3 Quarters (24 page)

That morning, while Bobby watched Gleason's performance in Queens, the two uniformed housing-unit cops named Lebeche and Daniels sat in their radio car on West Twenty-first Street off Surf Avenue outside the Coney Island projects. Slumping in the backseat was a black snitch named Rollo.

“Dealer's name is Martinez,” Rollo said, a hoodie pulled up over his head, dark shades shielding his eyes. Rollo was being cautious, although he knew that no one even remotely connected to the Coney Island drug trade would be awake before noon.

“Which apartment?” asked Daniels.

“ 'Partment Four-E. He got enough product to keep alla Coney high till day afta Christmas. I don't know where he keep his cash, but he stash his product under the box where his pit bull keep her puppies. Anybody but Martinez go near the fuckin' puppies, they lunch. Now, what you gots to do is, you knock twice. Wait a few second. Knock two time again more. He always send his wife to answer the door. That her job. She ask in Spanish who it is. You gotta say one word—‘Boardwalkbrown.' ”

“That's two words,” said Daniels.

“Say it like that fast, spic fast, like,” he said. “Like ‘Boardwalkbrown.' That his nickname for his shit. Mexican brown heroin. Good, too. I could unload it fass. Niggas be comin' from all over Brooklyn for Boardwalkbrown.”

Lebeche handed Rollo a fifty-dollar bill and said, “ ‘Boardwalkbrown'?”

“Thass it.” Rollo put the snitch fifty in his hoodie pocket.

“Meet us in the parking-meter lot next to Nathan's in twenny minutes,” Daniels said. “Don't keep us waiting or I'll shoot you through the face.”

“You got it,” Rollo said, and climbed out of the car and walked east along Surf Avenue toward Nathan's Famous, which made the best hot dog on planet earth. From the distance the strains of hurdy-gurdy music floated on the sea air, past the amusement parks of Coney Island, down here to the man-made palisades of poverty known as the projects.

“Frogs' legs, a dog, and fries?” Lebeche said, snapping a twenty-dollar bill as a wager on what Rollo would eat for lunch at Nathan's. “What you say?”

“I say he can't help but go for the chicken in a basket and a grape soda,” said Daniels, throwing his twenty-dollar bill on top of Lebeche's. “Only spades drink grape soda. I lie awake nights sometimes wondering why.”

When they met Rollo in twenty minutes, they'd ask what he ate and the winner would take all.

“What a sewer this fuckin' city is,” Lebeche said as they sat for another minute until Rollo was safely out of sight. “Welfare yoms, spics, imports, the dregs of the universe are all here in New York.”

“The only civilized place left in this city is Windy Tip,” said Daniels. “Tellin' ya, your old lady's right, ya gotta buy down Windy. I can't wait every night to get home to Windy, climb in the shower, wash scum-city down the fuckin' drain. I go outside for a walk—it's whiter than a Bing Crosby Christmas. Only place left in the city, where the property taxes are low, to raise a kid right.”

“Everything goes right here,” Lebeche said, “we'll have the hundred grand we need so we won't have to do this shit job no more. Once I get three-quarters, I'm buyin' down Windy. No more risking my life to protect nigs from jigs. I mean, that's not how I wanna go. Too bad it's come down to
this
, but it ain't like we're robbing a citizen. This is a piece of shit we're taking off. He poisons his own.”

“Come on,” Daniels said, getting out of the car. “Let's do it. It's now or never.”

“What if he asks for a search warrant?” Lebeche asked, laughing, as they walked through the small lobby of the projects building and into the graffiti-covered stairwell.

“We don't need no stinking warrants in Planet Projects,” Daniels said.

On the second-floor landing Lebeche and Daniels encountered a young black couple making out. The two teenagers broke apart when they saw the cops approaching. The young man, about nineteen, was tall, with the rippling muscles of a natural athlete. He wore a sleeveless Lincoln High basketball shirt with his last name, WALTERS, emblazoned on the back. He stood protectively in front of his pretty girlfriend, who had her hair in neat jherri curls.

