Canary Read Free Page B

slips inside. Say yo to Chuckie for me.
    He picks up his notebook, scribbles quickly:
     
0044 Sub 1—W/F, driving Honda Civic
0045 Sub 2—W/M, passenger, 6'2" skinny build, green backpack over
shoulder, bright red pants, navy windbreaker
0046 S2 approaches target house, unknown male lets him in. S1 stays in car in valet spot
     
    Once the guy goes into Chuckie’s place, Wildey turns his attention to the driver. The girl. Maybe eighteen or nineteen? Latino? Italian? Hard to tell in this light. Her hair’s up, held in place by some kind of silver piece. She’s doing the awkward
idling-in-the-valet-area
thing. Looking around, body language nervous, shoulders fidgety. An older cop told him most times you don’t need a confession. Just watch the body; it’ll tell the whole story. Clearly this girl doesn’t want to be here. Is she here against her will? Wildey writes down the Civic’s plates to look up later. There’s no laptop to run a search. All he has is a notebook, pen, badge, gun, and a portable dashboard lights/screamer that plugs into the cigarette lighter. You know, just in case this gets real.
    Wildey’s hoping this is the case.
C’mon, girlie, gimme a little reasonable suspicion.
He’s been watching Chuckie’s pad off and on for almost a week now with no luck.
    After quite a long while Big Red pops out of the house, tattered green backpack still slung over his shoulder. What you got there? He trots back down the stoop, crosses Ninth, not even really looking, and opens the passenger door. Taillights blink. They’re pulling out. Come on, Wildey thinks, give me
something.
Some reason to pull this car over. A twitchy taillight? Any reason to believe her inspection’s past due? Somebody cut the tags off her license? Wildey knows cops who would do that. Instant probable cause. Can’t do that anymore, though. The D.A. is probably right now sitting on the edge of his bed, nursing a glass of pinot noir, just
waiting
for someone to call to tell him that narcotics cops have fucked up again.
    The Civic continues up Ninth—she’s almost to the stop sign. Wildey rolls the dice in his head. How do we feel about this one? Do we follow and hope? Or do we stay put in our stuffy car and wait for the next one?
    Wildey has four such cars situated around Philly, each within visual range of a suspected baby kingpin’s house. The lieutenant had encouraged them to think outside the box. Well, this is what Wildey came up with. Just take a car from the impound lot, something boring that runs. Slap some city council tags on it so the parking authority leaves it alone. Take turns inside each car, watching the customers bounce in and out. See something you think might be good, give up that precious parking spot and you pursue. But do so with caution. Parking spots are tough to find—especially down here. Wildey spent a lot of time fighting for the four spots he has. For him to pull out, this Civic’s got to be worth it.
    That green bag, though. Wildey’s feeling good about that green bag.
    He puts his car in drive and slides out of a parking space that will be occupied within seconds, guaranteed.
    Just one bust. A Chuckie Morphine–sized bust. That’s what Wildey needs to put his name out there. The scumbags he’d really love to bust are elsewhere in the city and virtually untouchable by departmental degree. But things change. Wildey scores enough Chuckies, he can touch the untouchables. Which is what this whole thing is about. And maybe it starts now.
     
    D. heaves himself into the passenger seat so hard the suspension rocks. I’ll bet his mom yells at him for stomping up stairs and slamming doors. He’s like a goofy puppy who has no idea of his own size.
—Still up for that cheesesteak, Sarie?
I can’t help it. My eyes are drawn to the grubby green North Face backpack now on the floor between his legs.
—Uh, sure.
When I met D. at that mixer I thought it was sort of cute that he was a stoner nerd guy. He talks about