Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

I’m Lieutenant Deviled Yeggs.  I work homicide in the big city of Tracy.  Working for me are my old partners: Detective Sgt. Jim Wednesday and Detective Poached Yeggs, my nephew who is slowly becoming a good detective.  But now I had Georges Evident of Organized Crime working for me.

I had to at least try to keep the pressure on Empire Apple.  Jazz Apple gave us a lot of useful information.  We rescued some girls who were about to be sold into human trafficking.  We confiscated a lot of drugs.  We confiscated enough weaponry to start a war.  But Empire was still in business, and he had several potential leaks beaten, one being Jazz.  Jonathan Apple, the one doing the beatings, was now behind bars for killing a lawyer instead of killing Mollie Orlowski.  Empire must have gotten wind that Red Delicious, the former crime boss who is behind bars, wanted to marry his old moll.  And Jonathan wasn’t protected by Empire when he killed the wrong person, got the police crawling all over the place, and even led to the police helping with the Red and Mollie wedding.

And Jazz’s connection had been sleeping with Tony Tagliolini, but she always gave him confusing or false information.  She wanted to get pregnant, and Tony had been a disappointment.  But we finally caught up with Tony just in time for him to commit suicide.  Georges got good information out of Jazz, but she now has a little drummer boy as her lover boy, and he made her pregnant.  She doesn’t have a reason to talk to Georges.  And she only talked freely when she got something in return.

So, I let the event security let me into a private dressing room at the Snazzy Taz to wait for the performer to return.  Of course, the event security chief was my teenaged daughter, Sophia.  It was nice having friends in low places.  Especially friends who had keys.  I could pick the lock, but if anything went sideways with my conversation, I wanted everything to be legal.

I could hear Menzie singing and Emmett playing the saxophone.  I could hear the crowd cheering.  But when all that stopped, there were familiar voices in the hallway as the security team, made up of retired police for the most part and Poached, making up for money lost when his vacation ran out while helping his wife in the Everglades.  He came back with a crazy story about wrestling an alligator.  No one believes him, but Callie claims he saved her life.

The door burst open, and the little drummer boy appeared.

“What the <bleep>?” he said when he saw me in the chair.  “Nobody is supposed to be in here.  Security makes sure there are no groupies in the dressing rooms.  Besides, I have a girlfriend.  I am not interested in an old man.  That’s sick, man.”

I chuckled, “I am not a groupie.  The head of security let me in here so that we could have a talk with no one else knowing that the talk ever happened, unless you say something during some innocent pillow talk.”

He asked, “Why would Soap let you in here?”

I smiled, “She has a keen sense of having justice served.  Besides, I am her father.”

He turned white as a sheet, “No, man, her dad runs homicide.  I ain’t killed anybody, and I am working real hard on trying to stay alive.  You can’t be in here.  I don’t want to die.”

I asked, “Why would you think having a conversation with me would get you killed?”

He replied, “Jazz.  Ummm.  That’s Jazz Apple.  She’s my girlfriend.  She got beat up a while back by the Rotten Apples.  They warned me to say nothing to nobody.  I’m not family.  If I talked, I’d be dead.  But I can’t leave.  Jazz is pregnant with our baby.”

I smiled, “Don’t you know that Jazz only wanted someone to make her pregnant so that she could have a love child?  She used to be one of our confidential informants.  She swapped a roll in the hay for information.  And no, I have never met her.  But before we go any further, all I have ever heard was ‘little drummer boy.’  What’s your real name?”

He snarled, “Not that you’ll get anything out of me, but for conversations, I’m Buddy Chick Krupa.”

I smiled, “Lt. Deviled Yeggs, nice to meet you.  What do people call you?”

He shrugged, “Chick mostly.”

I said, “Alright, Chick.  Have you ever heard the saying from a hundred years ago about ‘loose lips sink ships’?”

Chick blinked, “I guess.”

I said, “The way that works is that one person says that the shipment is going to arrive next week.  Some other person says the shipment is going to come on a Tuesday, within a few weeks.  Then somebody says the shipment is being dropped off at a warehouse south of town.  Get it?  No one gives us much to go on, but once we add the information up, we can narrow it down to a warehouse on the south side of town next Tuesday.  We’d pay you for relaying little bits of conversation.  They may seem meaningless to you, but I do not want you entering into any of the conversations.  We would never want you to ask Jazz about Rotten Apple activity.  Just a fly on the wall.  Honeycrisp, Ambrosia, Jazz, and Juici talk about what the Rotten Apples are doing, and they may not know that what they say makes any difference.  But it does when you have some puzzle solvers on your payroll.  And if you accept our offer, please, never let Jazz know that you are dropping off notes for us.  We were thinking you could write a note on a piece of paper and slip it to Sophie.  If you want no written evidence, ask Sophie into this room to talk to her.  Make it seem like you are concerned about the security arrangements.  People say that you have been jittery lately.”

