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Spearhead

Posted on January 26, 2007
Filed Under The Stories |

A wise man once said, “An operation is only as good as its leader. Each one involved in said operation wants credit and each one needs to feel like he contributed and that his contribution was important. But, when push comes to shove and the chips are down, it all comes down to the leader and how he shepherds his pack. Fuck credit. Everyone will line up for some when the job is done. Fuck money. More than enough people will feel like they deserve a slice for a gig gone right. It’s not about any of that.

It becomes about all of that but it never starts that way.

Those who keep their eyes on the prize are the ones that emerge winners. Your team will find excuses for why they shouldn’t be doing any more than they have to. Bum knees, busted shoulders, risk of a hernia, someone’s trying for a baby, radiation damage…you name it, they’ll bring it. If an excuse is all it took, most countries, politicians and teachers would have their asses covered. This ain’t about what you do or how you do it. This is about leading your people through the valley of death and emerging alive and well on the other side.”

That man was my father. Those words, or words like that had been uttered by him, many times, in many different settings, when the police force needed to inspire yet another batch of young men to go out and do their jobs, selflessly and with little concern for their own well-being.

I consider my father a wise man because he knew the difference between practice and preaching. He was definitely a graduate of the do-as-I-say, don’t-do-as-I-do school of thought. Whenever he accepted a job, he made it a point to get a lay of the land and mark out an escape route, it didn’t matter whether he was the spearhead of that particular mission or not.

That last time, after a quarter of billion dollars worth of diamonds went missing in the middle of the night, four members of his crew got caught, including their leader. While three of them went quietly, the leader did not make it into custody alive. That was my father’s second mistake. His first one was not doing a background check on the guy. Turned out, the dead guy was Bobby Malone, oldest son of Rodney Malone, of the Southside Malones. Those niggers didn’t bother with getting their fingers into dirty pies; they just went ahead and jammed their hands in, all the way up to their elbows. When Bobby turned up dead, Rodney put the word out on all his teammates; the ones that didn’t make it into police custody and the ones who did.

One morning, four fully armed hoods in balaclavas and street gear made Swiss cheese out of the three gang members who got arrested the day Bobby was killed. Curiously enough, not a single eye witness came forward with a single lead. After the immediate loose lips had been sealed, they went after the ones who got away. Malone’s boys caught up with my father seven months later in a motel outside of Reno. His remains were discovered three days later, a hundred miles out in the desert. He was identified by his dental records. Two other teammates, the final two, turned up dead in, of all places, Baghdad. Both of them had enlisted to get out of the country. They underestimated the family’s reach.

Close to three years later, it came up that one of the cops who had been on duty at the station the day the four hoods shot it up, had heard one of the armed assailants ask about the diamonds. Word got around that Rodney was more upset about the loss of the ice than he was about the death of his son. Funny thing is, those stones never did turn up. Not in any one place anyway.

Words about leadership weren’t the only wise words my father had. This is why I’m riding around in a brand new Lamborghini along the coast of Spain, driven by a ghost.

I guess Grandma Cassie didn’t raise no fools.

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