Verona

Four

Friday, July 8

Andy, Max and Jimmy were in the Navigator on Evergreen Avenue, en route to the building that Brendon Nagle would be buying and developing.

It was closing in on eleven a.m., and they were soon to meet with contractors to discuss the renovations. Andy was in his walking-around-in-the-dirt clothes: jeans and a work shirt. Jimmy had dug up a Carhartt jacket that looked like it’d never been worn, Andy was amused to see. Max was in a suit because all Max ever wore were suits. Today, navy blue. His shirt was white. Probably, a suit made it easier to keep a gun hidden.

At the wheel, Jimmy, who’d been in a chatty mood all day, was telling Max and Andy, “This ’hood?”

Andy looked about. “Uh-hum.” It was a no-man’s-land that abutted the Panhandle. “Have a name?” He had seen plats and title records and inspection reports of buildings in the area. He could recite degrees of longitude and latitude and stats of easements and tax history but he had no soft information about the place.

Max, in the front seat, sat and stared forward. Silent.

“Name?” Jimmy laughed bluntly. “Yeah, it has a name. Shit City. Fuck ’Em Acres. I don’t know. Places like this don’t have names. It’s all factories, warehouses, tenements, SRO temporary apartments, vacant lots, nail salons, bodegas, even a slaughterhouse until last year.”

“How’d that happen?” Andy asked. “Zoning wouldn’t allow it.”

Another hearty laugh — at the naïve question.

“Once your dad and the other developers get finished with it, it’ll be SoMain — you know what I mean? How they come up with names like that. The Upper North district is UpNo... Wait, wait, wait, I know, this’ll be Lower Main: LoMain.” The laughing continued. “Like Chinese food, you know.”

Then he shut up fast, apparently remembering that Andy was sweet on Yung’s daughter.

“And the people? Hookers, day labor, grifters, bums. They’re not” — hands off the wheel for air quotes — “‘homeless.’ They’re not ‘street people.’ They’re bums!”

Andy got a text and looked down at his phone. He asked, “Where’s the Toucan Café?”

Jimmy’s shoulders rose and fell. “Four blocks, five. Why?”

“Keep a secret from my dad?”

Both men grunted slightly affirmative grunts. “Loi texted. She wants to meet me there. Just for ten minutes. You mind?”

“Mind? Shit no. Man, that place’s got the best Cuban coffee in the city. I mean, the best.”

“Max?” Andy asked.

Another “I suppose” grunt.

Andy sent a text back to Loi and slipped his phone away.

Jimmy spun the wheel, garnering a honk from an oncoming car that’d had to brake smartly to avoid a collision. Jimmy shot him the finger.

Five minutes later they were pulling up at the restaurant, an attempt at upscale in a neighborhood that was decidedly down. A huge wooden cutout of a tropical bird dominated the façade. Five dark metal tables, surrounded by matching chairs, sat on the uneven sidewalk. A sign reported: “No Outdoor Service. Please Order Inside.”

It might have been the best brew in the city but the tables here, and inside, were unoccupied.

Andy asked, “Do they have toucans in Cuba?”

“Ask fucking Castro. Or is he dead?”

Andy and Jimmy climbed from the Navigator. Jimmy asked Max, “You want coffee? I’ll get it.”

Max spoke for the first time since they’d been in the SUV. “Yeah.”

Jimmy asked, “Andy?”

“Thanks. Not too sweet.”

As Jimmy darted inside, Andy sat at a rickety table, on which was a cheap cloth covered with pictures of hula dancers, which seemed to have nothing to do with either Cuba or toucans.

A few minutes later Jimmy returned with a cardboard tray containing three small paper cups. He glanced behind Andy and nodded. “Ain’t that your friend?”

Andy turned. Loi was about twenty feet away on the sidewalk. She’d stopped and was standing with her arms at her side. Her face was clouded. He couldn’t see her eyes behind the deep-blue lenses.

He rose and started toward her. “Hey. Something wrong?”

It was then that the side door of a battered, white windowless van, parked at the curb, slid open fast and three Asian men jumped out.

“No!” Andy shouted as two of them dragged him toward the vehicle. The other swung a pistol back and forth, covering the sidewalk.

Max leaped from the Navigator, his own gun in his hand. Jimmy dropped the coffee and reached for his hip. The armed Asian fired a shot. Max collapsed onto a table and chair, the red stain on his chest blossoming fast. Then a hood was tugged over Andy’s head and he heard the door slam shut and the tires squeal fiercely as the van made its escape.

