In another life, he would have been working on Madison Avenue. It’s funny how fast hard-eyed dealers loosen up if they know and trust you. It’s tempting to believe that dealers have no side except the one they display on the street, but many of them have families and, one and all, they want to get off the street.
I did the line, paid the man, and left. Now that I’d secured my little package of hospitality, I had a lot more freedom to roam. I crossed Houston Street and strolled up Avenue C. I was amazed by the number of newly rehabilitated tenements. And the number of well-dressed whites on the street. The bars were different, too. They weren’t bars anymore; they were taverns, complete with neon artwork and Continental menus.
But the Yuppies hadn’t driven out the junkies or the players. As I walked my way through the afternoon, I kept running into people I knew well enough to spend a minute bullshitting with.
“Hey, Pete, where you been? On vacation?”
“Yeah, baby, I won me an all-expense paid, deluxe, five-star vacation in beautiful upstate New York.”
Some I knew well enough to offer a line of coke, but none of them was exactly right for what I had in mind. Still, I tested them, hinting that I was hot, that the man was looking for me. I wanted them to pry, to push me for details, but I didn’t get my wish. They weren’t rats looking for a salable piece of information.
I was having a beer at the Life Cafe, across from Tompkins Square Park, when I got my first break. It came in the form of a high-pitched greeting.
“Petey-Sweetie!”
If the voice was vaguely familiar, the face was instantly recognizable. Choo-Choo Ramirez had come to the Institution cursed with the triple whammy of being Dominican, gay, and the size of an undernourished jockey. His only hope of survival was to latch on to some stud and (for reasons beyond my understanding) he initially chose me. I had less than no interest in the homosexual scene at Cortlandt and I discouraged him, gently at first, then with curses and the back of my hand. Eventually he got the point and turned to one of the wolves who prey on feminine homosexuals, but his affection for me remained undiminished. Whenever we ran across each other, he tossed me sorrowful looks that drove his lover crazy.
“Petey-Sweetie, wha’chu doon in my world?”
Choo-Choo wasn’t in full drag, but he wasn’t exactly subdued, either. He was wearing a flaming red silk shirt and pair of incredibly tight, blood-red trousers. My first instinct was to tell him to fuck off, but something about the phrase “my world” caught my attention.
“You want a beer, Choo-Choo?”
“A beer? Do I look like a construction worker?” He patted his hair, then turned an exasperated face to the waiter. “A Chardonnay, Roger. When you got a moment to spare.” He took the chair across from me. “Is so nice to see you, Petey.”
“Look, Choo-Choo, you wanna sit, it’s all right. You wanna play this ‘Petey-Sweetie,’ you’re gonna find my foot in your ass.”
“Promises, promises. Tha’s all I get.”
The rules thus established, we set out to do the town. Or at least the small part of it called the Lower East Side. Choo-Choo knew everybody and, fueled by cocaine, insisted on introducing me. Wherever we went, I let the same story out. I was just out of the joint, back in business, and looking for a place to lay low for a few days. My problem wasn’t serious. Two detectives, working out of Midtown South, had a hard-on for me. If they caught up with me before their attention turned to more pressing matters, they’d violate me and I’d have to spend thirty days in Rikers waiting for a parole board hearing.
Choo-Choo, as soon as he heard my sad story, offered me his own place.
“Is only one room, but we be comfy-comfy.”
I politely declined and he didn’t pursue it. Nobody else went for the bait. Not until we got to a small bar on Avenue B and 6th Street called Downtown Sarajevo. It was a trendy bar, in its own way. The walls, of splintered plywood, were painted a dead, flat black and decorated with instruments of torture—yokes, whips, thumbscrews, electric wires, and batteries. The centerpiece was a rack, complete with block and tackle.
Most of the patrons were leather-jacketed punks, but a few bone-thin anarchists seasoned the stew. They were very impressed with my being an actual real-life ex-convict. I suppose they wanted to be tough, but they seemed more like a gang of middle-class kids at a costume party. Still, they had enough street smarts not to offer me a place to lay up. They nodded sympathetically, drank a beer, did a line, then moved on.
