“Hopefully. When are we supposed to meet Jackson? How much time we got?”
“Eight o’clock. Couple of hours.”
“Plenty of time. Be nice to have some proof Beck, or some of his people, shot Jackson’s boys.”
Ippolito nodded, noting Palmer had come over to the idea of setting up Beck’s crew for Eric Jackson.
“Listen, John, I know I’m the one pushing this thing with Jackson, and I still say it’s a necessary evil, but rule number one, and don’t forget this—if shit starts to go against you, if Jackson starts pulling something you don’t think you can control, do not hesitate to cut your losses and move on. You’re just starting out. I’m two minutes from retiring. We get jammed up now with some bullshit, not saying we will, but if it does happen, I could lose everything. It’ll hurt you but let’s be honest, you got other options. They pull my pension, I’m fucked.”
“Understood.”
“And let me be right up front here, John.”
“What?”
“I’m not doing this for me. At this stage, you know damn well I ain’t advancing in rank or position. I’m going way outside the lines on this for you, kid. And I’m counting on you doing what you said when we first partnered up—putting the word in with your father to pull the right strings when I’m out there looking for the next place to land. Are we together on that? Tell me now it’s a go or no-go, and no hard feelings.”
“It’s a go, Ray. Don’t worry. We both know I can’t get this done without you. I give you my word, I won’t leave you high and dry. My father makes three or four calls, you’ll have three or four offers. End of story.”
Palmer extended his hand. Ippolito shook it, meeting Palmer eye to eye.
“Done.”
They ended their handshake, and Ippolito said, “By the way, we gotta find the girl. I haven’t a clue how, but we can’t have her running around loose out there. Somehow, she’s involved. Who knows? Maybe she was at that place when Derrick got popped. We find her, maybe you’ll have yourself another witness.”
“Hey, maybe so, Ray. That would be fucking great.”
“Goddam right it would be.”
45
As Janice walked away from him, Beck couldn’t help noticing she glanced furtively at Remsen to see if he was watching her. It explained a lot about her reserve and wariness.
Remsen had always been ready to make life miserable for any prisoner or correction officer who came across his path. Having Oswald Remsen as a boss had to be a nightmare for Janice.
Beck felt his antipathy toward Remsen emerging from a deep place. He stared openly at the man, almost daring him to look in his direction. Remsen had spent decades living off the fear and misery he created in prisoners locked up without any means to fight back, guards he outranked, and this hardworking woman taking care of his piece-of-shit bar stuck out in the middle of nowhere.
Beck forced himself to stop staring at Remsen. He looked at the remains of his whiskey. It all made sense now. The fact that Remsen owned the tavern explained why he could sit in the place collecting his payoffs with impunity.
But where was the money coming from? Drugs? Beck couldn’t imagine a correction officer with Remsen’s years in the system taking that risk. Rita the CO accused Remsen of doing something disgusting. It didn’t take much of a leap to figure prostitution might be the source of Remsen’s cash under the table. Everything started to fall into place. Packy’s daughter was being prostituted in the Bronx. If Remsen was running a prostitution ring upstate, he certainly wouldn’t be able to recruit enough women from the locals. They had to be coming from somewhere. If Packy thought his daughter was going to be forced to sell herself for Oswald Remsen, a brutal correction officer, the absolute scum of the earth, he would have hitchhiked through hell and taken on a hundred thugs to stop it.
But how was Derrick Watkins connected to a corrupt correction guard running prostitutes in upstate New York? Had Derrick served time in Eastern? Or somebody he knew?
Beck had an urge to slip on one of the brass knuckles he’d brought, walk over to Remsen’s table, and smash him in the face until he told Beck everything he wanted to know.
He turned his whiskey glass between his thumb and forefinger, staring at the bar top. He took another quick look at the overbearing man at the far end of the room, lording over everybody and everything around him.
