by Luke Waters
I paused briefly at the door and sneaked a peek at the three men in white shirts on the interview panel, all at the same rank level, waiting for me to enter.
Inside, the introductions were made and, shaking hands with Captain Murphy and Captain Sullivan, I couldn’t help wondering if Mike might have reached out to one or to both. I was so fascinated by the size of the gigantic chin on the Italian capitano that I instantly forgot his name—something with a vowel at the end—but as he gestured to me to take a seat it occurred to me that he might be the guy Inspector Collins had called on my behalf.
Two minutes into the interview it was clear that he was no soft touch, unlike the other two men, who nodded and smiled no matter what I said, while their Italian counterpart kept flicking over my paperwork and paying far too much attention to the nonsense I had filled in the blank spaces.
My total score—at least officially—came to 16.1 points.
“One thing I don’t understand, Waters. You got only four years on the Job, right? So, how come you got so many points?” he mused with a puzzled expression, gesturing to me to come around to his side of the desk to look at the form, which I dutifully did.
I was at a loss on the question of how I’d managed to squeeze seven years of active police work into about forty months of hooking up pickpockets and arresting scam artists in Manhattan, and our chat was rapidly turning into an interrogation, despite the efforts of the other two plants to smooth the wrinkles.
“So, you got a answer for this?” he said suspiciously, underlining “Dept. Recognition” with his pen, beside which I’d listed 2.6 points: an impossibility.
“Ummm … Oh, that. Well, I’m glad you raised that, Captain, because—and you are going to laugh at this—I was never good at sums, so maybe I did get them a little … well, a little wrong there, sir,” I replied sheepishly. “No. I was never a great lad for the sums.”
“Your what? Sums? Sums! Whadda hell are ‘sums’? Some sorta Irish secret code?” Capitano demanded, his frowns turning to furrows and his chin to Jay Leno’s, as he looked to the men on his left and right in turn for clarification.
Murphy and Sullivan also had extraordinary expressions on their faces, and looked like deep-sea divers whose oxygen was running short.
“Moving on, we’ve got some other questions for you, Waters …” Murphy gasped, gulping air as he came to my aid, but Capitano wasn’t giving the worm on his hook any wriggle room.
“No, no. I think this is important, you guys, we’ve gotta clear up this points issue,” he insisted. “And none of you gentlemen have yet explained to this Italian what those—whadda ya call them?—sums are!”
Out of the corner of my eye I spotted an older plainclothes policeman who had been hovering outside the office for the previous two minutes, and when he caught Captain Sullivan’s attention, the captain mercifully invited him in to give us his opinion.
“We’ve got one of your countrymen here for an interview—as you know, Narcotics are recruiting. He’s straight ‘off the boat,’ and his ‘sums’ don’t seem to add up on his points. ’Scuse me, but maybe you can help?” Captain Murphy asked, recovering his composure as he talked to the newcomer, who was standing behind me.
Italian generals have a long reputation for pulling defeat from the jaws of victory, and now, seeing that this one was outnumbered by the Irish four to one, it occurred to me that perhaps their capitanos capitulate, too, so there was a chance I could get away with this. I was encouraged when the plainclothes guy started by throwing a few insults in the Irish language about my interrogator into the mix. This was becoming the oddest interview in police history.
“Ceart go leor, lads. Fear Éireannach, as Baile Átha Cliath, eh? Dia dhuit! Conas atá tú?” the newcomer said, somehow aware that not only was I Irish, but also from Dublin, before I had opened my mouth.
“Is mise Martín Ó Baoighill. Táim ag obair le na lads seo. Inis dom, a chara, an dtuigeann tú, nach bhfuil an captaen seo, an garsún, níl aon ach amadán? Sórt asal mór, indáiríre?” this cop, Martin O’Boyle, said, explaining that he worked with the boys and nodding towards the Italian, who, if I understood correctly, he reckoned was a gormless idiot and probably a big ass. The White Shirt in the middle chair didn’t understand the language, but judging by the smirks on his colleagues’ faces, he knew we weren’t discussing his noble Roman profile. Still he just sat there. This old-timer was either a pal of his or had a real pair of balls.
