Flood (10 page)

13

MAX WASN’T AROUND at the warehouse. I pulled the car all the way in, and Michelle and I went into the back where I keep the desk and phone boxes.

While she was changing into her outfit, I tested the equipment the Mole had set up for me. It was perfect—the Mole’s work made Ma Bell look like the crooked old bitch she is.

Michelle came back inside, straightened out the desk to suit herself, and began to page through the loose-leaf book I gave her. The damn book costs about five hundred bucks a year just for the updates—it’s cheaper to buy military secrets than direct-line numbers for government employees. She found the number she was looking for and punched it into the Mole’s contraption. I could hear it ring through the speaker box—both ends of the conversation came through loud and clear.

“Veteran’s Administration,” answered the bored voice at the other end.

“Extension Three-six-six-four, please,” came Michelle’s executive secretary voice. It buzzed four times before it was picked up.

“Mr. Leary’s office,” answered a flat female voice.

“Mr. Leary, please—Assistant United States Attorney Wayne calling,” said Michelle, now with a clipped, upper-class tone. If Leary was around, it was clearly expected he was to get his ass over to the telephone—pronto.

A pause, then a voice: “This is Mr. Leary. How can I help you?”

“Hold for Mr. Wayne, please,” said Michelle, hitting the toggle switch and handing the phone to me with a smile. I took the instrument, smoothed out my voice (all those Strike Force guys went to Ivy League schools), and opened the dialogue. “Mr. Leary? Good of you to speak with me, sir. My name is Patrick Wayne, Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. We’ve had a situation come up here that I hope you can help us with.”

“Well . . . I will if I can. Are you sure it’s me you want to talk to?”

“Yes, sir—allow me to explain. We are interested in an individual who is currently receiving VA benefits—and our interest frankly concerns traffic in narcotics. We are in the process of preparing an informational subpoena for your payment records so we can determine the extent of this individual’s ability to support himself.”

“A subpoena . . .”

“Yes, sir. It would be delivered to you personally, and would encompass the full range of your activities pursuant to . . . but, let me explain. That’s why I’m calling you. The subpoena—and the Grand Jury testimony, of course—may not be necessary if we can secure your cooperation.”

“Cooperation? But I haven’t done—”

“Of
course
you haven’t, Mr. Leary. All we
really
need is the opportunity to speak with this particular individual. You see, we have learned that he has no permanent address—that he comes directly to the VA for his check every month. All we want you to do is put a temporary stall on that check the next time he comes, and give our office a call. Even a day’s delay is more than sufficient. Then, when he returns the following day, we will be able to pick him up and speak with him.”

“And then there’d be no subpoena?”

“No, sir—there’d be no need for one.” First the pressure—then the grease. “Of course, I realize you probably have no interest in such things, but it is the policy of our office to award governmental commendations to those who assist us as you will be doing. If you are shy about the media we could avoid all publicity, but our office does feel you should have official recognition in some way.”

“Oh, that’s not necessary,” chanted the bureaucrat, “I just do my job.”

“And we
appreciate
it, Mr. Leary—rest assured that we do. Our man’s name is Martin Howard Wilson.”

“What’s his service number?”

“Sir, I’ll be frank with you. We only have an old number, and we’re fairly certain he’s been collecting under a new one. We assumed your computer network—”

“Well, we
are
fully computerized. But searching for just a name takes longer.”

“Would his last known address help you?”

“Certainly,” he snapped back, now officially on the job.

“We have Six-oh-nine West Thirty-seventh Street, but we understand he’s long since departed that location.”

A sly note crept into Leary’s civil servant’s voice as he said, “This will take just a few minutes to check—can I call you back?”

“Certainly, sir, please take down our number,” and I gave it to him.

We said good-bye on that note. I smoked another couple of cigarettes and Michelle went back to her Gothic romance novel, popping a stick of gum into her mouth. In about fifteen minutes, the phone box buzzed.

Michelle threw the switch, bit down on the wad of gum. “United States Attorney’s Office,” she said in a pleasant, bouncy receptionist’s voice.

