The first police officer through the door had been about to force Stoop onto the floor, but he paused a moment, thought about saying something in reply.
They arrested Stoop. Showed him a warrant that allowed them to go through everything he had in the world. It didn’t take them long. He was in the back of an unmarked car in five minutes.
“Guess what, kid?” a detective in jeans and a crewcut asked him as the car got moving. “We got a call last night about some missing morphine. You know what we said? We said there’s not a chance in the world we can do anything about this in a city that, frankly, is drowning in drugs. Then guess who gets into my car this morning but a woman with a box of morphine. What do you think of that, kid?”
Stoop said nothing in return. He thought about how he would get his mother out of a precinct full of police once he’d had a chance to get out of the cuffs. Getting to her cell might be the hardest part. Would he have to set free an entire row of prisoners to make sure they didn’t squeal? Or worse yet – what if his mother had already been transferred downtown for booking? How would he get to her then?
“This is our stop, kid.”
The crewcut detective led Stoop up the stairs.
Inside the precinct, there was a slow moving mess. People crowded around the reception counter, some in handcuffs, some holding forms. The desk sergeant waved the crewcut detective forward with a look of exasperation on his face.
“Whaddaya got?” the sergeant asked.
“Morphine boy,” the detective answered.
“Bee-u-tiful. Interrogation room three upstairs is supposed to be free if you need it. Let me know if it’s not. Hate these crackdowns.”
The sergeant was already waving forward another detective with another prisoner. Stoop and the detectives started up the stairs to the second floor. Through swinging doors, they entered an area with eight detectives’ desks. At the far end of the open floor space there was a cage with several inmates. Stoop checked the cage with a glance. Elizabeth was in there, looking at her shoes.
The detective guided Stoop to a seat next to a desk.
“See, kid. That lady with the morphine started singing like a canary – told us all about you, your name, description, where you live, everything. Hell, she even said she knew you weighed three pounds and one ounce on the day you were born. If that’s true, then, hell, who knows? Maybe you really are her son.”
The detective sat back in his chair and studied Stoop’s face a moment.
“Look, kid. You’re young and you got no record. The lady says you swiped the morphine and gave it to her. She told us about you so she could walk out of here free, understand? Any chance you got something big on her? I’d just as soon keep her and cut you loose. See where I’m going with this?
Stoop saw only too well that he was being asked to turn in his own mother. The trick was always to get the prisoners to point fingers at each other – everybody was guilty of something; there were enough charges for everyone.
Stoop said nothing; eventually the detective sighed deeply and pulled up to the computer keyboard on his desk. He called out to another detective.
“Hey, George. Bring the lady over, please? Thank you.”
He turned to Stoop, held a picture up for comparison.
“Hospital sent us a video tape of you breaking into the medicine closet. This’ll play great with the jury. Course, wouldn’t have ever found you without the ID from the lady…”
The detective looked over Stoop’s shoulder and stood up. Stoop turned and saw Elizabeth coming toward him. He rose from his chair.
“Mama?” Stoop said.
She avoided his eyes.
“Miss Jones, is this the young man that handed you the package?” the detective asked.
“That’s him officer.”
“Thank you. Now you just sign here and here and George will show you out.”
Elizabeth Jones signed where the detective had indicated.
“Miss Jones, we thank you for your service.”
Elizabeth turned to leave, but turned again and held Stoop’s face a moment. She looked him full in the eyes.
“I’m sorry, baby. I am what I am. Best remember that,” she whispered to him, then she kissed his forehead and turned from him. George led her away.
Stoop watched as Elizabeth walked out of the area through swinging doors to stairs that would set her free.
“That woman really your mother?” the crewcut detective asked, but Stoop wasn’t listening to him at the moment. Instead, he watched the swinging doors and waited for his mother to return through them. It was a long time that he waited.
