Authors: Clever Black
“When the check clears, as I know it will, you just make sure
you hand over the negatives.”
“We got ourselves a deal. I’m trusting you, Dante`. I
want to blow this case up in the North West more than anything.”
Lisa stated just as her cell phone rang. She answered and remained
silent for a minute. “Where are you now, Laddy?” she then
asked. “I’m on my way. Sorry, Dante`. We’ll have to
end dinner early, but if you’re ever in D.C. give me a call.
I’m always up for a good lickin’ and stickin’,”
she ended as she slid out of the booth, leaving behind a blushing
Dante`.
*******
About an hour later, Lisa was standing outside a defunct night spot
named
Glitz
with life size photos of a dead woman named
Desiree Abbadando. One of the photos was laid out in the exact spot
where the woman had been lying on the night she was killed nearly two
years ago back in October of 2003. The investigating officer was on
hand, and he’d filled Lisa and Laddy in on what witnesses told
him.
“So, this woman was killed by a sniper shot?” Lisa asked
as she walked around the picture, looking down at the image.
“Yes, ma’am. That is what we believe because witnesses
say the shot came from nowhere,” the detective answered.
“Shots do not originate from nowhere. And please, call me Lisa.
Ma’am sounds so amateurish and makes me feel, it makes me feel
old.”
“Yes, Lisa,” the Hispanic officer said. “But no one
knows where the shot came from.”
Lisa only shook her head over the detective’s last statement.
For some time now, she’d been encountering low grade gumshoes
that half-assed did their jobs. She understood many of the people
killed on the streets were criminals, and investigators would rather
go after those who preyed upon innocent civilians, but a crime was a
crime was a crime in her eyes. It all led back to keeping the
community safe in her mind.
“If Desiree was standing here,” Lisa said as she turned
her back to the picture and looked forward, “if she was here
when she was shot and fell backwards to the left, then the shot had
to come from her right side. I’m guessing, because the bullet
that sliced through Miss Abbandando’s skull entered her right
cheek and exited at the base of her skull on the left side on a
downward angle.”
At that moment, Lisa and Laddy both looked across the street towards
a three story office building that anchored a dentistry on the first
floor. They turned to one another and nodded their heads
simultaneously as they began walking towards the building.
“What are you going to do with these pictures?” the
detective asked.
“Leave them with my aides, will you, please? Thank you officer,
you’ve been more than helpful. We’ll call you if we need
further details.”
Lisa and Laddy crossed the intersection and walked around to the back
of the building where they came upon a ladder that led to the roof.
Once atop the building, the two pulled out small flashlights and
began looking around under the moonlit sky.
“It’s been nearly two years since this homicide. What are
the chances we find something?” Lisa asked excitedly. The woman
simply loved her job. Poking and prodding to find the truth was her
specialty on any given day.
“I’d say the chances are slim and next to naught.”
Laddy answered dryly.
“You have to have more faith than that, young man.”
“Faith doesn’t crack a case, Lisa.”
“You’re right, Laddy. But,” Lisa said as she
approached the edge of the building where a clear view of the
entrance to
Glitz
was situated and knelt down and began
feeling around. “Hunches sometimes do,” she finished as
she pried up a rusted and bent 7.62 millimeter shell from the roof’s
asphalt and showed it to Laddy with a smile on her face. “I’m
a bad son-of-a-bitch.”
“Seven, six, two,” Laddy said as he eyed the shell.
“The same kind used in the Onishi hit up in Seattle
coincidentally.” Lisa said as she looked down on the angle
taken by the sniper. “Another good shot. And it’s similar
to the shots taken on Hayate and Isao. What are the chances,”
Lisa asked rhetorically as her eyes glazed over. “What are the
chances these two cases are connected?”
“We have more you know?” Laddy said, shaking Lisa from
her thoughts.
“What else have you?”
“Well, umm, I’m thirsty,” Laddy said as he tucked
his hands inside his silk slacks and smiled down at Lisa.
“Lush,” Lisa chided. “Okay, let’s find a bar
and you lay it out for me.”
“How’s about The Royal Flush?”
“The Royal Flush?”
