Walrond didn’t have to ask me twice.
We met Pops a block away, in the empty parking lot of a medical office building. He was a heavyset, kind of goofy, fast-talking black guy with a deep voice who reminded me of the clownish old-school rapper Biz Markie.
“Like I was tellin’ you, Sarge,” Pops said. “It wasn’t the Bloods shot those kids. Shootin’ customers be bad for business, ’specially white ones ’fraid to come into the ’hood in the first place.”
“But Jay D is a Blood,” Walrond argued.
“Aw, he just a peewee. He got no rank,” Pops said dismissively. “Plus the kid’s just damn crazy. The way I heard it, he was working with the Kings, man. He was like hired out.”
“Hired out?” I said, my blood beginning to boil for the second time this evening.
Walrond put a hand on my shoulder.
I shut my mouth. Which wasn’t easy, considering I just wanted answers. I bit my tongue and allowed the detective to do his job.
“Why would they do that, Pops?” Walrond continued.
“Beats me,” Pops said. “All I know is the Bloods ain’t happy because tensions already be runnin’ high lately between the nations. They say it’s that Mexican cartel dude they got on trial. What’s his name? Perrine? Yeah, Perrine’s been franchising out all that good pure Mexican dope for cheap to the Latin King Nation from South Beach up to Boston. The Kings keep dropping their price, and the Bloods are getting crushed, losin’ business like crazy.”
Perrine? I thought. Perrine was connected to the Latin Kings who hired someone to shoot my kids? It couldn’t be. How could that be right?
Walrond immediately sensed I was about to jump out of my skin.
“Thanks, Pops,” Walrond said, sending him on his way. “Keep in touch.”
CHAPTER 61
I HAD A lot on my mind by the time Walrond and Groover finally dropped me back at the lake house. Fortunately, Mary had left me dinner, a homemade Italian sub with a side of German potato salad, which I found in the back of the old vintage fridge, deftly hidden from hungry teens. To complete my culinary trip around the world, I washed it down with a bottle of cold Pilsner Urquell beer from the Czech Republic.
Who says the effects of globalization are all bad?
After my late-night dinner, I went into the family room and turned on Leno. There was a box of movie candy on the coffee table called Lemonhead & Friends. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten candy, but for whatever reason, I started gobbling up the sweet-and-sour jelly-bean things like they were going out of style.
As I scarfed down the sugary garbage, I watched Leno interview a bullying British celebrity chef who really needed a punch in the mouth. I couldn’t stop thinking about what the informant, Pops, had said about Perrine’s involvement with the Latin Kings, and the Latin Kings’ involvement with my kids’ shooting. Was it just street bullshit? His own personal fantasy? The guy did kind of seem like a flake.
It nagged me so much that I found my cell phone and made a call. It was to the DEA SWAT head, Patrick Zaretski, who had been my departed friend Hughie’s mentor in the agency. Ever since Hughie had been killed, Zaretski had been doing nothing but delving into the intricacies of Perrine’s cartel and trying to find all those responsible for his death. If Pops’s story had any truth to it, Patrick would be able to confirm it.
Patrick answered on the fourth ring.
“Hey, Patrick. Mike Bennett. Sorry to call you so late, but I need a favor. I got a guy in Newburgh, New York, who’s claiming that Perrine is supplying the Latin Kings with dope on the East Coast. Does that sound right to you? You think there’s a connection there?”
“I don’t know, Mike,” Patrick said. “But give me an hour and I’ll find out.”
It actually only took half an hour before my phone rang again.
“Mike, you’re spot on. We do have intelligence that the two organizations are working in concert. It started up late last year. Apparently, half the Latin Kings’ heroin and almost all their coke is coming from Perrine’s people. Perrine is also supplying the gang MS-13 and pretty much all the Latin drug trafficking gangs in the entire country. That’s how deeply these Mexican cartels have penetrated into the U.S.
“I hate to ask, Mike, but does this have something to do with your kids?”
