“Hold on.” Sonny paused. “Everything else okay?”
“Why? What have you been hearing down there?”
20.
IN BIELAKOWSKI’S PHILADELPHIA, the word ally was a term of art, an elusive commodity that fluctuated in cost, quality, and availability. Explicit in the definition was a mutually beneficial collaboration. Implicit was an openness that invited disease.
Bielakowski believed in the second of the two. He led Port Richmond as though alliances were confessions of weakness, aiming points for opponents and rivals. Criminal organizations didn’t fail because of investigative genius, the coordinated efforts of a frustrated community, or the manpower of the federal government. While those groups contributed to the attacks, they seldom initiated the spark. Most challenges started closer in, usually by those sharing your bottle and bread.
Throughout his tenure in Port Richmond, Bielakowski had kept his arms in tight, only extending when shielded by layers of deniability. The South Philly Italians were once much the same. They transacted business with third parties but never went all in with factions not bound by omertà. The passing of time and the Americanization of their family changed that tradition. Proof was Raymond Rea’s alliance with the War Boys—a partnership that, before his reign, had been rejected for forty years.
The War Boys were a South Philly motorcycle outfit founded by soldiers returning home from World War II and Korea. Seeking the same camaraderie and adrenaline they’d experienced in foxholes, the ex-soldiers gathered in neighborhood garages to drink and build motorcycles. As their numbers increased, weekly races were organized, and soon a “social club” was formed, with a warehouse headquarters, elected leadership, and a patch to identify membership. Since almost all attendees had fought in Europe, the Pacific Islands, or the Manchurian Peninsula, the club’s name came easily enough.
During those times, with most of the War Boys’ membership employed and its collective energies focused on building bikes, the club’s criminal activity was limited to fights with rival clubs and the occasional robbery. Only one homicide in fifteen years was associated with the War Boys, and that occurred when a South Jersey biker came over the bridge flaunting colors. A patrolman found him stuffed headfirst down a Passyunk Avenue manhole with his boots sticking two feet above street level.
This relative innocence lasted until the counterculture movement of the sixties, when the bikers discovered the business of marijuana and acid. While they were initially content with providing muscle and protection, all that changed when a club member came home from Vietnam convinced the War Boys’ future was in distribution and sales. His name was Chuck Trella, and under his watch the bikers rose from neighborhood tough guys to major players in the Philadelphia scene. Chuck Trella’s unexpected death in 1978 allowed the Puerto Ricans to front-run cocaine, but the War Boys regained the lead once Chuck Trella Jr. came home from the Gulf with the next big thing—methamphetamines.
Like his father before him, Trella Junior had a gift for recognizing value within a supply chain. He realized meth’s sweet spot was anything outside street sales. Sure, local dealers still made dough, but heroin and cocaine proved management grabbed the real money. Applying those lessons to meth, Trella Junior was determined to control raw materials and large-scale manufacturing. The rest could be sold off or farmed out.
For that type of business relationship, Trella Junior looked to his cousin’s cousin Raymond Rea, who willingly took on as much meth as the War Boys could cook. The Italians, while not dominant in the drug trade, maintained outlets in their own neighborhood and the slums of West and North Philly. As long as each party stuck to what they did best and didn’t get greedy, the match worked.
Given events of the last few weeks, Bielakowski conceded this alliance was a viable threat. One of his men was killed, and a second escaped an ambush inside a nightclub bathroom. The Poles doubled down, going after Rea’s top-producing bookie during the World Series. Early one morning, Bielakowski’s man delivered two dozen roses to the bookie’s girlfriend. When she opened the door, the assassin said her boyfriend had sent the flowers and would she like to return the gesture? Just tell me where he is and what you want delivered. Forty-five minutes later, the bookie—clutching his morning Danish and the girlfriend’s thong—exchanged his betting book for three new holes in his head.
