by Ice-T
Carla’s expression and tone showed she was a bit bummed out. “Oh yeah, right, I forgot to give you a heads-up I was coming over.”
Casey held up both hands. “Hey, it’s cool, baby, I didn’t say I wasn’t glad to see you. I don’t like this fussin’.”
Carla nodded, but Casey knew she had something more to tell him. “So, after your text this afternoon, I had a meeting with Nicole, the head of food services for the hotel. She went to the doctor, and it turns out she can’t get pregnant. Her man really wants a kid bad, and she’s freaked out that he’s gonna split when he finds out.”
“That’s heavy.”
“Yeah, well, anyway, it just got me thinking about the pressure I’ve been putting on you about a baby.”
Casey was about to speak but held back.
“The fact is: I love you, and I want us to be a family, but I can’t help feeling that deep down, you don’t want the same thing.”
Casey felt a quick jolt of anger at her trying to put words in his mouth, but restrained himself. “Look, baby, I’m three months out the joint with a whole lotta shit goin’ on. I’m still trying to get my head straight. I’m not saying a baby’s out of the question, but a brotha just needs some time, that’s all.”
Carla blew out a breath. “That’s cool and I get it—I just feel like maybe you wanted more space.”
“Nah, baby, that’s one of the things I like about you is that you do give me space, when I need it.” Casey put his arms around her and said, “But right at this moment, I don’t want any space ’tween you and me, ya feel me?”
Carla giggled as she snuggled into him. “I sure do.”
6
Casey woke up at 6 A.M., got his two-hour workout in, and showered. His night with Carla was memorable in more ways than one, and things seemed to be back on track with her, which was a relief. At nine thirty, Casey called Champa and woke him up. He told him he wanted to see Alejandro Hernandez that morning and had him find out if he was in court or in his office. He got dressed and drove to Champa’s crib. All the pieces were starting to come together, and today was gonna be a big day.
Casey rolled up to Champa’s apartment, which was in a heavily Latin part of the South Bronx. Champa loved his Latinas, so he was right where he needed to be. Casey called and let him know he was downstairs and in seconds Champa came out wearing a classic old-school Adidas sweatsuit that was black with red stripes. He came up to the car and talked to Casey through the open passenger window.
“Ay, man—I called Alejandro’s office and he’s in court for the next hour and a half. I told his secretary we’d be rolling through so she could put us on the book. So, you wanna park and come up for a bit?”
Casey parked the SUV and they both took the stairs up to Champa’s crib. Walking into his apartment was like stepping back into the 1970s. Champa loved everything about that era: blaxploitation movies, the music, the furniture, everything. He even had vintage Playboy magazines on his coffee table. On his walls, he had a few original Andy Warhols and Roy Lichtensteins that he’d carefully stolen as well as some photographic prints of the nightlife of Studio 54. His prized possession, though, was a first edition of Iceberg Slim’s autobiographical novel Pimp. The book was in a gold ornate frame with red crushed velvet matting. On the cover of the book was an inscription from Iceberg: To Champa, my Nigga from the Bx. Iceberg!
“So what was this dude like?” Casey asked.
“He was tight, old school, droppin’ jewels left and right.”
“In the joint, this shit is required reading.”
Champa walked back to the kitchen while Casey checked out his pimpin’ crib. The song “Whatcha See Is Whatcha Get” by the Dramatics was playing on the stereo. Champa hollered to Casey, asking if he wanted coffee. Casey declined and sat on a well-worn brown leather sectional sofa. Champa walked in, lowered the music, and sat down across from him with an espresso.
Casey looked at a photo of Champa’s mom on the side table. “How’s your mom doin’?”
“She just celebrated her eightieth birthday, she lives in Georgia now with my aunt.” Champa laughed. “She squeaks when she walks, but for the most part, she’s doing good. You think about your parents much?”
Casey hated talking about his parents; it made him feel uncomfortable unless he was talking to Carla. “Ya know, here and there, what occupies my mind today is how we gonna figure out what cops to target.”
Champa polished off his espresso. “And that’s why you wanna meet with Alejandro?”
