90 Church Page 4

  Her whole body was sweating and trembling. She pleaded, “Please no, I just want to score … I have children, a husband, please, oh, please, no, oh please.”

  Mars smiled. “It’s up to you, hot mama, if you want your dope.”

  The two black men went into the bedroom. Maureen was trembling out of control and began to cry as she walked slowly into the bedroom. Starbuck closed the door.

  Pepper pulled his revolver from his pocket and pointed it at me. He whispered, “You say one word about this or try to help, I’ll blow your fucking head off.” He reached in the drawer and put my gun in his pocket, then motioned to the door, “We’re getting out of this right now.”

  As we walked out, beyond the bedroom door we heard Mars say, “Leave those pretty shoes on. Starbuck’s gonna give you a hot shot right in your pussy. You’ll love it. That’s it, hold still. Soon you’ll be on your hands and knees barking, barking like a dog.”

  As Pepper and I walked down the hall toward the elevator, he handed me my gun. Then there was a loud, human cry; it was a sound that I had never heard before. I couldn’t wait for the elevator, I ran down the stairs and out into the street to a cold but sunny day. There was a white Cadillac with gold trim parked in front of the apartment – a car I would never forget.

  The streets of New York are always busy, millions of people with both joy and misery in their lives. No one could possibly begin to understand how I felt. Being afraid was the least of my feeling; the rape, the junkie’s horror, the extreme hatred and desire to kill Mars La Pont, all swirled inside me like a toxic stew. As if this wasn’t enough, my ticket to hell just got punched with a line of cocaine. I was scared, really scared.

  After walking the cold streets of Manhattan for hours I checked into a cheap hotel and went to sleep, hoping it was all a bad dream.

  The next morning I went back to the office, looking and smelling worse than my first day. Michael smiled. “Why don’t you go home? You’re going to work tomorrow. You’ve had enough vacation.”

  As I was leaving, I saw the list of agents scheduled to go to Washington for training the next week taped to the wall. My name was handwritten on the bottom of the list. I had made it.

  I had spent the night without calling Daisy, so on my way home I bought her a black Yankees baseball cap. She had collected hats for years and wore a different one every day. It was late afternoon when I walked in and I surprised her. She was holding Mark. She looked at me holding her stupid little gift. Her face twisted to shock and tears as she backed up, and slumped into the corner, holding our son in one hand and waving me away from her with the other. I tried to explain where I was and why I didn’t call, but she wouldn’t listen. Eventually her anger lessened and I promised to call her the next time, no matter what.

  That night again, I pushed all my feelings deep inside. I dreamed I was back in Ohio on our farm, driving a green tractor. I was pulling a large red mechanical rake that gathers up straw. Brownie, my Collie dog, was following, barking and running back and forth. He got too close to the rotating rake blades. As it pulled him in I heard the dog scream. It was her scream, too. I knew it very well and would never forget it.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE SORCERER’S APPRENTICE

  TRAINING

  In January, six months after I had killed my first drug dealer and lied on a government report, Jerry Ramirez, Del Ridley and I went to Washington for training. We learned about heroin, self-defense, and drug laws. I began to understand the Bureau. Most of the drugs were imported from Italy and controlled by the five Mafia families in New York. The value of street heroin and cocaine varied widely, depending upon supply and demand and how much of it was diluted. To enforce narcotic laws, agents had to buy drugs from suspects at least two times to avoid a defense of entrapment. To do this, agents had to go undercover, and be introduced by an informant who would lie about who we really were. Making and using informants was the real industry of the Bureau. From its beginnings in the late 40’s, the Bureau of Narcotics was not interested in making small arrests; it was just a waste of time and government resources. Its agents gathered information on big dealers and organized crime. The Bureau was dedicated to getting hard narcotics off the street, primarily heroin and cocaine and – if time permitted – marijuana. The objective was to take out the ringleaders, the Mafia wholesalers, any way possible. Despite the lofty goals of 90 Church, the agents had to make at least twenty new cases each month to continue to receive government funding. The agents handled this outrageous bureaucratic demand by making many small cases on lowlife junkies and pretending they were big investigations. I learned something else that explained why all the agents drove fancy, expensive cars: Cadillacs, Lincolns, and even sports cars. If the Bureau caught anyone transporting drugs or using their cars in any way to break the law, the agents would seize them and keep them, even if the suspects were found not guilty.

