Sons of the City

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Sons of the City Page 6

by Scott Flander


  Bravelli half laughed. “You still haven’t found the moolie that whacked your cop, have you?”

  “I would strongly suggest you shut the fuck up about that.”

  “I heard you’re gettin’ a little help.”

  “Help from who?”

  He gave a little asshole smirk. “Like I said, you can’t do your job, somebody’s gonna do it for you.”

  That was enough. I shoved Bravelli hard against the trunk, and when he bounced back up, I slammed my fist into his face. It felt great. He kept his balance, but looked at me with astonished eyes and tried to speak.

  “What the fuuu—”

  “I told you to shut the fuck up about that, didn’t I?”

  The doors of the Seville popped open, and Goop and Canaletto jumped out, their faces contorted in anger. They quickly got between me and Bravelli, protecting him.

  “Police brutality!” someone in the crowd called out.

  The corner boys were moving closer. “That fuckin’ cop is beatin’ Mr. Bravelli,” one of them yelled.

  I pushed Canaletto to one side and sent my fist toward Bravelli’s face again, but Goop batted up my arm and then pushed me back into the corner boys. They were right behind me, I didn’t realize they were so close.

  “Fuckin’ cop needs a lesson,” I heard a voice say, and then someone shoved at my back, almost sending me sprawling onto the street. I turned to face my four attackers. They all had mean, fearless looks, it didn’t matter to them a bit that I had a badge. They were probably some of the ones who had been beating up the blacks.

  I glanced back at Goop and Canaletto, they were ready to join in. Not including Bravelli, that made it six against one. I reached on my belt for my nightstick, but only came up with empty air. I had left the stick in the car.

  “Now you’re gonna take a beatin',” said one of the corner boys, a big ugly son of a bitch.

  I wasn’t too proud to call for help. I keyed my mike. “This is 20-C-Charlie, I need an assist, 8-0 and Locust.”

  No response.

  “Radio, this is 20-C-Charlie. Gimme an assist, 8-0 and Locust.”

  Still no response. Fucking piece-of-shit radios.

  “No one to help you this time,” said Goop. “That’s too bad.”

  I keyed my radio again, but the big guy yelled, “Get him, quick.”

  He was repulsive, he looked like a fucking hippopotamus. He lurched toward me and swung at my chin. I leaned back and a giant fist went harmlessly by, but at the same moment I felt a punch in my lower back, near my left kidney. The big one again threw his fist at my face, but he was slow and I grabbed his arm in mid-punch, stepped forward, and slammed his massive jaw. An instant later I was hit in the lower back, harder than before, and someone slammed the side of my head, and I was down on the ground, and the giant motherfucker got on top of me and started flailing my face with his fists, getting his revenge. Between the flashes of white light that came with each punch, I could see a wicked smile of dirty, broken teeth. All I could think of was, this asshole needs a good dentist.

  Then there was a “thwack!"—like someone hitting a tree with a baseball bat—and the guy’s jaw went slack. I saw Buster standing over him, raising his nightstick, but the asshole wasn’t giving up, he was pulling back his fist to give me a final shot with all his might. I watched as Buster’s stick cut down through the air, it seemed in slow motion, a foot from the guy’s head, then a half a foot, then an inch, then it hit, and the stick shot back into the air like it had bounced off a rubber ball. The guy just closed his eyes and it was like a mountain falling off of me.

  I couldn’t get up at first. My head hurt, face hurt, my back hurt, I didn’t feel so good. Buster was standing there protecting me, and Donna was trying to help me to my feet. I could see the other corner boys racing away in all directions, and the crowd was moving back.

  “Where’d you come from?” I said to Donna.

  “Civilian called in an assist,” she said. “We were right around the corner. You want Rescue?”

  There was blood streaming from my mouth, but my head was starting to clear a little. “I think I’m OK,” I said. I glanced around for Bravelli’s car—where was it?

  “Buster, you see a black Seville?” I asked.

  Buster was chomping feverishly on his gum, looking up and down the street, making sure no one was coming back. “Not here when we pulled up,” he said.

  Bravelli had slipped away.