Beck nodded to himself. He could see it. If Remsen knew Packy was onto him and soon to be released from prison, he would do whatever he could to stop Packy from causing trouble. Paco Johnson was just another ex-con with no connections, no money, no power. Totally expendable. And the fact that Remsen could take care of Packy outside Eastern meant nothing would bounce back on him.
Beck forced himself to stop thinking about it. Turn off the switch and calm down. He’d found out enough for one night. He’d made a lot of effort to conceal his identity and blend in with the locals. It would be stupid to do anything more now, especially alone and more than slightly drunk. He had to suppress his loathing for Remsen before it made him do something reckless. He’d figure this out, but not here, not now.
He finished his last swallow of Jameson and chased it with a swig of beer. The peanuts he’d eaten had done nothing but make him more hungry. Time to get the hell out of this shit hole and find something decent to eat.
When Janice turned his way, he motioned for a check.
While he waited, he took one last quick look at Remsen, now talking on his cell phone. Beck decided the other two who had been with him the whole time were probably the sons Rita had told him about.
Beck paid his bill, leaving double the amount, hoping Janice didn’t have to kick back any of the tip to asshole Oswald Remsen.
He headed out of the bar, feeling the effects of the whiskey and beer. He hadn’t thrown the booze down quickly. He was fine. Time to get some dinner and figure out his next move.
He wore an old denim work jacket he’d brought with him along with jeans, a khaki shirt, and sturdy lace-up shoes. Clothes that not only made him look like a local, but were also suited to the chill air settling in. Even in May the nights in upstate New York were dipping into the fifties.
Both hands were shoved into the pockets of his jacket. He absentmindedly slipped his fingers into the brass knuckles in his left pocket as he felt around for the truck key in his right.
Despite trying to put everything out of his mind, Beck kept thinking about Oswald Remsen. Trying to make the connections between Remsen, Packy, his daughter, prostitutes, and the Watkins brothers. Brothers. Dammit. Beck cursed, shaking his head at how long it at taken him to put the last part of it together. Rita had given him everything he needed. The third Remsen son working at Sing Sing. He had to be the link. Plenty of men from the Bronx connected to the Watkins’s must have filtered in and out of Sing Sing.
Between the booze and being preoccupied by his sudden insight, Beck didn’t hear the footsteps behind him soon enough. He didn’t turn in time to avoid the baseball bat, only enough so that the bat hit him behind his right shoulder instead of squarely in the middle of his back where it might have shattered his vertebrae.
The wallop knocked Beck to the ground. With both hands in his jacket pockets, he landed awkwardly, but rolled onto his feet quickly, before the next blow from the bat put him on the ground permanently.
On his feet but off balance, Beck staggered back and ducked as the end of the bat whipped past the top of his head.
He continued backpedaling, the adrenaline, panic, and pain burning away the effects of the whiskey and beer. In the dim light of the parking area, Beck saw the man wielding the bat stood at least six six, and well over two fifty. There were two more men advancing along with him, staying back a pace, letting the hulk do the hard work. It was only a matter of time before one of the swings put him down and they all moved in for the kill.
Beck managed to get his hands out of his pockets, but only the left hand held a weapon. He ignored the other two attackers
and focused on the one with the bat. He advanced on Beck, the bat held over his head like an axe. Beck knew whatever the bat hit, would break: skull, collarbone, shoulder, or an arm raised to block it.
He couldn’t keep dodging the bat. He had to take it away, but how? His attacker was too big, too strong. Was this it? After all he’d been through was he going to end up beaten to death in a dirt parking lot outside a shit bar?
The blow came down at him, hard and fast. Beck changed direction and lunged forward, aiming his left hand, timing his one chance with absolute commitment, ignoring the ridiculous odds, and going for it with everything he had.
The brass knuckles smacked into the aluminum bat with a metallic thunk that surprised everybody, including Beck. The impact nearly buckled Beck’s wrist. It reverberated all the way through his arm to his shoulder. Beck’s brass-knuckled fist hit the bat squarely, but he only managed to deflect it.
