Without Fear or Favor

by Robert K. Tanenbaum

  “And do what?”

  Delgado piped up. “These guys like Mufti and Sefu do a lot of lying about cops. We’ll be sending them strong messages very soon.”

  Evans frowned. “What do you mean, messages?”

  “Eye for an eye,” Satars said.

  Gilliam looked around and then leaned toward Evans. “We don’t want this to be a white-versus-black thing. We want this to be cops standing up for other cops. That’s why we want you to join us. Maybe with the right people, this goes nationwide, every department.”

  “We put the fear of God in a few of these loudmouths who make psychopaths like Nat X into heroes, and turn this thing around,” Delgado added.

  “You in or out?” Satars asked.

  Evans looked from face to face to face, then raised his beer. “I’m in.”

  The other three raised their glasses. “Here’s to the thin blue line,” Gilliam toasted.

  “To the thin blue line,” the others echoed.

  9

  BIG GEORGE WAITED IN THE dark outside for an hour until he saw Ny-Lee Tomes leave the building where his girlfriend, Rose, lived with her sister, Lupe. He followed Tomes, waiting for the right moment. He knew the routes Tomes took when he returned to the apartment he was currently sharing with Nat X, and had a place in mind for what he intended.

  Then one more visit and we all done, the big man thought with satisfaction. He was looking forward to it. In that, he and Nat X were alike: they both enjoyed hurting other people. He didn’t know about all this “black nationalism” that Nat X spouted, but it sounded good. He didn’t like white people, unless it was to rob and rape them, and he hated the cops, so any talk about killing them met with his approval. But he would have been happy to kill anybody, even black folks, as he didn’t like most of them much, either.

  In his mind, Ny-Lee Tomes was a punk who stood between him and something he wanted. He’d had his eye on Rose since meeting her and couldn’t understand why she’d reject a real man like him over a skinny little nobody like Ny-Lee. Well, one way or the other, when Ny-Lee was out of the picture she’d be made to see the light.

  All of his life he used his size and propensity toward violence to intimidate other people and get what he wanted. It had started with kids in school; he would take their lunch money and bully them on the playground. When he was fifteen, he’d been sent to jail after he beat one of his mother’s many boyfriends almost to death with a crowbar. Not that he cared that much about his mother—hadn’t even cried when she OD’d on heroin a year later—but the man had looked at him funny and got a cracked skull as a result.

  When he got out of jail, he’d been recruited by one of the many gangs in the neighborhood. But he was more of a loner and didn’t go for all that gang love shit, nor did he like being subservient to the group’s hierarchy. So he’d gone his own way, and when they tried to force him back in, he’d killed two of them. He had been left alone ever since.

  In fact, he hadn’t thought much of Nat X when he showed up and started talking about how he was going to take over Harlem and lead a revolution. But Nat X had treated him with respect, even telling him his real name, and he’d been caught up in the idea of a violent revolution, especially as it involved killing cops. Nat X had promised him that he’d be a general in the Nat Turner Revolutionary Brigade. “You’ll have any bitch you want, as many as you want,” the man had promised. That sounded good, and Big George, while no scholar, was smart enough to know that his violence could use some direction.

  Still, there’d come a point after a few weeks where he grew tired of all the meetings and talk with other young men and teenagers. He decided to challenge Nat X for leadership, if for no other reason than to impress Rose. But then his man had shot the cop. And that was damn cold, he thought as he followed along behind Ny-Lee Tomes. Got to give props for that.

  Nat X had impressed him again when he talked that kid into shooting a cop, even though it didn’t turn out exactly the way he’d planned. They’d waited in the alley until they heard the shots, Big George and Nat, and figured the kid had ambushed two of the pigs. Instead, he staggered out the door, blood gushing from a chest wound. The kid collapsed dead in the gutter.

  Nat X had immediately grabbed the gun out of the kid’s hand and put it in his own waistband under his sweatshirt. “You stay here,” he told Big George, “and when people start showing up, yell that the cops killed an unarmed kid.”

  There was only one hitch. Just as Nat X was about to walk off, they noticed a haggard white woman poking her head around the corner of the alley next to the building. Who knew where she’d been before they saw her, but she was looking at them now and had to have seen Nat X take the gun.

