Losing Her Wings

Chapter 38

It didn’t take them long to work out a plan of attack after rereading the information they had been sent, deciding to tackle the young kid first so that if he turned out to be a simple minion, then they could use him to get to the rest of the crew. If he had nothing to do with it then they wouldn’t have to deal with any politics and as far as Angelo was concerned, then the less they had to contend with the better. The case was already getting complicated when they realised that if the teenager wasn’t going to be any use to them then they really would have to call in their friend Kensington to be their insider. That meant cooperating with and asking for favours from other departments and law enforcement, which meant that they would owe them in return, something which their boss didn’t like them doing unless it was absolutely necessary. And as far as they could tell, their current case would end up making it necessary if they couldn’t find another way in. Jacob suggested attending a race, in disguise, to see if there were any weak links they could approach and use to their advantage but for Angelo, it was too risky and smelled too much like one of Jacob’s attempts to play superhero. He always wanted to be the hero, no matter what their case was about but he had always stopped him, for his own good mostly but also because some of his ideas were a little outrageous.

He seemed to think he could just swoop in and make everyone think he was on the level and gain their trust just to use it against them. But that wasn’t who he was, not really. It was just his ‘alter ego’ that was a twelve year old boy looking for thrills. Now that he knew he and Sasha were hoping to have kids, he had a much better reason to keep him out of the line of fire but as they sat up that night, looking over the files, he had a nagging feeling that the scenario was all too familiar. It reminded him of that film Paige had made him watch when they were younger, a film she had actually auditioned for at the time, hoping for a small part as an extra only to be turned down. He had only watched it because Giselle had been in it and of all the lame ass films he had suffered just to spend some time alone with Paige, that one was the most appealing, the model was his favourite. What was it called…Taxi or something like that. He remembered now. A bunch of model looking women dressed up as men and robbed banks, hiding the money in the panels of the car. So maybe the plot didn’t involve drugs, it was supposed to be a family friendly film, but it certainly rang bells as to an idea he had at the time. He had liked it mainly because of the models, he was only young at the time, but also because it was different to most other money making enterprises in films where some idiot ransomed someone or something off to a rich guy only for a major plot hole to bug him once it was finished. Ransom money was always marked before being handed over, how on earth did they use it without getting caught?

At least in the film Taxi it had some credibility because the notes weren’t marked but Angelo knew that drug dealers used all methods to get money or drugs and at some point some dirty money was bound to crop up. He wondered if it would be any use doing a little research to see if any had turned up in the Pleasant Creek community lately? He guessed it was worth a shot. There was no reason it wasn’t possible, he just knew that most criminals were idiots and the few rare ones who were smart enough to avoid mistakes or sloppiness were usually involved in white collar crimes like embezzlement and high profile art theft. They weren’t usually drug lords unless it was a family business or they were the ultimate head honcho of the group, sitting in a little villa somewhere pulling all the strings. It this kid was involved in any way, he would be bottom of the rung, unless in all the improbabilities it ended up that either he or his multimillionaire brother was the corrupting influence, sitting in the big mansion with all the power. He had seen stranger things in his career.

“What are you thinking about so seriously?” Jacob asked, noticing that it was near to seven o’clock but neither of them really cared about the time, they were both just happy to have a decent case to work on now that Nelo was taken care of. Angelo didn’t know what else to tell him but his thoughts, and so he explained about the film he remembered, about his suspicions and the last, final possibility he had come across. “I guess it wouldn’t be too ridiculous. No-one exactly knows how this guy made all his money. He’s what?…twenty four, perfectly old enough to have been running the business long enough to make that much money. Some of these guys start out at sixteen…” He contemplated the matter and did a few calculations in his dead, figuring him to be a novice at sixteen who started up his own business, rather than an initiate of another drug lord who had branched out. Those guys usually got shot in dark alleys with no forensic evidence to suggest anyone else was ever there. He would never have survived long enough to start up a rival company, he had to be a newbie with some leverage…his father would be good enough. Big time lawyer, little town and two sons to do the dirty work and keep it a secret from dear old dad. By the time he was eighteen it would probably have been pretty well established, as long as his product was good enough to beat the competitions and it all seemed perfectly reasonable to think that by the time he reached twenty four he’d want to hand over the reigns to his little brother and take back seat. The dirty stuff would be done for him and all he had to do was sit back and watch the money come rolling in. It was certainly worth looking into. “Yeah…I guess it’s a good place to start. Deal with the kid first, if he squawks fair enough, if not we’ll lean on the older brother. Sounds good to me.” Jacob agreed with a smile, glad to have some form of action that would mean they had an excuse to be pestering someone with so much money and influence. If he had something to do with the drugs, if he was in charge of the whole thing, they would be heroes. They would be getting a serious dirt bag off the streets and behind bars. And they got all the credit. It was all too perfect.