Pipe Dream (12 page)

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t like you,” Clarisse said, looking at Pookie like she would be stupid to think otherwise.

Leroy reached into his inside pocket and handed Pookie the five hundred dollars he’d placed there earlier.

Pookie stuffed the money into her bra. As Clarisse started toward the door, the broadcaster led off with the top story. Clarisse stopped in her tracks.

“Police are seeking a female in addition to the two males who are wanted in connection with yesterday’s murder of city councilman Johnny Podres in a reputed North Philadelphia crack house,” the broadcaster said in a deep resonating voice.

“Patricia Oaks, a twenty-two-year-old female, ninety pounds, five-two, light complexion, with brown hair and hazel eyes, is being sought by police along with Leroy Johnson and Samuel Jackson. Oaks has a scar on the side of her face and should be considered armed and dangerous.

“The threesome is believed to have escaped from the North Philadelphia area in a 1991 black Honda Accord with a Pennsylvania tag reading CWRN. The car is registered to a North Philadelphia nurse. Police are seeking the owner of the vehicle for questioning, but they have been unable to locate her, and they are withholding her name until they can gather more information as to her whereabouts.

“Anyone who can provide any information concerning Johnson, Jackson, Oaks, or the vehicle is being asked to call this number . . .”

They all looked at one another, speechless. Leroy finally spoke.

“Dig this here,” he said calmly. “We can do it like we been doin’ it, or we can do it the hard way. But ain’t nobody leavin’ till me and Black figure out where we goin’ and how we gettin’ there. ’Cause I can’t have y’all doin’ or sayin’ nothin’ to get us popped for somethin’ we ain’t do.”

Black walked over and stood by the door.

Clarisse looked from Leroy to Black. Then she sat down on the bed and reached into her pocketbook for her straight shooter and a cap.

“Gimme two,” she said.

Black walked over and handed her two matches. Clarisse sighed, took off her coat, and placed her pocketbook gingerly on the bed. As she emptied the cap into the straight shooter, Black watched her, and hoped that his decision to hide out in the hotel had bought them enough time to figure out what to do next.

Commissioner Nelson sat in the Command Center and rested his head in his hands. He knew that the suspects were hiding somewhere within the city limits. He could feel it. But because he had formed his strategy around the 6th District officer’s assertion that the suspects were headed for I-76, he might never be able to prove it.

Shortly after the officer in car 611 had radioed in the suspects’ last location and the direction he thought they would take, an expressway lieutenant contacted the Command Center and asked for permission to redeploy some of his units from I-95 to I-76. Commissioner Nelson approved the request, then had the districts that bordered I-76 assign cars to patrol the streets that ran parallel or perpendicular to the off-ramps.

An hour after he had approved the plan, Nelson knew something wasn’t right. With no new leads on the whereabouts of the fugitives, with daybreak creeping over the city, and with the press preparing for a day of frenzied activity, it was clear that the lieutenant and the commissioner had guessed wrong.

The suspects had never gone anywhere near I-76. They were gone.

Nelson put down the coffee he had been nursing and got up to stretch. When he sat back down, the dispatcher on J band repeated the suspects’ descriptions and Nelson sighed, because this meant that the suspects were still at large.

“It looks like we’re going to have to get down in the trenches and start digging for these guys,” Nelson said to Sheldon as the radio chatter died down.

“I’ve already got people digging, sir,” Sheldon said. “Accident Investigations recovered what we believe to be the murder weapon from the car the suspects crashed on Roberts Avenue. We’ve brought in the dealers and prostitutes in the area, we’ve had detectives go door-to-door on Park Avenue, and we’ve got four extra teams on the streets in case these suspects decide to surface.”

“It’s not about what the suspects decide to do, Sheldon!” Nelson said, pounding the table in frustration. “We have to go out there and find them.”

Sheldon licked his lips nervously and began to babble. “It’s not like we’re talking about rocket scientists, sir. These are drug addicts. They live their lives in a four-block radius—from the car they break into to the nearest dope man. Even if they did get outside the city, they’d have no idea where to go or what to do.”

