Kevin eventually left the agents alone with their pile of couture and went to help other customers. Germanowski was still coveting the vampire shirt.
“Okay. We'll get the shirt,” Gagne said. “It'll be the marquee piece. We'll just accessorize around it.”
The agents picked out their favorite pieces and thanked Kevin for his helpful style tips.
When they got back to 99 Tenth Avenue and opened up their shopping bags … disaster. They had blown their entire $1,000 budget on two pairs of pants and two shirts.
“We didn't even get any shoes,” Gagne said, bewildered. “Christ—we still gotta accessorize!”
Buyer's remorse sank their spirits. They needed some time to heal and regroup. They went to the gym to lift weights.
“Okay, I have an idea,” Gagne said. “We were there for a fashion lesson, and now we know how to dress. So let's take it all back, get our money, and get the same stuff at a thrift store.”
Germanowski was quiet.
“Look, what are we going to do if we gotta be in the clubs for months?” Gagne said.
“Fine. We take it all back. But not my shirt.”
The agents returned to Patricia Field a few days later. Kevin's steely silence as he rang up the return on each item was painful. They took their government cash out of pricy Greenwich Village and headed to the low-rent East Village, where they snatched up used clothing: a black fur coat with short sleeves, a fuchsia boa, a long black dress, pleather pants, black boots.
While other agents kept flak vests and holsters in their gym lockers, Gagne and Germanowski's lockers held feathers and leather, giant cross necklaces, and goth makeup. They got their ears pierced. Gagne got a Caesar cut. Germanowski shaved his head and painted his nails black. They were as prepared as they were ever going to be for the mission at hand: infiltrate Tunnel disguised as gay ravers.
Late one night in mid-January, they ate dinner, lifted weights, showered, and suited up in the locker room. Gagne wore black boots, black pants, a tight black spandex shirt, silver double-hoop earrings, and a metal-link dog chain that connected to a leash dangling down his back.
By 11:30 p.m., Gagne was almost ready, applying the final touches: thick black eyeliner to his lids and black mascara to his long lashes. Germanowski was standing nearby, staring pensively at himself in the full-length mirror. Germanowski was wearing combat boots and a long-sleeved black A-line cotton dress that floated below his knees. The “G” tattoo on his calf peeked above black golf socks.
“Dude,” Germanowski said, “I can't go out in this.”
“What the fuck are you talking about, you can't go?”
“I can't go. This dress makes me look fat.”
Gagne studied his partner's outfit. It was true. Germanowski's boxer shorts gave him a lumpy silhouette.
“Nah, it doesn't make you look fat,” Gagne said. “We just need to accessorize.”
Gagne sifted through their thrift store treasures and retrieved a matching chain-link collar for his partner. He suggested losing the bulky boxer shorts, which Germanowski did.
“Hey! You know what you need?” Gagne said. “You need a wrap.”
Germanowski chose a clean black flannel shirt from their thrift pile and Gagne brushed it down with a metal brush to give it a fuzzy texture.
“Here,” Gagne said, helping his partner to place the cover-up around his frame just so. “Now, wrap that around you like a little shawl.”
“Yeah,” Germanowski said as he looked in the mirror. “Yeah, that really works.”
A gruff voice suddenly startled them.
“Now I've seen it all.”
A night duty agent was standing in the doorway of the locker room.
“There's a lot of people that are not shocked by the shit you two do,” he said. “But this? This takes the cake.”
Most agents at DEA knew that Gagne and Germanowski were doing an Ecstasy case, but the partners had kept their interest in the nightclubs quiet. They didn't want to take any chances of a leak. Rumor was that the leak in NYPD dripped straight to club owner Peter Gatien.
“Look,” Gagne said, “ don't you repeat a word of this.”
It was time to go. Germanowski slipped the dog collar around his neck, Gagne put a pair of dark sunglasses on his head, and the two men exited the gym.
A little after midnight, they rolled up in a cab to the velvet ropes at Tunnel. Darryl Darrin was working the door, the same gatekeeper who'd turned them back the last time.
Here we go, Gagne thought.
