Authors: Lorenzo Carcaterra
He was stretched out across the front seat, head on the door rest, the heels of his construction boots flat against the passenger side jam, two .38 Police Specials crisscrossed on his chest. He slipped a cassette of
Clifton Chenier and the Zodiac Ramblers into the tape deck and listened, at uncharacteristically low volume, as they stomped their way through “The Things I Did for You.” Rev. Jim closed his eyes and took several deep breaths.
He wasn’t sure if he was ready for what the Apaches had planned. This would be his first bout of heavy action since the fire that had disabled him, and while he could taste the fear, the adrenaline flow he always felt still hadn’t kicked in. He knew the other members of the team were out there, positioned in the dark, ready to pounce, each of them probably running through the same emotional checks he was clicking off in his mind. He knew it was every cop’s natural instinct to hesitate before going into a bust, but for reasons he couldn’t quite pin down he seemed suddenly uncomfortable with those feelings.
Rev. Jim had always loved the rush that came with being a decoy, walking in blind, never knowing when or if the hit would come or if the assigned backup would really be there. It was all part of the play, risk being as important as the takedown. Rather than fear it, he had always welcomed it. Except for now.
Lying down next to the steering wheel of his beat-up Gremlin, Rev. Jim wondered if it was too late for him to be a cop again. Wondered if he had lost too much of what he needed.
He checked the red digital light on his wristwatch.
8:56
P.M
.
In less than four minutes he would have his answer.
• • •
B
OOMER AND
D
EAD
-E
YE
sat on opposite ends of the fire escape, backs to the wall, separated by the streaks of light pouring out from the kitchen. Both wore thin black leather jackets, thick black sweaters, and black racer gloves. Boomer had a .38 revolver in his right hand and
another pushed into the back of his jeans. Dead-Eye had two semis, both snug inside their shoulder holsters.
Boomer glanced into the kitchen and saw the man with the knife talking in animated tones with the one whose back was to the window. Sweat ran down the man’s forehead and into his eyes. Boomer knew the layout of the apartment and the backgrounds on the men inside from the sealed packet he had received earlier that morning from One Police Plaza. If everything in the narcotics report held accurate, this would be the first hard slap by the Apaches against Lucia Carney.
“We gotta freeze the guy with the knife,” Boomer whispered to Dead-Eye. “Otherwise, he sticks the kid.”
“Make that my worry,” Dead-Eye said. “You deal with his friend.”
“Mrs. Columbo can handle the ones hanging by the sink,” Boomer said. “Any other surprises, we’ve gotta take ’em.”
“Two minutes more.” Dead-Eye checked his watch, then rested his head against the red brick wall, his eyes closed.
“Let’s hope Geronimo hasn’t lost the touch,” Boomer said. “Otherwise we’re in for a tough stretch.”
“Ain’t Geronimo I’m worried about,” Dead-Eye said, still with his eyes closed.
“Who, then?” Boomer asked.
“Me,” Dead-Eye said.
• • •
G
ERONIMO WAS ON
his knees, a short wire in his hand, a thick ball of plastique stuck to the door lock leading into the apartment. Mrs. Columbo and Pins were against the wall on either side of him, guns drawn, eyes on the stairwell and the other apartment doors.
“You going to make this?” Mrs. Columbo asked, looking down, watching Geronimo circle the coil wire into the plastique.
“It’s easier taking them apart, that’s for sure,” Geronimo said, his voice as calm as his manner.
“How long’s that fuse gotta burn for?” Pins asked.
“Ten seconds.” Geronimo pulled a lighter from his jacket pocket and looked up at Pins. “If I did it right.”
“What if you didn’t do it right?” Pins said with just a bit of an edge. “And it doesn’t blow?”
“Then we knock,” Geronimo said, “and hope they let us in.”
• • •
I
NSIDE THE APARTMENT
, Albert, the man with the knife, stared down at the cooing infant. The man across from him, the sleeves of his white shirt rolled to the elbows, rubbed a palm full of Johnson’s baby oil over the infant’s chest. Albert scratched at his chin with the pointed edge of the knife, waiting for the soft skin to finish being coated. The baby’s eyes were bright and clear blue and the man with the knife couldn’t help but smile at the child he was seconds away from slicing open.
