Frank Zafiro - And Every Man Has to Die

“But it’s like you said,” Carson argued. “It was either that or-”

“It doesn’t matter. Cops are critical. They’ll eat us alive.”

“I still don’t see-”

“Just trust me,” Battaglia said. “I’ve got enough juice to maybe survive this kind of hit to my reputation, but you’re…”

He paused.

“I’m a rookie,” Carson finished for him.

“Yeah,” Battaglia answered, but she could see there was more.

“What is it?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Plus you’re a woman.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“What, you want to live in make-believe land where that particular fact doesn’t matter? You know exactly what I mean. It’s why you didn’t ask for a third car.”

Carson didn’t reply.

“We have to sit on this,” Battaglia said. “We have to keep it a secret.”

“I don’t know…”

Battaglia shot her a hard glare. “What’s to know? You want this for your rep?”

“No,” she answered. “But don’t we have a responsibility to the other cops out here? So they know what might happen?”

“Yeah,” Battaglia said. “We do.”

“Then we have to tell a sergeant so that-”

“You just let me worry about that part, okay, rookie?”

Carson stopped short. Battaglia’s words should have seemed cutting, but there was a softness to the tone. She hesitated, taking a deep breath and running her fingers through her hair. She didn’t want people on the job to think she was weak. She couldn’t afford that. But what could she have done differently? What could any of them have done?

She knew Battaglia was right. Away from the actual event, most of them would come up with a solution. They’d feel superior to her. And they’d think badly of her. After all, if she couldn’t even control a simple traffic stop, what good was she as a cop?

“I’ll take care of it, B.J.,” Battaglia said quietly.

She believed him.

“Trust me,” he whispered.

“Okay,” she whispered back.

0844 hours

Day Shift

Renee scanned field interview reports while sipping her coffee. After she read each one she quickly entered the salient parts into her computer database, then set the actual report aside for later filing. She was nearly through the stack when she came upon an interesting FI from Officer Battaglia on graveyard shift.

Spoke with confidential informant (CI). Stated Russian gangs are directing members to disobey officers on traffic stops. Driver will stall while passenger uses cell to call for assistance. Once the group outnumbers officers, members are directed to push matters to a head by refusing to allow anyone to be arrested. Warned not to do anything that would warrant officers using deadly force. Just disobey and walk away. CI usually pretty reliable.

Renee read the brief report again. This was exactly the kind of thing she’d been trying to warn the chief about. It needed to go into the daily intelligence flyer so that officers could be aware of this possibility; she set the report aside from the rest for that purpose.

River City was growing. There’d been a time when the population was easily ninety percent white. Since she’d come to work for the police department in the late 1980s, though, the city had begun to diversify. Small populations of numerous racial and ethnic groups had filtered in and slowly grown little neighborhoods across the patchwork town. She guessed the vast majority of about two hundred thousand residents was still Caucasian-say seventy percent or so-but even in that category, they had a variety of cultural groups. Like the Russians she’d just read about.

Renee reached for her coffee. She didn’t identify much with any particular group, and while that probably took away from being able to have any sense of cultural pride, it also made her appreciate all of the cultures that were out there. In her off time, she liked to frequent different bars and restaurants, particularly those run by some sort of ethnic owner. She enjoyed getting to know more about all of them-Italian, Greek, Russian, Polish, Turkish, Chinese, Vietnamese, Mexican, you name it. What she found was that her favorite motto was almost always true: People are just people, everywhere.

That sentiment sat well with her, especially since the people she spent her days reading about and analyzing were almost exclusively bad people. If she hadn’t had some of those nice experiences all around town, she’d start to get a little bit jaded about some people.

Which brought her back to the Russians. Somewhere between twelve and fifteen thousand lived in River City. Several hundred were clearly involved in crime. That was pretty much on par with every other group she took the time to look at. It didn’t change her concern, though. And with Battaglia’s report, she was all that much more worried.

“Renee?”

She looked up to see Charlotte at her door. “Yes?”

“The chief would like to see you.”

“Now?”

Charlotte smiled, but Renee saw the strain in her face.

She set aside her coffee cup. “Do you know what it’s about?”

Charlotte shook her head. “All I know is that there’s an FBI agent in there with him.”

Renee raised an eyebrow. “FBI?”

Charlotte nodded.

Renee glanced down at the dress pants and purple blouse she was wearing. “Do these look like confident clothes?” she asked.

Charlotte’s smile warmed. “They do. The little bit of lace does the trick.”

“Good.” Renee grabbed a pen and a legal pad.

“All the same,” Charlotte continued, “I wouldn’t make any jokes like that while you’re in there. He appears to take himself very seriously.”

“Thinks he’s pretty important, huh?”

“Exactly.”

“I think I still have a power suit from the eighties in my closet,” Renee said. “You know, the ones with the shoulder pads in them. Should I run home and change?”

The two women laughed. After a moment, both collected themselves and walked to the chief’s office, where Charlotte rapped on the door.

“Come!” a loud voice bellowed.

“Good luck,” Charlotte whispered.

Renee steeled herself and went inside.

The chief of police sat behind his desk, his fingers interlaced and his elbows on the arms of his chair. Directly across from him sat a sandy-haired man in a dark blue suit. Both men looked up at her as she approached.

“Renee,” the chief said, “this is Special Agent Maurice Payne. He’s with the FBI organized crime unit.”

Renee held out her hand. Payne gave her a perfunctory, loose-gripped shake.

“Renee is one of our crime analysts, focusing on emerging trends,” the chief explained. He gestured for her to sit in the empty chair next to Agent Payne. “She’s been following the emergence of our Russian gang problem here in River City for some time.”

“Excellent,” Payne said tersely. “Do you have any sort of organizational chart that we can take a look at?”

Renee shook her head. “Unfortunately, our intelligence is not that far along.”

Payne looked at the chief, then back at her. “Oh, really?”

“No,” she said. “While I know that these particular gangs are highly organized, it has been difficult to-”

Payne raised his hand. “How do you know that?”

“Know what?”

“That they’re highly organized.”

Renee paused, a little confused. “I thought you were with organized crime,” she said haltingly.

“I am. I know how organized they are. I want to know how you think you know that.”

She cleared her throat and spoke slowly. “I have attended a number of gang schools over the past several years. One of them focused specifically on European gangs.”