Chapter 6

May 8, 1997
12:00 p.m.
Juan smiled to himself as he pulled into a parking space, which conveniently opened up right on the corner of Vermilyea Avenue and West 204th Street. He glided the gearshift of the BMW 750 iL he’d paid cash for, registering it in a girlfriend’s name, into Park and reached down with his left hand to the base of his seat. He gently caressed the seat controls until the back reclined to about forty-five degrees, looked at his watch, compared it against the LED display in the vehicle’s hi-tech dash, and then drummed his fingers on the Beemer’s soft leather steering wheel. He slid his StarTac from its belt clip, checked that it was indeed on, and then replaced it on his belt.
Finally, one of the Lincolns pulled up. Juan looked at the license plate: it was Enrico. Juan pulled his StarTac and flipped it open, without taking his eyes off the Lincoln. By memory and feel, he selected Casper’s cell number from the speed-dial menu and hit “Send”.
Casper picked up on half a ring. “Hello.”
“He’s here; where you at?”
“I had the drivers split up like you said. I took the Van Wyck, and the package stayed on the Grand Central. I thought you’d want him to take the more direct route.”
“How far out are you?”
“I just got off the Tri-Boro. Seven minutes.”
“Forget it, dawg. Go straight to 165th, I’ll send it down.” Juan hit End. He got out of the BMW and approached the Lincoln.
He circled the car and opened the street side rear door. “Señor Delarosa?”
Inside the car, a man in his fifties, reclining stiffly across the back seat, nodded feebly—his pallid, clammy complexion contrasted by the car’s cool black leather interior gave him a ghost-like appearance.
“I’m Juan,” Juan began, speaking in Spanish. “Do you speak English?”
“Not right now,” Enrico managed through his agony.
“Okay,” Juan said. He always preferred speaking English over Spanish. He felt speaking English was what separated hicks from Hispanic-Americans, if you were not comfortable speaking English, you were doomed never to be successful in this country. You could make a little money, open a store on 175th Street, hell, you could even open a chain of Teleparandas from 181st Street to Kingsbridge Avenue, but that wouldn’t make you successful. Not in this country. As a prisoner of Latin culture—rather than a master of it—you would never have the freedom to branch out. Juan felt true success in America derived from the ability to flourish within an American environment—not an ethnic subculture. He had no time for those who lived in this country and did not bother to learn English, but he put that aside for now. He continued speaking to Enrico in Spanish. “It’s good to have you here, I’ve heard a lot about you. I hope your flight wasn’t too . . . uncomfortable.”
Enrico held a “Fuck you” on a tight leash and said only that it was uncomfortable, but he was grateful nonetheless. Juan helped Enrico out of the car and led him to the door of 68 Vermilyea Avenue. As they approached the entrance, Enrico noticed a large street level advertisement on the side of the building for a family doctor named Escobar, who accepted every health plan known to man.
Guarding the front of the lobby entrance were two men in their twenties. Both immaculately groomed and outfitted; one wearing a red white and blue Tommy Hilfiger nylon running suit, the other a bright yellow-and-black sport fleece and baggy black Boss jeans with matching yellow vertical stripes down both legs. Tommy Hilfiger said something to the man in the fleece, who then withdrew a key from his pocket and opened the lobby door to admit Juan and Enrico. Before the door closed behind Enrico, Tommy Hilfiger removed a small yellow two-way radio and keyed the handset. “The package is coming in,” he said.
His arm around Enrico’s shoulders, Juan led the staggering older man toward a door at the far left of the lobby. Before they reached it, the door opened. And the most fear-provoking man Enrico had ever seen was standing in the doorway. He wasn’t overly tall or muscle-bound, or clad in leather and spikes. In fact, the man was of a very average height and build, over forty, and was attired in casual slacks and a knit shirt. What so terrified Enrico, terrified him so completely that he momentarily forgot about the pain in his legs, were the man’s eyes. They were totally soulless. Remorseless. Possessing the apathy of a predator.
They made Enrico feel like meat.
The man gave Juan a streety two-step handshake that ended in a hug-simulating touching of shoulders and said, “So, this is Enrico.”
“This’s him,” Juan replied. Enrico just stared at the man, at his terrible eyes.
“My name is Jiram,” the man said putting a wide, calloused hand on his heart, and then extending it to Enrico—palm down, pinkie forward. “I work for Juanito but I know him since he was just a little man.” He smiled and said, “Annilda, she talks about . . .”
Enrico perked up and looked around. “Esta Annilda aqui?”
“Nah,” Juan answered right away. “I didn’t think it’d be a good idea that she see you till after.”
Enrico’s shoulders slumped. He hesitantly took Jiram’s proffered hand, the skin was rough and scarred, but Jiram was surprisingly gentle as he helped him make his way through what was revealed to be a large residential apartment converted into an unpolished doctor’s office. Judging from the wear on the furniture, the office saw a lot of neighborhood business, but today the office was closed—that is to say it was reserved.
Fernando Escobar was waiting for them in a small examining room in the back smoking a cigarette. He was nervous. Jiram had been in his office for over an hour, and this had Escobar at his wit’s end. Being alone with Jiram could prove unsettling for anyone, but Escobar had had the honor of pulling handgun slugs out of him on three separate occasions—two of those times, he should have died. As far as Escobar was concerned, Jiram was a freak of nature. A dangerous freak of nature.
When the three entered the cramped room with its pale field-hospital green walls, bilingual prescription ad posters, and other various medical clutter, Escobar smiled with forced brightness and said, “Welcome, Tio Juan! Good day! How are you, my friend?” and extended a hand to Juan.
He was speaking Spanish. Juan took the offered hand, held it firmly, looked straight into Escobar’s eyes and said in English, “I’m fine.”
“Oh, well . . . good,” Escobar said, switching to his accent-laced English while attempting to free his hand from Juan’s powerful grip. “So thees must be Mister . . . ?”
“Mr. None-of-your-fuckin’-business,” Juan said with sudden ferocity, clamping down extremely hard on Escobar’s hand before releasing it. He looked right into Escobar’s eyes.
Escobar’s heart began to race. He had said something wrong, and that was a dangerous thing to do around a couple of thugs like Tio Juan and Jiram. It was that simple to get killed in these dealings, and for a moment he was sure the infamous young gangster was going to kill him—but a few seconds ticked by, and though Tio Juan had not broken his murderous stare, he hadn’t shot him either. Escobar decided he had survived his misstep. Barely. He disliked dealing with the likes of Tio Juan—who may have only been twenty-two, but was undisputedly at the top echelon of the food chain in the Washington Heights narcotics trade. Tio Juan was notorious for his ruthlessness and violent temper, but he paid Escobar very well—and in cash—so the middle-aged doctor continued the risky business relationship. With a trembling hand, he stamped out his butt and pointed to a cream-colored counter with an orange-brown leather upholstered cushion in the middle of the room. “If you friend wouldn’t mind . . .”
Juan and Jiram helped Enrico up onto the counter and laid him down.
“Jou can cut the pant,” Escobar said, making a scissors motion with his fingers. “But jou be careful, yes?”
“Yes, be careful,” Enrico rasped in Spanish. His heart thumped loudly in his chest as Jiram produced a pair of EMS clothing shears, reached forward and cut the corduroys from ankle to hip on each leg. Then, Jiram peeled the panels of fabric away from one another, very slowly so that any pus or blood that had leaked through the gauze covering and stuck to the fabric would not rupture the stitching. The leakage was minor on Enrico’s left leg, but substantial on his right. While Juan helped Jiram delicately separate the pants from the soiled right-thigh bandage, Escobar wheeled a tray table from the corner next to the counter. A sterile paper covering lay across the slim table.
When the pants were off and Enrico had caught his breath, Escobar removed the white covering from the tray table, unveiling a set of neatly arranged surgical utensils. They looked serious and deadly, and gleamed with precision. Enrico couldn’t take his eyes off of them. A terrible wave of nausea washed over him, and he laid his head back, holding the sickness at bay. From the table, Escobar removed a set of scissors with disproportionately small, rounded blades. He slipped the bottom blade of the scissors under the dressing of Enrico’s left leg and cut straight down along the length of his leg until he had bisected the bandage. He then gently pulled the wrap away, revealing a purple swollen laceration, below which two pronounced bulges appeared to overlap.
Escobar sucked his teeth. “Ees not so good job they did, Tio Juan. Ees jag.” He moved his finger in a jagged motion along the line of the incision. “An’ they steech too wide.” He pointed out the uneven, wide stitching along the wound’s length.
Juan nodded. “So, what you sayin’? We have a problem?”
“No-no-no, Tio-Juan. Ees no problem,” Escobar said quickly, fearing Juan would rent the poor man open right there himself. “I just thin’ jou want to know, okay?”
“Aight,” Juan said. “So let’s do this.”
Escobar donned a pair of powdery latex gloves and retrieved a pre-prepared syringe from the tray table, tweaking it to get the air bubbles to the top. He depressed the plunger a millimeter or so until the clear liquid inside balled at the end of the needle.
Enrico gasped with tightly shut eyes when Escobar sank the needle into the engorged, discolored tissue. He depressed the plunger part way, withdrew the needle and stuck needle back in a few inches down along the ragged row of stitches. He repeated this two more times, until the syringe was empty. Then Escobar replaced the syringe on the tray table and pushed on the long puckered wound in several places with a latex-sheathed finger. Blood-streaked pus oozed from between the unruly sutures, but Enrico didn’t even wince. Numb. Escobar made a tight little smile, turned back to the table, and picked the scissors up again. He slipped the lower blade of the scissors under the thick black suture thread at one end of the messy laceration and began cutting, moving along the canal between the joined swells of skin.
Once all the top threads were cut, Escobar put the scissors down, placed his hands on either side of the canal and spread it open. This caused the ends of the top threads to slip back through the holes where they penetrated the skin. Then, holding the fissure open with two fingers, he plucked out the bottom threads, throwing them into a crescent-shaped metal bowl. That done, he reached into the opening with his left hand and pushed in between the two bulges with his right hand. With a little effort, he managed to separate the two bulges, and work one up toward the opening. He lifted the flap of skin and accompanying layer of fat away from the quadriceps muscle of Enrico’s leg and stretched the opening until he could see the corner of the package. Massaging and squeezing, Escobar got the package to where he could grasp it with his hand. He pulled and tugged it until the wound gave up the package.
Once it was out, Escobar placed the package on a white enamel plate on the tray table, and went after the second package. Juan quickly put on a pair of latex gloves and picked up the package. It was a 1.1-pound, rectangular bundle with rounded edges wrapped tightly in white plastic that was now streaked pink and red like used butcher’s paper. He walked it over to a sink in the corner and washed off the blood and slime. Once the package was clean, he handed it off to Jiram—who took it into the adjacent room—and went back to watch Escobar work on the second package. Escobar was having a little trouble getting the second bundle out, as it was in much deeper than the first, almost down by Enrico’s knee, far beyond the reach of the anesthetic.
Juan held Enrico down, keeping one hand over his mouth to muffle his screams, while Escobar worked. Soon enough, however, Enrico issued a feeble wheeze, and passed out. Being unconscious, Enrico’s muscles relaxed, and Escobar’s job became a little easier.
Meanwhile, in the next room, Jiram had placed the package down on a counter next to a tape dispenser, a scalpel, and two glass beakers containing a small amount of clear liquid. He put on a white carpenter’s filter mask and made a little incision in one end of the package. He carefully removed a small quantity of white powder from within the bundle on the tip of the scalpel and dumped it into the first beaker. The beaker contained sulfuric acid. He stirred the mixture with the back end of the scalpel for ten seconds, put the scalpel down and then poured the mixture into the second beaker, which contained selenious acid. Almost immediately the solution turned a pale green. The shit smelled. He agitated the acrid mixture until it turned a darker, arbor green and then put the beaker down.
Heroin. Excellent quality.
Jiram poured the green liquid into a sink, ran the water and fanned the air. Removing his mask, he walked back into the other room just as Juan and Escobar wiggled the second bundle free. Juan looked up and Jiram gave him a slight nod.
A smile spread across Juan’s face like glass cracking in slow motion. Pinning the unconscious Enrico’s shoulders down, while Escobar worked, Juan allowed his mind to drift. He thought math. He’d always been good at math. When all four bags were out, the combined two kilos of near-pure heroin would fetch him a cool three hundred and twenty thousand on the street—after it had been stepped on a couple of times, of course. Figure the initial investment of one hundred thousand—what a motherfuckin’ bargain!—plus seven-eighty for Enrico’s one-way airfare, two hundred for Enrico’s new birth certificate and social security number, five hundred for Enrico’s New York State driver’s license, five thousand to Escobar, three hundred each to the two drivers, five hundred to Audobon Car Service for the Lincolns, the five hundred he’d have to give Casper to pay for “bagging night,” where people were hired to package the heroin into glassine envelopes and stamp it for street sale. The two thousand total he would have to pay out in “muling fees” as the product was shipped out to the sale spots by “mules,” the ninety-six hundred for the line sellers and managers, roughly three hundred lost to skimming, and another forty-five hundred in arrest and seizure overhead. When all was said and done, Juan stood to profit a hundred ninety-five thousand five hundred and twenty bucks. That plus the new Columbian contact, General Sandoval, and the take from Reynaldo’s apartment . . . and it was only 12:30 p.m. This was shaping up to be a good day.
Juan’s smiled broadened. Nothing beat good math, and a well-executed plan.