“Yeah. It’s where one suspect in this case, a man named
Asa Spade is headquartered.”
“Not a smart move, Laddy. These people are sharp, and we both
look like a couple of sticks in the mud. I have a case to work in the
morning also and I’m not going to change into a costume and sit
in a potential suspect’s night club and map out his shit. He’ll
pick us out like a rotten tomato sitting on a grapevine. Let’s
go.”
“Where?”
“Where we can be alone.”
“Oooh. I like the sound of that.”
“Don’t get your hopes up too high, lover boy. I like them
hard and big, not soft and small.”
“You saw me getting out of a cold shower once and you won’t
let that down will you?”
“You had your shot and you blew it, Kemosabe. It dried up on
your ass. The hot box doesn’t like to be teased, nor can it
function properly without proper lubrication. She has to be excited,
that’s the only way maximum pleasure can be achieved,”
Lisa remarked as she backed down the ladder.
“Cock tease.”
“Limp dick,” Lisa retorted as she jumped down the
remaining three ladder rungs and walked over to her and Laddy’s
Nova.
A near-empty, yet cozy lounge inside the Sheraton Hotel where Lisa
and Laddy were staying was the perfect spot to lay out all the
evidence Laddy had collected the four days he and Lisa were in
Denver. While Lisa was working the Ben Holland case, she had Laddy
looking into the background of a man by the name of Asa Spade in
order to see what he could dig up on the man, and what Laddy had
uncovered was nothing short of magnificent.
Lisa walked around the pool table where numerous pictures were laid
out as she sipped on a Budweiser beer and entertained a shot of
Jagermeister. Pieces of a puzzle were being put together, but Lisa
was only scraping the surface. With that aside, the train had left
the station with what lay on the table.
Laddy and the rest of Lisa’s aides had taken photographs of Asa
Spade. His face and real name was now known, having been confirmed
through arrest records down in Las Vegas. There was an Asian woman
and a black woman that had been photographed as well outside of
The
Royal Flush
and their photographs were on the table also.
“Who are the two women you photographed at this club, Laddy?”
Lisa asked.
“Don’t know. But we trailed them over to Shorter Arms
apartments where they disappeared behind some buildings. We felt we
would get made if we tailed them any further so we laid low.”
“Okay. What did they do?” Lisa asked as she picked up a
couple of photos of three Asian men exiting a small jet.
“I don’t know what they did back there,” Laddy
replied.
Lisa shook her head in dismay. “You remind me of the lames I
have to—”
“They left,” Laddy said, cutting Lisa’s remark
short once he realized the full scope of her question. “The two
women left in a blue Tahoe and we tailed them one hundred miles or so
north to Loveland Airport in Fort Collins where they met up with
three Asian guys and a black guy. Here’s the photo of the group
together where the Asian woman handed over a black satchel.”
Lisa downed her shot of Jagermeister and said, “The drop off.”
“We believed so at the time, but we didn’t have probable
cause to pull the two women over and do a search when they left the
airport and we didn’t want to risk letting them know we’re
on to them. What is known is that heavy drugs are being moved inside
Shorter Arms by some gang. A blood gang called the Bounty Hunters.
That information comes from the Denver police department, but we
can’t get close enough to verify.”
“Asa Spade is listed as a lead member of the Blood Bounty
Hunters down in Vegas. There’s a tie-in to this crew in Shorter
Arms.”
“Exactly. But the few days we’ve been watching Shorter
Arms, Asa Spade hasn’t been seen there. He has to have someone
down in Shorter Arms doing the dirty work. What we have is the two
women going in, an empty space at that point, because we don’t
know who the go-between is, nor can we identify him or her, and then
we have a possible drop off to the suppliers in Fort Collins. We’re
at the threshold of a criminal organization if you ask me.”
“Yes we are,” Lisa said as she stared hard at the images
the three Asian men and one lone black man.
“Who are these silk suits that got off the plane?” Lisa
asked as she eyed the photos.
“Those are the men the two women met at the airport. They
received the payment is our best guess.”
“Where did this flight go? The three Asian guys and the black
guy? What was their listed flight plan and names?”
Laddy poured a shot of Jagermeister for himself, gulped it down and
pounded his chest.
