Out of the Blues (26 page)

A
t the front of the strategic planning room, a blueprint of the Toy Dolls Club was projected onto the pull-down screen. Officers and commanders were arriving, gathering in groups mostly according to assignment: SWAT in their green fatigues, narcs, patrol units from the precincts, homicide detectives, and the white-shirt commanders. Detectives and officers filled in the seats behind their respective supervisors in the front row. One of the admin officers from the Public Affairs Unit went back and forth from the lectern to a computer console, where he changed the contrast on the screen and adjusted the feedback from the overhead speakers. An officer from tech support kept tapping the intermittently working microphone on the lectern.

Most of Salt's shift from Homicide was already there. Wills and Gardner came in and sat down beside her, and some of the day shift, Hamm and her partner, had stayed over to attend the meeting. Hamm tapped Salt's shoulder as they ambled by. In all, there were now about thirty people who'd come to coordinate the execution of
the warrant on Toy Dolls. A photo of DeWare alternated with the image of the Toy Dolls' floor plan on the screen, and the flyers with his picture and description were being distributed throughout the room. His dark face loomed—no scars, marks, or tattoos, clean-shaven, but he had a hardened scowl and feral stare.

Pepper came in with one of the other narcotics guys and sat to her left, elbowing her as he settled into the chair. “Another fine mess you've gotten us into, Ollie.”

“Oh, God, Pepper, this fuckin' scares me. I'd rather go in alone than have all this drama.” She pushed back on the chair, widening her eyes, trying to find an even breath.

“Hey, relax, girl. We're in the big time now, not just hanging our raggedy asses out in patrol cars.” He put his arm over her shoulder and punched Wills on her other side. Wills flipped his tie, Oliver Hardy–style, back at Pepper.

“Let's get going, people.” The Special Operations commander called them to order. “I'm not gong to waste your time and neither are the rest of the white shirts.”

The room erupted in loud applause and approving whistles.

“That means he's got a lunch date,” whispered Wills.

“All right, all right.” The commander held his hands up to silence the room. “Sergeant Huff will review the cases that got us here. Lieutenant Shepherd will give us the available intelligence on the location, the Toy Dolls Club, and SWAT will detail the tactical plan.” The commander moved away from the podium, started to his seat, then came back. “Just one more thing from me. Any of you fuc . . . fellows with EJ ties to this club or any other property owned by the same company should know that as of recently they are under surveillance, and phone records will be subpoenaed if there is even a whiff of a tip-off. You all better pray we find drugs and our suspect.”

Wills leaned his head close to her, speaking out of the side of his
mouth. “I hear they sent Madison to a week's training on the coast. He thinks he's being groomed to be our poster boy for the film people. He's out there playing golf, schmoozing with honchos on the links.”

“I'd be very happy if they hired him,” Salt said.

The plan included details about where they'd coordinate—not far from the club at a small commercial area abandoned by its box-store anchor—and the day and time—midnight, a few hours before the club closed, in two days' time. SWAT would make first entry, securing employees and patrons, and search for the suspect. Then Narcotics would search the premises for drugs. Homicide would assist in interviewing employees and any customers that might have information relevant to their investigations. They had two days until execution.

DeWare's photo had been left on the screen. His eyes were deep-set. He had a pronounced U-shaped chin and lacked fat and muscle, so his skin adhered closely to the bone. The overall effect was skull-like—probably the last image two little girls and their mother had seen the night they were murdered.

M
anuel's Tavern was one of the last holdouts for smokers in the city. Long a bastion for an unusual mix of cops, liberal politicians, and newspeople, it was a couple of blocks north of the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum. But you could still smoke at the bar, and Salt guessed that might be one of the reasons Reverend Gray chose to meet her there. Manuel's was also the PD's bar, every Thursday full of cops, every other Thursday, paydays, full of cops drinking a lot.

The big rooms of the half-block establishment were covered with photos of Manuel, his family, and the staff, with heroes from sports and politics; the Braves and Jimmy Carter were prominently featured. Then there was the table over which hung a sign identifying it as “The Seventh Precinct.” Alongside hung an iconic photo of former members of the old Homicide Hat Squad, guns pointing at the camera in a shooting stance, sixties-style cool. Elections at any level of government were followed on overhead TVs, as were significant sports
events. Late hours found old print men, newswomen, sportscasters, and local city and state politicians, as well as the occasional congressman, arguing past their cutoff, barely able to mumble at one another.

