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Think Bobby
Category:
Crime
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN-10: 1483906582
Type: Fiction
Pages: 312
Copyright: 08/2013
ISBN-13: 9781483906584
Price: $2.99 (eBook)
Salty and The Serpent is a gripping new crime thriller that will keep readers guessing until the very last page. Using a raw tone that explores society’s underbelly, this exhilarating novel follows a basic patrol officer from a sector car to being a detective while finding himself in a few high profile cases along the way. A pulp fiction novel that uses strong street language and sexual overtones, this unique thriller will captivate readers with its grittiness and keep them coming back for more.
Bobby Salter is a cop’s cop. A basic patrol officer, Bobby and his partner Vinny Serpentino have just brought down the empire of two of the biggest coke dealers in Brooklyn. With a huge money bust in their back pocket, they are promoted to plain clothes officers and assigned to patrol the streets of Bobby’s grandfather’s old neighborhood. As his resume begins to build, Bobby’s rise will take him all the way to detective as he is thrust into solving high profile cases from Manhattan to the Bronx. As the action twists and turns, Bobby’s story will lead to a surprise ending that no one would ever see coming.
Salty and The Serpent is a gripping new crime thriller that will keep readers guessing until the very last page. Using a raw tone that explores society’s underbelly, this exhilarating novel follows a basic patrol officer from a sector car to being a detective while finding himself in a few high profile cases along the way. A pulp fiction novel that uses strong street language and sexual overtones, this unique thriller will captivate readers with its grittiness and keep them coming back for more.
Salty and The Serpent takes readers on a riveting journey into a world where the only thing standing between them and chaos is the men and women that put their lives on the line every day. Showing readers that the heroes they take for granted are working hard to protect them and their vanilla world, this fantastic crime thriller peels back the rose-colored surface of society to reveal the seething underbelly that lies beneath.
Excerpt
Damn! How friggin’ great was that? Four and half years on the job and Bobby was being reassigned to plainclothes. In the back of his mind, he knew it was a fast track to a gold shield. Bobby guessed when you pulled over a car for a broken taillight and found $2.5 million in drug money stashed in the trunk then arrest two of the biggest coke dealers in Brooklyn, the bosses took notice.
Here’s how it all happened. Vinny and Bobby were assigned a sector car patrolling Sheepshead Bay. They ran Knapp Street to the Belt Parkway over to Ocean Avenue and Avenue W. It was about eight in the evening on a slow Friday when a car with a broken taillight went by them heading for the Belt Parkway. If that was their excitement for the night, they figured they’d get that criminal. Vinny hit the lights, and Bobby whopped the siren.
The car pulled over, and they could see the two guys inside moving around. Vinny walked to the driver’s side as Bobby approached on the passenger side. The driver cracked the window down about two inches. “What’s the problem, officer?” Vinny asked for his license and registration and proof of insurance. Again, this character asked what the problem was. Vinny told him about the broken taillight and this time told him to roll down the window. The driver refused and squeezed his paperwork through the crack in the window.
Vinny looked at Bobby over the roof of the car and raised his hand, making a fist; it was their signal that they needed to get them out of the car. Bobby knocked on the passenger’s window and asked him to roll it down. He rolled it down about two inches and asked “What’s up?” That was when Bobby smelled the pot. It was at that point that Bobby asked him to step out of the car. “Why?” he asked.
Bobby said, “Because I asked you to.” By now, Bobby’s hand was on his weapon. The door popped open, and the smell could have knocked him down. Vinny had the driver out. As they called for backup, they knew they had a little pot bust going for sure. Bobby put his guy in cuffs, and Vinny cuffed the driver. As Bobby kept his eye on them, Vinny searched the car. He came out with a joint and a roach. “Is this it? Is this all you got?”
The driver said “yes!” Vinny went through the rest of the car, pulled the keys from the ignition, and went around to the trunk. You could see the guys go limp; Bobby thought they were going to faint. The trunk popped open, and there were three gym bags. Vinny opened one and stood back quickly. The bag was stuffed with cash. He opened the other two bags, and they were stuffed with green also.
Bobby immediately radioed for a supervisor and a canine. The dog checked the money, and it was positive for drugs. Everything went back to the station house where the money was stacked on a table in the squad room. There were stacks of twenties, tens, fives, fifties and hundreds. Totaling a little over $2,365,000.00, the money was confiscated. Their captives were charged with laundering drug money and possession of marijuana and were turned over to the feds to be charged with the Racketeer Influence and Corrupt Organizations act better known as RICO.
It seemed they had brought down one of the biggest crack operations in the five boroughs, arresting the ringleaders Joseph “Jo Jo” Martin and Mr. Donell Sharp. They had been major suppliers for a number of years, but the feds and local narcotics could never grab them up. Now they were facing at least twenty-five years for the money laundering and running a criminal empire, which gave probable cause to search their residences. Another large amount of cash, guns, and dope added to the charges. Vinny and Bobby broke their backs, all for a fifteen-dollar taillight.
The press was called, and they did a photo op with the brass. As for Bobby and Vinny, they got their fifteen minutes of fame. The headline was huge, “CASH NABBED!”
All of the attention was a little wild. Hey, if those two captains of industry weren’t smoking a joint, Bobby and Vinny just would have given them a summons, and they could have gone on their way, but smelling the pot gave Bobby and Vinny probable cause to search the vehicle. The arrest was glorified in the media; they showed photos of stacks of money on a table with Bobby and Vinny standing there, smiling big time.