“Correct, I need to get an inside track on who does what and who’s assigned to any of us.”
“Man, that’s a needle in a muthafuckin’ haystack. Alejandro’ll probably know something about a couple precincts, but as far as Harlem and whatnot, he’s gonna be clueless.”
“Yeah, I know. It could take months to figure this out, and we only have a few days.” Casey leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “My guess is the detectives assigned to me are probably based out of the Forty-eighth Precinct, ’cause when I went under, that’s where they took me. Anyway, get dressed. I’ll meet you out front.”
Casey left the apartment and called Shin when he hit the street. “Any news on our man getting a job at the restaurant?”
“Everything’s set. The owner put my man to work immediately, washing dishes for half of the legal minimum wage. He’s on notice to report to me after every shift.”
Ten minutes later, Champa came down, wearing a pin-striped suit and chattering on his cell phone to some broad. He got in the Escalade and they headed out.
The law offices of Alejandro Hernandez were on the top floor of a six-story building on 161st, a block away from the Bronx Supreme Criminal Court, a building Casey and Champa knew all too well. When they walked in, an older Asian couple was talking to Alejandro in the waiting room. The couple looked at Champa and Casey a bit cockeyed, but didn’t interrupt their conversation. Casey gave Alejandro a nod and the space to do his business. The couple had a son who was “innocent” of robbing a jewelry store, even though the jewels were in his pocket. After the couple split, Alejandro walked the guys back to his office.
Alejandro was of Dominican descent, in his mid-forties, and a little overweight. His high-end office was, in its subtle way, a tribute to his success. He’d worked hard and bent a lot of rules to get where he was at today. He was a deal maker, and had no problem representing any client, as long as they had the loot to pay. He had strong relationships with everyone at the courthouse, from the parking attendant to the secretaries and clerks. He was always overgenerous at Christmas to all the support staff, and as a result, if there was information he needed, he always had a few people that would willingly give it to him. He knew which judges cheated on their wives or drank too much, and which ones could be influenced with a little dough. For their part, the judges respected his acumen and knew he was a winner, but none of them liked him. He was way too slick and cocky. Alejandro was a master manipulator who got a lot of criminals off, and his conscience had no problem with that. He was fascinated with his clients, and lived vicariously through them. In many ways, he was just like them except his hustle was legal—well, mostly.
As a kid, Alejandro got into a lot of trouble, but nothing major: a little stealing, shooting out windows with a BB gun, and bullshit like that. At fifteen, his cherry got popped for selling weed. Afterwards, his father sat him down and said, “Since you seem to like to run with criminals, why not get paid to do it and become a criminal lawyer?” The alternative, his father calmly explained, was if Alejandro didn’t, he would “beat him to death if he ever got in trouble again.” His father made it clear that he wasn’t gonna stand for his mother going through hell anymore because of her son’s criminal and mischievous ways. From then on, his father had a noose around his son’s neck until he graduated from law school.
Afterwards, he got hired by a respectable midsize firm in Manhattan. But the long hours and clientele didn’t suit him, so he went to work for
a local lawyer who had clients that were more to his liking … thieves, hustlers, murderers, pimps, and con men. For the next three years, his boss taught him all the dirty tricks of the trade: how to work the system, how to make sure you got paid, and how not to cross the line but dance on it instead. Then one afternoon, an angry client came into the office and shot his boss point-blank in the head. He died instantly, and just like that, Alejandro inherited a law firm.
He quickly grew both the business and his reputation over the next few years. Because he was a kid from the streets, he spoke his clients’ language and couldn’t get punked. This brought him respect and a lot of street cats looking for a down mouthpiece. He also insisted on being paid in cash, of which he declared maybe 30 percent. Around this time was when he met the already notorious Crush Casey.
Casey saw him work his magic firsthand when Alejandro represented him on a gun beef. Alejandro got it dismissed by greasing a judge. Casey was impressed and relieved, given that the charge could have easily landed him in jail for five years. After that, Hernandez defended Casey and his crew for many years, getting them off numerous times. But like everything, one day Casey’s luck ran out and he landed in Attica for twenty years. He should have gotten life, but Alejandro had pulled out all the stops and got him a deal. The deal had cost Casey a lot—250 large in legal fees, twenty years of his life, and his relationship with his son. Still, Casey knew that’s the way the game was played, and he wasn’t trippin’ about it.