Chapter 5

May 8, 1997
10:05 a.m.
“Daddy! Wake up!” Alex said, elbowing her father in the ribs while sitting in his lap on one of the big green couches.
“I’m up, I’m up,” Robby said blinking awake. He looked at the television. Rupert was just coming on Nick Junior, so it had to be between ten and ten-thirty. After getting home from work and relieving the babysitter at two a.m., he had gotten up with Alex at seven-thirty, had her dressed with her hair in cute little braids by eight-fifteen, and made and fed her French toast, bacon, and sliced peaches by nine. But when Alex declined his offer to take her to the playground at a quarter after nine, Robby lost his momentum and the two sat down in front of the TV. Within ten minutes, in spite of his most valiant efforts not to, Robby started drifting off. He needed to get up and do something in order to stay awake. “Hey, you hungry? I could make you a little something,” he offered.
“No,” Alex said, over-pronouncing the unwritten W at the end of “no.” “We juss ate Fresh toes!” she pointed out in fluent Two.
“Oh, yeah,” Robby said rubbing his eyes. He stood, lifting Alex up and putting her back down in the spot where he had been sitting. The comfy couch hungrily sucked up the little two-year-old. Robby collected the syrupy plates with French toast scraps and Alex’s empty sippy cup, and walked them into the kitchen. After putting the dishes into the sink, he reached up toward the ceiling for a hearty stretch. He’d decided to try to sell the idea of the playground again when the intercom chimed.
“Hello?” Robby asked the plastic handset.
The doorman said that Yvette was coming up, Robby said that would be fine and unlocked the front door. He was back on the couch with Alex by the time Yvette knocked perfunctorily and entered.
“Hey, Robby,” Yvette said brightly, she was carrying a grocery bag. She and Robby were best friends, and though a sexual vibe had never once passed between them, Yvette’s overwhelming beauty was not lost on him. She had slick shoulder-length hair that courted auburn and chestnut but married neither, a sleek athletic body, and fiery crystal-blue eyes, set with stunning contrast against a porcelain doll face. The most improbable facet of Yvette’s beauty was that she wore braces! But on Yvette, instead of looking awkward or nerdy, braces looked sexy. Everything looked sexy on Yvette Mahoney.
“Good morning,” Robby replied. “To what do I owe the honor?”
“Just thought I’d come by and see how you were doin’,” Yvette said walking into the kitchen. She put the bag down on a counter and began to unpack it. “So how you doin’?”
“Tired,” Robby said. He could hear Yvette open the refrigerator and move things around.
“I don’t know how you do it. Taking care of a two-year-old by yourself and working as much as you do. That’s hard stuff.”
“It’s not hard,” Robby contradicted quickly. “It’s occasionally difficult, often complicated, but never hard. I’ve got the best motivation in the whole world.” And he leaned over and kissed Alex on the top of her head; who, without taking her eyes off the television, reached up and grabbed her father's nose. “Hey, what’s in the bag?” Robby said, rubbing his nose.
“I just got you some stuff from the store, I know what a pain it is for you to shop up here with the kid.” She helped him unpack the groceries, and then asked if he wanted her to take Alex to the playground so he could get a little rest.
“Nah, that’s okay,” Robby said putting Alex in his lap and squeezing her. “I’ve lost enough time with Alex this week doing these fu— . . . er . . . darn”⎯that was a close one⎯“night tours.”
“Gotcha,” Yvette said, smiling. “So, your transfer to Narcotics finally came through.”
“Last night. I go to my new command tonight.”
“You got Manhattan North, right?”
“Yup, thank Danny for me.” Dan Mahoney was a retired NYPD captain, Yvette’s husband, and Robby’s personal police guru—an endless source of information and advice about the Department. Danny had been everywhere worth going and done everything worth doing on the job, so if anyone was worth knowing, he knew them, and they knew him. Danny generously pulled strings for Robby from time to time.
“Do you think you’ll actually make a buy tonight?”
“I’m brand-new,” Robby said dismissively. “I can’t imagine that they’d send me out to make a buy on my first night with the team.”
Yvette gave Robby a “Hmm,” and then, “Well if you do go out, be careful.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Robby said confidently.
“I mean it, Robby, be careful.” She was suddenly serious. “I don’t know why you want to do this undercover thing. It’s really dangerous. Danny could have given you any choice of . . .”
He didn’t let her finish. “There is no choice. It has to be this way.”
“But why this way. Robby, I know what you’re trying to . . .”
“Yvette, this is the next step. The next level. Believe me when I say, I’ve done everything I can do from the outside. It’s time to take it inside, where I can . . .”
Now she interrupted. “Do what? Get killed? How does that help anyone?”
He looked at her, “What? You don’t think I can do this?”
“Robby, you’re the whitest Black guy I’ve ever met! Listen to the way you talk! You say ‘Yup.’ What fucking black person says, ‘yup?’”
“Hey, I can do this. I’ve done nothing but make drug arrests for the past eight years. I know the players and I know the game.”
“No, you think you do, Robby. That’s why I worry about you,” Yvette said, pulling away from him. “Everything’s gonna be very different now. The game is different when you’re one of the players. You’ll be out there by yourself. No vest. No radio. No help.”
“There’ll be a field team.”
“And what are they supposed to do if someone decides to shoot you, huh? Magically appear and jump in front of the bullet? All the field team can do is come in and pick up the pieces after the shit hits the fan, you’re on your own.”
“Listen, someone has to do this stuff. . . .”
“That’s you argument?” Yvette sighed in frustration. “You know, you may not be able to get away with that no-bullets-in-your-gun thing in Narcotics.”
“I have bullets in my gun,” Robby said defensively. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“I’m talking about your policy on using your gun.”
“Wait a second.” Now he was getting angry. “I don’t shoot people, and that’s supposed to be a bad thing?”
“In your case it’s almost gotten you killed a couple of times.”
He knew she was right, which made him angrier. Twice he’d found himself in the middle of all-out gun battles, bullets flying everywhere, and in both cases his weapon was undischarged.
“Are you saying I’m a fucking coward?”
“No, of course not, Robby. You’re the most aggressive cop I’ve ever met. But who are you kidding? You and I both know your gun has a hundred pound trigger pull when it comes to using it.” This time she put her arm around him. “I’m just saying that when you’re an undercover, you may not have the luxury of choice when it comes to firing your weapon. These people don’t fuck around, and you are by yourself out there. You need to think about that.”

