Against the Law

by Against the Law (epub)

  This was the land of the Hasidim, the ultra-Orthodox Jews who formed a highly insular community of their own, an Old World town within the secular modern city, with their own institutions, schools, businesses, even their own neighborhood security patrols, and rabbis who ruled by their own religious laws. Of course, they also had their own outlaws. That’s where Rebbe came in, as the oldest and most respected Orthodox gangster, a king among his tribe. And now they were in his land.

  As they stopped for a light, Joe saw a man who was loitering on the sunny corner nod at Nero, who nodded back. He was a tall guy in a wide brim black hat with a pointed black beard, and a long black coat over his black pants, like wearing a solar energy panel, Joe imagined. His eyes prowled the street watchfully, and he had his right hand in his coat. He was armed.

  Now Joe noticed other men stationed around, on corners and on stairs, watching from windows, even on the rooftops, black forms silhouetted against the sky like scarecrows. They turned into a small, dead-end street and found it blocked by what looked like a bakery delivery van—Hebrew writing and a painting of matzoh. Nero stopped. A young guy approached the car. At first glance he looked more modern, in jeans and with a hipster vibe to his beard—but he wore a knit skullcap and had the telltale knotted strings, the tzitzit, dangling from under his Kurt Cobain shirt. Nero lowered the window.

  “Caprisi,” he said, and the guy peeked in back at Joe and Gio. He nodded, signaling as he stepped away. The truck rolled back.

  “Tight security,” Joe said as Nero pulled forward.

  “After last night, we decided only Rebbe could guarantee safety for this meeting. All of us targets in one place.”

  Most of the block was taken up by a huge old warehouse. Nero turned into the driveway and a large, metal gate was rolled back by a bearded guy with a skullcap and a rifle slung over his shoulder. Another, who could have been his brother, stood watch, rifle in hand. Joe clocked two more on the roof as they rolled into the warehouse. The walls were as thick as a castle and light filtered in from high, barred windows. There was probably still coal dust on the pebbled glass. Inside, a row of delivery trucks stood against one wall, by the other, a row of expensive, late-model luxury cars and SUVs. The guests. And by itself in a corner was a private ambulance, with two EMTs sitting on the back bumper. Nero parked and they got out. The other drivers were gathered in a group, chatting and smoking. Cash waved at Joe from where he was leaning on his hood—no doubt he was driving his boss, Uncle Chen. Liam Madigan, who was there with his eldest brother, ambled over.

  “Gio, I’m terribly sorry to hear of your loss. I always liked Eddie.” He shook both their hands. “Anything I can do,” he said. “Just ask.”

  “I’ll be in touch,” Joe told him.

  “And I’ll be ready.”

  Beside the trucks were towering pallets, stacked twenty feet high, with plastic-wrapped blocks formed of boxes of matzoh, each one emblazoned with a bright yellow Moische’s logo. It was like a fortress wall towering above them, with no way through or around it. Beside it stood Josh, with a headset mic and an Uzi on a strap over his shoulder.

  “Joe,” he said, with a grin, “good to see you,” and then to Gio: “Just a second, sir.”

  Gio nodded and Joe winked as Josh spoke into his mic. They heard an electric motor and suddenly a large chunk of the wall lifted up and began to ease back, opening a doorway wide enough for both men to walk through. A forklift, manned by an old graybeard, dressed in black of course, had pulled back with the load. He waited for them, then rotated the forklift and backed out through the passage he’d made, sliding the brick back into the wall behind them. They were sealed in with matzoh on all four sides now—the warehouse was stacked to the ceiling, leaving a large open space in the center.

  Several folding tables had been placed end to end, then covered with a long white tablecloth to form a single surface. Another nearby table held tea and coffee urns, pitchers of ice water, rows of cups and glasses, sugar, and milk. On folding chairs around the table were Uncle Chen, true to his name, a bald, round, avuncular-looking old man who was the ruthless boss of Flushing; Anton, from Brighton Beach, representing the Russian Mafia, furiously smoking acrid Russian cigarettes; Reggie, Alonzo’s brother, younger and thinner than Alonzo, with a high fade where Alonzo had his head shaved, was dressed like a grad student in a button-down and jeans, and looked a bit out of his element; and in a navy blue suit and red tie, Jack Madigan. At one end of the table sat their host, Menachem “Rebbe” Stone. And at the other, still with red lipstick, polished nails, and diamond rings despite being in a wheelchair and with an IV dripping into her arm, was Little Maria.