  “I’ll take care of this,” Nat X said to Big George, and yelled at the woman, “Hey, come here.” But her face disappeared and Nat X had to run after her as she fled down the alley.

  In the meantime, a crowd gathered, and Big George had played up his role so well that there’d been a riot. A few days later, he’d fired up the crowd even more when he was invited to speak at the “peace rally” in Marcus Garvey Park. He’d surprised even Reverend Mufti when he’d called on the assembly to “burn it down,” and they responded with an all-out riot.

  He got his lick in, too. When he saw a cop chase down and try to arrest the leader of the Black Justice Now crowd, he jumped the officer from behind, ripped his helmet off, and battered his head into the sidewalk until the man was unconscious. Newspapers said the cop was still in intensive care, and that made him feel proud.

  Later, Big George got to thinking about the woman in the alley and worried she might say something. But Nat X had blown off his concern. “I tried to catch up to her, but she disappeared down some dark hole,” he said. “Doesn’t matter, she’s just some homeless old hag. No one would listen to her if she did try to rat us out.” But Nat X didn’t blow off the matter of Tyrone Greene witnessing the shooting of Cippio. It wouldn’t take much to get a kid to talk.

  Then Maurice Greene had showed up at Ny-Lee’s apartment. “Well, little man, where you been?” Nat X had asked. He was smiling but his voice was hard.

  “My grandmother’s been making me come home straight from school and not letting me go out,” Maurice replied. “Not after my little brother was at the park and saw you . . .”

  Nat X’s face hardened. “Saw me what? He didn’t see shit.”

  “Yeah, no . . . I know he’s just a kid,” Maurice stammered. “But he talked to the district attorney—”

  “What he tell him?” Nat X interrupted.

  “Just what he saw. And about your talks in the neighborhood.”

  “What else?” Nat X lifted his sweatshirt to partly reveal the silver revolver. “And don’t you lie to me.”

  “I wouldn’t,” Maurice replied, obviously frightened. “He described you a little bit.”

  “Your little brother talks too much.”

  “He don’t mean nothing by it,” Maurice said. “He’s just a dumb kid.”

  Nat X stood up from the couch he’d been sitting on and walked over to Maurice until their faces were only inches apart. “Yeah? And what about you, Maurice? Your grandma tells you what to do. Did she tell you to talk to the district attorney, too?”

  Maurice swallowed hard. “She wanted me to, but I didn’t tell them anything.”

  Glaring at the teen, Nat X asked, “You hear about what happened to your friend Ricky Watts?”

  “I heard he got shot by a cop,” Maurice replied, his eyes welling with tears.

  “That’s right,” Nat X agreed. “Shot in cold blood. Didn’t even have a gun. We’re at war, you hear me, boy?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “People get killed in wars. And you better remember that. You talk to DeShawn? I ain’t seen him, either.”

  Maurice shook his head. “No. He’s not answering his phone.”

  Nat X nodded. “Well, if you do talk to him, you remind him of what I just told you. People get killed in w
ars, and he needs to keep his mouth shut. Or Big George here might be paying y’all a visit. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Big George noticed that Maurice’s visit seemed to rattle Nat X. He started talking about leaving town and going back to the Bay Area, to “get things going there.” He acted like it was all part of the plan, but Big George thought he was getting nervous. Nat X had been on the television a lot with that Vansand, and even though he’d been careful not to show his face and had disguised his voice, he worried that the newsman might try to set him up.

  Nat X said he would leave Big George in charge of the Brigade in New York while he was gone. Big George wondered aloud if his absence might make the younger sister Nat X had been bedding, Lupe, available.

  “No, I’m taking that ho with me,” Nat X said with a laugh. “Nights get cold around the Bay. But if you play your cards right, I think Rose can be your woman.”

  “What about Ny-Lee?” Big George asked.

  Nat X looked thoughtful as he took a long drag on a joint. “I think maybe Ny-Lee needs to have an accident. He keeps making too many mistakes, like telling people my name. I think if the cops ever grabbed him, he’d sing like a bird.”

  It had taken Big George a moment to catch Nat X’s drift, then he raised an eyebrow. “But he’s your cousin.”

  Nat X shrugged. “I hardly know him. He’s just the kid of my mother’s sister. You’re more my blood brother than he is.”

