Richie was in bed with his lawyer, Sheila, her briefs filed who knew where, and he must have been distracted by the weight of work, because she was under him, urging him on: “Come on, Richie, fuck me like a cop!”
As opposed to a lawyer, which he was himself now, technically at least. Because he was still cop enough to answer the ringing phone on the nightstand even while Sheila was still pumping under him, moaning, “Yes, Richie, yes...”
This of course turned into “No, Richie, no!” when he reached for the receiver, still inside her, doing his walk-and-chew-gum-at-the-same-time best when Spearman’s less than seductive voice whispered in his ear: “Richie, sorry to bother you, man, but the Newark fuzz just picked up one of our celebrities.”
“Celebrities?” Richie asked, still at it.
Sheila was saying, “No... no... no...” But her protests had nothing to do with the phone conversation Richie was managing, and in fact weren’t protests at all.
Spearman said, “A face climbed right down off our Wall of Shame, Rich — Huey Lucas’s driver, Jimmy Zee.”
“What kinda bust?”
“Attempted murder.”
“... Call our friends over there. Get him shaken loose into our custody.”
“Can we do that?”
“Get Toback on it, if we can’t. I’ll meet you over at the church in half an hour...”
Which was all he needed to complete his attorney’s case, and get his clothes and gun and go.
The narcotics squad HQ may have been in an old church, but the basement was closer to hell than heaven, a dank, dark dungeon where Jimmy Zee had been sat down in a hard wooden chair. A naked bulb above threw Jimmy’s angular features into stark relief, as Richie paced in front of their captive, whose handcuffed hands were in his lap.
Spearman, Abruzzo and Jones were on the periphery, outside the pool of light, shapes that lurked and watched. Jimmy was obviously unsettled, even scared, and that was fine with Richie.
Frank Lucas’s cousin was in a bad place, and this church basement wasn’t it: Jimmy was coming down off a high that hadn’t been high enough to make him forget he’d recently attempted his girlfriend’s murder.
“Things aren’t as bad as they seem, Jimmy,” Richie assured him.
“They ain’t?”
“Attempted homicide, that’s Grand Jury. Now a Grand Jury, a bunch of average citizens like yourself, Jimmy? They might come in very favorably.”
“They might?”
“They might. Attempted manslaughter, maybe. Self-defense even.”
Jimmy was looking all around. “What the fuck is this place? Why’d they take me out of lockup?”
“Darlynn had a knife,” Richie said, still pacing the small patch of concrete in the pool of light. “You were trying to protect yourself. Fact she was shot in the ass, well, that’s mitigated by circumstances.”
“It is?”
“The knife. You know, this could turn out okay for you, Jimmy.”
“It could?”
“Depends on how I decide to deal with you... You see where this is going, Jimmy? Get the picture yet?”
Jimmy didn’t — he was too busy trying to make out the shapes that were Spearman and his guys. “You guys Homicide or what?”
Richie stood in front of the seated suspect. “So let’s say you do beat it, somehow. What do you think your cousin Frank’ll think of that? He knows you had to sit down and have somebody like me tell you something like this.”
Jimmy blinked repeatedly. “... What?”
“You beat attempted murder, and walk?” Richie laughed, once. “Is Frank stupid? He’ll think you talked. He’ll know you talked.”
Jimmy thought that through. “You mean you’d... help me to hurt me? To make me look bad?”
Richie shrugged. “Maybe I’d just be really trying to help. Is it my fault if your cousin Frank thinks you rolled over?”
Jimmy slumped in the chair. He began to shake his head as he stared past Richie into the darkness and the shadowy figures.
“You fucked up, Jimmy,” Richie said. “Still, you got one thing going for you — nobody knows.”
Jimmy looked up at Richie. “What?”
“Nobody knows — I got the arrest report folded up in my back pocket. So even Frank doesn’t know — yet. Of course, if I send you and this arrest report back over to the Newark PD, Frank could read about your bust in the papers tomorrow, and the whole chain of events I outlined would begin.”
Jimmy’s eyes narrowed. “Or?”
Richie gestured with open palms. “Or you just walk out of here — no bail, no trial. Just walk out now. Insufficient evidence — your girl already says she doesn’t know who shot her.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Richie began to pace the little area again. “Of course, I could always find a witness that saw you shoot her, if I tried. And any time I change my mind about letting you walk, I know who I’ll pull in for questioning first; I even know what he’ll look like — just like you, Jimmy. Just like you.”
“That’s cold.”
“And it won’t be discreet, like your visit here tonight. Be real public, Jimmy.” Richie smiled and leaned in, putting a hand on the suspect’s shoulder. “And Jimmy? If I decide I don’t like the quality of your work? This case’ll get reopened.”
“Quality of what work?” Jimmy asked.
Richie smiled. “Like some coffee, Jimmy? Let’s go upstairs and talk in more comfortable surroundings...”
Jimmy hadn’t left the old church till dawn, slipping out the back way into the chilly morning air. That cop, Roberts, when he raised his voice, it had echoed down in that basement; and his threats, his promises, went on echoing in Jimmy’s mind.
Over the coming days, Jimmy did something he never dreamed he’d do: he wore a wire.
He wore a wire, and he’d learned to live with twenty-four-hour fear. Driving for Huey, Jimmy would spend half his time looking in the rearview mirror at what seemed to him to be the evident cop tail, wondering how fuckin’ obvious those pigs could be.
But Huey never spotted the tail, and even Frank, when he was in the backseat with his brother, didn’t notice.
On this day in late November, in the meat-packing district, Jimmy was unaware that Richie Roberts, following him, was checking his own rearview mirror, keeping tabs on a small procession of cars behind him — the full narcotics squad. Talk on Jimmy’s wire about “picking up the big delivery” had sent them into action, for what could be their first major drug bust.
Soon the detectives’ cars were parked behind a warehouse near another warehouse whose loading dock was where Jimmy had parked Huey’s car. Through binoculars, Richie could see Frank and Huey getting out, chatting casually; then some black guys in bloody white smocks exited the warehouse and approached Frank — words and gestures, but Richie couldn’t make anything of it.
Richie snapped pictures as Frank Lucas returned to his brother’s car, opened the trunk and removed a briefcase. Using the telephoto, Richie saw — and recorded — the moment when Frank clicked open the briefcase and revealed stacks of cash. Frank took out a number of banded packets of green and carried them over to the men in bloody smocks.
Then Frank strolled to a nearby semi-truck, and — damn! — seemed to have spotted Richie, or anyway was looking right in his direction, and, hell, waving!
But then Richie realized Lucas was merely waving to the semi driver to pull out.
And in half an hour, on a Harlem street corner, Richie Roberts was watching — not bothering to snap any pictures — as Frank Lucas stood in the back of the semi and handed out hundreds of freshly butchered turkeys — continuing Bumpy Johnson’s tradition.