Lisa was under the impression that Laddy had come up short. He always
grew nervous when he felt he’d let her down. “You have to
go back there and get those flight plans, Laddy.”
“You doubt me?” Laddy said with a smirk.
“You have the names and the flight plan?” Lisa asked,
barely able to contain her joy.
“That cough was sincere. That drink is potent as the fuck. But
I did good, Lisa. When our Asian friends took off, me and a couple of
guys went in and obtained the flight records. The only name for
certain is the black guy. His name is Finland Xavier. We ran a check
on him and he’s a lawyer in Chicago that operates a trucking
company called Midwest Express.”
“Do we know the businesses this Midwest Express deals with?”
“We do. Looking at old tax records, there’s a warehouse
in the Bedford section of Chicago that accepts freight from a guy
named JunJie Maruyama based out of—”
“Seattle, Washington,” Lisa said, cutting Laddy’s
remark short. “Maruyama? Let me guess—that’s an
Asian name?”
“Damn sure is. You may be right about another Asian gang moving
in on the Onishi brothers.”
“I may be. But for all accounts, this could all be legitimate
business between these people, Laddy and just coincidence. We need
more proof to get funding from the committee back in Washington.”
“But the drop off can’t be ignored. We have two women who
we believe are the money handlers for Asa Spade leaving Shorter Arms
and meeting with these men and handing over a satchel believed to
contain drug profits.”
“Three Asian men, a black lawyer and a former pimp from Vegas
are caught up in the mix,” Lisa said as she eyed the
photographs. “In order to gain ground on this case, Laddy, we
need to get somebody in this organization to flip. Hmm.
Eeenie…meenie…miney…mo,” Lisa said as her
forefinger darted back and forth across the photographs, “catch
an…informant…by…the toe. Let’s take a trip
to Vegas and see what we can dig up on Montoya Spencer, Laddy,”
Lisa finally said as she scooped up the photographs.
“But, we haven’t the funds to continue on,” Laddy
retorted. “All of this was done during the case we’re on
now—which is scheduled to conclude the moment the jury hands
down a verdict.”
“They will reach a verdict tomorrow,” Lisa said, happy
she’d made the deal with Dante` O’Malley earlier in the
night. “And after the verdict in the Ben Holland trial is read
tomorrow? We’ll begin looking into this guy Asa Spade and see
if there’s a connection between him and the Asians from
Seattle.”
When court reconvened the following morning, Lisa couldn’t wait
for the verdict to be announced. She had planned on presenting
pictures of Benjamin Holland talking to two cops who were on the lam,
but the deal she’d made with Dante` the night before, coupled
with all the evidence Laddy had accumulated the five days or so she
was in town, had pushed all those plans aside. Benjamin Holland
could’ve flown out of the courtroom with gold wings for all she
cared. The woman was onto something big and she knew it. Once the
verdict was read, Lisa and her staff exited the courtroom amidst
cheers for Ben Holland, sliding pass his friends and out of his life
for the time being because she was now on the trail of much bigger
fish, namely a man by the name of Montoya Spencer who went by the
alias of Asa Spade.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
THE MIDDLE MAN
“What that boy doing ‘round that corner,”
twenty-five year-old Dougie asked as he sat inside a blue Tahoe deep
off inside Shorter Arms.
Dougie ran shop over in the apartment complex for Asa Spade. A
lifelong criminal who’d done his own fair share of crime from
robbery to murder, Douglas ‘Dougie’ Hunt had been running
trap houses since he was teenager; but he was a step above now. The
gangster never touched the dope. He only collected money at the end
of the day and transferred it over to Xiang and Francesca once he and
his crew got their cut. Dougie was unknowingly the missing piece to
Lisa Vanguard’s puzzle.
Everyday shop was open, Dougie would sit across from the dope house
in his Tahoe and watch traffic. A soldier would text him a number and
Dougie would keep a mental count on the money earned. Soldiers were
up and down the block for protection. The war against Carmella, in
which his cousin Percy, his homegirl Ponita, and nearly a dozen
soldiers had been murdered, had taught Dougie certain methods of
operation when it came to moving major weight.