Ranger: Book 1: A Humble Beginning Page 6

  It was their way of saying, “so there” to parole boards who kept turning repeat offenders back onto the streets.

  From the convenience store the Chevy went to a dry cleaning establishment, where one of the flunkies in the back got out and retrieved a handful of suits. Probably for the boss, probably Mexican made, probably tailored.

  Randy made a mental note to return to the cleaners later and to try to get some information from the proprietors. Like, for example, the cell phone number the mysterious men left should something happen to their dry cleaning.

  After the cleaners the truck pulled up to a gas station, where the driver used a credit card to fill the tank.

  Randy made an entry in his notebook as to the date and time, the name of the station and the intersection. He’d have to get a court order to get it, but the credit card information would be useful. If the name on the card could be traced back to a particular cartel, it would tell them who was bankrolling the operation.

  Next stop was back to Janice’s diner.

  The Rangers opted out of a visit themselves, though. Being there two days in a row at the same time as their suspects would appear to be suspicious if the suspects were paying attention at all. And one thing both men had learned at the Ranger Academy: always assume you’re being watched as closely as the suspects you’re surveilling.

  Frequently when surveillance teams are made, the suspects carry on as though they aren’t aware. Sometimes they do it to mess with the cops’ heads. They become boy scouts and are careful not to conduct any criminal activity at all. They’re careful not to even jaywalk or run any stop signs. Their intent is to waste the cops’ time and frustrate them into abandoning their surveillance and moving on to something more fruitful.

  Other times, the bad guys aren’t sure who it is that’s watching them. The logical assumption is that it’s law enforcement. But that’s not always the case. Frequently they don’t let on that the surveillance is blown, and conduct their own covert operations to make sure it’s not a rival gang or cartel trying to take over their operation.

  Or some misguided group of thugs looking to steal their dope.

  Chapter 17

  Randy and Tom had just turned off the ignition key after parking their pickup a full two blocks from the diner.

  Both of the eased back their seats and reclined them, trying to get comfortable for what they expected was at least half an hour’s wait.

  Luckily Tom was paying attention.

  “Oh, crap. They’re on the move again.”

  He raised the high-powered binoculars back up to his eyes and focused them in on the Silverado, which had pulled out of the diner’s lot and was heading directly for them.

  Randy restarted the truck quickly and pulled away from the curb, then took an immediate right onto a residential street. He drove the speed limit, not wanting to look out of place or in a hurry, until he saw the suspect vehicle drive past in his rear view mirror.

  Then he doubled back, again in no hurry.

  By the time he got back to the place where he’d parked his truck, the Silverado was but a tiny dot in the distance. It hadn’t changed course, hadn’t doubled back, hadn’t pulled over to see if it was being followed.

  “What do you think?” Randy asked. “Think they made us?”

  “Nope. They had to go one way or the other. Chances were fifty-fifty they’d come toward us. I think we’re still cool.”

  As it turned out, the driver only stayed in the parking lot of the diner long enough to run in for a cup of coffee and to drop off his companions. Now he was riding solo and on a mission.

  The Rangers had no way of knowing that. For all they knew, the vehicle was still full of armed thugs, and they were still outnumbered. It was still imperative they keep their distance.

  The Silverado took a slow and deliberate path to an empty parking lot outside a football stadium.

  It was the only such stadium in town and belonged to the local school district.

  A billboard sized sign hung over the entry to the lot, proclaiming:

  WELCOME TO BOBCAT STADIUM

  HOME OF BELTON HIGH SCHOOL

  DIVISION 2-AA STATE CHAMPIONS

  1980 1985 1991

  The sign was painted on a white background with dark blue letters, the school colors of Belton High. Once a football powerhouse, the school’s glory days were behind her.

  The sign, like the team, had seen its best days. The paint was peeling now and fading in the sunlight. Yet it still shined as a beacon of pride, and of hope, each Friday night in the fall when the stadium lights came on.

  On this particular morning, though, it served only to mark a meeting place.

  Randy and Tom sensed something was up as they parked in front of a boarded-up convenience store two blocks away.

  Tom reached into the console and took out a Nikon digital camera. From under the seat he pulled out a telephoto lens in a soft zippered case.

  He connected the two and zoomed in on his target.

  Randy looked in his driver’s side mirror and said, “Cop.”

  Both hunkered down in their seats for several seconds as a white police car came up behind them and passed them by.

  The single man inside the car didn’t even glance in their direction. Even if he had, he likely wouldn’t have noticed the tops of their heads through the heavily tinted windows.

  Randy snuck a peek over the steering wheel and didn’t sound the all clear until the patrol car was more than a block away and still maintaining its speed.

  Tom raised up and focused the camera on the back of the patrol car, specifically the license plate, and snapped four photos in rapid succession.

  He asked Randy, “Did you get a look at him?”

  “Only in my mirror, and from half a block away. One occupant, Caucasian male, middle aged.”

  “Could be the chief.”

  “Maybe. Let’s see where he goes.”

