“Certainly not, Mr. Wayne. In fact, it says Do Not Forward right on the envelope. If he has moved the check will be returned to us. We don’t change the address unless we get a formal notice from the veteran himself.”
“All right, sir. Now, assuming the check is returned, couldn’t he just come to your office and pick it up—assuming he had proper identification, of course?”
“Yes, he could do that. Some of them do.”
“Well, sir—will you agree to hold his check one extra day if it is returned to you? All we want you to do is tell him to come back the next day and give us a call here at the office. Will you do that for us?”
“Well, it’s a bit irregular—couldn’t I just stall him for a while and give you a call?”
“Well, sir, we would prefer the course of action suggested to you. But we do appreciate your efforts and I believe the solution you devised would be more than satisfactory.”
“Yes, that would be better—I mean, those guys are used to waiting for their checks, you know? Another few hours won’t make any difference. But a whole day . . . well, I’d have to get approval all up the line for that.”
“Would a letter on official stationary from my superiors be of assistance to you, sir?”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Wayne. That would be perfect.”
“Very well, it will be sent out to you later this week. You know how it is getting the boss to sign anything.” I chuckled, one-on-one.
“Don’t I,” he agreed, now at ease with a fellow schlub.
“All right, sir, shall we leave it like this? If Wilson shows up before our letter arrives, you stall him for a couple of hours and notify my office immediately. And if your letter arrives first, I’m sure you’ll have no difficulty securing approval to hold the check for a day or so.”
“That would be fine, Mr. Wayne.”
“Sir, on behalf of our entire office, I appreciate your assistance. You’ll be hearing from us.”
“Thank you, Mr. Wayne.”
“Thank you, Mr. Leary,” I said, and rang off.
14
I SAT THERE for a minute, absorbing the impact of my own stupidity. Some blonde bimbo comes into my office and tells me she spooked a heavyweight freak by kicking a building superintendent in the chops and I take her word for it. It was like when I was back in the joint—all the young guys wanted to know what being on parole was like: how to get over on the P.O., what you could get away with, how close they checked on you . . . all that stuff. So who would they ask? Naturally, the only guys inside with us who knew anything about parole were chumps who were back inside on a parole violation. All over this world we keep confusing repeated failures with lots of experience. Maybe this Wilson slipped the super a few bucks and told him to tell anyone who came around looked that he’d moved out a few days ago. But maybe he was still there.
I didn’t want to brace a character like that without Max for backup, but I didn’t know where he was and there was no time to find him. I told Michelle to pack up the place and make herself scarce. If Wilson was still there, he might be on his way out the door right this minute.
It was only a couple of miles to the address the VA gave me, but that was a couple of miles through the city and it was nearly one in the afternoon. Michelle would call Mama and tell her to have Max come to the Thirty-seventh Street address, but I didn’t know when she’d make contact. Max can do a lot of things, but he can’t use a phone.
The big Plymouth hummed along, eating up the streets, moving through the packed traffic like a good pickpocket at work. Maybe Wilson was there all along—sitting in some furnished room surrounded by kiddie-porn magazines and take-out food containers and thinking he was safe. Or maybe the address was never any good—maybe he had the brains to use an accommodation drop or he had a forwarding address permanently in place. Or maybe he was packing his bags even as I was heading over to him. Too many maybes, and no time to sort them out. I’d have to hit alone—no Max, no Pansy. It’d have to do.
The Plymouth wheeled crosstown onto Eleventh Avenue and past the giant construction site where another multimillionaire was building another building for his brothers and sisters. I found Thirty-seventh Street and nosed down the block looking for a place to park—I might have to get out of there quickly. Nothing. Back to Thirty-eighth, the parallel block, where I finally found an empty spot.
