The Stalking of “Fred Cohen”
Michael
So for Roger and Jocasta, I figure it'd be a good idea to strategize on how exactly they want to surveil and/or black-bag a man who can apparently see people hanging out in a parking lot a week before they ever arrived there.
Leonard
At some point, Jocasta will find Roger and cheerfully dangle a crowbar off the end of her finger. "Hey, Rog," she coos. "Up for a little adventure? A little basic B&E, like the good old days? Maybe not so basic, actually, but still a crime."
Bill
Roger laughs. “I’m up for a job, but not too much adventure. Had enough of that recently. Who’s the target? Tell me it’s not someone famous.”
“Or somewhere famous…”
Leonard
"Hmm. Well, he's mildly famous," she admits. "When I did some recon at SRI, I ran across this guy who's doing some of their psi tests, seems to be a favorite of the higher-ups. Name's Pat Price." Jocasta will show Roger the stuff she previously showed Marshall, Mitch, and Archie: sketches, files, newspaper articles. She'll give him the basic rundown on Price: ex-cop, had a lot of seemingly supernatural hunches. She'll also tell him about her impressions of his Zen-cool vibe and the bad feeling she got about SRI generally, and of the weird future-vision where he was able to spot her from the past. "I think this guy is legit -- a real talent, not a fraud -- and I think he's up to something there. It's worth checking out his place here, and maybe if you're up for a scenic road trip, his home up in Tahoe, where he might be a little less guarded than he is when he's away. If you're willing to handle the break-in, I think I can provide a distraction for his power; if he 'sees' me, and recognizes me, I think he's less likely to see you." She pauses, considering. "I'm not sure what we should look for. I just think this Price is...something, and the more we can turn over on him the better. What do you think?"
Bill
“I think I wanna know if he still has cop buddies. Or private security. Or both. I mean, I’m not doubting your ability to do whatever it takes to distract a guy (smirk), but when there’s a gang of them… the Blue Line doesn’t take kindly to any kind of assault on their home territory. Esp not by no brotha.”.
Leonard
"Oh, absolutely," Jocasta reassures him. "We can take some time, do a little more research, recon either place as much as you want. I get the feeling most of his cop buddies are still down in SoCal, but it can't hurt to find out."
Bill
“So, like, do we need to careful not to draw his attention? Or otherwise evoke him? I do know some tricks to do that with loa you don’t want peeking in on your business. Maybe some of it crosses over?”
“One trick, works good, is just to let randomness pick your schedule. You don’t know when you’re going, so they don’t. But loa who see destiny, it’s crap on. This guy, does he see destiny, or just himself?”
Leonard
"I don't know, Roger. I wish I did. Any tricks you have, I'd say be ready to use them," she says. "Mitch is going into SRI and he already knows about Price, so hopefully he'll get us a better read on him. "But," she adds, "I've learned a new trick myself. I think that if I push my psychometry, I can see more and further than I've been able to before -- but I think that's what let him see me. Whether he can see the future generally, or just his future, or what, I don't know. But I think that when I was in the parking lot at SRI, and I got that image of him, it was...like a two-way mirror. That's why I think I might be able to distract him."
"But, uh, I'm not sure. So."
Bill
Roger lets out a strong breath. "Well. I guess it is what it is. We gonna do some very careful surveillance. More careful than usual. It means no stake-outs in our own cars. No wearing our favorite outfits. No joy." He sighs. "And one thing: we gotta stop naming this guy." Roger walks around, finds a Pacific Bell phone book, flips through it blindly, drops a finger, and says: "Fred Cohen. You and me, we're checking out this Fred Cohen character."
"Probably wasn't good idling the Chevelle all that time any how."
Leonard
"Target Fred Cohen it is, partner." She switches to a rickety English-Danbe pidgin, just on the off chance that they are being overheard. "What's the plan? We could just hit his place normally and hope for the best. But I thought, maybe you case his local apartment and I hit Tahoe -- or the other way around. Wherever I am, I do my new trick, and if he sees me, I'll be masked up, so worst case, all he knows is that the woman he saw before is still on him. Either way, I bet he won't see you." She switches back to English. "Too much? Not enough?"
Bill
Roger says something in Creole so thick no one outside certain parishes could ever understand it. “Well, that’s what Grand Mere would say.” Then he switches to a Spanish/Danbe mix: “We’ll only get uno— Fred’ll lock down both places once one gets hit. Examinar the local, see if it’s worth it. I may be driving to the big lake.”
“We should also talk more about this en casa de gallo.”
