Hidden Order

CHAPTER 45

Samuel did an inconspicuous drive-by of Bill Wise’s property. It was an older building that appeared to have been a warehouse at some point. This was both good and bad.

It was good in that Wise didn’t have neighbors right on top of him that would see or hear things, but it was bad in that commercial buildings presented their own special challenges for surreptitious entry.

Whenever possible, Samuel liked to surveil his own targets. Tonight, though, this wasn’t possible. The job needed to be taken care of right away.

The building had a front entrance, a side roll-up garage door, and an alley entrance. The alley looked like it was going to be his best bet. Getting in wouldn’t be a problem, as long as Wise cooperated.

Samuel noted that Wise had a security system. That was going to need to be turned off. He felt confident he could get the man to do that for him. With a plan beginning to form in his mind, he set off in search of the items he would need to accomplish his mission. Forty-five minutes later, everything was ready to launch.

When the weather was nice, Bill Wise liked to sleep with his skylights vented. Staggered sensors were one of the easiest and smartest inventions alarm companies had ever come up with. The breeze was free to come in, but if anyone tried to raise the skylight beyond where it was right now, the alarm immediately sounded.

Living in the city, he’d learned to sleep through a lot. Helicopters, emergency vehicles, rap music thumping out of passing cars, none of it bothered him. He knew physiologically that all of those sound waves were penetrating his ear canals. For its part, his brain didn’t process any of those things as a threat, and therefore allowed him to continue sleeping. The sound of a breaking bottle right outside, though, was something different.

While you could walk down any street on any given day and see shards of broken glass, it was rare for most people to ever hear bottles being broken. That sound normally meant alcohol had been consumed in excess. It also meant that violence to persons or property might be imminent. Wise’s brain passed along the message: Bottle broken. Outside. Close.

He went from being fully asleep to fully awake in a fraction of a second. As he lay in bed, eyes open, he wasn’t waiting for confirmation. He knew what he had heard. He was attempting to gather additional information. Had the bottle been thrown out of a car? Had it come from the front of the building, or in the alley? Had the person or persons moved on?

Almost instantly, he had his answer as another bottle broke and voices were raised. There was at least one adult male, in front, and he was arguing with someone else. Once the neighborhood was fully gentrified and real estate prices went even higher, Wise was going to make a fortune from selling his property. Until then, he had to put up with crap like this.

Grabbing the remote, he flipped on his TV and clicked over to his security camera feeds. He was greeted by the sight of two local crackheads, one male and one female, engaged in urban couple’s counseling only a few feet in front of his building. He watched as the woman reached into the plastic bag at her feet, pulled out a third bottle, and launched it at the man. As it sailed past its intended target and shattered against the front door, Wise had had enough. It was time for the crackheads to pack it in and move their party someplace else.

He quickly pulled on jeans and a T-shirt and slipped his large feet into a pair of boots. After tucking the Beretta from the nightstand in his waistband, he grabbed his SureFire flashlight and headed for the front door.

From a closet off the reception area, he retrieved an aluminum baseball bat and deactivated the alarm system. He left the lights off so as not to silhouette himself when he opened the front door. By the time he got it unlocked, two more bottles had smashed against the front of the building and Bill Wise was fit to be tied.

“What the fuck’s wrong with you?” he roared, as he threw the door open and stepped outside.

“This ain’t none of your damn business!” the woman yelled as she fished in her bag for another bottle.

“Like hell it isn’t. There’s broken glass all over my fucking property.”

“She’s crazy, man,” the male crackhead replied as he tried to hide behind Wise.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Wise replied, extending the bat like a traffic control arm at a border crossing. “You stay right in front of me where I can keep my eye on you.”

“You don’t want to mind your own business?” the woman challenged. “Then you gonna get some pain, too!”

Wise thought about pulling his Beretta, but instead whipped out his SureFire and aimed the bright beam in the woman’s eyes. “Put that bottle down right now,” he ordered.

“Fuck you!”

“Put it down, or you’re both going to jail. Do it now.”

“You heard the man,” the male crackhead said. “Put the damn bottle down.”

“You zip it,” Wise commanded. “I’m the one giving orders.”

“Whatever you say.”

“Last chance,” Wise said to the woman. “Put the bottle down, right now.”

Slowly, the woman lowered the bottle and set it on the ground. Wise released the tailcap switch on his flashlight and the beam extinguished.

“Man, I can’t see shit now. I oughtta sue your ass for giving me blindness,” she spat.

“Yeah, I gave you blindness,” Wise replied. “And the next thing I’m going to give you is a taste of old school. I’m getting a broom and a dustpan and then you two are going to sweep up all of this glass.”

“I ain’t sweeping up shit.”

“You bet your ass you’re sweeping, honey,” Wise replied. “If you don’t, I’m having you two arrested. I know you live in the neighborhood and I’m guessing several of my cop friends know who you are. The choice is up to you.”

The woman relented. She exhaled a drawn-out and dejected “Shit.”

Wise shook his head. Careful not to turn his back on the pair, he retreated inside for a broom, a dustpan, and a small garbage can. Stepping outside, he half expected them to be gone, but they were still there and had even begun to argue again.

“Pipe down,” he barked. “You two lovebirds can coo all you want once this is all cleaned up and you’ve flown off someplace else.”

As they were going to be cleaning up around his entrance, the last thing Wise wanted was for them to be able to have a clear look inside. Not that his foyer area was all that fancy, but the less these two pillars of the community knew about his domicile, the better, and so he closed the door behind him.

Wise stood on the sidewalk and watched. It was pathetic. You’d have thought neither had ever handled a broom or a dustpan before. They were completely useless. He let it go on for about five minutes before finally throwing in the towel. They were so drug- or alcohol-addled that they could barely stand up straight, much less bend over to sweep and pick up broken glass. At some point, one of them was going to get hurt and that wasn’t something he wanted.

“That’s enough,” he said, taking the broom and dustpan away from them. “Go on. Get out of here. Get lost.”

Wise watched as they looked at each other, then looked at him and began to walk away. The woman stopped to pick up her plastic bag until Wise shook his head and clucked his tongue. It was bad enough they had woken him up. The least he could do was make sure they didn’t roust anyone else in the neighborhood.

The one-man community watch strikes again. He half laughed and half sighed as he picked up the woman’s bag, dropped it in the trash can, and then made quick work of the broken glass.

He had no idea whether being forced to clean up some of the mess would have any impact on the pair. It likely wouldn’t, but Wise felt he had done the right thing. Too many people didn’t stand up for what was right anymore.

Picking up the trash can, he stepped back inside and set it down along with the broom, the bat, and the dustpan.

He sensed the man’s presence just before the figure stepped from the darkness and with his gun pointed right at him said, “Good evening, Dr. Wise.”

Wise knew better than to go for his Beretta. He’d be dead before he could pull it from his waistband. Instead he calmly and politely replied, “It’s good to see you again, Samuel.”