I put the car into reverse and started to back in when I heard a horn blasting at me—some miserable piece of garbage wanted the spot for himself. I ignored him, but the scumbag shoved the nose of his Eldorado into the spot ahead of me. Stalemate—he couldn’t fit all the way in but it was enough to keep me out. Ram him out of the way or talk? I jumped out of the Plymouth like I was mad enough to waste him, grabbed the gold shield from my jacket pocket, and fingered the .38 with the other hand. I charged the Eldorado—the driver pushed the power window button and sat there in his pimp hat smiling, showing me a gold tooth with a diamond set in its center.
“Police! Move that fucking car! Now!”
And then I caught a break as the pimp raised his hands in a calm-down gesture and backed out without another word. Bad move on my part—maybe I called too much attention to the Plymouth, but it looked close enough to the unmarked cars the Man used in Midtown South. I put the Plymouth into the space and hit all the switches in case the pimp decided to return and act stupid. It would be a bad idea—I had his license number.
I hit the street. The block was dead at that hour—the working people were gone, the thieves were still asleep, and the welfare cases were watching television. Number 609 was on the corner, just where Flood said it was. Six-story tenement, brick front. Two glass-paneled wood doors, unlocked, a row of mailboxes inside, most of them with no names—no buzzer either. The inside door was locked. One bell was marked Super so I pushed it. Waiting for an answer, I was thinking how to play this next part. If it was a more middle-class joint I’d be tempted to come on as Detective Burke of NYPD. I looked enough like it, I was dressed right for a middle-class mind, and I could talk that talk. But any citizen of this neighborhood would see right through it.
Detectives never work alone anymore—the department won’t let them. And they don’t dress as well as I was either if they’re not on the take—I had left the double-knit disguise home in the closet where it belonged. If I had time I could have taken one of the quasi-cops with me—you know, one of the badge-freaks who likes to pretend he’s a real cop. He joins some bullshit organization, gets an honorary badge, and immediately goes out and buys himself a set of handcuffs and a blue light for his car. He hangs out in the cop bars and talks like he’s on television. I’m the founder and sole beneficiary of the Metro Detectives Association, which has enrolled dozens of these losers. We don’t charge a fee, of course, since all our men are doing important volunteer law-enforcement work. But you’d be amazed at how many of them purchase the optional framed certificate, bumper plaque, laminated plastic photo I.D. card complete with their picture, gold badge in genuine leather case—all that. It costs them an average of a grand per man. You tell a card-carrying disturbo that he’s a genuine “peace officer” and he goes straight into major orgasm, maybe for the first time. Not a bad deal for me, but this time I didn’t have one of them around when I needed him.
I rang the bell—and waited. I rang it again—it was probably as dead as my chances of finding Wilson sitting upstairs. The door lock was almost as tough as cottage cheese. I was inside in a few seconds. I walked down the corridor, looking for the basement where the super would be. If he took money from Wilson to lie, he’d take more money to tell the truth. The hall lighting was as dim as a subway tunnel—more than half the bulbs were missing.
I found the right door, knocked, got nothing. I hit it again, putting my ear to the door. Nothing—no radio, no TV, no voices. In a dump like this they wouldn’t use the super to collect the rent.
If I had stopped to think about it I wouldn’t have gone any further. I could have tried to find a pay p
hone where I could watch the door and called Mama to have her send Max over. But there was no sense in spoiling a perfect record.
Where the hell was Apartment 4? Fourth floor? Fourth apartment on the second floor? Okay—six stories, figure four apartments to each floor from the layout, total of twenty-four units. There was no elevator. I found the center stairway, listened for a second. Nothing was moving. It smelled bad—not dangerous, just the way these buildings smell after enough years of abuse. On the second floor landing I saw I was right—two apartments to the right, two more to the left. I spotted the number 3 in what was left of a faded gilt decal on one door. On the other side, the number 6, again on a decal, black number on gold background—very classy. If the numbers went all the way to 6 on this floor, with four apartments in all, numbers 1 and 2 had to be downstairs. So number 4 had to be on this floor—right next to 3.