Albert nodded to his partner, Freddie, who pressed an oily hand across the baby’s mouth, silencing his coo. The other men in the kitchen continued with the mundane task of wrapping cocaine, taping it shut, and preparing it for transfer.
As the blade of the knife touched the baby’s breastbone, Albert’s eyes focused, his hands as steady as a surgeon’s. He looked up at his partner across from him, felt Freddie’s hand press down harder on the baby’s mouth, saw him nod and smile with anticipation.
“Do him, Albeit,” Freddie said. “Do him now.”
“I don’t know how much more of this I can do,” Albert said back. “I’m startin’ to see their faces in my dreams.”
“
Now
,” Freddie said. “Otherwise, we’re gonna miss our plane and then somebody’s gonna have to fly up here to do
us.
Dream about
that.
”
“This is my last one,” Albert told him. “I swear to God, it’s my last one.”
“Then make it your best one,” Freddie said.
• • •
T
HE FRONT DOOR
blew out and exploded into six large chunks, taking out parts of the wall on both sides. Plaster, shards of tile, and blasts of dust whirled past the small foyer and out into the kitchen. The shudder of the bomb shook the apartment to its foundation and sent the men by the kitchen sink scrambling for cover.
Albert fell across the table, the front half of his body on top of the baby, the knife slipping from his hand to the floor. Freddie fell over backward, hitting his head against a plate shelf, a thin line of blood coloring the back of his neck.
Sprawled on the floor against cracked walls and toppled tables, the men were still quick enough to recover, drawing and cocking double-action revolvers, holding them out, arms extended.
Albert lifted himself from the table and grabbed the baby with one arm. He turned and looked toward the dust. His eyes made out three figures standing in front of where the door had been thirty seconds earlier. He planted his feet, aimed his gun, and fired off four rounds. The three shadows scattered, hidden by the safety net of dust and debris.
“Shit. I hate this,” Pins muttered, crunched down in a corner of the foyer, using the top of a small end table as his shield. “You think they’d want to know who they’re shooting at before they start to blast away.”
“They know who we are,” Geronimo said, flat down on the stained linoleum floor, his .38 Special held forward with both hands. “We’re the guys who just blew up half their fuckin’ apartment.”
“I told you that would only go and make them mad,” Mrs. Columbo said. Her back was against the doorjamb, her legs up, gun aimed and pointed through the haze.
“I figure it’s too late to apologize,” Geronimo said, checking his watch and trying to make out the faces in the smoke and the dark. “So stay ready. Thirty seconds till Boomer.”
• • •
B
OOMER AND
D
EAD
-E
YE
both flinched when they heard the blast. But they held their position on the fire escape, waiting the agreed-upon ninety seconds for the dust to clear and for Geronimo, Pins, and Mrs. Columbo to stake out a solid post. The glass above them had cracked from the explosion, but they could still see into the kitchen to watch the men regroup. Albert held the baby in one arm, clearly more for his own protection than that of the child.
“You feeling young yet?” Boomer asked Dead-Eye, who was pulling his guns from their holsters.
“Young enough to be in love,” Dead-Eye told him.
Boomer lifted the kitchen window to waist level with the heel of one hand, letting out gusts of white smoke. He crouched down, pointing his gun into the open window. “Then it’s time to show them we’re back.”
“And find out if anybody gives a shit,” Dead-Eye said, following him in.
• • •
R
EV
. J
IM HEARD
the rumble of the explosion and sat up, waiting for Gregor to bolt from his car. He had both his guns aimed at the back of the man’s head, expecting him to jump out and hit the stairs to the house at full pace. Instead, Gregor held his place, cigar still stuck in the corner of his mouth, the interior of his car awash in smoke.
If the explosion didn’t faze him, the quick clips of the four shots that came from Albert’s gun made Gregor sit bolt upright behind the steering wheel. He rolled his window down, stuck his head out, and looked up at the apartment. His neck was glazed with sweat, his mouth
was dry, yet he let the gun on the passenger seat rest there untouched. This was not part of the deal. He hadn’t left Greece to be buried in America.
Gregor pulled his head back into the car, tossed the cigar on the sidewalk, rolled up the window, turned the ignition over, and pulled out of his parking spot. Rev. Jim smiled as he watched him speed off into the Queens night. Then he hopped out of the Gremlin, guns in hand, heading for the door of the apartment building. Rev. Jim turned and glanced down the street, the red taillights of Gregor’s car still in his line of sight. He wondered if maybe the frightened driver with the hunger for American dollars just didn’t have the right idea after all.
