BA Hammer Blue Flu Ch. 04

The next morning, I pulled into the parking garage under our building. As I was walking to the elevator a familiar face stepped out of the shadows.

"Well, if it isn't my old friend, Lt. Baker. To what do I owe for this?"

"Hammer, I thought I'd help you out a little. I noticed you were providing security for Westminster."

"Then you noticed that I quit. I had a feeling, and I didn't want my men blown up. You know, poking the bear, and all." I didn't like this man before I found out he was a crook, and now, I must force myself to not break his neck.

"I heard. I never gave you that much credit for smarts. I just wanted to encourage you to live and let live. You have a good life. Enjoy it."

"My life has nothing to do with you. If you knew anything about me, you wouldn't be here now. Let's just leave it at, I don't like you and you don't like me. You stay away from me, and I will stay away from you. Anything else could get messy."

"If that's how you want to play it."

"I'm not playing anything. I quit Westminster, and now you're here threatening me. Just get the hell out of here."

"Okay Thor, for now." He walked to his car and left.

I called Ike to tell him about Baker. We agreed to be more careful and hung up. I sat down to think.

His appearance means they are aware we are looking into them. There can be no doubt of that.

So, what next? Without Westminster's witness we don't have direct proof of anything but money laundering. And that is tenuous. We need a member list. There must be one somewhere. No organization can be that large without structure. The most logical place would be Robert Hamilton's office. But it would be proof of us if we hit it. We would have to get in and out without them knowing about it. If we can learn anything from the security measures Zorro ran into, it is that his office would be tight.

I got a call from Brick just before lunch. He asked me to come up to his office, and I went straight away.

"Hey, Brick, what can I do for you?"

"I thought you dropped the Westminster thing?"

"I did, just before everyone got blown up."

"So, why am I getting a call from the Mayor's office about this?"

"I haven't a clue."

"He wants to see you privately."

"I wonder what he has in mind. He will have to be careful." I laid out everything we had to Brick. He sat quietly listening. When I was finished, he sat, thinking.

"This is bad. And it could get worse quickly." I told him about Baker's visit that morning. He just stared at me without saying anything. "My God. You can't take on an entire vigilante police force by yourself. This could get you killed."

"Maybe, but I owe Westminster. He tried to tell me all of this, and I waved him off. Now he's dead. I can't change that, but I can do something about what he died trying to do."

After a couple of minutes, Brick spoke up. "The mayor is coming to this building tomorrow for a meeting upstairs. There is a big charity upstairs that is giving the city a grant, and the mayor is coming to accept it. I can have him spirited down to my office before he goes there. You can come in the back way and talk to him."

"Call me when he arrives tomorrow."

I was waiting for his call the next day. When he called, I headed to his office. Within a couple of minutes, I was sitting in Brick's office facing the Mayor of New York.

"Mr. Hammer, I really don't want to be here. But I feel like I owe Cameron at least this much. We talked about what he was investigating a couple of times. The last time I saw him, he asked me to hold a couple of computer disks. I know you are familiar with what he was looking into. I also know you quit him just before he got killed. But I don't know anyone else to give this to, so here." He reached into his coat pocket and handed me a couple of computer disks. "I don't know if that will help anything, but it did me no good. I don't trust a couple of people in my office, and I didn't want this laying around."

"Just so you know, Mr. Mayor. I tried to warn him that this would get him killed. He proceeded anyway. Now I am determined to finish what he started. I am sure this will help. If I may, would you feel comfortable giving me the names of the people in your office you don't trust. I have a couple of accounts I can't identify yet. I may be able to tie one of your people to that. Either way, it might help you know if you have a trojan horse in your office."

"I've gone this far; I might as well go all the way. If Brick trusts you, I think I can trust you. One is Elijah Morrison. He is my press secretary. I don't know why I don't trust him. I don't have anything specific. You know how you just get that uneasy feeling around some people. You don't survive very long in politics if you don't develop a sixth sense about people. The other is Patricia Holmes. She is my scheduling secretary. I don't trust her because she is married to a cop, and I have heard her make comments when she doesn't know I can hear her."