Leonard
"Si, señor."
Bill
Roger will suggest they head out to the Livermore car pool. He has in his head to get an AMC Matador Enforcer, because he’s thinking cop car. He’ll probably end up with some crappy Lincoln, but as long as it’s non-descript.
Leonard
Jo will pull together some black bags: burglar tools, caps and ski masks, fake IDs, binocs, some sidearms with no SNs, and the like.
Bill
Roger will transfer his usual tools, esp lock picks, rum supplies from his trunk into the car. Then he’ll start researching the more local address: neighborhood type, closest police station, get-away routes. He’ll definitely ask for tactical insights from Jocasta. Then a couple drive-throughs in the neighborhood are called for.
Michael
I love all this prep. Sounds like a couple of rolls are called for. Definitely Jocasta will give us Tactics at a 15 (+1 for all that research on Price). For Roger, I think we'll go with Area Knowledge (San Francisco) at a 13 (-1 for unfamiliar territory but Palo Alto is still within shouting distance of the city). Once I get those results I will have Roger give me an Observation roll for his drive-throughs, but that will likely be modified by both these rolls, so hold off on that just for now.
>>>SUCCESS
>>>SUCCESS
Michael
So the physical side of the prep—equipment, guns, vehicles, surveillance gear—is all taken care of very easily. In her files on Price, Jocasta has a local Bay Area forwarding address in Mountain View, about a 10, 15-minute drive from SRI. Jocasta gets the latest survey and municipal maps of Mountain View and sees the address is on Shoreline Boulevard... huh, not an area with houses or apartment buildings. A lot of vacant lots, undeveloped property, some landfills and dumps and junkyards, and ill-maintained parks. By the water there are docks and a naval installation but this address is a few blocks inland. Roger takes a look at the area and wonders what's the deal... is Price living in some kind of temporary housing, shacking up in a trailer or a junkyard? If Roger remembers correctly there are a few old farmhouses out that way but familiarity-wise it's obviously not Roger's turf. Very odd. Whatever the case, the housing density is gonna be LOW. Not a lot of cover to approach... whatever structure Price might be living in. The flipside is that the neighborhood shouldn't have a lot of lookie-loos either. Does one or both of you want to go cruise the neighborhood on Friday afternoon, night or Saturday morning? If so, I'll have you make another set of rolls.
(If you wanted to find out who owned the property you'd need to make an information request at Mountain View City Hall, which is of course doable—it's public info—but that might not be as useful as just cruising by. But by the look of the map which dates from last year it looks like a vacant lot.)
Leonard
Jocasta will cruise by on Friday afternoon; she'll do a quick drive-around in the most generic vehicle we can get and later if there's an elevated road or drive see if she can get a look at it through binoculars from above. She'll also wear shades, a cap, and a hair kerchief. If there's any chance Price can see what's happening, she wants to make sure Roger isn't on his radar.
Michael
Wonderful. Give me an Observation-16 roll (+2 taken into account from your and Roger's prep rolls). Given what you know about Price he should still be at work at SRI during the afternoon so this should be a fairly innocuous drive-by.
Leonard
Made by 5.
Michael
The address is a dirt-lined vacant lot fenced in on four sides by chain link fencing, with a big chain link double-wide gate at the side facing Shoreline. There are a couple of weather-beaten wooden signs on the ground leaning against the fence near the entrance to the lot. One of them is visible from the road; on its side, it says, "XMAS TREES $5 AND UP." A bunch of trellises and metal tree stands are also visible from the road but there are no trees (of course, it's mid-July) and no other plants or other merchandise inside the lot at this time. Near the front of the lot is a little shack; probably where the transactions happen when this is a Christmas tree lot. And at the center-back of the lot is a mobile home; a good-sized one, maybe about 40 feet by 10. The styling is very 1950s, it's clearly about 15 or 20 years old but in very good repair: fresh paint (pale turquoise and white), an American flag on a pole sticking out of the side, right over a little makeshift porch with a couple of lawn chairs out front of the door into the mobile home. The mobile home has a propane tank and a septic tank; it's apparently here for the long haul. No other vehicles are evident on the lot but Jo can see the remains of tire tracks that lead into what looks like a regular parking spot right near the mobile home.
Leonard
Hmmm. Any chance I could use (Observation? Tracking?) to see if the tracks likely match up to the car I examined at SRI? If I can do that without risking too much exposure, I will. If not, I'll just make some notes and sketches/photos, then head out and give Roger a call to figure out next steps. Not gonna risk turning the place solo, even if he's not here.
