Trella slammed both fists onto his desktop, wrapped his fingers beneath the front lip, and pitched it forward. “Fuck Rea if he thinks I’m waiting. Those Poles are bleeding for this.”
Martin stood in the doorway, like an observer of a bomb detonation crew ready to take cover. The hope for the outburst was Trella becoming too clouded to decipher the setup. The risk was the breadth and depth of any collateral damage. “That’s why he sent me, so there’d be no misunderstanding. When we heard about Paschol, Ray was devastated. His words to me, honest to Christ, were Unleash the War Boys. No restrictions. Hit Bielakowski full force. Burn him out of his shop if you have to.”
The wheezing of Trella’s inhalations was almost asthmatic. “Goddamn it, he ain’t going to be at the shop. He’ll be hiding, scared of popping his head up.”
Martin had grown weary of criminals projecting fear upon an opponent. He hadn’t met many—friend or foe—that shied from aggressive attack. Their propensity for matching or exceeding an opponents’ intensity was why they were in the life to begin with. The only man who didn’t attribute fright as an adversarial motivator was Bielakowski. Perhaps because he didn’t care.
“We’re setting a meeting,” said Martin. “Rea wants this over, too. This afternoon, Bielakowski thinks we’re coming to his shop to propose peace based on his men dying and what happened to Paschol.”
Head down, too emotional for eye contact, Trella said, “Tommy Paschol, man.”
“Four o’clock. He thinks it’s just Rea and me. He’ll probably be in the back of the shop, finishing his shift.”
The biker turned his back and stared at a corkboard covered with party fliers and bumper stickers. With his arms crossed, his flanks flared like jousting armor. “I’m going to skin that damn Polack with his own knife.”
* * *
Nick Martin had one more call. If all the moves fell into line—and Rea didn’t have a heart attack or catch a stray bullet—the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Attorney’s Office would have the case of a lifetime.
Walking from the bikers’ clubhouse to his car, he heard the word hero repeating in his ear. He wished his old man had lived long enough for the press clippings. The first week would be a media storm, like for a Medal of Honor winner coming home for Christmas. He figured it’d take another year to wrap up the Philly crew, the War Boys, New York, and now the Armenians, plus eighteen months preparing for trial and testifying. Then he’d be liberated. A lifetime pension, a book deal, and a sweet consulting gig in Manhattan. His head swirled with the possibilities.
With the air-conditioning on high and the radio off, he decided to remain parked until he finished with Bielakowski. Movement might distract him from making the perfect call. He dialed the Port Richmond shop and waited three rings.
“Hello, Bielakowski’s,” answered a woman young enough for enthusiasm at work. “What do you need?”
“I’m a friend of Anton’s. He in?”
“He’s with a customer. Can you wait a sec, or is there something I can help with?”
“No. Tell him the Irishman from the warehouse is on the phone. He’ll know.”
Martin heard a metallic clink and the background chatter of a busy shop, as if she’d set the phone down on a steel counter. The temptation was to go with a light warning, less specific than what Rea demanded. Instead of giving a date and time, more along the lines of Hey, I don’t know the details, but the War Boys think you were involved with Paschol. If the bikers killed Bielakowski, Martin was free. The warehouse incident would be twenty-four hours that had never happened. Gone, erased, ciao baby. At the same time, if the War Boys survived and discovered the meth play, they’d go for Rea, an unacceptable possibility. A dead Rea was ten years flushed down the toilet like last night’s dinner.
“Hello,” said Bielakowski. “I thought you lost my number. Back in the warehouse we’d agreed to be friends. But you never call. You never write. I began thinking I’d done something to insult you.”
Because of the man’s age and accent, Martin struggled reading his tone, but the words were pretty clear. “I have a warning.”
“Of course, why else would you call?”
“The War Boys are coming to Port Richmond. Four o’clock at your shop. There’re coming heavy.”
If Martin had been sitting alongside Bielakowski, he’d have thought it was the old man’s birthday. A wider smile could not have been had. “I guess Rea can’t handle us anymore. Time for the poodles and professional wrestlers.”
