I looked back up. “I got a question for you. Does Vic the Father get along with anybody?”
It was the first time I’d seen him smile without any warmth in it. “I gotta feeling you’re gonna find out.”
We filed through the revolving doors and back onto the street. Chavez opened the back door of the cruiser for us. “You guys are just giving us a ride, right?” He nodded, and we got in.
It was the beginning of the late watch, so they dropped Henry off at the Academy and drove me over the bridge into their own district. The lights on the Schuylkill River reflected the buildings along the west side of the city, and I got a quick glimpse of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the stairs that Sylvester Stallone ran up in Rocky. Just past the museum, the eerie outline of Boathouse Row gave the empty impression of haunted houses, and I tried to think about something other than how the back seat of the cruiser smelled.
I watched the back of the two patrolmen’s heads through the screening, the high and tight haircuts and the perfect uniforms; they even wore their hats in the car. Most of my stuff was pretty threadbare, like me. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d requisitioned a duty shirt.
Chavez responded to a call on the radio as we drove past 30th Street Station on the way to the hospital. Michael leaned back, laid his arm across the seat, and looked at me through the rearview as we waited at a stoplight. “We have to make a little detour.”
“As long as your mother doesn’t mind staying with Cady a little longer.”
Michael looked at Chavez, who smiled back at me. “Hey, man, did he just say something about your mother?”
They both exhaled a laugh and then turned on the light bar and sirens. We turned up 34th and turned left on Lancaster Avenue. I called Lena. She said to take my time, that there was no change, and that she was reading a Margaret Coel and was fine. The neighborhood began changing from the late-night bustle of Market and the colleges as we headed west; the buildings became smaller, rundown, and dirty. People began disappearing, and the streetlights grew farther apart. We were in a place like the Indian reservations back home, a place where dreams would die unquestioned, a place for the quick and, more than likely, the dead.
We traveled a ways up Lancaster before Michael responded to another call and slowed the cruiser to a stop, turning off the lights and siren. We parked in a deserted gas station. There was a wig shop across the street at the end of the block with only one unbroken window. Michael switched off the headlights and let his eyes adjust to the dark. He peered past the corner, but I had to lean forward to see where he was looking.
It was an abandoned lot, unwanted and unoccupied except for the usual urban detritus. There had probably been more than one building there at one time, but they had collapsed or burned. Only a three-story row house was still standing. I could tell that it had been something in its day, but the years of neglect and abuse had left it looking decrepit and dangerous. There were no lights in the building, only the mirrored illumination in the broken windows, which reflected the glow of the one streetlight left lit half a block away and the close shine of the low-flying clouds. There was garbage everywhere, and a barricade of dumpsters overflowed across the street.
Chavez turned his head to look at me, putting his palm out flat to introduce the scene. “May I present Toy Diaz’s Fort, the Wanamaker’s of crack houses.” I could make out patterns of movement in the shadows as he spoke. “The seller takes the money from the buyer, the seller goes into the building to give the money to the holder, the holder gives the stuff to the seller, and the seller comes back out and gives the stuff to the buyer. Pretty slick, and according to the letter of the law, at no time is the seller on the street with the money and the stuff…”
I finished the statement for him. “Which means possession, but not possession with intent to distribute.”
Chavez laughed. “There’s a new sheriff in town.”
I watched as Michael’s jaw clenched like Vic’s. “Some scumbag realtor in the Northeast owns the building, and he gets a monster kickback from the whole deal.”
“Who is Toy Diaz?”
“Salvadoran refugee, truly a grade-A asshole. His brother caught some time a few years back, but we’re still trying to get the devil himself.”
Chavez pointed. “With all the open space around the building, we can’t get near the place without somebody giving the high sign. We come roarin’ up and they just pitch the stuff and the guns.” They were silent for a moment. “There’s a lot of guns in there.”
“Tell ’em about the 32s.”
“That’s what we were just responding to on the radio. Business gets good, and they just call in a 10-32 on the other side of the district to keep us distracted.” Even with my limited knowledge of the city ten code, I knew a 10-32 was a man with gun and a priority call. “They keep about twenty vials out on the street, hidden all over the place. I found one in an empty potato chip bag one time. They sell those out, then they go back in and get more, usually during a shift change.”
Michael shook his head. “They don’t even walk away when we roll on ’em anymore. We’ve hit that damn place a dozen times now; we hit ’em twice this evening. Nothing.”
We watched as the shadowy figures went about their business. I wanted to get back to Cady but started thinking about what the Cheyenne would do in this situation. “Do you think they count?”
Both of the young officers turned to look at me. “What?”
“Do you think they count how many cops go in during a bust, and how many cops come out?”
They called a point-to-point for some of their buddies so that the radio signal wouldn’t reach Central. The eleven officers who showed up were like Moretti and Chavez-young, hopeful, and pissed off. Michael started to describe the plan.
Three cruisers would make their standard run at the place, with the fourth parked close but not within view. Nine of the eleven officers would rush the Fort, and the two men in the fourth car would call in a 10-32, pretending they’d gotten the call from the district. The cops would race out of the place, jumping in their units to respond to the fake point-to-point that no one else in the district would hear besides them and the drug dealers monitoring the police radio. The trick was that four officers would remain on the roof of the building and wait about five minutes for the dealers to reacquire their weapons and restock from inside.
Malcolm Chavez wanted to be on the roof squad, but Michael convinced him that he could go better undetected by the dealers since all white guys look alike. Chavez and another officer by the name of Johnston would do the fourth car position and call in the thirty-two at the appropriate time. Only the radios in the immediate vicinity would receive the call, but that would include the spotter the drug dealers were using, who would watch as the cops all piled out of the house, jumped in their cruisers, and sped off. At least all the cops he knew about. Then the ones on the roof would rush the building from behind. My job was to sit in the back of the cruiser on my hands and try not to think of why I was here and not with my daughter.
“So, when you were planning your trip to Philadelphia, did you ever think you’d be sittin’ in the ghetto with two brothers?”
“You bet.”
Rayfield Johnston was a likable sort, a little older than the others. He had been an elementary school teacher but had grown restless and decided to switch careers. I told him about my experiences reading to Durant Elementary School students. He thought it was pretty funny.
Johnston shook his head and compared notes. “We got the Police Athletic League, and I umpire up north of Belmont…”
Chavez blew air out. “Shit…”
Johnston laughed. “Combat pay, man. Combat pay.”