Shorts - Thriller 2: Stories You Just Can't Put Down (11 page)

I didn’t say anything. What could I say? I knew I’d kill to keep this house if it were ever mine. Dan smiled sadly. He reached up and touched my cheek. The heat of his hand felt so good that I missed it when he took it away.

“I knew you’d understand. That’s why I love you. We’re so different, but we’re the same in the ways that count.”

“If you don’t make enough to afford…everything, and you didn’t inherit enough to keep it…?” I asked.

Dan broke eye contact. “There’s no way to sugarcoat this, Monica. I’ve been dealing.”

“Narcotics?” I said, stunned. He nodded.

“Cocaine, mostly. No heroin. I wouldn’t do that. Some marijuana. I’m careful. I sell to select customers, friends mostly, some of my clients. It’s actually the only thing I’ve ever done well on my own.”

I got out of bed and walked to the window. I didn’t know what to say.

“Why are you telling me this?” I asked. “Do you have any idea of the spot you’ve put me in?”

“I do appreciate the moral dilemma I’ve created for you, but it’s not going to be a problem anymore. I love you and I knew I couldn’t keep seeing you if I didn’t come clean about this. I respect what you do, being a cop. I don’t ever want to compromise you.”

I turned back toward the bed. “Well, you have. I should bust you after what you’ve confessed to me.”

“You don’t have to, Monica. I told you so there wouldn’t be any secrets between us, and the reason I’m telling you now is that it’s all going to stop. I had to make a choice between you and dealing, and it wasn’t even close. But I didn’t know how you’d feel about that. If you’d still want to stay with me.”

“Why should I object if you stop selling dope?”

“You don’t understand. If I stop dealing,
this,
” he said, waving his hand around the room, “is all going to end—the house and the cars and the restaurants and…everything.”

“What do you mean?”

“What I said. Without the cocaine, I can’t afford the lifestyle and there won’t be any more cocaine.”

“Because of me?”

“That’s the biggest part of it, but there’s also a practical reason. If I was religious I’d see the hand of God at work.” Dan smiled. “I knew I loved you soon after we met and I knew I’d have to stop dealing if I wanted to keep you, but I didn’t know how I was going to get out of the life. The people I worked for are very dangerous. I was afraid of what they’d do if I told them I wasn’t going to deal for them anymore and they found out I was dating a cop, and they would have found out. These guys are very connected. I…Well, I worried—really worried—that they might hurt you, or threaten to hurt you if I told them I was going to quit.”

“Jesus, Dan,” I said, really worried because I knew what he said was true. There are dealers that wouldn’t think twice about killing a cop.

“Its okay, Monica. You don’t have to worry.” He laughed. “Talk about your acts of God.” He smiled. “The week before we met, my connection was busted. Then, right after you arrested me, the DEA arrested the head of the cartel he worked for.”

“Who was he?”

“Alberto Perez.” I’d heard about the bust. Perez was big. “They got him in Miami with millions of dollars worth of coke and they got most of his organization, too. It’s
finito.
”

“Your connection didn’t sell you out?”

“I worried about that a lot. When we started dating, I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. But it didn’t, and I think I know why. I’m small potatoes. The feds aren’t going to waste time on someone who deals at my level. You know that. Besides, I’d sold all my product. I was supposed to get some more from the shipment they confiscated. So, I’m clean. There’d be no hard evidence I was a dealer, even if they wanted me. It’s been two months now. More since my connection was arrested. So, I’m guessing I’m safe.”

I turned back to the ocean but I didn’t see it. I was thinking too hard about how much I trusted Dan and what I was willing to do to keep him.

“So, what will you do?” I asked to stall for time.

“I’ll have to sell most of what I have. I can get a bundle for the house. The cars will have to go. I sat down with my accountant. I’ll be in good shape if I watch my money. But the life you’ve seen me lead, that’s over.”

The house!
I couldn’t bear it. To be this close to living the life I’d dreamed of living for so many years, and then to have it snatched away. Dan was talking but I wasn’t listening. I was upset, but there’s this thing about me. I can wall off my emotions when I need to make a serious decision. It comes in handy as a cop and it was coming in handy now. I had a good idea of how
I could save the house, but I wanted to think before I said anything to Dan. There was too much at stake. So I got back in bed and I wrapped my arms around him and kissed him.