“Could I speak with Mr. Patrick Wayne, please?” asked Leary.

“I’ll connect you.” Michelle flipped a switch, silently counted to twenty on her fingers, flipped the switch open again, and said, “Mr. Wayne’s office” in the earlier voice.

“Could I speak with Mr. Wayne?” asked Leary again.

“Who is calling, please?”

“Mr. Leary, from the Veteran’s Administration.”

“He’ll be right with you, sir, he’s been expecting your call.” She flipped the switch and handed the phone to me.

“Patrick Wayne here.”

“Oh, Mr. Wayne. This is Leary. From the VA?” he said, like I might have forgotten him already.

“Yes, sir. Thank you for getting back to me so promptly.”

“Mr. Wayne, we have a problem here.”

“A problem?” I asked, my voice taking on an edge.

“Well, not a problem
exactly.
But you said that this Wilson picks up his check here every month. But our records show that it’s being mailed to his home address.”

“His home address . . . ?” I tried to keep the eagerness out of my voice. “Perhaps it’s a different Wilson.”

“No, sir.” assured the bureaucrat, now on familiar ground. “It’s the exact same name you gave me, and the address is the same too.”

“You mean . . .”

“Absolutely. Martin Howard Wilson’s checks are mailed to him at Six-oh-nine West Thirty-seventh Street, Apartment Number Four, New York City, New York One-oh-oh-one-eight. He’s on three-quarters disability, as you know. That address has been used for . . . let me see . . . the past nine checks. He would have received the last one only last week or so.”

“I see.” And I was beginning to—and cursing myself for a fool as I did. “Well, sir, our information leads us to believe he has abandoned that address. Let me ask you this, Mr. Leary—will you agree to hold his check one extra day if he should appear in person? You don’t forward those checks to new addresses, do you?”

“Certainly not, Mr. Wayne. In fact, it says Do Not Forward right on the envelope. If he has moved the check will be returned to us. We don’t change the address unless we get a formal notice from the veteran himself.”

“All right, sir. Now, assuming the check is returned, couldn’t he just come to your office and pick it up—assuming he had proper identification, of course?”

“Yes, he could do that. Some of them do.”

“Well, sir—will you agree to hold his check one extra day if it
is
returned to you? All we want you to do is tell him to come back the next day and give us a call here at the office. Will you do that for us?”

“Well, it’s a bit irregular—couldn’t I just stall him for a while and give you a call?”

“Well, sir, we would prefer the course of action suggested to you. But we do appreciate your efforts and I believe the solution you devised would be more than satisfactory.”

“Yes, that would be better—I mean, those guys are
used
to waiting for their checks, you know? Another few hours won’t make any difference. But a whole day . . . well, I’d have to get approval all up the line for that.”

“Would a letter on official stationary from my superiors be of assistance to you, sir?”

“Yes,
sir,
Mr. Wayne. That would be perfect.”

“Very well, it will be sent out to you later this week. You know how it is getting the boss to sign anything.” I chuckled, one-on-one.

“Don’t
I,” he agreed, now at ease with a fellow schlub.

“All right, sir, shall we leave it like this? If Wilson shows up before our letter arrives, you stall him for a couple of hours and notify my office immediately. And if your letter arrives first, I’m sure you’ll have no difficulty securing approval to hold the check for a day or so.”

“That would be fine, Mr. Wayne.”

“Sir, on behalf of our entire office, I appreciate your assistance. You’ll be hearing from us.”

“Thank you, Mr. Wayne.”

“Thank
you,
Mr. Leary,” I said, and rang off.

14

I SAT THERE for a minute, absorbing the impact of my own stupidity. Some blonde bimbo comes into my office and tells me she spooked a heavyweight freak by kicking a building superintendent in the chops and I take her word for it. It was like when I was back in the joint—all the young guys wanted to know what being on parole was like: how to get over on the P.O., what you could get away with, how close they checked on you . . . all that stuff. So who would they ask? Naturally, the only guys inside with us who knew anything about parole were chumps who were back inside on a parole violation. All over this world we keep confusing repeated failures with lots of experience. Maybe this Wilson slipped the super a few bucks and told him to tell anyone who came around looked that he’d moved out a few days ago. But maybe he was still there.

