Force of Nature

by Stephen Solomita

  Not surprisingly, Tilley felt instinctively protective and was actively considering punching the brains out of one particularly obnoxious detective when Moodrow, his face as blank as a pane of glass, addressed Higgins as if they were the only ones in the room.

  “How bad is the survivor?” he asked.

  “Might lose a leg, but they don’t think she’ll die.”

  “Was she any help?”

  “Only that she’s sure it was Greenwood.”

  “She didn’t say what he got?”

  “Heroin,” Leonora replied. She opened a manila envelope and slid its contents, four glassine envelopes filled with white powder, onto the palm of her hand. Each had the words Blue Thunder stamped on the front.

  Moodrow’s eyes lit up when he saw them and Tilley instantly recalled Leonora’s analysis of Moodrow’s addiction to “justice.” Apparently, he even put it before his pride.

  “How much he get, Leonora? Did he get enough?”

  “She said around thirty bundles. Ten bundles in a bag. She wasn’t a hundred percent sure, but not less than two hundred fifty bags. Is that enough?”

  “That’s plenty.”

  17

  THE TRIP FROM 2113 Eldridge across the Bowery to what’s left of the neighborhood called “Little Italy” is not a very long one. The Italian ghetto of the early 1900s and the once-Jewish Lower East Side were both victimized by the flight of second-generation Americans from the inner cities to the suburbs which characterized the decades following World War II. They were replaced, both Italian and Jew, at first by the Puerto Ricans, who arrived as full citizens, then in the 80s by a new wave of Asian immigrants, who pushed the borders of Chinatown across Canal Street so that most of the newer shops have signs in both Chinese and English.

  Still, a few of the old Jews remain and Sammy’s, a Jewish restaurant featuring garlic-soaked Roumanian pastrami (which Moodrow placed before sex as a sensory experience) draws diners from every borough, especially on Saturday evenings after shabbas. The food is straight out of the Yiddish culture that once dominated Allen and Essex Streets where another joint, Bernstein’s, a restaurant featuring (believe it or not) kosher Chinese cuisine and deli, is full nearly all the time.

  On the other side of the Bowery, Little Italy took a different path. Long-established as a cultural landmark, Little Italy and its coven of restaurants reach, not to second and third generation Italians living in the borough, but uptown, for the tourists and the business crowd.

  There are very few Italians on Mulberry Street these days, even fewer than there are Jews on the Lower East Side, but one element of the culture does remain. The social clubs, originally organized to give men from the same town or region a chance to keep the old country alive, still dot Grand and Mulberry Streets. In the earliest days of Italian immigration, they were headquarters for the emerging underside of the Italian community, the criminal caste, called the “mob” or cosa nostra or the mafia or whatever buzzword the reporters think will sell newspapers. Today, in spite of the sing-song Chinese voices heard along Elizabeth Street, they exist to fulfill the same function.

  “Prohibition changed these assholes from thugs into millionaires,” Moodrow explained. They were walking west along Hester Street. Their destination, the Favara Athletic Club, at 677 Mulberry Street, was only four blocks from the crime scene, too short a distance to justify moving the car. Still, in deference to the summer heat, they took their time. The sun, nearly straight up in the sky, beat down on them unmercifully, pasting their trousers to their thighs, their shirts to their backs. Moodrow, oblivious as always, alternately briefed and lectured his partner on the Lower East Side drug trade and the mobsters who ran it.

  “And the same fucking thing is happening all over again. You’ve got prohibition against drugs and the money is too big to resist. These kids on the streets, they might live in public housing, but they walk out on the street wearing a thousand dollars in gold around their necks. Eighteen years old. Cruising the city in red BMWs.

  “Young kid, ten, twelve years old. He sees a chance to make that kinda money, you think he’s gonna be a bicycle messenger? You think he’s gonna go down to the garment center and push a hand truck? Uh-uh. Maybe the smart ones’ll work their way into one of the city colleges, but that don’t help the ordinary kids. For them, if they got any balls, they’re gonna fight for a piece of those millions and some of ’em are gonna make it. They’re gonna buy their way outta the slums.”

