“Yeah, they’re okay.”
“Yeah, they’re okay,” the man agreed. “I don’t like them as much as I used to. The blacks are taking it over. Taking it over? They got it by the balls right now! I don’t like their style—it’s thug basketball. No finesse. More like football. That coach, Riley, was full of it, you know. He stands there with his suit, like who the hell he is, but he likes that kind of rough stuff. That trash-talking shit. I like baseball right now. The Yankees. You like—”
“Jefe,” the short barrel of a man who first led Sally Cantalupo into the interior of the apartment interrupted, coming into the room. The man behind the desk inquired with a jut of his chin. “It’s getting crowded, you know,” the barrel said.
Jefe arched one eyebrow. The barrel shrugged and went back toward the front of the apartment.
“See. They won’t let me have two minutes to myself,” said the man. “Here,” he said opening a drawer in his desk. He took out two packets of ten small plastic bags, each held together with a blue rubber band. He opened a third deck, and removed five bags. “Twenty-five,” he said, sliding the bags toward Sally Cantalupo. “Don’t worry about the shortage. We’ve had them before. They don’t last long. Somebody else’ll pop on the scene to pick up the slack. There’s too much money involved in this. You know what the government would do if they really wanted to put an end to drugs? You know what they’d do?”
“What?” said Sally Cantalupo.
“You heard about that black Senator? He wants to make all the drugs legal. What a bastard! We’d be out of business. Who’d take the risk, all of this?” the man motioned toward the outer rooms, “for what? A paycheck? Nobody’d take on the risk for that.” He glanced at the TV monitors. The workers were standing around idly, looking up at the monitors. “Shit, if you could buy it like a pack of cigarettes, a bottle of Ripple, I’d have to get a real job.” He laughed. “And nobody wants to do that.” He laughed again.
As the man spoke, Sally Cantalupo had taken money from his shirt pocket. He counted out two hundred and fifty dollars and placed it on the desk. “A smart man like you,” Sally said to the man, “with your organizational skills, you could open a legitimate drug business.”
The man chuckled as he took up Sally’s money and counted it with the dexterity of a bank teller. He nodded, then looked directly at Sally. “My friend. The big companies, the New York Stock Exchange companies, would be on top of this business like dogs on a steak. The big tobacco companies are probably already geared to manufacture packs of marijuana cigarettes.” The man removed the rubber bands from the packets of envelopes intended for Sally Cantalupo, counted each, then replaced the rubber bands. “No, my friend. I’m too small compared to, can you see it, CCC, Continental Cocaine Corporation, or some other big-ass company.” He handed the packets to Sally. “Me, I’m better off the way it is.”
Sally Cantalupo nodded. He took the bundled decks, dropping one inside the lining of his jacket on the left, one inside the lining on the right. He put the odd five in his shirt pocket.
“Smart,” the man smiled at Sally Cantalupo. “I gotta go,” he said. “Got to keep the people happy with Sueño.” He said the name with a little flourish, like a radio jingle, then laughed.
Sally Cantalupo rose, smiling back. He was going to triple—no, quadruple his money, enough to float his own Sueño. That was a happy thought.
“Thank you Jesus,” murmured Marty Geraghty, peering at the screen of the camcorder that was focused on 192nd Street through the silver, two-way tinting on the rear windows of the “Mix and Fix” van. The van was parked one block east of the line of junkies patiently awaiting their turn to enter the tenement.
“Don’t forget to thank Sally Cantalupo for bringing us to the Promised Land,” said Bill Santiago sitting on the milk crate next to Geraghty.
“Thank you, Sally Cantalupo,” said Geraghty.
“Speak of the devil; here comes the dear boy now,” said Santiago, seeing Sally Cantalupo exit the tenement and walk down the steps of the stoop. “I’ll get the wheels moving,” said Santiago, half-rising to duck-walk back to the driver’s seat.
“No, no, let’s stay and get more of this mother lode of activity,” said Geraghty. “What will we get following Sally in his car? These fuckers out here are moving a shitload of stuff. We’ve got a whole ’nother thing right here before our very eyes.”
“Ramrod is going to be happy when he sees this tape,” said Santiago, returning to his milk crate.