“I’ve got to go. That’s all I know.”
“Please send my condolences to the Paschol family,” said Bielakowski. “A very unfortunate accident. And in Pennypack Park, too, so close to Port Richmond. Such heartbreak.”
Martin’s answer was silence.
Bielakowski said, “Rea isn’t the only one who knows friendly police.”
“The reasons why don’t change this afternoon. Trella is on his way.”
It was the Pole’s turn to pause. Using the Russian for the blind sale was making it too easy. The irony, of course, was that it was going to cost the FBI agent his life. Sure, Bielakowski could save him. Only a few words were needed. The problem was Martin himself. Once warned, he’d turn around and protect Rea. And if the Italian ended up living, what was the point?
Anton Bielakowski hung up the phone.
31.
AT 3:45 P.M., a scout positioned in South Philly reported eight motorcycles riding out of the War Boys’ clubhouse. Chuck Trella Jr. held point, no car or van accompanied the herd, and the bikers were decked in their official colors. The scout had little trouble tracking them through the neighborhood—they took the shortest, straightest route to northbound I-95. Once their direction was called in, the scout returned to the clubhouse to watch for another wave.
Twelve minutes later, a second scout at Allegheny Avenue reported all eight bikers exiting I-95 and turning right at Byrne’s Tavern. Bielakowski liked the bikers taking the lazy route into Port Richmond—they were underestimating him. He also noted the travel time. Twelve minutes meant no stops for additional weapons. And if the first scout’s report was accurate, they weren’t traveling with shotguns or AK-47’s. Pistols and smaller automatics were still possibilities, but Bielakowski was more interested in what firepower they didn’t possess.
In the sausage shop’s back room, Bielakowski updated his men—Eight have arrived—and ordered them into position. Man One—dressed in a hard hat, worn jeans, and dirt-stained shirt—headed out the shop’s front door to lead the East Ontario Street roadblock.
Man Two had the easier task. He just needed to make sure his team was clear on rules of engagement. Since shots hadn’t been fired for some time in Port Richmond, his job was reminding the men that killing was okay—and expected—as long as protocol was followed. The only true mistake was any on their side dying. Errors were to be at the opposition’s expense. Mercy wasn’t a consideration.
Out the shop’s back door and down the rear alley, Man Two zigzagged to Salmon Street. His destination was a block-long, two-story warehouse with no signage. Three hard knocks on a steel door gained him entrance. Moments after receiving Bielakowski’s orders, Man Two was on the warehouse rooftop, confirming his men’s positions.
Four blocks away on Richmond Street, Trella and the bikers were caught in slow-moving traffic. They tried passing, shouting profanities, and slapping fenders to speed up the line—all to no avail. The locals just didn’t share their impatience. After a few minutes of stop-and-go momentum, the bikers’ first turn was left onto East Ontario Street. That’s where their route troubles started. With the necessary Tilton Street intersection in sight, two flagmen—backdropped by a seemingly engaged pothole crew—detoured all traffic off East Ontario onto Salmon Street.
The tight Salmon Street one-way started with row homes but quickly dropped the neighborhood feel in favor of automobile shops, tire sheds, and deserted lots. At the East Schiller Street intersection, two flagmen mot
ioned the bikers onward toward the Tioga Street intersection, where another flagman awaited their approach. If Trella had suspected the noose, Tioga was his moment to break free. Short of the flagmen, nothing was stopping the bikers from pulling off Salmon Street and circling back. They did not. And as they say in Port Richmond, it was all over except the screaming.
To one side of the Salmon/Tioga intersection was a corner lot with a half-dozen semi-trucks and long-haul trailers. As the bikers followed the flagmen’s directions up Salmon, traffic behind them slowed enough to allow one of the trucks to ease off the lot and fall in to their rear. The tail blockade was in place.
Past the Tioga Street intersection, the Salmon Street landscape transitioned again, this time to the back walls and loading docks of parallel-running warehouses. On the right side of Salmon Street was a single, cinder-block facility stretching the entire block. It was a two-story building marked by little more than a dozen metal doors. The street’s left side was a collection of one-, two-, and three-story buildings of mismatched shapes, materials, and sizes squeezed in over the last one hundred years.