  They started across Forsythe and a narrow concrete park, dotted with benches, that runs from Canal Street up to Houston. Its official name, Sara Roosevelt Parkway, belies its status as a hangout for the dopers who get off in the dozen shooting galleries located within a block of the park. Naturally, as soon as they stepped into the gutter, junkies began to scatter. Not quickly, of course; heroin addicts don’t do much of anything quickly. But they did get themselves out of the way. All except for one luckless individual who was stoned to within an eyeblink of an overdose. He was standing directly under a frying sun, swaying like a snake attempting a handstand. Moodrow was headed right for him and Tilley expected a monumental collision, but Moodrow stopped in front of the junkie (who still took no notice) and gestured with his chin.

  “Behold the fearsome dope fiend. Real aggressive, ain’t he? Poor fuck just wants to get high. Give him his dope and he’s as harmless as a human can get. Don’t give him his dope, make him go out and buy his dope at black market prices and you end up with scumbags like Levander Greenwood.” He stepped around the man, wiped his face with the back of his sleeve and continued walking. “I was born in ’33, in the heart of the Depression. Nobody had anything except the mob guys. Jewish or Italian. They made it big during prohibition. Turned them from punks running crap games into millionaires. But they still lived in the neighborhood and all the kids wanted to be just like ’em.

  “Imagine. There’s Uncle Emilio works two days a week carrying bricks for a scab contractor. His family eats pasta with lard. Then there’s Uncle Dominick who goes to work in a Buick. His kids eat veal. Eat steak. His kids make their First Communions in white suits and dresses, then hold a party so all the neighborhood brats, the ones with nothing, can take a look at Dominick’s fucking success.”

  They were walking north along the Bowery by this time, trying to catch a little shade from the buildings along the west side. Moodrow, when he lectured, had a tendency to go on forever. Tilley, on the other hand, was less than patient. He said, “You’re too young to reminisce. And you’re timing’s for shit, too. How about a punch line for this joke.”

  “The punch line is one of those kids who watched the gangsters strut and decided to join ’em is Dominick Favara. Called ‘Little Bullets’ because he made his bones with a .22 instead of a .45 which was the gun everybody wanted after the war. You get the connection between the Favara Athletic Club and Dominick Favara, right? Favara is a small city in Sicily and when Dominick’s old man came through, the clerk on Ellis Island didn’t wanna bother with his name, just wrote Tommaso Favara on the entry card and that was it. Now Dominick uses the name to prove his Sicilian purity.

  “I told ya that I went to high school with Dominick. He was one of the kids who idolized the wiseguys. They called them ‘soldiers’ back then. All he ever wanted was to get into the mob. To grab a piece of that power. And he did it. He went to work for Tony Licata who had a little gang. Him, his three brothers and a couple of neighborhood kids. Tony Licata was a lieutenant in the Carini family which, back then, did shylocking, books, numbers and prostitution. The mob had a lot of extra money after the war, capital left over from prohibition which they didn’t have no way to invest. No way that would bring the kinda return they made on bootleg hooch.

  “Dominick Favara was one of the first to see the way of the future. He made a connection with a factory in Marseilles that was producing a new drug, a variation of morphine called heroin, then took control of the dope business on the Lower East Side in the 50s. The Puerto Ricans w
ere pouring into these tenements about then.” He gestured to the buildings which surrounded them. “Dope was a very hard sell when the Jews were here, but the Puerto Ricans ate it up. I guarantee that there are five thousand dope addicts within a mile of Eldridge Street and another ten thousand who do it occasionally. Mucho dinero.”

  Moodrow pulled up short and turned into a small Chinese grocery at the corner of Bowery and Grand. They were near the Manhattan Bridge, in the heart of a small district devoted to restaurant fixtures and wholesale lighting. Double-storefront windows featured gleaming cabinets or dozens of chandeliers, all carefully lit to capture maximum glitter.

  “I want to get a Coke. I’m frying.”