  FIVE

  When I got back to district headquarters, and looked at my face in the locker-room mirror, I felt like going into hiding. I knew the first thing everyone was going to ask was “What the hell happened to you?” But I cleaned myself up the best I could, and headed upstairs to the operations room.

  Sammy took one look at me and said, “What the hell happened to you?” I didn’t bother answering.

  We had a tiny lunchroom with a sink, a scuzzy green refrigerator, and a picnic table covered with a plastic Italian tablecloth. Someone had just made coffee, and I took my mug down from its peg on the wall, filled it, and took a painful sip. The coffee was awful, like all cop coffee, but it was awful in a way that was familiar, almost comforting.

  “Hi, Eddie,” came a woman’s voice.

  I looked up. Michelle was standing in the doorway, in uniform, holding her police hat in her hand at her side.

  “Michelle,” I said, pulling the cup away from my face in surprise. That was a mistake—she flinched a little when she saw the raw cuts and bruises.

  “They’ll go away,” I said, and put the cup down on the counter.

  Michelle’s own face had that washed-out look that comes from grief, and a paleness that her makeup couldn’t hide. I wanted to hold her, comfort her, tell her how sorry I was about Steve. I hesitated, not knowing whether it would be OK. It didn’t matter—Michelle simply stepped forward and hugged me. We held each other for a long time, and I could tell she didn’t want to let go. Well, there was no reason to. It didn’t matter if anyone saw.

  “I’m going to miss him,” I said softly.

  “Yeah,” she said through new tears. “Me, too.” She finally squeezed me tight and stepped back, and she had the saddest smile.

  She looked at my face again. “Eddie, are you all right?”

  “Just a fight,” I said. “Michelle, what are you …” I didn’t know how to ask it.

  “What am I doing here?”

  I nodded. “Well, yeah. I don’t think anybody expected you back so soon. You going to be in the Twelfth tonight?”

  “I don’t know yet. I’d rather be in the Twentieth, where I can at least help out.”

  “Have you talked to your captain?”

  “Yeah, he said it’s fine with him if it’s OK with Kirk.”

  “I’m sure he’s not going to have a problem with it. Unless … are you really all right to be out here?”

  “I’m a cop, Eddie. This is what I do. I can’t just sit at home, that’s a hundred times worse.”

  I would have felt the same way. “If you think you’re all right …”

  “I’m fine. Well, maybe I’m not fine. Maybe it just hasn’t hit me yet. But until it does, I have to be doing something.”

  “That’s understandable. Why don’t you ride with me, I’ll get the OK from Kirk.”

  Her face relaxed and she gave me a grateful smile. As we walked back through the operations room, Sammy waved us over.

  “How come you’re not over at Seventy-fifth and Pine?” he asked.

  “What’s at Seventy-fifth and Pine?” “You didn’t hear on Radio?”

  “Not on this one,” I said, pulling it off my belt. “I can’t even get static.”

  “Supposed to be a body in a car trunk,” said Sammy. “Could be mob-related.”

  “Hmmm,” I said, scratching my jaw. “Heart of Westmount, body in a trunk. Yeah, maybe just a slight possibility.”

  When Michelle and I got there, they still hadn’t opened the trunk. Captain Lanier and Doc B
izbee and all the other guys from OC were hanging around the car, along with some cops from my squad. The object of everyone’s attention was a deep blue Lexus, brand-new or close to it.

  A crowd had gathered around, and as we made our way through, I caught Doc’s eye. He came over, and I could tell he was pretending not to notice my face. I introduced him to Michelle, I told her that Doc and I had become good friends when I was in the unit.

  “I’m real sorry about your brother,” Doc said in his slow Texas drawl.

  Michelle nodded her thanks, and I asked Doc what he had.

  “Might be a fella inside there sleeping,” he said. “A real deep sleep, if you know what I mean.”

  Doc had two features you noticed first: he was completely bald, and he had a big stomach under his Dallas Cowboys T-shirt, so that he was round on the top, and very round in the front. He had a soft face and an affable smile, like he had never really had a bad day in his life. Basically, he looked like a hick. You’d never know he was a sergeant. Hell, you’d never even know he was a cop. We always told Doc he seemed like he’d be more at home slopping hogs on a dusty farm out in West Texas, gettin’ his giant blue overalls all muddied up. Whenever we’d ask him what the hell he was doing on the streets of Philadelphia, he’d drawl, “I belong here.”

