The murderer, Paolo Baez, admitted his guilt without hesitation, pride in his macho deed so evident his confession sounded more like bragging. ‘Yo, and put this in,’ he demanded, ‘the maricon begged like a woman.’
Paul Rakowitz had a different take on his situation. He was a horse trader, give some to get some. ‘I don’t see any reason,’ he told us, ‘why we can’t do business here.’
‘Keep talkin’, hump.’ Jack could afford an attitude because Rakowitz was dead meat. In addition to the video, three witnesses had picked him out of a line-up.
‘OK, what I’m sayin’ is this. I’m, like, connected.’ After a brief pause, he added, ‘In Bushwick.’
Jack patted his belly. ‘Best get to the point,’ he declared, ‘because we’re fast approachin’ dinner and my tummy’s startin’ to rumble.’
‘Like, I help out sometimes. You know, the cops.’ Rakowitz was cadaver-thin, the pupils of his blue eyes mere pin heads. He had huge hands, though, which he opened and closed as though trying to raise a collapsed vein. ‘You should talk to a Sergeant named Molinari. First thing out of his mouth, he’ll tell ya Paulie’s a straight-up guy.’
At that point, Jack left the room to call Molinari, leaving me to mind the prisoner. Rakowitz had committed a violent felony in our precinct and there was no disputing that he belonged to us. But an accommodation might still be made if he was crucial to some larger investigation in the adjoining Brooklyn precinct. At the very least, Molinari was entitled to a heads-up.
The interrogation room we occupied was small and nearly featureless. At one time, the walls might have been a pale beige — at least that would’ve been my guess — but neither walls nor ceiling had been painted in so long, they really didn’t have a color. Above our heads, a single fluorescent tube buzzed in an industrial fixture. The top of the rusting fixture was piled with layers of gray dust that rose and fell like sand dunes.
This was home to me, a setting so comfortable I looked forward to being here for hours at a time. As a matter of principle, I never gave up on an interrogation. As long as a suspect would talk to me, I’d keep going until I got a confession or my superior ordered me to relent.
Jack returned after only a few minutes. As he glanced in my direction, he tugged on his shirt cuff, telling me the story he would present was basically true.
‘Bad news,’ he declared as he sat down. ‘Molinari says you’re a piece-of-shit junkie and justice would best be served if I kicked your ass before turning the key in your cell door.’
Rakowitz was all indignation. ‘I’m not disrespectin’ you,’ he announced, ‘but this I find hard to believe. I helped those guys out just last month with a burglary on Flushing Avenue. Speed King Auto Parts. Ask him.’
‘Hey, listen to my words. Molinari’s not gonna protect you. You understand?’ When Rakowitz merely nodded, Jack shook his head. ‘I want you to say it out loud. Say, “Sergeant Molinari will not protect me, so Detectives Petro and Corbin are the only friends I have in the world.”’
Jack waited until Rakowitz copped to his utter dependence, then said, ‘So tell me what you wanna trade, Paulie. What you got to give and what you hope to get.’
‘OK,’ Rakowitz said, leaning out over the table again, his voice dropping in pitch and volume. ‘You ever heard of Paco Luna? They call him Demente.’
Paco ‘Demente’ Luna was Bushwick’s resident drug lord, a man with a reputation so vicious he’d become well-known to law enforcement in the surrounding communities. That a miserable street junkie like Paulie Rakowitz could not deliver Paco Luna was a simple given.
‘Talk’s cheap,’ Jack replied. ‘You need to be a bit more concrete here.’
‘Well, did ya ever wonder how come he’s got no competition? Luna’s Puerto Rican, but there’s lots of Mexicans and Dominicans livin’ in Bushwick. Usually, you go into a mixed neighborhood, you get to choose your product.’
‘And that’s not the way it is?’
‘Fuck no. You don’t deal with Luna’s people, you don’t get high in Bushwick. Now I’m not sayin’ nobody else tried to set up. I’m sayin’ they don’t last long.’
‘Paulie,’ Jack said, ‘you gotta look at the facts here. We got you for a violent felony. You can’t buy your way out by givin’ up some street dealer.’
‘That ain’t the point. It ain’t about Luna.’
‘Then what’s it about?’
‘It’s about how he’s, like…’ When Rakowitz ran his hand across his forehead, it came away slick with sweat. ‘Luna’s protected, OK? He’s got cops watchin’ his back.’ Another pause while his eyes scanned the tiny room as though searching for hidden witnesses. ‘Hey, think about it. Luna’s been runnin’ the show in Bushwick for the last fifteen years. Nobody lasts that long unless they got connections. I mean, it’s like obvious, right?’
NINETEEN
Rakowitz kept us going for another fifteen minutes, although it was clear from the beginning — when Jack demanded that he name these cops, when he failed to do so — that we were being treated to a street rumor so common it had risen to the level of myth. The cops, so the story went, were always bent, the man at the top always protected. I’d heard the same tale from Dominicans in Washington Heights and Rastafarians on Eastern Parkway, usually as I was closing a pair of handcuffs around their wrists. Why, they wanted to know, did we snatch the little guys who were only dealing to stay high when the big dogs went their way unmolested?
As I remember it, my usual response was a slap on the head and a demand that the offender ‘Shut the fuck up.’
Still, Rakowitz was impressive. He told his tale forcefully, saving the best for last. ‘OK, you know that Luna has a house on Decatur Street near Central Avenue, right?’
In fact, we didn’t. Decatur and Central intersected in Bushwick, not our jurisdiction.
‘Yeah, fine,’ Jack said. ‘So what?’
‘So, I’m acquainted with a dude who was on a roof gettin’ off when he seen cops go into that building. They marched in like they owned the fuckin’ place.’ Rakowitz gave it a couple of beats before delivering the punch line. ‘And this guy, he says he seen these cops before.’
‘Your acquaintance, he got a name?’
‘Bucky.’
‘Bucky?’
‘Yeah, on account of his teeth.’
‘So, where can we find Bucky?’
‘I don’t know. I ain’t seen him in a while. But everybody knows him. He grew up in the neighborhood.’
‘Where?’
‘I ain’t sure.’
‘How ’bout his real name? You know that?’
When Rakowitz leaned forward, beads of sweat dripped from his hair to splatter on the table top. ‘I don’t,’ he admitted, ‘but I could find him.’
At that point, Jack approached the prisoner, drew him to his feet and quick-marched him into a cage. ‘The only thing you need to find,’ he explained as he turned the key in the door, ‘is a boyfriend. Before you become public property.’
By the time I walked into Sparkle’s at nine-thirty, the joint was jumping. I took a moment to absorb the noise and the commingled odors of beer, tobacco and bodies huddled together after a long day’s work, then crossed to the bar where Mike had a Dewar’s waiting. Home sweet home.
I lifted my glass to Sparkle, as always. For some reason, she was looking especially vivid tonight. Her red, Cupid’s-bow mouth was pursed invitingly and her blue eyes were naughty and knowing.
‘You do something to Sparkle?’ I asked Mike, who was filling a pitcher with Guinness.
‘I had her cleaned yesterday.’
‘You don’t clean her yourself?’
‘Harry, you gotta be kiddin’. The woman I use, her day job’s at the Metropolitan Opera!’
I was still mulling this over when Nydia Santiago called to me. She’d taken over the table usually reserved for Linus Potter, who was standing at the other end of the bar. ‘Harry, c’mere a minute.’