  “Gio,” Rebbe called to them. “Yosef!”

  He came around, arms open wide, and hugged Gio tightly. Gio flinched in pain, but took it, along with a ticklish kiss on the cheek. Rebbe had come up in the world with Gio’s father and he’d known Gio his whole life. He shook hands warmly with Joe. “Thank you for coming. You want something? Tea? Coffee?” He shrugged at the stacks around them. “Matzoh maybe? No? I don’t blame you. Then sit, sit, please.”

  They took the empty chairs that were left and Rebbe stood at the end of the table. “Welcome friends and thank you all for coming. I’m flattered that you’d ask me to host this meeting, and I hope you can see that we are safe here, from our enemies and from listening ears. If you don’t think matzoh can stop a bullet you haven’t tried to use the can after Passover week at my house. Oy.” He patted his belly as chuckles echoed in the cavernous space. “But no more jokes. I apologize. It’s a sin in a time of mourning. And let me say, I know I speak for us all when I offer my deepest regrets to those of you who lost people last night—Gio, Maria. Olav ha-shalom, may they rest in peace.” The others nodded. Anton and Jack crossed themselves. “And Reggie, your brother is in our prayers.” Reggie nodded shyly and fidgeted in his chair. “Uncle Chen,” Rebbe said, turning to the old friend and rival beside him, “I hear you were hit last night as well.”

  Chen nodded. “A Sunset Park operation. They took out one of my best dealers. A kid I’ve known since he was in the fifth grade.”

  “What a waste of a young life,” Rebbe said. “So then, we know why we are here. Let’s begin. First off, I know Maria wants to say something, and she can only stay a short time. Maria?” He nodded to her and took his seat.

  “Thanks, Menachem.” Her voice was raspy. “As you can see, I am still not good. All night I was in the hospital and they didn’t want to let me out. But I told them I had to be here, even if I crawled, so here I am. So forgive me if I sound a little loopy, they gave me something for the pain.” She shrugged. “Is pretty good shit, I should find out their supplier.” This got a laugh. She grinned, then grew serious and raised a painted claw. “But this is what I came to say.” She spat her words out. “Rapa tu mai, these mama guevos, who violated my home. I put my curse on them. They killed the ones I love most. My aunt, who never done nothing to nobody, except cook and pray for us all. And they took my precious boy, the love of my life, Duque.”

  “Was that her boyfriend?” Gio whispered to Joe.

  “Not quite,” Joe answered under his breath.

  “And also,” Maria went on, “while he was defending me, those bastards, hijo de la gran puta, they kill my boyfriend Paco too.” She winced in pain, then took a breath, and continued. “So you know how me and my associates, in the import business, we offered five hundred thousand for this Zahir. I’m here to say that we talked today and now we are going to double this. One million dollars, for the head of the piece of shit who did this to me, and to us.”

  A murmur went around the room. Reggie raised a hand, like in a classroom. “I want to say I’m kicking in another hundred grand, on behalf of my family, for what they did to my brother.”

  Gio nodded. “Me too. In the name of Big Eddie.”

  Rebbe looked at Chen, who nodded at him, and then at Jack and Anton. They all nodded back. He spoke: “I know we all want to help with this
. So let’s make it two million. The price for justice against the enemies who attacked us here in our own hometown.” He turned to Joe. “So. That’s what we asked you here for. What do you say, sheriff?” He showed his crooked teeth through his snow-white beard. “Two million dead or alive.”

  While the others waited, Gio leaned in to Joe’s ear. “Let’s just make that dead.”

  Joe nodded at him, then smiled at the waiting bosses. “Let me see what I can do.”

  21

  DONNA STOPPED AT THE coffee cart where Sameer, a cheerful young Yemeni man, stood in a plexiglass box steaming milk and buttering bagels.

  “Make it a double today, Sameer,” she told him.

  “Coming right up.” He poured her a latte with an extra shot of espresso. “Here you go. Now go catch those bad guys,” he said, as he did every day.