“I love you, Dan,” I said. “I want to be with you. You’ll be okay. We’ll be okay. We’ll be working stiffs. That’s not so bad. I’ve been one all my life. You’ll see. We’ll be fine.”

Dan rested his head on my shoulder. “You don’t know what this means to me. I was so worried you’d leave me when you found out how big a phony I am.”

“You’re not a phony. You just got hooked on this lifestyle the way your customers got hooked on coke. And it’s not like you’ll have to go cold turkey. We’re going to do fine once you sell this stuff.

“And it is only stuff,” I said, but I didn’t mean that.

I was still working the call-girl sting and busting johns kept me away from Dan for a week. I didn’t like the work. To tell the truth, it made me feel sleazy. Most of the poor bastards we arrested had never been in trouble with the law before. They looked so pathetic when I flashed my badge. I guess it was the futility of it all that got me. We were never going to stamp out prostitution. It was the world’s oldest profession for a reason.

I felt the same way about drugs. People were always going to want something to make them feel better, even if it was only for a little while, and they were going to buy coke or a hooker even if it was illegal. I thought they should legalize drugs and prostitution and let us concentrate on murderers, con men and armed robbers, but no one in the state legislature cared what I thought, so I spent most of the week after Dan told me about his problem dressed like a high-priced tart.

I spent the other part checking up on Dan. I cared for him, but I’m not naive. He’d lied to me about dealing and I wanted to know if he’d lied about anything else. I used the usual Internet
sources to find out what was on the Web. He was quite the socialite and the history he’d given me checked out. Then I ran a check on the house, his cars and everything else he had ever owned. Everything he’d told me checked out there, too. Finally, I used my computer to tap in to federal and state law enforcement files that are only available to cops. All I found was a DUI from his sophomore year in college that was resolved when Dan went into a diversion program. All in all, I was satisfied that Dan was being straight with me, so I set up a meeting with some people I know.

I told Dan my idea after dinner at an inexpensive Mexican restaurant in my neighborhood. Dan joked that I was trying to break him into our new life, but I really liked the place and I liked being able to wear jeans to dinner and not having to worry about not knowing what the dishes on the menu were.

I kept the conversation at dinner about police work, telling Dan war stories about some of the weird things cops encounter on the job, and I waited until we were back at the house on Pine Terrace before I told him what I’d been doing.

“How’s everything going?” I asked.

“How’s what going?”

“You know, selling the house, the Rolls?”

He looked sad. “I’ve talked with a few Realtors to get an idea of what it will bring. The Rolls and the Lamborghini will go next week.”

“Maybe not,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

I felt as if I was standing on a ledge about to jump. I had no idea how Dan would react to what I was going to propose or whether we’d still be together after I had my say.

“There may be a way to save the house and everything else.”

“I’m not following you.”

“I might be able to put you in touch with someone.”

“I’m still not following you.”

“You’re not the only one with secrets,” I said nervously. “I’ve been doing a few things I shouldn’t, too.”

Dan stared at me openmouthed. “You don’t mean…?”

“I’m not gonna be a cop all my life. I’ve seen how cops live and what cops make. I want to be someone, Dan. I was working narcotics until we started this call-girl sting. About a year ago I was involved in a big bust. Peter Pride.”

“You were in on that?”

I nodded.

“Pride walked.”

“Yes, he did. Want to know why?”

Dan didn’t say anything.

“Key evidence disappeared and I started a Swiss bank account. Nothing huge, but something for my old age.”

“Didn’t some cop get busted for that? I thought I read…”

I nodded. “That was the one part I didn’t like. Bobby Marino. I had nothing to do with that. Pride hated him and he set him up. It doesn’t matter now and there’s nothing I can do about it. But, I can fix you up with Pride. What do you say?”

Dan’s tongue flicked out and he wet his lips.

“I don’t know. These guys I was dealing with…They were bad but Pride’s a killer.”

“They’re all killers, Dan, but Pride’s a killer who pays well. I’ve been tipping him off for a year now. He likes me. You need this,” I said, waving my hand at the view, “and I need you. What do you say?”

“Let me think. Pride is a whole new ball game.”

Dan called me a week later and we met for lunch. While we waited for the waitress to bring our order he held my hand.