  And we’d look at him and laugh and say, imitating his accent, “Why, Doc? Some of your hogs get loose?”

  Today he had on his Cowboys T-shirt, as usual, and also a Cowboys baseball cap, so it looked like he happened to be on his way to a game at Veterans Stadium when he got sidetracked. The Cowboys weren’t particularly popular in Philly, and more than a few people in the crowd were glaring at his cap and shirt.

  Doc told me that about an hour before, someone had called Southwest Detectives and suggested that cops check the trunk of a Lexus at 75th and Pine. When asked why, the caller had replied, “All right, don’t check, I don’t fuckin’ care, when the neighbors start complaining about the smell, don’t come fuckin’ crying to me.” Then he slammed down the phone.

  “Wonderful,” I told Doc. “An anonymous caller with an attitude.”

  Michelle was looking at the trunk of the Lexus. “Any idea who’s inside?” she asked.

  Doc shook his head. “We checked the VIN. Car’s stolen.”

  As Doc took off to talk to Lanier, Michelle and I gazed at the Lexus.

  “Hell of a coffin,” I said aloud.

  Considering that we were in Westmount, it was a good bet this was Bravelli’s work. But who was inside? One thing for sure, a lot of people had come to find out. The spectators, at least three hundred strong, had pressed so close that Lanier had ordered barricades put up, yellow-and-blue police sawhorses. People had gathered behind them four-deep, craning for a view.

  It was wild—men, women, even children were everywhere, hanging from windows, peering down from roofs, standing on newspaper boxes, perched on traffic lights. One young neighborhood guy had even set up a lawn chair on the top of his car, and was sitting there drinking a bottle of beer and listening to rock music on his car radio.

  Lanier came over to where we were standing, and looked at my battered face with mock alarm.

  “Forget to wear your seat belt again?” he asked.

  One thing about trying to bust somebody’s balls, you have to at least be friendly with the guy or it doesn’t work. I just looked at Lanier and shook my head.

  By now, though, he had turned his attention to Michelle. He noticed her nameplate, and asked, “Are you any relation?”

  “This is the Commissioner’s daughter,” I said. I was hoping they wouldn’t shake hands, but they did.

  “Captain Lanier,” I explained cheerfully to Michelle, “was the fine commander who had me transferred out of the Organized Crime Unit.”

  “C’mon, let’s not get into this now,” said Lanier.

  “I had my own squad,” I told Michelle. “And we were doing great, we were closing in on Mickey Bravelli. We had witnesses, evidence, wiretaps, everything.”

  “C’mon, Eddie …”

  “But then anonymous calls started coming in saying that I was taking money from the mob. Isn’t that right, Captain?”

  I turned to Michelle. “Instead of treating the calls like bullshit, which they were, Captain Lanier dutifully reported them to his bosses. The next thing I know, I’m pushing a patrol car around West Philadelphia.”

  “It was a little more complicated than that,” Lanier said to Michelle.

  “It wasn’t any more complicated than that,” I said.

  Lanier hesitated. He was obviously reluctant to leave things where they stood, but he knew arguing with me wasn’t going to get anywhere.

  He smiled at Michelle. “Nice meeting you, but it’s time for me to get to work.”

  He turned and walked back over to the Lexus, where he was joined by Doc and the other detectives. The new activity was sending a surge of electricity through the crowd. Knots of young guys, who had been standing around bullshitting, turned in unison toward the barricade.

  Lanier called for a nearby police wagon to be brought behind the Lexus. He wanted to at least partially block the crowd’s view, and the crowd didn’t like it. As the wagon pulled into place, people started booing, like they were at a ball game and the center fielder had just dropped the ball.

  “Hey, c’mon, let us see!” people were yelling, as they pushed and shoved to get a view again. Doc had a crowbar in his hand, and Lanier said, “OK, Sergeant, pop it.”

  Doc bent down with the crowbar, and a woman in the crowd shouted, “It’s show time!”

