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.