“You ready to roll?”
Andrew Grissom slowly lowered the copy of the Times he’d been reading and turned his head in the direction of the husky female voice. The first thing he noticed were the long, long legs encased in black fish net stockings. Above that, black spandex shorts clung to shapely hips beneath a fitted top that barely contained Zaria Fuentes’ ample cleavage and exposed a good three inches of her midriff.
Frizzified jet-black hair floated around her shoulders. Aside from looking sexy as hell, it served the dual purpose of being a hiding place for a mike.
He focused on her face: amber eyes at an exotic tilt underneath winged brows, cheekbones for days and a pair of lips that would send Pam Anderson running back for collagen injections, all coated in more make-up than she usually wore in a week.
Drew swallowed. He was ready all right. Even without the war paint and the Hookers R Us get up, Zaria was a knockout. That fact wasn’t lost on any member of the team, but acknowledging that in any serious way was likely to get a guy a sock in the gut.
“For you, baby, anytime,” he drawled.
Zaria rolled her eyes, but it was just for show. He knew she didn’t take him seriously, which allowed him the freedom to say whatever nonsense popped into his head. ”Keep dreaming, Grissom. Maybe then it will happen.”
“Promises, promises.” He pushed to his feet off the crappy sofa in the corner of the 41st precinct’s basement and tossed the paper onto on of the cushions. In the three-inch heels she wore, she topped six feet, but still only reached his shoulder.
“Where’s Schraft?” he asked referring to the sergeant that led their team.
“Everybody’s out by the van waiting for you, Lazybones.”
That figured. Everyone was anxious to get on with the days’ work. They’d gotten a tip on one Levar Alston getting his Mama to sell crack and weed out of an apartment on East 173rd while he had his sister and a couple of cousins out selling something else. Apparently, Levar liked to keep it in the family, which might have been a mistake, considering that when the sister got picked up a few days ago she rolled on everybody else.
Now he, Zaria and the rest of their team were headed out to pay Mr. Alston a little visit. Unlike narcotics that tended to focus on the bigger fish and the bigger money, building cases over weeks or months, their squad focused on getting the dealers and their customers off the streets with surveillance, buy-and-busts and the like. You didn’t have to work up elaborate cases against someone who made the mistake of selling you a couple of hundred dollars worth of crack. You could just haul them in and hope to make a charge stick. Considering the sister had already rolled, that wouldn’t be too much of a problem.
Zaria had volunteered to do the buy, figuring Alston might offer her a spot in his depleted stable and then they’d have their hooks into him for that, too. Drew agreed with her that he might. Half the hookers he knew got into the business as a means to satisfy a habit. The other half were introduced to it by their pimps to keep them in line. But he knew that wasn’t what really interested Zaria. Her ambition led her to look for opportunities to shine for the higher ups—anything that might lead to that detective’s shield she craved. Sometimes he wondered if that didn’t make her take chances she shouldn’t.
###
It didn’t take them long to set up. O’Malley and the sarge were with the van around the corner. Bruno was in a parked car at the end of the block. He and Frisk were on a rooftop providing surveillance, and cover, if necessary.
Drew shifted his weight for a better vantage point and looked through his binoculars. He had a clear view of the front of the apartment building, including the entranceway where a kid stood with his hands in the pockets of low-slung jeans. He was the gatekeeper, the one to tell you which of three apartments Alston was selling out of that day. Even if you could make it into the building without direction, showing up at the wrong door on the wrong day couldn’t be a good thing.
Their positions had been decided yesterday, before this feeling of apprehension had gripped him. He hadn’t been happy about it then. No one wanted to play look out, or worse, sit in the hot van while they waited for it to fill with whatever skels and other scumbags they picked up coming out of the apartment after a sale. For about a minute he’d thought to ask to swap spots with Bruno or even one of the guys in the van—anything to be down on the ground and closer to the action. But none of the guys would have done that without an explanation. Since he wasn’t prepared to give one, he hadn’t bothered. But it didn’t make him feel any better either.
“Do you see her,” Frisk asked with a bit more avidness in his voice than Drew cared for.
Drew glanced over his shoulder at the kid and scowled. Zaria wanted her shield. Bruno joined the squad looking for a less demanding tour than narcotics. The sarge was just waiting to count down his twenty before retiring. Frisk apparently couldn’t see beyond the possibility of watching a hot piece of ass. Drew ground his teeth together. Was he the only one focused on doing the actual job?
He almost voiced his sentiments out loud, but considering no one, not even Frisk, would buy that sentiment coming from him, he didn’t bother. He knew the rest of them considered him a bit of a rogue, not knowing the meaning of the word teamwork, despite working with a team. Zaria in particular viewed him as being too laid back, too quick with a flip comment, unwilling to work himself up too much over anything he didn’t find worthwhile. To some extent they were right. He wasn’t about to put his ass on the line for anyone who didn’t deserve it, nor was he willing to kiss anyone else’s to get ahead.
