All Cops Are Bastards
By Moses Levi
(Published in CRIME
Vol.5, No. 6)
“You don’t become a goon, you
are born a goon.”
“I live my life in the gutter
so that you don’t have to.”
“Any time of the day, I’ll do
anything for my Brothers. No matter what.”
“It’s not about legality. It’s
about making sure that world continues to make sense. It’s not about right or
wrong. Thugs exist to keep things straight. People fear thugs. Making sure that
thugs are scary is the whole point of being a thug.”
“I’m flattered when they try
to make it more coherent than all of that. We’re that thin blue line that keeps
order. We keep chaos from taking over. A little corruption is necessary. We’re
supposed to be nice to little kids, not to the drunken homeless vagrants that
piss all over themselves when the handcuffs are put on too tight, and our knees
are pounded repeatedly against their kidneys.”
…………………………………………..
“We don’t kill cops. That’s never a bright idea,” I said.
“They are not the enemy. They are obstacles. They are dangerous obstacles. But
they are the good guys, no matter how corrupt, no matter how cruel, no matter
how fucked up. We’re the bad guys. Remember that, and you’ll never be
disappointed.”
“I don’t care about your moral bullshit. You’re being paid
to do a job. I don’t care how you do it, as long as it gets done,” replied
Reagan.
I shrugged, “We don’t kill cops. We’ll do pretty much
anything that the job requires. But cops are off the list. And innocents. Kids.
We don’t do kids. We don’t do bystanders. Anything else? I don’t fucking care.
The world isn’t a worse place because of us. We’re in it for the bucks. Nothing
else. No one who doesn’t deserve it gets hurt on my watch.”
“You’ll do what you’re told. Get the job done, you’ll get
paid. Fuck it up, you’ll get marked. I’m not fucking around. You want to do it
your way, go ahead, that’s none of mine. But if it comes down to you or me,
it’ll never be me. Otherwise, no one cares who gets what, as long as the job
gets done.”
“We don’t leave witnesses. That’s our hallmark. It’s really
as simple as that. No one gets hurt that doesn’t need to get hurt. We don’t get
noticed. We don’t leave a trace. Anything less than that is sloppy. Leave that
shit to the agencies. Our work gets forgotten because there’s nothing to
remember. You pay exactly for what you get. Nothing more. Nothing less.”
I sat there with my drink and looked at the man I sat across
from. Reagan was a big, well dressed man with black hair that was greased back
like something out of a movie. Reagan used to take care of the dirtiest side of
his business himself, but with his reputation having grown a form of celebrity
beyond his own control, he was forced to put others to the task. This time, it
was me. The world he lived in required outside consultants, the kind that are
not as affordable as those found in the classified ad sections of obscure
military magazines. The kind who do not require reputations.
“If you own the force, why don’t you let them take care of
it? You’d think that dirty goons in uniform are as likely to protect their own
racket as some unrelated outsider.”
“You can’t buy that kind of loyalty from a cop. Not unless
you give them too much of a sense of control. Then, ultimate authority becomes
the ultimate problem. You can pay them to look the other way, most of the time.
But it comes down to basic economics. You buy the key pieces, and keep them
under your hat. There’s ones that can be bought. And you hope for the best.” He
got up and refilled his glass, tipping the crystal decanter towards me, to see
if I wanted a top-up. I did, and he kindly filled my glass to half, then
dropped in two cubes with his little silver ice tongs. “I don’t mind honest
cops. Here and there. They’re usually pretty stupid, and not very observant.
They keep their noses to the stone and, like the good minded citizens that they
are, get caught up saving kitties from trees and hunting for lost children
who’ve been on the back of milk cartons longer than milk cartons have existed.”
“I have to make it clear to our clients, there are
limitations to the kinds of work that we will take on. Cops are a necessity.
The kind of news that gets made when one disappears, or dies, or worse, is the
obvious target of a hit, isn’t good for society – theirs, yours, or mine. Nor
the kind of heat that it casts on business. Nobody needs that. Especially your
business.
Reagan nodded, sitting down across from me, lighting up a
half-smoked cigar butt.
