“Look who’s asking.”
Javy held both palms up in “back off” fashion. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talkin’ about, Rich.”
Upper lip curled over his teeth, Richie leaned forward and stuck his hands into the deep pockets of Javy’s leather jacket; he found the thickness of cash in both.
With a violent downward tug, he simultaneously ripped open both pockets — “Rich! What the fuck!” — and money spilled out, twenties, fifties, hundreds, onto the filthy alley floor.
“This,” Richie said, indicating the fallen cash. “I’m talking about this, Jav. Where’d the bread come from, man?”
Javy’s eyes were wild. “You fucker!” He got down on his hands and knees and recovered the money, stuffing it in his pants pockets and in his waistband, saying, “This is my money. Hard-earned! I never took dirty money in my life, you know that.”
“What I know is,” Richie said, watching his partner scramble after the literally dirty money, “you’re a lying piece of shit.”
Javy was on his feet again. “Jesus, Rich! Take the stick out of your ass. Every cop takes the occasional... you know, gratuity. You gonna tell me that’s wrong?”
“It’s wrong. Yeah.”
“Hell it is!” Javy leaned in, not quite in Richie’s face, and said, “It’s part of our pay, guys like us. Above and beyond the salary, for little things, like getting the fuck shot at! You risk your fuckin’ life to serve and protect, and in return? Certain courtesies are shown. In gratitude, like.”
Disgusted, Richie grabbed his partner by the lapels of the leather jacket and tried to decide whether to shake him till he rattled or knock his damn head onto those bricks till it splashed or... shit.
He let loose.
Embarrassed, near tears, Javy said, “You’d begrudge me a little goddamn shitting consideration — a discount on a TV, a Doughboy pool in the backyard... a new dress for my girl, maybe once a fuckin’ year.”
“Wrong is wrong.”
Javy’s eyes flared. “Jesus fucking... All I’m talking about is guys like you and me not living under the fucking poverty level! You wanna call it wrong, go ahead! Call it wrong.”
“It’s wrong.”
Javy threw his hands in the air. “Fine! Then, goddamnit, let the sons of bitches pay me fifty K a year, like the manager of a goddamn supermarket. Pay me something for putting my ass on the line, for getting shot at... You got a short fucking memory, man.”
“Do I?”
His eyes were welling, his lips quivering. “Next time... next time four guys come into your place, with sawed-off shotguns? You take care of your own ass.”
Richie sighed. Held up a “stop” palm to indicate a shift in conversation. “Okay. So you robbed him, and then you shot him. And now I helped get you out of there.”
Javy said nothing.
Richie went on: “How many other pathetic low-end dealers have you ripped off and shot over the years, Jav? Two? Twenty?”
Suddenly Javy grew some spine, shoving Richie, who stumbled back a step.
“Hey, you know what, Rich? Fuck you and the white horse you rode in on. Guy accuses his partner of something like that, accusing his own kind. You should be ashamed.”
And Javy got his car keys out, and bumped by Richie, only Richie grabbed him, yanked his coat half-off to get at Javy’s left sleeve, which he pushed up. The time had come to confirm a suspicion Richie had denied for too long.
There they were: the puncture scabs and scars, the needle tracks of the junkie.
Richie pushed his partner away. “You’re the one should be ashamed. You’re a fucking disgrace.”
Now Javy did get in Richie’s face. “I’ll tell you what I am — I’m a fucking leper! And why? Because I listened to you, because I went along with Saint Richie of Roberts and turned in a million fucking dollars! God! Damn!”
Javy backed off and staggered around in a little half circle, saying, “And you know who wants to work with me after that? Same people wanna work with you, Rich — no body!”
Richie went to his partner, ex-partner, and grabbed the man’s hand holding the car keys and squeezed and squeezed and finally the jagged teeth of the keys did their work and blood dripped from Javy’s forced fist.
“Here’s what I’ll do for you,” Richie said to the trembling Javy, “for that time at my place, when you saved my ass? I will write this up the way you say it happened. I will back you all the way.”
“Richie...”
“But that is it. That is it for us, Javy. Far as I’m concerned, that was you dead on the floor today.”
Then Richie backed off, held his hands high as if in surrender and headed out of the dark alley into sunshine, not watching Javy slump against the brick and clutch his bleeding hand.
7. Payback
At a certain army base in New Jersey, in the cool blue dusk, a beat-up Chevy headed off a road, rumbled over the earth and stopped alongside a perimeter fence. The vehicle’s driver, Frank Lucas, got out and waited, watching a military jeep with its lights off come gliding over the smooth ground of a firing range.
The jeep slowed.
Stopped.
Close enough, now, for Frank to make out the silhouettes of the driver and two passengers, and their M-16s at the ready. Frank took a few steps toward them and the silhouettes became three black servicemen, one of whom — the driver — was a captain.
Frank noted the peculiarity of a captain driving a couple of privates around, but said nothing.
The captain, accustomed to giving orders, gave one to Frank: “Open your trunk.”
Frank nodded curtly and went around and opened his trunk, then stood to one side as the two privates — this is why the captain was driving, Frank decided — did the hauling, dragging four large taped-up duffel bags from in back of the jeep, tossing them in the junker Chevy’s trunk, slamming it shut.
Then the privates rejoined the captain in the jeep and, without so much as a salute, took their leave, vehicle growling as it made a U-turn and headed back over the firing range.
Fitting, Frank thought. We’ll all be targets now...
In the relative safety and security of his apartment, Frank sat at his kitchen table with the four duffel bags — still taped and cinched up — slung there like big fat sausages, breakfast for a giant. Frank, nursing a glass of bourbon, kept staring at the bags, as if expecting them to speak.
He sat there a long time — going on an hour — putting off a moment of discovery that would mean one of two things: he would be a Harlem-based businessman (the word “gangster” did not cross his mind) at a level Bumpy Johnson had never dreamed of; or he had just squandered his life savings on four bags of nothing at all.
The German shepherd — which Frank had taken to calling “Bumpy” (in honor of a master who’d never bothered to name the animal) — was sitting nearby. The animal had finished his dishes of water and kibble and was staring at Frank with soulful eyes that meant he needed a walk.
Then the dog got interested in what Frank was doing — maybe thinking more food was in those duffel bags, the dog was always up for more food — as his new master tore the tape from one of the duffels, and loosened its cinching.
Frank let out a big breath that he hadn’t realized he was holding in when he saw the multitude of brick-like packages within.
The other three duffels were similarly stuffed, brimming with oversized decks of No. 4 heroin wrapped in paper bearing Chinese characters and stamped with a label that was better than the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approvaclass="underline" two lions, up on their hind legs, paws pushing a globe.