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The drive to the rescue mission takes maybe ten minutes. It should have taken fifteen, but I break quite a few traffic laws on the way. Normally that’s not a problem, but for obvious reasons, I can’t hit my lights. I slow down a couple miles away and drive sedately so there’s no chance of French or one of his goons seeing a crazy driver and connecting the dots.
I park in the parking lot like anyone else would and walk casually inside. One of the ironic benefits of never successfully catching French is that he’s never seen me and in plainclothes with my stealth shoulder holster, I look just like a normal guy, probably a volunteer.
At least that’s what I hope. I check my phone and see I have about an hour give or take.
Well, that’s what I get for tearing out of Mack’s place like a bat out of hell. I decide to put my time to good use and case the place. The guy who taught me to be a detective back when I was a fresh-faced rookie gave me the best advice I ever heard, not only as a police office, but as a private citizen.
“Friends and exits, Grant. Always know where your friends are, and always know where the exits are.”
After ten minutes, I know where my exits are and after another twenty, my friends arrive. Thankfully Thompson has the sense to come in plainclothes. He sidles up to me and pretends to know me from work. Well, I guess that’s not pretending. He just doesn’t mention that we work catching assholes like Donald French.
He offers to buy me a cup of coffee and we step outside and head to the coffee shop next door. When we have our coffee and a legitimate reason to be hovering just outside the rescue mission, he asks, “Are we sure he’s actually going to be here?”
“Hank is,” I say, “I guess Martinez has a source.”
“Yeah, I got the email,” he says, “Are we sure he’ll actuallybehere, though?”
I shrug. “This is the best information we’ve gotten so far. We’ll see how it works.”
“Fair enough,” he says.
“Who’ve we got?” I ask.
“Ricky, Lopez, Guardado and Sampson,” he says. “SWAT is on standby four minutes away.”
“Good,” I say.
I doubt we’ll need SWAT, but French is notoriously skittish, so it doesn’t hurt to be prepared.
We enjoy our coffee and the work completed for the moment, waiting until ten minutes before go time. Then we offer a fake goodbye and split off to stage ourselves on either side of the meeting spot just behind the mission.
Right on schedule, I see French approaching the meeting spot, guarded by two steroid-freak meathead thugs. They’ll be strong as hell but just as slow. No biggie. I quietly radio Ricky and Lopez to be ready to block the vehicle they arrived in and then radio Thompson, Guardado and Sampson to be ready to go on my command.
The informant is a few minutes late and looks extremely nervous. I hope that that’s his natural personality or his skittishness will blow the whole op.
We get lucky. I overhear French say, “Jesus, Parker, why are you always so nervous? It’s safe here. These are poor people who are bettering themselves. The cops only care about poor people who aren’t. No one’s coming for us.”
“Yeah, I know, I know,” Parker says, rubbing the back of his neck and looking around anxiously. “Look, you got the money?”
French offers a cold smile. “You want to try that again, Parker?” he says breezily.
“Yeah, yeah, of course,” Parker says. “Sorry.”
He unslings the backpack he carries and hands it to French. One of the meatheads stops him and grabs the bag, then looks inside. He shows it to French, who nods.
“All right,” he says, “Now for your payment.”
The other meathead draws a pistol and aims it at the terrified Parker.
Shit.
“Drop your weapon!” I cry out, drawing my service weapon and aiming it at the meathead. “Police!”
“Chrissakes, Granite!”Thompson cries through my radio, clearly unhappy that I jumped the gun. He’ll have to deal with it. Parker might be a piece of shit, but he’s our piece of shit and it’s bad business to let an informant get killed.
French, miraculously, turns out to be smart enough to throw his hands in the air and back away. The meathead with the gun isn’t so lucky. He begins a ponderous turn in my direction and a single shot from my handgun puts him down.
The other meathead drops the bag and the lone brain cell in his head fires just as Thompson, Guardado and Sampson burst onto the scene. He drops to his knees, his hands in the air and is quite placid as he is led to the waiting cruiser.