O’Boyle cackled, and he and I chatted away in schoolyard Irish. As a West of Ireland man, he was a fluent speaker, but with a very heavy accent, and to be honest, I couldn’t understand much more of what was being said than Capitano, but I knew when to nod and when to shake my head.
I reckoned that O’Boyle was a Narcotics sergeant, which, presumably, was where he became so pally with my interviewers, and he obviously knew them well, since he didn’t use the term “sir” or “boss” once when addressing any of the trio, unusual for a sarge talking to his superiors. The familiarity didn’t end there, either.
“Captain, now I know he’s not Italian, but sure nobody’s perfect. In my opinion—far be it from me to tell you your business—but in my opinion, for an Irishman, this is a stand-up guy,” O’Boyle finally told Capitano, in English, clapping me on the back before walking out into the corridor to let us get on with the interview.
I went back to my side of the desk, figuring it wouldn’t be long before I made an even more rapid return to the Pickpocket Squad, too, though by now the large-chinned one had finally given up on trying to figure out my sums and offered me the chance to ask my comedy question.
My joke of an interview over, I left the room and sauntered down the hall, where I spotted O’Boyle sitting in an easy chair beside a bound report in the office of the man in overall charge of Narcotics. The auld fella was sixty if he was a day, so he was entitled to take it easy.
“Martin, conas atá tú? What’s the word, Sarge? Hey, nice to meet you earlier. I enjoyed that,” I called out, cheekily sticking my head through the open doorway.
“Uh, Luke. How’d yer interview end up?” O’Boyle inquired with a start, raising his head up from some report he was pretending to read. “That Italian still seemed to think it’s okay to feed a Christian lad like you to the lions, I’d say. No craic at all, was he?”
“No, I suppose not. It didn’t go good. I think I got those sums all wrong! Sure, I’ll try again in a few years’ time, Sarge …”
“Ah, don’t be thinkin’ like that, Luke Waters. It probably went better than you thought. How is Big Mike Collins these days, by the way? Been a bit busy lately and haven’t seen him in a while,” O’Boyle said casually.
As I stood there, it hit me. This must be the fella Collins reached out to, not one of the captains. At least he tried. Pity this old-timer had no juice.
Before I could make a further fool of myself, a civilian clerk click-clacked across the office.
“Excuse me, Chief,” Ms. Heels said out of my eyeline, “there’s a call for you. Line one.”
Chief? Good grief! Chief! Oh, God.
“Thank you. I’ll take the call in a moment,” the chief replied, raising a hand in recognition to the secretary before turning around and shooting me a conspiratorial wink.
I was talking to Martin O’Boyle, no sergeant but chief of Narcotics.
“Actually, I made it past sergeant, Luke. They were stuck for a CO around here, and they’re naggin’ me to stay around a while longer. We’re stuck for a bit of help up there in the Heights, too, so you might get a call to join us yourself soon enough, eh? Oh, it will depend on your interviewers, of course, but you never know.”
Juice? O’Boyle had more of it than Tropicana. And I had my transfer, learning later that Collins and O’Boyle had been close friends since Big Mike was working his own way up the ladder years earlier.
The next morning I got a message—report to your new assignment, training as a Narcotics investigator, over at the Army Ter
minal in Brooklyn. I was several years closer to that coveted detective’s gold shield in one giant step, or, to be more accurate, a single stumble.
CHAPTER EIGHT
KRUSTY
There were so many things that could save your life. One of them was listening to your sergeant.
“Here’s an easy five hours, you guys,” Krusty says with satisfaction as we cruise past the corner of Dyckman and Tenth Avenue one morning early in 2000.
Sergeant Keith Kollmer is known as “Krusty” to the eight of us on his Narcotics Field Team. He has the looks, locks, and peculiar rasping voice, and just like The Simpsons’ cynical clown, he’s no soft touch.
Outside one of the apartments our sarge has just spotted a man, age about twenty, sitting on a stoop smoking a blunt: a large hollowed-out cigar which users fill with everything from marijuana to heroin or even PCP (angel dust), meaning they can be meek and mellow or a primed grenade, ready to explode at the slightest provocation.
