Admission of Guilt (The detroit im dyin Trilogy, Book 2) (The Detroit Im Dying Trilogy)

by T. V. LoCicero

  “You know what.”

  “Still, can’t you guys put some fear into these kids? I mean they’re doin’ it right out there on Fort. Broad daylight.”

  “They’re doin’ it right out there in lots of places. And they just don’t worry about us. We’re spread so damn thin, for one thing. And they know us. We bust ‘em once, and they know us.”

  “What about this big crack down the mayor talked about, all these new cops added to narcotics? I thought you guys were sweeping all these corners, hitting all these crack houses, eight a night or something like that.”

  “Yeah, so we’re doin’ that, all it amounts to is a little harassment. On the corners, if we do catch ‘em when they run, mostly all we do is give ‘em BFD tickets.”

  “What’s that?”

  “That’s what the kids call ‘em, ‘Big Fuckin’ Deal.’ They’re loitering tickets. And with the houses, half the ones we hit are dry cause we’re movin’ so fast we can’t get good intel. And all these new guys don’t help much cause they don’t know what they’re doin’ and half their cases get tossed anyway. Even when we do put the fuckers away, it doesn’t matter much. There’s so much money, six kids are waitin’ in line for every new spot that opens up.”

  “So what can we do?”

  “Not much. Not now when every little kid on the block grows up wanting to be the dope man and knows exactly how to do it. Maybe if we’d done this ten years ago, after we took Young Boys down, we mighta had a chance. When all this crack started pourin’ in, with all these new asshole groups who learned how to do it from Y.B.I. Everybody learned from Y.B.I. They were the fuckin’ model. But our illustrious mayor didn’t want to do it then, cause he didn’t want to call it an emergency that would make the city look bad. As if the fuckin’ image coulda been much worse. So he lets it go completely outta hand, and now his own niece is all cracked up and hitched to one of the biggest rollers in town. The feds finally got him for offin’ somebody, the dumb shit, but his outfit’s still going strong. Yeah, it’s frustrating as hell. Like sticking your finger in a leaky dike.”

  “What about the kids? Can’t Juvenile Court do something?”

  “Oh, Jesus, Juvenile’s a joke, afraid to tap these little fuckers on the wrist, afraid they’re gonna scar their little psyches.”

  “They are kids, George.”

  “Kids, my ass! You should see ‘em, blowin’ each other away on the street, like it was nothin’. No emotion whatsoever. Cold as ice. Anyway, the big guys, the importers are the whole game, and we never get close to ‘em. They’re too insulated. They only deal with people they know. And they don’t ever use the phone.”

  “Like who? Who’s one of the big guys?”

  “Oh, Christ, there’s so much of this shit comin’ in. Just talkin’ coke, the feds say two and a half tons the past year. You know how much two and a half tons is? They say that’s a ‘conservative estimate.’ And with a glut on the market the cost is way down. Maybe fifteen or twenty grand a key wholesale. So all kinda jerks are bringin’ it. Black assholes running their own rings here, makin’ their own scores in Miami or right down in Bogata. Straight-lookin’ types in the burbs, doctors, lawyers, business guys just underwriting deals, like bankers. Big time guys fly it up here in their own plane, smaller guys drive it up in a rent-a-wreck. One guy we busted awhile back had it mailed to him by UPS.

  “There’s big time athletes and boxers doin’ it. There’s Jamaicans with their posses. And there’s the old Mafia guys still doin’ it. Too much money for them not to. I remember we did this posh high rise condo with the feds. Belonged to one of the top black assholes. He wasn’t there, but we found like eight hundred thou in fives, tens and twenties in a garbage bag. And so the feds tap him again, and they hear him saying to somebody he’s not worried about us, he’s worried about the dagos. So you know.”

  John was sitting forward, listening intently. This stuff about the Mafia had him even more interested. “You know the names of any of these Italian guys?”

  George leaned back and gazed at the naked redhead on stage. “Oh, like Monelli. Steven ‘The Bank’ Monelli.”

  “The Bank?”