The guys sat on the two couches, and Casey opened up the conversation. “Do you have any idea which detectives are watching me, Champa, or the guys?”
“Specifically, no, but given that your old partner was only taken out recently, my guess is that they are still watching you.”
“What about Mick Benzo, Big Rich, the Garcia brothers, or Sean E Sean?”
“Benzo, I have no idea; that’s Harlem, I don’t know what’s going on over there. As far as the other guys, if they’re being watched, it would probably be by the same detectives assigned to you, given that you all are known associates.”
Casey was hoping he’d at least get some useful information, but that didn’t look like it was gonna be the case. “Okay, well, how many detectives are there in the Forty-eighth Precinct?”
“More than anywhere else because it’s where the Detective Bureau headquarters is located. So, maybe three or four hundred detectives?”
Alejandro went on to break it all down. He said that each precinct had about thirty detectives that did “ground ball” cases—those were cut-and-dried crimes. Crimes that needed more investigation got bumped up to the Detective Bureau. That bureau had a bunch of units, the main ones being SVU for sex crimes, Homicide, and Robbery. The SVU department probably had about forty detectives, where the Homicide and Robbery squads each had about sixty-five.
Alejandro sat on the corner of his large mahogany desk. “Given that the Rono shit involved multiple murders, there’s a possibility that both you and everyone else are being watched by the Homicide Unit, but it’s more likely that they’re being investigated by someone at the OCCB, the Organized Crime Control Bureau.” The OCCB was headquartered in Manhattan at 1 Police Plaza, otherwise known as the Puzzle Towers.
Casey asked where narcotics fell in all this, and Alejandro said that the Narcotics Division and its sixty detectives were under the OCCB, but located in an old brewery near the Mount Vernon and Bronx border.
Alejandro didn’t know everything Casey wanted to know, but he knew a shitload. Casey sat back, doing the math and constructing a strategy while the other guys held their tongues and waited. Finally he inhaled, satisfied that he had the info he needed for now, then asked, “What’d you find out about Lomax’s old partner?”
“Lots, actually…” Alejandro walked around his desk, grabbed a yellow pad, flipped back a few pages, and started reading out loud. “John Fordham, fifty-six years old, he and Lomax were partners for six years and worked in the OCCB—”
“How long ago was that?
“Uh … let’s see, twelve years ago.”
“Okay, so what happened?”
“On paper, the story is that both guys were investigating a known Colombian drug dealer. They ended up busting him with over fifty pounds of cocaine. After the coke was checked into the department property room, someone stole five pounds of it; at the time, it had a street value of around six hundred grand. Fordham and Lomax came under suspicion because it was their case, and Internal Affairs got involved. IA investigated some of their previous cases and discovered nine additional instances of suspicious cocaine transfers. When they tested the cocaine from some of the evidence still remaining, they found out half of it was Bisquick.”
“Daaaayum,” said Champa, “these muthafuckas is slick.”
Alejandro continued. “The investigation widened to the whole department, all the way up to the captain. In the end, nobody was charged, but Lomax got busted down to being a parole officer because they found twenty-five grand in cash in his trunk that he couldn’t explain.”
“Why would anyone under investigation stash twenty-five K in their trunk? That’s bullshit. Lomax may be an asshole, but even he ain’t that stupid,” Casey said. “Okay, what’s the unofficial version?”
“I gotta guy on my payroll, Carl Jimenez, who does investigations for me. He was on the force for thirty years, and worked out of the Puzzle Towers in the Counter-Terrorism Bureau. He knows both guys, and told me Fordham was always a loudmouth and a bit of a prick, whereas Lomax was the coolheaded one who took care of business. He said their partnership wasn’t made in heaven, far from it—apparently there was a lot of animosity between them from the very beginning. When the investigation heated up, things got even worse, with the two of them getting into a fistfight in the middle of the squad room. The next afternoon, they found the twenty-five K in Lomax’s ride. When I asked Carl if he thought Lomax was dirty, he was quick to say ‘absolutely not.’ He said Lomax got into being a cop because when he was a kid, his sister OD’d on drugs, so there was no way in hell he would ever deal or be involved in that type of shit.”
