Chapter 28
It was April 1 and Melissa was meeting with Hank, Yolanda, Doc, Theo, Dreamer, and Wanda. Also, William and Momaka had asked to sit in with them so that they'd be aware of their basic attack plan in case their assistance was needed. Wolf was sitting in with Jock's group for the same reason. TG was holding a meeting of the communications group at the same time. Winnie had not been invited to any of the meetings. She had anticipated that and had put drones into all of the meeting rooms. William had thoughtfully stored several large cartons of them in the Wilizy/Asia's hold. Nobody had said that she couldn't take any.
"We know how the ABCD families make their money, now we need details," Melissa opened. "For each family, we need to know the management structure. Are the sisters in charge? Are their husbands? Who actually runs the businesses? We want pictures of all the important people so that we can post them in the Main Operations Room."
The Main Operations Room had been Jock's idea. He wanted a large room where all the data would be available for other battle groups to study as needed. The pictures would be useful in learning who everybody was. They expected to have lots of people under watch. The cargo hold in the Wilizy/Asia had been converted into an operations room for that purpose.
"TG needs to know how they're communicating with each other and with the judge. Make this one of your higher priorities. His group is essentially stalled until we can tell them what communication software the families are using."
"Put drones in the homes of the families; we may hear some idle gossip. Also, put drones into the main offices of each business. We'll work in real time for now. If you find anything particularly valuable, TiTr as necessary and collect data that will be useful. There are cartons of drones in the Wilizy/Asia cargo hold. Use as many as you need but don't leave them in place after you're finished with your family."
"I'll be watching Annie's family. Hank, please take Betsy; Yolanda has Christy and Wanda has Doreen. Theo and Dreamer, I'd like you to research the judge's special interests: the Top Hat business, the printing business, and the mortuary business. We didn't get a sense that they were large businesses; you should be able to handle three of them between the two of you. Doc, would you look into Dr. Sandman? We weren't able to figure out where he fit. Lucas had already researched him but came up empty."
"Remember people, you are not only collecting data on how these families operate their businesses; you're looking for weaknesses that we can exploit. Unless there are any questions, that's all."
Winnie decided that she'd research Dr. Sandman too, but not for data. She'd be looking for the ideas floating through his head. She was feeling a little sick.
# # # # # # # #
Jock was meeting with his battle group – Stu, Lucas, Mathias, and Reese. They already knew the general outline of what they'd be doing.
"Stu, you're in charge of bringing in the cavalry. Have meetings with their political masters – use the Wilizy name as needed in B.C. and my name in Saskatchewan. We will need a quick assessment of the justices of the Ontario Supreme Court. Don't open up any discussions with them until Reese is able to see them in the flesh. If there are any doubts about their honesty, we will exclude them from the plan. We can't take the risk of one person talking indiscreetly."
"Mathias, make sure that you can operate all three freight transports simultaneously. William will help you with the test flights if you need him. Before you do that though, you and Reese will be students on a field trip to city hall. Take pictures of every important person in the city government and justice system, label them, and put Reese's assessment of each person's character on that picture. Tell them that you're a reporter for a student newspaper if you have to. Post the pictures in the Main Operations Room."
"Lucas, you and I will research all of the individuals that Reese identifies as targets. You will also serve as my aide in collecting the data on our primary targets and then helping to develop battle plans. We may need different attack plans for each person. Be prepared to be creative."
"Wolf, if you have the time, we could use some help researching the key people in the municipal government. That's it everybody. Battle Group is dismissed."
Winnie had always wanted to be a reporter on a school newspaper. But first, she needed to find out what a school newspaper was.
# # # # # # # #
TG's meeting with Wizard and Granny was short. "We can't do anything until somebody on the other teams tells us what software they're using to communicate. We'll meet properly when we have something to do."
# # # # # # # #
Colleen Harwood was preparing a sheet of peanut butter cookies for sale in her little bakery shop in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. It would be the seventh such batch that day. Maddy had arrived two days ago from Madison. Colleen had put her to work tamping down cookie dough on the cookie sheets. When the cookies were ready to eat, Maddy brought Colleen empty cartons and then took the full cartons into the shop where her assistant was helping the customers. Colleen noticed that Maddy would never go in the shop if a man were there. But Maddy was afraid of Colleen's shop assistant too. She'd take the fresh cookies into the sales room but would quickly turn around and run out. Colleen's assistant was a slender woman whereas most of Colleen's customers were avid consumers of cookies. Was slenderness the reason for the fear? Colleen added this information to the bot.
Colleen also wrote that Maddy was very trustworthy. When she helped take the cookies off the sheet and transfer them onto a plate for cooling, she never deliberately broke any. Colleen had told Maddy that broken cookies would be given to staff to take home or to eat right there. Maddy would eat such cookies. She'd even smile at Colleen when she gave her one, but she never broke one on purpose.