Chapter 4

May 8, 1997
10:05 a.m.
Reynaldo Adorno was in his favorite robe, wearing his favorite slippers, reclining on his La-Z-Boy, and watching golf on his new ultra-thin wall-mounted flat-screen television when the knock came. His wife, Mayette, couldn’t for the life of her understand his newfound fascination with the sport, and was thankful for the distraction.
“Do you want me to get it?” Reynaldo offered in his urbanized, New York Spanish as he watched his eight-month-pregnant wife hoist herself up from the couch.
“No, I’ll get it,” Mayette answered in rapid, rural Dominican. “I can’t stand this golf you watch.”
Reynaldo shrugged and watched some White guy—he never knew any of their names—come in under par.
“Quién?” Mayette said as she waddled up to the door.
“Excuse me,” the young woman on the other side of the door said in the same rural Spanish, “Magali from upstairs wanted me to walk her dog while she was in Santo Domingo, but the key she left me doesn’t work. Can I please use your phone to call her sister and ask what I should do?”
The voice sounded pleasant enough. Mayette looked through the peephole and saw a pretty nineteen-year-old standing there, looking sweet, honest.
“Who is it?” Reynaldo called out from the living room.
“Oh, just some girl who wants to use the phone,” Mayette called back, unlocking the top bolt lock.
Reynaldo’s eyes bulged wide. “Don’t open the door!” he cried, leaping off his recliner.
But it was too late. By the time his words registered, Mayette had already undone the bottom lock.
The door burst violently open, knocking Mayette to the ground. The man wore a black nylon running suit, a polypropylene balaclava, and black rubber galoshes. His movements were fluid, efficient, and disciplined. His expertise was violence. A black Smith & Wesson 9mm clutched in one fleshy latex-clad hand, he charged over the quivering pile of Mayette and lunged at Reynaldo, crashing the butt of the 9mm into the top of his head three times with brutal force. Reynaldo crumpled to the floor, as a twenty-two-year-old Juan Gustavo Chodas, also in a black running suit and balaclava, stepped in through the front door. A 10mm Glock 20 in his right hand, Juan grabbed Mayette by the hair with his left, and dragged her into the living room. Carrying a duffel bag, Marisol, “Magali’s friend,” was the last through the door. She closed it behind her, and pulled latex gloves and a hair net out of her pocket. With shaking hands, she quickly drew a one-piece nylon jumpsuit from the duffel and pulled it on over her clothes.
The violent man seized Reynaldo by the neck with one powerful hand, hoisted him bodily off the ground, and dumped him back into the La-Z-Boy. He pressed the 9mm against Reynaldo’s bloody forehead and said one word, “Hanger.”
Marisol quickly rummaged through the duffel, found a wire hanger, and threw it to him. He used his teeth to pull it more or less straight, and bound Reynaldo’s hands behind his back. Recovering from her initial shock, Mayette began to scream. Juan promptly struck her on the head with his Glock. Then, from the waistband of his running pants, he produced the sawed-off tip of a broomstick wrapped with precut strips of duct tape. He tore off a strip and slapped it across Mayette’s mouth. Extending a hand to Marisol, he snapped his fingers and she placed a wire hanger in it.
When Mayette’s hands were bound, Marisol brought the duffel to the violent man, then went about lowering the blinds in the living room. Juan forced the prego to her feet and looked at the violent man. “Aight, dawg. I got this.”
He nodded, then searched the rest of the apartment for occupants. Returning thirty seconds later he said, “We are clear, Juanito.” He was the only human on the planet who dared still call Juan Chodas “Juanito.” This was not because he was the most feared Dominican in all of New York. It was because this man’s use of the endearment meant he remembered his now powerful nephew as a young and sensitive child, and that his love and respect for him was undiminished. “Marisol, keep an eye out that window and tell me every time you see a police car or any police on foot, and you let me know what they do, and where they go, okay?”
Marisol nodded, made an opening in the Levalors by creasing two slots apart from one another with her fingers, and peered down on Seamen Avenue below. The world looked peaceful out there, oblivious to what was going on inside Reynaldo’s apartment.
Juan and the violent man looked at each other and removed their head coverings at the same time, tucking them in their waistbands.
“You . . . ,” Reynaldo started to say, staring fixedly at Juan, but the violent man forced the business end of his Smith & Wesson into Reynoldo’s mouth, chipping one of his teeth and splitting his lip in the process. When Reynaldo started to scream, the violent man jammed the weapon farther down his throat and hissed, “Shut the fuck up and listen to what he has to say.”
Juan took his cue. “Reynaldo,” he said pleasantly, almost cheerfully. “I came to give you some bad news. Five-oh went and hit my sneaker store spot. They took all the money I was going to use to pay off what I got on consignment from you. So I guess I can’t pay you back, dawg. Sorry about that, that’s just the way shit go down in the street sometimes, dawg. Oh yeah, somethin’ else. I had this idea. I’m sick of this sellin’ ounces and shit. I wanna take a step up. I don’t wanna buy kilos, I wanna move fuckin’ kilos, know what I’m sayin’? So I’m gonna retire your ass, take your spot, and work with your connection. I wanna start importin’.” Juan smiled sardonically. “I guess that’s more bad news, ain’t it, dawg? Oh well, sucks to be you today.”
Reynaldo tried to form obscenities around the gunmetal obstruction in his mouth, but the violent man shoved it further down his throat to stifle him.
“Whoa, pendejo!” Juan chided. “I know you gots a lot you wanna tell me, but let my friend take the gun out your mouth first!” When Reynaldo’s raving and gagging ebbed, Juan continued. “Now when my friend takes his gun out of your mouth, you gonna tell me two things, aight, dawg? If you don’t, I’m gonna have to kill your woman here.” On the word “woman,” Juan slapped Mayette in the head with the barrel of his Glock. “Now the two things you gonna tell me is who yo’ connection is, and how do I contact the mothafucka.” Then, as an afterthought, Juan added, “Oh, yeah, one more thing. Since we went through all the trouble to visit you here, I’ll take whatever shit you got layin’ around. I know you got at least one trap filled with money in this fuckin’ place, so give it up.”
The violent man unholstered the Smith from Reynaldo’s mouth. Reynaldo retched a few times, going into such a coughing fit it looked like he might pass out. While he carried on, the violent man reached into the duffel and removed an extra-large set of industrial bolt-cutters. He removed Reynaldo’s right slipper, heaved the bolt-cutters up into the air, yanked its handles apart, and then drove it down on the tip of Reynaldo’s foot so hard that the blades embedded themselves into the lacquered parquet floor. Three of Reynaldo's toes were caught between the blades. When the violent man forced the bolt-cutter’s handles together, the blades churned up splinters of pine parquet as they chomped through tiny bones, severing the three toes.
Horrified, Mayette began howling through the muffling duct tape. Juan silenced her with a sharp strike in the forehead with the slide of his Glock 20, opening a nice gash over her left eye. She staggered back from the blow, but Juan held her upright and in place, facing Reynaldo.
Reynaldo’s coughing was replaced by a kind of sickly, hollow gasp, as he thrashed about wildly in his La-Z-Boy. The violent man threw down the bolt-cutters, drew his Smith again and planted its barrel into Reynaldo’s cheek.
“Who is your connection?” he asked plainly.
Reynaldo’s mouth quivered as he stammered, “M-muh-m-mi di-dinero e-es . . .”
“English!” Juan barked. “Speak English, you fuckin’ hick!”
“M-money ees een th-th-the fl-floor…” Reynaldo managed in his best English. “U-uh-under the . . . uh . . . th-the . . . l-la c-c-cama . . . ”
“Under the bed?” Juan confirmed.
“Si . . . the bed, under th-the b-bed in a trap. . . .” Reynaldo continued, “Turn off the cuh-cable with the remote, an-and the m-muh-magnet will release . . .”
“That’s all good, dawg,” Juan said, “But the first thing you supposed to tell me is about yo’ contact.”
“Juan, puh-p-por favor . . .” Reynaldo sputtered, “There ees almos’ one-hundred thousand dollar in there . . . m-maybe more . . .”
“Your contact,” Juan shouted. “Don’ make me ask yo’ ass again.”
“But the General will no deal with you. . . .” Reynaldo blurted out.
The violent man dropped the barrel of his 9mm to Reynaldo’s right knee and fired. The deafening explosion of the gunshot shook the whole room. The 9mm Black Talon round punched through Reynaldo’s kneecap, shattered the upper tibia, and burst out the other side, propelling bone, cartilage and meat onto the front of the comfy recliner.
“Five minutes . . .” Marisol said, activating the preset timer on her digital watch, “. . . now.”
Five minutes was the time they allotted to remain in the apartment after the first shot was fired. Reynaldo’s apartment was on upper Seamen Avenue, in the northwestern portion of the Thirty-Fourth Precinct. Juan arranged it so that while Marisol was knocking on the apartment’s door asking to use the phone, four separate 911 calls were being made describing an off-duty police officer involved in a shooting and foot pursuit on West 186th Street and Audobon Avenue¾inthe southeastern section of the precinct. This radio run would tie up cops on patrol in the Thirty-Fourth and Thirty-Third precincts for a good twenty minutes. It was a safe bet that it would take a solid five to seven minutes before a car would peel itself away from the Audobon Avenue call and make it all the way up to Seamen Avenue to respond to a call of shots fired.
“Now,” Juan said, “Who the fuck is the General? He your contact?”
Reynaldo’s face was contorted, racked with pain and contempt. For ten grueling seconds, he said nothing.
“I don’t got time for this shit, dawg,” Juan said losing patience. He whispered a word in Mayette’s ear, then left her side and strode over to Reynaldo and crouched down beside him. He took Reynaldo’s head in both hands, the slide of his Glock pressed up against the man’s cheek, and forced him to look at Mayette—who stood frozen to the spot where she’d been left. “You got a wife and a baby here to think about,” Juan said. “Make me ask you again, and one of ’em gonna die.”
Shaking, his lips twitching, Reynaldo said, “Juan . . . p-please . . .don’t make me . . .”
Before Reynaldo could finish his plea, Juan cast a look at the violent man—it was almost sorrowful. But this was why he was here, this was what he’d committed himself to. He had a plan. He was beyond turning back. “Do it,” he said.
The violent man advanced on the doe-eyed Mayette and grabbed her roughly by the shoulder. He jerked her around sideways and commanded, “Look at your husband,” in Spanish.
She met Reynaldo’s gaze with an expression of pure helplessness.
Without hesitation, the violent man thrust the barrel of his 9mm handgun against Mayette’s full, round belly. Her eyes lit wide in terror above the strip of duct tape covering her mouth, and he pulled the trigger. The muzzle flash scorched Mayette’s house dress at the top of her paunch and the tip of her right breast. The high power projectile ripped through her taut, bulging belly, and darted into the floor. She took a few awkward steps backward, then sat down hard and fell on her side, screaming through her nose, snot leaking and bubbling out onto the strip of duct tape.
“Now you just got a wife to think about, dawg,” Juan sneered.
The violent man knelt and placed his 9mm against Mayette’s head. Still holding Reynaldo’s head, Juan forced him to look at her.
“Give me your fuckin’ contact now!” Juan roared.
Reynaldo hitched in a breath, and told Juan everything he knew about his contact—a high-ranking official in the Colombian military, General Frederico Sandoval—and how to reach him. Juan sat on Reynaldo’s couch, put his Glock on the coffee table and took notes on his palmtop, while the violent man loomed over Reynaldo with the bolt cutters. When Reynaldo was finished, and Juan was satisfied that no important details were missing, he folded up the palmtop and nodded to his companion.
The violent man, dropped the bolt cutters, put the Smith & Wesson to Reynaldo’s head, and shot him. Brains and blood soiled the living room, and Reynaldo went instantaneously limp. Then he walked over to Mayette, put the 9mm to her head and shot her too.
Juan called to Marisol, “How much time we got?”
“A li-little less than a minute, Tio Juan,” Marisol replied. She sounded tense.
“Jiram,” Juan said to the violent man. “Grab the bag! Let’s go find that trap in the bedroom and get that hundred K!”