We’d mostly kept the boys’ shooting out of the paper, but I’d already told Patrick and a few other law enforcement friends what had happened.
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out, Patrick,” I said. “I thought it was just a terrible mistake—my kids being in the wrong place at the wrong time—but the informant up here is claiming that the kid who shot Eddie and Brian was hired by the Latin Kings. Could Perrine know that I’m up here on vacation? He targeted my children?”
“Unfortunately, it’s more than possible, Mike,” Patrick said. “You’ve seen the pictures. You know Perrine’s tactics down in Mexico. You think you’d be the first cop he’s personally targeted? He’s a mass murderer, Mike. You put him in a cage. Of course, he’d love to get at you and your loved ones.”
I sat there holding the phone. All around me, my family slept safely in their beds. But for how long? I thought. How the hell could I keep them safe with this monster and his organization on my trail?
CHAPTER 62
MY CELL PHONE rang early the next morning. Before dawn, in fact.
It didn’t really matter, because I was already up with Seamus. I was teaching him how to load and unload the 12-gauge Remington shotgun I’d found behind some canoe oars in the cluttered garage a couple of days before. It killed me to have to teach the kind old man how to lethally defend himself and the rest of the kids. He was a priest, after all.
But what else could I do after my conversation with Patrick Zaretski? It was looking more and more like my family had actually been targeted by Perrine. These were truly desperate times.
It turned out to be Detective Ed Boyanoski on the phone.
“Sorry to call so early, Mike, but we got a witness who just ID’d your boys’ shooter. The county DA gave the go-ahead. We’re about to go grab him, and I thought you’d want to be there.”
“You thought right,” I said.
“We’ll come to you,” Ed said. “Be there in ten.”
That’s when Mary Catherine came into the kitchen. Her eyes just about detached from their sockets when she saw Seamus in his Manhattan College pajamas with the pump-action shotgun.
“What in the name of sweet holy God is going on here?” she wanted to know.
Seamus smiled devilishly.
“Nothing, really,” he said. “Young Michael here was just teaching me the finer rudiments of how to lock and load.”
“Give it here,” Mary Catherine told him.
She took the shotgun from him deftly and quickly thumbed four shells into the underside loading port.
“What model Remington is this? An eight seventy?” she said, blinking a curl of blond hair out of her eyes.
I nodded, blinking back in shock.
She clicked the safety on before pumping a round into the chamber. She swung the shotgun to her shoulder and aimed down the barrel at the wall, nodding to herself. Then she unloaded it, quickly pumping all the rounds out of the receiver onto the kitchen table, catching the last spinning red shell in her hand.
“Where’d you learn all that?” I said, hiding my smile as she handed me back the gun.
“I grew up on a cattle farm, Mike. There wasn’t as much rustling going on in Tipperary as in the Wild West, but we had some. Not at our farm, though.”
“I’ll bet,” I said, and started to laugh. This attractive young woman never failed to shock.
She put her hands on her hips, Wonder Woman–style, which made sense.
“Now, if there’s any locking and loading to be done around here when Mike is at work, I’ll be the one to do it. Agreed, gentlemen?” she said.
“You win, Annie O’Oakley,” I said, making her smile.
Seamus folded his arms, frowning at the both of us.
“Fine. I’m going back to bed,” he said after another half a minute.
“I never get to have any fun at all,” he whined as he left.
CHAPTER 63
A BRIEF HORN honk came from outside a moment later.
“And where are you headed this early?” Mary Catherine said as I clipped my holster to my belt by the front door.
I debated whether to tell her. I decided I didn’t want to say anything about bagging the son of a bitch who’d hurt Eddie and Brian until we had him.
“Ah, nowhere, really,” I said as I pulled down my shirt over my gun. “Just going to see a man about a dog.”
“Well, please don’t get bit, Michael,” Mary Catherine said. “We have all the Bennetts on the mend that we can handle at present.”
“Don’t worry, lass,” I said, showing her the handcuffs I had in the pocket of my Windbreaker. “I brought a strong leash.”