Casey thought it was ironic that Lomax had gotten fucked over by his partner just like he did. The difference being that Lomax did a different kind of time and didn’t get the satisfaction of choking his partner’s ass to death.
“What’s Fordham doin’ now?” asked Casey.
“That’s the kicker: Two years after the investigation, Fordham’s captain took early retirement and moved to some ballin’ crib in the Bahamas. Then Fordham became the new case captain of the bureau. He oversees all the detectives and reports directly to the chief.”
“He’s runnin’ thangs while his old partner’s low man on the totem pole. That’s some good intel, Alejandro. Call up your man Carl on the DL and ask him if he knows the names of the senior detectives that report to Fordham.”
“No sweat.” Alejandro picked his phone up and hit a speed dial. He turned to his computer and pecked at the keys as he cradled the phone between his neck and shoulder. “Hey, Carl, it’s me.… Yeah, your check’s ready.… Let me ask you something—remember that Fordham conversation we had … Yeah, who’re the old-school detectives still in that department?” Alejandro quickly typed and he listened intently on the phone. At the end, he hung up the phone, printed the list, and handed it to Casey. On the paper were twenty-two names, plus Lomax’s old partner, Fordham. Casey looked it over, recognizing the names of the two detectives who had questioned him about Rono’s death earlier in the week.
Casey folded the paper, stood, and put it in his front pocket. “Thanks, Counselor, we’re gonna bounce.”
“No problem, glad I could help.”
Casey reached into the breast pocket of his jacket and pulled out an envelope. Inside were fifty crisp one-hundred-dollar bills. The lawyer had said he’d look into Lomax for free, so Casey wasn’t obliged to pay him, but he hated being in anyone’s debt, and knew the money would always keep Alejandro attentive and h
appy.
“An early Christmas bonus—”
Champa interjected, “Just don’t blow it all on one broad.”
Alejandro laughed as he took the envelope and said, “Thanks, Case.”
* * *
Champa and Casey drove back to the Urban Victory Office.
“Whatchu think? Do we target Fordham and these other cats Alejandro gave us?” Champa asked while darting through the light morning traffic.
“Yeah—in a way it could play out in our favor, ’cause if we find out it’s all under the OCCB, that’s a much smaller target than multiple precincts and divisions all over the city. The next step is to get a visual on these guys so we know what they look like, then get Al P. close enough to load the program on their phones. The logistics of that are gonna be fuckin’ complicated unless we can come up with a way to streamline this shit.”
“No doubt,” Champa said.
7
For the next two days, Casey had Champa check on Jacob’s progress while Shin’s guy washed dishes at Marat’s and watched for Alek Petrosian. He also had Champa scour the Web for photos and videos of the detectives on the list Alejandro had given him. This would be critical in making sure they were able to recognize the right guys to target.
Casey had a lot at stake: To begin with, he had to satisfy Lomax by taking out Alek Petrosian. Killing Rono was one thing, but taking out a nigga he’d never met and had no beef with was another, and that was a problem. There was also the question of would this shit stop after he took Alek out, or would he be Lomax’s personal hit man indefinitely? Fuck that.
Casey knew he was in the mix, but in a way, he liked it. Having shit run smooth was great, but he got off even more by overcoming insurmountable odds. It was at those times that he felt the most focused and alive. He liked pushing himself well beyond what he felt was his capacity. Casey was an all-or-nothing nigga, and if shit didn’t pan out because he wasn’t focused—well, then, fuck it, point seen money gone. Another issue was to find a big takedown for the crew, something high-dollar that would keep them focused. His niggas, like him, needed action and something to work toward. If they didn’t have that, there’d be no solidarity. And then there was his plan to take down the cops, which would both cover his ass and fuck over the hypocrites that had been on him for years. The idea of putting those bastards on blast for everyone to see was fucking intoxicating.