Chapter 12
After a week or so, Stevens felt safe enough to contact Arthur. He used a burner phone and spoke only a few words to set up an urgent meeting. Driving carefully to avoid police tails, he arrived at the secluded bar for a clandestine meeting.
Vandenburg was already there, waiting impatiently at the table of the corner booth. There was no small talk.
“The police caught me casing Pace’s club.”
“What do they know?”
“Nothing so far. I didn’t have any tools on me, so they had to let me go.”
“This is very disappointing. I count on you to handle discreet jobs, and now they have their eyes on you.”
“I know. Even worse, they started talking about goings on in the club and a murder investigation.”
“Really?”
“Yes. I don’t know why you are targeting Leon, but I do know that Fields disappeared a few weeks after we nicked his house. This is making me really nervous, man!”
Vandenburg made his decision right then and there. It was time for Stevens to go. The how and the where didn’t matter. This wound had to be tied off and quickly before it infected more critical matters.
“Calm down. If the police had hard evidence, you would be sitting in jail with charges pending. I suggest you take a vacation and let things settle down for a few months. Once you are back, perhaps we can continue, but not until my express order. Understood?”
“Got it.”
“Good. Now make yourself scarce until I contact you again.”
Arthur spent the ride back to the estate comfortably in the back of his limousine, thinking through the steps that needed to be taken. The Stevens matter could be handled; he had capable men to do the wet work. He would order tracking of the man’s vacation plans so the hit could take place out of town and away from the local police force’s prying eyes. With luck, no one would tie Matt’s disappearance to any current investigation.
The larger problem was what to do going forward. Raiding minority homes and businesses had been a profitable venture, and Vandenburg wanted to continue—not just for the money. He detested their race and welcomed any chance to cut them down to size, particularly as their wealth and influence grew in today’s society.
It had all started so easily. From an efficiency perspective, Blacks were easy robbery targets because of their historical distrust of the police. Blacks were less likely to report break-ins. From the police point of view, they had more cases than they could handle, so these robberies naturally went to the bottom of the pile. Minority witnesses were less likely to cooperate in any case. It was not a formal deal, just an unspoken arrangement that white cops adhered to after decades of practice. Vandenburg and his colleagues were happy to take advantage of the situation. The robberies were so successful that Arthur felt he could go further, releasing pictures and electronic images found in the haul that would further embarrass his victims and their communities. Would anyone notice that TMZ and other media outlets had more stories of minority embarrassment than of whites?
Through his sloppiness, Stevens had caused a problem. But the more Arthur thought about it, the more he realized it could be easily handled. Matt would disappear, and a replacement professional would be called in. Not immediately, of course, but after a few months, when the current media sensation died down. They always did. The public can only stay panicked for so long before their attention is diverted elsewhere. There was no evidence linking Vandenburg or his colleagues to the robberies.