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  That night I told Daisy what had happened. She laughed and pulled back her long brown hair. “Whatever will be, will be, we will face it together.” She had said these same words before when she told me she was pregnant with Mark. We weren’t married and she didn’t care what other people thought. We would face it together.

  DEWEY

  The next day, the agents in Group Two were surprised to see me. I resumed my lone vigilance at my little table. Then the boy from the file room came in to see me. He was wearing a tailored sport jacket and bright tie. All the other agents were tall and serious, but he was much smaller and seemed to laugh at everything. His red hair was a mess, with a long strand covering one eye. With freckles and sparkling blue eyes, he looked like a kid ready to pull off all types of mischief. He was not carrying a gun, and I doubted that he was an agent. He introduced himself. “Hey, I’m Dewey Paris. I thought they fired you. Do you like sports? I’m giving two to one on the Yankees this weekend.”

  “No. I don’t gamble,” I said. “Yes, I’m still here.” I hoped he felt sorry for me, but he didn’t. He just walked out.

  For the next three days I sat alone at my small table in the corner, even though there were two unused desks in the group. One desk was covered with notes and little piles of cash that agents would drop off or pick up. Everyone, including the two new agents, Del Ridley and Jerry Ramirez, continued to ignore me. Only Dewey remained friendly and waved at me every time I passed the file room.

  Each night Daisy would watch for me to walk down the street and meet me at the door with a smile. “Well, what happened today?” She would convince me that I was better than they were. She even predicted that someone, a veteran agent, would see my potential and make friends with me. “It always happens that way,” she said. “Never, never, never give up.”

  She promised to send a big fruit basket to the office every day to move things along. This made both of us laugh.

  After four days of the silent treatment I had had enough. I walked into Pike’s office, “I want to make drug cases like the others, it’s the reason I was hired. I’m as good as they are, I want a chance.”

  Pike rocked back in his chair and patted his huge belly. “You’re an asshole, you don’t belong here, you still smell like dog shit.”

  I gritted my teeth and stared back, waiting for him to fire me.

  “Okay, we’ll see, there’s a case going down this afternoon. We’ll see if you’re as good as they are.”

  That afternoon Pike, Del Ridley, Jerry Ramirez, and a veteran agent named Ed Silkey met to discuss my first case. Pike told everyone that he had an informant named Buddy who had lined up a buy for ten thousand dollars for six ounces of heroin. It would take place this afternoon – and I was going to be the undercover agent. The plan was simple; I would take ten thousand dollars to a meeting in Harlem and buy the heroin. Del Ridley, Jerry Ramirez, Ed Silkey, and Pike would be on surveillance.

  I could see the expressions on everyone’s faces. No one believed that I was actually going to buy heroin. I had no training and was afraid and humiliated. I had no idea what six ounces of heroin looked like and was probably going to get myself killed, but I was never, never, never going to quit.

  Pike smiled. “You can have your pick of anyone here to be close to you in case things go bad. You know what I mean.” He waved to the three agents.

  Agent Silkey shook his head. “Not me, I’m out of here. This is wrong, this is bullshit. I want no part of this. I’m on another case.” He walked out.

  Before I could say anything Dewey Paris came in. “Pick me, pick me,” he begged, dancing around the room and raising his hand, “Pick me, pick me, pick me.”

  Pike exploded, “Get the fuck out of here, you little faggot.”

  Dewey Paris ignored him and stared at me. “I’m your friend, aren’t I?”

  I knew Pike was setting me up, so why not? My choices were two new agents or a file clerk. “I pick him,” I said defiantly and pointed to the silly prancing teenager.

  Pike turned red. “Okay, okay, here we go to Harlem with the asshole and the faggot. Come to think of it, it’s the right combination.”