Daniels bopped Walters on the forehead with his two-pound, foot-long flashlight. “You dumb fornicating coon,” Daniels said. “Atta the way, lemme get a gander at your ho. Bet she could serve mint juleps on her shitter.”

“My lady isn't no ho,” Walters said, his muscles tensing, eyes skipping back and forth.

“You callin' my partner a liar?” Lebeche said, grabbing Walters by his shirtfront and tossing him sideways down a half-flight of stairs.

“We weren't botherin' anyone,” Walters said, seething, humiliated in front of his frightened girlfriend.

“Dickin' this ho in a public-housing stairwell is a crime, shineboy,” Daniels said. “We saw you with our own four eyes, both of you with your pants down, banging her doggie style against the banister railing. Paying her. We could put you both in cuffs. A pros rap'd look sweet on her yellow sheet when she grown up to become a NYNEX operator.”

“Leave us alone,” said the girl, whose eyes were brimming with rage and tears.

Lebeche grabbed Walters and spread-eagled him against the wall and started going through his pockets. “I better not get stuck with no needles, asshole, or I'll bury it in your ho's eye. Hear me?”

“She ain't no ho,” Walters said. “And I ain't no junkie. I play for Lincoln . . .”

“You play with your licorice stick,” said Lebeche, pulling a neatly folded batch of cash from Walters's pocket. “And she helps ya. Lincoln fuckin' High, huh? Well, if old Honest Abe knew he was freein' the likes of you two, he woulda whistled Dixie.”

“She musta been out trickin' all night for ya,” Lebeche said, counting the money. Walters looked over at his girlfriend with eyes that said he was ready to snap. She shook her head no, telling him not to react and strike out at the cops. Walters did his best to control his mounting fury.

“How else you come up with a hundred and eighty American cash dollars, shineboy?” Lebeche said. “Unless your ho is bringin' it home with scabs on her knees?”

“I work in Mickey D's,” Walters said, referring to his after-school job at McDonald's. “I saved that money to buy a present for my father's birthday.”

The two cops laughed hysterically. “Father's birthday!” Lebeche scoffed. “Did I hear this boy say ‘father's birthday'?”

“That's what the boy said,” Daniels said, chuckling.

“This is wrong,” the girl said, drooling tears. “Stop doing this. It ain't right!”

“If there's one thing I hate,” Lebeche said, ignoring the girl, “it's a liar. Now, I know and you know that this money couldn't possibly be for your father's birthday. I know that for a fact, Buckwheat, because there is no such fuckin' thing as a father's birthday in the
ghet-to
because there ain't no fathers in the ghetto. Just motherfuckers who drop their load and hit the road. Maybe your father should have shot his load on a rock.”

Daniels broke up laughing as Lebeche shoved Walters halfway down another flight of stairs. “Take a hike or take a bust,” Lebeche said, pushing the cash into his own pocket. Walters looked up at Lebeche and Daniels with a stare that would last a lifetime. He held out his hand for his girlfriend, who trotted past the two cops. She took Walters's hand and led him down the stairs. Walters looked back once.

Lebeche handed Daniels $90, half of the $180.

“Even if this spic don't pan out,” Lebeche said, “this covers Rollo's half a yard.”

“Plus some,” said Daniels. “Let's hope this is the last chump change we ever have to scrounge.”

The two cops climbed two more flights of stairs to the fourth floor. As they approached apartment 4-E, they took their Glock 9 mm automatics from their holsters, adjusted their bulletproof vests under their pale blue NYPD summer shirts. Lebeche knocked twice, waited, knocked twice again. A woman's voice from inside said, “
Quienes?”

“Boardwalkbrown,” Lebeche said.

Then he heard the sound of locks being unfastened, and the door opened to a chain lock. A dog was barking from inside, and Lebeche stepped out of the way as Daniels came barreling from across the hall, slamming right into the door. The chain snapped off its screws, and Daniels hit the ground inside the long apartment hallway with the gun out. Lebeche held his gun over him, aiming inside the apartment. Children began to scream, and a pit bull came roaring down the long apartment hallway, teeth bared, barking violently. Daniels fired a single bullet into the dog's mouth, and it did a blood-whipping 360 degree flip in midair and landed in a silent crimson heap.

