Thomas O`Callaghan - The Screaming Room

“You guys finished?” asked Driscoll.

They both nodded.

“Good. I just got off the horn with Danny O’Brien over at TARU.” Driscoll was referring to NYPD’s Technical Assistance Response Unit. “He’ll get someone inside the hotel to tap the room’s land phone wires. He’s got a triangulater for his cell phone and a Global Positioning System for his Lincoln with your name on them. I’ll leave it to you, Cedric, to get it attached to his limo, set up the parallel tails, and coordinate the tracking through encrypted radio communication with TARU. Any new players show up on his ‘let’s go visit’ list, Danny will supply us with a GPS to tag onto them.” Driscoll turned his attention to Margaret. “I want you to get back to everyone we’ve spoken to. Your friends at the circus. The night watchman from that halfway house on Staten Island. Father what’s-his-name who introduced us to that halfwit Luxworth. Speak to the girl at the photo shop on Montague and our contacts in Carbondale. Touch base with the bus operator again. It couldn’t hurt. We wanna know if any of them had anyone asking questions about the twins or their involvement. If they did, get all there is to know on who did the asking. And let’s not forget Kyle Ramsey. You’ll wanna meet with him in person. Let him know his photos are ready and, when this is all over, he can expect a visit from me.”

“You know what’s the best part of an operation like this?” said Thomlinson, his eyebrows doing a dance reminiscent of Groucho Marx.

“This I wanna hear,” said Margaret.

“I mean, ya gotta respect a satellite-based navigation system that helped take down Scott Peterson for the murder of his wife. And I’m all in favor of a law that says we can use it at will to track the movement of a car ’cause its driver has no reasonable expectation of privacy while driving on a public thoroughfare. No. No breach of the Fourth Amendment there. And who’s not to marvel over a designer ankle bracelet with a GPS chip for the likes of Martha Stewart?” His eyebrows did their dance again as he reached for a cigar. “No, I’m in favor of the operation ’cause it means I get to spend a couple of hours alongside the vivacious Leticia Hollander over at CyberCentral.”

“For what?”

“To brush up on my hi-tech tracking skills.”

“You dog. You’ve run hundreds of satellite shadows.”

“She doesn’t know that.”

While Buju Banton was making reggae magic with Bogle, which was blaring through Thomlinson’s four-by-four’s six Jensen speakers, the detective had his eyes fastened on the rear of Shewster’s Lincoln that sat curbside outside Angelo’s Salumeria on Mott Street in Little Italy. Thomlinson figured either Shewster or his limo driver had a yen for fresh mozzarella.

“Purchase complete,” Thomlinson said, sitting upright, watching the regally dressed driver return to the stretch limo. “Buju, we’re on the prowl again!” Turning the key in the Jeep’s ignition, he resumed the tail.

Installing the GPS device to the frame of Shewster’s vehicle would be a breeze. Two high-powered magnets would see to that. The challenge for Thomlinson was getting it done without being seen.

“This should take awhile,” he said, watching the Lincoln glide in next to the Mobil gas pump. The driver got out of the car and inserted a credit card in the pump’s slot and proceeded to fill the tank. Thomlinson glanced at the foot-high numbers posted under the Mobil red, white, and blue logo.

He shook his head. “Shewster’s not gonna like that charge. No sir. Three sixty-nine for high test is liable to break the bank!”

He wouldn’t swear to it, sitting a hundred feet from the station, but when the driver replaced the gas nozzle, Thomlinson thought he read $73.36 as the total purchase.

“No sir. Ol’ Shewster’s not gonna like that one bit,” he said, reengaging the starter and falling in behind the gas-guzzling limo.

It was close to 7:15 P.M. before Thomlinson’s unwavering pursuit offered an opportunity to do the deed. He’d been figuring the Town Car would disappear behind some high-wired security gate, which he would then need to outwit to get to his target. Though he was prepared for the possibility, the limo driver’s appetite saved him the bother. He followed as the Lincoln turned right into the parking lot of a Red Lobster eatery on Sunrise Highway. He was willing to bet the vehicle didn’t end up there too often when Shewster was seated in the back.

He watched as the driver got out from behind the wheel, closed the door, and used a key remote to activate the vehicle’s alarm. Thomlinson thought that a good sign. Had he been going in for takeout, he may not have set the alarm.

Thomlinson loved defensive parkers. They always parked at the end of a row, away from other vehicles, in the spot furthest from the restaurant. Very often they took up two spots. That wasn’t the case for the limo, but it was parked at the end of a row and a good distance from the entrance to the lobster lover’s paradise.

Not only was the view of the limo obscured when Thomlinson sidled the Jeep next to it, but his body going horizontal, his armed stretching under the vehicle, went unnoticed as well.

Thomlinson looked at his watch. He hadn’t eaten since noon and was tempted to go inside for a bite, but got back in the Jeep instead. Why? Because Detective Second Grade Cedric Franz Thomlinson was allergic to shellfish.

When his cell phone rang, Driscoll was getting out of the shower. Wrapping himself in a towel, he followed the ringing to its source, tracking wet footprints across a hardwood floor.

“Driscoll, here.”

“Catch you at a bad time?” It was Margaret.

“No. Why?”

“You sound annoyed.”

“I’m not. Whaddya got?”

“I spent most of yesterday afternoon and part of last night getting back to our sources. It appears Shewster got into the game only when Ted Clarkson came into the picture. I spoke to the bus driver. After you left him he got a call from a woman.”

“A woman?”

“Yup. Said she had been instructed to call him after seven P.M., which coincides with what he told you.”

“Interesting. The call he had gotten before I arrived was from a man. Or so he thought.”

“Guess Shewster’s an equal opportunity employer.”

“What’d he tell her?”

“You must of coached this guy good. He told her he had already spoken to a Lieutenant Driscoll and gave her your number. She got a little pushy. Said since a bundle of cash was riding on it, her boss required lots of paperwork, background checks, and follow-up calls.”

“Cute. She tell him who her boss was?”

“Being stupid must have ranked high on Shewster’s ‘Don’t You Dare’ list. Clarkson got a little pissed off by what he called, and I quote, ‘her you’d-better-buy-this-life-insurance policy-or-else attitude,’ and told her again to call you.”

“Glad I picked up the tab for the crullers.”

“Crullers?”

“You had to of been there.”

“If you say so. Anyway, his allegiance to you cut off any calls to our friends in Carbondale. No life insurance tactics applied up there.”

“Do me a favor?”

“Sure.”

“Stop by a Dunkin’ Donuts shop, pick up a dozen crullers, and deliver them to Clarkson. Tell him there’s three million more in the oven.”

“You have coffee yet?”

“No.”

“When you do, make it decaf.”

The officer who handled incoming calls to the Twentieth Precinct West Eighty-second Street was used to receiving crank calls. The Twentieth averaged fifteen to twenty a month. Considering the advances in telephone technology and the availability of caller ID, not to mention the capabilities of the police in that regard, you would think oddballs who liked to cry wolf would smarten up.