Snarky nodded. ‘In Brownsville, which, as you know, is not exactly where you’d want to bring up your kids. Guy’s called Jose Cruz, and he has one real badass dude by his side. Diego, his enforcer. Real bad, that hombre.’
He reflected for a moment. ‘You know, I’ve been here a long time and seen gangs come and go. These guys are different.’
‘Different in what way?’ Broker moved his seat back a couple of inches. Everything was fair in a battle against odor.
‘They’ve written the book on best practices for gang survival. I’ve heard that this gang recruits from the military, but they’ve adapted to survive on the street.’
Broker didn’t reply. This junkie probably knows the gang better than the JTF.
Snarky edged closer to Broker. ‘What’s your interest in them?’ He paused and then continued when Broker didn’t answer. ‘Keep your distance from them. They’re scum, but they’re disciplined about it and all the more dangerous.’
‘Where does this Cruz hang out?’
Snarky pushed the trilby back fully, exposing gray stubble and sunken eyes. The eyes were sharp. ‘They hung out in a garage a while back, but moved to the edge of Brownsville recently. Was that your doing?’
‘Where?’
‘A Laundromat. A big one. Used to be Chinese-owned one day, and the next day, Cruz and his gang had all but unfurled their flag over it. But they’re keeping very low-key about it. The garage saw a lot of their heavies coming and going, and some of them were always there… this one here, they’ve just three guys or four all day, and Cruz comes irregularly. Most of the time he comes at night.’
Broker dug into his pocket and pushed a roll of bills toward Snarky. ‘I need more than this drip feed. I want to know who and how many exactly is at that place, how often Cruz appears, who’s with him… the works. You know the drill.’
Snarky eyed the bills and wet his lips. They were enough to feed him, or his habit, for months.
‘Shit, man, why did you go and do that? Tempting me like that. What you’re asking me to do is too dangerous. Word gets to them about me, I’m dead. In their world, you’re either minding your own business, or theirs. If theirs, you’re doing it for them else you’re dead. And you don’t die easy. That family… I heard whispers… they’ve disappeared.’
He shivered and, wrapping his coat tightly around his skinny frame, tipped his bottle back and took a long pull.
His eyes shone brighter as he looked into Broker’s for a long time, knowing very little of what Broker did, but knowing enough, and his shivering slowed.
‘They’ve no idea, do they? No idea of the dragon they’ve poked,’ he whispered.
Broker said nothing, kept looking back at him.
Snarky caressed the bills, picked them up, and smelt them. His voice was steadier when he spoke. ‘How do I contact you?’
Broker gave him a number. It was a toll-free messaging number, totally unreachable by the gang. ‘Call that number from a pay phone. Where are their other hides? Their businesses?’
Snarky bared his lips, his version of a smile, the roll disappearing from his hand, and recited a long list of names. Some of those, the strip club and a couple of others, tallied with Broker’s intel.
Broker kept looking at his back when he left, the door swinging in the shadows.
I should warn him, but he’s survived the streets a long time. He knows what he’s getting into.
Broker walked back the way he came, deep in thought. Much later, that would be his excuse for not noticing the shadow across the street, behind him.
Chapter 27
The strip club had an anonymous façade, its sole distinguishing feature the full-size cutout of a nude woman. Its front had limited parking spaces, and small darkened show windows stared out either side of the large door.
The strip club had a narrow alley at one side, which led to a walled and valeted parking lot at the rear, a rear entrance linking the lot to the club. Parking was important. Business types didn’t like walking, and the rear parking offered anonymity. The alley side had an entrance, presumably for supplies.
The front of the strip club merged into storefronts for salons, convenience stores, Mexican take-aways… everything that men would need on the same street.
‘Three cameras facing the street, one in the alley.’ Bwana was driving, Chloe was in the front, Roger and Bear were taking notes in the rear. Bwana turned left at the lights at the end of the street, another left and a right, and he was driving up the street on the same side as the entrance.
Chloe glanced inside the alley as they drove past. ‘Can’t see much. It’s a dead end with just one drive leading to the lot. The camera is right on top of the alley entrance.’
Bwana drove to a gas station a couple of streets away and pulled into a vacant lot. He swiveled as Roger and Bear opened the building plan for the club.
‘Broker said it might not be recent, but this’s the only plan he could get.’
They studied it in silence for a moment. The front and rear entrances led the patrons to seating and the stage to the right, while a bar, changing rooms and restrooms took over the left.
‘Three entrances, the rear doubles up as the fire exit.’ Chloe traced them with a lacquered finger. ‘I bet the alley entrance is also the staff entrance.’
‘Night?’ Bwana asked hopefully.
‘Nah. Too many people and there’ll be enough goons to outnumber us,’ Bear replied.
‘So when?’
‘Evening, around four. They open at six, so that’s when they’ll be stocking up and have enough cash in the place, but not that many heavies.’
‘I was them, I’d have heavies round the clock,’ Roger commented.
Chloe turned off the iPad and handed it to Bear. ‘Which’s why we’ll recon all day tomorrow, hit the day after.’
Roger winked at Bear. ‘She bosses you all the time?’
Bear pulled a long face. ‘I’m not allowed to say.’
Roger arrived early the next day driving a cab and left it parked on the street, in the opposite lane, and placed an ‘NYPD. Impounded’ card on the dashboard with a number on it. Broker had tossed him the keys with an all-taken-care-of grunt in the morning.
He locked the cab and walked without a backward glance down an alley and behind the street. He thumped twice on a black Escalade and hauled himself inside when it opened.
The cab had a hi-res, hi-zoom camera rigged in its advert canopy, swivel mounted, with a sixty-degree turn capability and a parabolic mic. It fed images wirelessly to base and relay stations they had mounted the previous night, leading the feed and controls to the Escalade. Bear looked up when he entered and turned back to the display and control panel. He nudged the joystick, watched for a few more minutes, and then pushed back.
‘These gadgets would have saved us a lot of grief in Iraq and ’Stan.’
Bwana, lying on the rear bench, opened one eye and snorted. ‘You’d have ended up fat and lazy, a bottom broader than this truck.’
Bwana caught the balled-up napkin thrown his way and went back to snoozing.
‘Where’s Chloe?’
‘Should be back soon. Coffees and all that.’
When Chloe joined them, they seemed to be asleep, an impression that had cost many an ambusher dearly. The Warriors were used to recon and could go for hours, days, in silent stillness. Zero to lethal in a second, she thought as she surveyed them, glanced at the monitor, and settled herself next to Bear.
They broke off the surveillance late at night and watched the feed from the start.
The first employees at the club arrived close to midday, the kitchen staff, via the alley entrance. Then came a series of deliveries, drinks, groceries, maintenance guys, cleaners, the invisible operators of the club. At half-past three, a Camry rolled up, low on its wheels. Four toughs inside would do that. Three of them hopped off at the alley entrance, one carrying a heavy backpack. The fourth drove the car behind, to the parking lot, and disappeared from the recon cam.