Ten seconds after cruising into the open-air chute, the bikers looked between the walls and each other. Trella was out front, his head swiveling left, right, and up. Shooting gallery was the thought repeating in his head, confirmed when the cars they’d been following accelerated past a loading dock and a U-Haul truck backed into the street. The U-Haul’s driver pressed his rear tires into the opposing curb, leaving no room between the bumper and warehouse wall.
The bikers stopped, steadied their bikes, and turned back to the Tioga intersection. Instead of the line of trailing traffic they expected, the only vehicle was the semi-truck creeping down the street with two feet of clearance on either side. The bikers looked to their leader for answers. Trella stayed stone-faced; his only concession to the moment was cutting his engine. “This ain’t good,” he said, dismounting. Surveying the immediate area for an emergency exit, all he saw was knobless metal doors and bricked-in windows.
Sixty seconds passed before a man appeared on the rooftop of the two-story warehouse, forty feet up and on the bikers’ right side. They could see he was older and smaller with a sagging peasant cap atop his head.
Trella waited for him to speak. Nothing was uttered until the biker could no longer help himself. “What the fuck is all this?” he shouted, the echo reverberating down the cordoned-off street.
In unison, as though answering the question, forty-nine more men stepped to the rooftop’s edge. They were of all ages, shapes, and sizes—only similar in the shotguns they clutched. No pistols, rifles, or machine guns. All 12-gauge, pump-action shotguns aimed on the street below.
Neither group spoke. The bikers staring up felt like time was frozen. The men staring down didn’t care. Their sole concern was listening for word from their leader to pull the trigger, pump, and repeat until the eight bikers had fallen and stopped breathing.
The break in tension came when a street-level warehouse door opened from the inside. The bikers backpedaled three steps before catching themselves, worried the shooters would mistake the movement for panicked flight. Out the door walked Anton Bielakowski. He was alone and dressed in the same trousers and button-down shirt he’d worn to work that morning.
Bielakowski studied the rooftop before swinging his gaze to Trella. “Welcome to Port Richmond.”
Fifty shotguns in his direction, Trella still looked ready and willing to charge. No one could accuse him of weakening when the attention got personal. “You expecting us to piss and moan, you got the wrong guys. This ain’t the first time we’ve had guns aimed at our heads.”
Bielakowski had no physical reaction. “Now that I’m in the street, if you or any of your men move a finger those fellows above will fire. And the line between life and death is even thinner than that equation suggests. There may only be ten or twelve professionals on the roof—men who’ve killed before with the weapon in their hands. They are skilled and ruthless and all that is needed to handle eight of you. But how could I have known all the War Boys wouldn’t come? That’s why I’ve called the others to join. Among the men looking down are the sons, brothers, and uncles of Port Richmond. Of course, the problem with these volunteers is they aren’t only protecting me. These men are also protecting their wives, children, and parents. Think how much quicker a man pulls the trigger when he’s fighting for family. And think how much harder he fights.”
Trella rolled his eyes to the roofline and back to Bielakowski. “You’re telling me I can listen or I can talk. Anything more and the negotiation gets messy.”
“Let me be direct,” said Bielakowski, dropping his voice so as not to share with the men above. “You’ve been played for a sucker.”
“Me? You killed Tommy Paschol and I’m the sucker?”
“My condolences,” said Anton, his eyes closing a brief moment. “I don’t know Mr. Paschol. Never had a problem with him or you. My issue is with Rea.”
Trella’s breathing was on the rise, his face reddening. “Then you should have stuffed the blood sausage down the Italian’s throat and shot him six times.”
“Oh,” said the Pole, feigning surprise. “Is that what you’ve been told? That your friend had a mouth full of blood sausage? How tidy. Perfect and neat, everything but my driver’s license shoved up his nose. Look at me, Trella. I’m an old man. Did I get this age because I leave provocative, unintended calling cards?”
The biker shook his head an inch in either direction.
“I’ll bet a man called Martin told you this story.”
