by Robert Cea
I pushed through the door, the place busy as usual, my favorite bartender slinging Hennessys and Cokes and bottles of Guinness to his third-world customers. I barely glanced at him because he was not my target, and there he was, my old friend Rudy. Everyone knew a white cop had entered. Most of them had seen me there before, so they figured it wasn’t a roust or a shakedown for guns. They were half right—Rudy was going to get shaken. In one swift move, I pulled the skinny pipehead off the stool, dragged him into the bathroom, and threw him into the same sink that Conroy had.
He screamed and held up his fists like a boxer; I must have humiliated him in front of some crack whore because his back was way up and he was ready to fight. “What the fuck, C? You didn’t have that ma’fuckin’ strap you wouldn’t be nothin’ but a punk-ass white cunt.”
He was just reiterating what every street mope in the world says and wants to believe, that we cops are soft without our guns, I promptly lifted my shirt and did a 360 for him; my gun was still on the floor of my car. “No straps, Rudy, it’s just you and me.”
He went jailhouse on me, which is what I figured he’d do. Once an animal knows he’s going to have to fight and he is not intimidating in the least, he usually tails down. No big surprise, but this wasn’t about me rolling on a dirty bathroom floor with this slug. This was a search-and-destroy mission.
Rudy lowered his hands and smiled. “Oh, you think a nigga’ gonna lay down for that old one? Shiiiit, C, I’m too ol’ school for that bullshit now. You gonna bait me into something and then you got the power to send me up north. I mos def ain’t havin’ it though.”
“You shut your mouth and listen the fuck up, ’cause I ain’t got the time to fuck around with you.” I ripped the picture from my back pocket and unfolded it. “Where is he?”
I studied him and watched his face come to the realization just as mine had minutes before; he grinned and was now playing the game of take and take. “Fuck is that, C?”
“Rudy…Tonight is not the night to play jailhouse nigger. He’s the motherfucker you sold the gun to, the scumbag I let walk the fuck out of here, the same motherfucker who you beat for jumbos. Now, who is he and where is he?”
“Ohhhh shit, yeah, that do look like that Herb motherfucker. Yeah, that cryin’ little bitch was in here not long ago. Ma’fucker graduated to the good stuff, son! He needed to pull a come down, bitch must’ve been basin’ for days, dirty like a ma’fucker too. Lookin’ to score some a the TKO, but you niggas torpedoed that the fuck out the water, so nigga be jonesin’ hard.”
“Where’d you send him; is he still here?”
“What’s in it for me?”
“What?”
“Hook a nigga up, son, give me a little somethin’ keep my shit goin’ for a couple a days, you know, like you used to do for that little German ma’fucker. Keep the thug weekend goin’, yo.”
I had nothing on me and I didn’t think I was ever going to have anything on me ever again, on top of which, I didn’t want to play the game that way any longer. I was through with the dirtiness of it all. I closed my eyes tightly. “No, Rudy, it ain’t like that anymore.”
The door swung open and Patty entered with his gun in his hand. He was sweaty and out of breath, though he looked prepared and ready to do damage. “Rob, what the fuck is going on?”
“He knows him, Patty, he knows the motherfucker.” I looked right in Rudy’s eyes when I said this; even though he was from the street, I was hoping he would recognize the need in my eyes. “Do me this one square, Rudy, help us out.”
He laughed and looked at himself in the mirror, the wrong posture to take now that Patty was in the room with us. “A square? C’mon, son, Shah did you niggas a square and look where it end him up, dime and a deuce up north without passing ma’fucking go, please, nigga, please! Gimme a good bag a something and the nigga’s in your lap.”
“Rob, I just tossed someone. I ain’t sewered it yet. Give it to the little boon and let’s do our work.”
I felt the surge of hatred pour out. I wanted to play it the right way and I wanted the Monster, but I did not want Rudy to call the play. I charged him and grabbed him by the throat to squeeze the life out of him. He started to swing at me, and he did connect with three or four good shots, though I felt nothing. I screamed, “Tell me where he is.” He kept swinging and connecting. I felt a gash open over my hairline and blood trickling down the back of my neck. This sent Pirelli into a feeding frenzy. A cop’s blood spilled in another cop’s presence was never a good thing. Pirelli separated me easily from Rudy, then hit him once in the throat, sending him immediately to his knees in a fit of pain. Patty was a force of nature once the bell was rung. I knew Patty was going to kill him, and that would end the Monster’s connection to the Badlands and my connection to the Monster. I realized that the rules of the game were not going to change, not because of me, and definitely not because of any street perp. This was a game of take and take some more until all the chips were on the table, last person standing wins the pot.