They shuffled up to the front, feeling slightly awkward in their outfits. Darrin spotted them immediately and pointed at Gagne.
“How many with you?” Darrin asked.
“Just two,” Gagne said softly while holding two fingers in the air with an exaggerated bent wrist.
Darrin reached toward the elbow of the rope and with a single magical flick of his thumb he opened the spring-clip lock and pulled back the velvet barrier. They were in.
Gagne couldn't believe it. He wanted to shout at Darrin, Hey! Guess what? We're the same two guys you wouldn't let in last time, ya jerk! but he kept his cover.
The agents paid $20 admission apiece and stepped through a long hallway, excited to finally pull back the club world curtain. Their senses were overwhelmed as they were swept up into a sea of bodies, swaying to the trance beats pounding through overhead speakers. Red and green laser lights pierced across the swinging flesh on display. The pungent aroma of pot escaped from private nooks. Patrons flitted by, casually opening small vials of drugs, pouring little bumps of ketamine and cocaine on the backs of their hands.
“You want to buy some E?” A stranger approached them at the bar, but it was too early to start buying drugs. They needed to get their bearings, create a mental map of the club geography. They ordered cocktails from the bartender instead, gawking at the $14 in damage, while trying not to gawk at the diminutive Asian man in Coke-bottle glasses go-go dancing on the bar in front of them in a skirt, fishnet stockings, and high heels.
The whole place was writhing with sweaty, glittering bodies in freakish getups. Clothing was optional. Within minutes of their arrival, Gagne was propositioned for a role in a gay porn film. He declined (but was secretly flattered).
“If you change your mind, I'd really like it if you'd come down for an audition,” the recruiter said as he handed Gagne a flyer that the agent later pinned to his cubicle. It was a casting call announcement for “Leathermen, Chelsea Boys, Trannies, Glamour Gals, Cross-Dressers, Gym Bunnies, Club Kids, Ravers, Pier Queens, and Other Divas,” with the pitch “Everybody Be Somebody.”
The agents decided to look around the place and ventured up a flight of stairs. They walked down half-empty hallways, peeking into VIP lounges and jiggling the handles of locked doors. Germanowski noticed a master temperature panel that read 76 degrees. Stifling hot. He later theorized that club owner Peter Gatien was a modern-day zanjero, commandeering the precious water supply. Ecstasy dehydrates, especially if you've been dancing all night in an overheated nightclub. Clubgoers rolling on Ecstasy don't want alcohol, they want water—and water was a major commodity at Tunnel and Limelight. An 8.5-ounce bottle of Evian cost the agents about $8. There was no free tap water at the bar. Gagne was disgusted to discover that only hot water flowed in the bathroom. (Gatien's attorney would later deny such claims and maintain that both taps were always working.)
As he toured the cavernous space, Germanowski broke the numbers down in his head: Tunnel could hold more than four thousand people, and if they averaged $15 apiece at the door (taking into account reduced admissions), then Gatien was making roughly $60,000 in door fees on a good night before cashing out the employees. If just 25 percent of those overheated patrons bought nothing more than an $8 bottle of water at the bar, add an extra $8,000. That's $68,000 just for opening his doors and selling some water.
The agents were down at the main dance floor now, watching the scene. Men and women wearing little more t
han Ecstasy smiles tuned out reality as their pulses kept apace with the high-energy, aggressive beats.
Germanowski got lost in thoughts of his brother: David, you would have really liked this music.
He felt Gagne nudging him.
“Dude,” Gagne said, “what's the deal with that?”
Standing on a speaker to Germanowski's right was a sinewy dancer in a skimpy G-string, his feet shoulder-width apart, and his hips gyrating back and forth as his penis slapped the entire length of his thigh. Germanowski's jaw dropped. As the happy dancer pranced on his stage, a couple nearby was smoking weed and making out on a couch. Behind them, a young man was giving a blow job.
The agents needed a break. Germanowski was feeling tense. They headed to a dimly lit second-floor bathroom, where they took a moment to relax, breathe, and drop their undercover personas.
“I just need to stand like a man for a minute,” Germanowski said as he took a swig from his $7 vodka and orange juice. Gagne snickered at the sight of his partner standing like a man in a tight black dress and black lipstick.
