“But I don’t want to come with you, okay?”
“Oh, Lindy, honey—”
“Gimme that other rock.”
“But you can’t stay here.”
“Says who?”
“Lindy, dearest, look at this place. It’s a disgusting hole.”
“I hadn’t noticed.”
“Obviously your judgment’s impaired from all these drugs. Walter, help me get her up.”
“Get your hands off me, motherfucker,” Lindy screeched, her vocal energy incongruent with her wasted appearance.
“We’re taking you to a hospital.”
“Get the fuck offa me!”
“Please don’t be like this.”
“I am like this. This is what I am!”
As she resisted and fought, Maggie and Walter failed to hear the figures stealing up behind them.
“What de fuck you think you doin’?” a familiar voice upbraided them. Maggie and Walter dropped the bag of filthy quilting and bones that was Lindy and turned to see the owner of that voice. He was of an age, physical size, and heft that might have qualified him for defensive line of an NCAA Division One football team—had not other vocational opportunities presented themselves. He was accompanied by a young man half a foot shorter but equally hefty, who sported a bit of nylon stocking headgear that made him look futuristically androidal. “Do you know what you fuckin’ with?” the tall one asked.
“Excuse me,” Walter replied manfully. “This person is a friend. We’ve really got to get her out of here.”
“Dis’ere is T-Bone’s Hollywoot bitch.”
“Give T-Bone our regrets,” Walter said. As he stooped to retrieve the uncooperative Lindy, the tall figure reached down and, with a hand about the size of a squash racket, slapped the side of Walter’s head. Walter struck back with his umbrella, but it was as though he had swatted a bronze statue. Their large adversary snapped the umbrella in half like a twig and flung the pieces off into the darkness—where one bit apparently landed on someone, provoking cries of outrage.
“Y’alls paid but only one special membership. Deys two you come in,” the tall one said.
“We’ll leave as soon as we can get our friend up,” Maggie retorted, her voice quavering but loud.
“You leavin’ now, bitch, ’cause we kickin’ yo’ asses out.”
Maggie and Walter were then pulled, shoved, kicked, pushed, dragged, and rolled across the dim, hot, stinking room, past bloodshot eyes wide with hilarity and toothless, raw-gummed smiles, to the stairway and finally back into the entry vestibule, where they came to a halt side by side on the floor against the wall like a couple of rag dolls.
“Are you all right?” Walter gasped to Maggie, clutching her as if to fend off more expected blows.
“I’m all right,” she breathed back.
Their attackers loomed over them, glowering. Several jittery crackheads just in from the streets hovered in the background.
“Dat yo’ big-ass Toyota outside?” the tall one said.
“Yes,” Maggie said.
“Gimme de keys.”
Maggie glanced fretfully at Walter.
“It’s just a car,” Walter told her.
Maggie dug the keys out of the patch pocket of her sundress and reluctantly handed them over.
“Lemme see yo’ wallet, dickbrain.”
Walter extracted it from his back pocket. The shorter one grabbed it, swiped all the bills and credit cards, and tossed it back.
“You know, we jess tryna run a muthafuckin’ bidness here,” the tall one said. “You and yo’ bitch get de fuck out and don’t even think about comin’ back.”
“Yeah,” said the shorter one.
“Are you letting us go?” Maggie asked, rather astounded.
“No, we kicking you out. We don’t have time to kill you.” He turned to his colleague. “Yo, git dat ride off de street.” Then back to Maggie and Walter. “Y’alls git de fuck out my sight, now, ’fo’ I change my mind.”
Moments later, they were out blinking on the sun-blasted sidewalk, watching the Toyota disappear around the corner.
“What do we do now?” Maggie asked, growing teary again.
“Go to the police,” Walter said.
9
The Fortress
They found the Fourth Ward precinct house a mere nine blocks from the crack establishment on Bovington Street. It was a one-story industrial box plopped in a parking lot in a neighborhood that had suffered the ravages of “urban renewal” back in the sixties. The building presented windowless facades on all four sides, lending it the look of a science-fiction fortification. The main entrance was a mere hole in the wall. Its flat roof was decorated against casual ingress with coils of razor wire.
The entry vestibule of the precinct station was only marginally more hospitable than that of the crack house. There was no graffiti. It stank of disinfectant rather than urine. The cinder-block room was lighted with fluorescent fixtures and contained a half dozen blow-molded plastic chairs. There were two pay phones and a soda machine against the wall. Like the crack house, business was conducted through a relatively small, fortified aperture, in this case a bulletproof glass window, behind which operated the intake office. A young, male officer with a very short forehead and beetling dark eyebrows that came together at the center, giving him the look of a cookie jar, sat at a counter behind the bulletproof window.
“Our friend is trapped in a crack house on Bovington Street,” Maggie told him. “We tried to remove her, but they threw us out.”
“You’re lucky they threw you out,” the officer remarked. His voice came over a little loudspeaker in the wall above the aperture. He sounded as though he were talking through a tin can on a string.
“Sure, but she’s still in there,” Maggie insisted.
The officer took Lindy’s name, age, physical description, et cetera, and said, “Okay, then. Thank you very much.”