Michael
Driving check, I think, that sort of covers familiarity with car profiles and tires and stuff, I guess.
Leonard
Ouch
Missed by 3
Michael
Not sure, the only thing you can tell is that the tracks do have a wide profile that would fit a Buick of the model you saw at SRI but then again so would a bunch of big-ass domestic makes and models
Leonard
Fair enough, not critical info at this point. Yet. So yeah, unless there's anything else that immediately catches Jo's eye, she'll head back to Albany, call Roger, and see what he wants to do next.
Michael
By the way, the lot gate is locked. The chain-link fence is tall but not topped with barbed wire or anything like that. And around the lot is a whole lot of nothing. Marshland, a block away a junkyard, but it's all flat until you get to the outskirts of Mountain View proper about five blocks away to the south and west and the shoreline itself five blocks to the north.
Leonard
Gotcha, she'll incorporate this into her notes.
Bill
What, no spy camera film to develop?
Michael
Pat's trailer:
It's a deluxe, but old, model.
Oh yeah, one more infrastructural thing on Price's de-luxe trailer home: he does have an electrical hookup as well as the propane and septic.
RING RING
Bill
"What's the skinny, skinny?"
Leonard
"I took a quick drive out to our man's living quarters in Mountain View. It's a Christmas tree lot," she laughs. "Minimal security, nothing fancy, he might have some security in the trailer but I doubt it. Good lines of sight and a chain link fence, but no cameras, no tech, no dogs. He looks like he's there pretty regularly, though, and he's almost surely packing iron. I think either one of us could hit it with no problem, honestly, but he'll know, one way or another. You want me to swing by and we can talk about what to do next?"
Bill
"Yeah, come get a drink." By the time Jo gets to the bar, Roger will have taken over a booth, the one with no lines of sight and a small fan in it that covers most audio security issues. Jo probably knows the one. "So, yeah, not a lot of places to hide by how you describe it. But he's got a schedule at SRI, right? So he's gotta leave sometime. Sounds like either we gotta stakeout the front gate from some nearby junkyard until he goes, find out his SRI appearance schedule, or something else."
"Fred seems a bit paranoid..."
Michael
(So it's Friday late afternoon/early evening right now... if he's off for the weekend his Buick will likely be in the tree lot by quittin' time. I think everything we've gathered for intel would say that these engineer types at SRI, unless they're pulling big hours for a government contract, stick to a pretty plum 9-5 type schedule. Plus it's a summer Friday; a lot of those dudes, especially in management, are probably out playing golf.)
Leonard
"Who can blame him," Jocasta says, lighting a cigarette. "M. can probably get his schedule for us, maybe some other first-hand humint. As a B&E job it should be pretty straightforward. My question is, should we team up and do it together? Should we split up and take the tree lot and Tahoe separately? Or do you wanna handle just the lot and have me try to, uh, draw his attention? The latter might seem overcomplicated, but if I get Fred obsessed with looking out for me with his," she points at her temple, "he won't suspect that we've got a whole team on his ass. But I'm not 100% that't the right move. I'll leave it to you."
Bill
"Seems like the trailer, being closer and so more regularly visited, would turn up more than Tahoe. It feels like a better place to hit. I groove to your Tahoe distraction plan, but it seems like something enough synchronized we'd need more intel to do. Maybe if he's a 9-5er, he's heading up to Tahoe this weekend? There might be an opportunity. Why don't I go take my turn at the Christmas lot stakeout, you start on the road up to check out Tahoe? We check in later tonight via the answering service. If I see him go like he's headed there, I let you know, and we use the window once he's up there. If he doesn't leave or I don't see him, I'll do the boring bit watching what he does around the place, while you case Tahoe without him there. That's just casing the place, no hit. I'll need to be extra careful not to come up on whatever his crazy radar is."
Leonard
"Sounds good to me, partner. I got a van outside with whatever tools and gear we might need, so go shopping first. Stay safe and we'll talk soon." She grins. "Here's hoping either nothing happens, or just enough happens that I'm forced to stay up at the lake for a nice summer weekend.
Michael
So Jo will hand the white van off to Roger and take her AMC to Tahoe?
Leonard
Yeah, that was my thinking. "Fred" won't recognize the van if he was somehow able to 'see' her surveilling the tree lot, and she'll be disguised enough at Tahoe that if he 'sees' her then, he still won't know what's happening. Unless Roger has a different idea, of course -- of anyone on the team, he'd be the one she'd be most likely to loan the Javelin to.