“Cops that fuck up on their own deserve it.” He spoke
between puffs, his cigar slowly taking on a hot cherry red glow. “They get
caught, that’s their problem. Shitty cops that got the badge just for the tough
guy gimmick, they’ll eventually drop out. They can’t handle being a part of a
hierarchy. They hate having a superior to answer to. Can’t stand the paperwork.
They feel like criminals. And they are criminals. They eventually fuck off. Or
get desk jobs. Often that. They wash out.”
“But this guy. He’s a cop. So, what’s the deal? We don’t do
cops.”
Reagan looked at me and grinned, the sick, dangerous kind of
toothy grin that only the immaculately evil can form without effort, “He’s on
vacation. Suspended. We’ve seen to it. Yes, he’s still technically a cop. But
he’s not under as much scrutiny. The media won’t be as forgiving, especially
since no news has been reported concerning his unbecoming behaviour. Bad cops
who get caught being shits, are shit. Bad shit cops who die while on forced
leave, aren’t cops. They’re less than criminals, especially since most of the
details can’t be shared with the public. They’re citizens. Nothing but. Shit
looks like shit. As far as the media is concerned, it looks more than
suspicious. That no one wants to make a dirty cop look like a hero. And that
presents an unique opportunity.”
I grunted. He made himself a little logical loop-hole. I
couldn’t help but note his bit of manipulative wordplay. Some might call it
compellingly persuasive. He missed his calling. He might have been a brilliant
evangelical preacher. Or litigator. Or salesman. But, he was a dangerous,
wealthy and powerful crook. So, I took the job.
An honest cop, a REAL honest cop, stands out like a gay
priest in an all-nun whorehouse. Reagan collected the ones who could be
collected. Easy pickings. The approach is simpler than you would expect. All
cops are corrupt. They don’t report on their own. It’s an unspoken rule. Well,
really, it’s spoken, but never to outsiders. Locker-room talk. And, even though
the most impeccable cop is as incorruptible as Sisyphus, he’ll still suffer his
own complicity in silence, proving to be as guilty as the worst of his
brethren.
“The target married? Kids? Dog? Girlfriend? Roommate?”
“No. No complications. He lives alone. Basement suite
apartment in the burbs.”
“So, then, you pick the details.”
“I’ll be at an event. Rather public. Do it around eight.
Everyone will remember that I was there. And that’s a better alibi than anyone
could ask for. Everyone will still be sober enough to remember that I was there
with my entourage. Including my security. No one could assume my involvement
with that kind of crowd. Besides, no one could make the connection anyways. Not
without a psychic on the payroll.”
“Fine. Date and time are set. You can pay me now.” I said.
No fucking around. There would be no second payment here. I’d need to finance a
professional crew, and organize a clean scenario.
I called upon a couple of friends. It was their job to make
sure that nothing could lead back to myself, nor to anyone at all. Some might
think of awful scenarios as dissolving the body in a bathtub of chemicals, or a
corpse becoming a gourmet breakfast at a neighborly hog farm. Pig chow for
piggies. Not in this case. The local police service needed to understand
exactly what was being communicated to them, in a manner that they couldn’t
possibly disclose to the media as more than it was. Ordinary death. Nothing to
investigate. Nothing to report. The target needed to be cut from the same cloth
as that of simple human mortality. No detail. No evidence to the contrary. Just
death. Bad cop does what’s right, for once.
We were a three person crew. Alice, our driver, pulled into
the alleyway behind the copper’s house. She checked out all of the homes up and
down the street, timing the comings and goings of gossipy old women, security
officers and beat cops along potential exit routes, dogs – both tiny and large
– up and down the alleyways and front porches, and memorizing every possible
traffic light, pothole, and dead end alley way between here, there and
everywhere. Simple, but effective. Most municipal IT crews operate on a limited
budget, but even on the best of days, eleventh hour water main and holiday
street repairs can get in the way of a perfectly planned escape. Any criminal
can rely on two universal truths. The first is that one should never
underestimate human ignorance. No one wants to be bothered. To remember. To be
involved. To care. And second is that bureaucracy is the institutionalization
of incompetence. Thus, it takes forever to get anything done, and the costs are
astronomical.
