The Punishing Game (27 page)

It took Bellucci twenty-four minutes by Schlosberg’s watch to reach Yusef’s large Tudor house with its three-car garage. “Frank, you were two minutes off.”

“Not me, Marty. The
GPS was. Mikey, drive past it.”

Bellucci drove two blocks past Yusef’s house before Boff told him to pull over and park behind a car with two men sitting in it. There were more men in five other cars parked nearby.

“The Scarsdale PD,” Boff said as he and Schlosberg and his agents stepped out of the rental Honda. At the same time, two uniformed cops stepped out of the vehicle directly in front of theirs and approached them.

“I’m Lieutenant Mulvaney,” the taller cop said. “This is Sergeant Gillette.”

Schlosberg introduced himself, but not Boff. “I gather you haven’t seen the Mercedes yet,” he said.

Mulvaney nodded. “That’s correct.”

“Expect it pretty soon,” Boff said. Seeing how nervous Mulvaney and Gillette looked, he figured the only crime these guys dealt with was burglary, larceny, and theft.

“So what are we looking at here?” Mulvaney asked in a tight voice.

“Two armed murder suspects,” Boff said. “And if I’m not mistaken—which I rarely am—there’ll be suitcases in the Mercedes containing heroin at a street value of about twenty-eight million, give or take a few mil.”

Both cops looked stunned. They blinked and looked at each other for a moment, then Mulvaney gave Boff a closer look.
“And you are?”

Obviously not wanting Boff to take over the operation, Schlosberg jumped in.
“He’s Frank Boff, a former DEA agent. He’s assisting me on the operation. Strictly as a civilian.”

Sergeant Gillette nodded and addressed Schlosberg. “Who’re the perps we’re expecting?”

“One is James Simms,” Schlosberg said. “Simms owns a big rap record label and goes by the moniker Yusef Force. Boff and NYPD believe he contracted to have someone killed. The other guy is Enrique Solis, the biggest drug dealer in the Bronx. Also a suspect in the murder.”

Mulvaney grimaced. “Okay,” he said. “Got the picture. And you said over the phone that he owns a house on this street?”

“Yes,” Schlosberg replied. “He’s coming home because his plates were made and he needs to switch vehicles. Don’t expect him to stay for long inside the house, though. Once he transfers the drugs to the other vehicle, he’ll drive back out.”

Mulvaney kept nodding his head. “Uh, one question,” he said. “Wh
y don’t we move in when they’re trapped inside the house?”

When Schlosberg offered no answer, Boff said, “
Because he’s unlikely to surrender and some of your men could get killed trying to flush him out.”

“Uh huh,” Mulvaney said, head still nodding. “So when do we block both ends of the street?”

Boff continued to lay things out. “I suggest you move your cars into position as soon as he goes into the garage. But don’t block the streets right away. Park your vehicles nearby. You’ll want to let Simms drive away from the house a bit before you throw up the roadblocks. Otherwise, he might go right back inside.”

“We appreciate the information, Mr. Boff,” Mulvaney said. “And you being a former law enforcement officer, I’m sure you understand why I have to ask you to remain in your vehicle when this goes down.”

“Just what I was thinking,” Boff said.

Schlosberg took a step forward. “Let’s get out of sight before they get here.”

The Mercedes arrived a few minutes later and pulled into Yusef’s garage, the electronic door closing behind it. On a signal from Mulvaney, two vehicles were sent down the street past the house. When they reached the end of the block, one turned left, the other, right, then both made K-turns so that their front ends were facing the intersection. Two more cars were dispatched to do the same maneuver at the opposite end of the block. The plan was to put two cars across each intersection, hopefully trapping Yusef.

Boff remained in his car with the DEA agents. “Marty,” he said, “make sure they don’t shoot at Yusef and Solis. Take out the tires if they try to use the lawns to get around the road block. We want them alive if possible so we can flip one to testify about the murder.”

Schlosberg got out of the car, hustled over to Mulvaney’s vehicle
to tell him about shooting out the tires.

Still in the rental Honda, Boff was giving instructions to Bellucci and Cullen. “Mikey, I know you want to watch the action, but when the shooting starts, keep your head below the dashboard. Same goes for you, Danny.”

“What about you?” Cullen asked.

“I’ll be slouched down right next to you.”

Boff’s phone rang. He looked at the caller ID and saw Damiano’s name. She’d been calling every five minutes. Having no intention of answering until he was ready to speak to her, he shook his head and put the phone away.

“Hey, Boff,” Bellucci said, “don’t you ever miss not being in on the action?”

Boff shook his head. “Not for a minute. Watching a shootout on TV or in a movie theater is nothing like being in a real street fight. It’s scarier than hell. And you keep thinking about your wife and kids and what they’ll do without you if you get killed. I probably shouldn’t admit this, but in my first shootout as a rookie I pissed my pants. Boy, did I take a lot of ribbing for that.”