  Big George had liked that. He didn’t have any brothers or sisters, at least none he knew about. After that, he’d have done just about anything for the leader of the Nat Turner Revolutionary Brigade.

  “There’s some loose ends that need to be tied up around here,” Nat X had said. “Ny-Lee, Maurice, DeShawn. I think they all know too much. And maybe Rose, when you’re done with her. I’ve even been working on a surprise for the fucking district attorney—what’s his name?”

  “Karp,” Big George said.

  “Yeah, Karp. I ain’t happy he’s taking his sweet time to charge that cop for shooting poor ol’ Ricky!”

  Big George was impressed. Shooting cops was one thing; taking on the DA was another. “What you got planned?”

  “Never you mind,” Nat X replied. “Better for you if you don’t know. But if Oliver Gray needs some help sometime, you’ll know it has to do with this. Catch my meaning, bro?”

  BIG GEORGE CERTAINLY had caught his meaning, especially about tying up loose ends, which was why he was following Nat X’s cousin. When Ny-Lee was just about to reach an alley entrance he’d selected, he called out.

  Ny-Lee jumped like someone had shot at him. He turned with his eyes big as saucers. But when he saw Big George, he relaxed. “Hey, man, what you doing in this neighborhood?”

  “Just visiting a friend,” Big George responded with the obligatory handshakes. “Saw you walking ahead of me and hurried to catch up. Where you heading?”

  “Just back to the apartment,” Ny-Lee said, then grinned. “That Rose, she about wears me to a frazzle. I need to get me some sleep.”

  “Well, then I don’t suppose you’ll be wanting any of this fine blow.” Big George pulled a small vial of cocaine out of his pocket.

  Ny-Lee’s affection for the drug was well known, though he rarely had money for it. “Well, now you put it that way. Maybe a snort or two and a couple of cold ones would hit the spot. I said I was tired, but not that tired,” he said with a grin.

  Big George also smiled. “Yeah, that sounds good. Let’s duck into the alley so we don’t get spotted.”

  Ny-Lee guffawed. “Ain’t nobody in this neighborhood going to care. And who’s going to fuck with you anyway?”

  “Just the same,” Big George said. “Nat X wants us to lay low. He’s worried the cops will be looking for us and doesn’t want us to draw attention to ourselves.”

  Ny-Lee cast a glance over each shoulder and nodded. “That’s good thinking,” he said, and led the way into the alley.

  When they reached a spot in the shadows, Big George fumbled the vial of coke and dropped it on the ground. “Oh, shit, you see it?” he asked.

  “Yeah, it’s right here.” Ny-Lee bent over to pick it up. He never saw the lead-weighted sap that cracked his skull and drove him into the ground. And he was still barely conscious when Big George rolled him over and straddled him with his plate-sized hands around his neck. He woke up just long enough to feel his windpipe crushed before returning to the blackness.

  Big George retrieved his vial of coke from the clutched hand of the dead man and got up. One more visit, and I’ll do a little snort myself, he thought.

  TEN MINUTES LATER, Big George was standing in the doorway of an abandoned building across the street from the small walk-up where Nevie Butler lived with Maurice and Tyrone. He’d tried the door of the building and it gave with just a little force. Inside was nothing but empty rooms and rats. Perfect for his needs. He took out his cell phone and dialed a number.

  “Maurice,” he hissed, “you know who this is. Come outside. I got a message for you from Nat X. Come alone.”

  It took several minutes for the teen to come out the door and slowly walk down the steps. He looked nervously both ways.

  Big George whistled to draw Maurice’s attention and then stepped farther back into the shadows of the doorway. The teen crossed the street and approached him.

  “What’s up?” Maurice asked, trying to sound less nervous than he obviously felt.

  “Time’s up,” the giant replied. “For you, your grandma, and brother, too.”

  Maurice turned to run, but Big George was faster than he looked and was on him in a flash. His massive arm went around the boy’s neck as he pulled him into the building. He’d kill him there and then go across the street to deal with the other two. The stranglehold had the desired effect, and Maurice slumped to the ground, unconscious.

  Big George was about to finish him off just like Ny-Lee when he became aware of a horrendous odor, and a snuffling, shuffling sound behind him. He whirled and found himself facing what looked like an enormous bear in human clothing standing next to a much smaller man. “Who the fuck are you?” he snarled.