Bielakowski wasn’t rattled by the escalation or hesitant to see it through. He’d fill every South Philly funeral home with caskets, weeping wives, and hysterical goombahs if that’s what was required. Prudent and resourceful, he had the financial resources to survive a prolonged disruption and the men—many anxious to establish their own legacies—to go blow for blow. Yet, despite these advantages, Bielakowski wasn’t naive enough to underestimate the task. Balance of power was a fickle force and could tip if an undeclared third party joined the fracas.
To protect his flanks, Bielakowski needed reassurance from the one outfit that could make him an underdog. It was well known the Italians steered wide of the Armenians, which left the Russians and their leader, Kolya Drobyshev. Among his own people, Drobyshev was a vor v zakone, a criminal’s criminal forbidden from cooperating with authorities. Both of Drobyshev’s knees were tattooed with black stars to symbolize his rank, adherence to the Thieves’ Code, and his determination to bow to no man.
In the Philadelphia underworld, little was known of Drobyshev’s homeland background other than he’d survived the White Swan, a Solikamsk prison notorious for breaking the criminal elite. Even though the White Swan’s guards were themselves masters of torture, they preferred other prisoners do their bidding. A favorite technique was the cell press, which involved two dozen prisoners in a twenty-by-twenty cell initiating the newest inmate. In such conditions, sleep was impossible, fear a constant companion, and rapes a daily threat. Drobyshev did two years in the White Swan and nine years in the Central Prison zone. He emerged weaker in body but stronger in conviction, knowing the state and its instruments could not break him.
Once freed, Drobyshev immigrated to the United States, where he—along with thousands of other Russians—settled twenty miles north of Port Richmond in the bedroom communities of Lower Bucks County. Drobyshev wasted no time building his criminal network, shying away from traditional operations like extortion and taxes in favor of higher-level financial scams and cargo heists. His one old-school indulgence was a burgeoning gambling operation that started with two customers in a small tavern and spread into Trenton, Allentown, and Scranton. The first time Drobyshev crossed paths with Bielakowski was when the Russian needed an overage house for heavy betting action coming in on a St. Joe’s basketball game. Introduced by a trusted intermediary, Bielakowski agreed to back the bets for a high—though fair—fee. Despite the bet never hitting, both men were pleased with the transaction and agreed to consider each other’s services again in the future.
The men’s second interaction would not be for another six months, when a Russian girl was victimized by a brutal gang initiation. Carjacked a block off La Salle’s campus, the college girl was forced to drive at knife point to an abandoned lot where she was assaulted, cut, and left for dead. She was found the next day, alive and scarred for life. The girl’s family called Drobyshev from the hospital. Get them, Kolya. Hunt them, let them know they cannot do this to a Russian.
He agreed, knowing he had neither the resources nor the connections to make good. Killing the men was not the crucible. Drobyshev could mount their heads on spikes without a single haunting nightmare. The problem, for all his abilities, was that Drobyshev was a pale-skinned foreigner being asked to track down black teenagers in a ghetto of two hundred thousand black teenagers. Such a task demanded nuance, well-placed intelligence, and a lifetime of connections. Drobyshev knew of only one man who might possess these resources while also comprehending the unreasonable expectations of fellow countrymen.
To discuss the girl, Bielakowski met Drobyshev in his shop, where the running saw blades and mixers could camouflage
their conversation. The Russian explained his predicament and the burden he bore. The sausage maker let him carry the conversation, nodding along as he kept his guest’s mug full of hot coffee and rich cream. When the Russian finished, Bielakowski condemned the tragedy and agreed the young men should be held accountable. He loathed senseless violence and could think of no greater example than the plundering of a fresh-faced college woman.
Although willing to assist, Bielakowski explained he’d have no more success entering the ghettos than the Russians. Unleashing a hundred men wouldn’t matter. The only option was shadowing the police and their investigation. When the Russian conceded he had no such connections, Bielakowski said he had many friends in Philadelphia and, if he spent some time on the matter, could probably think of one or two who worked in the investigating police district. Keep a team and your phone ready, he instructed Drobyshev; you’ll have little time when I call. The price of the favor was never mentioned, though both men understood such services were not free.