Our second team member was not required on sight. Scott was
a veterinarian. Not a human doctor, but skilled in medicine, just the same. He
was not a depraved man, being a decent husband and father of three. He had
bills. And debts. And a drug addiction. But his recommendations are rarely off
the mark, and his clinic has come in handy in tight situations far more times
than I would like to admit. I have had two bullets removed and three stab
wounds bandaged up by him, proving his value. Scott also had access to
pentobarbital, the drug most commonly used to euthanize dogs. In humans it
passes for an overdose of barbituates and alcohol, or back-pain muscle
relaxants and alcohol. Either way, alcohol helps fuck up the results, and
toxicology reports tend to take weeks, even months for forensic analysis, under
ordinary circumstances. Don’t believe the television shows, resources are
stretched to a bare limit, and most crimes remain unsolved, only for the lack
of interest, the lack of manpower, or the age of evidence. Perhaps some day, in
a science fiction based future universe, technology will have surpassed
bureaucracy, though somehow, I doubt that will ever be the case.
Might as well
make it look like something that it wasn’t. Drugs are easy. Accidents
are easy. Suicides are easy. But a message to other dirty cops on the take?
Less easy. It’s got to be unreportable.
Where a slip in the shower might otherwise work, this job required
something far more subtle. Ordinary. Boring. Under the radar. Anything which
warranted more than a brief obituary would beg scrutiny. No crime could be
implied. Heart attacks, strokes and fast acting cancer are games the three
letter agencies play with. It’s like a calling card. And spooky as hell. But
suicide is simple. No need for an investigation. No need to conclude anything
other than the basic repercussions of human frailty. It is this kind of
mortality that puts imaginary insects under the skins of crooked cops … too
close to home. There’s a reason why cops have such a high suicide rate.
Untouchables can’t deal with the horrors of their own existence. Suicide sends
a message in the most elegant and poetic fashion that they were not untouchable,
that privileges earned by dirty deeds did not come cheap.
And if they looked any deeper than that, all they’d get is a
crumpled up receipt or a few loose pills procured from a local Mexican drug
store. They sell that shit over the counter. Muscle relaxant. Sometimes dosed
with morphine. Hell, if you get the right hookup, local Hispanic pharmacists
are well known for finding pure flake Columbian or soft black Afghani tar, so
long as you’re a regular. And believe it or not, most cops are regulars. As
often as not, they’re capable of providing a daily mickey of unadulterated
urine as well, guaranteed to pass any surprises, so long as they’re not
watching too closely as you drain your main vein.
Day of was less than a week away. Scouting the neighborhood
was left to Alice. She had a keen eye for details, and a quick wit for getting
out of gnarly situations with civilians. She rarely found herself under
pressure. She threw on an orange vest and carried a clip board, making like
she’s checking gas meters, telephone boxes, and the presence of animals. Easy
excuse, and forgettable if noticed. Also helped to explain the toolbelt. She
kept a handy tool kit, enough to deal with most situations. And dog treats.
Nothing in this gig is more important than puppy treats laced with chloral
hydrate.
She checked with the local road works crews, to ensure that there weren’t any scheduled construction in
the area, and selected an appropriate exit strategy if there was.
Scott skimmed the pharmaceuticals from the animal hospital.
Even under scrutiny, missing supplies would go unnoticed, since they had to put
down hundreds of animals every year. A few CC’s off the count wouldn’t raise
alarm. Putting down a beloved family member is an imperfect craft.
No note. Regardless of what Hollywood wants you to believe,
suicides are rarely so dramatic, and far more impulsive. Accidents are far more
common. Finality is defied by leaving one’s voice behind. Blame is far more
cruelly administered to family and friends when it is left unspoken. The guilt
is one’s own. Suicide notes are often meant to spread around the emotional
pain, a last ditch effort at self preservation. Cries for help are made for an
audience, pleas for attention. Uttered in desperation. Reasonable persons set
their last words in a will and testament, and leave their cruelty for their
lawyer to dish out. Anyone who wants to be remembered leaves behind an
autobiography, or a collection of meaningful works, even if they are simply
albums filled with photographs. Broken down cops who are escaping the reality
of their self disgust don’t want to relive their crimes, and don’t want to
acknowledge or admit to their faults. No note.
