He shut the fuck up even though this man and his associates, who were dismissing him as a fool and even a traitor, were law enforcement professionals who had never spent a second on the street. Yet these men were obviously confident that they knew more than the street cop who’d clawed his way to being director of the Essex Country Narcotics Bureau. These men were, after all, in the unfortunately bureaucratic structure of the world Richie functioned in, his superior officers.
“Is it any wonder then,” the attorney was saying, “that because of your actions, the entire federal narcotics program is now in serious jeopardy of being dismantled? Dismantled as utterly and enthusiastically as that fucking transport plane you and your people just demolished out there...? Because, Director Roberts, that’s what you’ve accomplished this afternoon, single-handedly. And that is all you’ve accomplished.”
Richie, finally finding an opening, said, “I have good information that the target of my squad’s investigation was smuggling dope into this country on that plane.”
The attorney thought about that, giving it all of half a second. “And that target is?”
Toback winced.
Richie said, “Frank Lucas.”
The attorney looked up and over at his federal colleagues. Their blank expressions and shrugs spoke volumes.
Then the attorney turned a fish-eyed gaze on Richie and said, “Really. And just who the hell is Frank Lucas?”
The attorney got no help from the various assistants around him.
“Who does he work for?” the attorney demanded. “What family?”
“He’s not Italian,” Richie said.
“Well, what is he?”
“Black.”
A long silence followed, and you could have heard a pin drop — a grenade pin.
Finally the attorney said, “Is this supposed to be some kind of joke? Do I look like I’m easily amused, Director Roberts? Because coming from an individual like yourself, this close to the end of his career in law enforcement? Making jokes would seem ill-advised.”
“No joke, sir. Our investigation indicates... no, establishes... that Frank Lucas is above the Mafia in the dope-trade hierarchy. We believe he is buying direct from the source in Southeast Asia, cutting out all the middlemen, and that he has been using U.S. military planes and personnel to smuggle pure No. 4 heroin into the United States.”
While Richie spoke, the faces of the officials before him started out confused and then turned skeptical and finally openly derisive.
Toback sat forward. “Gentlemen, Director Roberts has plenty of experience in—”
“Plenty of experience,” the attorney cut in. “Does he now? And how many arrests have you made so far, Director Roberts, in your so-called investigation?”
“I was promised when I took on this job,” Richie said, “that it would be about real arrests. We aren’t focused on pushers and—”
“Would that be no arrests, Director Roberts?”
“We’re well on the way, building cases against most of Lucas’s organization. Not him, as yet. Like all American gangsters from Capone on, Frank Lucas is well-insulated.”
“You’re comparing him to Al Capone now. I see. And he has an organization...”
“That’s right.”
The attorney’s eyes were tight, and his voice was edged with scorn: “You’re saying a single fucking nigger has accomplished what the entire American Mafia hasn’t managed in one hundred fucking years.”
Richie stared at the man. Then he shook his head. “Yeah, you’d know, right? Just sitting here. Ever been on the street? Sir?”
“Get this fucking kike out of my sight,” the attorney said, with a sneer and a disgusted wave.
Richie was out of his chair and smacked the bastard, twice, the second one taking the guy right out of his desk chair and onto the floor before the others could pull Richie back.
The attorney’s remarks had been out of line enough that no charges were brought against Richie; but as he and Toback walked across the hangar, Richie was already thinking about his next move.
But Toback was saying, “Rich, it’s over. You’re shut down.”
“Right,” Richie said.
Then he exited the hangar and his squad members fell in behind him as they headed toward their cars.
Behind the wheel, with Spearman in the driver’s seat, Richie said, “We couldn’t intercept the heroin here, well, fine. Somebody’s got to pick it up.”
“Some Country Boy or other,” Spearman agreed.
“So we tail their asses, every one of them.”
Richie wasn’t worried about being fired. What with the federal government and their endless red tape, hell, days would go by before the team was officially disbanded.
And all he needed was the next twenty-four hours.
24. Insured for Death
When Frank Lucas saw Doc waiting for him at the baggage terminal, he knew at once from the big man’s expression that something was wrong, really wrong...
Doc filled him in as they headed for the Town Car, and Frank felt the rage rising in him like flames consuming a building. He sat in the back of the Lincoln and thought of a hundred ways to kill that bastard Trupo, and none of them were good enough.
Then, as he tried to shake off the rage and regain control, Frank experienced something rare for him: guilt. He should have provided better safety for Eva and his mother, made sure his brothers never left them at the house alone. The kind of people who drove by a Chinese restaurant in the middle of the night shooting up the place had seemed unlikely to invade a suburban housing development in broad daylight.
But the same could not be said for the likes of Trupo and his SIU goons.
At the penthouse, seated on the edge of their bed, Eva told him everything. She seemed bothered most about her inability to protect their getaway money.
“Ten million dollars means nothing to me, baby,” he said, and slapped a clip into the butt of a nine-millimeter automatic.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her eyes on the floor. “It just seems like it’s getting worse, and worse... We had a chance to get out, and we missed it.”
Frank was too preoccupied to notice the rebuke her gentle voice delivered, that she had tried to get him to run but he had refused.
Instead he just brushed his wife’s bruised face with tender fingertips and said, “This... what he did to you. That’s his death warrant.”
He kissed her forehead and, sticking the automatic into a shoulder holster under a dark suitcoat tailored not to show the bulge, stalked out.
Moving through the living room with Doc, toward the front door, Frank heard another female voice: “Frankie...”
He stopped and his eyes went to his mother, who he’d brought to the penthouse for protection; she was sitting on the sofa in the living room, hands folded prayerfully in her lap. Doc had gone on and was at the door. Frank gave him a nod, indicating the driver should go on ahead and get the car — Frank would be down in a minute.
He went to his mother, stood before her and said, “Eva’s in the bedroom if you need her. I have a man in the kitchen, who can cook for you...”
His mother smiled but sadness made it a smile he hadn’t seen for a long, long time. Not since childhood.
“I think I can cook for myself, Frankie.” She patted the sofa next to her. “Sit. Please sit.”
He sat.
He could feel her eyes on him in a searching way that also took him back to childhood, specifically the days when he had first started to bring home money and nice things, a boy without schooling somehow managing to make a man’s living. She had been suspicious then. She was suspicious now.