Imagine how pissed the bosses were that they had to toss a bone to a wop and Jew. But it was good publicity to promote and reassign cops that made good big-money busts—after all, the department got a nice piece of the action. But now Bobby and Vinny were off to a new command—the Seventy-Third—with new bosses and new guys to work with. Damn! How friggin’ great was that?
The unit they’d been assigned to had been formed to target and eliminate specific areas of high-crime activity within the precinct; the original team had racked up an impressive number of arrests. The lieutenant, or “lu” in cop talk, had been lobbying to increase the size of the squad. He’d referred to the great stats that the squad had achieved and assured the brass that with more bodies, the arrest rate could only go up. It took a while, but the funding came through, and he got two more officers. He hadn’t expected to get the celebrities du jour.
Bobby didn’t know about Vinny, but he was happy to be at the seven three; his grandfather had grown up in that neighborhood. Bobby never knew the man, but he had sure heard a lot about him from his dad. Most were stories from his dad’s uncles and aunts. Now Bobby would be patrolling the streets his grandfather ran as a kid back in the ’40s and ’50s. Bobby had heard he was a tough kid and ran with a bad bunch. Bobby was not sure what they did that was so bad or even illegal. Bobby ran him through the Bureau of Criminal Investigations data base and nothing showed up, so Bobby figured his dad and uncles were exaggerating his grandfather’s exploits.
Now Bobby would get a chance to walk in his grandfather’s shoes and see where he came from, explore his roots. Bobby’s grandfather was his namesake. The Salters of Sterling Place were well-known and established in the neighborhood. Mention the name to anyone and they’d know someone in the family.
Bobby’s grandfather was the youngest of the Salter brothers. He was a skinny kid, always picked last when they would choose sides for a game of softball or stickball. But he had spunk and heart; he never backed down and was as good with his fists as any kid on the block. He could curse you out in Spanish as well as English, and he was always ready to back up his mouth.
The story goes, one day a black kid came down from up the street with a few of his “boys.” He said he was there for Bobby and it was ass-kicking time. Bobby was sitting on a milk crate, just watching some of the old Puerto Rican men playing dominos. The kid kicked the crate out from under him. Bobby jumped up, and it was on!
They locked up, falling to the ground and punching each other, scraping elbows and any other exposed skin on the sidewalk. When the older guys pulled them apart, Bobby had a fractured arm and a knot over his left eye with scrapes on his arms and hands. The black kid had a fat lip and a bloody mouth, along with scrapes. They faced off, and it was over, each claiming victory. Later it was revealed that the black kid wanted to join a gang, and to prove himself, he had to fight another kid from the block, so he picked Bobby.
In the summer they would play all day, some kind of ball or street game. Back then it was OK to play all day as long as you were home for dinner; no one got kidnapped or molested. You could drink from a hose and you didn’t die; you cleaned your own wounds, and the only time you quit was if you needed stitches.
It was a different time; there were no mega stores and very few supermarkets. Mom-and-pop grocery stores, pushcarts, and clothing stores were still the dominant businesses. Along Pitkin Avenue, from where it started at Eastern Parkway on the west for about three miles, the street was lined with thriving businesses. There were delicatessens, shoe stores, clothing stores—whatever you needed or wanted.
Grandpa Bobby got drafted in 1952. When he came home on leave after basic training, he married Grandma Rose. Three months later, he was shipped off to Korea. He became a casualty of a war that, to this day, is hardly mentioned. He was dead at twenty while Grandma Rose sat at home, pregnant with Jesse, Bobby’s dad.
Now Pitkin Avenue was a ragtag line of empty stores. A few hardy souls were still in business, some with armed security guards posted at their entrances. At night, they gated up tight and fled for their suburban homes, leaving the bodegas, Chinese takeout places, and fried-chicken joints to serve the area. Gone were the days when Bobby and his boys caused kid-stuff mischief in the hood. Now it was nightly shootings, stabbings, and robberies. Not many people ventured out at night, and those that did were on the edge. They were part of the problem, and the cops tried to be the solution.
Vinny picked Bobby up at about three, and they drove east down Eastern Parkway from Grand Army Plaza and turned right on Saratoga then left on East New York Avenue. The Seventy-Third was one of the oldest commands in Brooklyn; the new house was built years ago but still looked out of place in the run-down neighborhood of Brownsville/East New York. They strolled in, carrying canvas bags, and the desk sergeant looked up and recognized them but acted indifferent. “You two hotshots got badges?”
“Yes, sir.” They laid them on the desk so he could record the numbers.
He bellowed out, in pure Brooklynese, “Up the stairs, second floor, room two o five.”
They walked into a small but well-laid-out office. There was a section partitioned off, a tall, slightly balding guy at the desk, and five others in the room, sitting around. All eyes hit them right away. The big guy from the office came out and pointed and said, “Hey! There they are! Salty and The Serpent!” It was the first time Bobby had heard that, but, hell, he liked it!
The speaker was Lieutenant Jerry Greer, a big man, about 6’4” or 6’5”, weighing in at about 200lbs. “Let me introduce you to our crew. Ed Flanagan, Danny Sikes, Angela Gomez, Preston—Bubba—Johnson and Phil…err…what the hell is your last name again? Oh yeah ‘Edgemere,’” he said jokingly. “Sounds like some damn country club.”
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