  “I’ll try,” Donna said, clipping her ID to her jacket as she headed toward the entrance to the Federal Building. She too said that every morning, though she rarely thought she’d have the chance to actually chase one. But that morning, before she even got to her office door, a passing colleague told her Tom was looking for her, so she knocked on his door instead.

  “Yeah!” he yelled, turning from the window as she entered. Once again the endless parade of civilians was passing across the square, constantly threatening to ruin his day by getting killed. “Sit,” he said. Donna felt like he was talking to a dog but she sat, swallowing her annoyance with a long sip of coffee.

  “Well you’re in luck,” he told her.

  “Really?” She asked, skeptically hopeful. He didn’t sound happy about it.

  “Yeah. As of last night we have a citywide drug war.”

  “Oh . . . great?”

  “Anyway enough noise got made that the police department is assigning their Major Case Unit. And since our lab made the connection with that last case, they’ve asked us for help. But I’ve already got every agent on full alert for 9/11 with all days off cancelled and overtime coming out my ass, so all the help they’re getting from me is you. Have fun,” he added, and turned back to the window.

  Thanks to all his pushing, Fusco was now running the White Angel investigation, but the truth was, he wasn’t even sure what he was investigating. He’d begun nosing around White Angel because Gio told him to. Then his own cop instincts, which were much more reliable than his terrible gambler’s hunches, told him something was up, except no one but maybe his partner believed him. Now, with the FBI lab results and the half dozen bodies that had dropped all over town in one night, all of sudden everyone was sure there was a case, and that it was major as hell, but still no one, not even Fusco himself, knew what the fuck kind of case it was.

  The FBI chick, Zamora her name was, came by just as he was pondering these heavy thoughts over a breakfast burrito with extra cheese. Parks was sipping some kind of tea that smelled like medicine.

  “Detective Fusco?” she asked. A looker. The classy type, in one of those black power suits the feds favored.

  “Yes, you found me, come on in.” He moved his burrito to his left hand, wiped his right on his pants and shook. She held her smile. “This is Parks,” he added.

  “Nice to meet you,” she said and shook Parks’s hand too, transferring some of Fusco’s burrito grease.

  “Welcome,” Parks said, grabbing a couple of deli napkins and handing her one. “Please sit down.”

  “Yeah, have a seat,” Fusco said, taking another big bite. “We were just discussing the, uh, nature of this case. Maybe you’d like to give us the FBI’s read on it.”

  “Well . . .” Donna looked down at the one empty seat and saw the greasy burrito wrapper. She leaned against a table. “We,” and by we she meant herself, “think that Zahir, up till now, has been smuggling dope into New York and using it to fund terror overseas. Now it looks like maybe he’s moved in. He’s distributing here directly, and we received a threat about a possible terror strike as well.”

  “A threat?” Fusco asked. That was news to him.

  “That’s classified.”

  “Credible?”

  She hesitated. “Semi.”

  “And you do terror or drugs for the FBI?” he asked.

  “A little of everything,” she said. “I handle information that comes in.”

  “Comes in how? You mean CIs? Do you have one on this case?”

  “Mostly via phone or email actually. Some tweets.”

  “So like a receptionist?” Fusco asked, and Parks, like someone who sees another, metaphorical bottle of piss about to spill across the room, leapt in.

  “Agent Zamora,” he said. “Do you have any evidence to link the drug activity, or last night’s violence, to Zahir? Or to terror at all? We’ve been watching this White Angel crew for a bit, and they just look like regular homegrown gangbangers to me.”

  Fusco waved his burrito at Parks and a spray of juice dotted the files on his desk. “He’s got a point. No reports of guys in turbans and bathrobes slinging dope in the projects, yet.”

  “So what do you make it as?” Donna asked.

  Parks shrugged. “Turf war. White Angel has the best package in town, maybe because of your Persian connection, sure. They use that leverage to poach more territory until, last night, war finally breaks out. Bound to happen sooner or later.” He sat back and crossed his legs, revealing argyle socks and lovely brown wing tips. “And that’s if these incidents are even all connected. New York City is known to have more than one shooting in a night.”

  “As you can see, Zamora,” Fusco said, “Parks has a brain, rare in the NYPD, which makes up, somewhat, for the hassle of trying to eat lunch with a vegan. You’re not vegan are you?”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Of course not. What was I thinking? Your people love pork way too much, like mine. Sorry.”

