The big blue-and-orange Mets banner tells me I’m in the right place, and only one of the guys hunched over the bar matches the description I extracted from the fast-talking pharmacist. There’s a spot next to him, opposite the big color TV. I slide onto the empty stool as the Mets take on their archrivals, the Atlanta Braves. Glavine’s on the mound, facing his old teammates. Top of the third, one out, no one on. Both teams scoreless.
The bartender comes over and asks me what I’ll have.
“I’m fine, thanks.”
“You gotta have something if you’re gonna sit here.”
“Oh, I’ve got to pay rent, huh? Okay, I’ll have a seltzer with a twist.”
He doesn’t try to hide his annoyance with me for ordering something so girly-girly and cheap, and unlikely to result in a big tip. I keep a close watch to make sure that’s all he’s giving me, and leave a few extra bills on the bar.
The batter pops up to center field, and Beltran gets under it with plenty of time.
“Así se hace!” says my neighbor.
“Vamos Carlosito!” I chime in.
He looks at me. I toast him with my seltzer. He returns the salute with his beer.
“Do I know you?” he asks.
“You’ve probably seen me around. I think I’ve seen you around too. How’s it going?”
“Me? Just trying to get through the day.”
“It’s good to set realistic goals.”
Díaz comes up for Atlanta. He takes a few practice swings, then gets into his stance. Glavine throws low and inside. Ball one.
“So, a qué te dedicas?”
He says, “Oh, this and that. Y tú?”
“I’ve got my own business.”
“Uh-huh. Doing what?”
“I’m a private contractor.”
Glavine shakes his head. Lo Duca spreads three fingers and taps them against his right thigh, pinky extended. Glavine takes his time, then fans the guy with a devastating curveball.
“Yeah!” My guy pumps his fist in the air, and his T-shirt sleeve slides halfway down his bicep. I gently slide it the rest of the way. No tattoo.
He looks at me. “You like that?” He can’t resist making a muscle for me. “Want to see more?”
“That depends. Is your name really Julio César Gallegos?”
His face darkens. “Hey, what is this?”
“Well, it started out as a counterfeiting case, but I think it’s turning into a homicide investigation, although a good lawyer would probably get the charges reduced to second-degree manslaughter.”
He goes hard on me and swallows the stale beer at the bottom of his glass, then says, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“And I always know I’m getting close when the guys I’m interviewing start thinking about what they’re going to say in court. Uh, your honor, my client’s remark, ‘I’ll blow his fucking head off,’ was taken out of context,” I say, mimicking a typical mob lawyer, then wave it all away like bad smell. “Give me a break.”
“You got nothing on me.”
“I also know I’m getting close when they start talking in clichés.”
“This is entrapment.”
“I’m not the law, dude. I told you, I’m a private contractor.”
I give him a brief rundown of my activities for the past few hours, solidly connecting him to a shipment of counterfeit medicine at the pharmacy on 104th Street and implying an equally strong connection to the death of Edison Narvaez, with suspicion of possible intent, unless he comes clean with me.
“Now, what do you know about the stuff that killed that boy?”
“It’s always the one you least suspect, right?” he says, trying to make it into a joke.
“That would mean Brigitte Bardot did it. She’s pretty low on my list of suspects. No, I’m looking for a guy with a tattoo of the Ecuadorian or Colombian flag on his left arm.” I let him catch a glimpse of the .38 under my jacket. Díaz connects and sends the ball sailing over Delgado’s glove, but Chavez gets to it quickly and holds Díaz at first. While the place erupts with cheers, Gallegos looks at his shoes and says the words very quietly, “It’s the Ecuadorian flag.”
I nod. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I knew one of these days someone like you would be walking through that door.” He looks around. “No cops, all right?”
“Aw, shucks. And I just called them.”
“What the fuck did you do that for?”
“Yo, buddy. Your language,” says the guy two stools over.
“Yeah, it’s English. What the fuck’s your problem?”
“Settle down, guys,” says the bartender.
I tell Gallegos, “You’ve got about three minutes, unless you give me some sugar, comprendes?” I’m making that up, but screw it — it’s working. The next batter hits a hard one up the middle and Reyes stops it cold to end the inning. That’s José Reyes, hometown: Villa González in the D.R.
Gallegos says, “We could have worked something out.”
“Before all this, maybe. Not with the Narvaez kid dying from tainted meds, or whatever the hell you guys sold him. Tell me where to find him.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Do you hear sirens?” That’s kind of a trick question, because you always hear sirens in this part of Queens. “Look, if you point me to someone else further up the ladder, I’ll leave you out of it.”
“I’ve been wanting to get out of the life,” he says. “’Cause me and Gloria are gonna get married, and we’re planning to have babies.”
“You can plan to have babies? That’s news to me.”
“I want immunity.”
“Then tell me something that’ll take the focus off you, hermano.”
“For real?”
“For real.”
The lights are on at Shea as twilight turns to darkness, and we can hear the fans cheering in the distance as a ring of cops closes in on a clandestine warehouse near the boat basin off Willets Point Boulevard. The police find what they’re after: a conveyor belt, pill counters, stacks of empty bottles and jars, state-of-the-art printing equipment, boxes of fake labels, crates of ready-made knock-offs from Pakistan, Vietnam, Malaysia — talk about the effects of globalization — drums of raw chemicals from Colombia and China for mixing up everything from cough medicine to horse steroids, as well as invoices, account books, and a list of contact names, including delivery boys.
Ray Ray’s name is right in the middle of the list.
They’re willing to let me talk to him first, but Ray Ray’s out celebrating his twenty-three-game hitting streak, and by the time he comes home from his viernes loco a couple hours later, the cops have gotten a warrant, stormed right past me, torn up his room, and are tramping down his front steps with their arms full of cases of counterfeit steroids. And I have a sick feeling that the lab is going to find significant traces of the active ingredient in Edison Narvaez’s blood samples.