  “Yeah, the way he dresses, the way he lives, in this mansion in Grosse Pointe Park, he looks like a banker. Has a number of supposedly legit things goin’. But his father is old Cigar Mike Monelli, one of the old mob guys, and they been importing smack from the labs in Sicily for years. Then we heard they got some connection in Colombia.”

  “So if you know all this, why can’t you get him?”

  “It’s like I said, he stays insulated. Never gets near the stuff, and neither will his top people. He’s always careful what he says on the phone, and it’s pretty much impossible to hook him up with anything. We know what he’s doin’, we got nothin’ll stand up in court.”

  John shook his head and said nothing for a few seconds, staring at old scratches in the tabletop. George continued to gaze at the redhead. Finally, John looked up.

  “You think I could come along with you guys sometime on a raid or something? I’d like to see how you work.”

  George turned his tired brown eyes on John. “Why the fuck would you wanna do that?”

  “I told you, this shitty business is eating up my kids, my students. I’d like to see it from the inside, maybe write something about it.” He was thinking about what the TV guy DeFauw had said about a documentary but thought he shouldn’t mention that yet.

  George shrugged. “Yeah, maybe if I tell the super you’re doing some kinda magazine piece or something. He likes that kind of thing.”

  “Sure. Exactly what I was thinking.”

  “Well, let me ask him about it and get back to you. But you take all this way too serious, John Boy. What you need to do is get into old Sally there.” He nodded toward the dancer standing now in a new yellow costume talking with a customer at a nearby table. “Take her up north and spend a week screwing your brains out.”

  John glanced at Sally. “You’re probably right, but in the meantime I got school to teach in the morning.”

  Getting to his feet, he extended his hand to the sergeant who gave it a pump. “Take care, John, and cool out a little.”

  “Yeah, you’re right. I’ll see ya.”

  Heading for the front door, he passed the stage, and a black dancer who had just started her routine with a back flip called to him over J. Giels doing Hard Drivin’ Man. “Hey, Johnny Gumba, where you goin’, honey? You haven’t even seen my yum-yums.”

  Laughs and snickers as he called back, “I know they’re lovely, Doris. I’ll be back.”

  “Okay, baby, don’t trip on your sword.”

  More laughs as John left the Oldies Paradise, thinking somehow of “Father Mountie.”

  Maybe the hint of derision in that laughter reminded him of the way other boys at U. of D. had talked about Fr. Paul Montgomery as a kind of “Dudley Do-Right” type. The young priest had burned with a social zeal he was always trying to pass on to his charges, touting the “inestimable value of a life devoted to others,” Christ’s call to serve the less fortunate, and the almost sacred role of the teacher who could literally change, even save the lives of his students.

  Father Paul had taken a special interest in him as a freshman, recognizing his writing skills and quickly assigning him to the school newspaper and the yearbook. And with his father’s death during John’s freshman year and his mother’s re-marriage two years later to a man he could not abide, the priest’s influence on him had been powerful.

  The way those intense brown eyes would bore into him was inspiring, almost thrilling, and in his junior year when Father Paul began talking about a possible call to the priesthood, John had seriously considered it. Finally, one afternoon as they walked a hall together, he had said, “Father, I think I like girls too much.” Even he thought that was a bit odd to say, since he had never even touched one at that point. But the priest had simply clapped him on the back and said, “Well, John, you’re going to mak
e some girl very lucky.”

  On the way home that day on the bus, his fantasy had included a scene in which he proudly presided over a classroom full of underprivileged kids.

  Chapter 16

  “Hey, Mr. G, watch this one. Tell us what you think.”

  “Yeah, give us your critique!”

  With classes over for the day at Lincoln, a group of six girls in rag-tag, handed-down cheerleader outfits, were practicing in the parking lot as John left the building. Shifting his old brief case jammed with themes to correct, he smiled and stopped to watch. “Okay, lay it on me.”

  The girls started their cheer, an elaborate, high-energy, syncopated number with much hand-clapping, jitterbugging and some of the same sexy moves, he noticed, that were standard fare with his topless dancer friends. As he watched, Sara Whitaker, from the principal’s office, joined him. When the girls finished, they both offered enthusiastic applause.