I didn’t want to brace a character like that without Max for backup, but I didn’t know where he was and there was no time to find him. I told Michelle to pack up the place and make herself scarce. If Wilson was still there, he might be on his way out the door right this minute.

It was only a couple of miles to the address the VA gave me, but that was a couple of miles through the city and it was nearly one in the afternoon. Michelle would call Mama and tell her to have Max come to the Thirty-seventh Street address, but I didn’t know when she’d make contact. Max can do a lot of things, but he can’t use a phone.

The big Plymouth hummed along, eating up the streets, moving through the packed traffic like a good pickpocket at work. Maybe Wilson was there all along—sitting in some furnished room surrounded by kiddie-porn magazines and take-out food containers and thinking he was safe. Or maybe the address was never any good—maybe he had the brains to use an accommodation drop or he had a forwarding address permanently in place. Or maybe he was packing his bags even as I was heading over to him. Too many maybes, and no time to sort them out. I’d have to hit alone—no Max, no Pansy. It’d have to do.

The Plymouth wheeled crosstown onto Eleventh Avenue and past the giant construction site where another multimillionaire was building another building for his brothers and sisters. I found Thirty-seventh Street and nosed down the block looking for a place to park—I might have to get out of there quickly. Nothing. Back to Thirty-eighth, the parallel block, where I finally found an empty spot.

I put the car into reverse and started to back in when I heard a horn blasting at me—some miserable piece of garbage wanted the spot for himself. I ignored him, but the scumbag shoved the nose of his Eldorado into the spot ahead of me. Stalemate—he couldn’t fit all the way in but it was enough to keep me out. Ram him out of the way or talk? I jumped out of the Plymouth like I was mad enough to waste him, grabbed the gold shield from my jacket pocket, and fingered the .38 with the other hand. I charged the Eldorado—the driver pushed the power window button and sat there in his pimp hat smiling, showing me a gold tooth with a diamond set in its center.

“Police! Move that fucking car! Now!”

And then I caught a break as the pimp raised his hands in a calm-down gesture and backed out without another word. Bad move on my part—maybe I called too much attention to the Plymouth, but it looked close enough to the unmarked cars the Man used in Midtown South. I put the Plymouth into the space and hit all the switches in case the pimp decided to return and act stupid. It would be a bad idea—I had his license number.

I hit the street. The block was dead at that hour—the working people were gone, the thieves were still asleep, and the welfare cases were watching television. Number 609 was on the corner, just where Flood said it was. Six-story tenement, brick front. Two glass-paneled wood doors, unlocked, a row of mailboxes inside, most of them with no names—no buzzer either. The inside door was locked. One bell was marked Super so I pushed it. Waiting for an answer, I was thinking how to play this next part. If it was a more middle-class joint I’d be tempted to come on as Detective Burke of NYPD. I looked enough like it, I was dressed right for a middle-class mind, and I could talk that talk. But any citizen of this neighborhood would see right through it.

Detectives never work alone anymore—the department won’t let them. And they don’t dress as well as I was either if they’re not on the take—I had left the double-knit disguise home in the closet where it belonged. If I had time I could have taken one of the quasi-cops with me—you know, one of the badge-freaks who likes to pretend he’s a real cop. He joins some bullshit organization, gets an honorary badge, and immediately goes out and buys himself a set of handcuffs and a blue light for his car. He hangs out in the cop bars and talks like he’s on television. I’m the founder and sole beneficiary of the Metro Detectives Association, which has enrolled dozens of these losers. We don’t charge a fee, of course, since all our men are doing important volunteer law-enforcement work. But you’d be amazed at how many of them purchase the optional framed certificate, bumper plaque, laminated plastic photo I.D. card complete with their picture, gold badge in genuine leather case—all that. It costs them an average of a grand per man. You tell a card-carrying disturbo that he’s a genuine “peace officer” and he goes straight into major orgasm, maybe for the first time. Not a bad deal for me, but this time I didn’t have one of them around when I needed him.

