Cracker Bling

by Stephen Solomita

  ‘I’m investigating your son’s death and I need to speak to you in private,’ he explains. ‘Suppose I come back tomorrow morning?’

  ‘My mother is too upset. You can speak to me.’

  Chigorin spins on his heel to face a short Latino in his mid-twenties. Already balding, the man wears a thin beard that covers a myriad of small acne scars.

  ‘And you are?’

  ‘Hector Almeda. I’m Ramon’s brother.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad to meet ya.’ The Russian extends his hand and Hector has no choice except to take it. Hector’s wearing a Transit Authority uniform with a tag that reads, ‘MOTORMAN’. He’s the good son.

  ‘Ya know, we can kill two birds with one stone,’ Chigorin says. ‘We can drive down to the Medical Examiner’s for you to make a formal identification and we can talk along the way.’ He bestows what he believes to be a concerned look on Hector’s grieving mother. ‘Right now, your mom has enough problems.’

  The Russian glances at the other mourners in the room. They’re impressed, he can tell, with his respectful attitude. They look to Hector’s mom, who looks to Hector, who frowns first, then nods.

  ‘I have to report for work by ten o’clock,’ he tells Chigorin.

  ‘No, problem, Hector. In fact, I’ll drive you myself.’

  NINE

  Chigorin takes his time on the ride to the morgue on East 30th Street. Rather than FDR Drive, or even the West Side Highway, he drifts along Broadway to West 96th Street, then cuts east to 2nd Avenue before heading south again. The traffic isn’t particularly heavy, except near the 59th Street Bridge, but there are lights on every corner and their progress is necessarily slow. Chigorin has the windows rolled up tight and the air conditioning on high, locking himself and his passenger into the narrow confines of the car’s interior. Other cars move around them, but except for the occasional horn, the only sound they hear, besides each other’s voices, is the whoosh of the air conditioner’s fan.

  Prompted by Chigorin, Hector begins by asserting that the Almeda family has always been close. As the Russian’s never met a Latino from any country who doesn’t make the identical claim, this does not come as news. Nor does any of what follows, not until the very end.

  The patriarch of the family, Hector explains, Luis Almeda, came to the United States from the Dominican Republic illegally in 1971 at the age of fourteen. Over the next thirty years, he married and produced three children. Ramon was the youngest, Hector in the middle, Celia, now on her third tour of duty in Iraq, the oldest.

  ‘My father worked his ass off, Detective. He always had two jobs, and sometimes three. He cleaned hospital floors, delivered newspapers at six o’clock in the morning, worked construction, mowed lawns in the suburbs. My mother wasn’t far behind him. She cleaned apartments all day, then came home to care for her own children. And neither one of them ever made more than ten bucks an hour, no time-and-a-half for overtime, no holidays, no vacation, no sick days.’

  The Russian nods along as Hector makes his points, although he’s not particularly sympathetic. What did Luis Almeda expect? To be Chairman of the Board? Chigorin believes that if illegals didn’t work cheap, the fence along the border would be thirty feet high and mined on both sides. But he doesn’t voice this sentiment. Instead he pulls out the bottle and offers Hector a drink, which Hector gratefully accepts.

  ‘Lemme cut to the chase. It’s the year two thousand. My father’s kickin’ it on the street with a bunch of his domino buddies. An argument starts, a knife comes out, a man gets killed. My father has nothin’ to do with it, but he gets pulled in because the cops want him to be a witness. When he claims he didn’t see anything – which he actually fucking didn’t – they get right in his face. If he doesn’t testify, they’ll have him deported. A month later, La Migra knocks on his door. He’s not home, but they come back a few weeks later, and a few weeks after that. By this time, our home is gettin’ real stressed because Papi’s mostly stayin’ by his cousin.’

  The Russian pulls to a stop at a red light. He lowers the air conditioning a notch, but doesn’t speak. He knows there’s a punch line coming and he doesn’t want to spoil Hector’s timing.