  “Fantastic, ladies. You’re terrific!”

  “Thanks, Mr. G,” said one of the girls, nearly out of breath. “We practicin’ already for high school.”

  “Hey, you’ll knock ‘em dead.”

  As the girls ran off, squealing with excitement, Sara gave John a warm smile, and they began walking together toward their cars in the parking lot. “How you doin’, John?”

  As usual shy and awkward, John avoided her bright hazel eyes. “Not bad. How about you? How’s things in the office?”

  “Okay, I guess. Dr. Carter’s really concerned about all this talk about layoffs. She thinks with all the pressure on the superintendent and the board to deal with this $60 million deficit they keep talking about, there really are going to be layoffs. She thinks the superintendent is really going to have to do something dramatic. You know, with lots of teachers laid off and half days and all the rest.”

  “What they really need to do is get rid of all those fat-cat, do-nothing administrators downtown. They’d save a bundle.”

  “Yeah, but Dr. Carter thinks they’re serious about cutting teachers this time.”

  “Well, I just can’t believe people would stand for that. I can’t believe with everything in the papers and on TV that people in this city don’t understand that we’re on the verge of losing a whole generation of kids.”

  “Well, I hope you’re right. Listen, how about coming over for dinner tonight? I make a great carbonara sauce.”

  They stopped in front of Sara’s car. John stared at his shoes. “That sounds nice, but I can’t, though. I promised one of the kids I’d take him to the Palace tonight for the play-off game.”

  “Oh, that’s too bad.” Sara sounded not surprised but still disappointed. “I mean, it’s nice for him, but...maybe another time.”

  “Sure. Well, see ya.”

  John moved to the Camaro wondering why it had taken him so long to see that Sara Whitaker was interested in him.

  From his first days at Lincoln three years ago he had noticed the girl’s good looks. He liked those light-colored eyes with their soft, firm gaze, even though he could barely look at them for more than a second or two. And he liked the way she moved with a kind of nonchalant grace that seemed to say she was perfectly at home in her body.

  But for those first two years she and the science teacher Ray Willowby were clearly an item. And when Ray was transferred to another school, John had not heard until recently about their split.

  Whenever he thought about his awkward shyness with women, he always blamed “the humiliation” in his last year at Notre Dame. It was the night he had lost his virginity to Mauve, the South Bend “townie” who had come on to him so hard in a record store that he had thought maybe she was a pro looking for a trick. Back at her apartment she had turned him on so fast that he had lost it before she could even put the damn thing in. Actually she had been okay about it, but he had definitely not been okay.

  Of course, the gals at the Paradise were the exception. His first time at the bar, with Sally up there doing her naked best for all those gaping guys, he had felt sick to his stomach and nearly left. But when he came back a second time, he had felt much better, calm almost and, and most importaly, in control. He had liked that feeling and the idea that he could walk into or out of these intimate moments with these sexy, smiling women any time he liked. Quite simply it made him happy to watch them dance naked for him in this safe, no-touch place. And when he got to know some of the girls, sitting there talking about everything from dirty city politics to problem parents, he usually found them to be sweet and nice to him in a completely unthreatening way.

  It was almost enough to convince him he didn’t have a problem with women.

  Chapter 17

  At the Palace of Auburn Hills, deep in the northern suburbs, 14 seconds from the end of this NBA playoff game’s frenzied first half, an absurdly tall, amazingly lithe, teenaged multi-millionaire, who two years ago to the day had been wearing a high school graduation gown that reached only six inches below his knees, dribbled the ball off one of those knees and watched with stunned mortification as the coveted sphere skittered out of bounds.

  “Shoulda stayed in school!” barked John to young Mark Simpson in the nose-bleed seats he had saved for weeks to purchase. He got to his feet and said, “Com’on, I’ll buy you a pop.”

  “Oh, man, it ain’t over.”

  “It’s not over. You can watch while we beat the crowd. Com’on.”

  Reluctantly, with frequent glances at the action from the steep steps they were descending, Mark followed John. In the circular cement hallway behind the stands they moved to a counter with only two customers ahead of them.