* * *

Two minutes later, three figures in black running suits, balaclavas, and galoshes, exited a building on upper Seamen Avenue and got into a tinted-out Lincoln Town Car. With Jiram at the wheel, they sped down Seamen Avenue to Dyckman Street and then east on Dyckman. Juan sat in the back of the car with Marisol, as if they were just two ordinary passengers in an ordinary livery car.
“Yo, that shit was fucked up!” Marisol was telling Juan as they cruised along Dyckman Street. “I can’t believe that bitch turned out to be pregnant! I didn’t think you was still gonna go through with it, yo!”
“Yeah, well, I do what I gotta do,” Juan said without color.
“Yo, but a pregnant bitch like that,” Marisol continued. “And you had him shoot her baby, ’n’ shit. That was like so fucked up! I can’t believe y’all niggas did that shit!”
“Like I said . . .” Juan began impatiently.
“No, I know you had to do it, but it’s like just that it was so fucked up ’n’ shit, right?”
Juan looked up and met Jiram’s eyes in the rearview mirror.
“Yo, so how much was under the bed?” Marisol asked anxiously.
“Don’t know,” Juan said.
“You wanna count that shit?” Marisol said, reaching for the duffel at Juan’s feet.
“Not in the fuckin’ car, stupid!” Juan snapped.
“What? It’s tinted, no one could see nothing.”
“We ain’t countin’ the money in the fuckin’ car,” Juan said with finality as Jiram turned onto the Harlem River Drive southbound.
“Aight, well how ’bout my cut?” Marisol asked. “You gonna hit me off now or . . .”
“Later,” Juan said.
“Later when?” Marisol persisted. “’Cause me and my sister we’s goin’ clubbing tonight, and if I had that money, we could get a fly car from O-Jay’s.”
“Just later,” Juan said, sounding tired. Then Juan looked at Marisol and said, “Your ass was quiet up in the apartment, why the fuck you don’t shut up now?”
“No, it’s just that in the apartment I was like scared and shit, but now we okay. . . .”
“We’re not clear until we switch cars, Marisol,” Juan cautioned. Then he added,
“That’s why we ain’t countin’ the money.”
“Oh, aight. That’s cool,” Marisol said looking out at Queens drifting by her on the other side of the East River as the Town Car cruised south on the Drive. “Where we gonna switch?”
“Ain’t far,” Juan said, looking through the windshield.
Jiram exited the Drive at 155th Street. He followed the exit ramp to the north end of Frederick Douglas Boulevard and looped around back on the southbound Drive entrance ramp. There, he pulled into a fenced-off construction area under an elevated portion of the Drive, and parked the Lincoln behind two waiting cars.
Marisol was talking about Mayette again. “. . . no, it’s like I knew we was gonna kill them, but when I saw that that bitch was pregnant, I was like, ‘Oh, shit!’ you know? And I didn’t know if . . . what the fuck are you doing?” Marisol looked quizzically at Juan, who had suddenly pressed his hands to his ears. Then her face shattered and the back of her head blew open, expelling blood, skull, hair and clods of gray matter all over the seat behind her. Marisol’s eyes went abruptly vacant, and she sagged lifeless in her seat.
“Fucking coño!” Jiram shouted, dropping his smoking 9mm and putting his hands to his ears. He realized he couldn’t hear his own voice. “Fuck, Juanito! I can’t fucking hear! Shit!”
The gunshot had been incredibly loud. Neither man had been fully prepared for how loud it was. Even Juan, who had covered his ears and braced himself, was thrust into the throes of a pounding headache, and Jiram’s shouting sounded muffled and distant. “Jesus fuck, that was loud!” Juan said, then, realizing he could hardly hear his own voice, he said, “Hello? Hello?”
The two sat in the Lincoln with Marisol’s grisly corpse for a minute checking their hearing until it had mostly returned. Then they got out, stripped off their nylon over-suits and galoshes and tossed them into the Lincoln with their head coverings. Jiram retrieved a one-gallon tank of gasoline from the car’s trunk and began emptying its contents into the passenger compartment.
“So what’s goin’ on wit’ our friend, Officer W¾?” Juan asked.
“I know a cop in the Thirty-Fourth Precinct, Fausto Colon. He works the same hours as W¾,” Jiram said, his upper body in the Lincoln. “The day it goes down, I’m going to call him, and he’s going to tell me what section of the precinct W¾’s working in. Then I will call 911 from an apartment in that section and make a noise complaint or something, and when W¾ responds, I’ll take him out.”
“You already gots the apartment lined up?” Juan asked. “And it’s clean?”
“I have three lined up, Juanito, and they’re completely clean,” Jiram assured. “Fausto told me the precinct puts out four police cars every shift, each one in a different section of the precinct. He told me what the sections are, and I’m setting up one apartment in each section. I should have the last apartment lined up by tomorrow night. W— is off tonight and tomorrow, we should be able to do it Saturday, the tenth.”
“Aight, good. That motha-fucka’s bad for . . .” Juan began, but he was interrupted by the ring of his StarTac cell phone.
Expecting the call, he picked it up right away, flipped it open and said, “Well?”
“He’s here,” said the voice on the other end.
Juan closed the phone and looked at Jiram. “Enrico’s here.”
“Good,” said Jiram, placing the now empty gas can on the back seat. He opened the front passenger window, and stood next to Juan. “What time do you want me at Escobar’s?”
“Be there by noon. I’m gonna go eat some breakfast, dawg. I’ll meet you over there.”
“I will be there,” Jiram said. He and Juan removed their latex gloves and tossed them into the Lincoln.
Staring at Marisol in the back seat, Juan said, “That bitch talked too fuckin’ much.” He lit a single match then used it to light the entire pack.
“Yes. She would have been a problem.”
“You were right,” Juan said. “We shoulda used Yasenia.” And he threw the flaming matches into the Lincoln.