  On the way to Harlem, Pike and I picked up Buddy at a bar in Midtown. The informant was black, wearing a powder-blue suit with black trim. Buddy explained, “I met Harrison two nights ago at Small’s. He got junkies in Brooklyn, near Coney Island. His connection’s fucking him over real good. He needs to move more shit or lose the deal. He’ll sell to anybody, believe me, you got dough, you got dope.” The deal was simple: I would show Harrison the money and Harrison would show me the heroin then we would do the exchange on the street out in the open. Once the buy was made, Ramirez and Ridley would try to follow Harrison, but there would be no arrest. This was the first buy, and we needed to find the drug source.

  We parked a block away from the meet. Buddy and I began walking down the street to the corner. I could see Pike, Ramirez, and Ridley following, but now more than a block away, trying to blend into the black neighborhood. Dewey remained in the government car, smiling and waving. Buddy and I waited on the street corner for about a half hour, leaning against the building and staring at people as they walked by. After a while I could no longer see any of the other agents. A black sedan drove past us and made a U-turn, parking about half a block away.

  Buddy grinned; I knew that it was Harrison. A large black man with a red wide-brim hat got out of the car and began walking toward us, smiling. He shook Buddy’s hand. Buddy introduced me as his friend who needed a new drug source. Harrison took a quick glance at me. “I don’t have time for fucking bullshit. Do you have the money? I want to see it.”

  I pulled out bundles of hundred-dollar bills from my pocket and tried to show it to him without being too obvious. Harrison stared at the bundles, then took off his hat and waved it. “Looks good to me.”

  As Harrison was talking I saw a short man get out of Harrison’s car. He carried his coat over his arm and walked toward us. I started to get nervous. “I’ve got the money. Where’s the junk?”

  Harrison laughed then handed me his hat. “Put the money in the hat.” From inside his coat he pulled a chrome-plated revolver. Buddy backed away into the doorway of a barber shop. Then the short man flashed a sawn-off pump shotgun from under his coat. I looked desperately for the other agents, but they weren’t there.

  “Give me the fucking money, motherfucker,” Harrison said as he cocked the hammer of the chrome revolver. My hand was shaking as I tried to hand him the money. I didn’t know what else to do.

  Harrison said, “If you’re a motherfucking cop you’re going to die.”

  Suddenly everything exploded in gunfire. Harrison was hit twice, dead center. I couldn’t tell where the shots were coming from. His chest exploded – and his revolver went crashing to the sidewalk. The other man raised the shotgun directly to my face, and was cut down by three more rounds of fire: one to the neck, chest and chin. He grabbed at his face, which was covered with blood spurting everywhere. I tried to scream but I couldn’t. I tried to run but I was frozen with fear. A third man, further down the street, began running toward me with a pistol in his hand, but suddenly he aimed away from me, across the street. He began shooting at Dewey Paris, who was running parallel, drawing fire to save my life. Dewey’s left arm was raised straight in the air as he fired with his right hand straight across his chest and through the moving traffic. His target managed to get two shots off before Dewey, still running, brought him down. The black sedan, tires screaming, pulled away from the curb, charging Dewey, who was now standing in the street. In one quick motion Dewey reloaded his .45 and fired shot after shot into the windshield until it veered off and crashed – into a parked car, one car length in front of me. Dewey waved and gave me one of his big smiles, then jogged down the street, disappearing into a subway entrance.

  Pike, Ridley and Ramirez surrounded me. The front of my pants were wet and warm. They pretended not to notice. Blood and bodies and car wreckage
littered the street and sidewalk. People were running back and forth. I could hear the sirens, but my mind was frozen by the sight of Agent Dewey Paris’s shooting rampage. The man I thought was a teenage file clerk had just shot the hell out of everything – and saved my life.

  * * *

  It’s hard to tell your wife that after three days on the job you pissed your pants while a file clerk, who looked like a teenage kid, killed four people to save your life. My pants had dried before I got home so Daisy thought I was joking when I said I had pissed my pants. She waited for me to tell her more. When I didn’t, the subject was postponed. After dinner I sat in the living-room chair and everything that had happened suddenly came back to me. I couldn’t talk. I began shaking. Daisy could see something was wrong. She retreated into the bedroom and got Mark, who was sleeping. She gently rocked him in her arms until he awoke. She said to him, “Wake up, wake up, time to get to work.” Daisy passed my son into my arms and went into the kitchen to clean up. My wife was beautiful and smart. She knew something terrible had happened, something so bad that talking about it would have to wait. I held my son in my arms until he fell asleep. The horrible reality of what had happened was now less important than my family.