  Tilley followed his partner into the store (and the air conditioning) without a protest. “One thing’s got me confused,” he said. “You’re not saying this guy Favara controls all the heroin on the Lower East Side? I don’t buy that.”

  Moodrow eyed Tilley approvingly, opening the ice cold bottle of classic Coke he pulled from an ancient, horizontal cooler. “Once upon a time, he had it all to himself. For about fifteen years, starting around 1955, there wasn’t anyone on the Lower East Side but ‘Little Bullets’ Favara. He paid tribute, of course, paid the bigger bosses through the nose, but he kept his territory pure. Then a new generation of kids came out of those projects. At first, they worked for the Favara clan. They were the ones who put their asses out on the street. They retailed, but they didn’t use the drug themselves. Instead, they saved their pennies and bought in such large quantities, they forced Favara further and further from the action. Instead of selling them ounces (or even bundles, for that matter) like in the 60s, he sold them kilos.

  “Then they started traveling. They went to Jersey or up to Boston where their money was appreciated and there wasn’t a fucking thing Dominick could do about it. He started a war, of course, but he was lucky to get away with his life. These kids weren’t afraid of death. They didn’t have homes in Westchester. Instead of spending the last twenty years wearing silk underwear, most of the kids had already done time and if they could survive prison, they weren’t about to run away from some guinea in a white Cadillac.

  “After the first bloodbath, Dominick got realistic. Competition was here to stay, but there was a lot of money to be made. Everybody was using drugs and even though Dominick’s piece of the market was shrinking, he found a way to maximize profits. He took a shithead gang with no real leadership and no capital called the ‘Wald Assassins,’ after the Lillian Wald housing project where they lived, armed the shit out of them and gave them the retail end of his operation. He set them up as employees and he protected them from the other gangs. He took Eldridge Street, by the Seward Park Houses, and made it into the showroom for his newest brainstorm: brand name dope. He stamped his trademark, Blue Thunder, on every bag of heroin he sold. He was better connected, so he could afford to make his smack a little more pure, give just a pinch more product in every bag.

  “Word got out and the fucking customers came from all over the city. We didn’t know what to make of it in the 7th. It was like fucking lemmings. All these broken-down, runny-nosed junkies staggering along Eldridge Street which had never been known as a drug neighborhood. By the time the competition caught on, ‘Little Bullets’ had a big piece of the market and he’s held onto it ever since. Blue Thunder belongs to him and him alone.”

  By this time they were standing in front of the Favara Athletic Club. Despite the name, it bore no resemblance to Jack LaLanne’s. A storefront, its display window had been completely bricked up except for a three-foot square pane of glass so dirty it had yellowed like plastic. Behind the filth, on a dust-covered ledge, with heavy drapes closing off the scene inside, a small sign announced the Favara Athletic Club. The faded letters, once clearly gold, surrounded the 1947 team photo of the Favara Soccer Club, champions of all Italy.

  There was a door just to the left of the window. A flimsy wooden door that by its very vulnerability, advertised the character of the people inside. Moodrow and Tilley both knew, without having to say it, that spotters in the tenement windows were already on the phone, announcing their presence to the demons within.

  “Moodrow,” Tilley asked, “you know we’re walking into hell? Understand what I’m saying? I’m not used to entering hell without my .38 in my hand. What makes you think Dominick Favara’s gonna help you? If you hated him all the time you knew him, why should he be interested in the good of the community?”

  “I gotta trade him,” Moodrow announced. “The asshole’s a fucking businessman and I gotta convince him I got something worth the lost business.”

  “Like what?”

  He shrugged, smiled. “Whatta you think I got?”

  Tilley lowered his voice, looking around before he whispered. “You gonna let him off the hook on something else?”

  Moodrow giggled. His eyes lit up. “This kinda scum don’t get busted by precinct detectives, Jimmy. You gotta have joint task forces for perpetrators like Dominick Favara. Court-ordered wiretaps. Voice-operated remote transmitters. Witness protection programs. I read where it took four million dollars to get John Gotti in a courtroom and he beat every charge. Uh-uh, Jimmy. Dominick Favara’s got more lawyers than I got years on the force. I gotta find some other way I can persuade him.”

