Book Three: Part 7 - Varied Evil - Chapter 7

Wednesday – April 4th – 8:37 p.m.

The Squad Room

“I want to take the time to thank all of you for doing an outstanding job out there. Clausen and Klugston, good job running down that Oldsmobile yesterday. Good, clean bust.” Baker looked at her notes. “Seven kilos in the trunk. Great job, you two.

“Prescott and Andrews. Though you two didn’t have the kind of day those two did, I want to commend you both for stopping a potential domestic situation before it happened. We have all seen how those types of situations can turn ugly, and it’s good to know you two quelled the smoke before a fire broke out.

“This is something Captain Page gave me earlier about Captain Todd and his wife. And it isn’t good news. They were both found dead a few days ago, apparently while doing some fishing. There were no fingerprints left at the scene, but they both had their throats ripped open, and their hearts torn from their bodies, but the hearts were never located. A wild animal was ruled out because there were no tracks of any type of predator. It is suspected the killer is male, and that the perp either took the hearts with him, or … ate them at the scene.”

Not a single man or woman in the room said a word. The silence spoke for them. Todd had had the respect of every officer in the Twenty-Second.

“Since this is out of our jurisdiction; the only thing we can offer to the boys out west is any assistance from here, that is, if we by chance run across anything that could tie to the killings.

“Other than that, if there are no questions,” she paused a couple seconds, and finished saying, “then get out there and be safe, and keep our streets safe.”

Baker’s cell rang. It was Stevie.

“What’s on your mind, bub? Are you, all right?”

“Hi, mom. I’m good. Just calling to let you know I won’t be home until after seven. I have a coaches meeting, then baseball practice so I can start learning how to call signal’s to batters and runners.”

“Okay. Just be ….”

“I will, mom. You know me. I’m always careful. Gotta run, class time. Love you! Bye!”

“Love you ….”

too. Dead air.

She looked at her phone, shook her head and smiled.

Walking into her office she thought, Stevie’s just not her own any longer. Everyone wants him.

The Baker-Manning Home – 6:12 p.m.

111 Homestead Lane

Baker had been home twenty minutes after a rather ho-hum kind of day. She enjoyed days like today. No stress, no murder scenes, no nothing. Montie could use a few thousand days like that.

The microwave beeped, signaling the popcorn finished popping. She grabbed the melted butter in her squeeze container mixed with salt and squeezed a healthy amount all over the popcorn so that it would slide down over the rest and coat every hot morsel. Picking up two glasses and a two-liter bottle of Pepsi, she casually walked into the living room where Ed sat on the sofa watching Channel 08 news.

“Finally, around the state, a series of robberies have been taking place. To date; fourteen towns outside of New York City have been robbed at gunpoint. Another thirty-nine establishments have been broken into. Most of those have been in smaller towns where police are at a minimum, and where crime generally is at a low to zero statistic, as one officer stated in Randall Township; population: 797.”

“Interesting reporting of our Around the State Today, Jennifer. What will you have for us tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow, how an out-of-state veteran took a dream and ran with it across the state, and made his dream come true.”

Ed changed the channel and then pressed play on the remote of the DVD player.

“You might want to do yourself a favor when you go to work tomorrow.”

“Oh, and what would that be?”

“Call Channel 08 and ask for that Jennifer Railstone girl. See if you can get her to fax you over a layout of where all those robberies are being done. From what I could see, they seem to be spreading out like a quarter-moon, and it almost appears that whoever is doing this, might eventually be in our neighborhood. Just saying.”

“Okay, I’ll do that, Sherlock. So,” as she snuggled closer to him, “what movie are we watching tonight?”

“Thought we’d do a double-feature, a couple of cartoons, and a movie serial for a change. I’m in a nostalgic mood tonight.”

She reached her head closer to his cheek and kissed him.

“Then I’m nostalgic with you. What have we got?”

“We’ll start with some Woody Woodpecker, then a couple chapters of Flash Gordon, with Buster Crabbe. He won a gold medal in the Summer Olympics back in the thirties for the hundred-yard meter. He even did a Tarzan movie, but he was never as good as Johnny Weissmiller.

“Anyway, after that we have Key Largo, and the African Queen. Two classics.”

“Now I know why I married you. You are into my head when it comes to movies. You’re my very own Bogie.” She kissed him again, but this time on his lips.

“Watch it, Bacall. Keep that up and we’ll never see how the movie starts, yet alone end.”

“Oh yes we will. Stevie will be home in about thirty minutes. Not enough time.” She winked at him.

The sound of that insidious laugh almost every human being over forty should be able to remember, who would finally say:” Guess who!” He started pounding his beak into a tree creating cartoon havoc.

From there until Stevie came home, they sat through two more cartons, and one chapter of Flash Gordon before Stevie joined them for Key Largo.

In between film changes, there was general small talk about baseball practice, and how he would have to learn the play calling better, but Stevie felt that that wouldn’t take much longer.

Twenty minutes into the African Queen, Stevie fell asleep in Baker’s lap.