“The fuck happened? Put the phone away. Tell me.” Brendon Nagle was speaking to a twitchy Jimmy Ebbitt, face red and sweaty.

The men were in the back room of the Happy Paws veterinary clinic on Ambrose Street. It was a small place, run by a competent veterinarian, who specialized not just in German shepherds and Maine coon cats but in Homo sapiens.

It was here that Nagle brought anybody in his crew who’d been injured in the line of duty. Veterinarians, unlike other medicos, did not need to report gunshots to the police. Well, maybe they did, but, given what Nagle paid, this one didn’t.

Jimmy now explained in depth about the abduction and Max’s shooting. “His fucking girlfriend. She lured him to this van. They snatched him right off the street.”

“That bitch. It was all a setup. I knew she was trouble... Jesus. My son.”

“I got Max into the car and we was out of there before the cops showed. And I swapped plates.”

Nagle asked, “Were they Chinese?”

Jimmy frowned. “Asian, I saw that. I don’t know exactly—”

Nagle growled, “Since I don’t know anybody Japanese or Korean or whatever else they’ve got over there wants to fuck up my life, can we drop the political correctness and say Chinese?”

“Okay, yeah. Chinese.”

Nagle looked to the doorway marked “Surgical Suite 1.” He asked, “Max?”

“Bad. The doc said he’s hanging in there. But he’s been under the knife for almost an hour.”

“Fuck.” Nagle felt blood pumping into his face, which, he’d noted, actually turned dark when he was this angry.

Jimmy, unnerved by the man’s fury, only nodded. “It happened so fast, Mr. Nagle. I mean, I tried—”

Nagle’s thoughts shot back to his son. He slammed a palm on a table. Jimmy froze. But the boss wasn’t particularly mad at him. Yung would have planned it all out to the second. Hit and run. Who he was pissed at was his son. “The kid had to follow his dick and look where it led him. Get back to the office. Get a couple of men ready. Those shooters Max had lined up for Yung.”

“Yessir, sure.”

As Jimmy hurried off, Nagle knocked on the door.

A moment later it opened. Dr. Tom Levine, a spectacled fifty-five-year-old, stood in the doorway. He peeled off clear latex gloves. They, like his jacket, were bloody.

“Brendon, come in. I’ve gotten him stable.”

Max was lying in a bed. He looked groggily at the other men. Beside him was his cell phone. The screen was bloody.

“Max, Jesus.” To the vet: “How’s he going to be?”

“Lost a lot of blood. I’m phoning around for a supply but I’m not having much luck. What’s your blood type?”

Nagle said, lying, he didn’t know.

The vet went to a basin and washed his hands, saying, “I don’t have time to type it now. We’ll hope a supplier comes through. On the underground market there’s not a lot of product out there.”

Max’s head lolled and his eyes closed. Nagle thought he’d died, but then he returned a moment later, eyes opening and blinking slowly. He whispered in a high pitch, “Sir... there’s... problem. Talked to...” He coughed.

Nagle blurted to Levine, “His voice. Sounds like a woman. What’s that?”

“The anesthetic. It’s normal.”

Max tried again: “I talked to... a guy knows somebody in Yung’s crew.” He nodded to the bloody mobile. “He said... He said Yung thinks Andy knows your whole operation.”

“What?” Nagle’s face tightened into a knotted frown.

“In China... the gangs, a father has a son in the business... that means he’s grooming him to take over.” He coughed for a minute, winced.

Keep the fuck on talking...

The vet reached for an IV drop, presumably to increase the painkiller.

“No,” Max barked. “Have to stay awake. Have to... tell him something.”

Dr. Levine stepped back.

Nagle sputtered, “But Andrew doesn’t know shit.”

“Yung doesn’t know that. He’ll torture him... to get your plans for the Panhandle.”

Or, Nagle thought, threaten to torture him to get me to give the plans up, or to stay out of the Panhandle altogether. And if I refused to give up anything, how would that look to the world?

A fucking mess.

Max gripped Nagle’s arm. “Listen, Mr. Nagle... My guy thinks he knows where they’re keeping him. This warehouse on Merritt. Merritt and Boyd.”

“Is Yung there?”

The big man faded out again.

“Max?” Nagle leaned forward, tapped his shoulder. No response. Maybe if he punched the wound, the pain’d bring him to. Probably not a good idea with the vet here.

Max’s eyes opened.

“Is Yung there?” Nagle repeated. “The warehouse?”

“Probably.”