  With only a handful of agents, the Bureau was overwhelmed; the Mafia had tremendous resources, financed with millions of dollars. America looked to this little agency to stop the horrendous flow of drugs that were killing people and causing so much crime. In New York City alone there were over twenty-five thousand known addicts robbing and killing people to support their hundred-dollar-a-day habits.

  The Bureau gathered intelligence through an espionage network of criminals who the agents had turned into informants. Once a dealer was caught he had one of two choices: he could go to prison – in which case the agents would change the files so he would be labeled an informer and get murdered by the other inmates – or he could become an informant and set up his friends and drug connections. Now I understood what Dewey’s ugly file clerks did all day. They were falsifying the records to protect informants or spiking the other files of criminals who did not cooperate.

  In theory, if the defendant gave the agents enough information to make cases on other criminals, the Bureau would not prosecute his case and he would go free. In reality, he was never free again. He had to do anything that was asked by the agents, no matter what it was, including murder. The agents controlled his whole life. He informed on his friends, his drug source, and his family – everyone – in order to stay alive. Informants risked their lives every day and betrayed everybody. Agents held them in a deadly web of slavery. There was, of course, a bonus: the informant could return to a life of crime and drug dealing with the protection of the Bureau. For the first time I began to think about Michael differently. Michael didn’t waste time chasing down drug dealers. He controlled his informants just like Pepper controlled his junkies. The informants did all the dangerous work.

  After six weeks of training, I came back to 90 Church Street and to my own desk, but Michael was gone. Just like that, he had disappeared. No one knew where he was, or where to call him, and no one seemed to care. Only Pike offered a suggestion as to what had happened to Michael: “He’s a boozer, he’s on a toot, he’ll show up. No big deal.” Then he pointed his thumb to his mouth, the sign of a drunk.

  I bought a shoulder holster. The gun hung close under my armpit with the barrel pointing out the back, not down, and since it was thin it was very well-concealed. I wore my new gun and pretended to be important. My partner was the infamous Michael Giovanni – if he ever came back.

  GROUP TWO

  After a week of waiting for Michael, I was teamed with Dewey Paris. Agent Greenway, the cowboy, told me that Dewey had been transferred from Naval Intelligence and had attended the University of Michigan. Dewey carried a dull black military-issue .45 automatic with bright red cherry-wood grips in a special holster that hung the gun down the center of his back. It was completely hidden so it never ruined the look of his expensive suits. Pike and all the other Bureau supervisors hated Dewey’s gum-chewing, wise-cracking attitude, his obvious contempt for authority, and his total incompetence. They said he belonged in the file room with his ugly, shy, little friends. The supervisors were embarrassed to call him a federal agent. Dewey could not answer a single quest
ion, no matter how simple, about any case and he continually told dirty jokes to anyone who would listen. He had no friends and usually ate lunch in the file room, annoying his supervisors even more. Every day his desk in Group Two was piled high with messages, but they were all sports betting orders and nothing else. Dewey had saved my life. I didn’t care what everyone thought, I liked him and he was certainly not what he appeared to be.

  Dewey told me about some of the other Group Two agents. According to Dewey, Agent Ed Silkey could out-drive anyone; he was the best wheelman in the Bureau. Michael liked Ed for another quality: Ed liked to beat people up. His wife was a short, pretty Spanish girl who cheated on him all the time, eventually exposing her secret lovers to him with inevitable results. This kept Ed’s tolerance for violence high. Ed always forgave his wife and she always came back to him, but there was a lot of emotional damage going on in between. Agent Louis Gomez, or “Louie the G,” was obsessed with sex and he hit on every girl he met. Agent Gomez carried a switchblade knife most of the time because he thought carrying a gun sent the wrong message to dealers. Besides, his Derringer was so old it probably wouldn’t fire anyway. Michael liked Louie’s attitude.