“What?” Germanowski said. But he knew he looked ridiculous. In fact, now that he looked at Gagne's outfit, it wasn't even that outrageous. Gagne had just thrown on some tight black clothes and a dog collar. How did he end up wearing the dress tonight?
Fucking Jedi mind tricks.
Gagne was still laughing. Germanowski glimpsed his own black-nail-polished meaty fingers gripped around the plastic cup of booze and started laughing too. Soon they were both doubled over from body-shaking howls, tears streaming down their faces, mascara be damned.
“Will you pee on me?” a voice begged in the dark.
“Jesus Christ!” Germanowski jumped. A man was lying on the floor nearby, strung out, masturbating, and staring at Germanowski.
“I want you to piss on me!” he barked as he touched himself.
“That's it,” Germanowski said. “Let's go.”
“Okay,” Gagne said, still cracking up. “But, I mean, here's your chance. When are you going to have the opportunity to piss on a guy ever again?”
“You know what? Hopefully never.”
Gagne looked at the surly masturbator sprawled out on the sticky ground.
“Piss on me! Piss on me!” the man screamed. He couldn't have been more than twenty-three, totally wasted, and absent all dignity. It made Gagne angry. He had nothing more to laugh about.
“You're right,” Gagne said. “C'mon, let's go.”
24 FAMILY SECRETS
BEING A DRUG COP gave Gagne a deep sense of purpose. He knew the drug war was unwinnable. He couldn't stop people from trying drugs. But he believed he could rein in the opportunities. He believed in the mission because he'd seen the effects of drugs and alcohol on his own family. His sister Sherrie had been the first to fall.
When Gagne entered into duty as a DEA agent in February 1991, Sherrie was a senior in high school. In a class of 161 students, Sherrie graduated twenty-fourth and boasted many accomplishments: Rhode Island honor society, class treasurer, student council, captain of cheer-leading, a star basketball and softball player. She smoked pot on the weekends. No big deal. But when she got to college, Sherrie lost interest in her studies. She wanted to have fun and party with her friends. She started hitting the snooze button, skipping class, and smoking weed all day. She dropped out by the end of the semester, moved back to Pawtucket, got a night-shift job as a cashier at a supermarket, and fell into a deep depression. One winter, she tried to end her life, swallowing sixty-nine sleeping pills and walking out to a snow-covered beach, where she lay down to die. As the pills began to take hold, Sherrie saw a quarter resting near a pay phone and decided it was a sign to call friends for help. She survived after her stomach was pumped. She moved in with her father and his new wife and tried to put her life back together, but she soon fell back into her old habits.
In 1992, Sherrie was arrested in Montreal. She had run away to Canada with a girlfriend and got caught at a check-cashing kiosk trying to pass checks she had stolen from her father. Gagne called the police in Montreal, and they agreed to let his sister go as long as a family member came to collect her and take her back to the United States. Sherrie's mother and sister made the drive to Montreal. Gagne and his siblings pressured their father not to press charges against Sherrie for the roughly $2,000 she had stolen from him. He left all of her belongings in trash bags on the front porch.
Sherrie agreed to enter an outpatient rehab center, but after six months inside, she met a man who introduced her to crack cocaine and the two of them left the program to spend their days getting high in his aunt's house. When their money ran out, she broke into her mother's house and stole a VCR to pawn. She also stole checks from her brother Ronnie, who reported it to the police.
At some point, Sherrie woke up next to her crack-addicted boyfriend, looked around at the mess they were living in, and decided this was not her life.
“I'm leaving,” she told him. “I'm going to get help.”
He put his hands around her neck and told her he would kill her before he let her go. Sherrie escaped and ran home to her mother, Irene, to ask for help. Irene was a rock. She never said no to her children.
It was 1994. Gagne had just completed Navy SEAL training on the Mississippi River, learning how to do river patrols and ambushes in preparation for a Snowcap tour in Bolivia, when his mother called: “I need to talk to you about Sherrie.”
Gagne was practically on his way out the door to start his assignment. He turned around and called his supervisor, Frank Fernandez, who told him to go home and be with his sister; he could pick up the next tour in Peru.