Back to the Table of Contents
Chapter 29
After ten days of researching, the battle groups were ready for another large group meeting. But first, they had a problem to solve. It was becoming increasingly difficult to keep the youngsters entertained on the small ship. They needed to be outdoors. Plus, Reese was missing school and his work for the Wilizy was probably finished for now. Yolanda suggested that she and Yollie should take the Wilizy/America with the kiddies and Reese back home. That group left Toronto before the meeting started.
As to the meeting itself, it lasted several hours since the researchers had found a lot of information. I'll boil down their findings for you.
Melissa's group had determined how the judge and his family members communicated. There was ample pinky-ring phone coverage inside Toronto but the judge didn't allow that. Instead, they communicated by text messages. Presumably, it was in these text messages that instructions were given both from the judge to his sisters and then from the sisters to the people actually running the business. These people would be considered second in command. I'll call them underbosses. The reason that Melissa had to presume the presence of instructions was because text messages were not stored on Toronto's central computer system. There was no point. Nobody in Toronto texted since pinky-ring communications were so superior. Melissa's group also presumed that the judge knew that such records were not kept.
After TG was told about the text messages, he gained access to Toronto's main communications computer and began to set up a hidden software system to record all future texts. However he had no way to find text messages that had been sent previously. This meant that the Wilizy had no way to prove anybody in the four families guilty of criminal activity before mid-April, 2086. If the judge, for example, had texted Slider to kill Helen Masters, they could never prove that. Even if they could verify it with a TiTr tape, they still could not use that information in a court of law. Effectively, the judge and all of his sisters were immune from prosecution for crimes they had planned and ordered by text.
TG begged off from attending any further planning meetings so that he could work directly on inserting his software into the city's computers. He nominated Wizard to take his spot as Head of the Communications group.
&nb
sp; Jock's idea of posting all the pictures of the key personnel in the crime families provided a break-through. Lucas recognized many of the faces in those pictures from his time observing Toronto's seedier citizens in one of the city's pubs. After a bit of TiTr, Jock's group had determined that the underbosses of all four families met on a regular basis in that pub. They used these meetings to pass on instructions to people in their own families, and as well, to coordinate the activities between the four families. However, since the judge was not at these meetings, he could not be directly connected to those activities; nor could members of his family be linked to them.
The Wilizy did learn how each family made its money. Annie's family, for example, made most of its money from prostitution. Theoretically, they should have had only one quarter of that business, but since they owned all the good brothels, they essentially controlled prostitution within Toronto. The three other families earned some prostitution money from the bars and the gambling halls, but this was nothing like what Annie earned.
Betsy made most of her money from selling liquor. As part of his crackdown on crime, the mayor had ordered hefty taxes to be imposed on any alcohol purchased from Toronto's official liquor stores. A dwindling amount of tax revenue from these stores was proof positive that less alcohol was being consumed, and therefore the mayor's crackdown was working. At least that's what the public was told. The public didn't know that Betsy's family was selling increasing amounts of liquor illegally to the bars and gambling halls and making a tidy profit along the way.
Christy's family specialized in gambling. They controlled a large casino, fifteen gambling dens, and over a hundred bookies running the numbers racket. Gambling operations attract thieves who try to cheat; collecting debts from compulsive gamblers can be problematic. Both threats to Christy's profitability required her to employ personnel who could deter thieves and convince deadbeats to pay. These personnel were physically active men with few scruples and fewer brain cells. Some people would refer to them as thugs. Christy had a small army of them.
Doreen made most of her money from selling insurance to grocery stores and restaurants. She wanted to make it possible for these small business to sell liquor as well – under more expensive insurance coverage of course. Betsy was reluctant to share her liquor dominance, even though Doreen's sales would be small in comparison. She would agree to Doreen's expansion, if Doreen convinced the mayor to require any business establishment that sold anything that involved chewing or swallowing to have a liquor license for which she would supply their inventory. Candy stores, for example. (Doreen owned the mayor through some embarrassing pictures that she had obtained. She sold him insurance against those pictures ever becoming public.) The mayor was stalling because of his aforementioned crackdown on liquor sales. He was willing to expand the presence of liquor licenses in the city if Christy increased the amount of money that he was allowed to win at her casinos. Christy was reluctant because the mayor was using his entire extended family to "gamble" profitably on his behalf, but she'd be willing to reconsider if he allowed her to build a tunnel from her gambling hall to an adjacent building that would serve as a home-away-from-home for lonesome male gamblers. Annie was opposed to this unless she was the one who provided the prostitutes. She'd let Christy set up some slots in the waiting area of the new brothel, but all other income would go to her. Negotiations on all of these "cooperative" ventures were ongoing.
# # # # # # # #
Doc had looked long and hard at Doctor Sandman. He was a real doctor with numerous patients who come to his home-based clinic. He had visiting privileges at the local hospital, meaning that he could treat serious illnesses and operate there. Doc calculated that he had enough money from his medical work to support himself and his wife. If Sandman were receiving any income from his crimes, Doc found no evidence of any such money.