Anyone paying more attention to his record than to his mouth would how wrong that assessment was. He’d been offered choicer gigs and turned them down. What he did was worthwhile and he was good at it? What the hell else did a guy need?
He nodded toward the camera around the kid’s neck, which was used to document who came and went when it came time to go to court. You couldn’t very well claim you hadn’t been at such and such apartment buying smack while an 8×10 glossy said otherwise.
To Frisk, he said, “Are you going to talk, or are you going to going to use that thing.” He nodded toward the camera.
Drew turned back to the view through his binoculars in time to see a tall, skinny brother in dirty jeans and a black T-shirt coming out of the building. He slapped hands with the kid outside before heading up the block toward them.
“You got him?” Drew asked and was rewarded by the sound of a few shots being clicked off on the 35 mm camera.
Drew keyed his mike to speak to the other members of the team. “Homey in a black bag headed your way.”
“Roger,” came the response, probably from the sarge, but with that one word it was hard to tell. Either way, with any luck they’d grab up this guy for processing later.
Drew checked his watch. It shouldn’t be long before Zaria went in. Not to disappoint, Schraft’s voice came over the headset. “It’s a go.”
Instantly, Drew’s body tensed. It would probably amount to nothing, this feeling in his gut, but he’d been right enough to trust whatever reaction came first. At least it would be over soon. He saw her then, striding down the block, her usual long-legged confident stride nowhere in evidence. Her walk was more rapid, less sure, as if she were agitated or strung out. It was all part of the show, intended to fool the kid at the door, as was the lollipop tucked in the corner of her mouth—a distraction.
“Damn. I never wanted to be a lollipop so bad before.” Frisk said.
Drew slid him a quelling glance. At least the kid had his gaze focused through the viewfinder this time. Still, he could live without another man voicing the thoughts in his own mind. Not that Zaria would ever have given either of them the time of day. She treated Frisk like a stray puppy; she treated him like some incorrigible younger brother who’d grown too big to discipline.
Now he had more important matters to focus on beside Zaria’s assets threatening to pop out of her top. Though they did it every day, what Zaria was about to do could be dangerous. There were lots of ways a cop could burn their cover, the least of which was being recognized by some perp you were trying to bring down.
She pulled the lollipop from her mouth. “Hey baby, what’s cracking?” she said.
The kid licked his lips, his eyes avid. “Depends. Watchu want?”
Drew didn’t bother to focus on the words that came next. The kid was going to let her up, if only to have an excuse to watch her come back down. She stepped inside the building, but it was a few seconds before they heard anything else from her.
“I’m in,” she said in a hushed tone.
A statement of the obvious, but at least that let them know she was alone, probably in the elevator. Even before her meet and greet with the kid downstairs they’d known which apartment Alston was dealing from courtesy of one of the skels they’d picked up earlier. She was headed for the fourth floor, the last apartment on the far side of the building—probably the worst location considering where they’d set up, but it couldn’t be helped now.
The next sound he heard was a slow grinding noise, probably the elevator door opening. Apparently someone was waiting to take the ride down, since the sound of voices reached him.
“This is it.”
Zaria’s voice sounded too confident to please him. Too much could go wrong and she had that reckless thing going on, besides. But soon enough, she was inside the apartment. Her job was to score a few rocks and then get the hell out, though he knew she’d give Alston the chance to come on to her. She succeeded in the first part of the job when he noticed a man on the street talking to the lookout.
Damn. He’d prefer it if Zaria got out before anyone else went in. The more bodies in the apartment meant the more things that could go wrong. But she was taking her time, letting Alston lay his rap on her about working off her habit in trade. So far, nothing he’d said would mean a damn thing in a court of law, nor probably would he say anything. She needed to get out of there. He would have told her that if he had any means of doing so. But she was only set to transmit, not receive.
The guy on the street disappeared into the building just as it appeared Zaria was giving up the ghost. Thank God for small favors. But she didn’t make it out before the new mark hit the door. From listening to Zaria’s wire, they’d ascertained there were three men in the room—Alston and two others that undoubtedly served as muscle if any trouble broke out.
Mama must have had the day off. One of them, not Alston, shouted, “Hey, I know this son of a bitch. He’s five-oh.”
For an instant Drew froze. Damn. The new guy had been made as a cop. Just what they needed. A second later, the sound of gunfire, shouting, chaos, crackled in the headset.
“Everybody, go,” the sarge said in a clear but urgent voice. “Go now.”
Drew was already on his feet, all six foot five, two hundred sixty pound of him running toward the side of the building where a ladder led down to the fire escape. He made it down taking steps at a time. He hit the ground, still running, heading toward the curb. Simultaneously, he drew his gun and flashed his badge at oncoming motorists as he crossed into the street. He was big enough that no one could miss him, but he wasn’t taking any chances. At least that’s what he thought. The next thing he knew he was airborne—not quite an unpleasant experience.
It was the last thing he remembered for a long, long time.