I was about to give up on Downtown Sarajevo when a tall, fat kid entered the bar and came directly to our table. He was wearing the proper uniform-black leather jacket, stiff crew cut, studded bracelet, and motorcycle boots—but he lacked the youthful innocence of the other patrons.
“What’s happenin’, Choo-Choo?” he asked before turning directly to me. “My name’s Jocko.”
“Wha’ you wan’ here, Jocko? This ain’ no place for you.” Choo-Choo tossed me a warning with his eyes.
Jocko shook his head, jerking his thumb in Choo-Choo’s direction. “Ever since I told her that she couldn’t suck my cock, she’s got a fuckin’ attitude.”
“Pete,” Choo-Choo cried, “don’ let him talk to me like tha’.”
“You wanna sit at this table,” I said evenly, “you respect everyone else sitting here. This is not a difficult concept, even for a slimeball like you.”
If he was legit, he would either have walked away or gotten in my face. But, of course, if he was legit, he wouldn’t have insulted Choo-Choo in the first place.
“Hey, take it easy, man,” he said, rubbing his wrist across his mouth. “I’m just havin’ a little fun.” He had large, fleshy lips, a short snout of a nose, and piggy black eyes. If I’d been a casting director making a movie, I would have chosen him to play the role of informant without hesitation. “Anyways, I heard about how you got a problem and I think I could help.”
I leaned forward, thankful that at least I didn’t look like a rat. “Keep talkin’.”
“He said you were feelin’ some heat. And, like, you needed a place to chill out.”
“Who?”
“A street kid. Name of Marty. Said he ran into you and Choo-Choo in the Cafe. I figured I could help.”
I was tempted to keep pushing his buttons, to see just how much abuse he’d take before he reacted, but I couldn’t afford to indulge my curiosity. “Let’s go outside. Too many ears in here. Choo-Choo, it’s been great.”
It was almost ten o’clock and much cooler. My jacket had been driving me crazy all day. I couldn’t take it off, despite the heat, because I had the PPK tucked into my belt. Now I was grateful for it.
I took young Jocko into a doorway and put several lines up his nose by way of getting started.
“What’d your friend tell you about me?” I tried to put a little desperation into my voice. Just enough to let him know that I needed him, despite the fact that I didn’t like or trust him.
“He said you had a beef with some cops. You’re lookin’ for a place to stay.”
I took my time answering. “You ever do time, Jocko?”
He grinned, driving his fat upper lip into his nose. His front teeth were yellow. “Not hard time. No. I spent a few nights at Rikers on a piece of shit reefer bust, but I never been upstate.”
“What happened with the bust? You beat it?”
“I got probation.”
I knew that he expected me to question him about what he’d done to get probation, but I turned the conversation in a different direction, offering him the exalted status of comrade when he expected to be called a rat.
“Then you could understand my problem,” I declared. “I’m on parole, so even if I’m popped for bullshit, I’m gonna have to spend a month in Rikers before I get a hearing with the board. Meanwhile, I got these two pigs from Midtown South climbing up my ass, the same two pigs who got me sent away. I need a place to lay quiet for a couple of days. I’m tryin’ to make contact with a friend of mine on
the coast. As soon as that comes through, my ass is in the wind.”
“Why don’t you got to a hotel?”
“I thought you knew what was happening?” I eyed him suspiciously. “I don’t have no luggage. I’m wearing blue jeans and a cheap jacket. Where am I gonna go, the fuckin’ Plaza? And forget about a flophouse. There’s more snitches in those shitty hotels than there are whores. Hey, I hope I’m not wasting my time here.”
“No, man, it’s cool. I just, like, spoke out without thinking. Whatever reasons you got are your own.” He dropped his eyes. “But I, uhhhh … I gotta get somethin’ for it.”
“How much?”
“Two bills.”
