by Henry Hack
“Thanks, Jack,” I said looking at the two brown-skinned detectives. I didn’t know Monroe, but Evans and I had a long history together.
“Lieutenant,” Charlie said, “I understand you need a couple of spooks to hide in the bushes. We’s it.”
Charlie Evans had been, is, and will always be, politically incorrect and racially insensitive to everyone, including his brown-skinned brothers. Having walked adjoining foot posts with him in the East New York section of Brooklyn, the notorious 75 Precinct, I can attest to that. “Hey, Jew boy” was his favorite greeting for me followed by a witticism like, “Got your yarmulke on under your uniform cap,” or, “I don’t want to catch you praying and bowing your head all night in front of the brick wall next to the Jewish deli.” I could go on and on, but I snapped back to the present and said, “Let’s go, I want you two in place ASAP.”
They got in my car after we picked up three walkie-talkies, and I stepped on it. Fortunately, Rosario had not shown, and I drove by his house pointing out where I wanted them positioned. “Yassir, Massa,” Evans said. “Me and Monroe be your niggers in the woodpile. We be hiding real good, boss man.”
I glanced over at Monroe who was shaking his head, but he had a little smile on his lips.
“Does he ever stop, Doug?”
“Never, Lieutenant.”
“I worked with him for a few years in the 75 Precinct, and he damned near drove me crazy. You know how many times I wanted to shove my nightstick down his throat?”
Monroe laughed and said, “Yeah, ‘bout as many times as I wanted to go upside his head with my slapper.”
“Hey, you motherfuckers,” Evans said. “I am here, you know. Right here in the fucking back seat.”
Ignoring his outburst Monroe said, “However, the problem we have with Charlie here is he is one helluva good cop.”
“That he is,” I said, “as I can attest to from our days in Brooklyn.”
Evans was momentarily stunned by our comments, and when he recovered he said, in a perfect WASP tone of voice, “Thank you, gentlemen. It is about time you recognized the immense talent in my well-toned, well-educated body.”
I pulled up a block and a half away and said, “Go find your hiding places. When you get a block from the car let’s have a radio check. Use the talk-around frequency for the three of us.”
The radios worked loud and clear and five minutes later they both radioed in they were securely hidden at their locations. “Deep in the motherfuckin’ woodpile, Massa,” was the way Evans put it.
“Me, too, Loot,” Monroe said.
. . .
The wait was on and I pulled all vehicle surveillance well away from the house. Rosario seemed to be a street-savvy operator and who knew if he had another pad he could scurry to. Nitzky and Jamison spotted the car at 1:14 a.m. heading west on Jamaica Avenue. It turned north on 146 Street and Nitzky said, “I believe the bird is heading to his nest.”
“Ten-four. Stay off the air. I’ll take it from here with our two spotters.” I keyed the walkie-talkie and said, “He’s heading home.”
Three minutes later Monroe said, “Heard a car door slam about a half block away.”
Thirty seconds later he whispered, “Here he comes on my side of the street.”
Another twenty seconds went by and Monroe said, “He’s done looking around and he crossed the street. He’s not going for the front door. Coming your way, Charlie.”
“Ten-four,” Charlie whispered.
One minute went by, then two. Finally, Charlie said, “He’s in the basement. The door seems solid, but light is coming out of the window about five feet from it.”
“Stay put until the light goes out and radio me back then.”
“I hope the motherfucker be tired. I’m sick of this nigger in the woodpile shit.”
“Tough it out, Leroy,” I said. “I knows you can do it.”
“Yassir,” he whispered.
I got on the car radio and informed the team Rosario was in the basement apartment and we would wait at least a half hour after the lights went out before we broke in. Our search and arrest warrants were of the “No-Knock” type and endorsed for night service. Fifteen minutes later my walkie-talkie came to life with Evans’s voice whispering, “Light’s out. I have it at 1:33 a.m.”
“Give it fifteen minutes Charlie, and then quietly check out that door.”
“Gotcha,” he said. “Want me to come out with that information?”
“If you are sure you won’t be seen,” I said.
“Duh, it’s nighttime and so dark out I can’t see my hand in front of my face. But if I could it would still be black, like the fuckin’ rest of me.”
“Unless you looked at the palm of your hand. That’d be white, right?”
“Wise-ass, Jew,” he muttered.
Twenty minutes later Doug and Charlie were back in my car and Charlie said, “Not too good, Mike.”
“Why?”
“The door is solid wood and the door jamb is steel and surrounded by a poured concrete foundation. And with a lotta rebar in it, no doubt.”
“What about the locks?”
“A key in knob that’s kinda flimsy. I tried it by the way. But there are three deadbolts. One about a foot from the bottom, one six inches above the door knob, and one about a foot from the top.”
“Shit! Do you think ESB’s door jamb spreader can do the trick?”
“I doubt it. Those deadbolts are probably an inch and a half long, and I don’t think that the spreader can move that jamb more than a half inch.”
“Goddamn it,” I said. I picked up the radio mike and said there would be a delay. I had an ESB truck standing by for my signal. They were about a mile away, but I had to reconnoiter with them and give them the bad news. “All units sit tight until you hear from me.”
