Badge of Evil (19 page)

Lucy and Bishop didn't have to wait outside for long. At a couple of minutes past midnight, two black tour buses rolled up carrying Supreme and about a hundred members of his crew. Showing up together this way made a big, splashy statement, emphasized how tight they were, and enabled them to party together on the way to the party. Most of the guys getting off the buses were wearing black T-shirts promoting Supreme's company, Black Ice Records. Black Ice medallions emblazoned with the company slogan—
THE ICE AGE IS HERE
—were everywhere as well.

As a model, Lucy had been to her share of high-profile events in LA, New York, Paris, and Milan. She'd walked the red carpet at movie premieres, charity events, and, of course, major fashion happenings. She'd even gone to the Grammys one year on the arm of the president of a major recording company. But she'd never seen a spectacle like Supreme's entrance.

When Supreme saw Lucy, his eyes lit up. “Girl, you are a fine sight,” he said, kissing her on each cheek. “We gonna party tonight. I got a secluded spot inside. You'll come sit with me. Who's the beef?” he asked, looking at Bishop and then back at Lucy. “You think you need protection?”

“Actually, he's just a—”

“Frank Bishop,” he said, cutting her off. “I was just keeping her company until you got here. I'll entertain myself while you guys talk.” With that, he left them and headed back into the club.

Once inside, Bishop made his way to a spot at the bar where he had a clear view of Supreme's private banquette in the VIP section. Lucy smiled at him as she turned and headed for Supreme's table.

•  •  •

“C'mon now, girls, make a little room here, know what I'm sayin'? Back it up and let this fine lady come sit down with me.” Supreme had come into the club with three bodyguards and five sparingly dressed young women—three black and two white—who looked like they'd just stepped out of one of his rap videos. He patted the banquette next to him and motioned to Lucy to come sit down. “What can I get you?” he asked her when she finally made her way past the other women in the booth. They were clearly pissed.

“Uh, K One, straight up, chilled,” she said. “This place is amazing.”

“That's for real,” Supreme said. “It's been open for just about a year now and it's killin'. Practically every night we open it's like this. Already covered all the up-front costs. Construction, supplies. I own the building, so everything from here out's pretty much just icing.”

“Wow,” Lucy said, surprised.

“But no business tonight, okay, pretty girl? No trippin' on Big K gettin' capped, crooked cops, or any of that unpleasant shit. Let's just chill and enjoy the night. Things are gonna get pretty crazy, so just sit back and let it flow.”

•  •  •

Bishop was watching Lucy and Supreme closely but discreetly, and given his surveillance training, it was unlikely anyone would've noticed what he was doing. He saw immediately that Supreme was taken with Lucy. No serious detective work needed there. Supreme dismissively shoved the
mamacitas
he'd come in with out of the way for her and then took control of the entire VIP section, coordinating who sat where and what kind of alcohol he wanted. Once that was done, all of his attention was focused on Lucy.

Bishop assessed Supreme's security. There were two NFL-lineman-sized bodyguards flanking his table as well as two more positioned in the front of the VIP section. Bishop also spotted a fifth man by the entrance to the club. They were all big, well dressed, and, as best he could tell, armed—though probably unlicensed. He pegged them for amateurs, all show and no go. It's one thing to carry a gun; knowing how to use it is a whole other ball game.

Bishop continued to scan the club, scoping out the exits and noting the easiest, quickest way to bolt, just in case something bad went down. He wasn't expecting trouble. But he'd learned the hard way over the years that having an escape route was always a good idea. Bishop was also running through a checklist in his head. He had his investigators tapping every source they had in the police department, especially in ESU, to try to get some useful information on the raid. So far it had been slow going, but he was still hopeful something would break.

He was also wondering why he was so attracted to Lucy. The strippers were a lot easier to play mental chess with—actually, most of them only played checkers. And not very well either. Lucy was certainly beautiful, but in a much more classic, understated way than the exaggerated Barbie look Bishop usually went for. But what Bishop found particularly appealing about Lucy was her personality. She was quick, funny, smart, and didn't give a moment's thought to impressing him. Coming with her to Roxx was not part of his deal with A. J., but he couldn't resist when she'd asked him. Truth be told, he was flattered.