There were two patrol cars in the arrest team besides the unmarked one I rode in with Detectives Ed and Bill, who had brought me a coffee and had laid a Kevlar vest out for me in the backseat.
“Just my size, too,” I said, slipping it on. “You guys are the best.”
It took about twenty more minutes to roll up to the address in Newburgh. It was actually on a block of pretty well-kept houses on Bay View Terrace. Behind them, there was a pure, stunning view of the Hudson. How much would Newburgh real estate be worth if the city wasn’t riddled with crime? I wondered. It was only an hour and twenty minutes away from New York City. I stared out at the sky, just starting to lighten behind Beacon, as we pulled to a stop.
“This is where his aunt lives,” Bill said. “He’s been hiding out with her ever since he got word we were looking for him.”
A dog started barking nearby as we waited for one of the cruisers to get into position on the next block, in case Jay D went out the back. The Motorola in Ed’s hand suddenly crackled.
“Heads up,” said someone in the cruiser parked behind us. “We have a figure in the alleyway across the street with a long object in their hand.”
That tensed things up. There was word that the Bloods had automatic weapons, including AK-47s.
A moment later, an old thin black woman in a tracksuit appeared, mumbling to herself as she began haphazardly sweeping her porch with a broom.
“Stand down. It’s just Grandma doing her six a.m. tidy-up,” the radio said.
“Or the Wicked Witch of West Newburgh,” Detective Moss mumbled after a loud exhale.
CHAPTER 64
“OKAY. WE’RE SET. We’re in position at the back,” came word from the other cruiser.
“Roger Dodger,” Ed Boyanoski said as he grabbed the battering ram. “We’re going in.”
It turned out that we didn’t need the battering ram. As we came up the stairs, the door opened and a tall middle-aged black man wearing blue Dickies work clothes walked out. He waved his arms over his head.
“Now, now. Calm down. Calm down. You don’t need to be bustin’ my brand-new door down,” he said, eyeing us. “You here for James, I take it?”
“You take it right, sir,” Detective Moss said.
“Thank God,” the man said, turning and holding the door open for us. “Hallelujah.”
“Woman!” the man called back into the house. “Get that child out here now!”
A moment later, a petite black woman appeared with her arms around a hard-looking, stocky teenager. He was in flip-flops and wore white shorts, a white beater, and a blood-red Yankees cap.
“This is all wrong. All wrong,” said the aunt as Ed and Bill frisked and cuffed Jay D on the porch. “James is a good boy.”
“I’m sure he is, ma’am,” Detective Moss said. “We’d like to go and search his room now if that’s okay.”
“By all means,” Jay D’s uncle said. “This good boy’s room is just to the right at the top of the stairs. Try not to trip over all the Bibles and choir robes, now.”
“I didn’t do nothin’,” Jay D said after Bill read him his rights and got him into the back of the cruiser. Ed sat in the back with him, wisely leaving me in the front passenger seat, where I couldn’t get my hands around his neck.
“This is total bullshit, man,” the punk cried as he rocked back and forth violently against the seat. “You only doin’ this because those kids shot over on Lander were white kids.”
“Now, James, we’re not out of the driveway yet, and already you’re dropping the race card,” Ed Boyanoski said with a tsk. “Didn’t we investigate your shooting last year, James? I’m sorry, I mean shootings?”
“Bullshit, man,” Jay D repeated. He stomped on the floor of the cruiser. “You don’t think I know that the only reason you bugging everybody like this is because those white boys were the kids of a cop?”
Bill Moss and I exchanged a surprised glance before I turned around and stared the punk in his eye.
“You’re actually right about that,” I said, showing him my shield. “We cops do tend to get a little upset when you shoot up our children. See, I’m in a gang, too. It’s called the NYPD. They don’t issue us those ratty dishrags you guys like to sport, but we do have some pretty cool hats.”
The kid smirked and looked at me sideways. “You him, ain’t you?” he said.
He nodded with a sudden smile.