  “Well . . . shithead bastard whoop whoop“my name’s Warren, Dirty Warren to my friends, which you definitely are not,” said the smaller man. “And this here . . . oh boy oh boy . . . is Booger. Oh, and by the way, fuck you, too.”

  “ ’eah, ’uck you,” the bear-man said.

  “Goddamn, he smells bad,” Big George complained. “Get out of here and forget you ever saw anything, or I’ll kill both of you.”

  “I’m afraid we can’t do that and . . . whoop nuts balls . . . I’m afraid you won’t be going anywhere, either,” Dirty Warren said. “You see, we were just making sure you didn’t hurt the boy until . . . oh boy oh boy son of a bitch . . . someone else got here.”

  “You got a worse mouth than me, motherfucker,” Big George said. “But it won’t make no difference—two of you, three—’cause I got my little friend here.” With that, he pulled a gun from his waistband.

  Booger, or the Walking Booger, as he was called, started to come at him, but Warren put a hand on his arm. “Wait, Booger, he wants this one himself . . . whoop.”

  Despite the gun in his hand, Big George felt a chill run up his spine. “Who you talkin’ about, fool,” he snarled. But the chill didn’t dissipate; instead it seemed to grow and was punctuated by a voice, cold and dispassionate, behind him.

  “Me,” was all it said.

  Without knowing why, terror gripped Big George’s heart as he turned to meet the threat. He was surprised that the voice’s owner was so close. He found himself looking into the pale and haggard face of a man whose sunken eyes burned with madness. “Repent,” the apparition whispered.

  “What the fu—” Big George gasped as something pierced his enormous stomach and sliced up into his rib cage, then down, where it cut first left, then right. He tried to raise his gun, but the odiferous monster behin
d him held his arm in a grip so tight he couldn’t move.

  The apparition stepped back, watching Big George whimper as he felt his intestines slide out of his body just before he fell to the ground.

  “Good evening . . . oh boy ohhhhh boy“David,” Dirty Warren said to the apparition, who had bent over his prey to wipe the blood off the blade of his long knife. “Glad you showed up . . . asswipe bitch . . . though I’m sure Booger could have handled him.”

  “I’m sure of it, too,” David Grale replied. “But better that this demon’s blood is on my hands. Now I would guess that the danger has passed and we may all retire for the night.”

  “Good . . . whoop whoop . . . I was getting hungry,” Warren said.

  “ ’ooger ’ungry, too.”

  “Then enjoy your dinners, my friends,” Grale said just as a groan escaped from the teenager lying on the ground. “I suggest we leave quickly.”

  When Maurice Greene woke up, he felt something warm and wet and sticky on his face and hands. He sat up, and in the half-light of a streetlamp outside, saw the prone body of Big George. Then he noticed that he was sitting in a pool of the dead man’s blood.

  That’s when he started screaming.

  10

  CLAY FULTON REACHED INSIDE HIS jacket and felt for the security of his holstered 9 mm as he waited at the bottom of a flight of stairs leading to the sixth floor. Not that he thought he was going to need it. Lined up on the stairs above him and on the landing outside an apartment rented, according to the building’s superintendent-landlord, to one Ny-Lee Tomes, eight heavily armed members of an NYPD Emergency Services Unit prepared to execute a no-knock warrant.

  Earlier that morning, as he’d briefed the unit, Fulton impressed upon them the importance of taking the occupants of the apartment alive, if any were present. “I don’t want any officer to hesitate if it means protecting himself or a fellow officer,” he’d said. “But there’s a lot at stake and we need defendants, not bodies.”

  There was no need to elaborate. Every officer knew that with the city on a razor’s edge because of the shootings of Tony Cippio and Ricky Watts, the last thing Gotham’s nervous citizenry needed was another riot. Some were just looking for an excuse; to them, Nat X was a hero. It didn’t help that his take on black liberation theology to justify a war on police, along with Reverend Mufti’s passive-aggressive rhetoric rationalizing his actions, had been picked up in the media’s narrative. Just the night before, Nat X had made another appearance on Peter Vansand’s television program, in which he’d predicted his own death at the hands of the police. “They will not take me alive,” the man in the mask had warned. “Even if I tried to surrender, I wouldn’t live long enough to see a trial.”