“That’s your first mistake,” Nelson said. “You never, under any circumstances, underestimate a suspect. I don’t care if he is a drug addict. You got that?”

“Yes, sir. All I meant was . . . Well, I just meant to say that they’ll turn up eventually.”

“They’re just not going to turn up tonight,” Nelson mumbled.

Sheldon gave him a moment to calm down before he spoke again. “I guess Jeanette Deveraux and the rest of them are going to have a field day with this thing if they don’t turn up tonight.”

“Yeah,” Nelson said. “How’s that sergeant from Community Relations handling the press, anyway?”

“I suppose she’s doing all right, sir. She’s been calling the news agencies with updates every couple of hours.”

“And who’s been approving these updates? I haven’t seen any of them.”

“Her captain has been helping her to coordinate the press releases.”

“Call down there and let them know that no more updates go out without my prior approval.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Have any of the television stations broadcast Podres’s name yet?”

“Yes, sir. In the last hour or so, they’ve all said that highly placed police sources confirmed that the Park Avenue shooting victim was Podres.”

“Highly placed sources,” Nelson said, massaging his temples and rubbing his eyes like he was waiting for Calgon to take him away. “Any ideas, Captain? I’m fresh out.”

“Well, we know what they’re driving,” Sheldon said. “Do we have the helicopter in service?”

“It’s been in service all night, but they haven’t spotted the car.”

“What about that helicopter that does the traffic reports for the radio stations?” Sheldon asked. “If we can get an officer on board that helicopter, we can have two choppers instead of one.”

Nelson’s face softened. “Good idea. Give them a call, Captain.”

“I’ll get right on it, sir.”

“The only thing I’m concerned about now is whether that young woman who’s riding with them is all right,” Nelson said, almost to himself.

“Ramirez says there were indications that she might have gone with them willingly.”

“That would make her an accomplice,” Nelson said.

“So what should I tell my men to do if they find them?” Sheldon asked.

“Tell them that Miss Williams might be a hostage,” Nelson said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “We don’t have anything concrete yet, though. There’s no ransom note, and there haven’t been any calls demanding money, so we’re going to wait twenty-four hours before we call it a kidnapping. After that, we’ll have to call in the FBI.”

“The FBI?” Sheldon repeated.

“I don’t want to have to call them in, either,” Nelson said, sensing Sheldon’s apprehension. “Believe me, I want this thing solved locally. The political implications of this department not being able to solve a major crime quickly and without federal assistance would be extremely damaging.”

Sheldon was silent.

“We need to have that officer from the 6th look at some pictures, too,” Nelson said, thinking out loud. “Assuming the ones he saw wearing sunglasses were Black and Leroy, one of the two women must have been the owner of the car. If he can identify who’s who, maybe he can remember something that can help us figure out whether she’s working with them. Call your guys and have them bring some photos down to the 6th District so that officer can have a look at them.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I also want another five teams out on the streets looking for these suspects.”

“We’re going to be stretching our resources kind of thin, sir.”

“I know,” Nelson said. “That’s why you’re going to call the state police and have them get some additional state units within the city limits. Get some of our units to set up communications with them so everybody knows what everyone else is doing.

“In the meantime, I want the communications for this thing moved from J band to M band. And I don’t want any information—descriptions or anything else of interest to the media—to be put out over the air. The only broadcasts I want to hear are requests for phone calls and meets. Also, I want to hear from your guys about anything that goes on between now and the time this thing is officially declared a homicide.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Let’s get the ball rolling,” Nelson said, looking out the window at the sun burning orange against the Philadelphia skyline. “Because time is running out.”

“I know,” Sheldon said absently. “Time is running out.”

Nelson didn’t respond.

“I’m going to run down to headquarters to brief my guys in person, sir,” Sheldon said, grabbing his jacket from a chair. “I’ll make the phone calls on the way.”