I ran out to his car, double-parked in front of the bar. The driver’s door was still open, and while there was a crowd in front, no one dared go near the cop’s vehicle. They knew Patty, some of them intimately. I ripped opened the glove compartment and, sure enough, rocks in a plastic sandwich bag were ready to be dispensed. I ran back into the bar before it was too late. I kicked open the door and found Pirelli still working on him, though he didn’t even look winded. I struggled to pull Pirelli off of him, and dropped the bag into Rudy’s lap. He looked up to me with swollen eyes. “You my nigga, C, you all that, son.” It was as if he had never been touched and nothing had occurred for the last five minutes. He smiled broadly though his teeth were cracked and blood oozed from many parts of his head and face. “Nigga comin’ back tomorrow. He knows I’m opening up with new product. I sold him enough for the comedown.”
“What makes you sure he’ll be back?”
“I’m not, but I know the powder I laid on him is gonna get him back ’cause it almost as good as the TKO, and like I said, this nigga gots a new jones, son. You see, he be around Flag Pole lookin’ for my cure. He a convert, C.”
I gambled that evening. Pirelli followed me toward Flag Pole and then into every building we had ever entered. We circled back around through the neighborhoods and found ourselves in Gowanus. Again we searched buildings, parks, the subways. The streets were empty, the subway platforms were empty. I walked up the steps from the BMT line on Third Avenue, Patty walked up the other side. We both noticed the car at the same time, an unmarked LTD with tinted windows. IAB or the feds most definitely. We both moved to it simultaneously. By the time I had charged out into the middle of the deserted street, it had pulled away. Patty crossed to me.
“Rob, they’re shutting us the fuck down. We have to chill till this thing blows over, we have to go easy; right now we’re out here on patrol and neither of us is on duty, let’s not let this get out of hand.”
The rats had twisted my balls; there was a woman killer on the loose and they were fixated on me. I turned from Pirelli, not looking back. “Whatever, Patty, whatever you say.”
The days passed and there was no sign of Rudy or of the big, ugly man from the poster. Patty was okay with it because we were starting to see more and more cars leapfrogging us in the streets. One would follow us, turn off, then another would pick up our tail, turn off, and then another. There were three cars on us most of the time. We were their straight eights. Patty had the right idea: Let the shit blow over. Sit tight in the box and it will all go away, he said, and he was half right. I should’ve sat it out, but I didn’t, I couldn’t. The days were long and the nights were longer. I was a nomad just moving through time. I had become fixated on the Monster because that was all I had left. I wanted what remained in my life to mean something, to get that last bit of jugo from the job, and most of all, I wanted the pain that was mightily inflicted to end.
15
The End
T
he rain was coming down in sheets; it was hitting the car like marbles, nonstop ping-ping-ping-ping-ping. I was peering through the downpour in the unmarked shitbox Delta 88. Between intermittent swipes of the windshield wipers, the streets of Red Hook were empty; they seemed almost clean, though I knew different.
I felt the rats behind me, two, maybe three car lengths, possibly an OP van or a nondescript Toyota though it was hidden well. Maybe the banged-up “Puerto Rican” car service can. These motherfucks were there, I could feel it, watching my every move. I felt scummy knowing they were there. Probably in their thirties, couple of minorities trying to fit into the hood, two PRs, maybe two dark-skinned ja-baps. I rolled down the window far enough to catch some of the rainwater from the gunpowder clouds. The sudden bursts of thunder, the eerie quietness of these battle-weary streets all enhanced my feeling that this was the perfect day for the end. I rolled up the tired window and ran the water through my long, unkempt hair. It felt good though that moment was as fleeting as all others had become. Mia popped in and out of my mind. I could actually smell her scent. It was usually on her neck, at the point where her shoulder flowed out like a piece of art, that her scent was the strongest. My God, how I missed that scent.
The smallest memories are the ones that hurt the most. Stop fucking thinking, Rob, stop fucking thinking PLEASE! I kept repeating this over and over. I squeezed my eyes closed, tight, trying to release the hurt, but it wasn’t happening.
I looked in the rearview mirror, trying to clock where exactly the rat patrol was. They were good, but not as good as me. I mean, if I really wanted to, I’d pull the Delta out, give them a tour of the Badlands, and lose them within minutes. No matter what, these were still my streets and I owned them. But it wasn’t about that anymore.
I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, the first in a long time. Hair matted, three-day growth on my pasty skin, eyes sullen and circled. I had a strong urge to spit at that animal that stared back at me, but why dignify that thing with a response? Any reply to that thing in the mirror would just deepen the self-hatred, and at this point all I motherfuckin’ wanted was to live through the numbness without feeling today, because this was the end.
A blast of thunder rattled the car. Patty’s eyes opened into thin red slits.
“You still there, Rob?”
“Yeah, go back to sleep, brother.”
Within seconds he was out cold again. I stared at him; he was as much a part of me as the streets were.
I noticed one of the street mopes moving in and out of a doorway. I knew him and he knew me. He nodded to let me know in our coded street language that there was someone else out there watching. He tapped his eye twice, telling me there were two of them and he pointed with his chin at approximately eight o’clock to the rear of my unmarked, which told me exactly where they were. Then he raised his fist in the air and disappeared into the driving rain. It felt good knowing that there was someone out there who was still kicking back to me.
