10-33 Assist PC

By Desmond P. Ryan

D/C Mike O’Shea, a young cop with a knack for working hard and following hunches, is on the verge of cracking a prostitution ring when an undercover from another unit burns him. With only days left before their pimps shuttle the girls out of the country, Mike pushes his team into overdrive. Hours later, with too little information, sleep, or luck, the unthinkable happens.

And now, the chase is personal.

 In the first of the Mike O’Shea Crime Fiction Series, 10-33 Assist PC draws us into the dirty world of human trafficking through the eyes of the cops who put their lives on the line every day to shut it down. Written by a Real Detective, 10-33 Assist PC is the story of a cop who must decide how to move forward without forgetting the past.

Real Detective. Real Crime. Fiction.

 

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Publishdrive
• Release date: Oct 17, 2018
• ISBN: 9781775352815

Book preview

PC

Advanced Praise for Desmond P. Ryan’s 10-33 Assist PC

Des Ryan's decades on the force show through on every page of this acerbic, gripping read. Astute observations that can only come from a long-time officer, witty cop-to-cop banter you know is cribbed from a career of cruiser chit-chat, and a portrait of the bond between fellow officers represented via only way that rings true: from experience.

~ Wendy Gillis, Toronto Star Crime Reporter

"Desmond Ryan has captured the gritty and heartbreaking situations street cops face. He has done so in a way that underscores the humanity not only of victims, but also of those sworn to protect them, and who will risk their lives for them. He has also reflected the unique combination of humour, wit, profanity, brilliance, and occasionally panic, that characterizes the ways cops work together. Like the situations it exposes and the policing vocation it describes, 10-33 Assist PC is not for the faint of heart."

~ Pete Lennox, retired police Superintendent

"Desmond P. Ryan’s first book manages to uncover a truth about what it means to be a cop.  Mr. Ryan’s narrative is searing, unapologetic, engaging and truthful in honour of the men and women who do undercover police work; all under the shadow of Canada’s largest metropolis. 

Skillfully navigating his flawed and sometimes broken characters, Mr. Ryan leads the reader through wins and losses and choices that are as much analogous to real life as it is to policing. Even minor characters jump to life, bringing with them humour and pathos to people that we barely glance at in real life. The making of Mr. Ryan’s storytelling, marrying experience with fiction, compels our all-too-human heroes to an explosive ending - kudos, for the first Ryan novel to line my shelf.   

~ Henry Alessandroni, author of Inizar: The Complete Trilogy

Prostitution, drugs & guns... Cops destroying each other’s investigations... I couldn't put it down.

~ Joanne Donovan, crime fiction reader

10-33 ASSIST PC

******

Desmond P. Ryan

Real Detective. Real Crime. Fiction.

Copyright

Copyright ©2018 Desmond P. Ryan

All rights reserved, including the rights to reproduce or transmit this book or any portions thereof in any form whatsoever by any means whatsoever. For information, address the author’s rights counsel at [e-mail].

This paperback second edition September 2018

For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact [e-mail]

Desmond is available for speaking engagements at your live events. For information, please contact [e-mail]

Cover designed by Cathy Chow, CatchGraphics.ca.

Canadian Government Library & Archives

ISBN: 978-1-7753528-0-8

Author’s Note

All characters, situations, descriptions, and content are fictional and any similarities to persons alive or dead is purely coincidental.

Preface

You’re a smart reader.

You deserve authenticity. You deserve realism. And you deserve a good read.

I know how to write real crime fiction because I have lived it.

I was a cop for thirty years.

I walked the beat. I chased down murders, rapists, and serial arsonists. I walked old ladies cross the street. Hell, I even helped deliver a baby in the back of a van!

You want real? You’ll find it on every page that I write. Because it’s what I know.

You’re too smart for made-up, too convenient, that-would-never-happen kind of fiction. And you’re too busy for anything less than damn good entertainment.

Desmond P. Ryan

Real Detective. Real Crime. Fiction.

Acknowledgements

This book has truly been a labour of love. After thirty years of shiftwork, missed holidays and school plays, and weekends and evening away from my family, I now have made the time to share what I have experienced through my books.

This book has also been a labour of many hands. Most notably, I would like to thank my wife, Chantalle, who not only had a child, began a new career path of her own, and ran the household while this book was just a work in progress, but was involved with the making of this book on every level, from researching, plot-development, editing, writing, and encouraging. #Thanksfortyping would be an understatement. To Elizabeth J. Duncan, a mentor and coffee buddy. To Cathy Chow (CatchGraphics.ca), a true friend and graphic genius who created my on-line presence and designed the cover of this book. To Cheryl Freedman, a kindred spirit who made my words shine. To Patty Brogdon, a wealth of information who made all of my technical troubles disappear.

To my children, Sam and Ben. Thank you, Sam, for your encouragement and for reading the various iterations of my manuscripts with insight and kindness. Thank you, Ben, for reminding me of the power of imagination. And cookies. Mostly cookies.

To my mom, Margaret, who read the manuscript even though there was too much swearing. And for teaching me through example the power of a dream.