Manuel, pronounced “Manyule” by locals, had recently died, and the third generation of his Lebanese family was continuing the tradition of banning anyone who carried public tales of what went on in the smoky tavern. The rule was firm. Careers had ended when Manuel's severed connections.

It was after noon and Salt hadn't had breakfast, was just starting what was going to be a long day—the warrant execution was scheduled to convene at eleven p.m. Gray was already there, an empty shot glass beside a smoking cigarette in the cut-glass ashtray at his wrist. When she came up to the bar, he squinted through the smoke from his cigarette. “Ah, it's the Good Detective,” he said, smiling and stubbing out the butt. Like the last time she'd seen him, he wore jeans, and ashes littered the top of his T-shirt-covered beer belly like dandruff.

“You make me sound like a character in a parable.” She leaned an elbow on the long bar. “I need to eat. Can we go to a booth? Bring the ashtray. I'm okay with smoking. I occasionally light up myself.”

“I knew I liked you.” He threw back the nonexistent dregs in the shot glass, took two steps, and fell heavily into one of the booths along the bar wall.

Salt slid in across from him. “I heard that you left Haven House. I appreciated the help you gave me with Lil D last year.” She looked up as one of the managers tapped her on his way by and congratulated her on the promotion. She nodded thanks.

“You were promoted? What happened to the kid? Both his parents died, right?”

“Yeah, promoted to detective. Lil D's still in the street, but I keep
hoping he'll move away from the thug life. Right now I'm working a case that keeps me coming back to Haven House. You want something to eat? My dime.”

Reverend Gray said he wanted to taper off with a beer, and Salt ordered a loaded bagel.

“I'd bet you good money that there are few to no degrees of separation between Haven House and many crimes committed in our beloved city,” said Gray after the waitress left. “My faith wore out.” He shook out another cigarette.

“What about—” Salt nodded at Gray's shirt, on which was printed a large faded Christian cross from neck to navel and across his chest. “You know, the God thing?”

“Oh, that.” Gray gave her an ironic grimace. “The Jesus, Son of God, died-for-your-sins thing? You wouldn't know it from looking at me.” He brushed some ashes off the crossbeam. “I actually am ordained. Went to a good school, master's from Candler seminary. But somewhere between the thousands and thousands of stinking, lice-ridden, rotting-flesh, crazy-as-a-shithouse-rat men that came through Haven House and Reverend Midas Prince, I lost my religion.”

Salt leaned back so the waitress could put down her bagel and Gray's beer. “I can imagine you might.”

“Cheers,” he said, lifting his glass. “You probably can imagine—the cop thing and all.”

“Did you have any dealings with Sandy Madison?”

“I know Madison takes care of security at the shelter and the church, but I was never part of that aspect of the place. I got along with whoever Madison hired. We never had more than one off-duty cop, and that was only part-time.”

“How much direct contact does Prince have with Haven House residents? Who organizes his participation?”

“Prince has had a series of coordinators that he claims to be mentoring. Most of them come and go, but D.V. is always at his side.”

“D.V.?” Salt had seen those letters recently, seen men painting over the tag on the parking lot wall. “D.V.” She remembered the roller passing over the V.

“Devarious Twiggs, slim, light skin?”

“I think I saw him at Big Calling, and then again just yesterday at the shelter,” Salt said.

“
Dee
various.” Gray emphasized the first syllable, draining his beer glass. “You go to church, Detective?”

“I grew up in the church. Does that count?” she answered. “Actually my grandfather was an old hellfire preacher, a hard man, my dad used to say.”

“Oh, yeah. I know the type—some of those guys around here still. Then you've got the prosperity gospel types like Prince, Edith Cents, and Cameron Short. They fleece the sheep.”

“There are shepherds, like you, who treat the sheep for hoof rot,” she said. “What exactly were your responsibilities at the shelter?”

“My title was services coordinator. I was expected to liaison with whatever community services were available and to match the residents to services, according to their needs—addicts to treatment, veterans to VA, those with housing needs, et cetera. ‘Hoof rot'?”

“It's a shepherd thing, a disease sheep get if their hooves aren't treated properly.”

“Well, I had more than five hundred ‘sheep' coming and going and only part-time volunteer staff that didn't know lice from rice. I couldn't even keep track of who was a resident and who was there just to flop or deal. Fights every fucking night, infestations of bedbugs and lice. Not enough showers, toilets, sanitary sleeping mats. We couldn't meet even the most basic hygiene needs. And don't get me
started about mental health issues—that was the worst, watching people self-medicate with street drugs.”

“Any treatment programs?” she asked.

