Margie said you never came back after lunch. Amy came up with a great idea.”
“What’s that?”
“She did her preliminary physical therapist work over at Central Washington University in Ellensburg. One of her girlfriends married a guy who’s the assistant registrar at the university there. We thought we’d take a run over to Ellensburg either tonight or early tomorrow morning, talk to them, and see what we can find out. We should be back in plenty of time to make Ben’s funeral at two. What do you think of that?”
“Don’t ask me,” I told him, trying to keep the enthusiasm out of my voice, obeying the letter of Tony Freeman’s law but not the intent. “What I don’t know can’t hurt me, can it?”
Ron laughed. “Gotcha,” he said. “Mum’s the word, but if we could locate even just one of those missing kids, I’d feel like I was doing something real again and not just marking time. So why did you call, Beau? What’s up?”
“Do you still have that copy of Ben Weston’s project?”
“I sure do. I own it. He gave it to me months ago. Why?”
“Does it have names, addresses, and telephone numbers on it by any chance?”
“I think so. Hang on. I have it right here with me.” The sound of rustling papers came through the phone. “Some of them do. Not all, but some. What do you need?”
“Phone numbers.”
“Phone numbers?” Ron echoed. “Why the hell do you need gang members’ phone numbers, Beau? You planning on selling these guys tickets to the Bacon Bowl maybe?”
The Bacon Bowl is a once-a-year, old-timers’ football game, a fund-raising rivalry played between teams of police officers from the Seattle and Tacoma areas who are really frustrated, over-the-hill jocks. I’ve got brains enough not to play football anymore, but I’m reasonably good at selling tickets.
“Not likely,” I replied, “but I need those phone numbers all the same. I’d like even representation of Crips, Bloods, and BGD, as many numbers of each as you can give me.”
“You don’t want much, do you. Why not try Directory Assistance?”
“Why not give me a hard time?” I returned. “Just read me the damn numbers, would you?”
In the end, I wound up with a list of fourteen names and telephone numbers-five Bloods, five Crips, and four BGD. I wasted no time working my way through the list and calling them all. Naturally, several of the numbers were no longer in service. Two people who answered sounded genuinely mystified and said the telephone number had only been assigned to them in the course of the last few months. Some of the others, however, seemed to know all too well what was going on.
Each time someone answered, innocent-sounding or not, I left the same message: “Your top guy wants a meeting with our top guy,” I told them. “Have someone call this number to set it up. We want to schedule the meeting as soon as we can, tonight if possible.”
Once I placed all the calls, I went back to my voice-mail number and changed my answering announcement, deleting all the parts of my recording that revealed anything at all about my name and profession. I wasn’t much looking forward to shepherding Chief Rankin on this little excursion in the first place, and I especially didn’t want the guys we were meeting to know who was attached to that particular Seattle PD extension number.
While I sat waiting for someone to call me back, I started creating a small mountain of reports. Captain Freeman had made it clear that the work Sue Danielson and I were doing for him was in addition to whatever we were doing for the Weston Family Task Force. That meant regular reports would be required in two different directions.
Half an hour passed, then an hour. I was beginning to think I had struck out completely when the phone rang.
“Yes,” I answered.
“You’re on,” said a voice. “Where? When?”
“The back room at the Doghouse,” I said. “Eleven o’clock.”
“Who all’s gonna be there?” the guy asked.
“Chief Rankin and myself,” I answered. “That’s all. Just the two of us. How about you?”
“If there’s two of you, then there’s two of us. We be six altogether.”
“You’re calling for everybody?”
“That’s right, man. RSVPing, as they say. You got a problem with that?”
I just didn’t expect the gangs to be quite that well organized. “No. No problem at all. We’ll be there by ten- thirty or so. That way, we won’t all show up at once. That might make quite a stir.”
“You gots that right. Just us being there will cause a stir as you call it. If somebody notices the chief of police, all those television stations will send out their Minicams, turn it into a media event.”
“I wouldn’t want that to happen,” I said, “and neither would the chief.”
“Not my chiefs, neither,” he answered. “We all play it real cool. Right?”
“Right.” We all do.
The idea of sitting down in the same room with the ad hoc leadership committee of several warring street gangs didn’t sound cool to me. Chilling was a lot more like it. Already I could feel the rank-smelling, fear-drenched sweat gathering in my armpits. I picked up the phone and dialed up to the chief’s-my chief’s-office. He answered before the end of the first ring.
“What is it?”
“An appointment. We go to the Doghouse early, at ten-thirty. The others come later. I’m going to go home, grab a shower, and pick up my car. It’s probably best if we don’t show up in a city-owned vehicle.”
“Yep. You’re right about that.”
“Are you going to go home first, or do you want me to come back here to pick you up?”
“Here,” he said. “I’d rather wait here.”
I got to the house about nine-thirty. I hoped Curtis Bell would be long gone. I was in no mood to talk to him, and I was right.
“You’re home early,” Ralph commented.
“Not to stay. I’m going to shower and leave again. Did you and Curtis get everything ironed out?”
“No. Not really. He left right after you called, but I think we may want to do something about single-premium life policies for your kids. It’s a way of passing them a substantial amount of money without them having to pay inheritance or gift taxes.”
“I thought you said I’d have to pay a rating.”
“Only if we buy insurance on you. If we buy it on your children, then it’s no problem.”
“Right now, I’m going to shower, then I’ve got a hot date.”
“Really.”
“It’s hot all right, a regular Who’s Who of street gangs in Seattle.”
“Sounds fascinating,” Ralph said, sounding for the world like everyone’s favorite Vulcan, good old Mr. Spock from Star Trek.
“Fascinating?” I echoed. “I just hope it won’t be fatal.”
CHAPTER 18
Chief Rankin was not the least bit happy. While I had been busy writing reports and taking a shower, he had been reading tear sheets from newspapers and magazines all over the country regarding the Seattle Police Department’s handling of the Ben Weston murders. To hear him tell it, most of the accounts were written by a bunch of bleeding-heart liberals who laced what they wrote with an undertone of implied bigotry. The assumption was that the (predominantly white) officers of Seattle PD were doing precious little to solve the tragic murders of this now highly visible African-American family.
Rankin’s grousing about the slanted stories surprised me. I know what comes out in newspaper stories usually grates on my nerves-most reporters are a bunch of bleeding-heart liberals-but I always assumed the brass had tougher hides than us mere mortals, that they, as political animals, could take all that media crap with a grain of salt. Evidently not.