  They watched as the patrol car entered the parking lot of the stadium and pulled alongside the Chevy Silverado, facing toward them. Randy couldn’t see beans from that distance. So Tom, watching through the telephoto lens as he snapped photo after photo, provided the play-by-play.

  “The man in the patrol car is indeed our chief. And they appear to know one another. Either that or he’s the friendliest guy around. He’s got a grin on his face like the Cheshire cat.”

  “Any idea what they’re talking about?”

  “Nope. I should have signed up for that optional lip reading class at the Academy. It looks like they’re just two buddies on a fishing trip.”

  “Can you get a good look at our Silverado driver?”

  “Nope. He’s pointing in the wrong direction and his mirrors are at the wrong angle. Uh, oh…”

  “Uh, oh what? That’s never a good sign.”

  “They’re exchanging something.”

  “Any idea?”

  “Nope. Looks like a manila envelope. Too thin to be a package of dope. We can enlarge the photos later and maybe get a better idea.”

  “I sure wish we had audio.”

  “Yeah. Me too. You think we have enough probable cause to get a judge to sign off on that?”

  “I’d say it depends on who’s in the pickup. If he’s a known felon, and they met on cordial terms and exchanged something between them, I’d say the odds are in our favor.”

  “Yeah. I think so too.”

  They continued to watch as the patrol car pulled out of the stadium parking lot and went in the opposite direction, away from them.

  “Your choice. Tail the chief or tail the truck?”

  “Let’s go with the truck. We know who the chief is. Let’s see if we can get an ID on the other guy.”

  Chapter 18

  Next stop for the Silverado was at a self-storage facility, the only one in Belton.

  It was, according to the information packet they’d received when being assigned the case, owned by the police chief’s brother.

  “The plot thickens,” Tom said as he saw the vehicle pull into the facility’s yard, then disappear through a pass-coded security gate.

  The facility was surrounded by a six foot privacy fence on all sides. But the Chevy truck had been raised, and its top could be seen over the top of the fence as it drove around the perimeter of the compound to a building on the far corner of the property.

  Tom, looking through the binoculars, said, “Make a note of this. I can’t see the number on the unit, but it’s the second one from the west end in the very last building.”

  “We’ll come back later and peek over the fence and get a look at the number. We may need it for a search warrant later. And I’m guessing we won’t get a lot of cooperation from the owner if we show up and flash a badge and ask what the number on that particular unit was.”

  “Right. He’d likely give us a phony number, and then clean the place out as soon as we were out of sight.”

  “And then tell his brother we were here snooping around. That’s the trouble with operations in these small towns. We’re given the basic information, as far as who the players are. But it doesn’t go very deep. For all we know, our waitress friend Janice could be the cousin of the chief.”

  “Yeah. Or his girlfriend. What I don’t like about small town operations is that everybody knows everybody else. And that makes it harder for us to blend in, or even get around, without being looked at with suspicion. We may as well tow a billboard behind us that says, ‘nosy strangers’ on it.”

  “Here he comes.”

  They watched as the top of the Silverado traversed the perimeter of the property again, retracing its earlier path.

  The truck came back into view at the wrought iron gate. As the driver leaned out to punch a code into the gate’s keypad Randy used the telephoto lens on his Nikon to snap a fairly good phot of the man’s face.

  “That should help in the ID process.”

  One of the really cool features the State of Texas added during the previous SLEN upgrade was facial recognition software. It still had a lot of bugs in it, and wasn’t the most reliable program, but it was in its infancy and would someday be a very effective tool for the state’s law enforcement agencies.

  Randy was hoping they got lucky and that this was one of the faces the program would recognize.

  As their prey pulled away, Tom called out, “There appears to be a bunch of stuff in the back of the truck now.”

  “What does it look like?”

  “Don’t know. It’s all covered with a tarp. Damn it!”

  He looked sheepishly at Randy, when he remembered Randy had a severe dislike for the word.

  “I mean darn it. ‘Darn it’s’ what I meant to say.”

  As they followed the truck back to the town proper Tom’s curiosity got the best of him.

  “Randy, I’ve been meaning to ask. I know you don’t like it when people use words like ‘damn’ and ‘hell.’ And you’re right. I use them way too much. But why is it you don’t like them, exactly?”

  “I don’t rightly know. I guess because I never heard my parents use them when I was growing up. I’d hear my dad accidentally bang his thumb with a hammer and he’d say something like ‘dad-gummit’ or ‘good gosh.’ I’d be at my friends’ houses and hear their parents say the words you said and much worse. And I guess that somewhere along the line I just decided that my dad’s way of dealing with life’s unpleasant surprises was just… classier, I guess. For lack of a better word.

  “My mom used to say that cursing was a way for the less intelligent or less well-read to express their feelings. I’m not sure I agree with her on that. I mean, I’ve known some pretty smart people in my life. And many of them cursed. So that may be true for some people but not others.

  “I guess it’s out of respect for my dad, more than anything. He was the greatest man I’ve known in my entire life. And he didn’t curse. So I guess in my own mind I’ve linked the two qualities together. The not cursing and the deserving of great respect. I suppose that’s why.”

