Red Hook (7 page)

On the sidewalk next to the bar, two tiny Arab kids were goofing around. Two old mattresses rested against a brick wall, and one of the kids pressed the other between them until he yelped. When he escaped, they switched roles. It didn’t take a lot to entertain little kids.

On this side of the street, a customer emerged from a Salvation Army thrift store. Through the plate-glass window Jack watched a friendly cashier make small talk as she rang up a sale. A young couple came out of the store, the pony-tailed girl wearing a backless cotton blouse, the boy in a tie-dyed T-shirt.

“Can you believe this?” Daskivitch said. “That sixties bullshit is coming back again.”

The fact was, Jack had missed a lot of the legendary sixties the first time around. The Groovy Decade had passed Red Hook by: while Greenwich Village kids just a few miles across the river were turning on to pot and Bob Dylan, the Hook remained solidly conservative, a place for working men and out-of-work veterans. There was drink, yes, and there was crime, but he never knew a hippie or a head until he got on a troop transport and flew four thousand miles away from Brooklyn. By the time he came back, even cops had long sideburns.

Motion near the end of the block.

“Here they come,” he told Daskivitch. “The woman’s called Janelle. The guy goes by T.”

The man was grizzled and homely, a little black guy trying to walk like a big black guy; the woman white, one hand cocked back to hold a cigarette, swinging tight, a nervous metronome. She followed behind, taking mincing steps like someone wearing high heels for the first time, though she wore sneakers.

“Why’s he called T?”

“He likes to drink tea? Thinks he’s Mister T? Who the hell knows?”

Janelle wore vinyl toreador pants and a low-cut orange top. Her body said thirty, her smoke-and-liquor-ravaged face sixty. She stopped to take off a shoe and shake it out.

They were a couple—Jack knew they’d been together for ages. He wondered what it must be like for them walking into the Luray, the black guys inside thinking,
What’s this brother doing with that white skank?
the Caucasian customers asking the opposite question. There was a bravery there worthy of at least some small admiration.

“Wait up, T!” she called out, voice like a garbage compactor.

Jack chuckled. “She turns tricks now and then, if you can believe that. Mostly, they just wander around working lame street cons. She tells people she needs a train ticket to go visit her kid in the hospital. Or he does a brown-bag drop.” It wasn’t a brilliant scam—the perp put an empty bottle in a bag and then walked around a corner and got somebody to bump into him. He dropped the bag, the bottle broke. He told them it was expensive booze; tried to shake them down for five or ten bucks.

“Cute. Can you trust their info?”

Jack shrugged. “Sometimes. They’re boozers.”

As the couple came near, he leaned out the window. “How’s it going, T?”

The man spun around to scope out the avenue, checking for friends or foes. “All right. How’re you, Detective?”

“I can’t complain.”

The man leaned in, but pulled back when he saw Daskivitch. “Who’s he?”

“My partner. It’s okay.”

The woman came up behind her mate and perched her cigarette hand on her hip.

“You’re looking good today,” Jack told her. She rolled her eyes, but couldn’t suppress a grin. “Listen, I need some help. Do you two know a guy in the neighborhood, name of Tomas Berrios?”

“Shit” said T, disgusted. “He got killed yesterday and we don’t know nothing about it.”

“How did you know he was killed, then?”

T snorted. “If I didn’t know what was going on around here, you wouldn’t come looking for me.”

“You’re absolutely right. So can you help me?”

T pinched the sides of his mouth. “I could use a little help, myself.”

Jack reached into his wallet and pulled out a twenty, which immediately disappeared into the man’s back pocket.

“He hangs out with a bunch of kids. They got bicycles.” T stopped and scanned the avenue again.

“I gave you twenty bucks for that?”

“What else you wanna know?”

“You know anybody might have a thing against him?”

T shook his head.

“How about drugs? Was he buying?”

T squinted. “Could be.”

“Like what? Blow? Crack? Pills?”

The man shrugged. Jack reached into his wallet and pulled out another twenty, held it up out of reach.

“Uh, yeah. Blow, I think.”

“Who does he buy from?”

T shrugged again.

“Forget it,” Jack said. “Forty is plenty.”

T pinched the sides of his mouth again. “I dunno, Detective…” He seemed to make a decision, closed down. Maybe forty bucks wasn’t worth crossing a murderous dealer.