I would also like to thank the women and men who, much like the characters in this book, put their lives on the line every day to protect us from good people who do bad things, and bad people who take advantage of those who are vulnerable. And to the prosecutors and judges who never lose faith in a system that sometimes seems horribly flawed.

And to you, who took the time to pick up this book and will now submerse yourself in the world of Real Crime. Fiction.

Desmond P. Ryan

Real Detective. Real Crime. Fiction.

Chapter One

Saturday, October 29th, 2005 - 2:30 p.m.

Detective Constable Mike O’Shea casually drove the unmarked scout car around the corner. He felt good. Maybe it was the bright October sunlight reflecting off the crushed beer cans scattered on the overgrown lawns. Maybe it was the police-issued snubby holstered in the small of his back. Or maybe it was the anticipation of a successful end to a long project. Whatever the reason, it made him smile.

Mike! Left! Sal grabbed the dashboard with one hand while instinctively reaching for his gun with the other.

The clang of metal rang in their ears as a streak of green flashed in front of them.

Someone bounced off the hood of the car.

Mike slammed the brakes, one hand on the wheel and the other reaching for the snubby. Despite their ratty sweatshirts, stained jeans, and unshaved faces, neither cop looked quite as rough as the

scrappy man who popped up from the pavement next to Mike’s door. They watched, hands on their still-holstered guns, as the scruffy man yanked a battered bike from under the front tire of the car. Without a word, he wobbled away, apparently none the worse for wear.

Hey! Mike hollered after the cyclist, who responded with a suggestive finger in the air.

Bike’s stolen and he’s drunk. Or stoned. Let him go, Sal said, spitting sunflower seed shells on the floor of the car before settling back into his seat.

Unbelievable, Mike mumbled, shaking his head.

No shit, Sal agreed, stuffing another handful of sunflower seeds into his mouth.

I’m talking about you, asshole. You’re not spitting those shells in the car, are you?

Yeah.

Use the fucking window.

Sal spat a shell at Mike’s feet.

Mike continued towards the boarded-up shithole that was their target, his hands tightening on the steering wheel as he considered how close they were to a successful end to this project.

He knew this neighbourhood like the back of his hand. Old houses with good bones that had now fallen into disrepair lined the streets. The sidewalks that used to overflow with women with three and four children in tow during the daytime and old men eking out a living on their meagre pensions in the evenings had changed, too. Now the only people outside, day or night, were homeless addicts who had chosen to live rough rather than face the violence inside the shelters that had popped up in the neighbourhood over the past ten years.

During the past few weeks, Mike and Sal had been gathering bits of intel from those same eyes and ears on the street in exchange for a smoke or a couple of bucks. They’d spent days shoving a photo of the girl who had sparked the investigation under the nose of anyone who would look. Some of their leads were good; most, though, were bullshit.

The girl in the photo was Chelsea Hendricks: barely sixteen, missing since fourteen, and an apparent runaway. She’d been spotted in several security videos from a reasonably upscale hotel lobby in Niagara Falls over a five-day span in February of this year, always with different men, sometimes with one or two other girls.

Mike knew a couple of the guys who monitored the equipment and would drop a dime on the down-low whenever a new girl appeared. When Chelsea surfaced, he’d got the tip. It was during an ice storm, and after a precarious drive down to the Falls and several drinks with his boys, he had boxes of security videos and a pounding head. It took his team three sleepless days to positively identify Chelsea and sixteen other girls who had been reported missing from Toronto in the preceding two years. But by the time Mike got the search warrant written and signed by the judge, the girls were long gone.

A couple of months later, Chelsea Hendricks was back in Toronto on the stroll. Someone had called the police about condoms in their laneway. A neighbour had a decent security video and had turned the footage over to the divisional detectives, who, after looking at hours of footage of cars driving by, saw an emaciated girl getting fucked in the back seat of a car. She looked pretty young, so they called Mike.

It didn't take much work for him to identify the girl as Chelsea Hendricks. He and Sal set up on the stroll for two weeks but had no luck finding her.

In the middle of May, after a call from his counterpart in Buffalo regarding an unrelated project, some instinct told Mike to ask for the names, dates of birth, and photographs of any of their known prostitutes who even remotely matched Chelsea Hendricks’s description. It turned out that a girl known to them as twenty-year-old Tracey Henderson was really his sixteen-year-old Chelsea Hendricks. She had been investigated several times on a strip known for its younger girls, and each time, she’d had no ID and gave a false name and date of birth that put her over the age of concern for underaged street hookers. On top of that, the bogus name didn’t raise any flags regarding her missing status in Canada.

Now it was October, and Mike, Sal, Julia Vendramini, and her partner, Fred ‘Hoagie’ Hogan, had been working the case for almost a year. Despite their best efforts, they always seemed to be a day late and a dollar short. Until, that is, about three weeks ago when the mailman noticed some activity at a house that had been empty for months and called the police.

Mike and Sal were in the area and got to the address before the uniforms arrived. They recognized a couple of guys having a smoke out front from another project they had worked on and convinced the attending officers to let them handle the call. Dozens of computer checks, around-the-clock surveillance on the house, and some other bits of intel were enough to give them a signed search warrant for the address.

