Forced Entry (16 page)

“Do me a favor and spell it out,” Blanks had replied. “I need an education, before I get in too deep. Also I hate this scumbag Najowski, and I don’t wanna go within fifty feet of him unless the money’s right.”

O’Brien, who loved to lecture, especially after a few belts, pulled a bottle of Bushmiller’s from a desk drawer, poured a double into Marty Blanks’ glass, then filled his own to the top. “Okay, let’s do it. In the early 70s, for reasons unknown, the city began closing firehouses in poor neighborhoods. They called it ‘consolidating,’ but the result was slower response time and, of course, greater structural damage to tenements that had been substandard from the beginning. Then the fiscal crisis hit and forty-five hundred firemen were laid off. Marty, it was ‘burn, baby, burn’ for the next ten years. The South Bronx lost more than a hundred and ten thousand apartments in that period. That means tenements so destroyed the city had to knock ’em down and cart the rubble off. You go to places in Brownsville or the Bronx, and the skyline looks like an old man’s mouth. All empty spaces, and that’s the kicker. For the last six or seven years, the speculators have been flipping real estate like crazy in the Bronx. Sometimes two or three times in a year. Units worth sixty and seventy thousand a few years ago are trading for three hundred and up. And empty lots are worth more than lots with buildings on them. I tell ya, Marty, the city owns most of those lots and that translates as lost tax revenue. It’s only a matter of time until they start auctioning the parcels off. Then the big boys will come north and the South Bronx will enjoy a ‘Renaissance.’ ”

“I don’t see what this has to do with me,” Blanks had interrupted. “There’s no burned-out buildings in Jackson Heights. No vacant lots. We’re talkin’ about two hundred and forty occupied apartments.”

Paul O’Brien had lifted his glass, saluting Marty Blanks, draining the few inches of Irish whiskey left in the glass. His ears and throat had burned red for a moment as the alcohol rushed into his bloodstream, but his hands were steady as he refilled both glasses. “The only point I’m making, is the difference between full and empty. An empty lot is worth more than a lot with occupied apartments. That’s the usual condition. But the best imaginable situation, if you stop to think about it, Marty, has got to be a lot with a solid,
empty
building on it, which is what you’re shooting for.”

Blanks had sipped at his drink, letting the information run through his mind.

He was convinced that the money was right, but there were questions remaining. “What will the cops do if we start harassing the tenants? If we have to make some examples? Are the cops gonna stand by and let it happen?”

Paul O’Brien had shrugged his shoulders. “They didn’t do anything about it here. I’ve been representing landlords in Hell’s Kitchen for the last fifteen years and I’ve seen a lot of players clean up by dumping tenants illegally. For instance, everybody laughed at the landlords who owned the welfare hotels. The ones for male adults. How much money could you make off people on welfare? Well, the tenants in those hotels didn’t have any rights under rent control; they were transients and when the building boom got started twenty years ago, the landlords hired every kind of scum to get them out. I’m talking about smashing down doors at five o’clock in the morning and beating some half-delirious alkie into the hospital. I’m talking about fires and robberies and rapes. I’m talking about old men who never left their rooms after dark. Who pushed the bureau up against the door to keep the wolves out.

“The city lost thirty-five thousand rooms before the reporters figured it out and began to put heat on the politicians. That’s when the City Council declared a moratorium on demolition of welfare hotels. You know the new hotel on 44th Street? The Macklowe? You know how it got to be built?”

“No idea,” Blanks replied shortly.

“Four days before the moratorium went into effect, at midnight, a contractor working for Harry Macklowe knocked down four buildings: two tenements and two hotels. He didn’t have any permits; he didn’t even have the gas and electricity turned off. The media screamed, but there was no way to put the buildings back up and no criminal charges were ever filed against Harry Macklowe. The city fined him two million bucks and the mayor made him wait two years before he could start construction, but the Hotel Macklowe, all forty-three stories, is standing on 44th Street right now and I guarantee it’s worth upwards of a hundred million. Understand what I’m saying? The two hotels and two tenements were worth, at best, a million and a half.”

