90 Church Page 8

  I recognized Dewey’s work. One of Pepper’s junkie customers had mugged the old lady and then given the purse to Dewey, who was waiting in front of Domenic’s house. With the maid’s keys they had no problem getting in and in less than a half an hour had screwed the gypsy underneath Domenic’s desk in his study, and jacked into the desk phone. Afterwards, Dewey put the keys back in the woman’s purse and threw it in a dumpster one block from the grocery store. Kyle told his beat cops to be sure to search all dumpsters in the area. The purse and keys were easily found.

  Every day we played the recordings back at the poker table at the clinic, but never discussed them in the office. Domenic assumed that the phone lines were always tapped, so none of the telephone conversations were incriminating. The recordings of live conversations inside Scarluci’s study, however, were astounding. In one conversation a dealer pleaded for his life. Apparently he had skimmed some drug money. Domenic forgave him, but told him never to do it again. Later that same day, Domenic could be heard ordering the man to be killed. Two days later the dealer’s body was found in the East River.

  Charles Moon visited Scarluci often and they could be heard laughing about Charles’s son, Bobby, and how good he was at beating and killing people. They hoped he could build a good “crew.”

  One of the most chilling conversations on the tapes was a presentation by a drug dealer who wanted Domenic and Charles Moon to give him two kilos of heroin on credit. The dealer explained his program for high-school girls: he would give them free marijuana and then let them snort coke. Once the girls liked the coke he would pretend he was out of coke and tell them they should try heroin. Once hooked on heroin he would have the girls raped to destroy their self-respect. Then they would turn tricks for a fix of heroin and pay back everything. The plan was so outrageous it was almost comical, but they were serious. None of this was of any interest to Michael or Dewey until Charles Moon mentioned the name “Edmond Manchester,” who would bring in a new shipment of heroin in the next few weeks.

  During this time my relationship with Lisa Marie improved. Pepper would give me the heroin and she would always buy two or three small bundles of heroin. Each time she would pretend that this was her last buy. She tried to be nice to me and sometimes even brought me little gift bags of cocaine. I wasn’t addicted from the first time I used coke and a lot of time had passed, so I would let her see me snort it. Whatever doubts she had about trusting me were gone.

  As usual, each time Dewey had something new for me to say to her. It was information meant to build her confidence in me. Once Dewey had me tell her that I knew about a certain robbery in New Jersey. I called the heist very well-handled, and said her father should be proud. Another time I told her that I was glad that a drug shipment had been completed; and later I said a certain dealer deserved to get thrown in the river, since everyone knew he was stealing from her family. Lisa Marie was impressed that I knew so much. She never once gave me any information on her father.

  After about three weeks of being Lisa Marie’s connection I was surprised to receive a memo of commendation from George Blanker on the excellent work that I had done to develop new cases on organized crime. I was asked to stand up at our Monday morning meeting while the agents gave me a round of applause. Blanker explained that I had recruited a secret informer who was leading us to a major investigation of two Mafia families. Like many times in the past, I was too embarrassed to admit that I didn’t know the bigger plan, but just followed instructions. As usual Dewey and Michael were not even mentioned.

  Later, Pike told me that he got a court order for a wiretap on Domenic Scarluci’s phone based upon the information I had received from Lisa Marie, which established probable cause. Now I began to understand that it was the gypsy providing the information that Dewey passed on to me to impress Lisa Marie. Lisa Marie simply confirmed it – but Dewey wrote reports saying it was coming directly from her and she was the reliable source named to obtain the wiretap warrant.

  The legal wiretap was necessary, but had limitations since it only recorded phone conversations on Domenic’s private phone line, not what was happening inside Scarluci’s study. But we were now able to “legally” explain everything.

  Once I arrived early to one of my meetings with Lisa Marie and saw Domenic Scarluci for the first time. She was walking down the street holding onto the arm of a gray-haired, well-dressed gentleman. It was difficult for me to imagine that such a friendly-looking man could be the cold-blooded killer and Mafia leader whose voice I had heard so often on the tape, chilling me to the bone.