“What are you going to do?” Maggie asked.
“We’ll let you know when she turns up.”
“But she could turn up dead.”
“Wait a minute, Officer,” Walter said, inserting himself before the window, “this gal’s life is in danger. She’s all drugged up. You’ve got to get her out.”
“Yeah,” Maggie said. “You’ve got to send some men into this place.”
“How did she get in there?”
“Someone brought her there.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. Some dreadful man.”
“And where’s this man.”
“Who the hell knows. He’s a … criminal.”
“Is he forcing her to do the drugs?”
“Perhaps at first. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. She’s a slave to the crack now.”
“That’s how they all get,” the officer said.
“She has to be saved from herself,” Maggie explained.
“They all do,” the officer said.
“Lookit, do you know this house we’re talking about?” Walter said.
“Well, there’s a lot of these places over there. They come and go. They burn up. Open up elsewhere. Like mushrooms after the rain.”
“We’ll be happy to lead you directly there,” Walter said.
“Sir,” the officer said, looking straight through the thick glass, “we don’t storm crack houses. This is not the Marine Corps.”
“You can go in there, though, can’t you? With a bunch of guys.”
The officer laughed. “Do you know what kind of weapons these characters have?”
“Obviously they have guns.”
“That’s right. Only theirs are automatic. They fire bullets the way a garden hose sprays water. We don’t have that kind of firepower. And if we did, the public wouldn’t let us use it.”
“Wait a minute,” Walter said. “You’re telling me that you don’t even bother trying to control these places?”
“I wouldn’t put it that way.”
“How wo
uld you put it?”
“We don’t believe in committing suicide.”
“So you just let these hellholes go about their business?”
“Like I said, we ain’t the marines.”
“May I speak to your supervisor?” Maggie interjected. “Is there a lieutenant or a captain on the premises?”
“Yeah. He’ll tell you the same thing.”
In a matter of minutes, a certain Lieutenant Muybridge came to the window. An athletic, somewhat horse-faced man with sleepless eyes and a defeated demeanor, Muybridge told them pretty much the same thing.
“The bottom line here, then, is that you won’t do anything,” Walter summarized.
“We’ll call the building inspector,” Muybridge said.
“And what does that accomplish?” Walter asked.
“He determines if the place is in compliance with health and fire codes, and if it’s not, he issues a summons.”
“And what does that lead to?”
“In a week to ten days it could result in a revocation of certificate of occupancy.”
“So, we have to wait about two weeks for you to kick people out of that hellhole.”
“Actually, we don’t handle evictions. That would be the city health and fire safety commissioner’s office.”
“But if you guys, the police, won’t even go into these places, why would the safety and health people go in there?”
“The truth is, they don’t.”
“Then this is all just bullshit.”
“There’s no need to use foul language, sir.”
“All right. All right. But it does nothing to solve the immediate problem of our friend, who is being held prisoner in this crack den on Bovington Street.”
“No. I suppose not,” Muybridge said with a sigh. “But it does show the importance of personal responsibility and healthy lifestyle choices.”
“Cowards!” Maggie screamed, unable to control herself any longer. “Craven bastards! Worms! Pussies!”
“Sir, tell your wife that we don’t tolerate abusive behavior here. This station is our home. You wouldn’t want us to come into your home and holler vulgarities, would you?”
“You haven’t heard the end of this, Lieutenant,” Walter said. “There’s still an attorney general’s office in the state of Connecticut and we’re going to complain long and loud.”
“There’s a pay phone over there. Feel free to call them. They’ll tell you the same thing. We follow established procedure here. We don’t invade secured drug depots with SWAT teams. We’re not cowboys. It’s that simple.”
“Wait!” Maggie cried. “I have an idea.”
Both Walter and Lieutenant Muybridge looked at her with anticipation. She hurried across the room to the phone and dialed New York City on her calling card number.
10
The Cavalry
“Lawrence Hayward,” she told the receptionist. “Maggie Darling calling.”
The Merlin of the Markets picked up a moment later.
“Oh, Maggie, I’m so terribly sorry,” he began.
“Excuse me … ?” she said, instantly taken aback.
“You mean you haven’t heard?”
“Heard? What?”
“About Kenneth.”
“What about him?”
“Why, he was picked up this afternoon for sniping cars along the Merritt Parkway.”
There ensued a stunned pause. With different personalities in the same circumstances, the interlude might have been filled by such pungent exclamations as “Fuck me gently with a chain saw!” or “Holy jumping weeping Jesus on the cross!” but in this case there was only shocked silence.
“Hello, Maggie? Are you there?”
“Yes,” she fairly croaked, having become worn down to a nubbin by cumulative disaster.
“Awful sorry to break the news,” Hayward said.
“Well …”
“Is there anything I can do for you, Maggie?”
“Actually, yes.”
“What?”
“You can send a small troop of heavily armed mercenaries to Hartford, Connecticut, as soon as possible and help rescue my friend Lindy—you remember Lindy, don’t you?”
“Yeah, sure. Skinny brunette. We had dinner one time at your place.”
“That’s right.”
“You say she needs to be rescued?”
