Identity- Lost Page 13

  Stick pulled his Chevy Impala alongside Patrolman Sal Abbatti’s blue-and-white squad car, already parked at the curb next to the alley behind the Chicago Housing Authority’s Olander Projects. The cars faced opposite directions, driver’s door next to driver’s door. Stick rolled his window down; Abbatti cranked his down, too.

  “I just pulled up to the curb a few minutes ago. I patrolled the whole area for about an hour. Doesn’t seem to be much goin’ on around here,” Abbatti informed Stick. “Just waiting for your orders.”

  “Okay,” said Stick. He felt good hearing Abbatti’s assessment but knew trouble could erupt any second at the Olander. Local authorities knew the CHA’s fourteen-story, red brick building was home to some of The Prairie’s most notorious street gang members. He and Timbo alone had investigated five shootings at this hot spot last month alone, three of them ending in deaths. Stick wondered where his partner was with the Tactical Team backup he’d requested. Last he spoke to Timbo, they were on their way. He wanted this arrest to go down fast and smooth, and sitting at the curb too long was never a good thing.

  “Let’s sit tight and wait a few minutes. We’ve still got a little bit of daylight left.” Stick lit a smoke. “Do these little shitheads all live on the same floor?”

  “Youth Officer Murphy radioed me and said Clarke and Witherspoon are on twelve, DeSadier and Rhodes on eight,” Abbatti said. “I’ve already notified the CHA police like you told me and got them on our radio frequency. Two of their officers should be inside, waiting for us.”

  “Okay. But just double-check to make sure they’ll be in there. Those guys have a tendency to get lost when we’re busting their bros. When you do, remind them we’ll lead once inside.” Stick inhaled on his cig then blew the smoke out the side of his mouth. “And Abbatti. Take it real easy. You stay close to me.”

  The rookie smiled. “Roger that. Are we waiting for your partner?”

  “Yeah, he’s rollin’ in with the tac guys. I also got a couple of Gang Crimes guys rolling in here, too. They told me dinnertime would be the best time to grab these burrheads. My gang guys told me one thing these gangbangers are definitely afraid of is missing their auntie’s dinner—”

  A call on Stick’s car radio interrupted their conversation.

  “This is twenty-one-sixty. Over.”

  The Tactical Team’s call numbers cracked the silence of Stick’s car radio. He picked up his handheld mic and replied.

  “Twenty-one-sixty,” Stick paused a beat, his brow furrowing, then spoke, asking their location. “Ahh, roger, this is fifty-one-fourteen. What’s your twenty? Over.”

  “Forty-third and Cottage. Twenty-one-sixty ETA … three minutes. Over.”

  “Roger that. Fifty-one-fourteen. Out.”

  Stick slammed the radio handset back to his dash, flicking his cigarette to the pavement through the open window, and exited his vehicle. He’s got that other hot-headed dago with him!

  “You okay, detective?” Abbatti asked as Stick got out of his squad car. “Something wrong?”

  “Yeah, there’s something wrong,” Stick snapped while he twisted the discarded butt into the pavement under his black oxford. “If I can teach you one thing, Rook, about being a good cop, it’s make sure you are where you’re supposed to be when you’re expected to be there.”

  Stick grabbed his .38 service revolver from his shoulder holster, checked the load, and slid it back into its harness. Then Stick bent over and checked the .38 snub-nose in his ankle holster.

  Minutes later, a second Impala pulled up right behind Abbatti’s squad. Timbo exited the vehicle along with four other plainclothes cops from the Tactical Team. Stick noticed that Timbo looked different, his skin a chalky white, his eyes bloodshot.

  “You okay?” Stick queried.

  “Fine,” he grumbled. “Why?”

  “Don’t look so good. That’s why.”

  “Just want to get these fuckers off the street. That’s all. You gotta problem with that?”

  Stick knew what Timbo’s terse reply meant: Stay outta my way if I want to rough these little niggers up a bit. Stick let his partner’s comment slide, choosing not to embarrass him by calling him to task in front of the now-assembled team. “Just follow my lead. I want this one to go down sweet and easy. Let’s make it a clean collar. No rough stuff here with these kids.” Stick looked directly at his partner. “Agreed?”