This story was first published in UNCAGE ME! edited by Jennifer Jordan and published by Bleak House. It was nominated for a Derringer Award by the Short Mystery Fiction Society. For those interested in other chapters in Stoop’s biography, I have about a dozen more planned, but no time for the writing of them. Will he ever meet his mother again? Maybe soon.
Bronx, Summer, 1971
The call came in and Detective Harrison Woods took it, scribbled a few notes onto a scrap of paper and collected James Carver at his desk.
“Who died?” Carver asked.
Carver was young and thin, eager to get ahead, hadn’t been worn down by the enormity of what humans could do to each other. Not yet.
“Ernesto and Celia Santiago on Webster Avenue. Third floor walkup. Gotta be on the hottest day.”
It was ninety-six degrees a little before noon. Carver put on his suit jacket. Department regulations required it.
“You’re going to love this one,” Woods said as they walked out of the building. Humidity and the heat rising from the sidewalk made them both squint. “Lots of blood.”
Carver got behind the wheel of the car, rolled down his window. Woods waited.
“What’s the matter?” Carver asked.
“It’s two hundred degrees in there, and Ernesto and Celia ain’t going anywhere.”
The building the Santiagos had lived and died in was well kept, the hallways painted glossy beige and brown, no smell of urine, no graffiti, no hoodlums sitting on the front stoop. One uniformed officer stood outside the building waiting for them.
“Goddamn bloodbath in there,” he said. Sweat rolled down both temples.
“Anybody show an interest?” Woods asked.
“One lady wanted to know if the apartment was gonna be rented out soon. Nothing else.”
Woods and Carver got up the stairs, Woods huffing. He was tall and heavy. Husky.
Another patrolman stood outside the open apartment door. He leaned against the wall and his eyes were closing.
“Wake up,” Carver said, and the patrolman snapped to attention complete with salute.
“Where’s Sergeant Murphy?” Woods asked.
The officer thumbed into the apartment.
“What you doing inside?” Woods asked the sergeant.
“Every goddamn window is open in there. They got two fire escapes.”
Carver and Woods took three steps into the apartment and found the bodies. Ernesto Santiago was face down, hands tied behind his back with the cord of a small radio. Blood covered a wide patch of the area rug under him. His throat was cut about as far as it could be without his head coming off.
“Shit,” Woods said. Ernesto’s eyes were open. His mouth, too.
Celia was tied to a chair a few feet away. Hands behind her back, her head down, but a bib of blood spread out on her chest, and they knew her neck was just as cut as her husband’s.
Carver took notes.
“Spanish couple, fifty to sixty, male got beat pretty bad, both subdued, both with throats cut. Obviously the perp wanted something. Money?”
“You asking me, Sherlock?”
“Well, it just doesn’t look like they had all that much. Not enough for something like this.”
“Kid,” Woods said. He barked out a laugh. “People done worse than this for absolutely nothing. You kidding me?”
Each d
etective took different rooms, walking slowly, trying to see if anything was out of place. Carver found a Hoover upright lying on its side in a bedroom. Woods started cursing out in the living room. Carver went out to see what happened.
“Goddamn, I am a cursed man,” Woods said. “Will you look at that?”
He pointed at a picture sitting on an end table. Carver took a look.
“What?”
“Who do you see standing between Ernesto and Celia, detective?”
Carver stooped. There was Ray Cruz, looking happy, embracing both husband and wife.
“Unbelievable,” Carver said.
Ray Cruz hadn’t ever been convicted, but the detectives both knew he killed people for a living. Or hurt them.
“Think he did it?” Carver asked.
“Jesus. Someone gets his throat cut, I think Ray Cruz first.”
“Well, something went bad between that picture and today if he did.”
Then there was a commotion at the door. The detectives turned in time to see Ray Cruz push past a uniformed officer.
“Christ!” Woods shouted. “Murphy! Get him out of here!”
“Oh no!” Cruz said, his voice torn with grief, and the detectives and the officers knew it wasn’t Cruz that had done the killing.