“I’ve been thinking about Pride and I’ll do it.”

“Oh, Dan,” I said, because it’s all I could think to say. He
smiled and tightened his grip and I squeezed back. I was that happy.

“One thing, though,” he said.

“What’s that?”

“From now on, you’re out.”

I started to protest, but he cut me off.

“I mean it. I didn’t like getting arrested, even for a misdemeanor like prostitution. I don’t even want to think what would happen if they arrested a cop for what you’re doing.”

“I’m a big girl, Dan.”

“I’ve never doubted that, but I’m sticking to my guns. From now on, I’m the one taking the risks or the house goes on the market, as planned.”

Sergei Kariakin was Russian Mafia, which meant he didn’t just kill babies for fun, he ate them, too. The only place he was called Sergei or Kariakin was on his rap sheet where his name was followed by “aka Peter Pride.” Sergei loved America, which he called “the land of criminal opportunity,” and he had adopted an alias he thought sounded like the name of a movie or rock star. The fact that he was as ugly as his crimes and couldn’t carry a tune didn’t faze him and no one dared point out these problems.

Normally, there were several firewalls between Peter and the narcotics and sex slaves that were his bread and butter, but he’d made a mistake two years ago and had faced certain conviction until the key evidence in his case disappeared from the police evidence locker. I had a gambling problem back then and someone had told Peter’s lawyer about it. One evening, a very polite gentleman who never gave me his name made me a proposition. Within a week, my gambling debt had been retired and Peter’s problem had been solved. I stopped gambling cold turkey, but I stayed on Peter’s payroll, dropping timely tips about raids and snitches when I could get away with it.

My meeting with Pride took place in the dead of night in a deserted industrial park. Neither of us could afford to be seen socializing with the other. At first, Peter was reluctant to bring Dan into his organization. Even if he hadn’t been picked up after Alberto Perez was arrested, Pride worried that Dan was on the DEA’s radar screen. I told him I’d poked around and, as far as I could tell, the DEA didn’t know Dan existed. I pitched Dan’s upper-class clientele and the opportunity it presented to Pride to broaden his market.

A week later, Dan and I met Peter in an abandoned warehouse at three in the morning. The meeting ended with Peter agreeing to front Dan a kilo of cocaine. If everything went well, there was a promise of more to follow. I was so pumped up on the way back to Pine Terrace that I didn’t feel the effects of being up for more than twenty-four hours. As soon as we were inside the house I started ripping off Dan’s clothing. I don’t even remember how we got from the entryway to the bedroom.

The next afternoon, I was so beat I had trouble keeping my eyes open. I staggered into police headquarters and found a note asking me to see Sergeant Groves. Groves was a handsome black man with a trim mustache and a serious demeanor. It was rare for him to lighten up and he looked even more tense than usual when I walked into his office and found him sitting with Jack Gripper and a man and a woman I didn’t recognize.

“Shut the door, Monica,” Groves ordered. I did and he motioned me into the only available seat.

“You’re in deep shit,” he said.

There was a DVD player on Groves’s desk. He hit the play button and I heard myself telling Dan how I’d helped Peter Pride beat his case. My heart seized up. The conversation had taken place in the bedroom of the house on Pine Terrace. I wanted to ask how they’d recorded it, but I was too frightened to speak.

“That confession will send you away,” Groves said.

My throat was as dry as the Sahara. I knew I shouldn’t say anything without a lawyer, but I still asked, “What do you want?”

“Pride,” answered the woman.

I was in shock, but part of my brain was running through my alternatives.

“You can’t use that tape. You’d have to have bugged the house.”

“We can use it if we planted the bug with the permission of the owner,” she said, and I felt myself die a little.

Dan had been arrested the day after his connection was busted. Jack Gripper had been in on the arrest and he remembered what I’d told him about the house. Bobby Marino had gone down for stealing the evidence in Pride’s case, but I became a suspect when a snitch in Pride’s organization told the police that he’d heard a woman took the evidence. One of the tips I’d given Pride had been a setup. Sergeant Groves had given the location and time of the raid only to me. When there was no one at the house that was raided they knew I was guilty, Gripper and I were switched to the call-girl sting and Dan was told to give me a call. Nature took its course after that.