The bar was busy, but not as busy as it should've been given how crowded the club was. When Bishop was a cop, the bars he went to were usually three people deep and it was all you could do to get a cocktail. Nowadays it was a lot easier to get a drink at these clubs, given the number of people on designer drugs, most often Ecstasy. And designer water was often the preferred beverage of the evening.

“Goddamn it,” Bishop muttered as his cell phone started to vibrate. He knew who it was before he even looked. It was Victoria calling for maybe the fifteenth time in the last two hours. The club was too loud to hear or be heard in, and he didn't feel like talking to her now anyway. She'd have to wait. He'd give her a full rundown tomorrow. He shut off his phone, put it in his pocket, and turned his attention back to Lucy.

•  •  •

At the end of the bar, a man was watching not just Bishop, but Lucy and Supreme as well. It was Oz, disguised to blend in. He was wearing sunglasses and a blazer over a prewashed tie-dyed T-shirt with a pair of jeans. With a full head of black hair, he looked like an older rocker cruising for a piece of ass. He appeared to be drinking a martini while intensely observing the exchange between Lucy and Supreme. The wig, the sunglasses, and the whole getup worked perfectly. Bishop had glanced in his direction several times already, and each time he'd looked right through Oz as if he weren't there.

Oz may have been Brock's closest aide and confidant, but he was a mystery within the police department. Everyone at police headquarters knew the commissioner had this strange, virtually anonymous guy who worked for him, who never said anything and had complete access to Brock all the time. He even rode the commissioner's private elevator. But he had no rank and no official title. It was unclear even to Brock's deputy commissioners if he was on the payroll. And no one was about to ask. People who ran into Oz at One Police Plaza didn't even want to make sustained eye contact with him. His eyes were black as coal and the rumor was—there's no better incubator for rumors than police headquarters—if you stared too long you'd fall under his control. As absurd as this notion seemed, no one in the building appeared willing to put it to the test.

Oz, whose full name was Kareem Ozmehet Said, was born and raised in Brixton, a poor, mostly black and Muslim suburb of London. His plan was to go to college and study engineering, but when he was sixteen, he began hanging around a group called al-Muhajiroun, an extremist organization dedicated to creating a worldwide Islamic society governed by sharia, Muslim law. The group was eventually outlawed in England. Instead of college, al-Muhajiroun sent Oz to Pakistan to study Islam in a madrasa and train in a terrorist camp in the mountains. The teen who once wanted to be an engineer became a jihadist, a highly trained guerrilla fighter. He learned hand-to-hand combat and tracking and reconnaissance techniques, and he was schooled in the use of a variety of weapons, including handguns, knives, AK-47s, RPGs, small explosives, and sniper rifles. He was introduced to Brock in Saudi Arabia by Abdullah al-Rasheed, and they became close very quickly.

Only hours earlier, Oz had pulled off what he believed was a perfect crime, tying up three loose ends with one knot—Ayad, Andrea, and Mary. Now it was time to take care of his last piece of business. Oz had done his homework. He was familiar with Supreme's club antics and he had come prepared. He'd slipped the doorman a $100 bill to get into Roxx, he'd dressed the part, and he had a pretty good idea about when he wanted to take care of business.

Oz had come to Roxx not long after shooting Andrea Jafaari, taking just enough time to go home, change clothes, and put on his wig. He could have hired someone else for this job, but that always had the potential to get messy, no matter how meticulous the preparation, and then he'd have another loose end to eliminate. Too bad, because in this case it would've been particularly easy, and cheap, to hire someone. There was no shortage of jealous guys from the neighborhood who would've been willing to smoke Supreme just for the fun of it. And the cops would've happily classified it as another rap music feud. In the end, however, Oz had decided, as he always did, to handle the matter himself.

•  •  •

Bishop couldn't believe what he was watching. About half an hour after Supreme had settled in with Lucy in the VIP area, the rapper everyone had been waiting to see, TnT—“Tuff 'n' Tuffer,” he growled—took the stage. After one song, Supreme decided to crank things up. “Watch this,” he said to Lucy as he got up and motioned to two of his assistants. They brought over two Hermes bags, stuffed with thousands of dollars in fives, tens, and twenties. “Okay, yo,” Supreme said to his guys, “it's time to make it rain.” Smiling now, Supreme and the two men all reached into the bags, grabbed handfuls of cash, and began throwing them out over the crowd on the dance floor. They repeated this several times and it quickly looked like it was raining money.

