By Brian Denitzio
News Editor

The music never stops. Every 30 seconds, the little black cell phone plays "Number 1" by Pharrell and Kanye West. It was taken from Robert Carroll, a 31-year-old Quincy resident who, a half-hour earlier, had been arrested by the Boston Police Department's Drug Control Unit (DCU) out of District C-11 after they discovered the drug-dealing operation Carroll was allegedly running out of Room 318 at the Comfort Inn on Morrissey Blvd. Now the phone is in the hands of Sgt. Det. Al Terestre, commander of the DCU, who holds it in one hand while steering back to the C-11 station house with the other. He holds up the phone, and points to the image on the screen. It's a photo of Al Pacino as Tony Montana in "Scarface." Emblazoned on the picture are the words "Money," "Power," and "Respect."

"This guy [Carroll] is living in a dream world," says Terestre.

•••

Robert Carroll is no Tony Montana, but he was something of an operator in his own right. According to Terestre, Carroll had spent week-long stints at hotels in Quincy and Weymouth before coming to Dorchester last Monday, and checking into the Comfort Inn. The arrest of Carroll and his companion, Holly Long, was the unexpected climax of a four-hour ride-along the Reporter conducted with Terestre and the DCU last Thursday evening. The night provided a first-hand glimpse of the tools police use to catch dealers and buyers, who, despite their paranoia and efforts to the contrary, never seem to get outside the reach of Terestre and the other officers in the unit.

Before heading out, Terestre outlined the evening's agenda. The unit planned to set up, observe, and document a series of controlled buys. Through these transactions, Terestre said, he planned to show "the anatomy of a drug deal."

Catching drug dealers has grown more complex since Terestre first joined the DCU in 1999. Dealers today are more apt to keep their stashes in their home, set up deals, and venture out only with enough drugs for a specific transaction.

"I concentrate on delivery systems. Ten years ago, you go into Fields Corner and streets up into Geneva Ave, they were open-air drug markets. Now with cell phones and beepers, everything is in codes," says Terestre.

In order to get at the likely larger amount of drugs stashed at a dealer's house, Terestre has to build a case by setting up and observing deals between a dealer and a cooperating informant (CI). The unit typically sets up three deals like the ones planned for this night, and then goes to court to get warrants to search a dealer's house or car.

"The main idea of doing these things is to find where these people live and root them out with a search warrant and get them evicted so that they have to leave the area," he says.

Building cases against known dealers is just a part of the unit's work. Terestre says that he and his colleagues try to be responsive to concerns from residents who either contact the department directly or reach out to their elected officials. Other times, the unit takes direction from superiors, who have developed a strategy to get potentially violent offenders off the street by locking them up on drug charges.

"[The thinking is that] it's smarter to lock up an impact player with a couple of rocks of crack and put him away for the summer," says Terestre.

The unit recently completed Operation Wash Up, a sweep in Codman Square that took a number of those "impact players" off the streets. Such operations have the added effect of putting those not busted on notice that police are a presence in the area.

"We did Operation Wash Up and Codman Square has become pretty quiet as of late. And people are walking on pins and needles because they think we're coming back with the second wave," says Terestre.

•••

As the unit moves out, Terestre establishes radio contact with other members and hands off the cash that will be given to the CI to make the deal. After the rendezvous with the CI, the team takes up positions around the CI to wait and observe. From a vehicle parked some 150 yards away, Terestre watches the CI, while other members of the unit are parked nearby. All of them are waiting for the dealer's car. Some fifteen minutes pass. The dealer arrives, and a few rocks of crack are sold. The dealer drives off, and an unmarked car picks up the CI for a debriefing.

Simultaneously, another member of the unit radios in to report suspicious activity in the parking lot of the Stop & Shop on Morrissey Blvd. Terestre drives over and parks on Southwick St. The unit keys in on a couple &endash; a guy and a girl &endash; near a pay phone outside the store. They appear agitated. Terestre and the other detectives sense that they are up to something.

Even though they think that they're being careful, drug dealers almost always stand out in a crowd.

"Their heads are on a swivel," says Terestre, swinging his head back and forth. "They're on their cell phones, they're looking at every car that drives by."

After being in place for 15-20 minutes, a second couple comes out of the Comfort Inn across the boulevard. They dart into traffic and connect with the couple in the Stop & Shop lot. They talk, and it appears that something changes hands before they all walk out of the lot and head towards Terestre's vehicle. The four pass directly in front of the car and proceed along Victory Road toward Neponset Ave. They stop at a bench across from the L'il Peach, and the officers move in.

Two of the four, Tracy Kinsman, of Hull, and Wilfred Couchon, of Brockton, are placed under arrest and charged with possession of cocaine and possession of Suboxone, respectively.

Terestre learns from Kinsman that the drugs were purchased from Robert Carroll, out of Room 318 at the Comfort Inn at 900 Morrissey Blvd. Terestre and other members of the unit go to the hotel, confer with hotel security, and head up to the third floor.

Once there, they knock on the door and identify themselves as police. Inside the room, a male voice shouts "Dump it!"

Hotel security had given the unit a key to the room, and Terestre uses it to open the door before it's pushed shut and bolted. Terestre then gives the door a kick and the officers rush in to find Carroll emptying a bag of cocaine into a bucket of bleach. Once the room is secured, Carroll is led out of the room in handcuffs, his black pants speckled with orange dots from where the bleach splashed onto him. He and Holly are placed under arrest and transported back to C-11 for booking. To search the room any further, a warrant is needed. Hotel security keeps watch on the room, while Terestre heads back to the station to write up his warrant application.

After the warrant is executed later that night, Terestre says the contents are what he expected to find. Police recover quantities of cocaine, Suboxone, Xanax, a digital scale, knives, and $520 in cash. A day later, the hotel's cleaning crew finds $1,800 in cash tucked under the room's air conditioner.