  “He’s not flashy,” John was saying, “but he does the little things that help you win. Boxes out, keeps his man off the boards, gets lots of rebounds. He plays good, tough defense, like you just saw, and he sets great picks. You gotta have someone like that if you’re consistently gonna win.”

  “But you gotta have a superstar shooter too,” said Mark.

  At the counter, John told the girl, “Two large Cokes” and turned back to Mark. “Well, maybe so, but what I’m saying is that everybody’s gotta fill their role if you’re gonna have a winning ball club.”

  “That’ll be five dollars,” said the counter girl.

  “Five bucks! For two Cokes? Un-be-lievable!” But John reached into his pocket for a thin wad, peeled off five bills and dropped them on the counter. With the Cokes he and Mark moved through the surging crowd of fans and almost immediately encountered Eric Garner and Jimmy Long.

  “Yo,” cried Eric, “look who it is!”

  “Mr. G and the Simp.” Jimmy offered his sly smile.

  “Guys!” said John, shocked to see them. “What’s up?” The four moved off to the side, out of the crowd’s heavy flow and favored each other with various mock-elaborate handshakes, high fives and hip bumps to celebrate this unexpected meeting.

  “How about that Michael?” asked John.

  “Yeah,” said Eric, “they gonna shut him down now.”

  John playfully cuffed Eric’s head. “I hope you’re right. So who’d you come with? You got family here?”

  Eric shook his head. “Naw, we come with Andre. Sittin’ in a private box with one of them windows on it.”

  “Who’s Andre?”

  “Dude we work for,” said Jimmy. “Take us here, concerts, lotta stuff. We sell the most, we get the perks.”

  “Man,” said Eric, “you gotta check out the ride we got tonight. Big white-ass limo.”

  “Stretch Caddy,” added Jimmy.

  “Yeah, stretch, with TV, CD, bar with every kinda drink.”

  “And some bad bar girl. Andre say we go to the club later.”

  “What club?” asked John.

  “Our club,” said Eric. “Private club. Got pool tables, foosball, video games, booze, weed, women, anything you want, man.”

  Jimmy called over John’s shoulder, “Hey, Andre, over here, man.”

  John turned to find a slim young black man, abou
t his own age and dressed in black leather, nodding at them and taking leave of another black fellow dripping in gold.

  Andre headed for Eric and Jimmy. “Where you dudes been?”

  “Right here,” said Eric, “hangin’ with the Simp and Mr. G.”

  Andre paid attention first to the boy. “Hey, Mark, what’s happenin’? You lookin’ good.” They did the ritual handgrab and hug. Mark smiled and looked embarrassed.

  Finally, Andre turned to John. “Mr. G.?”

  “Hi, John Giordano.” He extended an uncertain hand, and Andre took it briefly with a mock limp wrist.

  “Andre Phelps, man. How you doin’?”

  “I’m doin’ fine.”

  “Well, good for you, man.” Mockery, scorn and sarcasm dripped from Andre’s sidelong smile at the boys.

  John told himself to stand up to this leather-clad local hero as Eric tried to shift the focus. “Hey, Andre, when we goin’ to Vegas?”

  “Soon, man, soon. I got some things to take care of and then we gonna hit old Caesar’s Palace. You comin’ with us, Mark?”

  Mark stared at the floor. “Maybe.”

  “Maybe,” repeated Andre. “That’s a real strong answer, Mark, real strong.”

  Mark said nothing, and John answered for him. “Maybe he doesn’t figure a measly trip to Vegas is worth getting his head bashed in with a bat.”

  Andre stared hard at John. “My boys don’t get they heads bashed. We the ones do the bashin’.”

  John looked away, knowing this meant he was backing down. Still, he tried to salvage the moment. “You don’t say.”

  Andre only came on stronger. “I do say, man. For a teacher, man, you don’t know shit.”

  John said nothing and shook his head, hoping for disgust beyond words.

  Andre stepped up closer, leaning down a bit to look him in the eye and talk into his face from inches away. “You don’t agree? You think you know somethin’ I don’t?”