Cullen laughed out loud. “I’m going to save that info for the right occasion,” he said.

“Go right ahead,” Boff said. “Nobody will ever believe the Great Boffer pissed his pants.”

Bellucci tugged Boff’s arm. “How much longer before they come out?” he asked.

“Depends on what they’re doing inside. My guess is, first, they’re transferring the suitcases to another vehicle. Then they’ll pack a couple of other suitcases with enough clothes for a long vacation.”

“Where can they go now to move the drugs?” Cullen asked. “They can’t return to the city. They know the feds are onto them.”

“Correct. So I think Yusef intends on driving to Boston, Philly, or wherever else Solis has a connection that can take the H off their hands for a handsome profit.”

“What about the roadblocks?” Cullen pointed at the black and whites parked
by the intersections. “Will they work?”

“They might, but….”

“But what?”

“It’s very possible that Yusef could try to run the lawns to get around them. That’s one of only two choices he has. Unless of course they surrender. Which I don’t see them doing.”

“And the other choice?” Cullen asked.

“Take hostages.”

This got Bellucci’s attention. “What hostages?”

Boff swept his hand around the block. “At this time of night, most of these houses have people in them. See the cars in the driveways? The house lights on? To take hostages, Yusef would just drive right up to the front door of whatever home he chooses to invade. Running from the street would not be an option, because he and Solis would risk getting gunned down before they can even reach anybody’s front door.”

“Then what happens?” Both young men were curious.

“Well, if they’re successful in entering the house, it gets ugly.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning we’ll have a real law enforcement circus here. Plus media up the kazoo. It’s not something I’d welcome. I haven’t eaten dinner yet, and a hostage situation could take hours. Sometimes days. Since I’m not being paid, it’d be doubly painful.”

Schlosberg’s agents and the cops were crouching behind the hoods of their cars when Yusef’s garage door opened and a Cadillac SRX backed out. Leaving the driveway, it turned right and headed away from the main team. But just as the Cadillac was closing in on the cops parked at the end of the block, the black and whites shot into the intersection and stopped fender-to-fender, forming a barrier. Yusef hit the brakes, whipped his car around, and sped
the other way. As soon as the Cadillac got close, the other two cop cars pulled into the intersection, sealing it off, too.

Again Yusef skidded to a stop. For a few moments, he didn’t move. Then he suddenly jerked his Cadillac to the right, hopped the curb, blew across a lawn, and headed straight for a house with two large, floor-to-ceiling front windows. The car smashed through the windows and into some unfortunate soul’s living room.

Seeing the situation, Boff got out of his rental. He turned back to his two assistants. “You guys stay inside,” he told Cullen and Bellucci. Then he walked over to Schlosberg, Mulvaney, and Gillette.

“Shit,” Mulvaney was saying. “Goddam hostages. Now what do we do?”

Schlosberg replied before Boff could open his mouth. “We’re gonna need a SWAT team with a sniper and a hostage negotiator.”

Mulvaney nodded. “
Westchester County can provide that.” He pulled out his cell phone and walked away to make the call.

Schlosberg looked at Boff. “How come you didn’t think of this, genius?”

“Actually, I did.”

“Then why the hell didn’t you say something?”

“What good would it have done, Marty? There’re a dozen houses on this street he could’ve stormed. Last thing you needed was to call all those people and put them in a panic. They might’ve run outside and gummed up the whole operation.”

“Well, Mr. Boff,” Gillette chipped in, “it looks pretty gummed up to me right now.”

Indeed it did. People who had heard the crash came out of their front doors to a scene they’d probably only seen before in movies. Cops everywhere. Flashing red bubble lights. And a gaping hole in a neighbor’s house.

“Damn, this ain’t good,” Gillette said. He trotted to his car, opened the trunk, pulled out a megaphone, and hustled back. He raised the megaphone to his mouth. “Please stay in your homes! We have the situation under control! Do not try to drive away in your cars! You’ll only cause problems and risk getting hurt!”

That was enough to scare all the civilians back inside.

Boff tapped Gillette on the shoulder. “You might want to find out who lives in the house the Cadillac crashed into. Find out how many people could be in there.”

“I’m on it,” Gillette said in a shaky voice. He walked away.

“Now what, Frank?” Schlosberg asked. “What’s the best-case scenario here?”

“Yusef and Solis see the error of their ways, come out with their hands up, and all the hostages are freed in time for me to have dinner.”

“Thanks for that.”

“Look, Marty, you and I both know this could play out a dozen different ways. And most of them aren’t good. About the only positive I can see coming from this mess is that when it’s over, I’ll have Biaggi’s killers—dead or alive, it doesn’t matter to me—and you’ll get your splashy drug bust and a likely bump in pay grade.”

