Superbia 3 (17 page)

"Maybe for you, but for me, I have to try
to stop him," Reynaldo said.  "And I don't know how to do it, but if you show me, this one last time, I will not disappoint you.  After that, you can go be a construction worker.  For this last case, you must still be a detective."

"If they find out what we're doing, it's your ass.  You know that," Frank said.

"They won't find out."

"All right," Frank said.  He tucked the manila envelope under his arm and said, "Let me think about how we can do this and I'll be in touch."

"Thank you, boss," Reynaldo said.  He headed back for his car and was about to get in when Frank called out to him again. 

"Do you know what you told me the first day we met?"

"At the interview?"

"Yeah.  You said you would
rather lose your career doing the right thing than keep it by being a coward.  It was the reason I wanted you on our department.  I knew you were real police even back then."

"But now I'm even better because I learned from the best," Reynaldo said, smiling brightly. 

Frank rolled his eyes, "Well then we're both fucked."

Chief Tovarich folded his hands on his desk and quietly assessed the officer sitting in front of him.  The clock on the wall above the door read 1112 hours.  "You haven't had the opportunity to accustom yourself to some of the new rules and regulations here so I am trying to be understanding of your seeming disrespect.  When you are told to be somewhere at eleven hundred hours, that does not mean ten after."

Junior looked up from the notepad in his lap where he'd been scribbling notes about the meeting and said, "
Maybe I wasn't clear enough.  Maybe I should have been more specific, Chief." 

The boy had spent half the meeting with his eyes glued to Aprille Macariah's tits and Chief Tovarich half-wondered that there wasn't a puddle of drool under his seat. 

Aprille
tried to ignore the buzzing in her head and focus on the two men in front of her.  She could feel cold drops of sweat sliding from her armpits down her sides.  "I apologize," she strained to say.  "I have not been feeling good, but I did my best to get here."

The Chief nodded as he waited for his son to write down her answer.  Once Junior's pen stopped moving, he said, "I am not unreasonable
.  With me you will soon find out that so long as you meet my expectations, you will not have any trouble."

"That's what I've always heard," she said, wondering if something so completely untrue would register across her face when she said it.

Chief Tovarich's face brightened, "Really?  Good."  He waved for Junior to put the notepad and pen in front of Aprille and said, "One of the first things I'm implementing is a Uniformed Officers Standards Act.  Write down any passwords you have."

Aprille scribbled down her computer password that logged her into the work computers an
d slid the notepad back toward the Chief.

He glanced down at the page and said, "Thanks, but we already have that
one.  I meant your passwords to any social media you use."

"I don't−"

"Tread carefully," Tovarich said angrily.  He yanked his upper left desk drawer open and slammed a file down on his desk, "I know for a fact you've accessed your Facebook account on these computers on multiple occasions.  That will be a primary offense in this new act, so I suggest you not try and lie to me about not having one."

Aprille tried to swallow.  The pounding in her head was getting worse.  "I don't know it off the top of my head.  And anyway, if it wasn't against the rules when I did it, how can I be in trouble for it now?"

"It's more of a voluntary thing to make sure you are in compliance," the Deputy Superintendent added. 

Chief Tovarich closed his eyes
and tried to breathe. 

"Well I'm not volunteering," Aprille said.  She turned toward Chief Tovari
ch, "Is it true you shut down our detective division?" Aprille said.

Junior snorted slightly as he lowered his head to keep writing,
"If you call that a division."

"
The CID unit from Manor Farms will be handling investigations for both agencies.  It's called streamlining, Officer Macariah.  In the past three years this department has lost four senior members to either retirement or death and now Frank O'Ryan has decided to abandon ship as well.  The remaining personnel are going to be reorganized to conduct patrol operations."

"You know that doesn't include me, right?"

"Come again?"

"I'm assigned to the FBI Narcotics Task Force under Special Agent Dolos.
  I'm cross-sworn as a federal officer.  I'm practically an FBI agent."

Chief Tovarich looked at the Deputy Superintendent briefly, who shook his head.  "That's under review right now.  What's most important to me is getting this house in order.  After that's accomplished we can begin to explore other opportunities."

"You don’t understand," Aprille said.  "It's an extremely prestigious thing for this entire department.  Do you know how much money we've seized?  Do you have any idea the major cases I've helped them put together?" 

"Be that as it may, your duties in this police department are to patrol, young lady.  The FBI will just have to find some way to carry on without you."

"This is bullshit," Aprille snarled.  "I'm going to make one phone call and you're going to have judges and US attorneys calling you to tell you what bullshit this is."

Chief Tovarich shrugged and said, "My number is listed.  You're dismissed."

She fled the office before the tears could erupt from her eyes.  She raced down the hallway toward the parking lot and smashed the door open, grabbing her phone off her hip and was about to call the first number on her favorites list, when she decided it might be better just to call his office line. Lately she'd just been getting voicemail on his cellphone.  "Pick up, goddamn it," she muttered, waiting for Dez's phone to ring. 

From his Center City office, Dez stood by the window overlooking I-95 and held his cellphone close to his face, "So you haven't found anything out?" 

"Not a thing.  Nobody even asked me what I was doing there,"
Skip Fitzpatrick said into the phone.

"And not a word from Ondrey."

"Did you expect one?  He's probably afraid to talk on the phone."

"That doesn't stop him from coming to see one of us.
  He could send an email for Christ's sake.  Something."

"
He's just spooked, I bet,"
Fitzpatrick said. 

"God damn it.  It has to be us," Dez said.  "If it was a big enough IAD job that involved the twenty-ninth district, one of us would have caught wind of it."

