bullets in his trunk. It's the same bullet type from all the jobs we did. But, with no gun, they won't be able to match them to anything. Which is perfect. That'll keep their task force running in circles looking for the gun."

"Well, boss," Hodges said. "Task forces work best when they're busy, and those guys are getting paid for overtime, anyway. Honestly, I think we did them a favor."

"Yep," Ortiz agreed. "They're getting overtime. Besides, they are so focused on Preston that they're only going to see what they want to see. Later this afternoon, I'm going to send Preston's details over and let them know that his name came up from a tip. They should be happy to hear that. It will fit the picture that they're already painting."

"Well," Hodges said. "It will be interesting to see how this all plays out. Poor fucking Preston, huh?"

"As long as it keeps them busy, I don't care about him," Ortiz said. "This guy sells guns to drug dealers and gangbangers, so I don't feel bad about putting him in the middle of this. Hopefully they find something that brings some real charges against him to get his ass off the street."

"I agree, boss," Hodges. "We're en route back to the office. See ya there."

Jimmy had spent the morning building a file on Sully Preston. Now, late in the afternoon, he set out to find him so that he could start watching him. Jimmy finally felt like he was doing police work, again. Jimmy knew there was no way Preston had done all of these murders by himself, but he was sure that he was involved somehow.

Jimmy caught up with him in midtown Manhattan just as Preston was arriving at a large office building. Jimmy was able to follow him as far as the door of an attorney's office. As a police officer, Jimmy knew better than to follow him in. No use in tipping off Preston or his lawyer any sooner than necessary. As Jimmy was headed back to his car to wait, his cellphone rang.

"Hey, partner," Eva said. "You might want to stop and buy a lottery ticket while you're out."

"Why's that," Jimmy asked.

"Because," Eva almost shouted. "Bronx Narcotics sent over a tip for us. One of their CI's mentioned something about a guy named Sully, who was rumored to be the person taking over drug sales all over the city. He's allegedly connected to the Russian mob somehow, but nobody is sure how. Anyway, Bronx ran the name and didn't find anything interesting. And, being that he spends most of his time across the river, they didn't have much interest in him. But they forwarded the information to us, just in case we wanted to take a look at the guy. Can you believe that shit? We're on the right trail, Jimmy."

"No kidding," Jimmy said. "That is great to hear. That's two independent sources for us."

"From two different boroughs, no less!"

"Yeah," Jimmy agreed. "That's a pretty big deal all by itself. I'm on him now. He stopped by some lawyers' office, so I'm waiting for him to get out of there. Just going to follow him for a while after that. Hoping he'll lead me somewhere, to someone else."

"Well," Eva said. "If luck holds up like it has so far, then he'll lead you right to his partners, where there will be a signed confession and all the murder weapons just sitting there waiting for us."

"Jesus," Jimmy said. "Overtime or not, it would be nice to at least put our original case to bed. Then the brass might leave us alone and go back to searching for cameras to stand in front of."

"Agreed," Eva said. "Hey, I got some more stuff I need to get done over here. Just thought you'd appreciate that update. We're finally making way, partner."

"Yes," Jimmy said. "Yes, we are. About time for all of our hard work to pay off."

Just as Ortiz had gotten done sending information about Sully Preston over to the task force, his cellphone rang. It was his ex-wife. Well, it had been a good day up until now. Maybe she was calling to tell him that he had been right all this time, after all, and that she had made a huge mistake by moving in with that fancy doctor.

"Hey, Maria. What's up?"

"We need to talk, James."

Ah, fuck. It was never good when she said they needed to talk, and especially not when she used his first name. He tried to brace himself for a new onslaught of misery.

"Okay," Ortiz said. "What's up?"

"There are some things going on, and I need you to be reasonable for once. You need to act like a grown up when I tell you about this," Maria said.

Ortiz closed his eyes and grit his teeth, knowing that his good day was now over.

"Do you hear me talking to you," asked Maria. "You can't just be all quiet and shit like you always do, judging me and whatever. Other people get to have lives, too. You can't just act like you're the only one on this planet."

"It's already been a long day, Maria. What is it?"

"See! There you go, already. I ain't even had a chance to say nothing, and you're already starting on me. You need to grow up, James. You need to act like an adult for once. You can't just be mad at me for no reason at all like this. That's why things are like they are now between us."

"Maria, will you just tell me what's going on?"

"I'll tell you, alright. Thomas was offered a job in California, and he wants me to go with him. That's what. We already started looking at houses on the computer. So, we talked and decided it was a good idea. Now, ain't no use in getting mad just because he's got an important job. We already…"

"What the hell, Maria," Ortiz asked. "You can't just wake up one day and decide to take my son to the other side of the country."

"There you go," Maria said. "Only thing you can say is something about you. You don't even think about anyone else. It's all about you and what you want. Well, I got news for you, other people want things, too. It's not all about you, ya know."

"Maria, Maria, just calm down. Can we at least talk for a second?"

"Talk. Talk. That's all you want to do. Talk about you and what you want. This isn't about you, James. This about us and what we want. The call was to let you know. I don't need your permission to live my life. I don't need your permission for anything."

"Maria," Ortiz pleaded. "Listen to what you're saying. You're taking my son…"

"Your son? Since when? And, you know what? He's my son, too. We have a life, too. You don't get to tell us how to live our life. You gave all that up. That's why I didn't want to tell you. Thomas said I should call you, and I told him what you were gonna do. The same thing you always do, somehow make it all about you. You're always unreasonable when you don't get your way. You always want to control people. Well, we want to go and we're gonna go."

"Maria, if I have to, I'll get a lawyer to stop this. What the fuck, Maria? You can't just take my son away."

"See. There you go, again," Maria said. "Always telling people what they can and cannot do. But you don't get to tell me what I can't do. But you can get a lawyer or whatever. It would be the only thing you've paid for in years. Alimony is never on time, I have to call and beg for money for your son to do things at school. You don't care about anyone but you. But you get a lawyer. You try to stop me. Go ahead, you're going to be sorry."

"What are you talking about? He stays with me every other weekend and every other holiday, even though you try to stop that whenever you can. I've told you that I have no control over when the court sends out alimony payments. They have their own schedule. And I give you money for him any time you ask. You've never had to beg for a damn thing. I pay for everything he does at school. You can't deny that."

"There you go, again," Maria said. "There you go telling me what I can't do. If you were a real man, you wouldn't try to control me like that. You wouldn't tell me how to live my life. If you were a real man, you would take care of your son instead of letting somebody else raise him and pay for him. You're not a man, James. And you can't stop me from living my life."

Ortiz wanted to beg, wanted to scream, wanted just once for her to understand that he wasn't any of those things. But she had already ended the call before he could say anything else. He set his phone on his desk and stared at a picture of him and his son that had been taken a few years ago. His son was the most important thing in the world to him. He put up with a lot from her because it was the easiest way to still spend time with his son. But not this, he had to stop this. She couldn't take him away. He started looking for a lawyer.