“No problem, Jocko. If it’s right.” He started to describe the wonders of my new home, but I cut him short. “Just tell me where it is.”
“A couple of blocks from here. On 6th Street.”
“Let’s go.”
The building he took me to was sealed up. Sheet metal covered the doors and the lower windows. I’d known a lot of places like this and they were always filled with drugs, with shooting galleries and crack dens, junkies and dealers.
“This is bullshit,” I said. “I need someplace quiet and you’re takin’ me to dope fuckin’ heaven.”
“No, it’s not like that.” He looked at me closely. “You must’ve been away for a long time. What you’re lookin’ at here ain’t a dope house. It’s a squat.”
THIRTY-SEVEN
“A SQUAT IS WHAT you do when you gotta take a shit in the woods.” Between the coke and the general situation, I’d reached a point where I no longer cared for (or was able to deal with) bullshit. “If you dragged me over here for nothing …”
“Take it easy, man.” He wasn’t so blind as to misinterpret the look in my eye. “Squats are, like, for squatters. They’re condemned buildings. Nobody’s supposed to live here.”
“Except for dopers and coke junkies,” I insisted. “If you wanna call what they do living.”
“No, it’s not like that, man. I mean, yeah, sometimes it’s like that. But sometimes people move into these buildings just because they need a place to live. They fix ’em up, then try to get the city to turn the property over.”
I thought about it for a minute. I had been away for a long time. “Does it work? Does the city just give the property away?”
“Sometimes yes and sometimes no. It depends on the real estate developers. If they want the building, the city kicks the squatters out. Man, there were riots over this shit last year. You didn’t hear about it?”
“I must’ve been preoccupied. Let’s go inside and take a look.”
He led me down a narrow alleyway to the rear of the building. The door was a hole in the back wall. I took one look and drew my piece.
“You first, pal.”
“Wait a—”
“Forget about it. You’re not backin’ out.” I’d like to say that I was giving him another excuse to hate my guts, to rat on me without feeling guilty, but the truth was that walking into a dark, abandoned building on the Lower East Side of Manhattan scared the crap out of me. For all I knew, this asshole was setting me up to get ripped off. He had enough reason. I’d been flashing money and coke all night long.
His whole face began to quiver. I thought he was going to cry. “Please, Pete, I’m playin’ straight with you. I’m tryin’ to help you out.”
“Then you won’t have any problem. Let’s go.”
I was expecting a typical abandoned building—busted-up furniture, ripped-out plumbing, fallen plaster covering the floor—but the building was clean. Pieces of the ceiling had fallen down. Parts of the floor had been torn up, too. But someone had carted the rubble away and swept the floors. There were lights in the hallway, though I hadn’t been able to see them from outside, twenty-five-watt bulbs that cast just enough light to reveal patches of newly applied plaster.
I followed Jocko up to the top floor, noting that half the doors we passed had people living behind them and that everything seemed to be exactly as he’d described it, although the building became more and more decrepit as we climbed the stairs.
“I got the whole floor,” Jocko announced, “but, like, it ain’t real fixed up yet. I’m just gettin’ started.”
He surprised me by pulling out a set of keys and unlocking the door. I’d never been in an abandoned building with a working lock. I let him walk in ahead of me, then followed, trying to penetrate the deep shadows.
“I’m still working on the electricity.” He thumbed a cigarette lighter and began to light candles. “I’ll have it going in a couple of weeks.”
The room had been swept, I’ll give it that, but it was a long way from looking like home. A few pieces of ancient, dusty furniture, a mattress on the floor, an electric coffeemaker, and that was it. The bare windows were a uniform dirty brown and parts of the ceiling seemed about to fall away at any moment. It was perfect.
“Lemme show ya this.” He crossed the room and pulled a sagging armchair away from the wall to reveal a small hole. “You can use this to get out in a hurry.” He tossed me a wink.
The hole was maybe three foot square and I had to kneel to get through. I was much closer to trusting Jocko, but I kept him in sight as I crawled into the adjoining apartment. When I got up, my knees and elbows were covered with dust.