“Very little. Midas sponsored some kind of select rehab program that D.V. coordinated. According to him, they were choosing only the very young because they were the most likely to be redeemable and the most at risk. After their initial intake I never saw them again—except maybe they'd be with D.V. and Midas occasionally.” Gray took a long drag off his cigarette. “I know how that sounds now. When I first started there ten years ago, I was so invested, so burning with the conviction I could save not only souls but lives.” He chuckled bitterly. “And the longer I stayed, the deeper my investment, and I was just not able to face facts about what a failure it all has been.”

“That's kind of harsh, don't you think? I'm sure there were salvations.”

“Little salvations.” He looked into his empty beer glass.

“They add up, don't you think?” Salt asked him.

“Let us hope so.” Gray lowered his head.

Salt couldn't tell if he was praying or passing out. “Rev?”

“What? Sorry.” He slid out of the booth. “I'm looking for a job, by the way. If you hear of anything, you have my number.” The minister trundled down the short hall to the back door of the tavern, backlit by light filtering through one of the faux stained-glass windows.

O
n the south side of the city, a mile or so from the Toy Dolls Club, the last full moon of April shone directly over the weedy parking lot behind an abandoned big-box store. Salt leaned back against the sergeant's car trying to loosen her shoulders. More and more of the participants arrived—SWAT, Narcotics and their raid van, uniform officers from the zone, detectives, commanders—everybody geared up. She could feel superfluous with SWAT guys on the scene, all turned out in full gear; enough to intimidate the baddest of the bad, they looked like morphing sci-fi characters, able to transform themselves as needed. SWAT, Special Weapons And Tactics. From head to toe they were prepared and protected: helmets, face shields, body armor, Tasers, gas canisters, batons, guns—sidearms and long guns—and black full-body ballistic shields, knee pads, and arm guards for crawling rough terrain. And it wasn't just gear. They were in top shape, spending portions of most shifts in physical training. They were tested and trained, psychologically and tactically. So when they arrived, fifteen of them from having just
completed another course with the Israelis, dismounting from their transport, it was impressive and sobering, if one needed more sobering, which Salt did not. She was feeling the pressure, being new, having been the one to initiate all this, putting officers at risk, including Pepper and Wills. She began the ubiquitous female cop's career-long dance with her bladder—to pee or not to pee, hydrate or not.

“Namaste.” Salt turned around to find Pepper, wearing a black face mask, bowing to her. He was in all black: jeans, T-shirt, protective vest, and jacket with “Narcotics” in large reflective letters on both sides of his chest and in larger letters on his back.

“Doing the full ninja, huh? You look like a character in the movies. Actually this whole thing feels surreal,” she said. “Oh, God. I think I'm going to be sick,” she said, bending from her waist.

“Stick with me, kid,” said Pepper, Bogart accent behind the lip holes.

“You know—” she began to say.

The SWAT lieutenant circled his finger above his head and everyone started for the vehicles. Huff and the Things trotted toward the car.

“We're moving.” Pepper interrupted, nodding at his team already loading up. He ran toward them.

Pepper was already out of earshot, jumping in with his team. “You know . . . You know more than you think,” she said as the door to the van shut. “Namaste, Pepper. Namaste.”

The back door of the SWAT transport had barely shut when, led by the commanders in marked cars, they sped out of the lot, the caravan of vehicles tight behind, leaving no room for citizen traffic. She'd no more than sat down in the front passenger seat, door not yet closed, when Huff put the pedal down and tore out behind Wills and Gardner's Taurus.

The inside of Huff's unmarked smelled like stale French fries with
a vanilla deodorizer overlay. The Things in the backseat were quiet. Huff was quiet. And then they were there—twenty police vehicles, blue lights splashing against the pinks and purples of the neon sign on the metal derrick above, “Dolls, Dolls, Dolls” flashing over a reclining female silhouette. The glowing full moon shone from between the steel frames. SWAT—rifles and shotguns at port arms, boots thudding, ran along the sides of the building, secured the entrance, and surrounded the flat, big, one-story club. Salt, Huff, and the Things covered the front beside the entrance. Vibrations from the music inside pulsed the concrete bricks at Salt's back. The Narcotics team swarmed the dozen or so cars in the black-surface parking lot, doing tactical quick peeks before clearing each car. Salt lost sight of Wills when his car followed some of the others to the rear of the club.