“Get him out!”
Murphy and the patrolman struggled Cruz back out to the hallway. He was sobbing. Woods rubbed his forehead. Carver pulled out a handkerchief and wiped at the back of his neck. They both went out to talk to Ray. He had composed himself; he was wiping away tears.
“You got leads?” he asked.
“I was going to ask you the same thing,” Woods said.
“Nothing yet, but I’ll tell you what, I’m gonna get some.”
Ray moved to leave, Woods put a hand on his chest. Ray looked at the hand, and Woods pulled it back.
“Any reason why someone would hurt them? Ernesto got worked over pretty good.”
Ray nodded.
“They kept their money in the apartment,” he said.
“In a Hoover?” Carver asked.
Ray nodded again.
“Anybody else know about this money?”
Ray thought about it, shook his head and headed for the stairs.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” Woods shouted at him as he went down the stairs. Ray didn’t slow down or look his way.
On the street, Ray headed north and uphill for Boro Hall Park. He climbed to the top of the stairs leading into the park and scoped out the light crowd. A few people were on blankets, a few children were running through a sprinkler shooting water into the air. Three full grown men sat on swings. Ray headed for them.
He was about twenty feet away when one of the men noticed him and tapped one of the others and all three of them got up and started walking away.
“Don’t make this hard, Izzy!” he shouted.
Two men started running. The other stopped, hunched his shoulders, and turned to face Ray. Looked about ready to cry.
“I ain’t done nothing,” he said.
“It ain’t what you done,” Ray said, clasping Izzy’s shoulder with his right hand. “It’s what you know.”
“I don’t know nothing.”
Ray put his left hand on Izzy’s neck, lightly, but Izzy started to shake with his whole body, his head nodding a thousand times a minute.
“Well, I’ll give you two hours to change that, Izzy.”
“Two hours?”
“Two hours, then I take you back to that swing you were just on. Remember last year?”
Izzy put a hand to his neck and started to cry.
“Relax,” Ray said. He stepped in close and the hand at Izzy’s throat tightened. “What I want is easy. Ernesto Santiago and Celia Santiago on Webster Avenue. They had a hundred thousand dollars and someone killed them for it today…”
“That’s the same name as your padrino,” Izzy said.
Ray stared into Izzy’s eyes a moment. Izzy did too many drugs to be quick witted.
“Oh,” Izzy finally said. “Shit.”
“That’s right. And trust me, someone’s gonna die because of this. Hope it’s not you. Now go get me a name and be back here in two hours or I swear to God I’ll kill you and it won’t be none of that quick and painless bullshit.”
He pushed Izzy away, and Izzy fell, picked himself up and ran.
*
Captain Patrick Delaney sat at his desk, pulling apart a paperclip. He’d been on the force since long before the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor, since Herbert Hoover. When the precinct had started on a slide down to Hell and damnation, the powers that be put Delaney in as a steadying hand, but all his methods were old tried-and-trues. With the brass in attendance he’d once given a pep talk to the troops that ended with “go out there and break some heads.”
“So, what? You can’t find this Cruz character?”
“Uh…” Woods answered. Wasn’t sure where to go from there.
“What do we charge him with?” Carver asked.
“Don’t charge him with nothing. Let him sit in the pen a couple of days. Be doing the city a favor.”
“Cruz is a tough nut,” Woods said.
“Don’t want to bother bringing him in?” Delaney asked. He tossed the paperclip aside and both Woods and Carver were relieved. “Then find me the killer.”
“We’re thinking it was two or more. Hard to restrain a couple without…”
Delaney raised a hand to stop Woods.
“Got it. And canvas turned up nothing?”
“Absolutely nothing. No hablo ingles all over the place and even the ones that spoke English wouldn’t touch this one with a ten-foot pole. Nobody wants a damn thing to do with Ray Cruz; we might as well have the plague.”
“And your informants?”
