“The fucking projects?”
“The fucking projects.”
“That’s a war zone.”
“I appreciate the briefing. Now I need a warrant.”
“For the whole place?”
“No.”
Toback shook his head, as if to clear cobwebs. “Where is the stuff?”
“Somewhere in the South Tower. Lou, it’s what we’ve worked for, all these months. We can take Lucas down.”
“You didn’t see Frank himself?”
“No. Huey, though. Various other Country Boys.”
Toback sighed. He allowed himself a sip of milk. Then he said, “You know it’s there. You’re sure.”
“Positive.”
Toback mulled it. “Lou, we’re ready to go in there, knowing there’s a good chance we won’t all be coming back out. That’s what this squad is willing to put on the line. All I’m asking you to do is get me a warrant.”
“How many guys you got?”
“Counting me, four of us. Lou... we don’t exactly have a lot of time to fuck around. We’re a bunch of mostly white faces hanging around outside Stephen Crane, if you catch my drift.”
“... I’ll call in the warrant. I know an atheist judge I can probably catch at his country club.”
“That’ll do fine. But pray for us anyway.”
“Pray for us all. My job’ll be on the line right there next to yours, Richie. And Rich — I’m sending some backup. Don’t you guys go in there before either the warrant or the backup gets there. Got it?”
“Got it.”
Richie hung up, and left the battered pay phone across the street from the projects to join the nearby Spearman, Jones and Abruzzo, standing outside their respective cars, waiting for the go-ahead.
“Well?” Spearman asked, lighting up a smoke.
“Toback’s on board. Getting us a warrant.”
Jones asked, “How long we gonna wait for it?”
“It’ll be here.”
On the seventeenth floor of the South Tower, five female workers were preparing for business as usual. Red Top’s operation had long since outgrown the little apartment in Harlem, and this empty apartment was perfect for their purposes. First the women spread (and taped down) plastic sheeting to half a dozen card tables; then they began changing for work, which in this case meant stripping down from their street clothes to their skin.
Within minutes the naked, surgically masked quintet was at work, pharmaceutical scales balanced to their counterweights, the women cutting the heroin with quinine to the exacting standards of their absent boss, Frank Lucas. Over in the kitchenette area, Red Top put on some coffee.
The ruby-crowned former girlfriend of Frank’s was, as usual, in charge, but brother Huey Lucas was supervising. He never tired of watching good-looking young naked women make Blue Magic.
The work proceeded, a paper-cutter blade slicing sheets of blue cellophane. The women at their tables, displaying the expertise of Cuban cigar makers, wrapped pieces of the blue plastic like tobacco leaves around precisely measured quarter-ounce drifts of powder.
At the same time, in the Baptist church in Harlem, Frank and his momma were joining in the Call and Response of the minister as his sermon built, though Eva just sat there, lost in her thoughts.
Barely half an hour after Richie hung up, two black-and-whites and several undercover vehicles approached, sirens off. Richie was impressed by the response time, though the other three detectives had been after him every two minutes like kids in the backseat asking daddy how much longer. Spearman had looked at his watch so often, the action had turned into a kind of tic.
But now Toback himself was climbing out of the first unmarked car, and striding over with the warrant, handing it to Richie.
“Let the four of us go in first,” Richie said, gesturing to the trio who’d become his inner circle within the squad. “An army invades Stephen Crane, and you might get a war... and I think you know which side the residents are gonna jump in on.”
“I’ll meet you halfway,” Toback said. “Take three more of my men with you — then you four can lead the way.”
“Done,” Richie said.
“And let’s get some walkies distributed. When you get the lay of the land, you call it in. No cowboy action.”
Richie nodded. Then he said, “Let’s leave the black-and-whites out here for now, and the uniforms. Why call attention?”
Toback went along with that, and soon three unmarked cars piled with detectives laden with weapons wormed their way through the pothole-flung lanes of the projects. Long shadows cast by these ominous towers turned even the most innocuous activities into fear-inducing threats — a woman pushing a stroller, some teens shooting hoops, a couple getting in each other’s face, kids laughing as they raced by on their bikes, even the old winos lounging on graffiti-obscured benches seemed to bode danger...
The shipment had been loaded into the South Tower — that was all Richie and his three teammates knew. Where those laundry bags of heroin had wound up in the scarred cement monstrosity had yet to be determined. What lay ahead was both tedious and terrifying.
First step was Richie removing the cover plate of the elevator, cutting the wires, shutting down service. Then he, Spearman, Jones and Abruzzo — followed by three of Toback’s backup dicks — ventured into the debris-strewn, graffiti-enveloped stairwell. To say it compared to Beirut would be to insult Beirut.
Floor by floor, they went, working their way up the tower, commando-style, handguns and even rifles and shotguns at the ready, which sent residents scurrying; Richie lugged a sledgehammer along — opening up doors without a key was, after all, his speciality. Somehow the higher they rose, the more squalor, decay and hopelessness they found. Cooking smells joined with scents of disinfectant and urine and feces as a sad reminder that human beings actually dwelled here. This, for many, was home.
At the seventeenth floor, as Jones — who was leading the way — paused outside the fire door, a strange, creaking sound could be made out, coming closer, closer...
Jones cracked the door and they all saw a little kid on a big wheel go pedaling by, the sound fading with him. The invaders grinned at each other and sighed and enjoyed one light moment, at least.
Then they returned to grim reality.
This floor was the worst yet, easily, half the apartments lacking even front doors; TVs and radios and record players echoed, a cacophony of gospel music and rock ’n’ roll and preaching and cartoon voices, joined by loud arguments between men and women, and topped off by the wailing of babies.
Jones peeked around the corner.
He held up two fingers to Richie, just behind him. “Shotguns,” he whispered. “I’ll go.”
The black detective in blue denim was the natural emissary — it wasn’t like Richie was wearing an Afro.
Richie risked a peek as Jones confidently strode up to the two guys seated on folding chairs outside one of the apartments that still had its door — a closed door; both watchdogs had sawed-off shotguns in their laps.
“Huey in there?” Jones asked with casual authority. “I gotta talk to the man.”
“Get the fuck out of here,” said the one nearest Richie’s position.
Jones leaned in, irritated and unimpressed. “What the fuck kinda mouth is that? I got business with Huey, which is none of your fuckin’ business except to get off your dead ass and knock on the fuckin’ door and get him!”
The guy got to his feet, pumped his shotgun, and Jones latched onto the weapon and brought it up hard against the guard’s throat, then whipped behind him and used the barrel of the weapon like a garrote to force the bastard to his knees. The shotgun went off, but didn’t hit anybody, though plaster and pellets showered all over the place, as Spearman and Abruzzo came around quick and a rifle and a handgun were in the other guard’s face before he could blink away the plaster spray.