“I haven’t started in here yet.” He swept his hand across the room, then wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “But take a look at this. You can get to the roof and the fire escape from here. If, like, someone you don’t wanna meet up with is comin’ through the front door.” He managed a weak smile. “So whatta ya think? Is it all right?”
“It’ll be okay for a couple of days, which is all I need.”
I took him back into the first apartment, laid out several thick lines of cocaine, watched while he snorted them up, then poured out several more. When I had his head where I wanted it, I started to talk. I told him about getting out of prison and how these two cops, Condon and Rico, met me as I got off the bus. How they told me they were going to have me violated, get me sent back to Cortlandt for another five years. How they were preventing me from doing what I had to do.
“It’s bad luck, ya know? I was away for a long time. They should’ve retired or been transferred to another precinct, but there they were, waiting for me when I got off the fuckin’ bus. Where’s the justice in that?”
Actually, I had several plans in mind. Or, more exactly, one plan with several methods of execution. The easiest, by far, involved my good pal Jocko making a phone call to Midtown South, locating Condon and Rico, then selling my ass for whatever he could get.
But there was always the possibility that Jocko would be satisfied with the two hundred, so I intended to phone Condon and make sure he knew where to start looking. I wanted him to come down to the Lower East Side armed with a mug shot, ferret out his own snitches, beg for the use of his brother officers’ snitches, canvass the area for however long it took to find me. When I was finished, he’d have no choice in the matter. But there was still a chance that Jocko wouldn’t make the call and Condon wouldn’t be able to pick up the well-marked trail I’d left for him. In that case, I was going to put the barrel of my 9mm against Jocko’s head and guarantee that Condon got the message from the horse’s mouth.
Jocko listened to every word I said. Stoned as he was, he would have listened to a Haitian translate a Japanese phone book into Creole. When I told him we were finished and that he should take off, he seemed positively crushed.
“I don’t have any other place to stay.”
“Try the subway. And give me the keys. I’ll leave the door open when I split.”
One more reason for him to hate me. One more excuse to sell me out. Just in case he needed an excuse.
After he left, I waited fifteen minutes, then went down the fire escape. I found a bodega and bought ten cans of tuna fish, a can opener, a dozen small candles, and four liters of Diet Coke. With no way to know how long this thin
g would drag out, I’d need some kind of nourishment and plenty of caffeine. Then I walked up the street to a pay phone and picked up the receiver.
Somewhere in the midst of my wanderings I’d remembered that the system I’d been warned about in Cortlandt was named Caller I.D. Condon would have the number of the pay phone before he took the call. The cops have a book that let’s them go from a phone number to a name and address. In this case the name would be New York Telephone and the address would be the northeast corner of 7th Street and Avenue D, a block from where I was holed up.
I listened for the dial tone, dropped in my quarter, punched in Condon’s precinct number, and was rewarded with a second dial tone. I did it three times before I gave up and walked to the next pay phone, a block away. This time I didn’t have to bother with the details because the phone had been torn off its support.
My brain formed the constructive phrase “dick, shit, fuck, piss.” I took it as evidence of a growing maturity and walked back the other way, to Avenue D and 5th Street. The phone on that corner was intact, a good sign, no doubt. I punched in Condon’s precinct number and heard it ring on the other end.
“Brelinski.”
“Who?”
“Brelinski.”
“I’m callin’ Officer Condon.”
“Detective Condon.”
“Yeah, Detective Condon.”
“He’s in the toilet.”
“You know when he’s coming back?”
“What am I, the towel boy?”
“What you are is the odds-on favorite for the cops’ ballbuster of the year award.”
He laughed appreciatively. “Hold ya water, mutt, he’ll be here in a minute.”
“Whatta ya mean by ‘mutt.’ You got radar?”
“You’re callin on the mutt phone. We got one phone for humans and one for mutts. You’re on the mutt phone.”
Keeplock: A Novel of Crime Page 28