“Three said they’d rather slit their own throats than get in Ray Cruz’s way,” Carver said. “And three others said they’re digging up information for Cruz if they can find any.”
Woods leaned forward in his chair.
“I’m telling you Captain, we’re on the case an hour and I ain’t never seen a case go this far South this fast. I can’t even buy a clue.”
“You got yourself a problem, detective. If you can’t get a lead, you better get lucky.”
Delaney picked up the paperclip again, started folding it back into its original shape. Woods and Carver took their cue.
“You got any spare luck?” Woods asked his partner in the hallway. “All my luck went rotten.”
“Won six dollars at poker last week.”
Woods nodded. Wasn’t really listening.
“What do we do now?” Carver asked after waiting a full minute.
“We bust heads.”
*
One hour and forty-five minutes and finally Izzy had the break he needed if he wanted to keep a chain from being wrapped around his neck and pulled tight enough to stop air and blood. Information squirreled away, he half jogged, half speed-walked back to the playground. He hoped Ray would throw him a fifty. The news was worth at least that. He didn’t notice the unmarked cop car following along behind him.
“That, my friend, is Israel Mendoza, Israh to his friends, Izzy to Ray Cruz, best snitch in the South Bronx, notorious drug fiend,” Detective Woods said.
“And you say he knows Cruz?”
“Cruz been beating on him for years. Probably since kindergarten.”
Woods pulled over.
“Get out. Brace him. If anyone knows something, it’s that bag of fleas.”
Carver got out and did as he was told, smushing Izzy’s face against the glass of a storefront.
“Okay, okay, okay,” Izzy kept saying. “I got nothing. I got nothing.”
“Israel Mendoza. Stop squirming. We just want to talk.”
“So talk.”
The detectives asked their questions with Izzy’s face pressed to the glass.
“They killed Ray’s godparents? That’s wicked,” Izzy said. He meant it.
> “Yeah, and we need to know who did it. Twenty bucks for you if you get us the names before the shift is over.”
“Get that up front?”
Carver pulled out a five dollar bill; Woods waved it away.
“Nothing up front for a junkie. Just get the names. I’ll make it twenty-five.”
“Five dollars go a long way. I got a couple of names that might maybe be interesting.”
“So talk already,” Woods barked out.
“Word is you’re looking for a mean black guy named Sammy Green. He been in prison; likes to beat on women. Also, a Boricua called Jose Garcia. Another mean son of a bitch. Say he killed someone in Manhattan. Been running for two years.”
“What’s ‘Boricua’?” Woods asked.
“You know. Puerto Rican.”
“Got an address for these gentlemen?” Carver asked. He eased up on Izzy’s face.
“They live on the same block as Ray’s padrino.”
A couple more questions and a couple of warnings about not talking to Ray, and the detectives let Izzy go, a ten dollar bill stuffed into his pants pocket.
“You get the other ten when we catch these guys,” Woods said.
At the swing set a few minutes later, Izzy told Ray everything he’d told the detectives and one other piece of information – where the killers were at the exact moment.
“They’re trying to buy a Cadillac with cash?” Ray asked.
“Pendejos,” Izzy answered.
Ray wasn’t listening anymore. He hurried in the direction of the car dealership on Tremont Avenue. Izzy trailed along a half step behind. He knew Ray was concentrating on hurting the murderers and didn’t want to interrupt that line of thinking, but he did want to know if he’d earned a bonus.
It was only a ten minute walk to the car dealership, but by the time they got there, a couple of squad cars had parked out front alongside the unmarked car Carver and Woods had arrived in. Ray stood across the street watching for a few minutes until Green and Garcia were brought out in handcuffs and shoved into a backseat.
Detective Woods saw Ray as he was about to get into his car. He walked across the street instead.
“We got them,” he said thumbing back to the car. “Car dealer called the precinct – they wanted to pay cash, but there was some blood.”
Killing Ways 2: Urban Stories Page 3