“Ten-four, Loot,” Micena said. “No sweat – we’re on overtime.”
TEN
I drove over to where the Emergency Service Truck was parked and the supervising sergeant, whose name plate read “GAJEWSKI,” jumped out of the passenger seat and said, “Morning, Loot. Problem?”
“Tell him, Charlie,” I said.
When Charlie finished with his assessment of the door, the sergeant nodded and said, “How about the window?”
“Three, all the same small type we’re familiar with. They seemed locked tight, and there’s heavy-gauge metal mesh covering the inside. I couldn’t see in, but I’d bet they were padlocked at the bottom.”
“Okay,” Gajewski said. “No problem.”
“No problem?” I said.
“Hey, Lenny,” Evans said. “This here nigger’s too big and muscular to go through one of them tiny windows. Maybe you got a midget cop in that truck of yours?”
“No, Charlie,” he said with a smile, “but I got this.” He opened a side panel on the truck and pulled out what looked like a chainsaw. “This, my friends, is a gas-powered hacksaw. It has a fine-toothed diamond blade. I don’t even need a half-inch of spread. All I need is to see those dead bolts. Zip, zip, and zip and bingo, we’re in.”
“How long does each zip take?” I asked.
“Eight to ten seconds, max.”
“And, uh, how loud is that saw?” I asked as I looked at the formidable piece of machinery with more than a bit of dread.
“As Charlie Evans here would say, ‘Motherfuckin’ loud.’”
Evidently the sergeant knew Charlie well and Charlie responded, “Motherfuckin’ right, Lenny.”
I considered what thirty seconds of roaring noise would do to the sl
eeping Rosario, but I didn’t have much choice in this method of entry. “Okay,” I said. “Let’s do it. I need three vests, Sarge.”
“Uh, Loot, don’t you want my guys to go in first? That’s kinda the accepted protocol now.”
“I know, but it’s not set in stone in the rules and procedures yet. This entry is my call. Me and my two detectives will go in as soon as you pop the door.”
“You got it, Loot. We’ll leave our truck here and take the equipment we need in our jeep.”
“How many guys will you bring?”
“Two. I’ll do the cutting after they spread the jamb. The door should swing in easily, but if not they’ll ram it open.”
I looked at Evans and Monroe and said, “You two want to be in on this?”
“Are you kidding?” Monroe asked. “Besides, you may need our narcotics expertise being he’s a dope dealer.”
“That’s what I was thinking,” I said.
“And you will sign our overtime slips, right? It’s after midnight,” Evans chimed in.
“You’ve already earned it. Let’s move out.”
. . .
We assembled a half mile away from the house and I laid out our battle plan. “ESB will park their jeep about ten houses down 146 Street from Rosario’s place. I’ll park behind the jeep. Micena and Paul will be with me. We’ll walk to the house and into the backyard. When we get there I’ll get on the walkie-talkie to Charlie and say, ‘We’re on it,’ meaning ESB has begun on the door. That’s your signal, Charlie, for you and all the others to move out and converge on the house for backup. Do not come into the bedroom area of the basement until we have secured Rosario, and I give you the okay. Does everyone understand that?”
They all indicated they did and ESB suited me, John, and Richie up in the top of the line body armor. Driving without lights, we reached our destination and parked our vehicles. We crept down the block on the street side of the parked cars. It seemed all the houses were buttoned down tight for the night. I checked my watch as we entered the backyard. It was 2:42 a.m., about an hour and a half after Rosario went inside. He should be sound asleep. It would help if he took some of his own dope to help him on his way.
The two ESB cops set the spreader on the jamb and began to turn the worm screw. It was well-oiled and there was nary a squeak. After four minutes of tedious work, I saw the strain in their arm muscles and determined faces, they backed off and one said, “All yours, Sarge.”
I keyed my walkie-talkie and said, “We’re on it.”
Sergeant Gajewski pulled the start cord and the power hacksaw roared to life, and I mean roared, like wake-the-dead roared. I swear the sergeant had a murderous gleam in his eye like the nut-job in the chainsaw massacre movies. Zip – Zip – Zip! He went through those deadbolts like the old cliché says – a hot knife through a stick of soft butter.
I pushed the door open and the three of us went charging in, flashlights in one hand, double-action Glock .40s in the other. We found the light switches and raced to where the bedroom obviously was, at the far end of the apartment. The door was locked. John Micena viciously kicked it and it sprung open. He and Richie Paul went inside and I heard Micena yell, “Freeze!” Paul found the light switch and flipped it on. I was right behind the two of them when I heard the two pops. Richie’s gun was smoking and Rosario was on his back with two slugs in him. His hand was reaching for a gun, an automatic, on the table next to him. I instantly assessed the situation. The gun was about three feet from Rosario’s outstretched hand. Not good.
I closed the bedroom door and walked over to the gun. I grabbed my handkerchief and took it off the table and placed it under Rosario’s hand. “Any problems with that?” I asked, looking at my two detectives.