  THE REPORT

  The next morning Blanker, Pike, Del Ridley, Jerry Ramirez and I met in a conference room. Pike pounded the table as he said to Blanker, “I want him brought up on charges. I want him fired. We had a good case going and he killed everyone. Four people dead, all of them shot multiple times. I can’t even find him. You can’t just kill people in the street and not report it. We’re federal agents. He’s a psychotic killer. This has happened before. The Bureau can no longer tolerate him.” Blanker nodded in agreement and looked down the table at all of us. “Write your reports up and I’ll have him charged tomorrow.”

  I was tempted to remind Pike he had killed people in the street and failed to report it less than a week ago, but I didn’t say anything.

  After lunch Pike, Ridley, Ramirez, and Buddy the informant signed an incident report that said that Dewey Paris had panicked recklessly and caused the death of four dope dealers during an undercover operation in Harlem. The report named me as the undercover agent who agreed with the other agents. There was no mention of Harrison pulling a gun and threatening to kill me, or a man with a shotgun, or the charging car, or Dewey making himself a target to save me, or his spectacular display of marksmanship that I would never forget.

  Pike put the report in front of me. “We were all there. We saw it. Sign it.”

  Last night I had cried in Daisy’s arms when I finally told her what had happened. She had held me tight and said, “Fight for truth, justice and the American way.”

  Pike’s face switched from a fake smile to a menacing glare. “This was your first buy. You were afraid. You didn’t see things the way they were. We all saw it. You were in no danger. You don’t have to sign the report … but if you don’t, you should look for another job. Why don’t you think it over? We can’t let agents like Dewey Paris lose control and begin killing people, can we? He’s done this very same thing before.”

  For the rest of the afternoon I sat at my desk, alone, staring at the report, which had an element of truth to it, but was grossly misleading and unfair. Even though it had everyone else’s signature, I could not sign it. Daisy’s words kept coming back to me. No one had seen or spoken to Dewey, but Pike’s secretary said he would be in tomorrow for sure to pay off the winners of the baseball pool.

  I went home at five o’clock. Lying on a report seemed to bother me more than seeing Dewey kill four people. Daisy understood it, too. “Once you begin lying, the whole structure will begin to crumble. If you lose your job over telling the truth you never had a real job in the first place.” To distract me from all of this turmoil she put on sexy short baby-doll pajamas then smeared her lips with too much lipstick and painted her cheeks with rouge so she looked like an over-the-top street whore. I didn’t feel like having sex anyway. It did make us laugh.

  MICHAEL GIOVANNI

  The next morning Dewey came in laughing and joking as usual. He laid out a stack of money envelopes on his desk; then left, announcing that he had an early lunch and was going to a basketball game in the afternoon. Pike waited for me to sign the report so they could fire Dewey. As I sat at my table a stranger walked through the door; he was unshaven, dressed in a black shiny suit and a floppy hat. His face was sunken and his eyes dark and beady like a snake. He wasn’t very big, and he looked angry. He went directly into Pike’s office. “Knock this shit off. It’s over.”

  Pike slumped down in his chair and said, “What do you mean it’s over?”

  The man, raising his voice so everyone in the group could hear, replied, “Knock this shit off with Dewey. I just talked to Blanker. Change the fucking reports. You don’t touch Dewey. Do you all hear? You know what Dewey does, everyone knows what he does. Do you understand? Change the reports and change them now.” He walked past me then turned around and said, “Are you the agent that won’t sign the report?”

  Before I could nod yes, he said, “So you’re the only agent here who stands up for the truth.” He began to laugh. “So you won’t lie on a government report.” He laughed even harder and walked out.

  Later I signed a new investigation report that said four drug dealers were gunned down in an attempted robbery and that the shootings by “various agents were justified.”