The end of the bat pounded onto the ground. Beck stomped on the handle, forcing the bat out of the bigger man’s hands, then he whipped a brass-knuckled backhand at his attacker that missed.
The big man let out a snarling growl, grabbed Beck, and threw him to the ground.
Before Beck could get to his feet, the other two were on him like jackals. The kicks rained down fast and hard, hitting his chest, ribs, back. One kick hit his right elbow. Another, the side of his head. Beck saw flashes of light in a field of black, and swung his knuckled fist blindly, feeling the brass connect with one of his attacker’s legs. He immediately threw himself in that direction, rolling into a pair of legs, taking one of them to the ground.
Beck’s head cleared as another boot caught him in the back, but he didn’t care, he was on top of one of the attackers and landed two brass-knuckled punches as a body dived into him, driving him off the man under him.
Beck shoved off the third attacker as a huge boot hit him in his left side, paralyzing him with pain. Another kick clipped the side of his head and neck, and another his shoulder. There were more of them now. Beck lashed out with his own kick then rolled into a fetal position, hands and arms trying to protect the sides and back of his head. He wondered how many of them there were. He felt himself losing consciousness, thinking I’m going to die, but finding comfort knowing that Manny Guzman, Demarco Jones, and Ciro Baldassare would hunt down every one of these bastards and kill them, too.
And then he heard a gunshot, and everything went black.
46
Amelia walked around Tyrell’s neighborhood for thirty minutes looking for his green Malibu. The balls of her feet began to hurt. She felt drained from the fight with Darlene and the shooting at Hoe Avenue. Her reaction to Darlene calling her a bitch had unleashed something in her that had shocked her as much as it had made her feel liberated.
After another five minutes without success, she decided the hell with Tyrell’s car. Just get back in Derrick’s Jeep and drive away. By now Darlene had probably made ten phone calls ratting her out.
Amelia turned a corner to head back to where she’d parked Derrick’s Jeep, and there it was, Tyrell’s green Chevy. She looked around. Nobody on the street. She quickly unlocked the car and turned the engine over. She navigated over to Crotona Parkway and drove north on the wide boulevard past East Tremont Avenue looking for a place to pull over.
She spotted an empty parking spot near the Happy Land Memorial, a small inconspicuous fenced-in area in the middle of the median across from a twenty-four-hour parking garage. The memorial commemorated eighty-seven people who were killed in a fire that destroyed an unlicensed social club a few blocks south on Southern Boulevard.
Amelia backed into the side-by-side parking space. The people on the street took no more notice of her than they did of the tiny memorial park. She looked through the glove compartment, hoping to find a gun. Nothing. She checked the mesh pockets behind the front seats and found nothing.
She got out and opened the trunk. At first, all she saw was the spare tire and a cardboard box filled with junk. And then she saw the laundry bag. She grabbed the neck of the bag and knew by its weight the bag didn’t contain just laundry.
She pulled open the drawstring, pushed aside the dirty sheet, and found two bundles of cash, two guns, boxes of bullets, and two ledger books.
“Damn.”
She immediately pulled the drawstring closed and shoved the laundry bag into the back of the trunk. She pushed the cardboard box in front of it.
She climbed back into the Malibu, trying to estimate how long it had been since Biggie had been shot and killed. At least an hour? Maybe a little more. Plenty of time for word to spread. She had to get off the streets. Right now. Lay low. Check the guns, count her cash, get something to eat. Clean up. Figure out her next move.
Amelia fired up the Chevy and headed for a motel in an industrial area almost within walking distance of the Bronx River Houses. It was the only place Amelia knew where she could get a room without a credit card or ID.
Derrick rented rooms for his whores there for short-term stays late at night. There were almost always vacancies. He would make a deal with the night manager to rent the empty rooms until morning for half the normal price. There were times when he rented two or three rooms a night. Derrick had once told her if it weren’t for him the night managers would starve.