“Bennett, right? Knew it. This ain’t just racist-ass bullshit. This is some racist-ass cop bullshit.”
“Quick question, James,” Ed said. “How do you know who the kids were? I mean that stuff about them being the kids of a cop was deliberately left out of the paper.”
“How much did the Latin Kings pay you?” I yelled. “I hope it was worth it, punk, because if you think I’m pulling strings now, this is nothing compared to the favors I’m going to call in to make sure you earn every single goddamn penny of it.”
Jay D looked at us one by one. He started biting his lower lip like it was a chew toy. The punk suddenly squeezed himself into the rear seat’s corner as if it contained an escape hatch.
“That’s it. I want my lawyer,” he mumbled. “I ain’t talkin’ no more.”
“You’re shutting up?” Detective Bill Moss said as he finally put the unmarked into drive. “Is that a promise, James? Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!”
CHAPTER 65
WE HAD A cookout to end all cookouts that night. The three-burner grill out on the dock was completely covered with burgers, dogs, corn on the cob, peppers, lamb shish kebabs. I even had an Italian sausage wheel that I’d found in a terrific deli not too far from the lake house, where I also scored some real New York–style Italian bread to wrap around the sausage and peppers. Tony Soprano would have been impressed.
“Hey, Father. How do you say ‘fuhgeddaboudit’ in Gaelic?” I asked Seamus over the smoke.
Of course we were having a feast. That’s what your friendly neighborhood heroes did when they bagged the beast: got the grill going and broke out the mead, like Beowulf and his men after offing Grendel.
But Beowulf actually had to go and fight Grendel’s mother next, didn’t he? I thought, remembering how Perrine still needed to be deep-sixed. He certainly was a mother, wasn’t he?
Whatever, I thought, pulling on the frosty beer at my elbow and wiping sweat off my brow with my grill mitt. Line ’em up, and I’ll put ’em down one at a time. No, wait. That was Hughie’s policy on shots. Poor Hughie. Man, I missed him.
Half the Newburgh PD showed up. Ed Boyanoski was there with his wife, Celia, and three kids as well as Bill Moss and his wife, Cordelia, and their two daughters. Even the gang-unit cops, Walrond and Groover, showed up with their respective clans.
Walrond’s clan included his new wife and beautiful four-month-old baby girl, Iris. My girls—including Mary Catherine, for some strange reason—surrounded Iris’s car seat and could not be peeled away during the entire party.
All’s well that was ending well, at least for the cur
rent moment.
Even the kids’ surgeon, Dr. Mary Ann Walker, showed up for a quick ale. It turned out that she and Ed were already friends because they both served on the board of the Newburgh Historical Society. I learned that Ed, a former marine, was also a deacon at downtown Newburgh’s Saint Patrick’s Church and spent much of his free time coaching basketball at the Boys and Girls Club.
“So many people have written off this town to the gangs, Mike, but I know we can turn it around,” Ed said. “This place is my home. I’m never leaving.”
Ed was a top-notch guy. They all were. Good people who truly cared about their community and were trying to do their best in a bad situation.
“Man, you know how to toss a soiree here, Mike,” a swim-trunk-clad Groover called from a floating inner tube off the dock. He had a sausage-and-peppers hero in one hand and a beer in the other.
“I haven’t had too much to celebrate in a while, so I’m pulling out all the stops, my man. You guys deserve it. Now my family can put all this nonsense in the rearview.”
“How many kids do you have, anyway?” Groover wanted to know.
I shook my head. “Dude, I lost count a long time ago.”
Groover looked down into his beer thoughtfully before raising his plastic cup.
“The more the merrier,” he called.
I looked over at my son Eddie, talking and laughing with one of Ed Boyanoski’s kids, and raised my own.
“The more the merrier,” I agreed with a smile.
Damn right.
It was the Bennett family motto, after all.
CHAPTER 66
AT AROUND NINE, the party wrapped up pretty much the way all cop parties do—with some beery high fives and fist bumps and promises to do it again real soon.