Chapter 3

December 24, 1989
5:30 p.m.
Robby arrived at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in his crisp police academy recruit uniform. He had been excused early once his Official Company Instructor received word that Robby’s brother had been shot. When he arrived at the trauma ward, he saw his mother in conversation with a young doctor holding a clipboard in her hand.
“. . . just below his left ear and exited through the right ocular cavity,” the doctor was saying. She put a gentle hand on the older woman’s deflated shoulder. “The right eye and optic nerve have suffered intense trauma and are inoperable, and there’s damage to the medulla oblongata, the cerebral cortex, and along the temporal lobe. In addition, circulatory trauma has caused hypoxia to several regions of the brain, and if we cannot correct this, which is what we’re trying to do right now, the condition could become anoxic. The situation, I’m afraid, is grave.”
“Is . . . is he dead?” StephanieRobby’s mother, asked.
“No, not exactly,” the doctor said. “He’s in a coma and brain activity is very low. And if anoxia occurs . . .”
“You mean he’s brain dead,” Robby said, taking up his mother’s hand and standing beside her.
The doctor looked at Robby. Average height, lean and athletic, his handsome features wracked with concern, his smooth dark brown complexion now sallow. “In a manner of speaking, yes,” She said.
“Jesus,” Robby said. The situation felt surreal, the world around him was suddenly unfamiliar. “Will he recover? I mean, will he be all right? Eventually?”
The doctor pursed her lips. “I don’t think so. In situations like this, where there has been such extensive damage to the brain, there’s just nothing of him left. There’s only enough brain tissue intact to maintain the operation of some bodily functions. Some, not all. He’s being kept alive right now on life support.”
Stephanie closed her eyes and shook her head.
“My God,” Robby gasped. “Mom, how the hell did this happen? Where was . . .”
“Your father’s talking to the police right now,” she answered. She pointed blindly at a hall leading off the main corridor. “He’s over there.”
“Will you be all right?”
“Go. I want to finish talking to the doctor.”
“But…”
“Go,” she said firmly.
Robby gave her hand a last squeeze and then dashed around the corner to where his father, the Rev. Arthur W—, was talking to a pair of men in dark suits and trench coats, detective badges hanging from their breast pockets. “Dad?”
“Robby!” said Arthur through a stream of tears. He hugged his son desperately.
“Are you Robert W¾? David W¾’s brother?” one of the detectives inquired. He was tall and square shouldered, and had striking ice blue eyes that contrasted with his curly salt and pepper hair.
Robby Pulled away from his father. “That’s me.”
“My name’s Tim Murphy, I’m the Detective’s Endowment Association union delegate for the Three-four Squad, I also caught this case. First let me tell you how sorry I am for this tragedy, if there’s anything I can do . . .”
“Actually, you could start by telling me what the hell happened,” Robby interrupted, more abrasively than he’d intended.
“I’ll tell you what I know so far,” Murphy said, showing no sign of offence at Robby’s tone. He flipped pages in his scratch pad. “David has a girlfriend who lives on Academy Street and Sherman Avenue, yes?”
“Yeah, her name’s Lisette, she lives somewhere in Washington Heights.”
“You don’t know her last name, do you?”
“No, I don’t.”
“All right. Well, it looks like David was walking up Post Avenue, we’re guessing on his way to visit Lisette, when a shooting occurred across the street. One bullet struck him in the back of the head. There’s nothing to indicate that David was an intended target in the shooting, looks more like he was a collateral victim.”
Robby wanted to know so much but couldn’t begin to form a single coherent question. Instead, he just asked, “Why?” A tear welling in one onyx eye.
“You mean, what was the shooting about?”
Robby wasn’t sure what he meant, but he nodded anyway. The tear dashed down his cheek.
“Nothing concrete, but we’re pretty sure it was drug-related.”
The words “drug-related” sent a chill through Robby’s body. Drugs had killed his brother. The cleanest, nicest, brightest kid you’d ever meet. The kind of hip square who’d never even experimented with marijuana, and still drugs had found him and killed him. Had turned him into a fucking statistic. Robby wanted to throw up.
Murphy continued. “There’s been some turnover on the block recently, anonymous calls coming in with information on a particular drug crew leading to numerous arrests. All from the same informant. Narcotics has no idea who this guy is…I don’t suppose you think David might be in a position to have that kind of information?”
It took Robby a second to comprehend what the detective was asking. “What, you think David was the informant? A second ago you called him a collateral victim.”
“I was just curious if you thought he might…”
“David thinks weed is what gardeners pull up and crack is what you find in old concrete,” Robby said, unable to keep the outraged from his voice. “No way he knows anything about some friggin’ drug crew in the heights.”
“Okay, okay, I had to ask.” He looked up from his pad. “Robby…can I call you Robby?”
Robby clenched his jaw, and said, “Yes,” with forced patience.
“Robby, I gotta explore every possibility, likely and unlikely, simple and complicated, benign and unpleasant. That’s how we’re gonna catch the guys who did this. But bear in mind, I don’t know David. You do, which is why I’m talking to you. I’m makin’ no judgments about David, I’m just tryin’ get to know him, so we can understand what happened, and catch the pieces of shit that did this to him, okay?”
“Okay…I’m sorry…”
“No need to apologize, I understand completely. You need a soda or something before we go on here?”
Robby shook his head. “No, I’m good.”
Murphy returned his attention to his pad. “Eventually this crew I’m talking about disappeared and another one took its place. My guess is a turf war over the vacant territory caused the incident. It was very bloody: two guys shot inside a building, one of them set on fire, a third guy shot trying to escape in a car. We think that’s when your brother was hit.”
“Are there any¬—”
“Suspects? No, not yet,” Murphy interrupted.
“—witnesses,” Robby finished.
“Oh, witnesses. Yeah, I’m sure there were plenty. Will any of them come forward? I’ll be honest, probably not. At least, not willingly. I’ll contact Manhattan North Narcotics and ask them to have a team come down and do some buy and bust in the area. We’ll debrief the prisoners and see what we can find out.” He put away his scratch pad and took out his wallet. Thumbing through a number of business cards, he selected one and offered it to Robby. “Listen, this is a card from the police chaplain’s office. You and your family’ll be going through a difficult time right now, and if you need anyone to talk to, try giving them a call. It’s free and completely confidential.”
Robby took the card and stared at it blankly. It occurred to him that he couldn’t remember what David’s face looked like. But…he had just seen him yesterday, hadn’t he? David had been laughing about something. Was that the last time he would ever laugh?
“Your union delegate should be on his way, and he’ll put you in touch with Employee Relations so your family is taken care of. Your father also has my card. Call me if you have any questions, or for anything at all. I’ll keep you posted if anything breaks. Also, I’ll probably have some more questions later on, but for now why don’t you go and be with your family. Are the numbers on your 10-card up to date?”
Robby thought, then nodded.
Murphy and the other detective looked at one another, then walked off. Robby hardly noticed. He was lost in this strange, unreal world. A world where White veteran detectives treated him with respectful kid gloves, where his chatty mother was silent and still, where his proud father wept, and where his funny, sweet, geeky brother . . . well, there’s just nothing of him left.
Drugs.
They were the gateway to this hellish world, had admitted millions of families like his into it.
He was disgusted by it all. But not passively. A rage began to burn within him; a rage he would unleash against this all-corrupting enemy. David’s life would not go cheaply. There would be a heavy price paid.
And Robby would collect it.

Chapter 2

December 24, 1989
2:15 p.m.
Probationary Police Officer Dabney Hoban was excited. He was actually going to see the inside of a patrol car! As soon as roll call was finished, he turned to his friend Steve Heinz and beamed. Steve, who was also assigned to a patrol sector, gave his buddy a discreet high-five. It was really no surprise that the two rookies got sectors that night, it was the four-to-twelve tour on Christmas Eve, and everybody with time on the job was taking the night off. There were a few exceptions, however; guys who weren’t Christian, guys with no families, guys with no vacation time on the books, guys who hated their wives . . .
“Boy-David, huh? You’re in the shit tonight, tough guy,” Heinz said.
“About fucking time, Ketch.” Pretty much everybody called Steve “Ketchup.” Dabney—and a few others—had shortened this to “Ketch.” Dabney looked around. “You’re working with Collins tonight, right?”
“Yeah, I got Barbara. We’re Sector John-Lincoln-Mary,” Ketchup admitted without enthusiasm. “You?”
“Caban. You know his first name?”
“I think it’s Carlos,” Ketchup said. Something was eating at him. “I hear he’s pretty wild. You’ll have fun.”
“Yeah, well, I hear Barbara Collins is a fuckin’ maniac.”
“At least you’ll have somebody watchin’ your back tonight.”
“What the hell are you talkin’ about?” Dabney wanted to know.
“My first friggin’ night in a car and I’m stuck with a broad.”
So that’s what was bothering him. “Don’t be stupid, Ketch.”
“Dan, all I know is when the shit hits the fan, I got . . .”
“When the shit hits the fan?” Dabney interrupted. “Hasn’t Barbara been in three shootings, or something crazy like that?
“Yeah, well . . .”
“Yeah, well . . . if she’s been through all that and is still here to work a sector with you, then I think she can handle herself just fine,” Dabney said.
“Which one of you is Heinz?” Barbara Collins demanded. She’d appeared from nowhere. She was lanky and not very tall, with the ropy arms of a deck hand, and sunken ice-blue eyes. Eyes with the weathered look of someone twice her age. Stringy brown hair hung lifelessly down, brushing the shoulders of her duty jacket—which looked to have been to hell and back.
“Me, I’m . . . er . . . Heinz,” Ketchup managed. He extended a hand to Barbara and continued with his introduction. “My name’s Steve, but everyone calls me . . .”
“Look, kid,” she cut in, “we got car 2357. Go get the key, make sure it has gas, and give it a good toss. I’ll meet you outside in ten minutes; I gotta make a phone call.”
“All right, I just have to . . .” Ketchup began, but Barbara was already walking off.
Then she stopped and looked back. “Oh yeah, one more thing. You’ll be recording tonight, so don’t even think about being in the driver’s seat when I get outside.”
Before Ketchup could agree or protest he was looking at Barbara’s back again. He turned back to Dabney. “Oh, this is bullshit. Who the hell does she think she is?” Ketchup was turning tomato red. The irony of this was not lost on Dabney, and he cracked a smile.
“I’m glad you think this is funny,” Ketchup snapped. “We’ll just see how funny she thinks it is later on tonight. I’ll set her straight. Put money on it.”
He stomped off to get the keys to 2357.
Dabney was alone in the muster room now. He had seen Carlos go out the door to the parking lot after roll call, so he went out to look for him. In the lot, Dabney found Carlos and two other senior guys, huddled together in conversation. He could only hear part of what they were saying—something about a shooting on Post Avenue near the change of tour. One of them was speculating that the patrol supervisor might be looking for somebody to relieve the day tour and sit on the crime scene. Another of them was commenting on how there shouldn’t even be a crime scene—if these animals wanted to shoot each other, so be it. Afraid to interrupt the conversation, Dabney waited patiently until they broke away from one another.
He intercepted Carlos on his way into the station house. “Hi, I’m Dan Hoban.”
“That’s nice,” Carlos said without stopping.
Dabney watched as Carlos disappeared into the station house. He felt like a dick. He decided to go get a radio and maybe the keys to the car.
To the right of the shoulder-high, twenty-foot-long Thirty-fourth Precinct front desk was the demi-closet christened, "the Radio Room." Inside was a single file cabinet, a milk crate full of defective Motorolas, and today, one Joe Vingilli stooped over the tattered yellow radio log doing, jugging from the intense expression on his face, advanced calculus.
“Hey, Joey,” Dabney said.
“This fuckin’ thing . . .” It took Joe a few seconds before he allowed Dabney’s salutation to penetrate and distract him from his inventory. “Oh, hey, Dan. You get a radio yet?” he asked in his slow, plodding voice.
“Nope. I’ll take one for Caban too.”
“Okay.” Joe plucked two radios off one of the numerous chargers that lined the room’s walls ceiling to floor. He handed the radios to Dabney and returned his attention to the log. “4657’s yours, 4659’s for Caban. Whachyou doin’ tonight?”
“Boy-David.”
Joe’s pen froze. His eyes lifted to Dabney’s. “You’re in a sector car?”
Dabney smiled.
“And I’m stuck inside doin’ this shit?” He shook his head, looked back to the enigmatic log, and wrinkled his brow.
“You Hoban?” The voice came from behind.
Dabney turned around. He saw Carlos Caban standing there. Duty jacket weathered and unzipped, exposing a bulletproof vest in a stained white carrier worn over a powder blue uniform shirt. The top button was characteristically unbuttoned, the tie clipped through the buttonhole and off to the side. Carlos was stocky and only about five foot six, but he had a certain largeness about him. Like he could crush you in his left hand. At the same time, however, there was a pleasant easiness about Carlos that Dabney had never noticed before—probably because Carlos had never before acknowledged him.
“Looks like it’s you and me.” He swatted Dabney on the shoulder with a heavy hand and a smile. “I got the car, you ready? They’re holding jobs.”
“Yeah. Uh . . . here.” Dabney handed Carlos his radio. “My name’s Dan.”
“Okay,” Carlos said, walking away.
Dabney followed Carlos outside, and together they found the car. Physically, the two were contrasted like a pair of Disney co-villains. Dabney, tall and lean, his uniform immaculate and neatly pressed. His leather goods, matte black, crisp and stiff, disaccorded with Carlos’s, which were so broken in they resembled soft brown calfskin. Dabney’s eight-pointed hat was sharp and sat high upon his head like that of a Swiss Guard, covering a square razored field of military-cut blond hair. Carlos’s hat was . . . what hat? And his hair was . . . what hair?
“You wanna drive?” Carlos asked, throwing Dabney the keys before he had a chance to answer.
“Sure!” Dabney replied, trying not to appear overanxious, and missing the keys as they arched past him.