Sherrie was facing jail time because breaking and entering into her mother's home had been a violation of her probation on check forgery charges. When Gagne got home, he drove Sherrie to the court house for her hearing. He was barely able to contain his confusion and anger.
“What are you doing?” he barked at her in the car on the way. “Do you know what I do for a living?”
“Uh—yeah, I get that,” Sherrie said sarcastically.
“I want suppliers. Who are you buying from?” Gagne said with the earnestness of a shiny new agent.
“Are you nuts? These people know where I live. Do you want to get me killed?” Sherrie said. “You want someone? Just drive around this area, Bob. They're on every street corner.”
Gagne pictured his baby sister driving at night in dangerous neighborhoods, cruising past prostitutes and johns walking the buckled sidewalks, and rolling her window down to buy enough crack for her and her boyfriend. It shook him to his core.
At the courthouse, he made an emotional plea to the judge for court-ordered rehab.
“Listen, this isn't her. She's got a drug problem, she needs some help.”
Sherrie spent forty-two days in prison and then entered an inpatient drug treatment program. It was what she wanted too. She was fighting for her life. She knew she couldn't wage that battle while living at home.
Jail and rehab sobered Sherrie and gave her a clean start. She became close to a man she met while in treatment—someone who had previously dealt drugs and was determined to leave that life behind. Relationships in rehab were forbidden, but that never seemed to stop anyone from falling in love. They fell—so deeply that they got married, raised a family, and stayed sober. Flourished, even.
Sherrie was tough. And she had siblings and a mother who constantly checked in, kept her close, and supported her recovery. Gagne knew that her success was the exception compared to a lot of the young people he encountered in his work who were struggling to overcome addiction. He was certain that 90 percent of the people in jail on drug possession charges were victims of absentee fathers and fractured families, or maybe they just didn't have anyone in their life who cared about them enough.
When Gagne infiltrated the club scene, he encountered more young people caught up in drugs and drug dealing than he had ever witnessed in his five years as an agent. But he unders
tood why they indulged in it. They wanted to feel alive. They wanted to be somebody. Sometimes when Gagne looked in the mirror, all he saw was the son of a drunk meat salesman. Nobody special. He knew he could have taken that same road. But that would have been surrender.
25 INVESTIGATING THE CLUBS
GAGNE AND GERMANOWSKI COULDN'T rely solely on Sean Bradley's information about the alleged drug dealing at Tunnel and Limelight. They had to witness drug activity for themselves so that if the case went to trial, they could testify with firsthand knowledge. They needed to unravel the alleged distribution hierarchies and find out: Who were the main conspirers? How were the profits divvied up? How long had it been going on? Was club security in on it? Was club management involved? Was Gatien profiting from it?
Gagne and Germanowski would make more than a dozen visits to Tunnel and Limelight from January to May 1996 to try to answer these questions. Sean Bradley introduced them to suspected dealers, Club Kids with names like Victor Extraordinaire, Totally Todd, and Larry Tee. The agents traded government cash for Ecstasy pills and brown glass vials of ketamine during buy operations in the Asian Room, the Cha-Cha Room, the Library Room. Once in a while they would see Peter Gatien walking uninterested through the crowd or standing on a balcony stone-faced, watching the dance floor. He always wore black, always had a cigarette between his fingers, the black eye patch strapped around his head.
When Gagne and Germanowski worked the clubs, they carried no guns, badges, or IDs—just their undercover licenses and cash. Sometimes they would go alone, no backup and no buys, just trying to look like newbies to the scene instead of feds clocking the illegal activity. Gagne reached deep into his undercover bag of tricks for excuses to avoid sampling the drugs offered to him: I'm on probation and I have to pass my drug test tomorrow; I'm rolling on E and don't want to mess up my buzz. Gagne's mother, Irene, a nurse, gave him special eyedrops that dilated his pupils for that drug-induced wide-eyed look.
The agents determined that drug consumption was most prevalent in the VIP lounges, which is also where they were at most risk of unwanted sexual advances. The trick was to keep moving. But Gagne always got tagged in the Police Room.
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