Usually when you approach a suspect taking drugs they make a run for it, but this mope is only interested in the dope between his lips, and to judge by the wheelchair a couple of feet away, he probably wouldn’t get too far before we caught up.
We pull up to the sidewalk, our supervisor keen as ever for us to hit our overtime quota.
“Geddup,” Krusty rasps.
“Can’t … can’t you see I’s … par-paralyzed?” he gasps, drawing the fumes from the torpedo deep into his lungs and nodding to the chair, just visible behind the hallway door.
“Thaz ma wheels.”
“Oh, yeah? How did you get from there to here, then?” I ask the guy, whose name, we learn, is Daniel Rodriguez.
“Crawled,” Rodriguez replies, still gasping, eyes glazed over. “I like to … sit here, look like everyone else, man. Heps … heps me pretend … well, you know, Offica, pretend I’s normal,” he explains.
This guy isn’t going to be much of a threat, and my partner George Weir and I relax a little, too. Life had dealt Rodriguez a tough break, and here we are, breaking his balls over a tiny amount of dope. Staring down at him sitting helplessly on the porch, I shift uncomfortably from one foot to the other.
“Jaysus, maybe we should turn a blind eye, just this once?” I suggest to my partner.
“Yeah, I think we will, buddy,” Weir replies, tapping his cuffs against his belt and arching an eyebrow to our supervisor, waiting for the nod to go back to the car.
“Naw, forgetaboutit. Our numbers are low today. Guy is a user. Pick him up and cuff him up. Five hours is five hours, George.”
What a heartless bastard Krusty is.
I carry Rodriguez to the car, and as I “toss” him—search him for contraband and weapons, standard procedure before we transport him back to our hub site in the 25th Precinct for processing—all thoughts that we’re dealing with a con man or a gunman disappear as his legs flop uselessly from side to side.
“It’s all good, Offica,” says Rodriguez with a dopey, understanding smile, arms around me, as I place him carefully in the backseat. This guy might be a user, but clearly he’s also a gentleman. “Don’ worry ’bout it. The Man gotta do what the Man gotta do.”
We’re about to pull away when Sergeant Kollmer turns to George to remind him what to do. He’d forgotten our perp’s wheelchair, though, strangely, Rodriguez seems happier to simply leave it behind.
“Hey! The kid’s wheels—throw ’em in the trunk, you guys, will ya?”
Weir nods, stepping into the hallway and grabbing the wheelchair seat to lift it out over the stoop, causing the soft seat cushion to slide to the floor. It lands with a metallic clink.
“Jesus! Gun! I got a gun here!” George calls out, holding up the “Deuce Five.”
These .25-caliber semiautomatic handguns were originally designed as “pocket pistols” about a hundred years ago and carried for personal protection. Useless from a distance, their small profile has one advantage: they are very easy to hide, which makes them the perfect choice for a surprise, close-up kill. Although the tiny-caliber bullet lacks any real stopping power, from a few feet away it will often bounce around inside a human head and break up as it dissipates energy, causing catastrophic brain damage.
Rodriguez is doped to his eyeballs, and if he had made it back to that chair to retrieve the gun when he saw us approaching, he could have easily shot me in the face when I leaned in to pick him up. Criminals don’t risk packing a piece, preferring to stash larger weapons such as .38 revolvers, Glocks, and shotguns under dumpsters, where they run to if chased. Our gunman wasn’t going anywhere, so he kept his shooter close at hand, a sharp reminder that there are no rules on the street. Even under the ever-vigilant Krusty we’d become ring-rusty, assuming we had nothing to fear from a kid in a wheelchair.
“You guys!” Kollmer rasps. “I keep telling you, stay focused. You can’t trust these perps.” Back at the station, we charge Rodriguez on the narcotics and the weapon—the latter is a serious felony in New York City—but our efforts are in vain. Soon after, a judge rules against the admissibility of the gun, which wasn’t in plain sight. The NYPD should have applied for a search warrant before George Weir overstepped the line, and the stoop, as he reached for the chair. The judge doesn’t elaborate on whether it was better to also leave the .25, which looks and feels like a toy, where a child could find it and shoot one of the other neighborhood kids. But the law is the law, even if it doesn’t always make a lot of sense.