I put my ear to the door—nothing. I slipped on my gloves and rapped softly—still nothing. Pick the lock? No—try the other apartments first. Number 3 was a no-show too. It was still quiet when I crossed the hall to 5 and 6. As I raised my hand to knock I heard the sound of an open hand on human flesh and a yelp—I moved closer and heard a young black man’s voice, rapping in that hard-edged ghetto whine that the players think distinguishes them from the citizens. “Who’s your daddy?” (slap) “I can’t hear you, bitch” (slap). A mumbled sound from someone else. “Bitch, I’m not playin’, you hear me? I’m serious—you understand?”
More mumbling. Another sharp slap. Sounds of crying.
“You run away from home, you find another home, right, little bitch? You got a new daddy now, right?” And some more slaps. I knew what was behind that door, and it wasn’t Wilson. I walked back to Number 4, pulled my tools, and worked the lock. I stepped inside like I belonged there.
One glance told me nobody belonged there. It was just like I had pictured in my mind—a convertible couch opened into a bed with grayish stained sheets, a round Formica-topped table in one corner, two padded chairs with the seats torn, fast-food cartons all over the place. There was a moldy stack of magazines in one corner—Nymphets at Play, Lolita’s Lollipops—like that. Nothing in the closet but some dirty jersey underwear thrown in a corner.
Tacked to one wall was the Cobra’s collage of socially acceptable porn—ads for bluejeans with little girls sticking their little butts into the camera, underwear ads from the catalogs with children strutting their undeveloped stuff for the photographer. Some of the photos had been scissored out—maybe there were also some adults in the ads and the Cobra had been offended at their intrusion into his maggoty fantasies.
On the bathroom wall was one of those pressure-point charts of a human figure showing the correct spots to kill with a single blow. There was a filthy tub, no shower—a can of shaving cream was the only thing left in the medicine cabinet over the sink. Plaster covered the walls, sweating in the heat from the radiators—he must have split very recently or the super would have been up to shut them off.
I moved through the Cobra’s den, but it was no go—he was gone and he wouldn’t be coming back here. Flood had spooked him away somehow and he was running. I checked the whole apartment again, cursing myself—if I had just listened to my experience instead of that damn blonde, I might have had him on a plate. A waste—it told me nothing I didn’t already know.
I walked out the Cobra’s door into the hallway, pulling the door shut behind me just as the pimp walked out of Number 6 across the hall, pushing a little girl out in front of him. I got just a quick flash of them as I stepped forward—a skinny girl, maybe thirteen years old, wearing an ankle-length maxicoat opened to display tiny white hot pants and a red top, thick-soled high heels—her face was closed behind a thick mask of makeup. The pimp wore a maxicoat too, his an imitation leopard. He had a safari hat with a leopard band—I caught the glassy flash of a fake diamond on his hand. The pimp caught my eye and then quickly booked away, but it was too late—by then I was on top of them. The pimp was yelling “Hey, man!” but I had the little cylinder of CN gas in my hand and I blasted him full in the face. I could see the gas turn to liquid on his skin right between his frightened eyes.
“Hey, mister—hey, please. Man, I didn’t know nothin’, man. I thought she was legal age, you know? Hey, man—I didn’t know.” he was screaming and clawing at his face at the same time.
I dropped the gas canister in my pocket and grabbed hold of two fistfuls of the pimp’s cheesy coat, jerking him off his feet and back into his apartment. He tried to stand against the wall, but a knee to the testicles doubled him over. I clubbed him sideways across the face with a forearm as he slid to the ground.
I dropped to one knee, still holding his coat with one hand. “Fuckin’ yom. You know who the fuck this is?” indicating the little girl who was huddled in a corner, watching with wide eyes. “That’s Mr. G.’s daughter, asshole.”
And then he realized this was more than a statutory rape beef—he was on trial for his life and the jury wasn’t too deeply committed to civil rights. He looked for a way out, tried to speak, but nothing came out. I leaned down so I was real close to his face, slipping my hand around a roll of nickels I keep in my coat, my voice a harsh jailhouse-whisper. “Go back to Alabama, nigger. Never let me see you again in life, you understand? I see you again and I got to bring Mr. G. your fucking face in a paper bag. Got it?” punctuating each unanswerable question with a punch to his side until I felt a rib go. I pulled his face right into mine and spat between his eyes. He never moved—he would remember my face—I wanted him to. The closer the better for work like that.