* * *

Dabney got them to the address of their first job of the night, a family dispute, as fast as he could without looking like he was rushing, while Carlos did something with a bunch of papers and his checkbook. As Dabney pulled up to the front of the location, Carlos said, “Don’t park right in front,” without looking up from his bills. “We don’t want ‘em to see the car.”
As they entered the building, Carlos put on his gloves and removed a four-D-cell battered MagLite from his belt. The outer lobby door was broken off its hinges, but the inner door was locked. Carlos began pushing random buttons on the intercom, avoiding 4E, until a voice crackled over saying, “Quién?”
“Me,” replied Carlos, muffling his voice.
The door buzzed and Dabney followed Carlos in. The two ascended the stairs at the rear of the lobby, penetrating deeper and deeper into the ever-thickening aromas of a thousand dishes of kielbasa, stewed ox tails, chicken and rice, beans, beans, and more beans that have pervaded the surrounding walls for generations. It made Carlos think of visits to his grandmother’s place when he was a kid; it made Dabney think of puking.
Once in front of apartment 4E, Carlos put his ear to the door and listened. Nothing. He gently, discreetly tried the handle. It was locked. He stood to the side and knocked on the door with his MagLite.
A woman’s voice spoke from behind the door in Spanish.
Carlos answered her. “Policía. Abra la puerta por favor.”
The woman hesitated. Then they heard the locks disengaging. When the door opened, Dabney gasped. The woman had been beaten to the fringe of deformity.
Carlos got his foot in the door and asked a single question in Spanish. “Where is he?”
The woman answered, saying that “he” was in the living room.
Carlos was about to ask his usual questions—Who else was in the apartment? Were there any children present? Were there any guns in the apartment? etc.—but Dabney, overcome by the woman’s appearance, decided to take a more active approach to the situation. He pushed past Caban, and demanded, “Who did this to you?”
The woman replied, in Spanish, that her husband had done it.
From this, Dabney concluded that a Mr. Esposo was the perpetrator. He wondered if this was Mrs. Esposo. He then put together a question using some bits of Spanish he’d heard on TV. “Is Señor Esposo in mi casa su casa?”
The woman looked at Carlos. He said nothing. Only one person can direct the handling of a dispute or the entire thing becomes a calamity. If the kid wanted to try this one, Carlos was happy to back off and let him do his stuff.
Dabney repeated his question.
“Dee libing roong,” the woman said in English as proficient as Dabney’s Spanish.
Dabney stepped past the battered woman, and walked down the narrow hallway toward the living room, while Carlos quietly ascertained from the woman that no one else was in the apartment.
Dabney found the husband sitting on a lime green, plastic slip covered sofa in the living room, watching TV at an obnoxious volume, and drinking a frosty bottle of El Presidente. “You, stand up!” Dabney commanded.
The guy didn’t move a muscle. Didn’t even look at him.
“Stand up, I said!” Dabney shouted.
Nothing.
“Get up or I swear to Christ you’ll spend Christmas in jail!” Dabney shouted against the volume of the TV.
Carlos walked into the living room and stood off to the side, his arms folded.
Now Dabney felt pressure to impress his senior partner. He absolutely would not be ignored or disrespected. “Are you Mr. Esposo?” he demanded.
The man smirked, still looking at the TV. “Pendejo,” he said.
“Pendejo Esposo?” Dabney asked, believing he’d elicited the subject’s name.
The guy exploded. He leapt off the couch, screaming and cursing at Dabney like nothing the twenty-two-year-old had ever heard. Dabney found himself on the defensive, awkwardly backing away from the guy. The enraged husband took this for weakness and began waving his fist at the white intruder in his home.
“Sit down! Be quiet and sit down!” Dabney was saying now. “Sit down right now!”
But the man became only more and more agitated, raving like a lunatic, and getting closer and closer to Dabney.
When Dabney disengaged the holster lock of his service revolver, Carlos decided to intervene. He clicked off the TV and inserted himself between Dabney and the monster he’d managed to create in under a minute.
“You have to be careful walking into a Latino man’s home and ordering him around,” Carlos explained. “You gotta handle these things delicately.” Carlos turned to face the husband and grabbed him by his hair. He dragged the man to the closest wall, slammed his head against it, pulled a straight razor from the inside pocket of his duty jacket, and put it to the man’s throat.
The husband was a doe in high beams. He stopped hollering.
Now Carlos spoke to the husband in a low steady tone. “They might believe I beat you. They might believe I shot you. Hell, they might even believe I threw you out the window. But they won’t, I mean they won’t ever believe I cut your fuckin’ throat. You understand?”
“Si. Yes—yes,” said the doe.
“Suave,” instructed Carlos.
“Suave,” the husband confirmed.
Fifteen minutes later the husband, real name Hector Rivas, apologized to his wife as well as to the tall white cop who had come into his house, ordered him around, and called him an “asshole husband.” He also agreed to go to his brother’s place for the night. Dabney was quietly outraged at first when Carlos wouldn’t let him collar the guy, and, seeing this, Carlos explained a little bit about the way the world worked. One, if they brought a collar into the Station House on Christmas Eve, the desk officer would crucify them both. Two, the woman really had no interest in seeing her husband arrested; she just wanted them to scare him a little—which Carlos had. Hence, three, if they had collared Hector, he would have been released when his wife refused to press charges. Then, four, he would have beaten her even worse for having him locked up in the first place.
“Believe me,” Carlos continued, wrapping a wide, calloused hand fraternally around Dabney’s neck, and pulling him into confidential range, “it’s the same thing over and over. A lot of these families are pretty fucked up around here.”
“I guess you’re right,” Dabney conceded.
Carlos slapped the rookie on the back. “You’ll get used to it.”
Dabney smiled outwardly. “I hope not,” Dabney he muttered to his partner’s back as the veteran headed out of the lobby.
They were about to get back into the car, when they heard, “Carlos!”
They looked across the street and saw Barbara Collins standing by herself next to car 2357, holding a black duffel in one hand. She was waving them over.
While Carlos and Dabney began making their way across St. Nicholas Avenue to wiry, intense-eyed cop, Dabney asked, “Tell me something, is it true that Barbara’s been in three shootings?”
“Nope,” Carlos answered simply. “Five. And she’s been shot. And stabbed. Yet she stands before you.”
“Shit,” Dabney said in awe.
“You don’t ever wanna fuck with Barbara,” Carlos said matter of factly as they closed the last few yards.
“It’s you and me, babe,” Barbara said to Carlos. “The kids gotta sit on a crime scene on Dyckman and Post. This one,” pointing at Dabney, “and that little idiot, Heinz.”
“Okay,” Carlos said amiably. “Whose car we in?”
“Yours,” Barbara said. “The kids can take 2357 up to the fixer. Adam’s gonna cover your sector, we’re gonna go uptown and do John-Lincoln-Mary.”
“Cool,” said Carlos. He turned to Dabney. “Nice working with you.”
Dabney was heartbroken at having lost the sector and his new mentor in one fell swoop. “Yeah, you too. Merry Christmas.”
“Okay,” said Carlos. He looked at Barbara. “Got all your stuff?”
Barbara hoisted the duffel in acknowledgment. She looked at Dabney and thrust the keys to 2357 into his chest. “Here. Grab your shit, and take that moron Heinz up to Dyckman and Post forthwith.”
Dabney looked around. He didn’t see Ketchup. “Where is Heinz?”
Barbara pointed at 2357. “In the trunk.”