  ‘What happened was that Papi decided to go back to the island until the heat cooled down. Mami begged him to stay, but the man had a head of iron. Nobody could talk sense to him once he made his mind up.’ Hector draws a deep breath. This is obviously hard for him. ‘I drove him to the airport myself, saw him off at the American Airlines gate, hugged him goodbye. That was on the twelfth of November in two thousand and one, flight five eighty-seven. You remember, right? Flight five eighty-seven crashed in Belle Harbor a few minutes after take-off. I was twenty then, already working for the TA, and Celia had been in the military for three years. So it was Ramon who took the worst beating. He was only fifteen and he just couldn’t handle it. He started runnin’ with the DDP and it was all downhill from there. Mami finally kicked him out of the house after he came home one day with the gang’s letters tattooed on his chest. That was two years ago.’

  ‘The DDP? That’d do it.’ The DDP is a home-grown New York street gang, its acronym standing for Dominicans Don’t Play.

  ‘See,’ Hector continues, as if the Russian hadn’t spoken, ‘I can understand why kids are attracted to the life, all that bling, rap stars treated like gods. But, man, you’d think after their dumb asses got busted a couple of times they’d figure it out. Only they don’t. Or at least Ramon didn’t. Every time the system cut him loose, he’d go back to sellin’ powder. And I’m tellin’ ya, man, Ramon never had two dimes to rub together, so what he did wasn’t about money.’

  Chigorin has no answer. Nor does he have the time for a philosophical exchange. They’re approaching the morgue and there’s one more question to be answered before he wipes the family from his list of suspects.

  ‘You said that your mom kicked your brother out of the house. What was it, two years ago?’

  ‘Yeah, why?’

  ‘Well, I’m just wonderin’ how come Ramon was using her apartment as his official address.’

  ‘No big deal. Mami covered for him while he was on parole, but she couldn’t let Ramon stay with her because he stole anything that wasn’t nailed down. It got to the point where she didn’t invite him to Christmas dinners.’

  That’s enough for the Russian, who never suspected the family anyway. He guides Hector through the identification process, even puts his arm around Hector’s shoulder when the morgue attendant pulls down the sheet covering Ramon’s face. But Chigorin’s in a hurry now. During the wait before they went downstairs, he had received a phone call from his boss, Lieutenant Hamilton. The current whereabouts of a fugitive named Arvin Leopold, he told Chigorin, has been revealed by an informant and the bust is going down at 0200 hours. As Leopold’s a violent felon known to carry firearms, the Russian’s presence will be required.

  That leaves Chigorin with just enough time to visit his main snitch, Roy ‘China Boy’ White. Closing in on forty, China Boy is a reformed junkie who lives in an SRO hotel, courtesy of New York’s generous taxpayers. He has friends everywhere, none of whom know that he augments his meager income by selling information to the police.

  Chigorin drops Hector off on Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights, then cuts back over the bridge and on to the Drive. He punches China Boy’s number into his cellphone as he exits the highway at 125th Street. The snitch answers on the second ring.

  ‘My nigga. Wha’sup?’ China Boy’s voice is cheerful, as always. This is the key to his success. Everybody likes him, everybody talks to him.

  ‘Where are ya?’

  ‘I’m, like, indisposed.’

  Chigorin knows that China Boy won’t talk on the phone. He expects to be paid for his services at the time they’re rendered. ‘Well, you’re gonna have to dispose yourself. I’m on a tight schedule.’

  China Boy’s voice drops to a whisper. ‘Man, this woman I got is crazy mad at me. If I book, she’s gonna
bust a cap in my ass.’

  ‘Ask me if I care.’

  Chigorin is cruising west on 125th Street, Harlem’s main drag. The sidewalks on both sides of the street are packed, the stores and shops humming right along. Harlem has gentrified somewhat, but air conditioners are still relatively uncommon and this is the fourth day of a heat wave. Inside the apartments, as Chigorin well knows, the air is stifling. The sidewalks offer the only relief, especially at night. If he were to cruise any of the residential streets, he’d find domino games on every block, lawn chairs arranged in clusters around barbecue grills, kids playing in the street, open fire hydrants, music pouring from boom boxes.

  ‘I’m downtown,’ China Boy finally says. ‘On East Thirty-Eighth Street, between First and Second Avenue.’

  Chigorin closes his eyes for a moment. He was just down there. ‘Give me a half-hour. I’ll call you when I’m on the block.’

  In fact, Chigorin makes it in twenty minutes, but China Boy doesn’t complain. He’s outside and in the car within seconds.