Shaking his head, Schlosberg left Boff and went back to talk to his agents.

Boff’s phone rang again. It was Damiano. This time he answered. “If you yell, I’m hanging up,” he said before she could speak.

Fine. Just tell me where you are.

“Scarsdale.”

WHAT THE FUCK
ARE YOU DOING IN SCARSDALE?

“I’ll tell you on one condition. When you come here, bring sandwiches for me, Danny, and Mikey. And please try not to spit in mine. Now I’d like to order—”

I’m not a fucking waitress, you asshole!

“—two roast beef sandwiches with lots of ketchup and coleslaw on the side for the boys. For me, I’d like a
Black Forest ham and Swiss on rye and a side of German potato salad. If they don’t have Black Forest, regular ham will do fine.” He took the silence at the other end of the phone to mean Damiano was fuming. Just in case, he held the phone further away from his ear.

Would you care for des
sert, sir?
she finally said.

“Gee. I would’ve asked. But I didn’t want to seem too pushy.”

In a measured voice, the detective said,
I took your fucking food order, now tell me what the hell’s going on there.

“It’s complicated.”

I’m listening.

“Well, the long and short of it is this: Yusef, Solis, and a twenty-eight million dollar drug shipment are inside a house full of hostages, and the Scarsdale police are calling in a Westchester County SWAT team and a negotiator.”

For a long moment, all he could hear was the sound of Damiano’s heavy breathing.

Then she spoke.
Let me get this straight. This bust, which was supposed to be an NYPD operation, now includes the DEA, the Scarsdale PD, the fucking Westchester County fucking police, and two professional boxers? Why the hell didn’t you call in the FBI and Blackwater mercenaries while you were at it, dipshit?

“How soon can you get here? I’m starving.”

As Boff had predicted, the street was a complete circus within half an hour. The Westchester PD brought a SWAT team and mobile command center. SWAT sent a sniper to the door of a house directly across the street. In a matter of minutes, the shooter was positioned on the roof, his body anchored by a strap tied to the chimney. Four TV news trucks and a mob of reporters and photographers were jostling for space behind the barricades at both ends of the block.

Yusef, meanwhile, had parked the Cadillac inside the house and across the big hole. He had also closed drapes where the windows had been. In case Yusef and Solis tried to bolt from the back door, Schlosberg put two agents in position behind a house adjacent to the one with the hostages.

And Boff? He was starving by the time Damiano arrived with four of her men. Stepping out of her police car with a larg
e brown paper bag, the detective shook her head as she surveyed the scene.

“Nice work, Boff. Looks like a damn movie set.”

“Aw, quit bitching, Victoria. It could’ve been worse.”

“I can’t imagine how.”

“They could’ve gotten away. You can thank me for that.”

She thanked him with her middle finger.

“Fork over the sandwiches,” he said. “I’ll leave you a good tip.”

She tossed him the bag, then walked away to introduce herself to the agents and the local cops.

Heading back to his car, Boff took out the two roast beef sandwiches and a pair of cole slaw containers and forks. After passing them through the window to Bellucci and Cullen, he pulled out his own sandwich.

It wasn’t exactly what he had ordered. Instead of ham and Swiss, Damiano had bought him what could only be described as a Montezuma’s Revenge Sandwich. Baloney on white bread. No cheese. And a ton of ketchup slathered on top. As for his potato salad, it had morphed into a raw russet with a plastic fork and knife duct-taped to it. Although it was the worst sandwich he had ever tasted, he ate it. While
leaning against his rental and chewing, he looked around at the zoo the crime scene had turned into. He hated the multi-department involvement even more than Damiano did. It was bad enough working with one cop. This was multiple cops. His worst nightmare. And a recipe for disaster.

Inside the car, Cullen and Bellucci were eating their sandwiches and wrestling with a different problem.

“Coach is gonna be worried about you,” Bellucci said. “You oughta call him.”

Cullen shook his head. “If I tell him where I am, he’ll rip me a new asshole.”

“He’s gonna do that anyway when you eventually show up.”

Cullen reluctantly took out his cell and called.

Why the hell aren’t you here?
McAlary shouted.

“It’s a little difficult to explain.”

Let’s hear it.

When Cullen had finished telling him, McAlary didn’t say anything for a few moments. Finally,
Will this be over tonight?

“We think so. And we’ll have Nino’s killers.”

And starting tomorrow you’re going to live in the gym. Right?

“Totally. I’ll even get a sleeping bag and stay there overnight.”

After a pause, the trainer said,
I’m pissed that you guys aren’t here. But I know you’re doing this for me, and I appreciate that. I also know you like to play hero, like you did when you found Julio’s killers. Promise me you won’t put yourself in harm’s way again, okay?

“Boff has me and Mikey locked in his car. We’re not allowed out.”