Alice had been scouting the house since noon, and reported
no movement except for the kitchen and bathroom lights being turned on around
dusk. The autumn air was crisp, and as yet, there had been no snow. Only leaves
and wind. No one wanted to be outside, and people tended to avoid wandering the
neighborhood at night, except those walking their dogs. It was well past rush
hour, and most people had already gone home. It was also game night. Anyone who
was out was already out. Not much traffic to deal with, at least until the
sportsing was over and excited fans remained at their respective watering holes
to celebrate their victory, or dejected patrons of the losing party wandered
home, with little more than vague memories they’d forget by the end of the season.
Either way, traffic was light, and the plan was going accordingly.
There would be no communication from Reagan, nor to anyone
in his circle. There was to be no trace of him linked to any of this event. His
news would come by the normal routes, through the grapevine. Scuttle bug was
the only sure way to keep from knowing too much, or appearing to know too much.
Especially when it comes from someone like Reagan, who is as arrogant as he is
ambitious. Were someone to make noise, news would find him. Any wobbles in the
plan would find him just the same. Reagan was a well established crook, and the
certainty of his being surveilled by law enforcement guaranteed that any
attempt to pass along any message at all would be scrutinized and made evident.
Even a poorly timed wrong number could set off an investigation, no matter how
inconclusive. Alice knew exactly which wires to mess around with from the
telephone wiring box down the block, leaving behind the only trace of fuckery a
corroded wire less than a sixty-fourth of a inch thick, presumably from exposure
to the elements, and a loosened box cover.
When all is said and done, silence is the only reliable
messenger of truth. Any noise at all tends to be heard. And listeners tend to
impose their own meaningfulness to what is perceived, so it is much better to
keep them guessing. One of my mentors once said, “Trees may fall in the forest
unheard. But if a car stalls in the city, no one will hear that it’s getting
jacked up on blocks and being stripped bare of anything of value.”
On the day of, I found myself as calm as I could be. I slept
in until two, hit up the local diner for a coffee and a sandwich, and stopped
off at the barber’s for a trim and a wash. Lazy criminals rarely maintain a
clean appearance, which makes them stand out like a sore thumb. No one pays
attention to a well-groomed stranger. They tend to look away, if nothing else.
Ordinary folk avoid eye contact with anyone who presents themselves with class.
No one wants to be noticed, so they go on not noticing. More importantly, a
fresh haircut and shave helps avoid leaving behind any DNA, especially when one
takes the extra precautions of a decent shower. I picked up a pair of used Florsheim’s
from the Salvation Army earlier in the week. Disposable, and if necessary, any
boot prints become useless evidence. Uncomfortable shoes changes the gait and
stance, and soles broken in by another person throws off any tangible evidence.
Professional jobs differ from street gangster amateur work
entirely on the level of planning and improvisation. There is no room for
mistakes. Planning can only go so far. Life happens. Human nature will always
find a way to add a degree of complication into any scenario. Variation is the
aim of nature, nothing remains the same from one moment to another. Even the
wings of a butterfly moving in Japan can have an unknowable effect on
hurricanes in Florida. Professionals manage. Experience teaches timing. Timing
is everything. Street hustlers might know a gimmick or two, but they panic when
things go sideways. And they always go sideways. The Scouts Handbook said it
best, “Be prepared.”
Alice called me from a pay phone nearby ten minutes before
arriving to pick me up. She had picked up Scott’s package earlier on, and it
was ready to go, a fully loaded disposable needle. She had also hit up the
Mexican convenience store for an off market bottle of muscle relaxant. The kind
everyone knows about, but don’t talk about. The response of the former would be
nearly immediate, if administered at a high enough dose, and would look nearly
identical to the latter, especially if the bottle were missing a few tablets. I
had to remember to avoid violence. A sudden rush of adrenaline could lead to
delayed results, and might show up in a toxicology report. Administer when
guard is down, and the victim is calm. Hit them when they aren’t looking. Don’t
fight if they jolt. Just go limp, like you want them to. Say nothing. Don’t get
all talky to try to calm them down. Not worth the spittle.