I rang the bell—and waited. I rang it again—it was probably as dead as my chances of finding Wilson sitting upstairs. The door lock was almost as tough as cottage cheese. I was inside in a few seconds. I walked down the corridor, looking for the basement where the super would be. If he took money from Wilson to lie, he’d take more money to tell the truth. The hall lighting was as dim as a subway tunnel—more than half the bulbs were missing.

I found the right door, knocked, got nothing. I hit it again, putting my ear to the door. Nothing—no radio, no TV, no voices. In a dump like this they wouldn’t use the super to collect the rent.

If I had stopped to think about it I wouldn’t have gone any further. I could have tried to find a pay phone where I could watch the door and called Mama to have her send Max over. But there was no sense in spoiling a perfect record.

Where the hell was Apartment 4? Fourth floor? Fourth apartment on the second floor? Okay—six stories, figure four apartments to each floor from the layout, total of twenty-four units. There was no elevator. I found the center stairway, listened for a second. Nothing was moving. It smelled bad—not dangerous, just the way these buildings smell after enough years of abuse. On the second floor landing I saw I was right—two apartments to the right, two more to the left. I spotted the number 3 in what was left of a faded gilt decal on one door. On the other side, the number 6, again on a decal, black number on gold background—very classy. If the numbers went all the way to 6 on this floor, with four apartments in all, numbers 1 and 2 had to be downstairs. So number 4 had to be on this floor—right next to 3.

I put my ear to the door—nothing. I slipped on my gloves and rapped softly—still nothing. Pick the lock? No—try the other apartments first. Number 3 was a no-show too. It was still quiet when I crossed the hall to 5 and 6. As I raised my hand to knock I heard the sound of an open hand on human flesh and a yelp—I moved closer and heard a young black man’s voice, rapping in that hard-edged ghetto whine that the players think distinguishes them from the citizens. “Who’s your daddy?” (slap) “I can’t
hear
you, bitch” (slap). A mumbled sound from someone else. “Bitch, I’m not playin’, you hear me? I’m serious—you understand?”

More mumbling. Another sharp slap. Sounds of crying.

“You run away from home, you find
another
home, right, little bitch? You got a
new
daddy now, right?” And some more slaps. I knew what was behind that door, and it wasn’t Wilson. I walked back to Number 4, pulled my tools, and worked the lock. I stepped inside like I belonged there.

One glance told me nobody belonged there. It was just like I had pictured in my mind—a convertible couch opened into a bed with grayish stained sheets, a round Formica-topped table in one corner, two padded chairs with the seats torn, fast-food cartons all over the place. There was a moldy stack of magazines in one corner—
Nymphets at Play, Lolita’s Lollipops
—like that. Nothing in the closet but some dirty jersey underwear thrown in a corner.

Tacked to one wall was the Cobra’s collage of socially acceptable porn—ads for bluejeans with little girls sticking their little butts into the camera, underwear ads from the catalogs with children strutting their undeveloped stuff for the photographer. Some of the photos had been scissored out—maybe there were also some adults in the ads and the Cobra had been offended at their intrusion into his maggoty fantasies.

On the bathroom wall was one of those pressure-point charts of a human figure showing the correct spots to kill with a single blow. There was a filthy tub, no shower—a can of shaving cream was the only thing left in the medicine cabinet over the sink. Plaster covered the walls, sweating in the heat from the radiators—he must have split very recently or the super would have been up to shut them off.

I moved through the Cobra’s den, but it was no go—he was gone and he wouldn’t be coming back here. Flood had spooked him away somehow and he was running. I checked the whole apartment again, cursing myself—if I had just listened to my experience instead of that damn blonde, I might have had him on a plate. A waste—it told me nothing I didn’t already know.