  I also began to wonder if there was any difference between Pepper and me selling dope.

  Finally I questioned Dewey. “This is not right. I’m selling drugs to Lisa Marie, and Pepper is selling drugs in the street. What’s the difference?”

  He laughed. “First of all, you’re selling Pepper’s drugs to Lisa Marie, it’s not your drugs, and secondly, if you get popped it will be your first offense, so you won’t get any time.”

  I didn’t laugh. “Dewey, this is not how we’re supposed to play the game.”

  Dewey stopped smiling. “Game? You think this is a fucking game, a game with rules? You heard Domenic and Moon on that tape with their game plan for high-school girls. What kind of game was that? Where are their rules? New York City alone has over twenty-five thousand dead people running around stealing and killing innocent people – and worse, making more dead people by infecting them with drugs and getting them to do the same thing. This is not a game, this is a war! We’re fighting an enemy worse than you can possibly imagine. They only care about killing and stealing and forcing others to do the same. We’re not fighting for America’s soul, we’re fighting to survive, and if we don’t win now, what do you think the future will be like?”

  I thought a few minutes, then said, “Yeah, you’re right.”

  MANCHESTER

  That evening we ate French food at the Heidelberg, and for the first time, no one talked business during dinner. The case had become extremely serious and confidential. Michael waited until they served dessert and all the waiters had left the room before turning the meeting over to Dewey.

  Dewey held up a photograph of a middle-aged man who looked like a schoolteacher wearing a tweed jacket and bow tie. “His name is Edmond Manchester.”

  Some of the agents began to clap.

  “Edmond Manchester lives on the West Side, Eighty-sixth and Amsterdam. We have him on a legal tap with Scarluci. The paper supporting his warrant is solid. We are taking this case to court.”

  Again there was a round of applause for Dewey. I sat there pretending that I knew what they were talking about.

  “Scarluci is arranging for Charles Moon to buy ten keys of smack – top grade, pure quality – for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Tomorrow we’ll review the information from the wiretap with Pike and Blanker, and begin a twenty-four-hour surveillance on Edmond Manchester. Based on the information we have now, it will take a few days for the Moon family to put together enough money for the buy. Interpol and the Bureau’s files have no criminal record of Manchester, only that he pretends to be a second-rate international jeweler.”

  Michael explained that an investigation of this magnitude would draw a lot of attention and, unless the buy went down next week, our plans would leak to Scarluci or Charles Moon.

  The next day Pike and Blanker beamed with pride over the news of Manchester. They congratulated me and patted my back again, never once mentioning Dewey or Michael. Pike actually believed the only thing Dewey did was to type my investigation reports, and he even suggested that if I wanted to get a new partner he would okay it. The Bureau supervisors did not think it was ludicrous that I – a novice agent with no previous experience with organized crime, and with less than two years on the job – would be in charge of a complex case that was going to bring down two Mafia families. No one seemed bothered about this except me.

  Two days later the call came. Dewey summoned Sil
key, Michael, and me over to a quiet corner in the office. “Here’s the deal. Last night Scarluci called Manchester and told him they were ready to move ahead, and that he should put the product out for display today. Manchester is going to front the drugs and we know it’s going to be this afternoon. We’ve got to be on him. Ed, you lead the surveillance. Don’t lose him. Everything is at stake.”

  Ed Silkey and I drove immediately to the West Side and parked outside Manchester’s apartment. We waited for almost two and a half hours. Finally Manchester came out carrying a small suitcase, and hailed a cab.

  Silkey yanked the car in gear and spun a U-turn, pulling out in front of two cars, ignoring their blowing horns and screeching tires. He was four car-lengths behind Manchester’s cab, going south, when the traffic stopped for a red light, but Manchester’s cab continued on. Silkey downshifted, pulled up on the sidewalk and pushed the accelerator to the floor. The car fishtailed down the sidewalk, smashing garbage cans and scattering pedestrians, before careening back into the street, through a red light. We were now only three cars behind, but I was sure I’d be dead in just a few minutes.