SWAT was in. There were two or three brief screams followed by sharp commands and muffled yells, and then the team leader came over the dedicated radio frequency to give the signal that the people in the main areas had been detained and that Narcotics could enter to assist and search. The black-clad detectives streamed in, silent, fluid, guns held snug to their legs. Salt couldn't tell Pepper from the others. As they went through the double doors, the pounding music bubbled out. It seemed like it took only seconds to secure patrons and employees and the all clear was given, and then Salt and Huff's team entered.

She rounded the flat-black wall in the alcove that separated the entrance area from the main room and holstered her weapon. One of the SWAT guys yelled, “Somebody find the damn light switch.” No one had yet located the house lights, and the stage was bathed in a pink-and-gold swirling disco glow. Multicolored pin lights bounced off the black-tiled drop ceiling. Patrons occupied four or five of the tables: one gray-looking white man sat by himself among the mostly black clientele, two dark-skinned women with shaved heads were
at another table, while three older black men sat at a four-top table; there were several younger guys sitting together wearing fake-diamond pendants and shiny athletic jerseys. A dancer in high heels and a G-string sat on the edge of the three-foot-high stage casually swinging her legs to the heavy-on-the-bass music that blared from speakers overhead. She was cuffed in front with plastic flex cuffs, but someone had been chivalrous and thrown a windbreaker over her bare shoulders and pendulous breasts, which were taking a rest on her soft belly, only partially covered by the jacket.

Bumping and scraping, accompanied by barked words, orders, or radio checkpoint queries, came from farther within the club. Two heavyset female employees in Dolls-logoed T-shirts, also in plastic restraints, sat on the floor of the hallway that led toward the back of the club. Strategically positioned SWAT guys stood ready while Lieutenant Shepherd directed her team to begin the search for drugs. “Somebody find the lights,” she said. “They can probably use your help backstage.” She pointed Salt to the far right of the room. “In the dressing room.” Huff nodded, acknowledging Salt's departure while he and the Things sat down at one of the tables and began to interview the occupants of the room, all of whom had their phones face-down on the tables in front of them.

“Can I talk to you?” the gray man asked as Salt passed. “I need to go home—my wife.”

“Give us a few,” she said, knowing it would be past his bedtime before he made it home. His phone was already lit and vibrating.

Another of the SWAT team officers, a tall woman, stood at the entrance to the backstage area, face shield in the up position. “Salt.” She smiled, a giddy gleam in her eye, teeth sparkling in the disco light.

“Girlfriend,” she said, walking past and through the beaded curtain and beginning to feel some relief at the initially safe entry.

Two racks of sequined and feathered garments crowded a narrow passage through to a classic noir dressing room—incandescent bulb-lined mirror stations, more costume racks, and a shower-curtained changing room in the rear. There was even a lit cigarette, its plume of smoke drifting up from a glass ashtray on the dressing table beside a very dark-skinned girl with a large yellow butterfly painted around her eyes. She wore only a pair of iridescent wings. “Whatever you find ain't mine,” she said, wings fluttering as she gestured to the masked narcotics detective standing over her.

“What might we find, madam?” asked the detective. He grinned and winked at Salt.

“Who you calling ‘madam,' Black-face?” Her wings beat faster.

Two more narcotics men, neither of them Pepper, had begun the dressing room search, beginning at the curtained-off area.

Turning to go back to the main room, the answer obvious, Salt asked anyway out of courtesy, “You need me?”

“Thanks, but she ain't concealing,” said the detective with Madam Butterfly.

Back in the main room music was still pumping from the ceiling corners. Another SWAT guy occupied a staircase leading up to a low-windowed room overlooking the club, where Lieutenant Shepherd could be seen moving back and forth while one of her team stood on the balcony in front of the window fiddling with an electronics console. Wills and Huff were assisting the two female barkeeps to their feet, bringing them into separate corners to be questioned. Another narcotics detective yelled down from the balcony, “Sarge, ask them where switches for the lights are. We can't get them to come on at the control panel.” Huff leaned toward his detainee, then yelled back. “Mop closet”—music cut off abruptly, the room suddenly silent—“second door on the left,” Huff yelled, now unnecessarily loud. A glass shelf behind the bar came unhinged and its contents, glasses and bottles,
came shattering to the chrome coolers underneath. The nearby detective winced and shrugged.