“Where’s your piece, Max?”

The big man squinted. “Jacket.”

Nagle looked at Levine, who nodded to a rack beside the door.

Nagle dug into the garment and snagged the pistol and — instinct from the old days — checked to make sure it was loaded and a round chambered. He put it in his own pocket.

Max closed his eyes.

“Max?”

No answer.

Nagle looked at the vet questioningly and Levine nodded to the corridor.

“How’s he going to be?” A whisper.

The veterinarian gave a faint shake of the head.

Nagle’s rage rose a measure. Just fucking wonderful. His son kidnapped. And now he needed to break in another minder.

John Yung was going to pay.

The muscle that Jimmy had recruited were Vincent and Dale.

They were Anglo — like the names suggested — but dark complected, with sharply trimmed brunette fades and compact builds. One slightly taller than the other, but still not tall. They were hard to tell apart, at least to Nagle; being as security conscious as he was, he kept his distance from the shooters and knee crackers.

These two were in the back seat of the Navigator. Jimmy was behind the wheel and Nagle was in the front seat.

Cruising through the dusk streets of the city, the neighborhoods growing scruffier and scruffier.

Jimmy killed the lights and they cruised slowly toward the warehouse Max had told him about.

“Look,” Jimmy said, braking. “There!” He pointed.

Forty yards away, in an alley that led to the back of the warehouse, Yung’s daughter was climbing out of the driver’s side of a red BMW convertible. M Series, the fancy one. She tossed her long hair over her shoulder and disappeared out of sight toward the building.

“Bitch,” Nagle muttered. He snapped to Jimmy, “Pull in there. The alley. Back in.”

Jimmy reversed and rolled slowly into the alley, stopping fifteen yards away from the back of the building, near Loi’s car and the white van that Jimmy said had been used in the snatch.

Nagle and the two shooters got out. Jimmy stayed behind the wheel, ready for the getaway.

They looked in the van, which was empty. Then the shorter of the men, Vincent, Nagle believed, did recon, slipping up to a side of the warehouse. No security camera. Nagle looked around. Typical of the Panhandle. All very early twentieth century. Redbrick, solid. Some buildings were oddly elegant, with etched-glass windows and gargoyles below the roof.

Vincent did a pull-up and looked in the grimy window. He dropped back to the gritty alley and, crouching, eased to a door. He tried the knob. He fiddled with it for a moment, his back to Nagle and the others. A moment later the man returned. “I don’t see your son, sir. But Yung’s there. Four other men too.”

“The door?”

“I got it open. Just inside, there’s a row of wooden crates. We can use them for cover. We move into flanking positions there, there, there.” He pointed to the warehouse wall. “We each draw targets.” He hesitated. “You’re sure you want to do this, sir?”

“Yes, I’m sure,” Nagle snapped. “Kill everybody but Yung. I want him alive. I’ll shoot him in his knee or leg.”

“Uhm, femoral artery’s always risky with leg shots.” Dale, the other shooter, offered this.

“Well, foot.”

“Foot’s good.”

Vincent nodded.

“Then we find out where Andrew is, get him and get the hell out.”

“And the girl, sir?”

Nagle was thinking: Loi had probably turned on Andrew because Yung had found out about the wire and told her. She’d assume that the boy had picked her up to use her — to learn information that would help Nagle murder her father.

Wasn’t that how Romeo and Juliet ended? Nagle had a vague memory. Both of them dying because of some misunderstanding?

Unfortunate.

Well, too bad. Nagle said, “Kill her.”

From a black gun case, Dale took a Glock for himself and handed another to Vincent. He looked at Nagle, who displayed Max’s. He hadn’t shot for years, but firing a weapon is a type of programming that stays with you forever, especially if there’s a kill involved. Riding a bicycle.

Crouching, they made their way to the warehouse and paused. Dale would go in first, then Nagle, then Vincent. They’d draw their targets. After making sure Andrew wouldn’t be hit, they’d kill the others present and wound Yung. They’d find out where his son was, rescue him and get the young man and the gang leader into the SUV. Nagle would turn the tables. He and Jimmy would go to work on Yung — find out his plans for the Panhandle.

There’s always a silver lining.

Following the two men, Nagle drew several deep breaths, though he wasn’t the least nervous. In fact, he was exhilarated, just like every time he’d tapped somebody himself. The cool, damp evening brought back a memory from fifteen years ago or so: The time he’d beaten to death a rival who’d been skimming receipts from fairs and sports events within Nagle’s territory. He could still smell the smoke from the vendor’s carts, the cool fall air. He’d used an iron pipe on the guy’s skull, a very satisfying murder weapon. What a great night that had been!