She didn’t mind. She ran a free hand gently through his hair and smiled as she sat between those she loved most.

Right now, life was as good as it gets.

She had two Bogie’s in her life.

Madison Motor Inn – 8:31 p.m.

55 Miles East Of Brighton

DeWayne Andreason, Marcus Thomas, and Jasmine Kinteaya, were in Room 112, counting up what they had taken today after robbing five stores in a small town called, Miller Creek, about eighteen miles from the motel. All total: $1,883.37.

“Ain’t bad, considerin’,” said Thomas.

“Truth. Two days ago, we barely got two-hundred, but we ain’t gone dry yet. This what? The tenth day? Jasmine? You been keepin’ track, right?”

“Course I have, DeWayne! This is day fourteen, and this makes the total just over thirty grand. Bustin’ two stores on the same street at the same time was a trip. But I’m always trippin’ when you guys go and do like three in a row!”

DeWayne looked at both of them.

“I think we need to take a break for a day or two. Just hole up here and relax. By not doin’ nuthin’ for a while, it’ll throw the cops off any trail we might have left behind. I’ll dump the car later tonight, and when we’re ready to roll again, I’ll get us another one.”

“You hear that skinny bitch on TV, tonight? She sayin’ nobody, and I mean nobody got any idea where we are, or who we are. That mu brother, is bitchin’.”

“That’s why I think we need to lay down for a few, Marcus. Gives us time to recharge, get fresh and don’t mess up non, and it’ll give Jasmine time to map out other small towns for us to hit.”

Opening her laptop, Jasmine homed in on a wireless signal, and started a Google search.

“I’m already on it, baby.”

DeWayne laid back on the bed and relaxed. If his plan continued as it has so far, by the end of the year, the three of them should pill in a quarter-million, easy. It’s a lot of drive-time, a lot of risk-taking, but they have gotten away clean every time. No physical descriptions, no fingerprints found on any of the cars they stole and abandoned. The sweet part was by the time they found one they did steal, they were doing another hit in another stolen car. But, the even better part were the conflicting reports of it being one person doing the robberies. Then it came out there were two, possibly three. Confusion is a great friend to have.

Three sixteen-year old kids out having fun. Beats school all to hell. Beat robbing banks, too. Bank robbers always get caught because of cameras. They get caught because of the speed in which police show up. With DeWayne’s plan; being caught would never happen.

The gig was just too easy.

If they did have problems; each one carried a Glock, and each one also had a Mac-10, and they knew how to use them.

All three met each other in the Queens-City Foster Home Care Center. It’s a place where kids who lost their parents at a young age were placed if no other relative were able to provide for them (or wanted to); or children who were unwanted, such as Peter Jones (Jones was a common name in foster care programs when no records could be found for the person. Sometimes, Smith would be used). He was found in a garbage dumpster at age one.

Peter lived at Queen’s Care until he left, by state law, on his own at age eighteen. He was given five-hundred dollars by the state, and without a word, good luck, or even a goodbye; out the door he went.

Three days later, he was found face down in an alley with a bullet in his head. The police listed him as homeless and as a John Doe. He had no identification.

Such are the ways of the city.

DeWayne had a plan, and with Marcus and Jasmine, they would stay face up, and cash money in their pockets. He would be damned if he would end up a John Doe.

One night at Queen’s Center, DeWayne talked with Marcus and Jasmine.

“Look, we all know this place ain’t got shit for us. Long as the state pays the bills, we get a roof over our heads and a couple squares in our bellies every day. But this place ain’t helpin’ us find a home. These people here could give a fuck less what happens to us. Don’t know about you, but me? School ain’t shit. We don’t make no money stayin’ here, so I has this plan.

“I’m really good hot-wiring cars. Did a few with some friends before my old man when and got himself killed when I was nine or ten. But, I get us a car, we hit a store a few blocks from here, grab some iron, some cash, and we hit the road.

“Then we start hittin’ small mom and pop joints in small towns. We could hit two or three joints a day. Every couple day’s we switch out cars, hit another town. Cops won’t know it’s us, ‘cause we keep movin’. Besides, this place won’t give a flyin’ fuck about us. They’d might list us as runaways but that would be all they’d do. We’d be the last thing the cops be lookin’ for when it comes to what I have in mind.”

“We’re gonna need a laptop, too,” said Jasmine. “That way, I can keep track of where we go, where we’re headed, who we do, how much we get, and, stay on top of anything in the news about us, if it’s listed.”

“Computer? Where’d you learn that stuff?” asked Marcus.

“In school, fool. Where else.”

DeWayne laughed at Marcus and punched him in the arm.

“She got your ass! Now look; when we get the guns, we’ll get you a whatever it was you said.”

And their adventures began.

DeWayne stared up at the ceiling of the room they were in. He could hear the TV, and the mumbling voices of Marcus and Jasmine.

This was play time. When they went to work, it was just that—work. If it meant they had to dust a fool trying to play hero (which hadn’t happened), it wasn’t any sweat off his ass. DeWayne, and his two friends had a goal, and nobody was going to stop them.

Nobody.