“Ohhh, yes. Ohhh yes,” said Geraghty, continuing to telephoto the comings and goings at the tenement.
East River Waterfront: August 8, 1929 : 9:15 A.M.
Seven Prohibition Agents jumped out of three unmarked sedans that screeched to a stop in front of a one-story garage at 37 Water Street. Across the street, wharfs stretched into New York’s East River. The Agents rushed through the double-width wooden doors of the garage. Inside, a canvas covered truck was in the loading area. In the back of the truck as well as the entire warehouse area behind the truck there were an array of wooden beer kegs and cases of bootleg alcohol.
“There they are, boys,” said Supervisory Agent Kinney, “pull ’em off that truck, and from the warehouse. Start rolling ’em out to the sidewalk. Are the press boys here yet, Sean?”
“I’ll look,” said Sean O’Callaghan, one of the Agents in the raiding party. He walked toward the entrance just as two sedans filled with reporters and photographers pulled to the curb.
“They’re here,” called O’Callaghan.
“Good. Start ’em rolling, boys,” Kinney said to his Agents. “Out to the sidewalk. Bust the head of every keg, Sean. Just the head, remember.”
The Agents began seizing kegs, rolling them toward the front door. Sean O’Callaghan, Izzie Perlman, and Supervisor Kinney were on the sidewalk with axes, bashing the head of each keg after it was rolled down the sloping sidewalk, letting its foamy contents pour into the gutter. The kegs were now arranged in a long line, one behind the other, stretching back into the warehouse. Some of the Agents carried boxes of unlabeled bottles of liquor which were overturned on the sidewalk. With axes, they began to break bottle after bottle of the liquor.
The photographers stood on the sidewalk on either side of the rolling kegs and broken bottles, photographing the proceedings. One man stood behind a newsreel movie camera, twirling the crank, catching each mighty bash of the axes that sent dreaded beer or alcohol splashing into the gutter, forming a flowing stream to the nearest sewer.
“Here’s the Mayor,” said one of the photographers, as a familiar dark sedan stopped at the curb.
Mayor Jimmy Walker, thin, handsome, wearing an elegant blue pinstripe suit, grey spats, grey fedora, the brim down on one side, stepped onto the sidewalk.
“Hiya, Jimmy,” said one of the photographers. The others chimed in the greeting.
“Hello, boys,” Gentleman Jim said, smiling.
“Like an axe, Mr. Mayor?” said Supervisor Kinney, extending his axe toward the Mayor.
“You fellows can do a better job at that than I can,” deferred the Mayor.
“C’mon, Jimmy. It’ll make a great couple of pictures,” said one of the photographers.
“Okay, guys, for posterity,” said the Mayor, taking the axe from Kinney. He went over to a keg, the head of which was already split, and raised the axe in menacing fashion, looking toward the cameras. “How’s this?”
“Great.” The cameras began clicking as the newsreel camera was cranked to record the Mayor making mighty swipes with the axe toward the barrel.
“Keep ’em rolling boys,” Kinney called to his men, smiling occasionally toward the cameras.
“Keep up the good work, men,” the Mayor said, wiping his hands on a towel handed to him by an aide who had been leaning against the Mayor’s car. “I’m off to the salt mines,” he announced to the press.
“Any words of wisdom for our readers?” said a reporter, standing near the Mayor.
&nbs
p; “The law’s the law, and this warehouse, and every warehouse like it in the city, is going to suffer the same fate. We’re mounting a new crackdown on illegal alcohol, and all the people who involve themselves in these nefarious acts are going to answer to the full extent of the law. How’s that?”
“Anybody arrested with all this stuff, Mayor?”
“Any arrests, Supervisor?”
“They ran out the back door, like sneaking curs as we drove up, Mr. Mayor,” said Kinney.
“You heard the man, boys. But we’ll catch up with these cowards, and when we do, it’s jail time, and plenty of it.”
“Great, Mr. Mayor.”
Gentleman Jim returned to his car, and the sedan sped off toward City Hall.
“I didn’t know Jimmy got up so early in the morning,” said one of the reporters.