Vincent silently opened the door. The men slipped inside the dim, pungent place — one large room. The mold nearly made Nagle cough. He controlled it. They kept low as they scurried along the concrete floor behind the row of wooden crates, stenciled with Western numbers and Chinese letters.

Across the dim space, Yung was engaged in an animated negotiation with a swarthy man, big. Sort of Asian. Maybe Samoan or Polynesian. The deal involved what sat on a table near the men: a carton of what appeared to be prescription medicine. Opioids, he guessed. There were similar cartons in a stack nearby.

Silver lining indeed. What a windfall!

Yung and the others seemed to have no awareness they weren’t alone.

“On three,” Nagle whispered.

The others nodded.

But Nagle didn’t make it that far. At about one and a half into the count there came a series of blinding flashes and ear-cracking explosions shaking Nagle to his spine. The warehouse door to Nagle’s left crashed open and with the gassy roar of a diesel engine a large van squealed across the floor, skidding to a stop directly between Yung and his associates, and Nagle and his.

The words on the side of the van were “Metro Police SWAT.”

No!

On a loudspeaker: “Everyone! Drop your weapons and raise your hands. Or you will be fired upon. Drop your weapons. Now, now, now!”

From behind the van and from other doors in the warehouse, cops appeared, decked out in tactical outfits and holding machine guns and pistols at the ready. They were screaming for the men to drop their weapons and lie face down. Dozens of them, like roaches skittering over the floor of the warehouse.

Nagle and his men tossed their weapons and dived to the cold, moldy floors. They were roughly frisked and handcuffed, then hauled to their feet.

Somebody shouted, “Clear, west side.”

“Clear east and center!”

The door of the armored vehicle opened and out stepped Detectives Elliott White and Violette Hayes. She was dressed in full combat gear; White wore only a bulletproof vest, as if he simply had to show off his pastel shirt. Tonight, baby blue. They spotted Nagle and walked across the gritty floor, through the faint mist of smoke from the flash-bang stun grenades. He stopped about five feet from Nagle. He didn’t smirk, didn’t smile, didn’t gloat. The cop simply looked him in the eye. “Gotcha.”

Detective Elliott White’s joints might have been in revolt — that damn leg — but he couldn’t feel a lick of pain. He was high, jubilant. He hadn’t felt this good since he was upped to gold shield at the baby age of thirty-one. He was wearing the same powder-blue shirt tonight that he’d worn that day — so confident was he that tonight would work out.

As well it had. The two heads of the major syndicates in the city had just been rolled up, Yung for felony drug possession with intent to sell and weapons, and Nagle for weapons and conspiracy to commit murder and battery — sensitive surveillance microphones had recorded him in the alleyway behind the warehouse just ten minutes ago.

White was standing in the middle of the drafty, spacious warehouse, speaking with Violette Hayes.

“Getaway car got away,” she told him.

Jimmy Jump Pants...

“We’ll find him.”

Hayes said, “Wish they still called it an all-points bulletin.”

“What?” White said.

“Don’t you watch old TV?”

“Like?”

“Dragnet. Highway Patrol.”

“That’s more old time than me.”

“Now it’s: ‘Be advised. Ten forty-eight. Homicide suspect driving a black Lincoln Navigator, tag number Alpha Bravo Charlie One Two Three.’ Where’s the fun in that? Saying, ‘all-points bulletin’ is a lot sexier.”

White was ebullient but not necessarily in the mood for banter. “Let’s go see our friends.”

As Crime Scene collected weapons and laid the number cards where Nagle and the others had broken into the warehouse, White and Hayes made their way outside through the musty space and next door to the office of the Monmouth & Briggs Storage facility, long closed. He guessed the two thousand bucks being paid for a one-month rental by metro police was the most money the imposing building had made in decades. White and Hayes had themselves discovered it — like location scouts looking for the perfect set for the climax of an action-adventure crime flick. Warehouses being popular final scenes for Mel Gibson and Tom Cruise and Marvel Comics movies.

White held the door for Hayes and they walked into the warehouse office, where the individuals who’d made the sting a success were sitting. White thanked the suspects’ former minders — now undercover informants and key participants in the takedown — Ki and Max Klempter.

The slim detective then turned to the other two people in the room. He said a heartfelt “We couldn’t have done it without you.” And formally shook the hands of Andy Nagle and Loi Yung.