Bria finished up with her customer, then grabbed a dress and some shoes that she had held behind the counter. She also grabbed a large straw sun hat, a large handbag, and some sunglasses, and headed for the women’s changing area. Gena continued to browse through the department’s offerings until Bria returned to her counter and gave her a nod. Gena turned and headed for the dressing area.
Inside the dressing area, Gena walked from stall to stall, opening each door until she found the clothing that Bria had left for her. Once she found the right stall, she stepped inside, locked the door, and changed clothes.
The clothing change took less than four minutes. She turned and examined herself in the mirror. She looked completely different. It was perfect. Now, she just needed the last touch. She headed out of the dressing room, through the department store, and out into the mall. Bria had removed all the security tags for her, so she made it safely through the store’s theft detectors.
Inside the mall, Gena headed to her second stop, a large wig and beauty supply store. She knew exactly which wig she was looking for. It was the one with long braids. She was going for the
How Stella Got Her Groove Back
look.
Gena paid for the wig, walked to the mirror, placed it on her head, and adjusted it until it was just right. Once she was satisfied, she placed her large straw hat on her head and adjusted that too. Next came the sunglasses. Her entire getup was perfect. No one could possibly recognize her.
Shit, I can’t even recognize myself.
Gena headed for a mall exit opposite to the entrance that she had come in. She strolled through the parking lot to a designated parking spot. The car was there, just like they planned; Brianna was on her job. A beige Ford Taurus that Brianna had rented just the day before was sitting in the parking space, with the doors unlocked. Gena climbed inside, lifted the floor mat, and found the key. She stuck the key in the ignition and started the car.
“You muthafuckas ain’t the only ones who can pull some 007 shit!” Gena said with a smile. “Shit, fuckin’ dead-ass Quadir following me around, like he’s fucking crazy. We’ll see who’s crazy, though. We’ll see.” She backed the car out of the parking space and headed for her first destination, checking her rearview mirror the entire way. Her plan had worked perfectly; no one had followed her.
Gena’s first stop was the Sovereign Bank on Twentieth and Market streets in downtown Center City. This was where she had gotten the safety deposit box and stashed half a million in jewelry. She waited patiently for about twenty minutes before a representative was able to help her. Finally, she was led in through a doorway to the back of the bank. She was seated in a tiny room where her safety deposit box was waiting for her.
“You do have your key?” asked the woman who had assisted her.
“Oh, yeah, it’s right here.”
Gena waited for the lady to close the door and she slowly unlocked and opened the safety deposit box. It was all there: the ten-karat diamond engagement ring Quadir had proposed to her with; the cluster diamond ring; the birthday charm bracelet that Quadir had given her on the night he threw her party; her diamond initial G pin that Rik and Lita had given her; two Rolexes; one Ebel; one Omega; one Cartier; two gold Gucci watches; one stainless steel and eighteen-karat gold Movado; four tennis bracelets; two-carat diamond earrings; fifteen pairs of gold earrings; and a slew of gold necklaces and bracelets. She removed all of her jewelry and carefully placed each piece side by side as she examined it all carefully. Out of everything in the safety deposit box, there was only one thing she wanted: her ten-karat diamond engagement ring. She slipped the ring on her finger and placed everything else back in the safety deposit box. She closed the lid and locked it.
Her next stop was the Thirtieth Street Station. She pulled up in front of the train station, parking her car at the Market Street side entrance. She took out two suitcases from her trunk and walked through the doors of the train station. She took the escalator down to a lower level where the lockers were located. She looked around and peered back up the escalator just to be sure no one was following her. The coast was clear.
Gena strolled down the row of lockers until she came to hers—405. She inserted the key, opened the door, and looked inside. Her small bundle was sitting just as she had left it. She opened the suitcase, pulled the bag from the locker, and neatly placed it in the suitcase. Lockers 405, 406, 407, 408 all held her secret stash, which totaled a little under $17 million. Once she was done removing the money from each of the lockers and placing it in the suitcases, she walked back down the hall, back up the escalator, and out the side door, carrying with her some $17 million in cold hard cash.
