from the stores along the street. I’ll check with the traffic people about getting street corner videos from the city. Will that hold you for a time?”
Juan nodded his approval. His watch alarm sounded alerting him to the upcoming Foundation video conference. “Please keep me in the loop, Mike? May I call you Mike?”
“Sure, but most people call me Rizzo. I’ll get back to you when we get something solid. I’ll put out a state-wide bulletin for Dominica Bianca, ASAP.”
Chapter 9
Juan’s mmN message of a Foundation’s video meeting hit Jimmy Kohl’s cell phone in Las Vegas. He was playing in a pickup basketball game at the YMCA. Jimmy at 6’1” played marine tough not deferring to his handsome, wavy-haired looks. The game finished with him making the pass though the defense in the key to his pal, Rick. Rick scored and the team high fived their way to the showers.
After showering, Jimmy sat next to his friend Detective Rick Rizzo on the locker room bench. Rick, a rock hard, Marine-trimmed basketball player was an eleven year veteran with the Las Vegas police, detective unit. Together they had solved the Janelle missing person’s mystery last year. The experiences of being pinned down by sniper fire on the border and at Janelle isolated desert burial site, bonded them as more than mere drinking and basketball buddies.
Jimmy read Juan’s moodmeNow message out loud. The part about ‘watch your backs’ struck a nerve with him and Rick. He says to Rick, “The part about ‘watch our backs’ is serious. From previous cases, I know our Foundation has a tendency to anger people we investigate. Funny about this text’s timing. I'm pretty sure someone’s been tailing me all day.”
Rick also received a text while they played. The text message was from his cousin in Tampa. “Guess what? My cousin, Mike Rizzo, in Tampa ran into your friend Juan. Sounded like a gun skirmish. Can’t you Foundation guys stay out of gun battles?” He laughed.
Jimmy answered, “That’s interesting.” In his deep voice he asked Rick, “Did you hear me?”
“Yea,” Rick said. “Should we do the old bait and catch ploy?”
Jimmy with his precollege background working for the mob in Seattle, welcomed the action. “Yea, give me a few minutes head start. When I leave you follow anyone that’s tailing me. Any particular bait spot you want me to stop at if there is a tail?”
“You know Rafael Rivera park on Stewart Avenue?” Rick asked.
“Yep. We’re on!” Jimmy nodded.
Jimmy left the YMCA in his new white Lexus RC F. He hit the Interstate 515 onramp and zoomed east. He played with the black sedan following him, alternating speeding up and slowing down. He exited on the park’s turnoff. He slowed parking in an isolated, turn-around.
Jimmy watches the black sedan in the passenger’s side mirror. He can’t imagine someone so dumb as to follow their ‘mark’ into a dead end. He calls Rick.
Rick answers knowing it's Jimmy, “Am seconds away. Wait in your car. I’ll corner him.” He parked about a football field behind the black sedan. He briskly strolled as if enjoying the sun towards the trailing car.
Jimmy gets out of his Lexus and leans on the drivers-side front fender. He keeps talking on the phone to nobody. He wanted to keep the tail entertained.
Rick approached the sedan from the driver’s side. The tail saw Rick in his outside mirror. He reached for the ignition switch with the keys still in it.
Rick tapped on the window as the engine started. The mark put the car into an uncontrolled u-turn.
Jimmy saw the car pulling out. He needs to stop this guy but how? He sees a baseball size round, smooth river rock to his right. He scopes up the rock and runs towards the elevated ground at the beginning of the turn-a-around, dead end. He beats the sedan to the other end of the U. He hurls the rock at the front windshield.
The rock strikes the front windshield immediately in the driver’s view. The mark flinches, the car veers off the road and hits a solid six-foot in diameter rock. The sedan bounces off the rock. The driver shakes off the surprise feeling. He pulls out a knife to cut the airbag.
Rick taps on the driver’s side window again this time with a service pistol. The driver noticing the gun opens the door. “Drop the knife and get out of the car,” Rick shouts. The dazed driver tried to orientate himself. He drops the knife on the ground after seeing Rick’s gun and gets his five foot-six inch slim-frame out of the car. They saw tattoos on most of the driver’s exposed skin.
Rick pushes him into the side of the car telling him to put his hands on the roof. “Ok buddy, why are you following the guy walking toward us?”
The tail starts speaking Russian. He shakes his head vigorously from right to left.
Jimmy nudges Rick aside. He grabs the tail by the back of his knit polo shirt and pulls him to the ground. Jimmy pounces on him, holding the tail’s arms down with his folded legs. “Why are you following me?” he screams intensely, nose to nose.
The tail spits up at Jimmy’s face. Jimmy jerks his head to the side and only catches a little spray.
Jimmy proclaims, “What’s wrong with people today. They don’t know when or how to act civil! They operate as if the world reacts to their every word.” He punches the guy in the nose. Blood gushes forming a red river streaming on his right cheek. “My Seattle street training,” Jimmy winks a Rick.
Rick holsters his service revolver and puts his hand up in surrender. “You’re on your own with this guy.” He went to his unmarked cruiser and leaned on the front right fender. He watches the action then recognizes a tattoo on the tail’s right arm. He walks back to Jimmy and pulls him aside. “This guy’s not going to talk. He’s connected. Besides he probably doesn’t know English. He’s Russian.”
Jimmy steps off the Russian and notices the colored tattoos. “What do they mean?” Jimmy asks.
“I can only identify one for sure, the bells. See the two little bells on his right shoulder. They mean he’s Russian mafia. He’s a thief who stole from a church.” Rick lectured.
An unhappy Jimmy says, "No wonder he wouldn't talk. He's probably more afraid of his Russian boss than us."
The Russian seizes on an escape opportunity. He gets up and runs to his car. Rick says, “Let him go. We don't have anything to charge him with. He's probably a low level errand boy. I took a picture of him for our files. And we have his fingerprints on the knife over there on the ground. He’s probably out of New York or Atlanta.” Rethinking that thought, he asserts, “I’ll bet even money that he’s out of Atlanta.”
Jimmy smiles. “Do you want to join our Foundation’s video conference this afternoon at four pm?”
Rick shakes his head no. “I have paperwork that needs catching up on. Have a fun video talk. Oh, let’s keep this incident to ourselves. We don’t need any ACLU jerks sticking their nose into our business.”
Jimmy watches Rick drive off. He opens his cell phone’s mmN app. He picks the ‘serious’ icon and addresses the message to Mac and Carol. ‘Juan was right, watch your backs.’ He pressed send.