At least, this one night, he wasn’t going to die.
• • •
B
OOMER CAME ROLLING
out of the window and clicked off two rounds, hitting Freddie in the right shoulder and chest, sending him sprawling back to the floor. Dead-Eye, fast behind Boomer, jumped out of a crouched postion right behind Albert, jamming the barrels of both guns on the sides of his neck.
“That baby gets upset,” Dead-Eye whispered in his ear, “your head’s gonna roll out the door.”
Geronimo and Mrs. Columbo fired eight rounds at the two men by the sink, three of the bullets clipping kitchen cabinets and lodging inside thick wall beams. Five bullets found their mark and sent the men sprawling to the ground.
Rev. Jim stood in the doorway, legs spread, two guns aimed into the apartment, looking for any movement. He exchanged a quick glance with Pins, who still held his position behind the end table, his gun by his side.
“Take the drugs,” Albert said in a calm voice, seemingly unfazed by the shooting and the massacred bodies around him. “Take whatever you want.”
“You heard the man,” Boomer said, nodding to the four Apaches by the door. “Take the drugs.”
Mrs. Columbo and Geronimo immediately holstered their guns as they walked toward the sink and the thick piles of cocaine. They took out Swiss Army knives, stepped around the bodies lying faceup on the ground, and sliced the cellophane packs down the center. Then they dumped the kilos into the sink, turned on the faucets, and let cold water take the powder down the drain.
“That’s more than two hundred thousand you’re throwin’ away,” Albert said. He sounded more distressed over the disposal of the cocaine than over the loss of the lives around him.
“What’s the time?” Boomer asked.
“We got three minutes till the cops show,” Pins said, the gun in his hand now replaced by a police scanner that allowed him to pick up all monitored calls. “Maybe a few seconds less.”
Boomer walked over to stand across from Albert. He looked into Albert’s eyes, then over at the baby, legs wiggling, calm amid a sea of smoke, blood, and death.
“Are there clothes for the baby?” Boomer asked.
“In the bedroom.” Albert nodded as Mrs. Columbo headed into the back room.
“Who the hell
are
you?” Albert asked, his eyes focused now on Boomer.
“I got the clothes,” Mrs. Columbo said, coming back from the bedroom holding an armful of small blue pajamas, diapers, a T-shirt the size of a handkerchief, and tissue-thin white lace socks. “Now all I need is the baby to put in them.”
“You heard the lady.” Dead-Eye moved his guns from Albert’s neck to the insides of his ears. “She wants the baby.”
“One minute,” Pins said. “We better motor-out now. You can’t count on them being right on time.”
Boomer took the baby from Albert’s arms and handed
him to Mrs. Columbo. “Put him under your jacket,” he told her. “You can dress him in the car.”
Dead-Eye pulled the guns from Albert’s ears and holstered them. Boomer took one last look around the apartment, then nodded to the others. They left through the open window, Geronimo first, followed by Pins, Mrs. Columbo, the baby, and Rev. Jim. Dead-Eye stood with one leg on the fire escape and the other on the kitchen linoleum.
“He lives?” Dead-Eye asked Boomer, nodding toward Albert.
“He lives,” Boomer said with a smile, still looking at Albert. “Just long enough to tell Lucia what happened.”
For the first time all night, Albert’s eyes betrayed him. Hearing Lucia’s name washed away the cold facade of the career criminal. Now there was only fear.
“She’s going to love to hear how you stood there and watched two strangers flush two hundred thou of her drugs down a kitchen sink,” Boomer said, walking away from Albert and putting a leg out through the open window. “I can’t figure if she’ll have you shot or beaten to death. But, then again, you know her better than I do.”
Boomer climbed out the window, but as he started to close it he leaned his head in. “The cops sure as shit aren’t gonna believe your story either,” Boomer said to Albert. “Whatever that story is gonna be. You have a good night now.”
Boomer closed the window behind him and disappeared into the darkness, leaving Albert standing in an apartment filled only with the dead. He listened as police sirens wailed in the distance. His future was now as clear to him as the bodies that lay sprawled by his side.