I got to my feet and switched the roll of nickels for the .38. I pulled the hat off my head and wrapped it around the barrel. The pimp knew what was coming next as I knelt next to him, he could hear the pistol cock. “Mister—mister, I’m gone. I swear . . . I swear to God, man! Please . . .”
I acted like I was making up my mind, but of course it was no contest. His life wasn’t worth the ninety days in jail it would cost me. The girl was still in the corner, her painted mouth open and slack, but she wasn’t going to scream. I grabbed her arm and shoved her out of the apartment in front of me, half-throwing her down the stairs. A white face stuck itself out of a first-floor apartment as we went past—I showed the .38 to the face and it disappeared behind a slamming door. We hit the sidewalk—me walking fast and pulling the kid along with me. Her arm felt like a twig in my hand. She didn’t say a word.
I found the Plymouth untouched, pushed her inside ahead of me and climbed in behind, punching down the switch so she couldn’t unlock her own door. We were rolling in seconds, heading for the highway.
I pulled into one of the parking areas under the overpass where I know the manager. I told the girl, “Sit fucking still,” locked the car, and walked over to the little booth where the manager sits. I tossed a twenty on his desk and he walked out like he had an appointment someplace. I picked up his phone, dialed the number of NYPD’s Runaway Squad, for my money the only damn cop operation in New York worth the price of a city councilman.
“Runaway Squad, Officer Morales speaking.”
“Detective McGowan around?” I asked.
“Hold on,” said Morales. Then McGowan’s strong Irish voice came over the wire. “This is Detective McGowan.”
“Burke here. I got a package for you—about thirteen. She just left her pimp, okay?”
“Where’s the kid?”
“At a parking lot under the West Side Highway on Thirty-ninth. Can you move now?”
“Be there in ten minutes,” he said, and I knew I could count on it.
In the car waiting for McGowan, I lit a cigarette, looking over at the girl. A real baby—her skinny legs hadn’t even grown calves yet. I couldn’t do McGowan’s job—I’d end up doing life for wasting one of those dirtbag pimps. McGowan has four daughters—twenty-five years on the job and he just made detective last year. I heard the brass was going to close down the whole Runaway Squad too. I guess the
y need all the cops they can get to protect visiting diplomats. New York’s got an image to protect.
The girl said, “Mister—”
“Just keep your little mouth shut and your eyes down. Don’t look at me—don’t say nothing.” Maybe I should have been a social worker.
She kept quiet until McGowan and his partner, a guy they call Moose for good reason, pulled up. I unlocked and he reached over and opened the girl’s door. He held out his hand and she took it immediately. McGowan put his arm around her shoulders and started crooning to her in that honey-Irish voice and walking her back to his car. By the time they got back to the stationhouse he’d know where she had run away from—and probably why. I put the Plymouth into gear and pulled out. If anyone asked McGowan, he’d say he got an anonymous call and never saw the deliveryman.
But the Cobra was running—and I didn’t know how far he’d gone. I used a pay phone on Fourteenth and called the warehouse number.
“United States Attorney’s office,” came back Michelle’s bubblegum voice.
“I thought I told you to clear out,” I told her.
“I called Mama—she’s going to call me when Max shows.” Did any woman in the world do what I told her?
“Okay, babe—stay there. When Mama calls, tell her to send Max by, okay?”
She blew a kiss into the phone and hung up.
15
THE PLYMOUTH PURRED its own way back to the warehouse, oblivious to my depression. This case was certainly going to do wonders for my reputation—a bit more of my skillful detective work and I’d be known as Burke the Jerk. Fuck it, I thought (my theme song), no point crying over spilt milk. I had seen babies in Biafra too weak to cry, and mothers with no milk left to nurse them. I had gotten out of that—I could get out of this.
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