Amelia could feel her heart racing a little as she drove toward the dreary motel. From the moment she’d pulled the trigger on Derrick, Amelia knew she would have to leave the Bronx forever. If she could take down one more place, she’d be gone. It had worked at Tyrell’s. Logic told her to try Biggie’s house next.
Juju Jackson and Bondurant would have men out on the street looking for her. And for those guys who shot Biggie. The last place they’d expect to find her would be at Biggie’s house. If she moved fast, she might make her biggest score yet. Hit the place around three, four o’clock in the morning. It would most likely only be Queenie and a few of Jerome’s wives and whores in there. Hit fast and take whatever money she could find and then get the hell out of the Bronx once and for all.
Amelia told herself, calm down. Get organized. Clean up. One more hit, and she’d be gone. Maybe Atlantic City. Hell, maybe California. Figure it out once she had her stake. She had guns, bullets, money, and a car. She could do this.
47
Manny saw the expression on Demarco’s face as they walked through the parking lot heading for a strip club in the back of a small shopping mall near the West Shore Expressway on Staten Island.
“Don’t let Ciro see that look on your face.”
“What look?”
“You know what look.”
“You mean the look you get when you think of stale booze, body odor, and cheap perfume?”
“Guys on your team don’t get the attraction.”
“You mean the thrill of women with fake breasts and bad tattoos grinding their fat asses into your genitals?”
“My point exactly, ese.”
Demarco suppressed a smile and asked, “Does Ciro have a stake in this place?”
“If you ask him, he’ll say he has an interest in it.”
Demarco said, “What’s the difference?”
“You’d never find his name anywhere.”
The club had just opened for the evening when they entered. Ciro must have told the bouncer/doorman they were coming. He waved them in and said, “He’s downstairs,” pointing to a door located to the right of the cashier’s cubicle.
Manny led the way. Demarco wrinkled his nose at the damp basement odor. Was it the proximity to the bay? The wildlife refuge across the road? Probably both, but the smell reminded him of something.
“By the way, Manny. We have to dump our guns in the wildlife refuge.”
Manny made a face.
“Hey, my bullets aren’t in any bodies back there. It’s really only your gun we have to dump. I’m only tossing in the Glock so you don’t feel too bad.”
“The only thing too bad is, too bad you can’t shoot better
. Then some of your bullets would be in that fat pimp, too.”
“Just laying cover for you, amigo.”
Manny smiled and nodded. Patting Demarco on the back. “I know, D. Muchas gracias.”
“De nada. But we still gotta dump the guns. We’ll buy you a new one out of the house fund.”
They walked through a storage area containing kitchen supplies stacked neatly on wire shelving, past a doorway and into a larger area with lockers for the busboys and bartenders. There were several folding chairs set up in front of the lockers. A lingering odor of stale cigarette smoke mixed with the damp basement smell.
A large office occupied the far end of the downstairs space, warmly lit by lights recessed into a drop ceiling. There was a black leather couch, a glass coffee table flanked by two matching leather chairs in front of a large oak desk, and oak wainscoting on all four walls.
None of it quite made up for the fact that the office was in a windowless basement.
Ciro occupied half of the couch, feet resting on the coffee table, dressed in dark slacks, expensive loafers, and a black knit shirt. He pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes at Manny and Demarco when they entered.
“Bad day in the Bronx, huh, boys?”
“How can you tell?” said Manny.
“Experience. How bad?”
Manny sat in one of the leather chairs opposite Ciro. Demarco took the other, propping his feet up on the coffee table, mirroring Ciro. He compared his oxblood Allen Edmonds to Ciro’s dark green shoes and decided Ciro’s were probably more expensive and made out of an endangered species.
Demarco answered, “Might not be too bad. Might mean a bloodbath coming. Depends on how we navigate things.”
“What do you mean by navigate?”
Demarco laced his fingers behind his head, concentrating on how to bring Ciro up to speed without taxing his patience.
“Ah, okay, so—there’s two more dead guys. We put down one. Packy’s daughter shot the other one.”
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