“Yes, she does.”
“From what?”
“A crack house.”
“Crack? As in drugs?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I’ll be. How’d she get mixed up in that?”
“Don’t ask.”
“When you say ‘troop,’ what did you have in mind, Maggie?”
“Oh, say, twenty guys with machine guns.”
There was another pause, this time at Hayward’s end.
“I can do that,” he eventually said.
“Great.”
“You want ’em right away?”
“The sooner the better.”
“Where are you now?”
“Police station somewhere in Hartford.”
“They’re useless sonsabitches, aren’t they?”
“You said it.”
“Do you know the address there?”
“No. Wait a second.” Maggie hollered at the intake window. “Walter, ask the lieutenant for the address of this place.”
“Right,” Walter said and conferred with Muybridge. “It’s 2009 Charity Street,” he reported.
Maggie relayed it to Hayward. “Say, how will you ever find us?”
“Global positioning, dear. I could pin the tail on a donkey with it ten thousand miles from my desk.”
“No kidding?”
“It’s a brave new world of consumer electronics, Maggie. Say, anyplace we might put down a helicopter there?”
“Oh, there’s acres of parking around the building.”
“Swell. Give me an hour and a half.”
“Okay. That would be about seven-fifteen P.M.”
“Roger,” Hayward said.
“Lawrence, are you really serious?”
“Oh, absolutely.”
“You’re going to show up here in an hour and a half in a helicopter with a gang of armed thugs?”
“Thugs is a little … indelicate. Call them highly trained counter-terrorist specialists. And you can bet we’ll be there on the dot. You just sit tight.”
“Okay, then.”
“Say, Maggie. When you rang I was just on my way to a terrific new discovery. Unigatzsu, on Greene Street. Little hole in the wall. Heard of it?”
“No.”
“You wouldn’t believe what they do with abalone.”
“The stuff is hell to work with. You’ve got to beat the devil out of it with a mallet.”
“Really? Mine was as tender as milk-fed veal.”
“Some people have the knack.”
“Well, thank God for that,” Hayward said. “See you in a little while.”
Maggie told Lieutenant Muybridge and Walter that the cavalry was coming, so to speak. Muybridge was amused. He told them to go ahead and have a seat, make themselves comfortable “until zero hour, ha ha”—while he surreptitiously flipped some Rolodex cards on the intake desk to find the phone number of the psychiatric unit at Hartford General.
11
The Op
Imagine the surprise of all the officers and staff present in the Fourth Ward station house when, at precisely 7:13 P.M. the whupwhupwhup of helicopter rotor blades became audible through the building’s concrete walls. Maggie and Walter rushed outside to see the huge Sikorsky touch down mere yards from Lieutenant Muybridge’s very own five-year-old Geo Prizm coupe. Policemen of all ranks debouched the dreary building and went to the parking lot to gawk.
Hayward was first to hit the ground, wearing a flak jacket over his gray Brooks Brothers business suit and also a baseball cap bearing the logo of Cleansweep Military Technology Services—an eagle clutching a broom and a dust
pan in its talons—a company he had picked up at a fire sale in March. Behind him, the aircraft disgorged twenty-two “peace associates” (PAs), as the company called its employees, armed with fully automatic AMT-Harlan 9mm carbines, twelve-gauge magazine-feed British Rackley “street sweeper” riot guns, concussion grenades, armor-piercing rockets, tear gas canisters, and enough ammunition to put down a medium-size insurrection in an average Third World capital city—which was a close approximation of what Hartford, Connecticut, had become.
The police would not hear of lending any of their vehicles for the operation. There was brief discussion about calling taxicabs, but in the end it was decided that the PAs (and everyone else) could more easily walk the nine blocks to their objective on Bovington.
The men were led by their team leader, Howard “Howie the Hawk” Kaplan, veteran of the U.S. Special Forces with bravery citations from the pacification op in Streltzy, Serbia, back in the nineties. Through the ruined streets they went, past the hibachis of the homeless and the disintegrating houses of the powerless, the moneyless, the hopeless, the fatherless, the feckless, the reckless, and the aimless—all stepping outdoors, blinking, into the harsh, hot evening sunlight as Hartfordites of a bygone epoch might have watched the passing of a circus parade— making their way in close order like an occupying army across town toward the former Masonic lodge on Bovington.
Once there, the “overtake operation” took a total of thirty-eight seconds from entry to Team Leader Kaplan’s declaration of “Site secured.” From out on the sidewalk, a few mere pops were heard. Then silence. Then the building came alive as maundering crackheads poured out the front door like roaches fleeing the exterminator’s toxic wand.
“There’s some slumber bunnies upstairs,” Agent Kaplan reported, “case you want to ID the hostage.”
“Huh?” Maggie said. She was so overwhelmed by the dazzling efficiency of it all that it took her a moment to realize that he was referring to Lindy, the object of the operation. She marshaled her wits and crying “Lindy!” hurried inside. Among the crack house staff being rounded up at gunpoint was the shorter of the two who had thrown them out earlier in the afternoon. His wrists were bound with plastic twisty-cuffs.
“That fellow took our car!” Walter exclaimed.
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