Chick said, “Wouldn’t you be if your girl was beaten up and they threatened you?  As for not entering into conversations, I’m already the fly on the wall.  They pretty much talk business, orchard business.  I’m not an Apple, so they think I wouldn’t understand.  But I do not want to be caught talking to a cop.  I’d be dead in a heartbeat.  And you are wrong about Jazz.  Maybe her motivation was the baby at first, but she said that I had something that her other lovers never had.  I got rhythm, man.  She wants me to stick around.  And she’s thinking that she might be looking at wedding bells after the baby comes and she’s back in good shape for a sexy wedding dress.  So, I am not a love them and leave them type.  I’m seeing this through.  But I don’t want Jonathan beating me up or killing me either.”

I smiled, “Jonathan Apple is behind bars.  He killed the wrong person.  You must not have been listening to that conversation.  I am sure that Empire will find another enforcer, but right now, the Rotten Apple security is a little weak.  If we can hit them hard, or keep the little hits coming, we might run them out of business.  And that will make everyone in Tracy a little happier.”

Chick rubbed his chin, “I don’t know.  It might create a vacuum, and a bunch of gangs come in to fill the void, causing more trouble than the Rotten Apples ever did.”

I sighed, “You could be right, but as long as the Rotten Apples are off balance, they are less likely to make matters worse.  Empire is ivy league schooled.  I’m thinking cybercrime is his next big thing, if it’s not already.”

Chick turned pale.  He knew something about the hackers who work for Empire.

I asked, “Are you into computers, Chick?”

Nervously, Chick said, “No, I hardly know how to turn the stupid thing on.  If I have to figure something out, Kingston Black Apple comes over.  He’s pretty good with computer stuff.  But remember, you heard nothing from me.  I don’t know nothing about that.”

I asked, “How are the others at the orchard doing?”

Chick said, “I’m not out there much.  Honeycrisp spends time with Shingo Pear when she can.  He’s her love child, you know.  Ambrosia has one love interest or another, a revolving door.  Juici swears up and down that she is a virgin, and she is not interested in boys at all, but she goes behind closed doors with her cousin, Cosmic Crisp, to play chess in private.  I don’t know much about chess, but when they are done, Honeycrisp sends a cleaning crew into the room.  There’s ‘juice’ all over the place.”

I nodded, “Thank you for your time.  Would you kindly go to the door and practice drumming against the door?”

Chick shrugged, “Why would I do that?”

I sighed, “A signal, Chick.  Someone in the hall won’t open the door unless they hear the drumroll.  I leave.  You do what you have to do, and then you can leave later.  But if you decide to help us, give Sophia a message.  Let’s think.  Your name is Chick.  Work it into a conversation with Sophia that you were named after Chick Webb, and when he died, Ella Fitzgerald took over as the band leader.”

Chick asked, “How did you know I was named after Webb?”

I laughed, “A wild guess.”

Chick did a great drum solo on the door, using the doorknob as a symbol.  Poached opened the door.  “It’s clear.”

I exited to leave Chick with his thoughts, but he had already been helpful.  There was a hacker that was known to cause trouble who went by the moniker of “Black the Hack.”  I don’t think it will take Poached and Georges long to track the misdeeds of “Black the Hack.”  And then, if we have anything to tie the hacker’s activities to Kingston Black Apple, we might have one more problem put away.  If Poached can’t dig into the dark web deep enough, Amy and Ralph E. are master hackers.  Their building was less than a block from the precinct, and they owe us a few favors.

But it will be a sad day when we put him away.  His uncle is Black Twig Apple, the love interest of Edith Clancy, old college roommate and best friend of the new wife of Red Delicious.  But Black Twig was also Honeycrisp’s chauffeur, and as much as we know, he’d never had a parking ticket.

Now, as for Juici having a love interest in Cosmic Crisp Apple?  He was just an orchard worker, running the pruning crew, but he knew people who knew people.

Credits

Buddy Chick Krupa combines three drummers who all had bands: Buddy Rich, Chick Webb, and Gene Krupa.  The “code” that Chick Webb died, and the band was then led by Ella Fitzgerald, is true.  She was the singer for the band at the time.

One of the rising crimes within organized crime is cybercrime.  Hacking is just a small part of that.  Cyber crime includes identity theft, malware distribution, ransomware attacks, and phishing attacks.

And I thought Juici and Cosmic getting together to make “juice” was appropriate.  Those apples are overflowing in juice.  Yeah, I even do as much research in that department as I can.  An orchardist near where I live asked if my latest purchases were to research a victim or a perpetrator of the next crime.  Let’s see, I haven’t used a Buckeye Gala yet.  Hmmm. I’m thinking he or she might be a love child during a time Gala and her husband Red Delicious had their “open marriage.”