I approached the house, just after the sun had set. From the
front yard, the gate to the back yard was unhinged, and opened easily. I could
thank Alice for that. The hook was unlatched, and the gate had already been
swung open for easy access on recently greased hinges. No squeaking. No fuss.
The cement flagstone pathway led to a concrete patio in the back yard, and the
mark’s screen door lead to the walk-out basement suite. The lights were on. Again,
the door was recently greased.
I knocked on the door, noting that there was no doorbell
ringer. A few seconds later, a medium sized silhouette came into sight,
unlocked the dead-bolt, and opened the door wide. He was wearing sweat pants
and a t-shirt, and it appeared that he had not shaved in several days. “Uh,
sorry, who are you?” His breath smelled like he hadn’t brushed his teeth in
over a week, and the silhouette reeked of whiskey, vodka, and instant noodles.
“Constable Matt O’Connor?” I asked. He nodded, his dull blue
eyes flicked over my face. I was wearing a long black wool coat, covering a
shirt and tie. Except for the shitty old shoes, I presented as a professional
of some sort. “My name is Marc Angelo. I am here to talk to you about something
important. I’m with the oversight committee that’s looking into your case. May
I come in? I’m here to help.”
O’Connor looked hungover, tired, and already half-cut. He shrugged and stepped out of the way of the
door, inviting me in, his composure suddenly became a little more sharpened, in
a subtle acknowledgement that he looked like he felt, and smelled, like shit.
“I’ll only keep you a few minutes. I just need to go over a
couple of things. I think it might work out in your favor.” I paused a second,
noting that the apartment was a mess. Dishes were piled-up, moldy, in the sink,
the garbage can was overflowing, fruit-flies swarmed around the trash. “Do you
mind if I keep my shoes on? It’ll only take a few minutes.”
The officer nodded. His hair was short, but uncombed. His
physique was slightly chubbier than most younger police officers, who tended to
take pride in muscling up, keeping to a hyper-masculine culture of square jawed
fitness. He closed the door behind me, then led me into to the grungy living
room. The place smelled of dirty laundry, cigarette smoke, fast food, and
alcohol. I walked into the apartment and sat down on an overstuffed leather
chair, facing a matching sofa and a small black and white television, silently
playing a late afternoon sitcom, which it was obvious that I had interrupted.
I’ve been in the homes of many cops and agents over the years. None were as
sloppy as this place was. It was obvious that he was in a state of rapid
regression to adolescence, perhaps due to emotions related to his suspension. Perhaps
because events were so far out of his control that only smoking and drinking
his way into a stupor was the only reasonable answer to his lost sense of
identity. (But who am I to assume? Certainly, I’m no psychologist.)
His eyes went over me once again as he sat down on the sofa.
I opened up my jacket, pulled out a small leather notebook, and he said, “I’ve
never seen you before. I mean, I suppose that’s to be expected, I’ve never been
suspended before. But usually you see people around, you know? Even if we don’t
want to see them. Faces get noticed.”
I stopped to think a moment, looking at him squarely in the
eye, hoping to present a kind of ‘aw-shucks’ demeanor, before I replied, “To
tell you the truth, Matt, I’m not here officially. In fact, I could lose my job
for being here.” I paused, for effect”, But I have stumbled across something
that doesn’t quite add up, and I wanted to get your take on it before finishing
my report. I’m taking a bit of a personal risk here, and I hope that you can
appreciate that I am here to help you, not to add more trouble to your
situation. Okay?”
Matt nodded, and seemed to settle into a more relaxed state,
the muscles in his jaw and shoulders released, his fists unclenched.
“I don’t really know what more to say,” the words came out
of him in a stream of ugliness, his face showing his confusion and frustration,
his eyes tearing up, but his pride demanded that no tear fall. Instead, he
sniffled, hard, “I’ve made my statement, told it a hundred times. Nothing makes
sense. There was nothing to it. It was a standard arrest. Nothing out of the
ordinary. My partner and several other officers were present. They all made the
same statements. Nothing was wonky. And all of a sudden, I’m some sort of fall
guy for something that makes absolutely no sense to me, and then I’m on leave,
and none of them will return my calls. I don’t get it. I really, just, don’t.”