  Suddenly Tilley thought he understood. It was obvious. “You’re gonna give him the guy who comes up with the dope. After you find out who’s running Greenwood, you’re gonna give the guy to Favara.”

  “Close,” he said. “See, if Favara cuts off the supply of Blue Thunder, he could find out for himself. In fact, if we’re not quick, Favara might beat us to it. So what I’m gonna do is offer whoever I find with Dominick’s dope to Dominick’s tender care. But what I’m gonna give Dominick is me.”

  18

  THE DOOR, WHEN MOODROW turned the knob and gave it a tentative push, was unlocked, one more proof that the occupants sensed their own invulnerability, and the two cops stepped across the threshold into a scene carved out of a 30s gangster movie. The outer room was all wood, from the wide pine floors to the faded paneling to the narrow slat ceiling. Perhaps, every few weeks, a porter dragged a dustcloth over the small formica tables and a broom across the floor, but no one had taken soap and water to the filth for decades and every inch of the Favara Athletic Club was dark with grime.

  The room itself was large, a twenty-foot-wide storefront that ran back about thirty feet to a doorway leading into the back rooms. Small tables, replete with wizened old men in tweed caps (the club was refrigerator cold, courtesy of a huge air conditioner which dripped water onto the warped floorboards), dotted the room. A cappuccino machine, its once gleaming copper and brass fixtures as faded as the photos of FDR on the back wall, sat atop a small bar.

  All and all, it seemed like an urban version of a western ghost town. Tilley expected to come across old newspapers; rusted irons; an abandoned washing machine. Even the club members, who froze as soon as the cops stepped inside, could have been manufactured out of plaster and plastic and arranged by a contemporary artist. All except for one man. Enormous, bigger than Moodrow and twenty-five years younger, he stood in front of the door to the back room. Dressed in a pale blue silk jacket and ivory linen pants, black handmade shoes as soft as butter, he was wearing a month of Moodrow and Tilley’s combined wages on his back and he stood out from the general atmosphere of the Favara Athletic Club like a peacock in a hog pen. Then he spoke:

  “Youze forgot ta knock,” he said mildly. “That ain’t polite.” The bulge of the gun hidden beneath his jacket was so pronounced that Moodrow knew he was deliberately displaying it. And that he had a permit to carry it.

  “Yeah, Matty, but I’m a policeman,” Moodrow replied. He pronounced it poe-lease-man. “And I got special dispensation from the Pope. That means I don’t gotta knock. You wanna see?” He hauled his WWII dogtags out from under his shirt and held them out toward the apparition in the blue jacket. “The Pope sent me these al
ong with a freedom from probable cause certificate. I didn’t bring the certificate. You got a permit for that gun?”

  “Sure I do.” Smiling a smile as warm as frozen liver, he dragged a cheap St. Christopher’s medal from under his own shirt. “From the fuckin’ Cardinal,” he declared. “Come wit its own Freedom from Permit permit. Ya know, youze ain’t got no search warrant and youze is trespassing on private property. This here is a private club.”

  Tilley was standing slightly behind Moodrow and, as usual, he didn’t know how to react. Moodrow had a perverse instinct for putting himself into situations that defied ordinary police procedure. They were there, basically, to ask a favor. It probably wouldn’t pay to force the issue, in spite of the fact that Tilley knew he could off this motherfucker inside of thirty seconds. His knuckles itched with it. Musclemen are the worst fighters of all—slow, clumsy and quick to tire. If Tilley took him, however, they would almost certainly come under attack from the old men scattered about the room. Neither of the two cops was laboring under the delusion the old men, despite their age and small size, had come into the Favara Athletic Club to play gin rummy. On top of this, it was clear that Dominick Favara was not in the room. If they forced their way into the back and Favara wasn’t there either, they’d probably never find him.

  “Tell me something, Matty,” Moodrow finally asked, “how much you weigh now?”

  The gangster sucked it in. “Two seventy-five. How ’bout you, Moodrow?”