Trella paused. “Yeah, he’s the one.”
“He also told you to come get me. And here you are with fifty shotguns aimed from the rooftops.”
The biker squinted, then lowered his chin as though eye contact blocked his thoughts. “Fuck me.”
Bielakowski stepped up the street toward the blocking U-Haul. “Inside that truck are six pallets of Sudafed.”
Trella raised his chin back up. “Yeah.”
“Rea is buying them tonight. I doubt he’s told you of that deal. It’s why Tommy Paschol was murdered and stuffed into a trunk and why you’re supposed to be dying in Port Richmond. Consolidation. That truck means Rea no longer needs the War Boys.”
“That motherless bastard.”
“Here’s my offer. You are invited to attend the sale. It’s scheduled to go down in an hour in South Philly. By that time, you were supposed to have been dead forty-five minutes. Rea is accepting delivery. I don’t believe anyone else is attending other than Martin.”
Trella looked at his men and back to the Pole.
Bielakowski wondered if the biker understood there was one answer to his offer. “We are not friends, but I also do not wish for any more enemies. You can refuse and die here on this street. Or I’ll give each of you a shotgun and you can ride in the back of the truck. Maybe you still have doubts. So be it. If Rea is the one opening the doors and shining a flashlight in your eyes, you’ll have the answer.”
“I’ve already got my answer.”
“Yes, I suppose you do.”
“What do you want in return?”
“Kill Rea and leave me alone. You get the cold medicine in the truck. I don’t want anything to do with that. The money Rea brings with him, that’s for the men driving the truck.”
Trella felt comfortable enough with the negotiation to reposition his feet. It was the first War Boy movement in five minutes. “Who’s that going to be? Couple of your guys?”
“No, we don’t deal drugs. They’ll be Armenians.”
Trella shook his head. “Shit.”
“Don’t worry,” said Bielakowski. “You’ll have shotguns to protect yourselves. And it’ll be eight on two.”
32.
“YOU HEARD ANYTHING YET?” said Rea.
Martin shook his head. “Too soon. I can tell you Trella was fired up. Bought the whole story. And Bielakowski had plenty of warning. I think he knows about the Paschol t
hing, though.”
“Why do you say that?”
“He was a smart-ass about Pennypack Park and that you weren’t the only one with cop friends.”
Rea paused. “Doesn’t matter what he thinks. It matters what Trella thinks.”
Martin nodded. Both were talking low and slow, confident of their moves. “Might not hear anything for a while anyway. If the Poles slaughter those bikers, not like they’re leaving a crime scene and calling the news crews. Those bodies will be floating down the Delaware before rush hour.”
Rea chuckled and joked about watching the river for one of the bikers bobbing by. Oh, I think I just saw Trella, hahaha. “Like I said, would have been fun to be a bird on a wire.”
Martin leaned forward, his hands pressing the dash. “How do you want to play this?” They were in Rea’s Lincoln, parked on an overgrown lot on the banks of the Delaware River, a quarter mile from the nearest boat launch. River grass blocked views in all directions except for the waterfront and entrance road.
“Straight-up exchange. Armenians heisted a truck, heard I was in the market, and reached out. Knowing them, I insisted we do the buy in our territory. Rules are simple. They arrive in a truck and are allowed a single trailing car to drive home. One guy in each vehicle, no more. Otherwise, the deal is off and we drive out.”
“Why can’t we go heavier?” asked Martin. He’d heard enough about the Armenians to appreciate their tendencies.
“Nobody can know about this yet. Can’t afford word leaking. Besides, they get two, we get two. When they pull in, you stay in the car. I’ll take a peek inside their delivery truck, and if it looks good, I’ll give you a wave. You come up with the money and they give you the truck keys.”
“You know the two Armenians who are coming?”
“Nope,” said Rea, none too concerned with the question. “Could be the boss, could be anybody. Don’t worry, we’ll be out of here in ten minutes. Once you’re driving the truck, keep a low profile until we confirm Trella isn’t coming back. Drive to where we store the poker machines. Park in back and I’ll pick you up.”
The Friendship of Criminals Page 24