I rolled the window down again, the smell of the ozone dissipated into the natural smell of garbage. Low tide in the basin; this didn’t help. The mire from the canal and the urine from the streets were too familiar. This was the deepest part of hell, Dante’s ninth circle. Home, where I belonged. Dealers and their jumpy customers started to appear magically, as if they’d never left the Hook. All lined up in their usual spots, waiting to serve or be served.
“Flacko,” a painfully skinny, part-time burglar, full-time junkie with a twenty-bag-a-day boy jones, made his way over to the car. He didn’t give a fuck that the other street mopes saw him talking to me; I was dead meat on the street, a fried afterbirth. Everyone knew that I was shut down, so I guess Flacko felt very safe. What they didn’t know was that today I was on a mission! Good, let Flacko think he’s safe, everyone else will think the same thing. Maybe that will bring the meat right to me.
“C-dog, what up?” Raspy and ratty, that’s what he sounded like, his vocal chords long since destroyed from the streams of chocolate heroin he booted into his throat. It sounded almost like a sexy whisper. I smiled through my anxiety.
“Yo, you gots any Newports or double Os, bro?”
“Flacko, how long you know me?
“Yo, you been around this block, C.”
“So you ever see me light up?”
“No, poppa, but that don’t mean nothin’, yo. You could be one a them bum smokers, you know, bummin’ a Marlboro here, Camel light there, you know how that shit go, C.” He smiled, teeth dark brown, like the color of dried blood after days in the heat. They were cracked, as were his lips. He was a poster boy for the Badlands. He’d be the perfect publicservice announcement: “Mothers, don’t even think about moving here. I could be your kid.” He leaned his slight frame nervously from side to side; he looked at Patty, who was snoring louder than before. Flacko pointed at him with his thin caked-up lips. I almost laughed.
“You wanna wake him and ask him?”
Flacko pulled away from the window, laughed nervously, his attempt at a whisper making me reach in to hear. “I ain’t wakin’ that crazy ’talian ma’fucker, C. I ain’t got time for a short beat down, yo!”
This annoying little junkie with the chalkboard voice all but put a smile on my face. “Didn’t think so.”
He smiled back, but there was something behind the smile, some sort of air of entitlement the little spic had, it was almost a superiority he had over me. He started to junkie-strut away, laughing as if he knew something I didn’t.
“See ya on the cell block, C. C’ya, wouldn’t wanna be ya!”
That laugh tore through me like a .22-cent nickel behind my ear. Should I pull the little junkie’s head through the window, roll it up, and drive to Coney Island for some fries? Fuck it.
“Not if I see you first, Fucko.”
He moved down the street quickly; he had to know the ice he was on was about to crack. “The name’s Flacko. You all right, C, you all right.”
His voice trailed away. I just let it ride because today was going to be a good one, I felt it in my soul, and Jim Morrison’s lyrics were penetrating me deep inside, floating in and out of my consciousness like a halcyon haze.
“This is the end, my only friend, the end.”
I always liked that song and today maybe it would be my anthem.
Patty rolled over, opened one very bloodshot eye.
“Fuck you talkin’ to that little German for?”
I half-glanced at him then, back out in the street. I wasn’t in the mood for a “why me” lecture though I knew it was in the mail. He must’ve seen the jones that was betraying my eyes; I know he’d seen that look a thousand times and I know he never liked it once because there was always something attached to it. A chase, gunfight, then the never-ending allegations. Patty really didn’t give a fuck, but he knew the climate was not right for one of my infamous “test-i-lies.” He sat up slowly and squinted out into the street.
“Fuck are we doin’ in the Badlands?”
I tried to tune him out, keep focused on the movement that was before me. He rubbed his big, manicured hands through his hair, then pulled from a bottle of Evian. He poured some on his hands, then washed the bourbon-tainted sweat from his face. He poured the water down his neck, letting it cascade along his chest; he started to come back to life. I, of course, waited for the inevitable fucked-up other shoe to drop.
“You know who’s out here, right, bro? This is a straight eight, Rob, no fuckin’ around.”
I didn’t answer; he must’ve gotten a taste of the odd electric vibe I was emitting because he moved in a little closer, not taking his eyes off me once.
“Are you fucking kidding me? I don’t feel like getting jammed up today, Rob. Let this shit blow over first. It always does. These motherfuckers are up our asses dry. You understand me?”
I took my time with the answer or maybe I really didn’t hear him or just didn’t give a fuck. I was definitely watching my favorite channel though, Columbia Street.
He straightened up in the seat and with surgical calmness allowed for me to hear his unwavering, deadly serious tone, he asked the question that was as loaded as both our Glocks.
“Say you fuckin’ sabe, Rob, say you motherfuckin’ understand!”
I too knew this man sitting next to me as well as he knew me. He would not ask a third time. I nodded with as much indifference as I could. Though I really could give a piece of welfare cheese on “Federal Friday.”