“I'll get the lights.” Salt went to find the light box, breathing better now that the danger had passed. Realizing her shoulders had been hunched, she lowered them and rolled her head, loosening her neck muscles. The door she was looking for was marked “EMPLOYEES ONLY” in black plastic letters. The mop closet and all the other rooms—main room, dressing room, restrooms, and office—had been cleared as SWAT made their way through. But Salt, out of habit, stood to the side of the door as she opened it and did the quick peek, feeling a little self-conscious. A single fluorescent tube lit the closet in which there was a bucket, a mop, cleaning supplies on metal shelving, and the electrical panel. She opened the panel and flipped the lever marked for the house lights. Salt stuck her head out and confirmed the main areas were now lit. The closet stank of sour mop. Dust and pieces of insulation fell from the exposed crawl space above, where there was no finished ceiling, only ductwork, pipes, and wiring. The music blasted back on briefly. More debris drifted from above.

Units were reporting in on the radio. “Clear.” “Team One, Clear.” “Clear Narcotics, Team Two.” “Product, Team Three.” Salt listened to the units, allowing herself a second of relief—Team Three was reporting success in locating the stash. She hoped it was indeed a stash, not just a joint in an ashtray.

She looked up at the falling particles, upended the bucket, and stood on top of it in order to grab the top of the attached shelves and pull her head through the ceiling opening. As her eyes adjusted to the unlit space, DeWare's skull-like face came into focus. From a prone position near the edge his eyes glared out of the dark, inches from her face. She let go and dropped back to the closet floor as he came down on top of her, bringing with him part of the metal shelving, one of the
brackets slashing her arm and shoulder. DeWare slammed her to the floor and tore the gun from beneath her injured arm. He stomped her shoulder, head, and hand, making an
umphf
sound each time he slammed the heel of his boot into her. She lay there unmoving, waiting for her chance, but he stuck his head out the door, her gun in his hand as he slipped from the closet. She pushed up and staggered out on his heels. Salt instantly, instinctively knew it was Pepper, still wearing his face mask, coming out of the stairwell at the other end of the hall. DeWare with her gun was headed straight at him. She stumbled, grabbing for DeWare, realizing Pepper wouldn't risk a shot if she was in the line of fire. Just as she caught his leg, DeWare fired at Pepper, who ducked into the stairwell. “Hold your positions. Hold your positions,” ordered a commander from somewhere below.

DeWare turned, put the gun to her head. “Get the fuck up or I will blow your fucking brains out right here and now.” He dragged her past Pepper and the cops stacked behind him in the stairwell, then out the back door to the parking lot. He backed her toward an SUV, her shoulder going numb, blood soaking down the sleeve of her ripped jacket.

“I am going to shoot each one of your feet, your hands, and then your legs if you do not get in the ride and drive exactly how I tell you.” DeWare shoved the gun into her right breast, opened the driver's door, and motioned her behind the wheel. As he got in the backseat, he fired twice in Pepper's direction, at the back door of the club. DeWare put the gun beside her cheek and cocked the hammer. “The Homes,” he said as she put the vehicle in gear. “And give me your walkie-talkie.”

“My hand is fucked-up,” she told him, trying to get to the radio on her left side. She drove out to the deserted thoroughfare that fronted the club. At least two of the fingers of her left hand wouldn't work
and pain shot up her arm, but she got the radio off her belt. DeWare grabbed it and threw it from the window.

“Move it.” They passed a few lone, hollow-eyed pedestrians. “Put the speed on or you will die.”

North on Metropolitan, Salt began to feel woozy and dissociated, while her body seemed to buzz. She drove mindlessly, knowing the streets to The Homes; in her sleep she could get there. She tried to interpret the sounds of DeWare's movements in the seat behind her. He smelled of the metallic scent of stale sweat tinged with crack cocaine, rendered by new sweat and adrenaline.

The citizens who traveled these streets by day had good reasons to quit them by this hour. DeWare's dark face, his body in dark shirt and pants, twisting and turning in the backseat, created a shifting black void that blocked her view in the rearview mirror. The street in the rearview appeared deserted, though she felt certain that Pepper and others must be following. They passed a new-looking Taurus, headlights off, parked at a dark, closed gas station pump. A mile later DeWare told her to turn left onto a one-lane street. He reached over her shoulder and turned the headlights off. “Keep driving.”

She strained after the sound of a vehicle passing on the road, but once again saw no lights. The white pavement of the deserted street, made fully visible by the moonlight, was ragged with long, jagged cracks.

“Stop,” he said. “Stop here.”

They were at the bend of a little street, a street that led to nowhere and she knew it. It had been intended as an access to the adjacent low-lying property that developers had failed to develop. High weeds bordered the broken pavement. About a hundred yards away a single streetlight, farther past the bend, was the only sign that the street was still intended for use.