“Mind if we check?” I replied, trying to make my tone soothing.
“Only if you take custody,” he replied petulantly. “I don’t have time to stand around here with my thumb up my ass waiting on you.”
“Sure,” Ian agreed, his tone silky and dangerous. “Transfer custody to us.”
It was done in moments, and the freed officer jogged over to let his sergeant know. His superior gave us a head tilt, clearly thinking we were DEA since he couldn’t see the back of the vests. Had he known, he wouldn’t have given the go-ahead. No one ever turned people over to the marshals because with our warrant information network we could always find something extra, just that bit more and being shown up pissed them off like nobody’s business. No one ever hated asking for our help to pick someone up after the fact or on a lead that’d gone cold, but having the marshals show them up at the scene of a bust made everyone bitchy.
Ian pulled out his phone as I squatted down in front of the first guy.
“So who the fuck are you?” our first suspect asked.
“Marshal,” I answered. “We’re going to run you all for warrants again.”
No one seemed concerned.
Mike Ryan and his partner, Jack Dorsey, were on desk duty that morning, which meant they got to look up the records of the men sitting on the curb. We released the suspects one by one—Ryan and Dorsey making a note of it over the phone—removed their cuffs, and wished them a good day. “Go to hell” was the most popular response to Ian’s cheerfulness while “fuck off” ran a close second.
It turned out a warrant for attempted murder and aggravated battery came back for the last guy.
“Winner winner chicken dinner,” I announced, smirking at him.
“Fuckin’ marshals,” Dario Batista griped. “I thought this was a DEA bust.”
Ian cackled as we hauled him to his feet.
“Come on, man,” he protested. “I have information I can give you. Let’s work out a deal.”
“We’re marshals,” Ian said as the three of us began walking back to the Taurus. “We don’t make deals.”
I called in as we stuffed him into the backseat.
“What the hell kind of clown car is this?” Batista complained.
“It’s fuel-efficient,” I rationalized as I set the childproof lock on the back door before getting in.
“God, I hate this car,” Ian growled irritably.
I promised we’d check on a new one when we got back to the office.
IT TURNED out Batista was the one moving money for the Madero crime family that had ties to the Solo cartel out of Durango, Mexico. The DEA could maybe, possibly, get him to roll on the family if they could get witnesses to make the money laundering and racketeering charges stick, but it was a long shot. They would have loved to try, but San Francisco PD had him solid on attempted murder and aggravated battery charges. So since San Fran had put out the warrant for him, and since that was why we’d picked him up, we processed him, notified them of his capture, and they had people scrambled and on a plane within the hour. All of that activity happened faster than it took the DEA to figure out precisely what had happened to their potential informant.
After the DEA agents pulled their heads out of their asses and ran down the information from Chicago PD that the marshals office had, in fact, taken custody of Batista, they finally showed up about six that evening.
The guy in charge was Corbin Stafford, and he barged into our office with four of his men and demanded to speak to the marshals who were on-site in Bloomingdale that afternoon.
That was a mistake.
Maybe if they’d come in tactfully, respectfully, something different might have occurred. As it was, my boss, newly promoted Chief Deputy US Marshal Sam Kage came out of his office and waited while Stafford yelled at him and told him in no uncertain terms why he needed to turn Batista over to the DEA immediately.
Kage waited until they were quiet.
“Well?” Stafford barked.
“No,” Kage replied flatly.
It took a moment for the word to sink in. “No?”
Kage waited.
“What the hell do you mean, no?”
Kage let out the sigh we all normally ran from. “US Marshals are the enforcement arm of most federal agencies, including yours, and as such, we reserve the right to make arrests as we see fit.”
Everyone opened their mouths to say something, maybe even to yell, but my boss lifted his hand to shut them up.
“As the main enforcement agency, this gives us more power than you were obviously aware of in your limited understanding of our office.”
“I—”
“Therefore, in this instance, we see fit not to honor your request.”
“We’ll see what your boss thinks about—”
“My boss, Tom Kenwood, was confirmed by the senate only a week ago and is the new US Marshal in charge of the Northern District of Illinois,” Kage explained, and I could see the glimmer of evil in his smile. “I’m sure he would love to have one of his first orders of business be you questioning a decision of his chief deputy.”