Devils in Exile

Unstoppable Ninjas

Maven still considered himself faithful and loyal to Royce. He did this by confecting a clear rationale for his actions: he was not hooking up with the girlfriend of the man who made him; he was hooking up with a girl about whom he used to fantasize. It was a separate thing, a special thing. Danielle was like a dream he could slip into at will.

This druglike high of sexual attraction made bearable the drug-sick lows, the yearning, the worry. They had hooked up twice since, once in a Marriott in Natick, once at a Hilton in Dedham. Maven tried to avoid Royce, without seeming to avoid him, a plan that could last only so long. He tried to avoid Danielle too, at least when in the others’ eyes. The subterfuge wore on him.

He heard his own paranoia echo back at him in the voices of the marks they were snooping on. The dealers were consumed with security measures. The Sugar Bandits were deep inside their heads, haunting every move. They had their cop running criminal checks on any passing car deemed suspicious, which made them tricky to eyeball. Maven didn’t like the resulting lack of physical surveillance. It didn’t feel complete, leaning so heavily on telephone intercepts and ghost-phone spooking. Like listening to a movie on radio. Getting maybe 40 percent of the details and having to intuit the rest.

The cop: he was the key to all this. Instead of making their job harder, he actually made it a little bit easier because, as the dealers’ perceived ace in the hole, they took few other special precautions. The cop boasted of his knowledge of security measures and hinted at some special insight into the inner workings of the bandits. The exchange was to be a standard meet, consummated at a Hyde Park auto repair shop owned by one of the cop’s friends. A transport truck would rendezvous with them at the Sturbridge rest area of the Massachusetts Turnpike and be tailed on the highway by the cop in his personal vehicle. He would provide a similar pickup for the sellers. This hours-long prelude to the deal only spoke to the cop’s ignorance: the bandits could strike only at the point of transfer. Every other precaution was a waste of effort and time.

In puffing up his value to the dealers, the cop made out the bandits to be unstoppable ninjas with supernatural powers. They heard rumors about “Soviet-issued Uzis” and “government squads,” someone even floating the scenario of “a crew of renegade cops.” The cop insisted that the bandits had to have contacts inside the Boston Police Department drug unit, the “secret squirrels,” which he would neutralize by monitoring them on his police radio’s scrambled channels. He also warned the dealers to keep a keen eye out for helicopters.

The one thing the cop did right was to pick up a half dozen new “throwaway” push-to-talk phones to distribute to the principals on the morning of the gig. The sellers, however, still carried their personal mobiles, one of which had been ghosted into a broadcaster. So Maven gleaned enough from one-way conversations to be able to time their arrivals.

The auto repair garage looked like a barn, with two drive-in bays and a small, windowed second floor set around the corner from the street. A large and incongruous tree shaded one side, an old factory behind it having been turned into warehouses, only one-third occupied but empty at night. The nearest residence was a good thirty-second walk down the street. Steady automobile traffic out on that end of Hyde Park Avenue provided decent noise cover.

Glade had set two getaway vehicles, each within an eighth of a mile of the job. Additionally, he had dropped off a stolen Subaru Outback that afternoon for an overnight brake-pad and oil change, now parked in the lot adjacent to the garage.

They approached on foot, after dark, Maven wearing armor underneath his jacket, blackout clothes, a face-hiding balaclava. He wore a Glock 17 handgun in the rear waistband of his pants, a “Mexican carry.” He’d downed an iced-coffee drink outside the Rite Aid down the street earlier and wasn’t sure now whether he felt actual dread now or just too much caffeine and sugar.

The transport was a box truck labeled EMPIRE MOVERS, a work vehicle from a legit moving company carrying actual cargo: discount patio furniture for delivery to an Ocean State Job Lot in New Hampshire. Fourteen hollow umbrella bases were packed with four-kilo bundles of ninety-plus-grade cocaine.

The cop circled the area once, then left to collect the buyers at an IHOP on Soldiers Field Road, with a quick stop to switch into his marked cruiser. After he was gone, Maven worked his way behind some shrubs at the corner of a tile warehouse diagonally across the side street.

The shop was quiet inside, a dim light visible through the blacked-out garage-door windows. He could not see the others, posted at varying distances from the shop, and came to feel that he was waiting an inordinate amount of time. Long enough for paranoia to seep in. He checked his timepiece — the one Royce had given him — then pulled the Glock, done over in dull gray matte and a nonglare finish, invisible in the night. He remembered Royce taking him aside the day before, telling him, “You handle this cop.”

Maven said, “I thought you wanted me inside.”

“I want you wherever the job is on the line. Wherever a fuckup can do us the most damage. Tomorrow, that’s outside. I want the cop handled right. Unless you’re afraid of him too?”

Maven shook his head.

“Milkshake and Suarez look at the uniform and still think, ‘Daddy.’ This guy is a piece of shit, nothing more. You understand that. So do it right.”

Before, Maven had appreciated any special attention from Royce, never having been the first-in-the-class type. Now, in the grip of deceit, he analyzed every special request for signs of duplicity, always with the fear that Royce had found out about him and Danielle.

Headlights pulled into the side street. They swept the thick shrubs, Maven not moving. A conversion van, white and windowless in back. One garage door opened and Maven saw the corner of the box truck in the next service bay as the van backed inside. The cruiser did another creeping circle, the cop working his prowler light on the surrounding buildings. Fingers of light pierced the bushes, but died against Maven’s blacked-out self.

The cruiser came back and parked in front of the garage. The cop then called in a report of suspicious activity on Factory Street. That gave him clearance on the active list with the dispatcher, and an excuse to light up his blue strobes.

Maven put his head down again as the blues cycled over the surrounding surfaces. He felt like a bar code that wouldn’t scan. He switched off the safety on his Glock, switching off his own interior safety at the same time.

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.