“He’s probably just coming in from the night before,” said a wag amongst them. They all laughed.
Across the street, in a large shanty at the street end of one of the wharfs, Marco Giordano stood next to Vic Caiafa. They were both gazing out a window toward where the Agents were destroying the barrel-heads and bottles. Behind them, a crew of seven weary men sat on benches or on the floor, propped against the walls. They had worked all night, loading and carting cases of scotch, rum, wine, kegs of beer onto a truck or the Seabright dory, hauling them upstream two blocks to a new warehouse. They left behind some beer and a few cases of cheap booze so the Agents would have something to break.
“That’s it, boys,” Caiafa softly urged the Agents in Sicilian, continuing to glance through the window, “just hit the heads of the kegs, so we can use them again.”
“We got to go back there and load all those kegs they’re breaking?” said one of the men seated on a bench.
“Yes,” said Caiafa, turning, looking at the man sternly. “You got a problem with that?”
The man shrugged.
“What a circus,” said Giordano.
“Yeah, and we’re the clowns,” said one of the men sitting on the floor.
“What the hell are you complaining about?” said Caiafa, “you’re getting paid good, to be in this circus, no?”
“Only saying,” the man said sheepishly.
Ocean Parkway : August 9, 1996 : 2.15 P.M.
Inspired by the wide, tree lined boulevards of Paris and Western Europe, the same men who created Central Park in Manhattan, designed Ocean Parkway as a verdant corridor from Brooklyn’s Prospect Park to Coney Island. Now gathered at the Parkway’s southern terminus, pulsing with a life reminiscent of Eastern Europe, stands the Russian conclave of Brighton Beach.
Lou Castoro sat in the driver’s seat of the garish, red undercover TransAm which was parked, facing south, in the service lane of Ocean Parkway. Bill Santiago was in the passenger seat. Castoro had been rotated home from babysitting Red Hardie to work a couple of days with Santiago and the rest of the squad as they continued the investigation of the Russian drug route. “The boss really has the hots for this Russian connection,” said Santiago.
“He must be going fucking crazy,” said Castoro. “First he puts me on a boring bullshit job in the middle of nowhere, baby-sitting Red Hardie, then, all of a sudden, he pulls me off that duty a couple of days ago for this urgent job to make the Russian connection. We’re on a merry-go-round, me, Marty, and Pete.”
“Pete doesn’t give a shit,” said Santiago. “He’s a fucking company man through and through.”
“Bird Dog One, this is Mother Hen. Do you read me?” said Supervisor Becker’s voice over the two-way radio.
“That’s us, ‘Bird Dog One’, right?” said Santiago.
“What fucking cops and robbers bullshit,” said Castoro. “Yeah, that’s us.” He pulled a two-way radio from under his seat. “Bird Dog One reads.”
“Any sign of your contact yet?”
“Negative.”
“Should be any minute now. Keep your eyes peeled, but keep radio chatter to a minimum”
“Roger, Mother Hen.” Castoro released the transmission button. “Stay the fuck off the radio, then, if you want to keep radio chatter to a minimum, you dumb fucker,” he said to the inert radio.
Santiago laughed. “Who are we supposed to keep our eyes peeled for anyway?”
“Some Russian named Uri. But he could send almost anyone else. I’m not really sure who the hell we should be looking for.”
The day was bright and sunny, hot, still, with no trace of a breeze. Although they were under the shade of one of the tall trees that lined the pedestrian mall that separated the main roadway of the Parkway from the service road, humidity was everywhere, making the interior of the vehicle feel like a sauna. Finally, Castoro fired the engine, closed the front windows—except for an inch at the top on each side—and cranked up the air conditioner. Now in cooler comfort, the two agents searched the street ahead and, through their side-view mirrors, behind them, for their drug contact and for any sign of Supervisor Becker. They knew Becker’d bitch about the waste of government fuel to run the motor and air conditioner while they were parked.
“How are we supposed to know what we’re looking for; it could be anybody,” said Santiago.
“They’re supposed to find us. The boss said they’d know we’re in this red pimp-mobile.”