Blanks had been impressed, but he kept his voice neutral. O’Brien was from the neighborhood; he had no reason to lie. The favor of free counsel was a marker that could always be called in and Blanks had been well aware of it.

“I gotta ask you one more question,” Blanks said. “There’s somethin’ that’s botherin’ me. You seem to be advising me to do this deal, but I keep readin’ in the papers that you can’t sell real estate in New York. What I gotta ask myself is why I should put large money into a scene that ain’t happenin’?”

O’Brien, much to Blanks’ surprise, laughed out loud. “What’s going on out there has nothing to do with your project,” he’d said. “New York City has a two percent vacancy on rentals. The only way to get a decent apartment in a neighborhood you’re not scared to live in is to
buy
it. So what if it takes you a year to sell the apartments instead of six months? We’re talking about twenty million dollars. Also, you have to figure it’ll be two years minimum before the assholes are out of there and the paperwork with the state is completed. Recessions don’t last long in this country. They make voters crazy.”

Blanks finally broke into a smile. “I guess the only question left is if the middle-class tenants in Jackson Heights are gonna run like a bunch of alkies on welfare.”

The dinner went almost entirely as expected, the only special touch being the black woman, Marie, who cooked and served the meal. Najowski smiled each time she appeared in the kitchen doorway, then flashed Blanks a conspiratorial glance. Blanks returned the look evenly, but noted the tracks on Marie’s arms and the fact that, instead of an ordinary maid’s uniform, she was dressed in a torn black housecoat and never raised her eyes from the floor. After some consideration, he made her for an expensive hooker specializing in what the trade calls “freak shows.” He wasn’t surprised to discover that his partner was a freak, but he didn’t shy away from his own conviction that doing business with freaks was a dangerous way to make a living.

“Has my servant caught your interest?” Marek asked as the coffee was served. “Stay here a moment, Marie.”

“What you do is your business,” Blanks replied. He could sense what was coming and he didn’t want to watch. He’d always believed the only way to rape a prostitute was to hold back payment. Now he was learning otherwise.

“This,” Marek said dramatically, gesturing to Marie, “is the absolute bottom: the drug-addicted Negro whore. All dignity gone and no thought beyond her next fix. When I fuck her, I use two condoms and rubber gloves. Am I right, or what, Marie?”

“Yessir,” Marie responded softly. “Yessir. You’re right.”

Blanks finally glanced at the prostitute. She was standing quietly, eyes on the floor and her face showed nothing of what she was feeling. Blanks looked at her arms again—the needle scars were old and healed. How much was Najowski paying her? Four hundred? Five hundred? Suddenly, Blanks got a glimpse of the self-indulgence at the bottom of Marek’s use of the woman. It sickened him.

“Now I don’t want you to think I’m prejudiced against Negroes,” Marek grinned. “It is true, of course, that the Negro sits at the absolute bottom of the American heap. But when French Aristocrats and Roman Senators spoke of ‘the mob,’ they were talking about white people. In fact, I’d go so far as to say you could define ‘the mob’ by watching the crowd at a British soccer match. It’s just an accident that the Negroes collect all the welfare and commit all the crimes in America. Isn’t that right, Marie?”

“Yessir. You right, sir.”

“You’re a good woman, Marie. You’re a credit to your heap. Now, go into the bedroom and wait for me. I shouldn’t be too long. At least,” he winked at Marty Blanks, “not as long as the ones
you’re
used to.”

Marek waited until the prostitute was gone before he began his report. “There’s good news and bad news,” he said quietly. “We’ve got thirty-five empty apartments. Nearly halfway there. On the other hand, the dealers you set up in 4B took off a few days ago. They were chased out.”

“This I know already,” Blanks replied. “I saw one of the guys in the neighborhood the next day. He says it was a cop that put the heat on, but he didn’t actually see a badge. Anyway it don’t mean shit. In fact it’s better for us.”