Chapter 1

December 24, 1989
2:15 p.m.
Christmas Eve on a Sunday in Washington Heights. The air was crammed with Yuletide spirit. Dyckman Street was a gaudy festival of blinking lights, melting snowball pocks, excited children, opportunistic drunks, late shoppers, Dominican Santas, and plastic Christs, reindeer, Marys, and Magi. An army of fat snowflakes drifted down like fish food in a winter aquarium.
Juanito stepped wide off the curb to avoid a slate-gray puddle of once driven snow. He darted through the scant traffic on Dyckman and cut toward Post Avenue, his Timberlands tapping crisply on the wet, salt-crusted asphalt. The cold on his face, he tasted salty mucus on his upper lip—the thin clear stuff that ran uncontrollably when the mercury limboed under the twenty-degree mark. His fingers were already numb against the box he was clutching to when he entered the cloying warmth of a bodega on the corner of Post. He shook his head to free it of snowflakes, though most had already seeped into the black of his knit hat. The cold had caused his cheeks to rosy up and contract so that his face was contorted into a dopy grin. He pointed this frozen grin at the man behind the Plexiglas-framed counter, who returned the smile and threw in a Feliz Navidad! for good measure. Juanito made his way to the cold case in the rear, weaving through a group of older men who were standing around or sitting on milk crates in the front of the store, drinking rum out of paper coffee cups.
Before sliding the cold case door open, Juanito put down the box containing the Nintendo he’d bought his brother, Pedrito. He looked at his hands. They were frozen into talons. He clenched and relaxed them a few times until they were more or less working again, and opened the case. He filled in the empty slots of a battered six-pack of El Presidente and slid it out of the case. Picking up the Nintendo, he pushed his way back through the cluster of old men. One of them ruffled his head and offered him a, “Eh, Juanito! Cómo está?” Juanito flashed his stupid smile at the man and kept moving. He slapped the frosty six-pack on the counter and fought four numb fingers into the tight front pocket of his jeans. Eventually, he came up with some crinkled bills, paid for the beer, repositioned his awkward grip on the Nintendo box, and headed toward the door.
It was then, exiting the bodega, that Juanito first noticed the Acura.
Heading eastbound on Dyckman Street, it was the color of maroon bleeding, sporting black—almost opaque—tinted windows. Both windows on the driver’s side slid down halfway, and Juanito could see in. There were three of them, looking right at him.
This was it. It had to be.
From the corner, Juanito watched the Acura go down to the end of the block and make a left. He heard the tires peel as took off to circle the block and appear in front of him. He thought of running to his building—in all likelihood he could get there before the car came around the corner and down Post Avenue—but he didn’t. He had to prepare himself. He would need to see the car again. To wait until the last possible moment. To experience and embrace the point of no return, before he would be able to do what he knew he had to.
He proceeded up Post Avenue, outwardly the picture of calm—fighting to keep his breath steady, and marveling at the myriad ways his body sought to defy his relaxed projection. Trembling, fatigue, breathlessness, tingling in his extremities. He had a desperate urge to throw down the Nintendo and the beer, and put his hands in his pockets to warm them and get the circulation going. But they’d seen him with these things already. It was important that he do nothing to signal he was on to them. So he kept walking at a steady pace, carrying his bulky parcels up Post Avenue; his eyes fixed on corner ahead of him, thrilling and dreading to see the Acura.
He was on the verge of second-guessing his assessment of the situation when the Acura turned off Academy Street and roll down Post Avenue toward him at a pace that suggested that, like him, its occupants wanted to convey an attitude of nonchalance. But he knew them for what they were. Could feel the retrained energy coming off them in palpable waves, like a tiger coiled for the pounce. He looked at the building next to him: 17 Post Avenue. Almost there. From the corner of his eye, he watched the Acura come even with him across the street. Heard it cut the quick U-turn. He was in front of 23 Post Avenue. Going to be close. Now it was coming up behind him at a creep. The last few paces seemed to take years.
He finally made it to the long, narrow walkway that led to the lobby vestibule of 25 Post Avenue, where he had lived all his life. Once he crested the corner of the walkway and was momentarily out of the Acura’s line of sight, Juanito sprinted to the building’s vestibule. The front door was open as always, and the inner door was locked. Nobody in the building had a key to the inner door, but it was a moot issue, as the top Plexiglas panel of the door was missing, and one had only to reach in and open the door from the inside. Not so easy to do when rushing with your hands full, so Juanito flung the Nintendo through the opening and used his free hand to fling the door open. Once inside, he tripped violently trying to scoop the goddamn thing back up again.
Up and running, fumbling with the beer, he tore off up the stairs, tossing the beer and the fucking Nintendo under the staircase. Flying up by threes, he bungled a bulky DynaTac phone out of his waistband with numb fingers and dialed 911. As he hit the second floor landing, an operator answered asking where the emergency was.
Juanito forced his breath under control. "Veinticinco. . . I mean, twenty-five Post Avenue!"
"What’s the nature of . . ."
"It’s a fire! Help! Fire!" he wheezed. The lobby door banged open and soon Juanito was aware of footsteps pounding up the stairs behind him. He was on the third floor; it was going to be very close.
". . . I said is this a residential or a commercial location?" The operator had an attitude now.
"What? It’s a building! The fuckin’ building’s on fire . . . fifth floor!" Juanito spat, feeling sluggish and dizzy.
"Please hold while I connect you to the Fire Depar. . ."
"Fifth floor!" Juanito whispered hoarsely and disconnected. He was on the fourth floor. Still hauling ass up the stairs, he ripped his keys from his pocket, almost dropped them, caught them, and lost the cell phone.
Finally he made it to the dimly lit fifth floor landing. He threw himself against a scarred metal door marked "5D" and jammed the key at the lock, but the vicious thing wouldn’t go in, it only danced around the hole without mating. Juanito could hear them passing the third floor. He petitioned God to damn the stubborn key in English and Spanish, and the first real wave of panic hit him, almost buckling his knees with its force. Could he actually not pull this off? He always knew he was playing a deadly game, but at every turn he’d been able to manipulate the players so easily, get them to do exactly as he wanted. Had it been simple vanity to think he was smarter than everyone else around him? And was death to be his penalty for the mistake? His resolve began to fray. He felt like one of those stupid little fucking kids in the cautionary tales his grandmother used to tell him when he visited her in the DR. They were rounding the fourth floor landing with relentless, black determination, and he was on the fringe of losing his composure altogether when his wrist lurched forward as the key found the lock.
There were two of them. Big, dark-skinned Dominicans in hoodies worn backward with the hoods up over their faces, sporting ragged black eyeholes devoid of symmetry or humanity. Points of light glinted of the oiled metal of the ugly Tec-9 submachine guns in their hands as they flew at the closing door. It slammed shut an instant before the first man hit it with his full weight. He seized the doorknob, pulled, pushed, twisted and turned. Locked. They began kicking at it with frenetic passion, cursing and hollering in tongues that knew no language, but the old ghetto door and frame had been built to resist such assaults, and both held. A cacophony of pounding and howling echoed up and down the stairwell, pressing all the building’s residents ever deeper into their apartments, devouring all ambient noise.
So the two assassins never heard the flick of a Zippo on the landing above them. And when one of them craned his featureless hooded face upward, drawn by the new source of wavering light from above, he knew that the target had never run into the apartment. But it was already too late.
Juanito spun around the corner leading from the roof landing with the flaming Snapple bottle of gasoline held high. Before the two men could react, he lofted the firebomb hard at their feet. It exploded with a dull roar, instantly engulfing the entire left side of one man in spectacular yellow flames that vomited up a terrible cloud of black smoke. By the time the engulfed man’s weapon clacked on the floor, the sinister black billow was pouring up to the ceiling, surging up the stairwell toward Juanito.
He dropped to an awkward kneel on the stairs and, squinting through burning eyes, leveled a Lorcin .380 semi-auto where he thought the chest of the second man would be. He felt the gunmetal frame of the .380 jolt crisply in his hands three times. The first shot was utterly deafening, he did not hear the other two.
Through a teary haze, Juanito saw the second man stagger back against another apartment door. Then, in a surrealistic scene, he saw the burning man cross in front of his partner and run wildly down the stairs. The man Juanito shot at didn’t fall, but bounced off the door and hurled himself sloppily down the stairs as well and in an instant, both were out of sight. Realizing they were getting away, Juanito climbed over the railing and dropped directly onto the turnaround below the blazing fifth floor landing, wrenching his knee and slamming into the wall. Pain spasmed though his leg, but he grit his teeth, pulled himself up, and threw himself down the stairs after the fleeing assassins, his throat and chest burning in the thick smoke trail of the one on fire. By the time he saw the second floor landing in front of him, gagging and nearly blind from the smoke, his knee threatening to give out with every pounding step, exhaustion and lethargy took him. He body felt hollow, his arms and legs distant; he could hardly feel the stairs beneath his feet. It was all he could do to fight though the floating sense of detachment and remain focused. Then, swinging himself around the railing, he glimpsed the second man.
Without making a conscious decision the weapon kicked twice, and this time he saw the muzzle flash. The man pitched headlong down to the turnaround, where he collided with the burning man and his weapon flew from his grip toward the lobby. While the two men fought to get running again, Juanito rounded the corner and charged straight at the bucking human torch. He fired into him twice, point-blank, and the man sagged against the wall, then tipped over the top step and rolled down the stairs—tumbling going some way toward putting out the flames. Just then, Juanito was pushed hard into the railing and his head cracked against the upper stairs. Not realizing it, he had been straddling the second man. The man, his hood hanging down to reveal a blood spattered grimace of black determination, was now trying to shove him over the railing with all the effort he could muster. Juanito flailed his arms for balance, feeling his center of gravity shift precariously as the man labored feverishly to bundle him over the eleven-foot drop. And then the battle was lost. Juanito felt himself slip past the point of no return and knew he would fall. But he would go down fighting. In that final instant before gravity took over, Juanito’s fingers found his assailant’s hair, pulled the man’s head toward him, shoved the .380 into his neck, and pulled the trigger. A flash of light blossomed under his victim’s jaw. Black matter splatted against the chipped gray paint of the wall behind. He felt the man stiffen and weaken at the same time.
Then he was falling sickeningly backward. The man was falling too, but on the opposite of the banister. A second later the man’s face thunked into the railing, and his hair whisked from Juanito’s fingers.
Juanito’s stomach turned over for an impossible moment while he hung in the air, his legs kicked up in front of his face. Suddenly he met the bottom staircase and the entire world jarred so terribly he thought the building would come crashing down around him. The air was expelled form his lungs with violence, and he heard the awful, sharp, unmistakable crunching of bone. He somersaulted to the lobby floor and waited for sweet unconsciousness to take him.
But it didn’t. Gasping and wheezing, he waited to be wracked by unbearable pain, but the pain was surprisingly manageable. In fact, as great as his impact had been, he now realized it had been oddly soft…and the realization filled him with horror. At that moment he knew he was paralyzed. He had broken his back when he hit the stairs, and now he would never stand again. Never walk or run again. Never climb a fence or push a shopping cart. He looked at the smoldering body of the first assassin lying a few feet away. The flames had finally died out, but smoke poured copiously from a glowing pattern of embers where scorched clothing met flaky charred patches of flesh, cracked to reveal hissing, yellow fat beneath. The acrid stench of burning flesh and gasoline filled Juanito’s nose, and the thought that he couldn’t move away from this grotesque made him want to vomit. But the idea that remaining there he would likely be made to answer for this atrocity was infinitely worse. He wanted to scream.
Then his waking nightmare became a living hell. The smoking, blackened thing began to move. It was trying to rise, no it was rising. Eddies of smoke whirled about its shoulders as it hauled itself to its feet, its skin crackling. The hood looked to have half burned away, half melted onto its face, so only one terrible eye was revealed. It was lidless and glistening and searching. It found him.
Juanito’s horror was so absolute his sanity almost left him. The charred hulk rose to its full height and lurched toward him. He covered his face with both hands, and the frame of the Lorcin smacked into his forehead. The surprise that he was still holding on to the gun was followed instantly by the realization that he could move his arms. He quickly tried to point the gun at the monster but as soon as he uncovered his face a sooty steel-toe boot crashed into his jaw. The blow wasn’t nearly as mighty as it could have been, but nevertheless, a camera flash went off across Jauito’s field of vision and his head snapped back. Everything seemed to constrict. His limbs became leaden. Distantly, his mouth filling with the taste of blood, he was aware the thing was stepping over him. As consciousness receded, Juanito considered that he must have landed on this man when he fell. That’s what broke his fall and why he wasn’t paralyzed. The thought rekindled resolve, and he struggled to clear his head. What were the odds of landing on that guy? Clearly, he was being preserved by a higher force. Call it God or destiny… Juanito knew that he was meant to get through this ordeal, kill this indestructible motherfucker and realize his plan. This battle was the price of greatness, and he would pay it.
As his enemy finished striding over him, Juanito shot out his free hand and grabbed its ankle. The beast dragged him a foot and a half, but when skin and crispy scales of scorched cloth sloughed off in Juanito’s hand, it teetered off balance and went down. It crashed into the lobby floor with a puff of smoke, and a burst of glowing embers; a trail of downy black flakes drifting in its wake like dust motes.
Juanito released the grotesque ankle, and tried to scramble drunkenly to his feet, but bright pain shot from his injured knee and the floor tiles rose to meet him. Blood spattered on the floor between his hands, and he saw that his upper lip was ripped open from the kick. Looking up, he saw the thing dragging itself toward something on the ground. The partner’s Tec-9.
Without hesitation, Juanito launched himself onto the assassin’s smoking back as shiny black fingers curled around the submachine gun’s handle—but before the weapon could be brought to bear, he got the barrel of the .380 against its charred scalp.
When it was done, Juanito found himself in a strangely private place. Feeling alone and out of joint with time, he rolled off the corpse and sat up, breathing heavily, blood running freely down his chin. He heard sobbing, and was vaguely aware that it was his own. He wanted to close his eyes. . .
But he couldn’t. It wasn’t over.
He checked the Lorcin. Its slide was locked back. Empty. The last shot had saved his life, and the last shot was the last shot. This was indeed God’s work. His strength began to return. He could finish this; would finish this. He struggled to his feet, ignoring the persistent complaint of his knee, and released the weapon’s magazine. The gun was bloody. He pulled a handful of .380 rounds from his coat pocket and was about to start threading them into the magazine when he saw the Tec-9 clutched in the dead man’s hand.
Grimacing, Juanito prised the weapon from dead fingers. He hobbled through the lobby, and out the vestibule. Using one hand to keep the Tec-9 hidden behind his back and the other hand to support himself against the wall, he made his way along the walkway to the street, thankful to see that the Acura had stopped short of the walkway entrance. When he got to the end of the walkway, he turned left, angling toward the street at a brisk pace.
Immediately, the Acura’s wheels screeched as it took off. But as the car made to pass Juanito, he swung the submachine gun up. A violent staccato of shots tore loose from the weapon, and the car’s front passenger window shattered while rents ripped across its roof.
Several car alarms wailed. The Acura veered hard to the left, straightened out, then suddenly cut across oncoming traffic and into the parked cars on the far side of Post Avenue. Tires screeched as an SUV swerved to avoid the wayward Acura, and more car alarms sounded after the collision. The Acura’s horn had jammed. A smattering screams.
Juanito lumbered toward the howling car. As he limped around to the driver’s side from the rear, the front door swung half-open and the driver managed to get a foot out. Juanito raised the Tec-9 and let off another terrible burst. Both windows on the driver’s side of the Acura exploded, and several pocks appeared almost simultaneously on the rear door. The driver slumped back. The echo of the shots rolled down Post Avenue like a distant surf behind the shrill car alarms and the Acura’s horn.
When Juanito made it to the side of the Acura, he reached the Tec-9 into the open door, and finished the clip.
The urgent wail of fire engine sirens droned distantly, but Juanito did not hear them. He limped a couple of feeble steps back from the Acura. The smoking Tec-9 was suddenly heavy. Anvil-heavy. He looked around. The blinking Christmas lights. He was alone again. Post Avenue was empty.
But now it was his.
There was a new force uptown, and fourteen-year-old Juan Gustavo Chodas was a force to be reckoned with.