After my “fast-tracking” interview, I had arrived up at Northern Manhattan Initiative (NMI) in 1997, after a three-week crash course in narcotics in a prefab at the old Brooklyn Army Terminal in Sunset Park. Our instructors taught us how to identify different drugs and to operate B&Bs (buy and busts) and classic sting operations where drugs and dealers are swept up by undercover teams.
We also learned how to run snitches, an essential part of gathering intelligence on the street.
When I was promoted to Narcotics, my assumption was I’d gotten the promotion because the Brass were looking for bright, motivated young cops to fight on the front lines of the War on Drugs, and Washington Heights, where we would operate, would certainly live up to my expectations. What wouldn’t was the day-to-day grind of the work. Millions of dollars of federal money had been poured into policing the drug problem, but, as I would discover, Narcotics was all about containment and all about the numbers and money, with set targets decided each day. Most arrests targeted pathetic habitual users carrying very small amounts of drugs, although that didn’t make the perps any less dangerous. We were firefighting, basically, caught in a revolving door that never stopped.
Our HQ was a low-rise at 107th Street and Lexington Avenue, bordered by a basketball court on one side and a busy thoroughfare on the other. As far as the locals were concerned, the most that was happening in this nondescript building was the processing of parking-fine notices. Keeping routine administration on the ground floor was a deliberate ploy by OCCB to stay below the radar, but if you pressed the correct code into the keypad on the door, an elevator took you to an upper story where the narrative dramatically changed.
On my first day I stepped from the lift into a fully operational squad room identical to that found in any regular borough precinct. The first person I met was Kollmer, who ran the Narcotics Field Team made up of about six or seven investigators in addition to myself and George Weir. It included, at various times, Mike Boyle, Eric Katinas, Greg McCarthy, Jose Ramos, Tony Agnelli, Juan Diaz, and two undercovers named Eddie Ramos and Rob Chang.
After the usual introductions Krusty called a TAC (tactical assignment) meeting, where we discussed the day’s operation. Top of the agenda was not what we were doing on the streets or who we were about to arrest. The main concern was money. Our money.
“Okay, who needs overtime?” said our sarge, working out his calculations before deciding how many arrests he would need. Each perp is worth five hours per officer. It’s a lesson right from the outset that drugs are
all about “the green,” no matter which side of the line you are on.
Washington Heights was a sea of dope and reeling in a catch was simple but dangerous. The neighborhood acted as the distribution center for the South American cartels importing product, and literally millions of dollars were circulating in the neighborhood twenty-four hours a day. It was impossible to know exactly how many dealers operated there: some estimates put it at five thousand, with three hundred “outside spots” where the dope was pushed—plus another hundred crack houses where you could get high more discreetly. Stopping all of this was like trying to empty a bathtub with a teaspoon with the faucet running.
Federal money was freed up to help New York City try to stem the tide, and many of the cops drafted in ended up in Field Teams, just like mine, while the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration), the IRS (Internal Revenue Service), the FBI, ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives), the Secret Service, U.S. Customs, and even Immigration sent agents to work in their new Command HQ.
These agencies came together to form the El Dorado Task Force, and innovative techniques were introduced whereby federal laws rather than local statutes were used to put the dealers behind bars. Different indirect approaches combined effectively, such as on-the-spot checks for green cards or the more elaborate Geographical Targeting Order (GTO) initiative, which aimed to stop dealers from laundering money, a move which drastically changed wire-transfer reporting procedures. The law was altered to ensure money-transfer agents must report transactions in excess of $750, not a huge ceiling but well above the average $200 to $500 for legitimate transmissions. These changes forced major dealers to go back to using couriers to transfer money, so-called “drug mules,” who were then placed under surveillance by the feds. In some cases they uncovered criminals far closer to home, as some of my NYPD colleagues were eventually caught in the same net.