“Whew, that was crazy,” she said, once she was in the safety of her car. She looked around as she pulled out of her parking space, careful that she wasn’t being followed. This was the most dangerous part of all. For the first time since she had found it, the money was all going to be in one place again.
Her final destination was 4-U-Self Storage, where she could safely count the money she needed for Rik and the money she needed for her great escape, then tuck the rest away in a secure hiding place. She pulled up in front of the storage unit and used her key to open the lock on the unit. Inside were the contents of her house, which she had placed in storage once Viola threw her out into the street. She looked around at all her old furnishings and thought of the life she had once shared with Quadir. She went outside to the car and got the suitcases out of the trunk. She brought them inside the storage unit and closed the door behind her. She looked at the bags of money staring at her and thought of all the trouble the money had caused.
It’s not worth it; you’re not worth it.
She quickly counted out the money that she needed, the five hundred thousand she planned on giving to Rik. Then she counted out the money that she would take with her.
This is my new-start-at-life money.
Her plan was simple: She would take only what she would need to relocate herself. She had decided that the rest of the money would be safer here, tucked away in the storage unit, than with her.
D
etective Cleaver stormed up to the table. “How the fuck could you lose her?”
Dick Davis peered up at him. “What?”
“Roscoe P. Coltrane couldn’t have fucked this one up! My one-eyed, one-legged grandmother could have kept up with her! She was at a fucking shopping mall!”
Davis rose from the table. Ellington grabbed him.
“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, asshole!” Davis told Cleaver. “You don’t fucking know me! You don’t know shit about me!”
“I know that Inspector Clouseau could have done a better job of keeping up with that bimbo!” Cleaver shot back.
“He wasn’t on her,” Ratzinger told him.
“What?”
“None of my people were on her.” Ratzinger repeated. “I had narcotics trailing her.”
“What?” Cleaver shouted. “You had those bumbling idiots shadowing her? They couldn’t kept up with their dicks if they weren’t attached to their fucking bodies!”
“We needed their manpower and resources,” Ratzinger told him.
“Dammit, Ratzinger! I thought we were all in agreement on this. No mistakes, and we keep this as tight as possible!”
“Narcs don’t know shit. All they were told was to trail her, and to call me at each stop.”
“And she just happened to lose you at her first stop.” Cleaver shook his head. “Brilliant, just fucking brilliant. She turned into James fucking Bond and made you look like Gomer fucking Pyle.”
“Watch yourself, Sergeant,” Ratzinger said sternly.
“Our money just disappeared, Lieutenant.”
“Guys, can we put away some of the testosterone here?” Ellington remarked. “This bickering is getting us nowhere. The broad pulled a fast one on us. She thinks she’s fucking Harry Houdini, so now we gotta be who we are. We’re detectives, so now it’s time to hit the street and act like detectives. We find this bitch, and this time we make sure that she doesn’t get away from us, that’s all.”
“We watch her twenty-four-seven,” Davis added.
Ellington shook her head. “Naw, we’re putting cuffs on this bitch when we find her this time.”
“What are we going to charge her with?” Davis asked.
“How about naming her as a suspect in the shooting of her little boyfriend?” Ellington smiled.
“What?” Cleaver was shocked. “What the hell are you talking about, Toya?”
“Her little boyfriend, Jerrell Jackson, was blasted in a motel about a month ago,” Ellington explained. “The room was trashed like there had been a struggle and Ms. Scott’s prints were all over the place.”
“How come nobody said anything about this before?” Cleaver asked.
“Why hasn’t Homicide swooped on her?” Ratzinger asked.
“I dug this up only recently. A friend of mine over in Homicide just confirmed everything for me this morning,” Ellington told them. “They haven’t swooped on her yet because they can’t find her. Oh, by the way, she’s not a suspect. She’s a person of high interest.”
“She’s not a suspect?” Davis asked incredulously.
Ellington shook her head. “Apparently Homicide is of the opinion that if by some miracle she did do him, it was definitely self-defense. Her blood was all over the room. Her skin was beneath his fingernails, and the victim had bite marks and scratch marks everywhere. And the kicker is, he or she—and they are guessing he—had rope, cement, acid, a saw, and all kinds of macabre shit tucked away in the bathroom.”