  Silkey seemed completely oblivious to the turmoil and wreckage he was leaving in his wake, but my arms were locked straight out in front of me, hard against the dashboard, and I chanted over and over, “Please, God. Please, God.” I expected to see Silkey calmly light a cigarette as he dashed through another red light, narrowing the gap to one car-length.

  We followed Manchester to the Port Authority. He got out and paid the cab. Silkey stopped the car and we followed on foot. Manchester strolled through the Port Authority crowds to a bank of lockers next to the ticket counters. He placed the suitcase in one of them, pocketed the key, and walked back the same way he came in.

  I got the locker number. Silkey put his arm around me. “Good work.”

  Pike set up a 24-hour surveillance on the locker, but we had to know what was in the suitcase. Based upon the wiretap information and the surveillance, Pike got a search warrant for the locker and at about midnight, when the huge terminal was almost empty, the Port Authority Police opened the locker for Dewey, Pike, and myself. We took the suitcase to 90 Church to examine its contents. There were not ten, but eleven kilos of pure, snow-white heroin. There was a bonus kilo. Each bag was carefully wrapped in clear cellophane and taped.

  While Pike and Blanker watched, Dewey and I marked each of the kilo bags with special ink that could only be seen with an infrared light. Dewey explained, “Now we have the evidence marked, we return the heroin to the locker, to see who comes to pick it up.”

  Trying to get control of the case, Pike told Dewey: “Continue the twenty-four-hour surveillance on the locker. I’ll have two agents relieve you at eight tomorrow morning. Don’t take your eyes off it for a second.”

  The next day I saw Dewey in the office around noon. He was clean-shaven and laughing with the other agents as usual. He certainly didn’t look like he’d been up all night on surveillance at the locker. Later in the afternoon we went to the Port Authority to check on the second surveillance team.

  When we got there Dewey told the agents to take thirty minutes off for dinner and that he and I would take over.

  Dewey left for about ten minutes and came back with a Port Authority policeman who opened up the locker. Dewey was now carrying the suitcase of heroin, which he then placed in the empty locker. Dewey thanked the policemen as they walked off.

  “My God,” I said to Dewey. “I thought you put the dope back in the locker last night! These guys have been watching an empty locker all day? You’ve had the heroin all this time? Are you crazy? What if someone had come to pick it up?”

  Dewey just shook his head. “Yes, I took it home with me. I couldn’t sit around in a bus terminal all night watching a stupid locker. I had things to do last night. Don’t say anything, Pike would get mad. Pike doesn’t like me … he thinks I don’t follow orders very well.” He started to giggle. “You know I try hard to please Pike, don’t you?”

  SWINDLE

  The next day some astonishing developments emerged in the case. First, at 8:30 the next morning a young man arrived at the Port Authority locker and picked up Edmond Manchester’s suitcase. The team followed him to Charlie Moon’s house in Queens. I learned later that the legal wiretap had intercepted a message giving instructions on how to pick up the locker key, and where to deliver the suitcase. Later the surveillance team followed another courier, who delivered the two hundred and fifty thousand dollars from Moon’s house to Manchester’s apartment.

  Pike and Blanker wanted to arrest Charlie Moon and Edmond Manchester – they had solid surveillance on the drop, the pick-up, and payment to Manchester – but Michael objected. He argued that there was no hurry to make an arrest; we needed to know who else was involved, we should wait to see what Manchester did with the money, and whether or not Charlie Moon tried to sell the heroin to his friends. Pike agreed, but when Dewey asked him to continue 24-hour surveillance on the lockers in the Port Authority, he refused, calling it “stupid”; why watch an empty locker? The drugs were already gone. I thought it was a dumb request too. Dewey kept arguing they may use the same locker again. I had enough experience working with Dewey to know that, somehow, this was going to end very badly.