  “Did you know that some of the other Rangers consider you preachy?”

  “I know. I’ve been told that. And I always apologize. I don’t mean to be. I mean, I sometimes ask people not to use that kind of language around me, but I’m not overbearing about it. I usually make the request and if they choose to disregard it I just try as best as I can to ignore their words. But if they ask me why, I tell them the truth. That those words are unnecessary, and I have much more respect for someone who can communicate his or her feelings without being uncivil.”

  “Okay, fair enough. Like I said, I use that kind of language far too often and should cut back on it anyway. My son Jacob, he’s five now. He said the ‘f-word’ the other day after he jumped off the couch and turned his ankle. Sandra snapped him up and demanded to know where he’d heard that word. He said, ‘Daddy says it in the car sometimes, when he yells it at other drivers.’

  “Sandra looked at me and didn’t say anything. But she didn’t have to. I need to learn to watch my language for my kid’s sake. So I can practice by watching it around you.”

  “Thank you, Tom. That would mean a lot to me. And I’m not trying to change you as a person. I’m really not. I just don’t like those words, in the same way some people don’t like broccoli.”

  “Okay then, my friend. I’ll make a deal with you. I hate broccoli with a passion. I’ll try not to use offensive language around you if you try never to eat broccoli around me. Fair enough?”

  Randy laughed his easy laugh. The one who made him a genuinely likeable guy to practically everyone he ever met.

  “Okay, partner. It’s a deal.”

  Chapter 19

  The Silverado left the storage facility and followed a now-familiar track back to the diner.

  From a quarter mile away the Rangers kept it in view while they waited for the driver to rejoin his friends. To pass the time they talked of the television shows they watched growing up.

  “My favorite shows were Hawaii Five-O and The Rockford Files,” Randy offered. “Lots of action in both of them. The characters were likeable, and the good guys always won.”

  “I watched mostly science fiction,” Tom replied. “The crime shows were okay back then, I guess. But even when I was a kid I could tell they weren’t very realistic.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, there was never any blood, for one thing. When the bad guy got shot, he didn’t bleed. I’ve seen guys get shot for real, and it can be a pretty bloody mess. And when they fight, the bad guy usually goes out with one punch. Out like a light. When I was in my first barroom brawl, I was under the mistaken impression that all I had to do was hit the guy one time. And then he’d go to the floor unconscious and I could go back and finish my beer.”

  Randy smiled. He suspected he knew the answer to his question, but asked it anyway.

  “So I take it he didn’t go down?”

  “The guy was bigger than a tank. He was harassing the waitress, and I was just drunk enough to think if I rescued her she’d go home with me and call me her hero. So I told the guy to stop or else.

  “He stood in front of me and said, ‘Or else what?’

  “So I belted him. Like I said, I expected him to fall right to the floor. But it didn’t even phase him. He smiled. Then he kicked my ass.”

  “That doesn’t sound much like a barroom brawl.”

  “Oh, it was. My friends tried to save me from my own stupidity. His friends came to battle my friends. In the end there were like, seven of us who got thrown out of the bar.

  “The waitress came outside to talk to me.”

  “Really? Was she grateful?”

  “She called me a sap. It turned out the big guy was her boyfriend. She went home with him and called him her hero, not me. I learned a lot about human nature that day.”

  “I hope you also learned not to start a fight in a bar.”

  “Yeah, that too.”

  “You know something else that wasn’t realistic in the old TV shows?”

  “What?”

  “The way they did things. For example, if this were a TV show, and you and I were the detectives, we’d go over to the diner to see what was in the back of that pickup, underneath that tarp. You would distract the bad guys by going inside the diner and talking some nonsensical trash to them. And I’d go to the back of the pickup and lift up the tarp to see what was underneath it.”

  “Right. And there would be no judge who’d throw the evidence out as illegally obtained. No lawyer claiming his client was railroaded, no news reporters sticking microphones in our faces and demanding to know why we thought we were above the law.”

  “Yeah. The shows were entertaining but not very realistic.”

  “That’s because if they showed police work as it really was, nobody would watch. I mean, who’d watch a show where two guys sat in a car for hours at a time drinking cold coffee and talking about the 1970 Pittsburgh Steelers?”

  “Probably nobody. At least those old TV shows had some really cool police chases.”

  “Yeah. Did you notice that all the cars they wrecked were old beat up junkers? They never wrecked the newer cars. It wasn’t in their budget. And they always showed the wrecks from different angles, so they could get more footage by showing the same wrecks several different times. And they slowed them down a little, just enough to stretch the footage a little bit more.”

  “Those old shows were still better than a lot of the stuff they show on TV these days.”

  “No doubt. Hey, they’re loading up.”

  Tom watched through his binoculars as the Silverado driver emerged from the diner. The men he’d dropped off earlier followed him out and trailed him to the pickup in a single file. They reminded Tom of ducklings following their mother.

  Only these ducklings weren’t harmless. They were probably well armed, and probably vicious. The Mexican cartels didn’t allow their men to come to the United States and operate out of their sight unless they’d proven their mettle.