Good. First sensible thing that wanker has done. Now you keep your butts in there till it’s over. I’ll stay at the gym late so you can get in some work. We have a fight to win in case you forgot.

Damiano was talking with Schlosberg and Mulvaney when they were approached by a Westchester cop with two silver bars on his collar. He was a ramrod straight, military-looking type with a leathery face.

“I’m Captain Lenahan,” he said. “We understand that the DEA and
Scarsdale are primaries—”

“—and NYPD,” Damiano added.

“Right” Lenahan said. “We’re here just as backup. We won’t breach unless directed by you. The sniper has instructions only to take a shot if directed by you. Since we have the only hostage negotiator, we’ll use him to try to talk them out. All that okay with you guys?”

“Do it,” Mulvaney said.

As Lenahan walked back to the command center, Schlosberg folded his arms over his chest. “Well, I guess all we can do now is wait,” he said. “If this was a city dwelling, I’d try to get a cam inside so we could have eyes. But out here in the open like this, it’d be a waste of time. They’d spot us coming.” He turned to Damiano. “So how do you like working with the Boffer?”

“Don’t even get me started,” she replied.

He laughed. “Welcome to the club, detective. Boff and I partnered for awhile back when he was an agent. Then I couldn’t take it anymore and told my supervisor I’d quit if I had to keep working with him.”

“I’m curious about something,” Damiano said. “How come Boff doesn’t pack? If you consider all the dirtbags he’s gotten off, there must be dozens of law enforcement officers and families of victims who’d love to draw down on him.”

“That there are,” Schlosberg said, unfolding his arms to accept a coffee brought over by one of his agents. “Don’t tell Boff I told you, but the reason he doesn’t pack is that during a DEA bust he accidentally shot a little girl about the same age as his daughter at the time. The girl only took one in the thigh and recovered fine. But Boff was so badly shaken up that he stayed at the hospital till the kid was released. He told me afterward that once he got out of the DEA, he’d never carry a gun again.”

A half hour passed before the Westchester captain came back out of the command center and walked over to Boff and the law enforcement team.

“Here’s what I got,” Lenahan began. He looked down at a pad. “There are multiple hostages inside, but the subjects wouldn’t tell us how many. We learned that the couple that lives there has four school-age children, ages six through eleven. We don’t know how many of them are inside. The subject called Simms says nobody’s been hurt.”

“What’re they asking for?” Schlosberg asked.

“A get-out-of-jail-free card.”

“Meaning,” Boff said, “they want a helicopter, one high-ranking officer as a collateral hostage, and a jet with a range of over one thousand miles waiting on the runway at Westchester with civilian pilots.” Boff saw Lenahan narrowing his eyes as he looked at him. “After he checks out the plane,” Boff continued, “and is convinced nobody from law enforcement is stashed on board, he’ll release the officer and take off for parts unknown. Probably Cuba.”

Still focused on Boff, Lenahan nodded. “Yeah, that’s pretty close.”

“Are we gonna give it to him?” Mulvaney asked.

“If we can’t talk him into surrendering,” Lenahan said, “yes. But we’ll try to make him free as many hostages as we can get before complying.”

Then he turned from Mulvaney back to Boff. “I know you from somewhere,” he began. “What’s your name?”

“Frank M. Boff.”

The captain frowned. “State vs. Raymond Bulgar, two thousand six. You were on the defense team.”

“Correct.”

Lenahan gave Boff a stony look. “Bulgar shot and paralyzed one of our men. You helped get him off.”

Boff remained silent. He could see where this was going.

Lenahan poked a finger in Boff’s chest. “I’ve got to get back to the command center. But maybe you and I’ll have a little private conversation later. Mr. Frank M. Boff.” He did a stiff about-face and walked back to the command center.

“Looks like you made another friend,” Schlosberg remarked.

Boff noticed that Mulvaney was staring at him in a hostile way.

“You help scumbags get off?” Mulvaney asked.

“
Alleged
scumbags.”

“Beat many righteous cases, have you?”

Schlosberg stepped between them. “Look, Mulvaney, if you wanna take a crack at Boff, you’ll have to stand in a very long line. Right now, we need to focus on the situation at hand. We clear on that, lieutenant?”

“For now.”

As Mulvaney walked back to Gillette and the other Scarsdale officers, Boff turned his attention to the house with the hostages inside. In addition to using his car to block the hole in the house, Yusef had all the curtains and shades pulled and the lights off. He was doing everything by the hostage playbook.

“You think these guys will play it straight if they get what they want?” Schlosberg asked.

“They might,” Boff said. “Providing one of the Keystone Cops here doesn’t screw things up.”

“How the hell did you get so jaded? You weren’t like that in the DEA.”

“I’m not jaded, Marty. Just a man who sees the world without DEA blinkers on. Now if you’ll excuse me, I want to check on my junior partners.”