His face crumbled. His shoulders drooped, he started bawling, holding his head
in his hands, staring down at his feet, tears and snot dripping from his red
and twisted face. “I ...” he cried, “My ...” he choked on his words, shaking
his head.
This was the opening that I was waiting for.
I set the notepad down on the coffee table, and leaned in,
patting my hand on his shoulder, “Look, I understand completely. None of this
makes any sense to me, either. Like I said, I’m here to clear up a few things,
and I need to know everything you saw or heard, anything at all. Everything.
Because this whole thing stinks, and it’s the first time I’ve ever seen
anything like it. Okay?” I reached into my pocket, as if I were reaching for a
handkerchief or a pen, and in a flash I plunged the needle into his neck.
His eyes grew wide, his face contorted, and he grunted,
“Hey! What the…!” as he responded to the sudden pinch. His reaction, like most
police officers dealing with sudden violence, was all instinct -- immediate and embedded within their muscle
memory from repeated practice. Within seconds, I was on the ground, under him,
his trained reflexes taking immediate control. His knee was on my neck, my
wrist was locked in his grip, and his free hand pushing my head down to the
floor. And, just as suddenly as his response, his breathing stopped, his
muscles loosened up and he collapsed in a heap on top of me, eyes rolling up
into the back of his head. His breath wheezed into nothingness. His face contorted,
as if he were trying to wake himself up, his eyes losing focus and he found
nothing to grab onto, his eyelids finally half closing, as unresponsive as the
rest of him. A few short seconds afterwards, he was dead. It would take a little
while for his heart to completely stop, and a few seconds longer for brain function
to completely cease, but there was no coming back for this guy. His clock had timed
out. The television screen in the background switched to a commercial break.
I wormed my way out from under his mass, and picked his body
up off of the floor and rested it back onto the sofa. Once I got him up and
onto the big leather cushions, I noticed that he had pissed himself. A few
seconds later, I could smell that his bowels had also let loose into his dark
grey sweatpants. I looked down at my hands. Nothing on me. Thank the gods.
I took a few breaths, looked around, and grabbed up the
notebook, needle, and pen. I stopped again, closing my eyes, and slowly played
back my memory of the last few minutes. Had I touched anything at all? No. No
fingerprints. No oils on the chair arms. I hadn’t touched the door. I did
knock. The gate was open, so I didn’t have to touch it. So, nothing to worry
about. I put everything away in my coat, made a quick wipe-down of the chair
arms, and the door handle, just in case. The rest was left, exactly as it was. I
pulled out the pill bottle, dropped a few caps onto the floor and the table,
and then dropped it back into my pocket, along with the needle, notebook, and
pen.
Once out of the house, I returned the way that I had come,
stopping only to note if there were any eyes around to witness my exit – cars,
windows, passersby. None. I walked half of a block away, Alice pulled up in the
car, and we disappeared. No muss, no fuss, and a job well done. The needle
found its way into the veterinary hospital’s crematorium shipment a few days
later, along with the shoes, accompanying the corpse of somebody’s beloved fur
baby, and no one was ever the wiser.
No witnesses. Nothing in the news but an obituary about a
young man who had passed far too young, and that donations to the local
distress hotline would be much appreciated. Nothing about Reagan was announced
in the newspapers, at least, nothing related to the event. And no questions
were ever raised by the powers that be, at least not publicly. Message sent.
Message received. Whether the other cops on the take got that message or not is
outside of my experience, but one could guess that it was, since nothing
related to a murder investigation had ever made print.
Although, in retrospect, I might be convinced to admit that
we had broken our own rules, the outcome was exactly as could be anticipated.
Morals can only be grey or grey. Black and white gets in the way of those with
money and power enough to pay for exactly what they want. And in the case of
Reagan vs. O’Connor, no judge would ever mete out the kind of justice that the
existence of dirty cops certainly demands.
I never did ask what the cop had done. It was none of my
business. All I knew was that he was a cop on the take, and that was all that I
needed to know. One might wonder why I would trust the word of a guy like
Reagan. I can tell you only one thing, trusting the word of a stooge like that
is always going to be much more valuable to society as a whole than trusting
the word of a cop. Any day. Every way.