Strega (7 page)

14

I
WAS only on the phone for a few minutes with the wiseguys. Two hundred thousand in cash in exchange for forty kilos of their product. And I told them where and when. The gangster who answered the phone listened patiently—I could feel his desire for my death coming over the wire, but he kept his voice quiet. Sure, sure…whatever we wanted, no problems…very reasonable.

The meet was for five–fifteen on a Thursday evening. Maximum rush–hour mess, so they'd think we planned to lose them in the crowds after we made the switch. We got there just after eleven the night before, set up camp, and started to do what we all did best—wait.

We waited at the apex of the tunnels. The wiseguys would have to come from the east, and they'd have people planted in the tunnel from the west. Plenty of room to do whatever they planned. All we needed was a few minutes to get lost, and I had something with me that would take care of that. I didn't care if they sent Godzilla down the tubes after us—we had it wired.

It was five–fifteen on the dot when Max snapped his fingers and pointed to the east. I couldn't see anything at first, but then I glimpsed a faint beam of light moving slowly in our direction—from the west, where they weren't supposed to come from. And then I heard footsteps, lots of footsteps, coming from the right direction. The Mole put his satchel on the ground, one hand inside. The Prof thumbed back the hammers on my sawed–off, and I fingered the baseball–shaped piece of metal in my jacket pocket. It was going down.

And then the wheels came off. "This is the police!" came a voice on a bullhorn. "You men are surrounded. Drop your weapons and walk toward the sound of my voice with your hands in the air!"

The miserable fucking maggots! Why take a chance of dealing with renegades when they could get their dope back and hand their cop pals some major felony arrests at the same time?

I had to stall them, get time to think.

"How do I know you're the cops?" I shouted back down into the tunnel.

"This is Captain Johnson, N.Y.P.D., pal. Precinct Number One. You are under arrest, you got it? You got two minutes—I don't see hands in the air, I'm going to see blood on the ground."

It was the cops all right, and not the Transit Police either—only the bluecoats talk like that—and only when they've got an audience. I turned to face my brothers. There was nothing to discuss—the Mole wouldn't last an hour locked up. If the Prof took another fall, they'd hold him for life. And without someone to watch out for him, Max would kill a guard sooner or later. "Prof," I snapped at him, "hit the little tunnel, okay? Take the bags with the real dope with you, leave me the rest. You go first—make sure it's clear on Spring Street before you step out. The Mole follows you. Max brings up the rear in case anyone gets past me. You know where the car is. Got it?"

"Burke," the little man said, "I'm down for the next round. Fuck these blue–coated thieves!"

"Get in the tunnel, Prof. The Mole can't make it without you. Don't let Max do anything crazy."

"Come with us," the Mole told me, hefting his satchel.

"Not a chance, Mole. It won't give us enough time. It's the Man, brother, not the mob. We can't outrun a fucking radio. Go!"

"What're
you
going to do?" asked the Prof.

"Time," I told him.

The Prof looked back for a second, squeezed my arm hard, and hit the tunnel, the Mole right behind. That left Max. I pointed into the tunnel, patted my back to show he had to protect the others, and Max touched his chest, made a motion like he was tearing out his heart, and put his fist in my open palm. He didn't have to tell me—I knew.

I turned in the direction of the bullhorn. "I'm not going back to jail!" I screamed at them. "I'll hold court right here, you understand!" I'd been waiting to use that line since I got out of reform school the first time.

"Give it up, buddy!" came back the cop's voice. "You got no place to go."

"Any of you guys ever been in 'Nam?" I yelled down the tunnel shaft, buying time with every word.

Silence. I could hear mutters, but no words. They'd move in soon.

Finally a hard voice came back down the tunnel to me. "I have, friend. Eighty–seventh Infantry, Charlie Company. Want me to come back there alone?"

"Yeah!" I shouted back. "I want you to tell your cop friends what this is!" I pulled the metal baseball out of my pocket—a fragmentation grenade with the pin still in—and lobbed it down the tunnel in their direction. I listened to it bounce around the walls and then everything went quiet. It must have fallen onto the tracks.

"What was that, friend?" my Vietnam buddy wanted to know.

"Shine your light and see for yourself," I told him. "But don't worry—the pin's still in!"

The place went as quiet as a tomb—because that's what they all thought it had turned into. I saw flashlights bounce off the dripping walls of the tunnel, but none of them came closer to me from either side. Then I heard "Holy shit!" and I knew they'd found it.

"You know what that is?" I called out to them.

"Yeah," came back the infantryman's weary voice, "I seen enough of the fucking things."

"You want to see more, just come on back," I invited him. "I got a whole crate of them just sitting here."

More silence.

"What do you want?" he called down to me.