  ‘So, wha’sup?’ China Boy has the narrowest eyes the Russian has ever seen. Even when he’s scared, they’re no more than horizontal shadows. If you didn’t know the man and had to bet, you’d bet that he was blind.

  ‘Flaco Almeda.’

  China Boy’s smile expands when the Russian passes him twenty dollars, the price of a consultation. ‘Yeah, I knew the dawg. Flaco was a chump who thought he was bad.’ China Boy slides the twenty into his pocket. ‘So, you’re workin’ the case?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Well, the only thing I know is that Flaco was slingin’ powder from a spot on Hamilton Place.’ China Boy glances at Chigorin long enough to be sure the cop’s not impressed. ‘Guess you heard that,’ he says.

  ‘Flaco’s got a long sheet.’

  China Boy nods. He’ll have to do better if he wants any more of Chigorin’s hard-earned money. ‘Word on the street is that Flaco was capped by the LGF. You hear what I’m sayin’? This was about territory and Flaco was in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

  ‘You believe that?’

  China Boy’s story makes sense. The Mexican presence in West Harlem, once minuscule, has grown enormously over the past ten years. Mexican grocery stores are found on every block of Broadway, from 125th Street to the George Washington Bridge. That street gangs like La Gran Familia would accompany this transformation was inevitable.

  ‘LGF is on the come-up in the neighborhood, no doubt about it,’ China Boy explains. ‘But if LGF capped Ramon, why didn’t they take over the spot? Hear what I’m sayin’? ’Cause nobody’s workin’ that block.’

  ‘What about Ramon? How long was he on Hamilton Place?’

  ‘Long time. Months, at least.’

  ‘So, why couldn’t it be a simple rip-off?’

  ‘Yeah, that might be how it went down. Only whoever capped Ramon ain’t talkin’ about it. Least, not yet. But I’ll keep my ears open.’

  And what’s that worth? Chigorin passes over a ten dollar bill. ‘I want to ask you about something else.’

  ‘Have mercy, man. I got to get upstairs.’ China’s Boy’s hand is already on the door handle.

  ‘This’ll only take a second. You hear anything about a white man hanging out uptown? This guy is a giant, gotta be at least six-eight and built like a mountain.’

  ‘Yeah, now you mention it. Month ago, I ran into this dude buyin’ weed on Riverside Drive. Top of the line sensemilla. Four hundred an ounce.’ China Boy chuckles. ‘This is a white man you don’t forget. Big, man, like the Hulk.’

  ‘But you only saw him the one time?’

  ‘Yeah, he wasn’t no playa. Just a big cracker who wanted to score some weed.’

  Chigorin takes out another ten dollar bill. ‘You get his name?’

  ‘Why, what’d he do?’ The question is a ploy. Like any good businessman, China Boy’s reluctant to sell his services until he knows what they’re worth.

  ‘Ten’s all I got,’ Chigorin states. ‘And that’s only for the name. And don’t bullshit me. If you’re makin’ this up, now’s the time to clear your conscience.’

  Offended, China Boy stares at the Russian for a moment. Reliability is an integral part of the package he markets. He doesn’t appreciate Chigorin’s challenge to his word. But the Russian seems not to notice and China Boy finally continues.

  ‘I was only with the cracker for ten minutes and we didn’t have no kinda conversation, understand what I’m sayin’? He ain’t none of my peeps and I don’t know where to find him.’

  ‘All I want, for now, is a name.’

  ‘Bubba. That’s what they called him when he came through the door: “Yo, Bubba, wha’sup”’

  The Russian’s sitting in his boss’s office, intensely pleased with himself as he lays out his progress. Lieutenant Jeffrey Hamilton is obviously impressed. Hamilton’s a broad-shouldered black man whose droopy expression masks a keen ambition. He’d like nothing more than to nail the subway shooter. Ramon Almeda interests him less, there being little publicity attending his demise.

  ‘How long before you identify your suspect?’ Hamilton asks.

  ‘This guy’s too big to hide, boss. Plus, I’ve got a street name. I’m thinkin’ maybe a couple of days.’