Two weeks later, the front page of the Daily News carried pictures of three dead black teenagers slumped over one another on the basement floor of an abandoned North Philadelphia row home. No mention was made of the Russian girl’s necklace in one of the men’s pockets or of her repainted car parked out front.
It was this history that Bielakowski now relied upon as he reached out to Drobyshev. The debt of the Russian girl was still unpaid, and Bielakowski wondered what that bought him in today’s dollars. Since that time, the Russian had added to his power and, while respectful of his Polish neighbors, wasn’t shy about flexing his muscle whenever their business interests overlapped.
The two leaders met at a downtown Russian bathhouse that was once a private athletic club for Main Line Protestants with Mayflower lineage. New ownership limited access to a handful of Russian men bearing the tattoos of their homeland’s prison system. The facility was an anonymous doorway midway down an alley off Walnut Street. The moment Bielakowski rang the buzzer, the door electronically opened. A dozen feet inside stood a middle-aged man of average size in a black suit and white shirt. He waved for Bielakowski to approach and searched him without a word. Satisfied, he escorted Bielakowski to the locker room, presenting him with plush towels, a white robe, and shower shoes. Before returning to his station, the man said that Mr. Drobyshev could be found in the steam room at the end of the hall.
Stripped naked, Bielakowski chuckled at what it took to protect Port Richmond. He wrapped one towel around his waist, draped another over his neck, and left the sandals alone.
With a quick tap of his wedding band on the glass door, Bielakowski entered the designated steam room. The heat was intense though not unbearable, and the smell of mint was profound. On the top tiled shelf, in the corner, sat a single man. For the first time, Bielakowski saw the blackened knees he’d heard about. He remained motionless, waiting to be invited forward. A long moment passed before he spoke out. “Don’t be rude, Kolya. I’m an old man. Invite me to sit.”
“Yes, of course,” said Drobyshev, snapping forward as if he’d been asleep. Perhaps it was his prison stay that accounted for his thinness. His cheekbones were high and wide; his nose marked by several skin piercing breaks. His blond hair, coarse like an animal’s, had not yet begun to recede. “The steam has that effect on me. I get lost in my thoughts. I saw you, but my brain was convinced we were in a dream. My apologies. Of course, please, come sit.”
Bielakowski was not shy about asking the Russian for his hand. He explained that tall steps were his hell and without assistance he couldn’t climb to the top shelf. When the Russian’s arm and upper chest pierced the steam, Bielakowski saw they were also marked by tattoos, some beautifully done, others scribbled by an amateur or Drobyshev himself. Once seated, he pointed to a line of writing beneath the Russian’s collarbone. “Let me translate. I know a bit of your language.”
“Of course,” said the Russian, wiping sweat off the markings.
“I believe it says Life will teach me to laugh through tears.”
“Excellent, Anton. I’m both impressed and sorry to say I don’t know a word of Polish.”
“Too young for the war?”
“I was a youth, so no, I never visited your countryside.”
Bielakowski turned his head and leaned forward for a better look at the Russian’s art. “No war?”
“No.”
“You have Lenin and Stalin on your chest. Knees blackened to show your defiance and yet leaders painted on your chest.”
“You’ll like the story.”
Bielakowski nodded, though not in agreement. The obvious disconnect confirmed everything he understood of Russian duality. From his experience, they were vicious and conniving poets.
Drobyshev wiped the sweat from his face. “I was seventeen the first time I entered the Central Prison. In those days, the Communists were running the show, and it was not uncommon for them to line up a row of prisoners and shoot them dead. No reason, just target practice or because they needed the room. One day, after they’d ordered another firing line, they forced the prisoners to strip naked so their clothes could be reused. One of those men had Stalin tattooed on his heart. Why? Why, of all the things in this world, would he have that on his body? We never knew, just fate, or dumb luck. Well, this caused the soldiers all sorts of headache. Who wanted to shoot a likeness of the Great Leader? The soldiers just stood there, shaking their heads, looking for someone to tell them what to do. After a few moments, three fought for the right to pull the prisoner from the line. We couldn’t believe our eyes, the only man in the Soviet Union ever saved by Stalin. But the other prisoners? The ones with birds or knives or baby Jesus on their bodies? All dead, shot a couple extra times because the guards were so cross. For the next week, we were lined up asshole to elbow getting that marking. I impressed everyone by including Lenin’s portrait.”