  Agent Greenway was from El Paso, Texas. He looked the part with his cowboy hat, cross-draw holster and nine-inch chrome Western-style six-shooter. I remembered a picture that Agent Greenway had on his desk, showing him standing in front of at least six dead people lying on the ground. I asked Dewey, “You know the picture on Greenway’s desk – what happened?”

  Dewey smiled. “You know, it’s all about drugs and money. When Greenway was stationed in El Paso, his partner was killed. He was going to a ballgame with his kid and they just shot him.”

  “Who did? Who shot him, and why?”

  Dewey shook his head. “On the border everything is for sale. There is nothing, and no one, that can’t be bought and corrupted with drug money. They killed Greenway’s partner because he made a case against some Mexican dopers. You see, in Mexico dealing drugs is a capital offense, so there are no arrests like there are in the United States. Every arrest is a shoot-out to the death.”

  “So what’s with the picture?” I persisted.

  “Greenway asked for Michael’s help, which was a mistake. Never ask for Michael’s help, never, never ever! Anyway, Michael wrote a memo to Greenway, telling him that he had a secret informant who knew people that were selling drugs on both sides of the border and he also knew who the killer was. Michael told Greenway to come alone. The memo said the informant would be waiting at a house just across the border. Greenway’s boss and the Border Patrol agents went to the meeting and all hell broke out. Everyone was there. You wouldn’t believe it – dopers, El Paso policemen, and even Federales. A gunfight broke out and lasted an hour. In the end they were all dead and there was no dope and no informant. Greenway dragged the bodies all together and took a picture of them with him standing over them. For certain one of the son-of-a-bitches killed his partner, and Greenway just likes to stare at all the bodies and wonder which one.”

  “I don’t get it. Why were they waiting for Greenway? And what happened when there were no drugs or informant, when the agents just killed people?”

  Dewey lit a cigarette. “Michael’s memo gave them probable cause. Greenway’s boss knew it was one of Michael’s deals. They all fell for it. It’s like Michael says, ‘If you’re guilty you believe the worst.’ They were all there like Michael knew they would be. They were all guilty. It was a hell of a shoot-out. You see, Michael figured why would anyone go there in the first place and then start shooting if they were innocent? They transferred Greenway to New York City because there was so much heat. The Bureau finally realized the memo was bogus, and never said a word to Michael. And now guess what? Greenway is working for Michael and looking every day at the picture of dead bodies, wondering which one killed his partner. This is how good law enforcement works. Bring all the bad guys together and shoot them where no innocent people will get hurt.”

  Dewey said Michael used to be a schoolteacher who traveled Europe and Russia on educational grants to study subjects like politics, economy and crime. Then he found out the “educational funds” were really money from the CIA, who used his research to spy on foreign governments. He was the perfect spy because he didn’t know he was a spy. Michael made a deal with the CIA, then something very bad happened. Whatever it was, Michael hated drug dealers and the government. Dewey said something funny about Michael: “If I were a drug dealer, I would look under my bed every night to see if Michael was there. Michael is worse than any boogeyman.”

  Being Dewey Paris’s partner was worse than working with Michael Giovanni. Dewey did absolutely nothing. Our days were spent trying to raise money for his sports betting and in the evenings bouncing around Manhattan bars, trying to pick up girls. Dewey acted surprised when I asked where he thought Michael had gone; he laughed, “Michael’s gone? How do you know he’s gone? Just because no one has seen him doesn’t mean he’s gone. Michael doesn’t go away, Michael is always here, Michael can never be gone and Michael can never be wrong, never gone and never wrong.” Dewey Paris was never serious about anything until he pulled his gun. Then he was deadly serious.

  STUCKEY

  About a week later Michael came in the office. Except for the gift of my beautiful, blue, chrome-plated, pearl-handled automatic, he never expressed any gratitude to me for saving his life and keeping the dark secret of his forced fellatio. However, his attitude toward me began to change. When he came into the office he would ask how I was doing and try to find something for me to do, like look up names in a file or track down a phone number. I looked forward to seeing Michael because the other agents had started to avoid me again since I was not really part of any on-going investigations. Only Dewey with his constant stream of dirty jokes remained friendly to me.

