Chuck Hogan - Devils in Exile

From his vest pocket he pulled the key fob to the Subaru Glade had dropped off earlier. Maven pressed the button on the remote starter. The automobile engine turned over, the car coming to life, automatic headlights flashing on, twin beams illuminating the side lot and part of the garage wall.

The cop popped out of his cruiser, leaving his door open as he drew his sidearm and flashlight and went to investigate. He came up on the rear left quarter of the Subaru wagon as though doing a traffic stop. He found the vehicle unoccupied, windows closed and doors locked. He ran his beam around the side lot but didn’t see anyone. Then he backed off from the idling car. He looked this way and that. He was maybe realizing that a good cop can always call for backup, but a bad cop rides alone.

He decided that his cruiser was the best place to mull over the situation and quickly returned to it, holstering his sidearm. He moved too fast to see Maven hunched down behind the rear left fender. Maven grabbed his arm at the wrist and shoved the cop around, headfirst across the front seat of his cruiser. The cop smacked his head on his between-seats computer, and Maven relieved him of his sidearm. The cop tried to fight back, but he was facedown and powerless. Maven showed him his gun, then shoved him fully into the passenger seat.

The good thing about the harsh blue strobes was that they acted like an umbrella of distorting light. The lookout on the floor above the garage could not see clearly through them, looking down onto the light rack atop the roof of the cruiser.

Maven sat behind the wheel, breathing hard, watching the scared cop twist himself into a sitting position.

The cop said through deep sucks of air, “You know how many years you get for assaulting a cop?”

“Gimme the shirt.”

“What?”

Maven yanked the cop’s hat off his head, showing him the muzzle of the gun again. “The shirt.”

The cop had this stung, pouting look, as if he had nothing else to lose and so wouldn’t budge. Something about him reminded Maven of that Quincy cop coming into the City Oasis and buying skin mags every night. Maven hit him and the cop’s nose broke open with blood.

“Gimme the fucking shirt!”

The cop took it off fast, having to unclip his radio handset from the shoulder. Maven took the shirt and then the cop’s handcuffs, clasping one ring around the cop’s near wrist.

“What are you doing?” wheezed the broken-nosed cop.

“Grab the wheel.”

“What?”

Maven hit him again, this time on the ear.

“Fuck you!” yelled the cop. But he reached for the steering wheel.

Maven clasped the open cuff around his free wrist, shackling him to the wheel. Then he reached outside the still-open door and slid the cop’s sidearm underneath the cruiser. He pulled the shirt on over his armored vest, buttoning every other button. He put on the hat.

The cop realized that this was his career right here. This was his life, his family’s life. He yanked hard at the steering wheel, trying to get free. “You fucker. Give me a break here.”

Maven found the cop’s radio handset. He located the recessed orange button. The emergency button.

The cop said, “What the fuck...?”

Maven pressed the panic button — then dropped the handset onto the seat and backed out of the cruiser.

The radio crackled immediately, a dispatcher broadcasting the cop’s name and unit, asking if he was in trouble.

“You... you fuck...”

Maven locked eyes with the cop, letting him know what he thought of him — then hit the wailers a few times, the cruiser siren screaming short bursts into the night. Maven ducked out, running around the cruiser to the business entrance of the garage, the door opening as he arrived, the cop hat low over his eyes.

Termino rounded the corner, wielding an H&K MP5K with the folding stock extended at his shoulder, hitting the door at the same time Maven did. They went in hard, the dealers crumbling fast, going down onto their bellies, giving up weapons. They said nothing. They knew what was going down.

Termino braced the others while Maven hit a red button and the door rose on Glade and Suarez. Glade had a blade out, truck tires whining as he sliced them and they exhaled.

A police radio sat atop a tool cart, and the dispatcher’s voice again called the cop’s name and unit. The lookout must have had a radio too, because they heard footsteps above, then a sound like a window opening, and the grunt of a body dropping to the ground. Suarez went out to make sure the guy was running away.

The kilo packages and the cash were all set out on the floor near the emptied umbrella bases. Maven found a drum full of waste oil and cut open the kilos of powder and added them to the toxic waste. Termino bagged the cash, pausing to kick a guy who started crying and begging for his life. They heard sirens — probably every on-duty cop in Boston speeding to the garage to assist a comrade in trouble — and had to wind things up fast. Termino changed one detail at the last moment, deciding that it would be better to have multiple bodies fleeing the scene, and so got the dealers up and running.

Maven’s last sight before fading into the escape route was the cop’s cruiser parked in front, lights blazing, rocking with the effort of the officer trapped inside.

The two Jamaicans deplaned at T. F. Green Airport in Warwick, Rhode Island, met their driver at the luggage carousel, and claimed their leather travel bags. They watched the driver set their bags into the trunk next to an identical third leather travel bag before climbing into the backseat. They were large men, the driver having to push his seat forward to accommodate the knees of the one sitting behind him.

They stopped at a restaurant on Atwells Avenue for an order of kingfish, fried plantains, and bottles of Bedroom Bully, an herbal tonic said to promote sexual energy, and consumed the meal on the drive up to Boston.

Ernesto Lockerty ran his drug-dom out of the second floor of an old piano factory near Malone Park in Chelsea. He was a half-Italian, half-Irish product of the neighborhood, who had consolidated power through a combination of bare-knuckled intimidation and Machiavellian savvy. While many street dealers in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts were aware of the higher mandatory minimum penalty for Possession with Intent to Distribute within one thousand feet of a school, few were aware that this “school zone violation” included a hundred-foot radius around any park or playground. Lockerty’s hallmark move was to draw his competition into zone-violation busts, sending them away for the minimum two-year first-offense felony stretch — whereupon Lockerty’s people moved in to assume control of the newly vacated territory.

The Jamaicans, named Mr. Leroy and Mr. Moodle, carried the heavy third travel bag to the outer entrance of Lockerty’s warehouse office, where they were expected. Lockerty’s doorman made a friendly but firm attempt to frisk Mr. Leroy and found a grenade thrust into his hand, the striker lever compressed. The safety pin hung from the elongated nail of Mr. Leroy’s left pinkie.

They pushed the doorman into the wide room. Lockerty did not rise from behind his table. A second man, named Fale, a brush cut in an old suit, looked at Lockerty to see if he should do something.

Lockerty remained still, alert. He said, “What the hell-o is this?”

Leroy stood the booby-trapped doorman in the center of the room and said to him, “You wan’ end this anytime, jus’ leggo, mon. We all blow.”

Moodle set the travel bag down at his feet. Behind Lockerty hung shades as thick as mover’s blankets, covering big windows set into the brick wall. Fale gripped his armrests, but followed Lockerty’s lead.