  Stick was unyielding when it came to cops under his command breaking the CPD’s official rules of engagement. In particular, he worried about some hard-ass cop deciding to act out their own version of a Baretta episode, or worse yet, a scene from Starsky and Hutch. This was his investigation, his collar. Once LaFrance had handed it to him, he controlled every aspect of the case. His orders were absolute and final.

  As Stick’s seven-man team formed a semicircle in front of him, he lectured them. “I don’t want any loose cannons here. No fuckups. Got that?”

  He looked at each again, scanning for any hint of dissension among this contingent of highly skilled cops. As he did, another unmarked Impala screeched to the curb. Youth Division Officer Michael Murphy, accompanied by another cop, jumped out, each slamming their car doors behind them.

  “Let’s get this show on the road,” yelled Murphy to the startled group.

  “This isn’t a fuckin’ show, Cyclops.” The team snickered at Stick’s dig. “And who the fuck asked you to be here anyway?” Stick shouted back at him, looking over the approaching pair’s shoulders, watching their backs as Murphy and his partner walked toward the group.

  The first thing seasoned cops taught green cops was to never look a fellow cop in the eye while working on the street, especially when outside one of the CHA’s gang hot spots. Out here, cops always needed to stay alert, eyes trained on their surroundings, and most importantly, watching their partner’s back. Murphy was making eye contact with Stick as he strutted toward him and had broken a basic street rule. Cyclops had crossed the line—an unforgiving mistake in a homicide cop’s world. Once Stick realized Murphy wasn’t covering his back, Stick took a challenging step closer to the him.

  “You and your mealymouthed, pussy sidekick Accardo here—” Stick said, staring eye-to-eye with his nemesis while at the same time pointing at Murphy’s closed-lipped partner, “get your Juvie asses back in that car. This is a Homicide matter. Go look for a fuckin’ truancy case or whatever it is you do. I don’t have time for this shit. I gotta job to get done here and you two are in my way.”

  Stick did an about-face and headed toward the Olander’s main entrance. He snapped his head for Timbo, Abbatti, and the four soft clothes from the Tac Team to follow. Murphy and Accardo stayed behind, standing at the curb, watching Stick and his men head off on their mission. Striding away, Stick heard Murphy mutter to Accardo, “Fuck that motherfucker. I’ll deal with that skinny piece of shit later.”

  Stick moved his men in double-time, knowing that as soon as the project’s suspicious residents spotted unmarked Impalas alongside Abbatti’s blue-and-white police cruiser, a bust must be going down in their building. Before he got too close to the red brick structure, Stick scanned the nearly two-hundred-foot-high CHA behemoth for open windows as his men followed behind him in single file. It wasn’t unheard of for suspects to jump from windows—from any level—once they knew cops were entering their building to make an arrest.

  On one of Stick’s first busts in the projects, a nineteen-year-old murder suspect jumped from a seventh-story window to avoid arrest. The perp landed on his head, hitting a large Dumpster. The kid splattered so hard when he hit the steel container that one of the cops in the arrest team jokingly suggested that they just throw what was left of the teenager’s body in the Dumpster since there was so little left of him intact.

  Stick stopped and turned to his men. “McGovern, you go around back. Watch the upper floor windows from there,” he directed one of the Tac Team officers, his hand stabbing with thumb squeezed tight against four, closed fingers in mi
litary fashion. “All of you. Keep your eyes up, too!” he barked.

  Stick knew The Prairie claimed the most number of cops killed in the line of duty, a discomforting distinction. Besides gunfire, when police appeared at a housing project, they commonly encountered projectiles like rocks, bottles, or anything else tenants had on hand thrown down on them as they stood below ready to make their entrance.

  “Look out!” Timbo yelled, pushing Patrolman Abbatti to the ground and covering him with his massive frame. As he did, a cement block crashed within inches of the two of them.

  Timbo jumped up, pulling Abbatti up with him, grabbing him under his arm. The entire team dashed to the building’s entrance. When they got there, Stick held his hand up for the team to halt.

  “You okay, Rook?” Stick asked Abbatti.

  “Thanks to this guy I am,” he replied, nodding at Timbo.