Today, within the hour, they’d be kicking in the door and shutting down a sizable prostitution ring that ran underaged girls between Toronto, Niagara Falls, and Buffalo.

Mike was hoping that Chelsea Hendricks would be here. His jaw tightened whenever he considered that this girl—like all the girls whom they dealt with in his unit—had been barely out of childhood when these fuckers had got hold of her—and destroyed her. Now, at sixteen, she was likely their most senior offering, leaving her precariously close to her expiration date.

He could not lose this girl. Not now, not when he was so close to rescuing her.

Today, more by luck than design, the team’s timing was ideal. One of their more reliable sources had assured them that the handlers would be moving the girls on Monday, leaving the hold house relatively quiet this Saturday afternoon. Only the handlers, hustlers, and mid-level pimps looking to buy second-hand girls for their stable would be coming or going. No johns, no outside interests, just the vested players.

Clean. Easy. Round them up and shut them down.

Once he and Sal made sure everything was kosher out front, Mike would radio Julia and Hoagie, who would be parked just down the street. A quick door knock followed by a swift kick and they’d be in. If these assholes ran true to form, they would scatter like cockroaches when a light flicks on.

Mike’s team would be ready for them, though. They would grab the pimps, get the girls to a safe house, and that would be the end of it.

Whole thing should only take a couple of minutes, Mike figured. Maybe a scuffle or two, but nothing they hadn’t dealt with before. All these scrawny little fuckers were cowards full of some bullshit version of intimidation that might work on scared little girls, but not on Toronto cops. Besides, if things really got ugly, they’d put over a ‘10-33 Assist PC,’ a powerful all-call that would bring every cop in the city racing to help.

After wrapping up, they would call Robby, the suit in the unit who made sure the bosses were happy, and they’d all grab a few beers and some extra-hot wings at the shitty bar they always went to. And then they would start all over again next shift. Because that’s how it went in the Juvenile Prostitution Task Force where the never-ending demand for sex with young girls meant hopping from one project to the next, trying to save as many girls as possible before the dirty business ate them alive.

What the fuck? Sal suddenly said, spotting a lone woman standing in front of the dilapidated hold house they’d been doing surveillance on for the past week.

You’re kidding me, Mike groaned.

She’s gotta be an independent.

Or eyes for the place? She looks pretty clean, and those jeans she’s wearing aren’t cheap.

Pretty old fuckin’ eyes, Sal commented with a laugh as he looked the woman up and down before spitting a mouthful of shells on the floor between his legs. She’s gotta be, what? Thirty?

You fucking disgust me with those shells, you know that? Hang on. Roll down your window. Let’s have a little chat with her.

Sal gave a piercing whistle, then shouted, Hey, sister! Mike sighed, unsure which was more annoying: Sal whistling at women or his spitting sunflower seed shells inside the car.

Piss off, the woman called back, pivoting on her red stilettos.

That’s not very nice, Sal chuckled. We just want to talk.

And I’m telling you to piss off, copper, she yelled back over her shoulder.

We’re not cops, Mike said, leaning over his partner as he pulled up beside her. We just want to talk to you.

You’re either cops or born-agains because nobody just wants to talk on this corner. Now get the hell out of here.

Listen, we just—

Jesus! the woman huffed, turning quickly on her heel as she strode over to the car. She jammed her right hand into the red clutch slung over her left shoulder.

Keep your hands where I can see them! Mike ordered, reaching into the small of his back for the second time since he had turned onto this supposedly quiet street.

The hooker froze, then pulled something out of her purse.

I’m a cop, too, assholes. The woman shoved her badge through the passenger window, narrowly missing Sal’s face while almost imprinting the badge on Mike’s. Detective Constable Amanda Black. Morality. We’re doing a sweep, and you’ve just burned me. Thanks.

Shit! Sal threw his head back against the headrest and rolled his eyes. For a minute there, I thought you were gonna fuckin’ shoot me!

Yeah, well, maybe I should’ve because you’ve burned my cover, Amanda snarled, replacing her badge and pulling the purse strap up on her arm. I’m hoping you fucking plugs have a legit reason for being here.

What? You shittin’ us? You think you’re the kind of action we’d be trying to pick up if we were actually trying to pick up? Sal laughed.

Shut the fuck up, Sal, Mike snapped. And you, lady! I don’t care who the fuck you are or think you are. You’ve just fucked my entire project for the sake of some dipshit hooker sweep!

Ooh. The Big Man is mad, Sal smirked, flicking a sunflower seed shell off his seat onto the floor.

Fuck. Off. Sal. And, Mike turned his glare on Amanda, in answer to your question, I am Detective Constable Mike O’Shea, and this is my partner, D/C Sal Salvatore. Juvenile Prostitution Task Force. We’ve been doing obs on this place for the past three weeks. Figured it’s our fucking hold house, but now—

Right hand, meet left, Amanda sighed, gesturing with her hands. "Never changes, does it? If my