“What're you doing?” Lucy asked, stunned.

“Just makin' the people happy, girl, just givin' 'em what they want. You think all these people rolled up tonight just to hear TnT? And all those people outside huggin' the block, waitin' for hours and hopin' to get in? Shit, they came 'cause they knew this would get crazy. They knew I'd make it rain, and who knows what other shit might go down?”

“But how much money can anybody actually get?” she asked.

“Girl, you missin' the point. It's not about the money. It's about the show, it's about the craziness. It's about bein' part of some shit nobody else is part of. That's why they come.”

“And why do you do it?” Lucy shouted into Supreme's ear so she'd be heard over TnT, who'd started performing again.

“That's easy. 'Cause it brings 'em out. Wherever I go now, they expect all this. It creates major attention for my artists. Believe me, pretty girl, I more than get my money's worth. It's cheap but effective promotion.”

“Are you finished, or do you do it again?”

“It's definitely gonna rain again.”

“Can I help?” Lucy asked, excited now.

Supreme laughed. Lucy liked when he laughed; he had a nice smile and it made him look like an innocent young boy. “Pretty girl, get ready to rock the house. But when we done here, tell A. J. the clock is ticking. I need to see him.”

“Absolutely. First thing tomorrow.”

With that, Supreme motioned to his people again to bring back the money.

•  •  •

Oz had just come out of the men's room wearing latex gloves, and he began to work his way across the dance floor. Even though he was aware that he couldn't be identified by his prints—they'd been altered years ago, along with several of his features—he felt he could never be too careful. The dance floor was packed with nearly two thousand hot, sweaty people jumping up and down and screaming. Oz just kept moving forward, pushing and shoving whenever he needed to. As he got closer to the VIP area, he reached into his waistband and pulled out the Glock. He held it low at his side, along his thigh. Getting spotted was a nonissue. In this crowd, he felt like he could've been carrying a rocket-propelled-grenade launcher on his shoulder and no one would've given him a look. And Supreme, dressed in all white, was the perfect target.

His bling didn't just make him more visible; the “piece” around his neck was like a big bull's-eye. A piece in the hip-hop world was that singular emblem that represented who you were. It was the symbol of your success and your empire. Jay Z had a “Roc” piece, after his company Roc-A-Fella; 50 Cent had a “G-Unit” piece. Supreme's piece, a sparkling medallion of white gold and colored diamonds that said, “Black Ice,” was so blindingly bright it looked like it had its own light source. He'd had it custom-made for $500,000. Pieces were also phallic; they were a visible representation, in precious stones and metal, of the wearer's manhood. They were usually worn on a thick chain and hung in the center of the body. The greatest affront in the rap world was to steal somebody's piece. But to take it, you had to be man enough—or crazy enough—to rip it off someone's neck. Oz couldn't have cared less about hip-hop rituals, but he thought he'd give Supreme's piece to Brock.

Supreme turned to Lucy and asked, “Ready?”

“You bet.”

“Then let's do it. But not till I give you the signal.” At this point, all he had to do was stand up and the crowd surged toward him. Just for fun, he did this twice without making it rain. Finally, he dug into the Hermes bag and pulled out a huge wad of bills. As he raised his arms to let the money go, Oz lifted the hand holding the Glock nine-millimeter, loosening his grip slowly as he squeezed the trigger.

Supreme let the money fly and it floated down on the crowd like a torrent of leaves on a windy fall day. Just as the hammer hit the primer of the nine-millimeter round, Oz was bumped from behind in the wild orgy of hands and elbows and limbs. The bullet hit Supreme's bodyguard in the mouth showering blood, shattered teeth, and tissue all over Supreme's immaculate white suit. At first, no one seemed to notice what had happened. Or maybe they didn't care. But the next three shots got everyone's attention. Now there was a different kind of hysteria.