Jack watched Janelle behind him as she imagined sitting down in the Luray, setting a fresh pack of smokes on the bar, ordering that first cold drink.

She pushed T out of the way, leaned into the window, and mumbled into Jack’s ear.

She grabbed the twenty and her man and they were gone.

The detectives sat in the car near Tomas Berrios’s house, watching a building down at the far end of the block for the subtle undertow of street action that would mark a drug set. Jack picked up the radio and made a call to BCI, the Bureau of Criminal Information. After he gave the color of the day, the ever-changing code that identified him as a real cop, a clerk ran the address through the computer to see if it had been the site of any prior arrests. It hadn’t.

A lookout stood out on the sidewalk in front of the building. A scrawny kid, Hispanic. In the past forty-five minutes, only a couple of customers had approached him. They’d sidle up and murmur, he’d take a quick look around, then turn to the intercom by the door. He gave them the nod and they disappeared inside for a couple of minutes.

Daskivitch shifted in his seat. “Jeannie and I rented
Titanic
after work last night. I think we were the last holdouts on the planet, but she’s been bugging me, so I finally caved.”

“How was it?”

“You didn’t see it either, huh? It’s a real treat—you get to see hundreds of dead people.”

“Don’t tell me how it ends.”

It was after work for most of the population and there was a lot of traffic down the block, day-jobbers heading home from the subway. Even so, Jack knew that if he and Daskivitch tried to approach the building, they’d be raised in a second—the lookout would zip inside to warn the player in his burrow. Then they’d have to go get a warrant.

“If we want our guy to talk, we need to surprise him,” he said. He pushed the door open and stepped out of the car.

Five minutes later he returned, carrying a paper bag from the corner deli.

“What’s that?” Daskvitch said.

“Secret weapon.” He pulled out an overstuffed sandwich and removed the plastic wrap. “Double the egg salad, that’s the trick.”

“What, you’re gonna bribe the guy with a frikkin’ sandwich?”

Jack grinned. “Watch and learn, Grasshopper.” He took off his sports coat and tie and set them on the back seat. He drew his gun from his shoulder holster, then removed the harness and added it to the pile. Daskivitch looked on, mystified, as he pulled out his badge and dropped it and the gun into the bag.

The late-day sun caught only the tops of the buildings, but it was still hot down in the street. Twenty yards ahead of Jack, the lookout leaned against a parked car, listening to a Walkman. The job must get dull, standing alone out there for hours at a stretch. But the guy was alert; his shaved head swiveled from side to side like a nervous bird’s. He was maybe nineteen, wearing a T-shirt and those dumb baggy bell-bottoms the kids were into this year.

Two teenage girls strolled up the block. “So he acksed me did I want to go ovah to his house Saturday,” one of the girls said as they passed Jack. “He said his muthah was gonna be out.” Her big gold earrings jangled as she shook her head in disbelief.

Jack squeezed the sandwich until the filling oozed out the sides and down his wrist. And that’s how he closed the gap, a guy walking down the street completely immersed in trying to eat a sandwich without spilling egg salad on his pants.

He walked past the lookout, dropped the sandwich, and yanked his badge out of the bag.

“Police!” he said, whipping around. He shoved the badge in his back pocket, grabbed the shocked lookout, shoved him into the doorway, and twisted his arm behind his back. Then he leaned out and waved down the street.

“
Yo
, get the fuck off me,” the kid muttered. “I ain’t do nothin’.”

“We’ve been watching you for days. “You’re going to jail right now.”

“You don’t got shit. Ain’t no law against standing on no sidewalk.”

“Oh, yeah? We have a video of you.” An empty threat, but if the kid had been stupid enough to hand over any drugs out in the open, he might fall for it.

“Bullshit,” the kid said, but he lacked enthusiasm.

“Tell you what.” Jack leaned forward and spoke calmly into the kid’s ear. “You get me buzzed in and I’ll let you walk. I never saw you.”

Daskivitch jogged up, breathless, a big bear trying to look little. The kid’s eyes widened as he saw more law closing in.

“How many people upstairs?”

“Fuck you.”

“Listen,” Jack said patiently, “you might be up for a couple of years, but I’m offering you a get-out-of-jail-free. Now, how many?”

“I’m gonna get beat.”