  Donna frowned, unsure of whether to be offended, or accept this apology, or what. Fusco marched on, running a thick, greasy finger over the pages spread on his desk. “But he is missing one curious aspect of last night’s parties. Crime scene reports suggest that the shootings by the bridge last night were done with a high-powered rifle from a rooftop. That means a sniper, with some skills rarely seen among uptown corner boys. The device in the Brooklyn stash-house, as well as what I’ve got on the car bomb in Jersey—they’re being very cooperative because it’s a small town department hoping like hell this is our mess—both are high-tech gear of the sort used by commandos and shit.”

  “You’re thinking what, military?” Donna asked, as Parks leaned over the desk to read the reports.

  Finished with his breakfast, Fusco belched into his fist, then reached for his coffee. He dumped in a sugar and stirred with a finger. “I’m thinking, whatever kind of war this is, for dope or for Allah, it’s being fought by soldiers.” He took a sip and sat back, resting the cup on his burrito-filled belly. “I just hope we don’t need an army to take them down.”

  Joe called in the troops. But before he could take out the target, he needed to locate it, and the one spot where he knew they’d be was at work, selling dope. Or more precisely supplying it, since there was little chance the kids peddling bags of White Angel knew any more about their bosses than the kids who sold for Alonzo or Maria. It was like asking a gas station attendant the address of the CEO of Exxon’s house. So what he really wanted to catch was the re-up, the moment when the invisible power had to show its hand, even if it was just dropping off a package.

  From what he’d learned at the meeting, White Angel’s busiest spot was in East New York, a largely ungentrified piece of Brooklyn where, in parts, a certain degree of lawlessness still prevailed: hookers walked streets, boozers huddled on corners, and junkies lined up for junk, especially when word was out that the quality was this high. Reggie and his driver, who knew the area well and drove with a Glock on the console, picked up Juno and Joe. Juno got in back with Reggie. Joe rode up front with the driver, and asked him to cruise past the spot, rolling slow so that Juno could
take pictures from behind the tinted glass.

  The block was derelict and abandoned at night: the back side of lots where bus and delivery companies parked their vehicles, a vacant space full of monster weeds reaching over the toppled fence, a boarded-up auto repair shop and an abandoned, crumbling tenement. At the corners there were bustling tenements, where regular people tried to live their lives, a bodega, and a bus stop, but the middle of the block was a no-man’s-land and that’s where White Angel was sold.

  Joe clocked the lookouts on the corner, teenagers slouching against a wall or a car, who’d send up a signal if the cops rolled by, then the touts, who steered you toward the product while singing its praises. Then a ragged row of junkies, lined up against a fence, trying to look casual while shuffling impatiently, like passengers on a really crap airline waiting for a flight to oblivion. One by one, they’d be sent in the vestibule of the abandoned building, then emerge a second later, now hurrying away as the lookouts admonished them to walk not run. The setup was secure, if simple. If anybody suspicious came along, they just closed up shop and locked the front door. No one standing outside would have anything more incriminating than a bad attitude—except for a few unlucky dope fiends with their hands in their pockets. Even if the cops charged in, Joe knew from circling the block that this building had a rear entrance that led to the vacant lot behind, then to the neighboring yards or the street. Any stash would be tossed along the way. Whether in the deserts or at the borders or on the corners, trying to stop the flow of drugs was like grabbing a fistful of water from a rushing river: it ran right through your hand. Maybe you caught a minnow.

  Reggie waved at the scene, dismissively. “I’ve been telling my brother for a couple years now, all this is the past, man. I got us a chain of vape shops and joints selling CBD. That shit moves like crazy and it’s legal. Sell it right out in the open, and no fear of drive-bys neither. I wanted to name it for Alonzo, like ALZ CBD or something, cash in on his profile but you know him, all secretive and shit, so I went with Doctor Vape and like a hip-hop vibe with graffiti for the packaging. And now, for the hipsters, we got the Brooklyn Sweet Oil Society.” Excited, he leaned up between the seats and tapped Joe’s shoulder. “Check it out, Joe, I got a factory making custom Doctor Vape Pens and I’m even designing my own vape juices. You should try some, like Mellow Fellow or Royal Crown Cream. Or I bet you’d dig my Professor Smooth Berry. I’ll send you some sample cartridges.”