Because the original meeting was going to be in the public bar, Drew had not arranged for backup and surveillance. He was not comfortable heading into this situation, where he might be vulnerable, so he told Rodney that he would follow him in his car. That way he’d be able to call in for backup while he was on the way, and they could follow the GPS device that he would activate on his car.
But when they got to the parking lot, it all changed for the worse. Much worse. Rodney’s brother Alex was waiting there, and he came up behind Drew and held a gun to his back. Then he took Drew’s concealed weapon, forced him into Rodney’s car, and they drove off together.
Drew was alone, and he was in trouble.
They drove to a service station about three miles away. The station was closed for the night, but the back room was open and occupied. Still at gunpoint, Drew was forced into that room, where two other men were waiting for them.
One of the men was Earl Raulston, the third member of the group. The other was a man the three conspirators knew only as Carter. They assumed it was a last name, but no one was really sure. What was obvious, however, even to Drew, was that Carter did not fit in with this crew and that he was in charge.
“Where is his gun?” were the first words out of Carter’s mouth. Alex, obviously proud that he had been the one to confiscate it, rushed over to Carter to hand it to him. Carter looked in the chamber to confirm that it was loaded and then put it on the table.
“You are an undercover officer attempting to thwart our operation,” Carter said.
“Hey, man, this is bullshit,” was Drew’s response. “Rodney here said there was some action to get in on, that’s all. If you don’t want me, that’s cool.”
Carter had no intention of arguing the point. Instead he took out his own gun and, without hesitating, shot Drew in the head, killing him instantly.
The others in the room were stunned, but no one was about to offer any criticism. “I knew he was dirty,” Rodney said.
“This doesn’t change anything, does it?” Alex asked.
“Actually, it changes everything,” Carter said. He picked up Drew’s gun from the desk, and in a devastatingly quick motion, shot the other three men with it.
He had the ability to have cleanly killed each with one bullet in the center of the forehead, but that’s not how it would have gone down in a chaotic firefight. So now he fired more erratically, and in the case of Alex and Earl, used two shots to make the kill.
The three murders took fewer than five seconds, leaving Carter the only living person in the room. And he would be there for a while; this was a scene that would have to be choreographed.
What law enforcement would find would be implausible but not impossible. Which would be plenty good enough.
Sam Willis kept his glove compartment full. In addition to the registration, insurance card, and other documents that are found in most cars, he kept a substantial number of wrapped Weight Watchers Oatmeal Raisin Cookies. He found them surprisingly good, and even though they obviously weren’t fattening, he was able to overcome that deficiency by inhaling up to ten at a time.
But when Sam was driving, the glove compartment was also an electronics warehouse. He kept his iPad, iPhone, and BlackBerry tucked away in there, which was essentially an act of self-preservation. Sam simply could not resist talking on the phone and texting while driving, so he protected himself from those unsafe activities by putting the devices out of reach.
That is why he had none of those distractions during his nighttime drive to Barry Price’s house in Smoke Rise, New Jersey, about forty-five minutes from Paterson. Sam was cutting it pretty tight; with no traffic he’d get there at eight forty-five, which was when Barry told him to arrive.
Unfortunately, the forty-five-minute estimate did not take into account the accident on Route 23 that had traffic backed up for almost a mile. Sam’s GPS, the one device that wasn’t banished to the glove compartment, alerted him to the problem, and he got off the road to take back streets.
He found himself on a dark country road and basically had no idea where he was, but with his GPS he wasn’t worried about getting lost. He was more concerned about being late and considered calling Barry, but that would have meant stopping to get the phone out, which would have just taken more time.
He heard the thump more than he felt it, but it jolted him. He had hit something, there was no question about that, but he had no idea what it was. It was most likely an animal, but in the darkness Sam couldn’t be sure.
He had a momentary desire to just drive on, but he couldn’t do it. He had to stop and find out what happened.
Sam pulled over but immediately realized that whatever he had hit was behind him, in an area where it was too dark for him to see. So he did a U-turn and crossed over to the other side of the road, angling the car so the headlights might light up the area he thought he needed to search.