"Well if it was us, why hasn't anyone stepped in to stop our operations?  Think about it, Dez.  What if we went out and hurt somebody while they were supposed to be investigating us?  They'd be negligent.  But so far, nobody's said anything about the Task Force.  For all we've been told, we can keep running ops until the cows come home.  I say we keep things going and maybe ease up on the extra-curricular shit, you know what I mean?"

Dez nodded, knowing exactly what he meant.  "I think he's taking this rabbit thing a little bit too far."

"You're the one who asked him to come on board," Fitzpatrick said.  "You knew his background.  I tried to warn you."

"Spare me the
God damn lectures, okay?" Dez said.  The phone on Dez's desk rang and he said, "I'll call you tomorrow.  I'm gonna take that in case it's Ondrey."  He ended the call with Fitzpatrick and picked up the receiver on his desk, "Agent Dolos, FBI Philadelphia, can I help you?"  

A woman's voice screamed into his phone,
"This fucking cocksucker is pulling me off the task force!"

"
Slow down and stop yelling.  Who is
he
and what is he doing?"

"The new Chief.  He's pulling me off the team and sticking me back in uniform."

"Oh.  Shit," Dez said quietly.  "That's not good."  

She could hear him shuffling papers on his desk and moving things around, keeping his hands active to prevent having to say anything.  "Well?"
Aprille barked.  "Aren't you going to step in for me?"

"Of course," he said.  "I'll call him later on and tell him that's not a good idea."

"I need you to do more than that, Dez!  I need you to protect me here."

"Okay," he said.  "It's done.  I'll call him as soon as we get off the phone."

She took a long, quivering breath, letting the panic fade.  Dez was going to call and make everything better.  It would all be okay.  "Thank you, honey," she said.

"No problem."

"So, do I get to see you soon?"

"Um, yeah, I hope so.  Things are really hectic right now though.  We've got this court thing and a few drug jobs.  You know how it is."

"Right, sure," she said.  "Okay, well I'll let you go then.  You're going to call him now?"

"Yep."

"Okay.  I love you," she said.

"Me too," he said quickly before hanging up. 

Aprille slid her phone into her purse and headed for her car, digging in the small zippered compartment for the change purse it contained, fingers scrambling until they found one last remaining wax baggie at the very bottom.

The phone rang in Chief Tovarich's office
moments later and he said, "Well I'll be damned.  She wasn't kidding."

Junior set down his notepad and pen and leaned back in his
chair, staring at the phone.  "Are you going to take it?"

"Of course.  Do you think I'm scared of some US attorney?"  He pressed the speaker button on his phone and said, "Chief Wally Tovarich, can I help you?"

"Chief, this is Dez Dolos.  I'm with the Philadelphia Task Force.  One of your officers has been working with us for a while."

"Aprille Macariah," the Chief said.  "I was just discussing that with her.  So what can I do for you, Agent Dolos?"

"She told me you were thinking about taking her off the team to work patrol."

"That's correct.  Probably just for a little while, though.  I'm not trying to disrupt your operation, Agent Dolos, but I've got a serious manpower situation here that I need to correct."

"I understand,"
Dez said. 
"Since I've got you on the phone, what's the situation with Detective O'Ryan?  He stopped showing up for meetings so I stopped calling him, but if he's still available I could probably use him."

"Officer O'Ryan has gotten himself into a little bit of a situation, I'm afraid," Chief Tovarich said. 

"Oh really?  What kind of situation?"

"Let's just say that if he ever does come back to full duty, it will probably be short-lived."  Chief Tovarich winked at his son and said,
"If it means anything to you, I have several officers from Manor Farms who are highly experienced and would make tremendous assets to your team.  I can send you their information if you like."

"
Sure.  That sounds good, Chief,"
Dez said. 
"At the least, I can keep them on file if something opens up." 

Chief Tovarich looked at his son and waved for him to come closer and pay attention, "Unless you'd prefer to wait for Officer Macariah, that is?"

"Nope,"
Dez said. 
"Between you and I, she will benefit from a little down time anyway."

"I'm glad we're in agreement on this," the Chief said.  "Have a good day, Agent Dolos."

"You too, sir,"
and the line went dead.

Chief Tovarich hung up the phone and leaned back in his chair, "We learned quite a few things from that phone call, did we not?"

"Apparently the FBI doesn't think as highly of that chick-a-dee as she does herself."

"Exactly."  He looked at his son, "Is your resume current?"

Junior shrugged, "For the most part, I think.  Why?"

"You want to go work with the FBI on that task force, don’t you?  Get it updated and get it back to me, today."

"Awesome!  Thanks, dad."

"Just watch your ass with those people down there.  It's probably a lot of Philly trash that their PD wanted to bury somewhere, so they let the FBI worry about them."

"Yeah, probably."

"And one more thing.  Just because she's a woman doesn't mean we are any more lenient, do you understand?  I don't care how big her tits are or if she sucks your cock after the Christmas party every year.  Everyone gets held to the same standard, regardless.  That is how you maintain order."

"I understand."

Chief Tovarich looked at the clock again, "You hungry?"

"Sure."

"Let's go grab some
lunch.  You can drive me."

"Sounds good
, Dad."

The help wanted ads were less than useful and Frank tossed the newspaper section
into the passenger seat in disgust.  The only thing he'd been qualified to do was mow lawns and be a security guard.  For fifteen years he'd studied the craft of law enforcement and now specialized in complex investigations.  With no college degree, a police academy certificate, countless felony arrests, his expert status as a witness for the courts and attendance at the most exclusive and prestigious schools in his field, he was qualified to do exactly one thing: Be a cop exactly where he was already working.