The men shared a laugh before the Russian walked through a few more of his tattoos. He said his life story was marked on his skin and any Russian prisoner could read him like a book. They’d know his crimes, how many terms he’d served, and where.
“Which one for the White Swan?”
It was the Russian’s turn to look sideways. “People talk too much. There are no secrets anymore.”
“There’s no shame in surviving.”
“That’s not what I’d call my experience. I died and was reborn. They had a cell they could flood, like a bathtub or swimming pool. A prisoner would go in and they’d fill the cell to his neck. Couldn’t sit, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat. Most men drowned in forty-eight hours. Three times I lasted twice that amount of time. I think they just decided I couldn’t be killed. Or if I was killed, no one would have me.”
Bielakowski pointed to an angel on the Russian’s right forearm. “That is the one, the one you took for making it out.”
Drobyshev flexed the forearm before rolling his left arm across his chest. It was marked with the Grim Reaper and his sickle. “Yes, the angel is for me. This,” he said, tapping his left forearm, “is for the prison guards who tortured me. Their dumb luck that Communism fell and money started to matter. They all died for less than it cost to buy a truck of chickens.”
Both men fell silent. The steam valve had closed, and the air was thinning. Bielakowski noticed an ice chest by the door and wondered if it contained water. The heat had not yet overwhelmed him, but he wanted to proceed with care. Just as he was about to inquire, the Russian rose without speaking and retrieved two bottles.
“I recently saw a tattoo,” said Bielakowski, thinking of the federal agent in the warehouse. “It was black, like yours. But something I’ve noticed with the Russians is another color no one else can match.”
“In my day, tattoos were forbidden, so we had to improvise. For ink, we used our boot heels. We’d sand them down into a fine dust, strain it through a cloth, and mix with urine. That’s where the blue comes from.”
“Piss?”
Drobyshev shrugged.
“I never knew why. We had water and tea, but I guess those didn’t provide the right chemistry. The artist mixed the dust and piss and then used a sharpened guitar string for a needle. It’s prehistoric, but you can see how some of the men mastered the art. Others, not so much.”
“You Russians are willing to endure more than most.”
Drobyshev took a long drink from his water. “Let’s talk business,” he said, capping the bottle. “I prefer my conversations here in the steam where no one else can listen. My fear is you won’t last much longer.”
Bielakowski drank half his water and poured the rest over his bald head. “You’ve heard of my issues with the Italians?”
“Of course. Nasty business.”
“Even with the bikers, Rea has overreached. My men are ready.”
“It’s an interesting puzzle,” said Drobyshev, as though he were participating in a theoretical debate. “Rea and the bikers are a formidable attacking party. Assuming they don’t know much Russian history, I doubt they understand how difficult that can be. Rea sees retreat as surrender. You and I both know pulling back and letting the enemy come can be quite successful.”
Bielakowski said, “Two reasons for me calling you. The first is financial, which we’ll get to. The second is your role in the current dispute. I can see Rea courting your assistance. Him from the south, you from the north—that could pose problems for me.”
The Russian shrugged. “I hardly know the man.”
Bielakowski remained silent. He’d said everything he wanted. Now it was Drobyshev’s turn to play a hand.
“The Italians did call on me,” said Drobyshev, his head back against the tiled wall, “but of course you already suspected this. The offer was as you imagined—we join forces and split the treasure. I declined.”
Bielakowski asked if the good turn was due, in part, to the Russian girl.
The Friendship of Criminals Page 16