  I had confronted Pike and won with the help of a veteran agent just like Daisy said would happen. I had told the truth and gained the respect of my fellow agents. Gradually other agents introduced themselves. Besides Dewey Paris, there was Cleophus Brown, a black agent with a gold front tooth; Louie Gomez (Louie the G), a dapper Puerto Rican who carried an antique two-barreled Derringer; and Ed Silkey, who had refused to help Pike set me up.

  Agent Johnny Greenway was the last to introduce himself. He was tall and wore cowboy boots with silver tips and a gray Western-style suit with a string tie. Strapped to his waist, cross-draw, was a chrome-plated six-shooter with a long nine-inch barrel. Of course he spoke with a Western drawl with plenty of how-dees and you alls.

  My name now appeared on the roster as Michael Giovanni’s partner. People would look at me and shake their heads. “You’re Michael’s partner? Do you even know who Michael is?” I had no idea, but assumed he was the stranger who had saved Dewey from false charges. Apparently everyone was afraid of him, including Pike.

  For the next two weeks, I arrived in the morning and waited for Michael, who, if he came in at all, never arrived before 2:00 p.m. and then completely ignored me.

  I had a lot of time to think. I kept remembering how strange my job interview was … especially in the last meeting with two agents, Colder and Wagner, more than two months ago. They started by telling me how hung over they were. Colder said, “God, I’m so hung over I can hardly see. Last night I met this girl, took her to her place and we fucked all night. I woke up this morning and didn’t even know her name.”

  Agent Wagner laughed and told his story. “I got this broad on the side, goes for everything; you wouldn’t believe the shit she does to me.”

  Both agents laughed together, then Agent Colder said to me, “You get the picture, don’t you, what it’s like on the street? Are you going to fit in? When was the last time you got laid? Tell us.”

  I was shocked that he would ask a question like that during a job interview. I wanted to answer. Daisy was the only sex I had known and she never took it seriously. When we made love she was always cracking jokes and laughing. But I couldn’t tell them that so I said, “I’d rather not talk about my sex life if it’s okay.”

  Both of the agents looked at me with disgust and changed the subject, but strangely one week later I got a letter informing me I was hired as a federal agent.

  Jerry Ramirez and Del Ridley – the agents who started with me – were scheduled for training in Washington; I still expected to be fired any day since no one told me
that I would be going with them. Also I had been given a lightweight aluminum gun. As Dewey Paris explained, it was for agents who didn’t really need one – like IRS agents. This reinforced my fears. I began to think that maybe, if no one noticed me, they would again forget to fire me and that sitting alone in the office day after day, pretending to be Michael Giovanni’s partner, would somehow make me a real agent.

  DARK SECRET

  Eventually Michael did ask me to go to lunch. His idea for lunch was a hotdog from a vendor in the street. As we ate, he told me that this was the wrong job for me. “You’re a smart kid, find something that will work for you; can’t you see what’s going on around you? Do you think Group Leader Pike can teach you to become a good agent?”

  The question surprised me and I wasn’t sure how to answer. “No. I don’t think he can teach me anything,” I answered. “I don’t care, I want to be an agent and I’m not giving up. Maybe you or someone else can teach me. I see what goes on in the office.” I told him the story about Pike and the two policemen. It made him laugh. For some strange reason, killing a man in the street, then running him over with your car, and forgetting to write it up seemed funny to me too. Michael returned to the subject of my career. “Give it up. Can’t you see you’re not cut out for this life?”

  “Yes, I am. You don’t know me. I want this job.” There was a moment of silence between us. Then I asked, “Why did Wagner and Colder ask about my sex life during the job interview?”

  Michael smiled. “It was a set-up question, standard for us. They try to get you to talk about your love life. If you’re dumb enough to tell people who you’re fucking in a job interview you’re out, common sense.”

  I was surprised by the answer. “Why did they hire me, a nobody from Ohio?”

  “Because you are impressionable, we can mold you into anything we want. Also you were an actor in high school and college. That’s good for this job.”