  But it’s not to be. A few hours later, Hamilton leads Chigorin and five other detectives on an early morning raid. Their quarry is Arvin Leopold, whose rap sheet reveals a violent history extending back to his childhood. As they line up outside Leopold’s door, the Russian’s thinking that maybe they should have called in the SWAT Team. He’s thinking that he’s a bit long in the tooth for this kind of thing. But it’s too late now. Sergeant Malkowski’s already crashing a battering ram into the door just below the lock.

  Chigorin charges into the apartment, gun in hand. His eyes sweep the room in search of Leopold, his focus so intense he completely overlooks Leopold’s dog, a fox terrier who digs his sharp little teeth into the Russian’s left ankle. Shocked by the unexpected assault, Chigorin recoils, tripping over a coffee table and slamming his head into the hardwood floor. By the time he awakens, an unresisting Leopold has been secured, the paramedics are on the way and his boss is kneeling beside him.

  ‘Looks like you’re gonna be joinin’ your partner on sick leave,’ Hamilton says. ‘You’re bleedin’ like a pig.’

  But Chigorin doesn’t get it. His last memory is of Maureen McDonald’s sweat-soaked hair whipping across the side of his face and all he can think about is how bad he needs a drink.

  TEN

  Hootie’s awakening on the second morning of his sojourn with Bubba Yablonsky is considerably less gentle than on the first. At ten o’clock, Bubba knocks on the door, opens it and leans into room. ‘Yo, Hootie, time to hit the shower. I gotta be out of here by noon.’

  Hootie doesn’t get it at first. He’s only had four hours’ sleep and his brain is still fighting the effects of last night’s many indulgences. But the message finally penetrates as he completes his shower. That he’ll have to leave the apartment with Bubba is a given. The only question is if they’ll continue to walk the same path or go their separate ways. No more bullshit. He’s going to have to choose.

  The glassed-in stall has two shower heads. One pounds water on to Hootie’s chest, the other on to his back. In his mom’s apartment, the water in the shower jumps from hot to cold so fast that he leaves room in the tub for retreat.

  Hootie steps out of the shower and drapes a thick towel across his shoulders. He raps the counter on the two-basin sink. Marble, not plastic. It’s last night all over again, the ecstasy, the champagne and that girl. God, but she was fine, the finest woman he’s ever had.

  Hootie comes out of the bathroom to discover Bubba laying a pair of gray slacks and a polo shirt on the bed. The shirt is not new and its little alligator logo has faded to a pale green. But of course, that would be the look, downtown white casual. Can he pull it off? Hootie’s nineteen years old and the ways of rich w
hite men are known to him only through television and the movies.

  ‘The guy who lives here, he’s about your size,’ Bubba says. ‘I just figured you been wearin’ those clothes for the last two days and they could use a rest.’

  And Bubba’s right about that, too. The Yankees’ uniform shirt and the mid-calf shorts he’s been wearing definitely need a rest, if not out and out retirement.

  ‘I’m making breakfast,’ Bubba explains as he retreats through the door. ‘See you in a few minutes.’

  The clothes fit well enough, including the socks and a pair of casually-scuffed Italian loafers. On impulse, Hootie dials his sister, thinking that even the phone is a gift, that outside of his underwear, he has nothing of his own. After several rings, he gets Teesha’s voicemail, but he doesn’t leave a message. Instead, he examines himself in a full length mirror, thinking he could be anyone, just like Bubba said. Anyone at all.

  Hootie remembers the kids at school, the ones who called him What Is It? For a time, he had to fight every day. And that brings up another question. Does Bubba think he’s a punk? Even as Hootie observed its rituals, especially while he was imprisoned on Rikers Island, he always believed street macho to be actually stupid. Yeah, there were times when you had to take a stand – in Otis Bantum, punks were no more than slaves. But even the biggest, baddest dudes eventually became targets for some wannabe out to make a reputation. Eventually, they accumulated more scars than a fighting pit bull.

  Hootie runs his fingers over the granite top of the center island. He notes the prep sink at one end, the gleaming pots and pans dangling from an overhead rack, the stainless steel appliances. Cracker bling. The refrigerator’s big enough to hide a sumo wrestler.

  Bubba lays a cup of coffee and a sherbet glass filled with grapes, pineapple chunks, diced apples and halved-strawberries on the counter. Everything fresh, as usual. Hootie sits on one of the stools. After a minute, he asks, ‘Did you cap that dealer?’