“No, Mike,” John said. “If you hadn’t done that I would have asked you to leave the room, so I could have.”
“Richie,” I said, “that was a righteous shooting. Rosario was going for his gun and you popped him. No problem, but this picture will be a lot better when the headhunters arrive.”
There was no need for the three of us to say another word. I had deliberately excluded everyone from being in on the takedown. The four seasoned detectives and the ESB team could most likely withstand the coming attack from Internal Affairs, but the rookies, Jamison and Ferrand, would fold like a cheap suit. No disparagement intended to these fine, young officers, just the facts of life in the NYPD. And why make it worse for any of them when they got called over to IAB? This was our homicide case, and we in homicide would deal with the situation.
. . .
Sergeant Gajewski, on the other side of the door, yelled out, “All okay in there?”
I opened the door so he could come in and take a look. He assessed the situation, nodded his head, and said, “Glad you popped him before he could get one off.”
“We are too,” I said. “Let me go make the calls.”
I went into the living area where everyone on the team was crowded in anticipation of the news. I told them the perp was shot by Detective Paul as he reached for a weapon, an automatic I hoped was the gun used to murder Mort Stern. I said, “Search this whole place with the exception of the bedroom. We’ll wait on that until Rosario’s body is shipped out. As you all know I have to notify Internal Affairs and the Duty Captain of an officer involved shooting. You can speak to them now or invoke the forty-eight hour rule.”
“What do you suggest?” Cindy Jamison said.
“This team has been awake twenty-four hours and running on caffeine and adrenaline. Now that Rosario is dead, I can feel myself coming down from that high, and tiredness is beginning to settle in. It’s not in my best interest, or Detective Paul’s or Micena’s to speak with anyone now. The rest of you can, but I don’t suggest it.”
I knew the four detectives and the ESB guys wouldn’t speak with IAB now either, but Artie Ferrand asked, “Why not, Lieutenant? I mean none of us were near the bedroom when the shooting happened.”
“True,” I said, “but there is a problem here with the fact Rosario was the perp who shot and killed a close personal friend of mine, and yours, too. IAB will immediately assume we inflicted street justice on him instead of effecting an arrest.”
“Why would they assume that?” Cindy Jamison asked. “We had an arrest warrant.”
“Despite the warrant, which they will figure was obtained to cover our tracks, they are going to come after us. And they will do so because they are fucking head hunters and measure their success by how many cops’ scalps they can hang on their belts. Innocent or guilty cops, it makes no difference to them at all.”
That seemed to shock the two young officers, but they said nothing. I said, “When Internal Affairs and the Duty Captain get here, they are going to ask you if you have been drinking alcohol or using drugs, and they will have all of us blow into a small tube for an alcohol reading. They have the right to do this, and the further right to have you submit to a breathalyzer test if alcohol was detected on the preliminary test. That is all they can do at this time.”
Jamison and Ferrand looked at each other and nodded. Ferrand said, “Thanks for your advice, Lieutenant. We’re feeling tired right now. We want to go to bed soon. Internal Affairs and the brass will have to wait to speak with us.”
“Good decision,” I said, allowing myself a small smile.
Smart, young cops indeed, but they were going to be in for a rude awakening in a few days.
. . .
The forty-eight-hour rule was loved by the rank and file and despised by the brass and politicians. It had been negotiated many years prior into all the police union contracts and the powers that be had been trying to get rid of it, without success, ever since. The rule simply stated a
member of the force, from the rank of police officer up to, and including, the rank of deputy chief, was not required to speak to anyone about an incident he was involved in wherein he could himself become the target of an investigation involving criminal and/or disciplinary action. This respite gave the officer the opportunity to get his facts straight and confer with his union representative and his lawyer, if necessary.
Superior officers, assistant district attorneys and members of Internal Affairs had to cool their heels for that time period, and they did not like it one damn bit. They howled that the worst criminals arrested for heinous crimes didn’t get forty-eight hours to mull things over before being required to speak. They were hauled into the station house and confronted immediately by an investigator, so why shouldn’t the cops be subject to the same procedure? This was a fallacious comparison, because criminal suspects had a much better rule working in their favor – the 48-second rule – which was about the time it took to read him his Miranda warnings. And after his rights were read and duly noted, the suspect usually responded in one of three ways – “I want a lawyer,” or “I ain’t got nuttin’ to say,” or “Go fuck yourself, copper.” Sometimes they said all three responses, just to make certain we “coppers” understood their wishes with absolutely no doubts at all.
I called the Duty Captain, the Crime Scene Unit, the ADA, the medical examiner on call, and last of all, the headhunters from Queens Internal Affairs. Before anyone arrived the search of the rest of the apartment failed to turn up any contraband drugs or additional weapons. Catalano and Nitzky went outside to notify the rest of the building’s occupants what was going on. The upstairs apartment was vacant and they had to wake the first floor occupant up with repeated heavy knocking and bell ringing. He obviously hadn’t heard the shots and seemed genuinely shocked to hear of his tenant’s criminal behavior. And, since we hadn’t come down the street with lights and sirens blazing away, there were no on-lookers at this ungodly hour of the morning.