"I want you guys to clear out of this tunnel, okay? And I want a car full of gas at the curb on Canal Street. And a ride to J.F.K. And I want a plane to Cuba. You got it? Otherwise, the Number Six Train's going to have a major fucking detour for the next ten years.

Another cop yelled back to me. "I want to talk to you, okay? I want to talk about what you want. Let me walk toward you. Slow…okay? My hands in the air. I can't talk to you about this and scream down this tunnel. Okay?"

"Let me think about it," I told him, "but no fucking tricks!"

"No tricks. Just take it easy, okay?"

I didn't answer him, wondering where the Prof was by now.

I stretched it out as long as I could. Then I called down to the cop, my voice shaking more than I wanted. "Just one cop, okay? I want the soldier. Tell him to come
alone
, you understand—and
slow
!"

I heard the soldier's footsteps before I saw him. He rounded the bend in the tunnel from the east, shirt unbuttoned, hands over his head. He was short, built solid and close to the ground. I couldn't make out his features in the dim light.

"Stop!" I barked at him.

"Okay, friend. Just be easy, okay? No problems, nothing to worry about. All we're going to do is talk."

"I want to show you something first," I told him. I held another grenade in my right hand, high up, where he could see it. Then I palmed one of the spare pull–pins I had with me in my left. I reached over to the grenade and pulled hard; my left hand came away with the extra pin. I flicked it backhand at the cop, listening to it skim down the tunnel, like a kid skipping stones on a lake. "Pick it up," I told him.

I watched him bend down, grope around until he had it.

"Fuck!" he said—not loud, but clear enough.

"Now you got the picture," I told him. "I'm sitting on a couple dozen of these little bastards and I pulled the pin on the one I'm holding, okay? You get one of your fucking sharpshooters to drop me with a night–scope and the whole tunnel goes into orbit. Now, what about my plane?"

"Those things take time, friend. We can't just make a phone call and set things up."

"All it took was a phone call to set
this
thing up, right?"

"Look, friend, I just do my job. Like I did overseas. Like you did too, right? I understand what you're feeling…"

"No, you don't," I told him. "Where'd you see combat?" I asked him.

"Brother, for all I know, I was in fucking Cambodia. They sent us into the jungle and some of us came back. You know how it is."

"Yeah, I know how it is. But I did my stretch in prison, not 'Nam. Too many times. And I'm not going again. I'm going to Cuba or we're all going to hell."

"Hold up!" he barked at me. "Give us a chance to work this out. I didn't say we
couldn't
do it…just that it takes a bit of time, all right? I have to walk back down and talk to the Captain, let him use the radio, call outside, you know?"

"Take all the time you want,' I said to him, the most truthful words I ever spoke to a cop in my life. I watched him back down the tunnel.

A few more minutes passed. I was looking around, checking to make sure there was nothing left in the tunnel to add to my sentence, when I heard his voice again.

"Can I come back down?" he shouted.

"Come ahead!" I yelled back.

When he got back to where he'd been standing before, he was talking in a calm, quiet voice, like you'd use on a crazy person. Good. "It's all in the works, my friend. We've got the process started, but it's going to take some time, you understand?"

"No problem," I told him.

"Man, this might take
hours
," he said. "You don't want to sit and hold that thing without the pin for that long."

"I got no choice," I replied.

"Sure you do," he said reasonably. "Just put the pin back in. You can sit right by the grenades. You hear anyone coming or anything at all, you just pull it again. Okay?"

I said nothing.

"Come on, friend. Use your head. You're going to get what you want—we're doing it for you—we're cooperating. No point in blowing yourself up when you're
winning
, right?"

"How…how do I do that?" I said, my voice trembling badly. "You have the pin."

"I'll give it back to you, friend. Okay? I'll walk nice and slow toward you, okay? Nice and easy. We got a piece of wire—I'll wrap it around the pin and tie it to my holster belt, okay? I'll throw the whole thing down to you. Nice and easy."

"You won't try anything?" I asked, distrust all over my voice.

"What's the point, friend? We try something and you blow us all up, right? I'll be standing right here—I'll be the first to go, okay? I didn't walk through that fucking jungle to get killed on the subway."

"Give me a minute," I told him.

He gave me nearly five, playing out the string, doing what he was supposed to do. The cop and I were the same right then: I was holding the point for my brothers so they'd make their break—and he was a hundred yards ahead of the rest of his boys. It was only him and me that'd get blown to hell if this didn't work. The soldier had a lot of guts—too bad he worked with such a lame crew.

"You're really getting the plane?" I asked him.

"It's in the works," he said, "you have my word. One soldier to another."

Maybe he did understand it. I was running in luck—an infantryman would know all about falling on grenades. If he'd been a Tunnel Rat in 'Nam he'd be thinking flamethrowers by now. But he was just doing his job. I let him persuade me.

