Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 68867 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 344(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68867 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 344(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
This particular incident had started when we went to the strip club where Vargas was getting a lap dance, and Deputy US Marshal Eric Pazzi had not immediately secured the fugitive because he had not yet run his fingerprints through IAFIS. Technically, until we had a positive ID, we could not say with absolute certainty that we had our fugitive. All we had was a grainy picture from the camera at the warehouse he helped rob, but we had information from a credible source—Vargas’s ex—that his new girlfriend stripped at the Honey Trap and that he would, without a doubt, be there. She even hooked us up with his Instagram account since she’d deleted all evidence of him from her phone, her cloud, and all her social media. So we knew what Albert Vargas looked like, but until we ran his DNA through CODIS, we couldn’t say for certain that the guy now sitting in the back of the car was the person we’d found evidence of at the scene. But since the guys who’d done the job with him had rolled and said that yes, Vargas was the brains of the operation, it was enough to detain him.
I told Pazzi: we take him in and get to the bottom of it.
Pazzi told me we had to run his prints to make sure this guy was actually Albert Vargas, even though the driver’s license he had on him said he was. It was a ridiculous waste of time, and to me, it was Pazzi flexing because he was the senior marshal on site.
I insisted we restrain him while we ran his prints. That was SOP right out of the US marshal manual.
Pazzi didn’t like that, said that could easily become a PR nightmare and would not look good to the community at large. Innocent until proven guilty and all that. But first of all, we were not out in the community, we were in a strip club, and second, I would argue that most people liked to see us restrain fugitives who were a danger to them or their families. So yeah, Pazzi was wrong and I was right, and even his partner, Yamane, admitted that Vargas should be zip-tied while we waited for the proper identification to come through. But then Vargas said he had to pee, and the apprehension went to hell in a handbasket once he climbed out of the bathroom window that, really, I didn’t think a full-grown man could get through. I didn’t waste time trying, instead flying out of the men’s room and out the back door. That had been the beginning of the four-block chase.
Pazzi and Yamane remained at the club and called it in, and Lang and I went after the fugitive, as we were lower in the food chain. Now, as far as I knew, they were still at the club, and I was guarding my exhausted prisoner while we both waited for water and Gatorade.
“I should have stayed in that bathroom,” Vargas whimpered, lying down in the back seat. “Man, I’m getting a headache.”
So was I.
There were ice packs in the glove compartment, the kind you cracked and shook to get cold. I got one for Vargas and leaned between the front seats to put it over his eyes.
“Thanks, man, you’re all right.”
When Lang returned, I got in the back and helped Vargas drink some Gatorade and then gulped down a bottle myself.
“You two ready to go now?” Lang asked sarcastically from the front seat. “Or should I drive through and get lunch while we’re at it?”
“I could eat,” Vargas replied.
“Were you not taught sarcasm as a child?” I asked, giving him some water.
“Fuck off, man, I’m hungry. Why can’t we eat just because he’s pissed?”
“He has a point,” I told my partner, who shot me a look of death in the rearview mirror. “Are you gonna be mad all day?”
“I don’t know. Will you be doing any more stupid crap today, or are you done?”
“So done,” I promised him, and finally, I got the grin and the shake of his head that told me I was forgiven.
“Don’t do it again,” he warned me softly, under his breath. “You don’t want me to trade you in.”
No. I really didn’t.
TWO
When I was brand-new in the city, and to the Northern District of Illinois where I’d transferred to, the first two weeks had been riding around, being shown the ropes, getting the lay of the land, and basically being taught where things were and how fast, or slow, one could be expected to get there. I had never lived any place but Texas and had no idea there could be traffic at three in the morning. It was insane.
I had to absorb, fast, where I was going, what streets ran what way, and most importantly, the ins and outs of my new office. It was important to note how to talk to people, what to say when, and to learn that being too comfortable was a bad idea.