“You’ll get worse than that in the House of Detention, a little guy like you.”

The kid stared mournfully down at his new Nike sneakers, considering this impeccable logic. “Just two,” he muttered.

“Okay,” Jack said. “That’s good. Now all you have to do is buzz up and tell them you need to use the John.”

“
Come on
, man.”

“
Let’s go
,” Jack said, losing patience. It was only a matter of seconds before some concerned young citizen came along, saw what was happening, and gave a warning call upstairs.

The kid scrunched up his face. Then he reached out and pressed the buzzer for 4D. The intercom squawked.

“Yo,” the kid said. “It’s me. I gotta take a piss.” The lock clicked open.

Jack turned to Daskivitch. “Hold on to our little friend until we get up.”

The door was heavy steel, with a little wire-hatched window in the middle. Jack peered in; the hallway was empty.

He pushed through, followed by Daskivitch, who practically carried the lookout under one arm. The door thunked closed behind them. Jack reached into the bag and pulled out his gun. He noted irritably that there were no napkins in the bag—and for once he was out of hand wipes. He smeared his shooting hand against a wall to get rid of some egg salad. In twenty-four years with the NYPD, he’d only fired the gun twice—once into the air when he was an over-zealous beat cop chasing a purse snatcher, once into the leg of a serial rapist diving out a back window—but the weight of it was comforting in his hand.

The stairwell was airless and humid and painted a sickly green that he couldn’t imagine someone actually choosing. By the time he reached the fourth floor, his shirt was soaked with sweat, and not just because of the heat.

The hall light was off.

The lookout squirmed.

“Don’t let him go until I get through the door,” Jack whispered to his partner. “And keep him quiet.”

Daskivitch nodded and held a big meaty hand over the scared lookout’s mouth.

Jack made his way along to 4D. Sweat beaded his face and he licked the salty liquid off his upper lip. He tried the door: locked. He gave a quick rap and mumbled, “It’s me.”

The door swung open to the panicked face of a chubby little Hispanic male, mid-twenties.

“What the…?” The guy spun around and shouted to someone inside the apartment. The door started to swing shut.

“Police!” Jack shouted. He stuck his foot in the door and slammed all his weight against it. The door gave way and he barreled through, pushing the kid back into the room. He swung him around and twisted one of his meaty arms behind his back. Over the kid’s shoulder, he saw a fat gray-haired woman sitting on a white leather sofa. She wore orange sweatpants, but she didn’t look like exercise had ever been on the agenda. She stared openmouthed.

Daskivitch ran in, gun up, breathing hard.

Jack guided the kid over next to the woman and pushed him down into what little space was left on the sofa. Daskivitch stationed himself by the door, blocking an end run. Jack glanced around: big new TV, two VCRs, a giant boom-box, a couple of cell phones on a coffee table. It looked as if someone just had won a shopping spree in an electronics store—the boxes were still stacked in a corner. The room was decorated with several large velvet tapestries: Jesus on the cross; a crouching leopard; Julio Iglesias grinning painfully, as if he needed to visit the can. Below the leopard was an altar flanked by gaudy prayer candles, dedicated to some saint Jack didn’t recognize.

The kid may have been dealing coke, but he certainly didn’t look like a user. He was stuffed into his baggy shorts and tank top like a sausage.

“Okay,” Jack said amiably. “Let’s have a little talk.”

“Fuck you, man! Who you think you are, all busting in my apartment with a gun and shit when I’m not doing nothing but watch TV, scare my moms—”

“Who are these people, Mellow?” The woman adjusted a pair of glitter-framed eyeglasses.

“They must’ve got the wrong apartment,” the son said. “You okay, Mami?”

For a second, Jack’s heart sank. What if he’d screwed up, if T and Janelle had sent him on a wild-goose chase? But then, solid citizens didn’t need a downstairs lookout.

The woman moved to hoist herself up.

“Ma’am,” Jack said, “I’m gonna ask you to stay on the sofa with your son.” He turned to the kid. “You mind if we take a look around?”

“Look all you want,” the kid said magnanimously. “We don’t got nothing to hide.”

Jack and Daskivitch traded surprised looks. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, a kid like this would demand to see a warrant. It was obvious that he wasn’t a big-time dealer, but even so he shouldn’t be
inviting
a search. “Take a look around,” Jack told his partner.