“Jesus!” Cleaver leaned back and tossed down a drink.
“Evidence suggests that he was going torture her, kill her, and dispose of her body,” Ellington told them.
“Torture her? Why torture her?” Davis asked.
“Information,” Ratzinger said.
“Information?” Davis lifted an eyebrow.
“He was going to torture her and get her to give up the location of the money,” Cleaver said. “Jesus. How many others are after this damn money? This thing’s becoming a fucking race to the finish. Like a damn hunt for buried treasure or something.”
“We can’t put out an all-points bulletin on her, because that’s Homicide’s job,” Ratzinger explained. “People will wonder why vice is putting out an APB for a homicide. It’ll raise too many eyebrows. I’ll be getting all kinds of calls from vice, from the captain, from everywhere.”
Cleaver nodded. “I agree. And we can’t alert patrol, because they’ll want to know why she’s wanted. We have to get out in the streets ourselves.”
“We could try to smoke her out,” Ratzinger suggested.
“How?” Davis asked.
“Press her grandmother.”
“She’s in the hospital,” Ellington said.
“What for?” Ratzinger asked.
Ellington shook her head. “Another surprise. A gentleman showed up at her door, looking for Gena. When they wouldn’t, or couldn’t, tell him where she was, he shot the cousin, beat the grandmother, and then raped her.”
Cleaver leaned forward. “Raped her?”
Ellington nodded.
Cleaver threw down another drink. “Jesus!”
“Someone else looking for the money?” Ratzinger questioned.
“You think?”
“You don’t rape an old woman for kicks,” Ratzinger said. “He did it to send a message. He did it to smoke her out.”
“How many other people are searching for this girl and this goddamn money?” Cleaver asked. “It’ll be like a damn madhouse when someone does find her. Hell, it’ll probably be the biggest shootout since D-Day!”
“Sounds like Ms. Gena’s days are numbered,” Ellington observed.
At the Philadelphia Federal Building on Sixth and Market streets in Center City, Agents Phil Covington and Josh Harbinger stood at attention in front of the desk of Special Agent in Charge Rudy Galvani. The SAIC leafed through a small stack of papers with a deep scowl embedded in his face. Finally, he peered up at his agents.
“You bugged the office of a vice lieutenant, two detectives, and an Internal Affairs detective, and you did it without my authorization?” Galvani asked.
“Sir, I thought that I had your consent.”
“And what exactly made you think that you had my consent, Agent Harbinger?”
“You gave me permission to see what I could dig up, sir.”
“Do you know what professional courtesy is, Agent Harbinger? When we conduct an operation of this nature, it is only professional courtesy to notify the chief of police, and perhaps the local district attorney.”
“Sir, the primary target of the operation is a sergeant in the Philadelphia Police Department’s Office of Internal Affairs. I didn’t know how many others were involved; in fact, I still don’t. Sir, what we’ve uncovered so far involves murder . . .”
Galvani held up his hand, silencing his agent. “I can read. The problem that I have with this operation, Josh, is that I signed off on none of it. You pulled in other field agents, redirected Bureau resources, retasked Bureau assets, and ran roughshod over standard operational procedures. Those procedures are in place for a reason, Agent Harbinger.”
“I know, sir. Please, just consider all of the evidence. They’re dirty, sir, and they’re planning on killing an innocent girl for money.”
SAIC Galvani sat and stared at his young agent for several moments before leaning back in his seat and waving his hand toward the chairs in front of him. “Okay, numb nuts, let’s hear it.”
A smile spread across Josh’s face as he seated himself. Phil wiped away the beads of sweat that were running down his forehead and quickly plopped down into his seat.
“We’ve got them, sir,” Josh said excitedly. “We have recordings of a couple of different conversations. And we’ve narrowed it down to this small cabal: the vice lieutenant, Cleaver, and the two vice detectives.”
“And you knew Cleaver was dirty?”
“Yes, sir.”
“All of this time, you’ve had an itch in your pants for this guy. Why?”
“Sir, when I went undercover as a police detective, he approached me several times to join him in some very questionable activities.”
Galvani lifted an eyebrow. “Questionable?”