It took another ten minutes for us to work it out, but he finally came back down the tunnel with the belt and lofted it gently in my direction. I could see it gleaming in the tunnel's soft light. I reached out for it gingerly, feeling the sniper's telescope on my face. Fuck them—I'd have the last laugh in hell.

But they didn't shoot.

"I got it!" I yelled to him.

"Just like I promised," he shouted back.

"I'm putting it back in," I said, my hands shaking for just the right touch of authenticity. I swear I could feel all their breath let out at once when I went back into the blackness.

"I'm going to sit right here," I yelled. "Just like I said. If any of you come even
close
…"

"All you need now is patience, my friend," said the cop. "I'll sit right down here and wait with you." And he was right about both parts.

15

I
T WENT on for hours. I knew the game—the soldier kept coming back down the tunnel to talk to me, reassure me everything was okay, ask me if I wanted some cigarettes, some coffee, anything—waiting for me to get sleepy. They had all the time in the world.

It was well past midnight. Either my people had made it or they hadn't. I was seeing spots in front of my eyes, jumping every time the cops made a noise at their end. I don't drink coffee, but I knew what would be in the coffee they kept offering me, so I finally said yes.

The soldier brought two Styrofoam coffee cups down on a tray, halfway to me, turned around, and went back. I told them it wasn't close enough, so he brought it even closer.

Then he played out the string. "Pick one, friend. The other one's for me." It didn't matter which one I picked—they'd have pumped the cop so full of stimulants that I'd pass out before he would anyway. I popped open the lid of the one I picked and drank it all down like a greedy pig. The drugs hit me like a piledriver before I could even take the cup away from my mouth. I remember thinking just before I passed out how I wouldn't even feel the beating I was going to get.

16

S
O I WENT back to prison, but only for possession of explosives. Possession of thirty–two kilos of sugar and quinine isn't against the law. And even Blumberg the lawyer was able to make something out of the fact that I was drugged and unconscious at the time of my arrest, so they didn't hit me with too stiff a jolt.

I wasn't in population more than a week before one of Julio's gorillas asked me where I'd stashed the heroin. I told him I didn't know what he was talking about—as far as I knew, the cops had the stuff. And, anyway, I told him, it hadn't been me who roughed off the stuff in the first place. Some guy had contacted me—offered fifty grand for me to handle the exchange.

Another man came to see me in the prison about the dope, but this guy came through the front gate. When the hack told me my attorney was there to see me, I knew something was wrong—Blumberg wouldn't make the trip to Auburn even if I
had
paid him for representing me at the trial. This guy was all pinstripes and old school tie, with a pretty leather briefcase and a gold wedding band to match his Rolex. The new breed of mob lawyer, although I didn't know it then. He didn't even pretend he was representing me—he came there to be judge and jury, and I was on trial for my life.

Okay—I was ready for him. We went over the thing a dozen times. He had me tell my story out of sequence, did his best to trip me up—it always played the same. But slowly he got a few more details out of me.

"Tell me again about this guy who approached you.

"I already
told
you," I said. "About thirty years old, long hair, almost like a hippie, dirty army jacket. He was carrying a piece in a shoulder holster—didn't care if I saw it or not. Said his name was Smith."

"And he told you?"

"He told me he had this stuff, right? And it belonged to your people, okay? And I should make arrangements to sell it back to him for two hundred grand. And all I had to give him was one fifty—the rest was for me."

"You thought he stole it?"

"I didn't know
how
he got it, right? What did I care? I figured the old man would be happy to get his stuff back—I'd make some heavy coin—it'd be a wash, right?"

"You ever see this 'Smith' character again?"

"He didn't show up at my trial, that's for fucking sure."

"Mr. Burke, think back now. Is there
anything
about this guy that would help us find him?"

"You got pictures I could look through? Maybe he's one of your own.

"He's not," snapped the lawyer.

"Yeah, I guess you're right," I acknowledged. "He was like one of those buffs, you know? A real whacko."

"A 'buff'?"

"Yeah, like those guys who carry around PBA cards and pretend they're fucking off–duty cops and shit. You know what I mean."

His eyes flickered, just for a second, but I'd been watching for it. "Why do you think this individual was in that category?"

"Well," I said slowly, "two things, really. Besides the shoulder holster, he had another gun strapped to his ankle. And when he reached in his wallet to come up with the front money I wanted…for the supplies…I saw a gold shield. I guess it was one of those complimentary badges the cops give you if you make some contribution."

The lawyer screwed around for another hour or so, but his heart wasn't in it. I read in the
Daily News
three weeks later how an undercover narcotics officer was killed in East Harlem. Shot four times in the face, but they left his money alone. Only his gold shield was missing.