He got out and walked toward the brush on the side of the road, and for about a minute, which seemed like an hour, couldn’t find anything. Then he heard a noise. It was hard to tell exactly what the sound was, and he went toward it.
Sam was nervous; the noise seemed to be coming from the fairly heavy brush, and even with the car’s lights, it was hard for him to see. If a wounded animal was lying there, it could be dangerous.
And then he saw it, lying immobile but with eyes that were awake and alert. In the deep brush it was hard to tell what it was, maybe a coyote or maybe a dog, but the message in its eyes was clear:
Help me.
“Shit,” Sam said and ran back to his car. He got in and pulled it up very close to the animal, so the lights would better brighten that particular area. He also turned on the hazard blinking lights, and then he got out his cell phone to call the police. It wasn’t until after he dialed 911 that he realized there was insufficient cell service in the area.
Things were not going well, and to make matters worse, it was starting to rain.
He debated whether or not to drive until he got cell service but decided not to. First, he wasn’t sure that he’d be able to identify the location when he got back. Second, the animal was fairly close to the road, and there was a chance, albeit remote, that another car could drive over it.
So he stepped out into the road to flag down a passing car. In the steady rain it was somewhat dangerous, but the road wasn’t curved there, so Sam felt that oncoming drivers would have enough time to see him.
Unfortunately, there weren’t many cars, maybe one or two a minute. The first six cars passed him by, barely slowing to avoid him, but the seventh slowed to a stop. By then the rain was coming down hard.
He went to the passenger window, and when it opened he was surprised to see that the driver was a woman. She was at least sixty years old, and Sam wanted to tell her that she was nuts for stopping.
“Car trouble?” she asked.
He shook his head, which was by then soaked. “No, I hit an animal. It’s alive, and I was trying to call the police, but there’s no cell service.”
“Oh…” she said, apparently upset on the animal’s behalf. She took out her phone and looked at it. “I’ve got two bars. Let me try.”
And she did just that. He heard her tell the dispatcher that she was on the Canyon Road, three miles south of Kinnelon. She asked Sam his name, and told them that Sam would be waiting for their arrival. His nod confirmed that he would in fact be doing just that.
When she got off the phone, she asked Sam if he wanted her to wait as well. The truth was that he did, because she seemed competent to handle anything that arose, but instead he thanked her profusely and sent her on her way.
She was barely out of sight when he realized he had made a stupid mistake. He should have asked to use her phone to alert Barry to what had happened and explain that he would be late.
It took almost fifteen minutes for the police to arrive, during which time the rain got even more intense. A single squad car pulled up, and two officers got out.
“You Sam Willis?” one of them asked. Before Sam could even respond, he asked, “Where’s the dog?”
“I’m not sure it’s a dog, but it’s over here. And it’s alive.”
Sam led them to the spot, and the officers shined a flashlight on the wounded and drenched animal. Sam saw it and said, “It’s a dog.”
The other officer frowned and said, “We’ll take it from here.”
“What are you going to do with it?” he asked, afraid that they might shoot it on the spot.
“There’s an animal emergency hospital about two miles up the road. That’s where it’s going.”
“Is there anything I can do?” Sam asked.
“No,” he said, and then seemed to soften. “Don’t worry about it, pal. It’s dark here; you didn’t do anything wrong.”
The incident had left him shaken, and the look on the dog’s face would stay with him for a while. Sam got back in his car. It was only about seven minutes from where he was to Barry’s house, and rather than call he decided to just drive there.
It was an exclusive gated community, and a guard had to call Barry to get authorization for Sam to enter. Sam had gone through the same process the night before, at the party.
Each house in the development was impressive, and Barry’s might have been the nicest of all. The previous night there had been valet parking for all the guests, but when Sam pulled up this time, only Denise Price was there to greet him. Shielding herself from the rain with an umbrella, she went to the passenger window, and he lowered it.
“Hi, Sam. I’m sorry, but Barry asked me to tell you he couldn’t wait any longer and that he’d call you tomorrow.”