Sheldon rushed out the door, juggling his car keys and a cell phone. He was dialing the first of several numbers before he made it to the car.

But not all of his calls concerned police business.

The phone at Internal Affairs rang hollow, echoing through the dark room like an alarm. Usually, the office was empty at that hour. But Lieutenant Darren Morgan had been there since five
A.M.
, and he was clearly relieved that the call came before the other officers arrived at the office.

He snatched the phone off the hook before it could ring twice.

“Hello.”

“Meet me in the parking lot. I’ll be outside in ten minutes.”

“Okay,” Morgan said, and hung up the phone.

Lieutenant Morgan was used to those types of conversations. It was all part of the game. Very often, the network of political connections he and Sheldon had built over the last year depended on four-word phone calls and meetings in public places. At least twice a day, someone would call, name a place and time, then hang up. They did it that way because they didn’t have time to talk. They didn’t have time to play, either. But after the stroke of luck that had removed Johnny Podres from the picture, Morgan was in a jovial mood. He almost felt like, well, playing.

Boarding the elevator for the trip down to the first floor of the Roundhouse—Philadelphia’s police headquarters—Morgan began to reflect on his perfect life. He had enough time to do what he wanted. He had enough money to do what he wanted. Now, with Podres gone, it was just a matter of packing up and disappearing.

After he got off the elevator and walked past the officer who was posted at the desk, Morgan strolled through the glass doors leading to the parking lot. As he did so, he tried to put an exact figure on the stolen money he’d pocketed over the last few years. As always, the figure eluded him. Not that it mattered. He knew that it was enough to keep him from ever having to count.

The scheme, after all, was perfect. An Internal Affairs lieutenant and a divisional supervisor riding plainclothes through select police districts would shake down drug dealers, numbers runners, fences, and anyone else who was bringing in large amounts of illicit cash. They never used the same car, never used names, and never hit the same place more than once in a ninety-day period. It was easy money. Keeping it hidden was the hard part. But they even had a way to do that.

Morgan and Sheldon laundered the money by making campaign contributions to a select group of politicians through political action committees with phony membership lists. The politicians would take a little off the top, then donate the remainder to a phony nonprofit organization with a post office box for an address. At the end of the year, the nonprofit would fold, having donated all the money to worthy causes—namely Morgan and Sheldon.

Politicians who needed more money for one reason or another were given “advances” through the bogus political action committees. In return, they would pretty much stay mum on whatever happened to be the police scandal of the moment.

As he checked his watch and looked around for Sheldon, Morgan thought of how untouchable they were. After all, who was going to check out an Internal Affairs supervisor like Morgan? If anything, other cops tried to stay away from him. And Sheldon? No one could touch him as long as Morgan was there to protect him from Internal Affairs investigations.

Every base was covered and the scam ran like clockwork. But that wasn’t always the case. Two years before, when a watchdog agency called the Police Civilian Review Board was founded, the clock almost ground to a halt.

The push for the creation of the board began after a college student was mistaken for a drug dealer and shot in the back by police. That case brought attention to instances of other young black men who had died in police custody. And though few people could disagree that it had to stop, the position of the police was simple. They were outmanned and outgunned by criminals. So even as the protests became more vocal, the shootings and beatings continued.

From the outset, the mayor and the Fraternal Order of Police—a police union of sorts—were against the board’s creation. They claimed that it would impede the department’s ability to perform. But as the pressure mounted, the issue became a political hot potato. Anyone who came down against it would look antiblack. And in a city whose electorate is largely African-American, that’s not a good stance to take.

Eventually, several city council members forged a compromise. They created the board as a lame duck, thanks in large part to Sheldon’s influence in city council. But as luck would have it, the one council member who was virtually incorruptible was selected to run the board. That member was Councilman Johnny Podres.

Initially, they tried to win him over with hefty campaign contributions. But money didn’t work. In fact, Podres became more obstinate than ever. The board became his personal power base, and the police department became his whipping boy.