I walked out the Cobra’s door into the hallway, pulling the door shut behind me just as the pimp walked out of Number 6 across the hall, pushing a little girl out in front of him. I got just a quick flash of them as I stepped forward—a skinny girl, maybe thirteen years old, wearing an ankle-length maxicoat opened to display tiny white hot pants and a red top, thick-soled high heels—her face was closed behind a thick mask of makeup. The pimp wore a maxicoat too, his an imitation leopard. He had a safari hat with a leopard band—I caught the glassy flash of a fake diamond on his hand. The pimp caught my eye and then quickly booked away, but it was too late—by then I was on top of them. The pimp was yelling “Hey, man!” but I had the little cylinder of CN gas in my hand and I blasted him full in the face. I could see the gas turn to liquid on his skin right between his frightened eyes.

“Hey, mister—hey,
please.
Man, I didn’t know nothin’, man. I thought she was legal age, you know? Hey, man—I didn’t
know.”
he was screaming and clawing at his face at the same time.

I dropped the gas canister in my pocket and grabbed hold of two fistfuls of the pimp’s cheesy coat, jerking him off his feet and back into his apartment. He tried to stand against the wall, but a knee to the testicles doubled him over. I clubbed him sideways across the face with a forearm as he slid to the ground.

I dropped to one knee, still holding his coat with one hand. “Fuckin’
yom.
You know who the fuck this is?” indicating the little girl who was huddled in a corner, watching with wide eyes. “That’s Mr. G.’s daughter, asshole.”

And then he realized this was more than a statutory rape beef—he was on trial for his life and the jury wasn’t too deeply committed to civil rights. He looked for a way out, tried to speak, but nothing came out. I leaned down so I was real close to his face, slipping my hand around a roll of nickels I keep in my coat, my voice a harsh jailhouse-whisper. “Go back to Alabama, nigger. Never let me see you again in life, you understand? I see you again and I got to bring Mr. G. your fucking face in a paper bag. Got it?” punctuating each unanswerable question with a punch to his side until I felt a rib go. I pulled his face right into mine and spat between his eyes. He never moved—he would remember my face—I wanted him to. The closer the better for work like that.

I got to my feet and switched the roll of nickels for the .38. I pulled the hat off my head and wrapped it around the barrel. The pimp knew what was coming next as I knelt next to him, he could hear the pistol cock. “Mister—mister, I’m gone. I
swear . . .
I swear to
God,
man! Please . . .”

I acted like I was making up my mind, but of course it was no contest. His life wasn’t worth the ninety days in jail it would cost me. The girl was still in the corner, her painted mouth open and slack, but she wasn’t going to scream. I grabbed her arm and shoved her out of the apartment in front of me, half-throwing her down the stairs. A white face stuck itself out of a first-floor apartment as we went past—I showed the .38 to the face and it disappeared behind a slamming door. We hit the sidewalk—me walking fast and pulling the kid along with me. Her arm felt like a twig in my hand. She didn’t say a word.

I found the Plymouth untouched, pushed her inside ahead of me and climbed in behind, punching down the switch so she couldn’t unlock her own door. We were rolling in seconds, heading for the highway.

I pulled into one of the parking areas under the overpass where I know the manager. I told the girl, “Sit fucking
still,”
locked the car, and walked over to the little booth where the manager sits. I tossed a twenty on his desk and he walked out like he had an appointment someplace. I picked up his phone, dialed the number of NYPD’s Runaway Squad, for my money the only damn cop operation in New York worth the price of a city councilman.

“Runaway Squad, Officer Morales speaking.”

“Detective McGowan around?” I asked.

“Hold on,” said Morales. Then McGowan’s strong Irish voice came over the wire. “This is Detective McGowan.”

“Burke here. I got a package for you—about thirteen. She just left her pimp, okay?”

“Where’s the kid?”

“At a parking lot under the West Side Highway on Thirty-ninth. Can you move now?”

“Be there in ten minutes,” he said, and I knew I could count on it.

In the car waiting for McGowan, I lit a cigarette, looking over at the girl. A real baby—her skinny legs hadn’t even grown calves yet. I couldn’t do McGowan’s job—I’d end up doing life for wasting one of those dirtbag pimps. McGowan has four daughters—twenty-five years on the job and he just made detective last year. I heard the brass was going to close down the whole Runaway Squad too. I guess they need all the cops they can get to protect visiting diplomats. New York’s got an image to protect.