"Thank you for all of this. This will help more than you will ever know. You have done all you could have done for Cameron Westminster. Brick will let you know what comes of this."

I couldn't wait to get back to my office to see what I had. I went into Liz's office.

"Liz, I need you to print out everything on these two disks. Then give them back to me. Erase any record that these disks were ever in your computer. I don't want anyone looking into your system to know they were ever here. After that, please do a general background check on Patricia Holmes and Elijah Morrison. They work on the mayor's staff."

"Got it, boss. I'll be careful." I called Ike to tell him to come over to see what the mayor gave us. He was here by the time Liz brought everything in. "Here it is. I cleared my history, all the traces of this. This is going to be hot." She laughed as she left the room.

I handed Ike half of the printouts, and we went to work. Half an hour later we had reviewed everything. The biggest thing by far was the name of his witness. He is a young cop named Salvador Chang. Westminster had a good file on him. We had his account number, as well as a description of how the payments to the cops worked. It also had the method for them to get their money out without going to the Cayman Islands. Liz had run a check on Chang and gave us that as well.

The other file had the names of several of the members of Blue Brotherhood. We now had ten names of members. Out of the 99 accounts, we now have the names of sixteen or seventeen. It's somewhere to start.

"I think we might need more help. I'm going to call Jerry Kramer." Jerry Kramer owns Kramer Security. It was his agency that was protecting Westminster when his car blew up.

I put in the call. Jerry was on the phone immediately. "Jerry. I'm sorry for your men. I'm going after the men that did this. I was wondering if you wanted to help with that. It will be dangerous. I only want hardened men that have been in the trenches. Do you want to do this, and do you have some such men?"

"Yes, and yes. I'll kill them with my own bare hands. Let me know where to be, and I can have six men that have been under fire before."

"Excellent. Thanks. I'll try to give you at least several hours' notice before."

"That should be enough. See you then."

I called the number for Salvador Chang. He answered on the first ring.

"Mr. Chang, my name is BA Hammer. Do you know who I am?"

"I do. Mr. Westminster mentioned you."

"Good, we need to get you out of town for a while. My partner and I will come now to get you. Be ready."

"Okay, please hurry."

Ike and I headed for Salvador Chang's place. We had his address. We needed to be careful. It was dark when we arrived. He lived in an older apartment building. His apartment was on the third floor. I looked around the neighborhood. I don't see any unusual cars sitting on the street. The building had a buzzer system. I pushed the button for Chang. The door buzzed and we entered. We went up the stairs to the third floor. The door was unlocked. Not good. It was dark inside the apartment. We crept into the room, Ike on the left and me on the right. We waited for our eyes to adjust. We then began moving quietly around the room. The living room was empty. I stepped into the kitchen. It was also empty. At that moment, a dark figure burst past Ike in the dark. I was closer to the door and ran out past him. Ike stayed to look in the bedroom. I followed the figure down the stairs until he went into the night and down the alley. I turned the corner of the alley and ran into a police car. The officers had their guns drawn.

"Down on the ground. Hands behind your back." Now was not the time to argue. I laid down and put my hands on my back. They handcuffed me and frisked me. They found my gun.

"I have a permit for that. I'm a private investigator."

"Sure, buddy. Everyone has a permit in this city. Just lay still while we check you out."

They sat in their car on their computer for ten or fifteen minutes. They finally picked me up.

"How about we go see what you've been up to tonight?" They took me back into the apartment building and up the elevator to the third floor. When we entered Chang's apartment, I found an entire squad of cops. Ike was on the floor in handcuffs. "We caught the other guy."

"What are you talking about? What's going on here?" I didn't like this. Something was going on here.

Lt. Baker came out of the bedroom and saw me. "I told you to stay out of this, but you never listen. Now you're in it to your neck." He grabbed me by the arm and led me to the bedroom door. There, on the bed, was the body of Salvador Chang. He had two bullet holes in him. "You guys shouldn't have shot a cop. Take them downtown, boys. We'll talk to them later." They grabbed both of us, and we all went downtown. They weren't gentle about the trip. We had a few bruises by the time we arrived at the station.

We are in it now.