“He does good tricks,” Daniels said, and the two cops moved deeper into the apartment, shutting the door behind them, locking it. The woman held an infant in her arms and stamped her feet as she screamed. Lebeche forced her along the hallway of the apartment, using her and the baby as human shields. When they reached the kitchen, Lebeche shoved her down into a kitchen chair. Two more hysterical children ran down the hallway from a bedroom. The little girl clutched at the mother's legs and buried her face in her lap. Her slightly older brother scrambled to the dog and tried to cradle it, starting to wail. The mother shouted at him in Spanish, and the boy walked quickly to the mother, covered in the dog's blood. The boy looked at the cops with astonished, wet eyes.

“If you move, I'll kill your kids,” Lebeche said to the mother. “Compre-hendo?”

She nodded as she gathered her kids closer to her.
“Silencio, m'hijos, silencio, todos
,” she mumbled.
“Dios.”

Both cops moved further into the apartment, guns drawn, checking each room. The bathroom and a small bedroom off the hallway were empty. They heard a sound from the far end of the apartment and rushed to the master bedroom. The door was closed and locked. Daniels kicked it open, and they saw a tall, thin bare-chested Hispanic man, Martinez the dealer, trying to lower himself from his oceanfront balcony to the balcony below him. He would have failed freshman gym.

Daniels and Lebeche rushed to Martinez and managed to drag him back into the bedroom. Lebeche whacked the side of his gun off Martinez's left ear. Martinez made a whimper that wasn't much different from the ones being made by four adorable pit-bull puppies penned in a large doggie bed in the corner of the room. Martinez had a tattoo of his wife's face on one pectoral, Jesus Christ on the other. He had the tattooed faces of each of his kids on either shoulder.

“Where's the money?” Lebeche demanded.

“I want a lawyer,” said Martinez. “Read me my rights.”

“You don't up with the fuckin' loot and the dope, you'll get rights all right,
last
rites,” Daniels said.

“You wanna make a deal,” Martinez said with a half smile. “That's what I do. I
deal.”

Lebeche smacked him on the other ear with the gun. Martinez clasped both ears and crawled across the floor to a wall closet. The bottom of the closet was covered in shoes, sneakers, high heels, Rollerblades, two baseball gloves, an umbrella. He pushed aside a suitcase and then lifted the corner of the rug that lay on the floor of the closet. From the foot-deep hole under the floorboards of the closet, he took out a small gym bag. He opened it. It was filled with cash—tens, twenties, fifties—all bound in rubber bands.

“Eighty-five grand, man,” said Martinez.

“Where's the fuckin' dope?” Daniels demanded.

“Tapped out, man,” Martinez said.

Lebeche walked to the doggie bed and lifted it. Underneath were two large Baggies filled with what resembled brown wheat flour. He also lifted three pistols, a .25, a MAC-10, and a 9 mm Glock.

“Boardwalkbrown,” Lebeche said.

“You good,” said Martinez. “Finders keepers.”

Lebeche tossed one of the Baggies to Daniels, and they each put one inside their bulletproof vests. Lebeche shoved the guns into his belt and one in each sock.

“You want a puppy for your nephew?” Daniels asked Lebeche.

“Sure,” said Lebeche.

Then Daniels noticed a brand-new Martin acoustical guitar leaning in a corner of the room.

“My eight-year-old has been bugging me to buy him a guitar,” said Daniels as he lifted the guitar.

“Name that tune,” said Martinez.

Downstairs the two cops left the building carrying a puppy each. Daniels carried the Martin guitar. They passed tenants who were wheeling home groceries in shopping carts or pushing babies in strollers. The two cops nonchalantly walked with their swag of dope, guns, drug money, puppies, and a guitar to their radio car and climbed in.

“Supermarket perp-sweep,” Daniels laughed as he put the car in gear.