Doc could find no reason why Sandman's wife would participate willingly in a ruse that would give the judge secret access to his own daughter for sexual purposes. His wife was not related in any fashion to the ABCD families, nor was Sandman. Complicating the theory that Sandman was a major criminal figure in Toronto was Reese's assessment of his colours. Dr. Sandman had some wide streaks of dark colours – possibly because he was controlling Winker, Blinker, and Nod. But of all the people that Reese looked at in the judge's inner circle, Dr. Sandman had the second lightest colours.
"Who had the lightest," Momaka asked.
"Eldreadth."
"She's not involved in the families' crimes?" Momaka pursued.
"Not as far as we know," Melissa confirmed. "She is unmarried but lives in a large mansion. She has no visible source of income. Reese said that she has some faded dark colours. Is she guilty of major crimes? Reese says No."
# # # # # # # #
Jock's group was responsible for looking at Toronto's municipal government, police, and judiciary. He reported that the mayor, deputy mayor, business controller, police commissioner, police chief, and deputy policy chief were fully involved in graft. They changed the laws and the way they were enforced on request from the families. In return, they received money or free services (prostitutes) from the families. Reese confirmed that all six of these people had dark colours.
Others in city hall, the police stations, and the prosecutor's office had dark colours, but not heavily so. This probably was because they were taking bribes to keep quiet. From Reese's colour observations, bribery in various forms was rampant in the constabulary.
Judge Lewis was the sole owner of the Top Hat carriages business, although he hid that ownership behind some numbered companies. It earned a reasonable amount of legitimate income. But that income was only made possible after the judge told the mayor to ban all other forms of transport from entering the city center. Top Hat also delivered contraband items like drugs to favoured clients. The drivers involved in that scheme all wore red bow ties. The driver who killed the judge's daughter wore a red tie. He was not a regular killer as far as they could determine; he just happened to be handy.
Top Hat earned its most money in a single night every two years. That income all came on the night of the city elections. Top Hat collected the ballot boxes from the voting stations and delivered them to City Hall for impartial citizens to count. The ballot boxes that they collected were not the same boxes that they delivered. This couldn't be done unless the judge had access to a lot of extra ballots. That may have been the only reason he had a printing business. Everything else that his printing company did appeared to be legitimate. Similarly, the only reason for his mortuary business was so that he could dispose of the bodies coming out of the basement cellblock. In both cases, the operators of those businesses didn't know what was going on.
# # # # # # # #
I'll give you Jock's closing comments word-for-word.
"The head prosecutor, Dennis Lee, is fully involved in the families' crimes. Reese says that he has very dark colours. From what we've been able to observe, he works for the judge as his right hand man. They met when Lee was in law school. They talk together on a regular basis in the prosecutor's office, but this is not remarkable because discussions between judges and prosecutors are common. Those conversations reveal nothing incriminating. We know that small pieces of paper are transferred in those meeting, but we don't know what's written on them. The discussion I'll share with you happened in the judge's mansion."
"Judge Lewis asked Lee about his wife and whether or not she knew what he was doing in his spare time. Lee had a free account at one of Annie's brothels and would be there when he told her that he was working late."
"She knows nothing," Lee said. "My wife thinks that she knows me, but she doesn't."
"We should make sure that she doesn't find out."
"Agreed."
"You know, I've always considered you and your wife to be like family to me. I've always enjoyed family life, even though I've never married. My family was very close. We even bathed together. I miss that kind of family li
fe."
The prosecutor remained quiet.
"Why don't you and your wife come over for a social evening this Friday night?"
"We have a daughter, Judge."
"Bring her along too. If the evening goes long, she can sleep in a spare bedroom. You may need to leave to respond to an emergency call. Be sure to use my copter."
"My wife may not be interested in family bathing, Judge."
"I'll give her a choice then, shall I?"
# # # # # # # #
"What happened next?" Hank asked. He was looking very grim.
"Lee had to leave suddenly, as arranged. The daughter was already asleep somewhere in the house. The judge explained to Lee's wife about his family's love of bathing together. She stood up to leave. The judge told her that her husband had no objections to her sharing a family bath with the judge, but it would be her choice. He'd prefer to bathe with her, but if not, there was always her daughter. He knew where she was sleeping. Mrs. Lee didn't."
"Lee's wife left early the next morning with her daughter. She used her husband's copter. She stopped at her house and collected as much as she could out of that house – clothes, special possessions, and the like. Half an hour later, she was flying west to stay with a sister in Winnipeg. She never arrived. The copter exploded when they were landing at a helipad in Barrie, Ontario for a food break. I myself did not witness this. I did hear Blinker, the explosive expert, informing the judge that she had witnessed her bomb exploding and that both the mother and the daughter were dead."
"What about the prosecutor?" Hank asked.
"He came home to find his wife and daughter gone. The judge told him that his wife had been a willing bather and had left his mansion with her daughter the next morning. The prosecutor had his house cleaned of everything belonging to them. He now has a permanent relationship with one of Annie's best. Neither he nor the judge seems unduly disturbed by the event. The one time they talked about it, the judge said – She was bound to catch on eventually."
"Yeah. She was getting suspicious. The kid was obnoxious at times. Clinging to me, hugging me, wanting to do things with me. They didn't suffer did they, Judge?"