  That evening Michael convened a dinner at the Heidelberg. We had Nathan’s hotdogs with potato knishes, brown mustard, and sauerkraut, with draft beer. Dewey played a tape from the legal wiretap. The first part of the tape was not relevant. Then came the bombshell. It was a phone call from Charlie Moon. Charlie told Domenic Scarluci that he had received the shipment of “gems” and that there were more than he had ordered. He was grateful, but the quality was bad. The value of the gems was “not as good as it should have been. In fact the diamonds should have been perfect; instead they were of questionable quality and only worth half as much as what he had paid.”

  Domenic was shocked. “That’s impossible,” he argued. “I’ve worked with Edmond for years. This is not possible. Please remain calm and I will straighten it out.”

  Next came a phone call to Edmond Manchester. Again Domenic pretended to talk about gems. Manchester insisted that the gems were absolutely perfect. He would have an independent appraiser look at the diamonds to assure their quality but he was certain it would be straightened out. However, there would be no refunds at this time, and if the quality of the gems was indeed poor he would make it up on the next shipment. Domenic was not pleased. When the tape ended, Michael looked at Dewey and started to laugh, then he said, “Good work.” Dewey smiled and answered, “Under your command, my captain.” Michael started laughing again as he walked out of the room, ending the meeting. I smiled and pretended to know why Michael was laughing, but I had that sinking feeling again.

  THE DRUG DEALER

  A few days later I got a phone call from Pepper telling me that he had set up a meeting with Lisa Marie at a small restaurant in Little Italy. On the way, Dewey told me to ask Lisa Marie if she wanted to buy eleven kilos of high-quality heroin for seventy-five thousand dollars. “Tell her it’s in a locker in the Port Authority and you’ll front the dope but only if you can see the money first. Tell her it’s from the same connection her father uses.”

  I was astonished – but there wasn’t time to argue with him. I got to the restaurant a half hour late. Lisa Marie was already through her second drink and visibly angry.

  “Where the fuck have you been?” she demanded. She had never sworn before and had always spoken in a dignified, calm manner. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the three bags of Pepper’s heroin and discretely passed it over to her across the table, covering my hand with a napkin. She took the bags and slid them into her purse and handed me fifty dollars. Her attitude became friendly and she handed me a gift bag of coke. We sat in a corner booth and both snorted a pinch.

  “I find myself in a very unusual situation,” I said. “I have more smack than I know what to do with. I have recently come into a quanti
ty of excellent heroin. I want you to consider buying it.”

  She was shocked. “You’ve got to be crazy. I don’t do things like that. I only buy for my personal use.”

  “That’s too bad. You have no idea how much money you could make. I can offer you a terrific deal.” Then I leaned close and said, “I have eleven kilos of heroin. I will sell them to you for seventy-five thousand dollars. They’re in a locker at the Port Authority. When you raise the money I’ll give you the key to the locker. I know who you are and I trust you. Besides, we’re dealing with the same people who work with your father. I’ll front the dope; you just bring me the money first so I can see that you’re for real.”

  She looked at me like I was crazy. “I’m leaving. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I want nothing to do with this.”

  As she started to get up, I said, “If you change your mind, call Pepper’s apartment. He’ll know where to find me.”

  Lisa Marie walked from the restaurant without even a glance back. I sat there in silence with my drink until Dewey came and sat down.

  “I just tried to sell evidence in a major case to a junkie for seventy-five thousand dollars,” I said. “I don’t have the heroin, the drugs are gone; they’re at Moon’s house. None of this makes any sense. Why am I pretending to be a major drug dealer?”

  Dewey smiled. “Why not? You’ve been selling her heroin for a month now. What’s the difference, a couple of bags, a dozen keys, so what?” Dewey was never serious about anything so I couldn’t tell if he was just fooling around with Lisa Marie or had a serious plan.

  We went to the clinic almost every night to listen to the tapes from the gypsy. The latest one began with Lisa Marie’s voice. “Daddy, I have to talk to you.”

  “Please, Lisa, not now, I’m awful busy.”

  “Papa, it’s very important. I know something that you should know, and we should talk now.”