The eyes of both Agents continually scanned the broad avenue, the wide pedestrian malls with sitting benches on each side of the six center lanes of traffic, and the outside service roads. Further south of their vehicle, on the pedestrian mall, kids were playing tag under the trees and around the park benches. On some of the benches, old Jewish men sat talking, gesturing, laughing. The inhabitants of the immediate area were mostly orthodox Jews. But the Russians were making serious northward incursions from Brighton Beach to the south.
“Nothing much happening,” Castoro said idly.
“Should we tell that to Becker?” said Santiago, smiling.
“Are you crazy? He’ll talk for twenty minutes, telling us to stay off the radio.”
Santiago laughed.
A dark-haired, young woman was now pushing a baby carriage along the sidewalk past the benches. The compartment of the baby carriage was covered with a white, gauze fly netting. When the carriage was abreast of the vehicle, the woman stopped, bending to adjust the fly netting over the baby.
“Uri is a friend of mine,” the woman murmured from the side of her mouth as she adjusted the netting.
The Agents sat upright, looking at each other with surprise. “Uri is a friend of mine, too,” said Santiago, pushing the button to lower his window.
The woman took a baby’s milk bottle from the interior of the carriage as she finished adjusting the fly netting. Without another word, she moved back behind the handle of the carriage and began to push it forward again. As the carriage moved away, the baby bottle fell from the woman’s hand to the sidewalk. Apparently not noticing that she had dropped the bottle, the woman continued walking.
Santiago stared at the milk bottle on the ground. “You think?”
“Open the door and see,” said Castoro.
Santiago unlatched his door and pushed. As the door opened, it passed over the spot where the baby bottle lay. He picked up the bottle and shut his door again. Inside the bottle, as he held it up, was something white. But it wasn’t milk, or liquid. It was a white powder.
Castoro bent forward to fish the radio out from under his seat. Staying bent out of sight, he said: “This is Bird Dog One. The lady with the baby carriage just made the drop. Repeat, the lady with the baby carriage made the drop. Do you see her?”
“We’ve got her,” said Becker tersely. “Bird Dog Two, stay on the baby carriage. One, maintain your position. No radio traffic.”
Castoro slid the radio out of sight and sat up. He took the baby bottle from Santiago, holding it up to the light, shaking it from side to side. The powder shifted one side to the other. “Imagine that! A woman with a baby, dirty shit in a baby bottle. What’s the world coming to?”
In his side-view mirror, Santiago was watching the woman moving away from their car. “Nice touch,” he said, his eyes not leaving the mirror. “Wholesome, family values, no?”
“Pretty nice, cover that is. You figure she’s got a kid in the carriage with her?”
“What am I, Superman, with x-ray vision?” said Santiago.
“I didn’t hear any baby.”
“Maybe it was asleep. Or maybe it wasn’t there. What’s the difference?” said Santiago.
“Some people have no fucking conscience,” said Castoro. “Isn’t anything sacred?”
“You’re breaking my heart.”
A champagne-colored Lexus was being driven past where the red TransAm was parked, Russian music blasting out of its moon roof. A dark haired young woman, smoking a long, thin cigarette was behind the wheel of the Lexus. She stopped her car directly next to the TransAm, lowering her window.
“Excuse me,” she said, gesturing forward as she spoke, as if she were asking directions. “Someone you want to see is standing on the next corner. You should ask him directions.”
Santiago made a motion toward Brighton Beach Avenue. “What’s he wearing?”
“A black tee-shirt. Thank you,” she said the last loudly as she drove the Lexus away quickly.
Castoro bent down to talk into the radio again. “Bird Dog One to Mother Hen. The Lexus, with a dark haired woman driving, just told us where our next pigeon is roosting.”
“Bird Dog Two, you got her?” said Supervisor Becker.
“Affirmative,” said another voice.
“Man in a black tee-shirt should be on the next corner,” said Castoro. “We’re proceeding there now, out.”
Castoro slipped the TransAm in gear and moved the vehicle in the direction of the next corner. Santiago was scanning every person they passed as they drove slowly forward.
“There’s a guy in a black tee-shirt standing at the corner,” Santiago said to Castoro.
“I’ve got him,” said Castoro.
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