  Stick thanked his partner with a quick smile, knowing Timbo running on two cylinders was better than most cops running on eight. Seconds mattered now so Stick entered the front lobby alone. He had learned early on that the ground floor lobby of a “shit hole,” the term cops from The Prairie gave the projects, is where most ambushes took place. As lead, it was his job to go in first. He reconnoitered the interior, scanning the lobby for any signs of a surprise attack. The first thing Stick noticed: the two CHA cops who were to meet them inside the lobby were not at their post.

  “Shit. Those chicken-shit cocksuckers,” he muttered to himself, sweat dripping now from his brow. His heart racing, he had guessed right. The CHA cops were nowhere in sight.

  Stick scampered back to the entrance and waved for Abbatti to join him. “Abbatti, radio those CHA cocksuckers again and find out where the fuck those dogs are.”

  “Roger that,” the patrolman replied.

  Stick then motioned to Timbo and the three remaining guys from the Tac Team to enter the lobby. As they passed him at the doorway, he patted each on the shoulder and whispered, “Keep close to the wall. Stay alert.”

  The three Tac guys slowly entered, scoping out the entire ground floor. Each had their six-shot.38 Colt Specials drawn. Timbo trailed them in.

  “That’s a lotta firepower,” Stick told his partner as Timbo paused before following the last Tac guy into the lobby. Timbo was carrying his .457 Colt Python for the bust and had the monstrous gun drawn, pointing it ahead of him into the lobby.

  “Yeah, and it’s got a magnum load in it, too. You gotta problem with that?”

  Stick didn’t answer his partner. He knew Timbo was aware of the first unwritten rule of engagement on an arrest in the projects: Ask no questions, I’ll tell no lies.

  “Thanks for saving my ass back there,” Stick said to him, nodding to the spot where the brick would have almost certainly killed the rookie cop, Abbatti.

  “Your ass?” Timbo smiled his frown. “Anyway, whadjoo expect? He’s a paisano. We look out for each other.”

  Stick grinned and shook his head as he followed the other cops who had already entered the lobby. “Well, try to keep that fat dago ass of yours from getting shot at, wouldja?”

  Stick watched as Timbo and the other cops methodically checked the elevators and the doors to the stairways on either end of the ground floor as he remained by the entrance with Abbatti. With perfect timing, two more cops rolled up to the scene. When Stick saw them at the curb, he waved them to come forward and join the team.

  As the two new cops reached the building, Timbo’s team had finished clearing the lobby. Stick called the team back together. “You guys. This is Johnny LeDonne and Barry Mays from Gang Crimes. They know this place like the inside of their church.”

  “If that’s true, then you guys are fucked,” Mays replied.

  The group laughed and grunted their hellos to each other, nodding with quick upward jerks of their heads, all the while keeping a close eye around them.

  “Okay. Let’s get this done.” Stick flicked another cigarette away and barked out his orders, emphasizing each directive with the use of a pointed hand gesture. “Timbo, Rossi, you two dagos take the back stairway and head up to twelve. Kircmarich and Popovak. You two follow them but wait on eight. Abbatti. You stay right next to me. Johnny. Barry. You’re with me and the rookie.”

  Stick was keeping a close eye on all of his team, but particularly now on Abbatti. He didn’t want any more close calls for the virgin cop making his first collar under Stick’s charge. He looked at the guys from Gang Crimes and pointed to the steps in front of him.

  “Follow me and Abbatti up this stairway and then head to twelve.”

  “Why don’t we just use the elevator?” Abbatti asked.

  “No, kid. Never use the fuckin’ elevator in a shit hole,” LeDonne cautioned him. “They’ll jam it on you when you’re inside and then you’re really fucked.”

  “Fuckin’ ‘ey,” echoed Mays.

  “That’s why I got you two here, so that kinda shit don’t happen,” Stick said. He appreciated the two veteran Gang Crime dicks, teaching Abbatti the ropes, especially about busts in the projects. It also helped break the tension. White Chicago cops never felt comfortable in the projects. Never. “Abbatti? Have those CHA guys answered you yet?”

  The rookie shook his head.

  “Fuck it then. We move up without ‘em. Let’s roll.”

  The arrest teams took off simultaneously up their respective stairwells. Stick guessed it would take his team four minutes to reach the eighth floor. Once there, LeDonne and Mays would continue past them up to twelve. The seconds seemed like minutes now. Chicago PD cops never knew which CHA cops were on their side or just shills for the gangs. Their absence in the lobby, as well as the brick thrown from above, burned a message in Stick’s gut that the guys they had come to arrest were well aware Chicago’s finest were there and coming after them in force.