“Damn. There was traffic on the highway, so I got off the road and wound up hitting a dog.”
“Oh, no.”
“He’s alive but hurt pretty bad. Anyway, please apologize to Barry for me.”
“I’m sure he’ll understand,” she said. “Would you like to come in and dry off? Maybe have a cup of coffee?”
He laughed. “I don’t think I’ll ever be dry again. But coffee sounds good.”
“Come on in.” She looked in the backseat. “Your seat is all wet.” She opened the back door and wiped the seat down a bit.
“It’s fine,” he said. “The advantage of buying plastic.”
She laughed and closed the door. Sam got out of the car, looked up into the driving rain, and asked, “Barry’s flying in this?”
She nodded. “He’s a very experienced flier.”
“Good.”
Mine is a simple life. I don’t clutter it with rules, and I refuse to be bound by rigid preset routines.
Of course, there are certain things I do and others I don’t do. I think that in the last televised NFL game that I missed, the players wore leather helmets. I will never turn off a
Seinfeld
or
Honeymooners
rerun, and if Daniel Day-Lewis is in a movie, I’m there opening day.
Conversely, I have never been to a ballet or an opera since someone was foolish enough to invent them, I will neither read a Russian novel nor eat their soup, and you couldn’t strap me into a chair to watch a soccer game.
But there is one thing I do religiously, not because I’m obligated to but rather because it gives me immense enjoyment. I cannot remember the last day I didn’t take a walk with my golden retriever, Tara.
I do it because I enjoy spending time alone with her; it clears my mind and lets me focus on that which is important. I also do it because she so obviously loves it, and it’s a pleasure to watch her.
The only thing better than taking a walk, just Tara and me, is taking a walk, Tara, Laurie, and me. They are my two loves, and living under the same roof as them, and sharing walks with them, make every day the best one of my life. The only obvious exceptions to that are the two days that the Giants beat the Patriots in the Super Bowls.
Laurie and Tara are waiting for me on the front porch when I get home. It’s only forty-five degrees and raining lightly, but they don’t seem to mind. Within ten minutes we’re ambling along in Eastside Park, near our home in Paterson.
Once we get in the park, we take Tara off the leash. The leash is a device that I find demeaning to her, and not using it lets her roam at her pleasure, always remaining within our sight.
The park is not well lit and is said to be dangerous at night, but I’m not worried because Laurie is with us. She’s a former Paterson cop turned private investigator, and between her and Tara, I’m protected enough.
“Edna was working late tonight,” I say.
“Excuse me?”
“Well, not exactly working. She was in the office until past seven thirty, preparing for a crossword puzzle tournament.”
“Wow,” she says. Then, “What were you doing in the office?”
“Sam has a friend he wants me to take on as a client.”
She shakes her head in amazement. “Edna working late and you having a client. It’s a strange world we live in.”
“I told Sam no. I said I was retired.”
She nods. “Order is restored.”
“Maybe I should make it official. You know, close the office. That way I won’t be tempted to work.”
“Are you tempted now?’
“Not at all.”
“The removal of nonexistent temptation doesn’t seem like it should be a priority.”
“But that way people would stop trying to lure me back in.”
“What about Edna?”
“She’ll be fine; I’ll give her plenty of severance. And Hike has as much work as he wants.” Hike is the lawyer who works with me on the rare occasions that we have a case.
She thinks about it for a moment. “Whatever makes you happy, Andy. It’s not like you’re working now anyway, so it won’t change your day-to-day life. You can focus on the foundation.”
“Right.” She’s talking about the Tara Foundation, a dog rescue operation that Willie Miller, a former client, and I are partners in.
“So what’s the downside?”
“I’m not sure,” I say, since for some reason I’m not.
“Let’s talk about it when I get back.”
She says it casually, but it feels like a two-by-four hitting me on the head, even though I’m not sure exactly what a two-by-four is. I know it’s wood, but two feet by four feet? Two inches by four inches? Neither seems right.