Prologue

May 8, 1997
9:50 a.m.
Whatever it was they had injected him with was wearing off, and Enrico’s legs were stiff and leaden and exquisitely painful. He didn’t think he’d be able to stand up. While the plane taxied to the terminal, he gently massaged the area around where it hurt, careful to avoid touching the grotesque swollen lumps. When they had put him on the plane, he was so drugged up his vision was blurred and fish-eyed, and they’d practically had to carry him. But now as he looked around, cold sweat pasting his hair to his temples, the world appeared acutely harsh and cold and white.
When it came time to disembark, Enrico’s constricted eyes darted in all directions helplessly. He didn’t exactly know what he was hoping to see—perhaps somebody offering to help him up? Strangely enough, someone did. One of the stewardesses who’d been watching him the entire flight, probably convinced he was going to puke or worse, approached when the people around him had finished unstuffing their overhead bins and lent him her hand. Stronger than she looked, she levered Enrico from his seat, and helped him down the aisle to the gaping convex portal. It felt like the single greatest act of kindness ever bestowed upon him, and had his exocrine system not been utterly confused by drugs and trauma, he would certainly have shed tears of sentiment.
On his own now, Enrico made his way down the long tubular ramp to the gate. With each step he took, he couldn’t imagine where the strength would come from to take the next. He thought he must pass out, actually longed to let go and collapse. But the thought of what would happen if he were taken to a hospital gave him the strength to go on. Ten agonizing minutes later he approached the baggage carrousel for his flight. Three pieces of his luggage were circling around on the thing somewhere, but he couldn’t care less about them at the moment, and he hobbled on past it toward the lines for the customs checkpoint. He selected the shortest one, and queued; only to discover that his body had by now settled into a kind of stasis as he shambled along, and the interruption of standing still actually made him feel worse.

Meeting hundreds of new and interesting people every day, all coming from far away and exotic lands, United States Customs Agents are uniquely positioned to contract all the latest interesting and exotic diseases to which Americans have yet to be exposed or developed any immunity to. As such is the case, the agent to which the pale and clammy Enrico extended his passport not only refused to physically handle the document, but couldn’t get rid of it’s bearer fast enough. And so, Enrico soon found himself struggling down the departure hall, the ink of a hastily stamped visa still drying on his Dominican passport. Although he did not know it, his labored steps marked the culmination of a carefully planned chain of events begun eight years previously; and set into motion an even more ambitious, and much more dangerous, plan.

* * *

Casper Montalvo was not wearing a suit today. At thirty-two, he had worn a suit every single day for the past nine years. He had grown accustomed to having the finer things in life—or at least his perception of the finer things. His voluminous closet contained thirty-three suits: twelve mulberry silk, nine ultrafine merino wool, eight Irish linen, and four brushed cotton; all Versace, Hugo Boss, or Armani. They were arranged by season, material, color, and shade in that precise order, and not a one was more than eighteen months old. He ate one meal every day at one of his four favorite restaurants—Jimmy’s Bronx Café, Mirage, The Audubon Grille, or Gonzalez Y Gonzalez. His winter wear was Nordica, his watch was Movado, his shades were Calvin Klein—all six pairs—and his ride was a Lexus GS400. He wore Aramis, silk boxers, and an ounce and a half of yellow gold in rings and chains, and four karats in diamonds seven days a week. Except today.
Today, Casper had on Express men’s jeans, a Polo sweatshirt, and an official Yankees fitted baseball cap. He had been specifically instructed to wear jeans today and leave his jewelry home. He didn’t own jeans, so that morning he’d gone out and bought a pair; he borrowed the sweatshirt and hat from his cousin. And so, here he was, standing in Kennedy International Airport, dressed—in his opinion—like a bum.
Casper had never met Enrico before, but recognized him quickly enough by the way the man was hobbling down the arrivals hall like a fucking holocaust survivor. Not very inconspicuous. Casper pulled the prepaid cell phone he’d picked up the day before from his pocket. The display read 10:13 a.m. He hit the "send" button twice and the phone called the first and only number on its redial list.
Half a ring, then, "Well?"
“He’s here,” Casper said. He replaced the phone in his pocket and made his way over to the hobbling man. "Señor Delarosa?" he asked.
"Si…si…," Enrico rasped. "Es usted Casper?"
"Si," Casper said, extending Enrico an arm. Not knowing if Enrico had any English, he continued in Spanish, asking, "How was your flight?"
Enrico looked bewildered at the question. "My damn legs are killing me!"
"Ssh," Casper shushed discreetly. "Be careful what you say here. Where is your luggage?"
Enrico waved a dismissive hand. Casper hoped this meant that he hadn’t brought any, but it was too late to do anything about it if this wasn’t the case, so he led Enrico through a pair of glass doors to the taxi waiting area. Two black Lincoln Town Cars with dark tinted windows pulled up in front of them with precision timing. Casper opened a rear door to the first of the two Lincolns and helped Enrico into the car. He got into the second car and tapped the driver twice on the shoulder. At once, the driver keyed his CB transmitter, and said, "Vaminos."
The two sedans pulled into traffic with businesslike uniformity, and melted into the traffic of the Grand Central Parkway.