  The street was suddenly quiet, like someone had pushed down all the city sounds, so that even the traffic passing at a nearby intersection seemed to glide by in silence. The crowd, hushed, strained forward toward the Lexus. Even the guy with the lawn chair had shut off his car radio and was now standing on his car.

  Doc worked the crowbar for a moment, and then with a loud creak and a thump the trunk popped open, and the crowd gasped at what it saw and heard.

  What it saw was a thin, nattily dressed black guy, half propped up between two large stereo speakers, his dead waxy face looking out over the astonished crowd. On his chest was a white placard, with the words, in black Magic Marker, “COP KILLER.”

  What the crowd heard was music, somehow set to start playing when the truck was opened, blasting from the two speakers.

  It was the rock anthem by the group Queen, heard at every sporting event: “WE WILL … WE WILL … ROCK YOU!! (Stomp-stomp clap. Stomp-stomp clap.) WE WILL … WE WILL … ROCK YOU!!”

  The music was so loud that Doc and the other cops staggered back a few steps, and then a huge cheer went up from the crowd, and they were all clapping and whistling and yelling approval.

  “WE WILL … WE WILL … ROCK YOU!! (Stomp-stomp-clap. Stomp-stomp-clap.) WE WILL … WE WILL … ROCKYOU!!”

  Doc reached into the trunk and ripped the wires from the speakers and the music went dead. The crowd booed, but then cheered again, louder than before. They were whistling and clapping in appreciation—it was a great show, and they had gotten their money’s worth.

  I glanced at Michelle. Her face was ashen. She just stood there, staring at the body, staring at the placard. The moment I saw it, I thought about what Bravelli had said on the street—about how we were going to get help finding who shot Steve. This was it. This was what he had been talking about.

  Doc came over to us, embarrassed. “I’m sorry you had to see this,” he said to Michelle. “We had no idea.”

  “It’s all right,” she said.

  Doc turned to me. “Eddie, you know who that is in the trunk, don’t you?”

  “Never seen him before.”

  “Well, I have. That’s Ru-Wan Sanders.”

  “No shit. You sure?”

  “I don’t know too many of those guys,” said Doc, “but I do know him.”

  “One of what guys?” Michelle asked. “Who is he?”

  “Black Mafia
,” I said. “Ru-Wan over there was—what, Doc, second-in-command?”

  “Something like that. They’re always switching around.”

  Michelle looked at us. “I don’t understand, what does this mean?”

  “It means,” I said, “that there’s something going on here we don’t know about.”

  “But why would the black Mafia …” began Michelle.

  We were all silent for a moment, taking it in. It was just too hard to believe.

  “Maybe we should ask Mickey Bravelli,” I said, and told them what he had said that afternoon.

  Doc tilted his head and squinted, like he just had heard that a neighboring farmer was growing giant tomatoes.

  “Bravelli sure found out awful fast,” he said in his Texas drawl. “We didn’t have a hint, not even a hint of a hint.”

  “Tell you what bothers me,” I said. “The black Mafia doesn’t have anything to do with the crackhouse where Steve got killed. It’s just a place for pipers—the street dealers don’t even go inside.”

  Doc saw where I was going. “So there’d be no reason in the world for Ru-Wan Sanders to ever be in there.”

  “Well, one reason,” I said. Doc thought for a moment, then nodded.

  “What?” said Michelle. “You guys aren’t going to tell me?”

  Doc and I looked at each other. He was about to say it, then hesitated, so I took over.

  “Maybe Ru-Wan was there because he knew Steve was going to be knocking on that door. Maybe he was the one who made the call to 911.”

  Michelle put her hand to her mouth. “They were waiting for Steve?”

  “It’s very possible,” I said. “And I think it’s also very possible Bravelli knows why.”

  A few minutes later, we were pulling into the Yard at district headquarters. Michelle had asked me to take her back, she wanted to talk to her father about Ru-Wan Sanders.

  As I stopped the car in front of the police entrance, Michelle said, “We have to find out what Bravelli knows.”

  “It’d be nice.”

  “But there’s no way, is there? Bringing him in isn’t going to do any good.” “Not likely.”

  “How about somebody going undercover?”

 

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