  Timbo’s four-man team had reached the eighth floor vestibule. Per Stick’s orders, Timbo and Rossi continued up to twelve while the other two Tac guys stayed at eight. The two veteran Italian cops clambered up the next four stories on the clammy concrete steps strewn with garbage and reeking of urine and feces.

  “Look at all this shit,” Rossi hissed. “Fuckin’ titzoon animals.”

  “These mullanjohns give me any problem, I’m smokin’ their little nigger asses,” Timbo scowled, looking right at his unholstered Colt Python.

  “Ditto that, coomba,” said Rossi.

  Back in the other stairwell, Stick paused when his team got to eight. “All teams—once you get to your floor, stay on the landing until I give the order to move in.” Stick’s clear instructions from the tiny speaker on each cop’s Motorola hand radios echoed in the empty stairwells.

  “I hope those two dagos don’t run into Pick’s cousin Julius up there,” Mays said to Stick as he and LeDonne paused before continuing up to twelve. “If they do, this won’t go down pretty.”

  “That’s one bad motherfucker,” LeDonne added. “One-bad-mother-fucker.”

  “Timbo’s got his orders. He’ll do it by the book,” Stick answered them, although he knew his and Rossi’s quick tempers often short-circuited when confronting anyone with black skin.

  “When we get the order to go, coomba, you take Witherspoon in twelve-thirteen, I’ll take that little cocksucker Pick in twelve-eighteen,” Timbo told his arrest partner, Rossi. Both huffing, they rested on the landing of the twelfth floor.

  Rossi nodded in agreement, catching his own breath. “Just say the word, paisano. They don’t listen, they’re morte.”

  “Hey. What’s that?” Timbo whispered, laying his ear against the closed, steel door to the apartment hallway.

  After waiting a few more minutes, Stick gave his next command into his Motorola. “Okay. Everyone in place? Kircmarich and Popovak?”

  “Kircmarich, roger”

  “Popovak, roger.”

  “LeDonne? Mays?”

  “LeDonne, roger.”

  “Mays, roger.”

  “Timbo? Rossi?” />
  Silence.

  “Timbo? Rossi?” Stick repeated. Only static came out of his and Abbatti’s radio speakers.

  “Detective Boscorelli! Officer Rossi! Come in!”

  Still, no answer.

  “Fuck! All units! Move in now! Move in! Move in!”

  CHAPTER 17

  The four suspects were apprehended without incident—for the most part. They were loaded into a paddy wagon, taken to Area 1 for interrogation, and prepared for an eventual lineup. As this was taking place, Stick and his arresting team stood in the street outside the Olander Projects, hearing the story once again from Timbo and Rossi as to why they didn’t answer Stick’s frantic radio calls.

  “Stick, baby, you had to be there. It was too fuckin’ funny,” Timbo said.

  “Yeah. Timbo hears this huge commotion right outside our door as we stood in the stairway, waiting for your ‘go,’” Rossi chimed in. “We weren’t sure what the fuck was going on out there in the hallway but we heard these titzoons screeching like fuckin’ baboons in the fuckin’ zoo.

  “So, we figures the little bros are making a break for it down the elevator, knowing we’re comin’ and all—see? Now we know the fuckin’ CHA dogs aren’t down in the lobby doin’ their cop thing, so me and Timbo we figures we gotta’ stop these little mullanjohns right now before they get away.”

  Rossi rambled on with the story, laughing in between his stilted breaths.

  “So, I says, ‘Timbo, let’s roll right now’ and we bust into the hallway. That’s when we see those two tall cocksuckers, Clarke and Witherspoon, with their foot-long black fuckin’ dicks, pissin’ down the elevator shaft.”

  Rossi stopped talking for a moment, losing his breath because he was laughing so hard, the other cops in the arrest team guffawing in anticipation of hearing the story’s punch line for the third time since the arrest.

  “And I says, ‘Stop! Police!’ Pointing my piece right at ‘em with Timbo running beside me pointing his Python, ready to pop the first little soul brother that says, ‘Boo!’”