Michael
Given the extensive casing you two have given the joint on maps and in real life, Jo and Roger can collaborate on finding a decent spot in the reeds of one of the nearby vacant lots nearer to the waterfront, a good vantage point from which to train a pair of high-powered binocs at Casa Price, well-hidden and out of sight of Price's immediate vicinity. As Roger drives by innocuously to the surveillance point he sees the gate to the Christmas tree lot open and the Buick parked comfortably near the trailer. The Buick's trunk is open; the trailer's screen door is open and in the quick glimpse driving by, Roger could see movement inside the trailer. Now I'll finally get that Observation roll from Roger: Observation-17 (thanks to various equipment and prep bonuses) once he gets settled safely into the observation point.
Bill
By 10.
Michael
So by the time Roger gets to the vantage point, he can see Price in the flesh, taking a couple of medium-sized pieces of baggage—one small suitcase and one military surplus duffle—out to the trunk of the Buick. He's in shortsleeves and chinos, wearing a pair of sunglasses, and as he hefts the two bags into the back of the car, he puts his hands down by his pockets, looks around the lot and out onto the street, breathes in deeply and checks the creeping-up-on-twilit sky for a good 5, 10 seconds, like he's scanning for aircraft or something. He digs into his front pocket for a cigarette and reaches into his pants pocket. He pulls out a Zippo, lights the cig, and reveals a coin in his hand. He flips it in the air, slaps it onto the back of his hand, and peeks at it. Nodding to himself, he looks satisfied, walking back into the trailer. He spends a few minutes inside, shuts off the remaining lights in the trailer and shuts all the windows. He comes out of the trailer carrying a fishing rod (fly-fishing, it looks like), tacklebox, and wearing a bucket hat with lures on it. He lays the rod in the back seat of the Buick, puts the tacklebox in the trunk, and locks the door to the trailer. He gets into the Buick, drives out of the lot, and locks the gate behind him before heading east towards the onramp to the 101. Looks to Roger like the nickel came up "Tahoe."
Bill
Well, Roger will hang about another hour anyway, worried all the while about whether the Bad Guys also have Serendipitous luck on their side sometimes. Then he'll call it in to the answering service, leaving Jo a message: "Heads up Fred is heading out fishing in your direction. Gonna shoot for 1:00am at the trailer unless you cancel. Leave a message with a better time if you want one."
He's going to take his eyes off the place, but to get a clue someone didn't double back in, he'll take some dirt and dump a subtle line of bits of it across one of the ways he saw Price take. Then he'll go get dinner somewhere within 20 minutes drive, and wait to call in later.
I mean, he'd make a whole salt circle around the place, but even in a neighborhood this deserted and dirty, that'd stick out.
Michael
I looked up how "lively" Mountain View was in the early '70s and the answer is... not very, but all the main street recollections seem to mention multiple Chinese restaurants (open late) on the main drag. That's about a 5 minute drive from Price Christmas Trees.
I can imagine Jo can call the answering service from Ikeda's.
Leonard
Jocasta will probably check the service three or four times -- at a rest stop, at a gas stateion, at Ikeda's, and inside the Tahoe city limits. So she'll get the message one way or another. She'll leave a message that she's going to stake out Fred's house from a safe distance and make sure she doesn't get near it while he's inside, thanks for the heads up, be careful, etc.
Her plan now is to just find his house, park the car as far away as possible and still be able to watch it with binoculars/long-range line of sight, and probably just catch some sleep when he gets there with an eye towards taking a closer look when he gets up early to go fishing.
(That way she won't risk him finding out she hit the place before he got there, or of him making good time and unexpectedly arriving when she's still there.)
Bill
Given Jo’s given an OK, Roger finishes his main drag Chinese lo mein, and heads out. That’s not before taking a good long look at the fortune cookie, which he eventually shakes off with a quick “in bed” addition. You can’t take all this stuff too seriously, he thinks, or you go crazy. Even if it’s still hours to 1am, he’ll creep carefully back, checking for tires in/out, then camp in the observation point to wait and watch.
Michael
Roger's Observation by 10 will adhere to the next bit of the scene, and if Jocasta wants to give me a Observation roll at Observation-16 (+1 for prep, +1 for equipment), I'll give you what she sees once she gets situated observing the Price house before and after Price's arrival.
(I went to a fortune cookie generator and got this:)
Leonard
(Made the Observation roll by 5.)
Bill
Good one. Roger was probably worrying about onrushing trains until he added “in bed” and got a laugh instead.