The Vultures. Mark Hannon

      1.

      The black and white police car drove across the shopping center parking lot, its tires crunching on the ice just before dawn on a February day. The driver stopped next to a cluster of unmarked cars where a group of young men dressed in hooded sweatshirts and blue jeans huddled around a tall man carrying a portable radio. An officer with captain’s bars on his dark blue overcoat stepped out of the black and white and addressed the man carrying the portable.

      “Going out with a bang, eh, Patrick?” the Captain said, shaking hands with the tall man.

      “Big kick at the finish, Captain,” Lt. Pat Brogan said with a smile.

      “Got everything you need?”

      “Yes sir,” Brogan said. “I called Judge Casper at home, and he signed the warrant. I’ve got a crew of good men ready to go, and the uniforms from 17 are ready to back us up.”

      “Ah, the ever-helpful Judge Casper. All right, good work.” To Brogan, the Captain added, “Nobody gets hurt.” Then, to the assembled police raiders, “Good hunting, men.”

      Brogan looked around at his men. “Hammer’s moving out,” he said quietly into the portable radio. The young plainclothesmen slammed car doors and four old Plymouths rolled quietly uphill following Brogan through the Central Park Plaza lot and into the neighborhood of wooden houses.

      Brogan keyed his radio, and a uniformed Lieutenant several blocks away answered, “Anvil’s moving,” signaling several marked police cars to head into the neighborhood. Brogan unbuttoned his corduroy car coat and slid his holster forward on his belt. He looked over at the mustachioed driver and said, “Ok, Sal, drive past the house and stop at the corner.” The car glided past a two-story house with a rotting porch and flaking brown paint and stopped behind a beat-up Ford Fairlane. The man in the Ford got out, rubbing his hands together.

      “Hammer 2, 3 and 4 in position,” Brogan’s portable squawked. Brogan and Sal got out of their car and stood with the chilled detective.

      “Morning, Mel, everything quiet?” Brogan asked.

      “They’re all asleep, Lieutenant,” the detective said. “They were partying until about an hour ago, but all’s quiet now.”

      “Any deals during the night?”

      “Not that I saw,” Mel said, stamping his feet in the cold. “Probably wanted to get happy with the shipment first.”

      Brogan nodded and heard the uniformed Lieutenant’s mike key again.

      “The uniforms are coming in now. Ok, men. Sal, you and Mel are with me, going in the front. Aloysius, Weisbeck and O’Conner have the place surrounded.”

      The three detectives approached the house, and Brogan nodded as one of the younger men drew his pistol and the other racked a round into a shotgun. Three black and white police cars slid silently down the street behind them.

      “Hammer 1’s going in,” Brogan said into the portable, then jogged up the creaking steps and kicked in the front door with a grunt, sending it swinging.

      “Buffalo Police! This is a raid!” Brogan shouted. He heard glass shattering, wood breaking and “Police!” shouted at the back of the house as he looked around the living room where Sal and Mel were dragging groggy youths off sagging couches and forcing them face down onto ragged carpets littered with beer cans and wine bottles.

      Meeting the raiders coming from the back at the staircase, Brogan pointed them up the stairs and then descended into the basement, his sidearm held high. Stopping at the bottom of the stairs, he swung the pistol from left to right until he spotted a frizzy haired boy in a t-shirt trying to squeeze out a basement window. Walking forward, Brogan said, “Buffalo Police, stay where you are!”

      The boy slid back onto the floor and reached to his pants. Brogan stepped up to him and put his revolver to the frizzy head. Please don’t do anything stupid, kid, he thought. Not on my last day. The kid’s hands shot up, and a bag of pot flipped out onto the cement floor.

      “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” the kid screamed, and Brogan figured he couldn’t be more than eighteen, Tommy’s age. Brogan patted him down quickly then handcuffed him as two uniformed policemen came down the steps. He dragged the kid by his belt to the uniforms, nodding at the bag on the ground.

      “Got it, el-tee,” the first uniform said. Going to the back of the house, Brogan followed the wreckage of the plainclothes raiders into the kitchen, where policemen were turning over the chairs and tables and emptying cabinets. Sal came into the kitchen from the front of the house.

      “Looks like Mel was right, Lieutenant. They were partying with the shipment before they moved it. There’s three kilos wrapped up and one busted open. Found six people here, the guys from the 17th are getting them loaded up now.”

      Brogan nodded, then spotted an Army field jacket hanging on a chair. Gesturing with the portable, he said, “I’ll be right back,” and rushed to the front of the house, where the raiders were bending the suspects into police