  Once again I became Michael’s driver but now we would drink together late at night. I pitied him. I had Daisy; he seemed to have no one. He would rant on about his hatred of drug dealers and organized crime and the junkies, whom he called “people suffering from latent rigor mortis.” Despite all the years of service he was still a low-level street agent, yet he pushed Pike and everyone else around. Every other Thursday night at about seven in the evening, Michael would drop me off to go home. I hoped he had a girlfriend and that they met on those nights for dinner.

  But on one Thursday night, instead of dropping me off, we drove to the Heidelberg restaurant on 89th Street, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. The Heidelberg catered to tourists. Loud and open, it wasn’t the type of place we would normally visit. I followed Michael through a door to the back and up a flight of stairs to a small private banquet room. I had no idea what to expect when I saw agents from the office: Johnny Greenway, Dewey Paris, Ed Silkey, Louie the G, even agents from the other groups that handled the wiretaps and surveillance. From the looks on their faces, I was the last person they expected to see. Michael just said, “If he’s with me, he’s with me.”

  Then he waved me toward an empty chair and I sat down to my first real planning meeting. There were photographs and organizational charts of crime families and drug organizations on all four walls. I was surprised to see Dewey, with his know-nothing attitude, sitting next to Michael and in front of a large stack of files. He shuffled them in and out of a suitcase on the floor. Dewey’s hours and lunches with the Bureau’s file clerks now began to make even more sense.

  Each agent talked about his case and sought help from the others on surveillance, getting government money, research, wiretaps, and inside information on Mafia and drug dealers. Michael said nothing during the discussions; usually he just nodded or shook his head. We were served platters of Chinese food. Dewey told me later that their meetings were always catered; Italian, French, Chinese.

  When the agents were done discussing their own cases, Michael talked about a case that he was working on. Despite the fact that I had been his partner for months I had no idea what he was
talking about. He said that his informant, Charles Stuckey, would be negotiating a buy for a couple of ounces of heroin. Michael said he planned to requisition fifteen thousand dollars in government funds and suggested that Louie the G – the Puerto Rican agent – do the undercover buy with Stuckey. Michael assigned Ed Silkey, Dewey Paris, Johnny Greenway, and me to be the street team. Everyone sat around digging into bowls of noodles with chopsticks. As usual, Dewey made the first wisecrack. “I don’t think we’ll need a lot of surveillance since Stuckey will be selling and buying his own dope.”

  It got a short laugh from everyone except Michael, and I didn’t get the joke. But it was clear no one was impressed with the case.

  The next morning Dewey gave me the Stuckey file. Six months earlier Michael had set him up with an undercover agent for two buys of heroin. Stuckey was a drug dealer with a long history of arrests for numbers, assaults, and two prior drug busts. Now he was an informant. He had two clear choices: either work for Michael or go to prison for twenty years.

  Eventually I met Charles Stuckey with Michael. Stuckey would have made a great salesman; he was well-dressed, and had a big smile. I liked him – his style, his confidence, and his interest in everyone he met. Michael introduced me as his “new partner” and told Stuckey to call me from now on.

  Over the next several weeks Stuckey would call me to check out names in our files. We became friends as he tried to put together a heroin buy. Often, he would ask what I thought Michael was thinking. I always answered, “Honestly, I haven’t the slightest clue.”

  Eventually Stuckey introduced Louie the G to his drug connection, a young black dealer from Harlem. The first $15,000 buy went like clockwork, but the dealer disappeared into Harlem and we lost him in traffic. The second buy was for ten thousand dollars and it went just like the first. We had a kilo of heroin between the two buys and it looked like a solid case, but we still didn’t know the drug source. This bothered everyone except Michael. A week later agent Ed Silkey and I went uptown to arrest the dealer. We grabbed him around ten o’clock at night and took him back to the office. Silkey threw him against the office wall, almost knocking him unconscious, then ripped open his shirtsleeve.