“Tell me how.” Najowski, settled down to business, showed no trace of the friendly worker. His investment was much larger than Martin Blanks’, especially considering how long it would take him to replace it should the deal go bad. Their goal was empty apartments, but empty apartments don’t pay rent. They’d be operating in the red within weeks.

“I made a mistake when I spoke to them personally. Lucky for us the cop was too stupid to ask how they got there in the first place. He washed the dope down the sink, busted up the furniture and slapped them around, but he never asked who set them up. From here on in, I’m gonna go through other people. And not even the same people all the time. Meanwhile, I need seven apartment numbers. I got people set to go in. Squatters, alkies, dopers, crazies—you name it, it’s gonna be livin’ in Jackson Heights.”

Najowski smiled for the first time. “How’d you do this so fast?”

“Don’t worry about how I do my end of the deal. You asked for pressure and that’s what I’m gonna deliver.”

“I’m not trying to pry,” Najowski said sharply, then immediately softened his tone. “You think these people will stay? What if the cop tries to drive them off?”

“That’s the best part. The guy who’s leading them in, Kricic, is political. He’s been involved with squatters all through Hell’s Kitchen and the Lower East Side and nearly came in his pants when he heard about empty apartments in a middle-class neighborhood. Anybody tries to evict is gonna have to do it in front of a TV camera.

“And this man, Kricic, is bringing dealers with him?”

“No. He’s only bringing two families. But when he gets there, he’ll defend everyone. At least until he figures out what’s goin’ on. It don’t matter, anyway, ’cause you’re gonna serve ’em all with eviction notices in a couple of weeks. It’s gonna be like a revolving door, with more comin’ in than goin’ out. Now, how ’bout you tell me your end.”

“I had the lawyer, Bill Holtz, go through the leases with Rosenkrantz. They picked out twenty tenants they think might run and served them with eviction notices. Little things—late payments, failure to keep the property up, failure to allow the landlord access. Nothing that’ll hold up in court, but we’ll get postponements, refuse to accept rent, claim we weren’t paid. A lot of these people don’t speak English very well. They come from countries where cops make people disappear forever. Some of them will run.”

“We losin’ money yet?” Blanks changed the subject.

“Not yet. But next month’s receipts won’t cover the bills.”

“You got credit lined up?”

“Holtz has an Arkansas S&L willing to keep us going. As long as we stay on schedule.”

“We’re ahead of schedule right now and I haven’t even started putting on the pressure. What about the tenants’ association?”

Najowski shrugged. He didn’t like being questioned, but Blanks’ commitment to the project was more than welcome. “They got some kind of patrol going, but they weren’t able to organize the building. Mostly due to Rosenkrantz. That guy could sell tanning oil to a Negro.”

“Enough with the jokes. My boys’re waitin’ for me in the car and they’re probly gettin’ restless. I wouldn’t wanna miss my ride.”

“The attack on the old Jew, Birnbaum, will bring some of them into Sylvia Kaufman’s circle. She’s the one who organized the tenants. But that doesn’t mean they won’t run. The Pakis are almost completely cleared out. A bunch of Koreans went with Park and the rest are getting ready to fly. The spics are too macho to be intimidated. They’ll probably go over to Kaufman.”

“Only until I get some blown-out rapo to fuck one of their daughters up the ass. I’m workin’ hard on that right now. And I got a little surprise for the tenants’ association, too.” Blanks stood up and went to the closet for his coat. “But enough is enough,” he announced. “Everything’s goin’ smooth. I don’t think them faggots’ll hold out for more than a couple of months.” He shrugged into his coat, then turned back to his partner. “And, by the way, next meetin’, how ’bout you come to me? The traffic gettin’ out here is murder.”

M
ARIE PORTER HATED DOING
the Freak. That’s the way she thought of him, even though
all
her clients were freaks; even though everyone in the life called them freaks. Even though what she did was shows for the freaks, performances, and the only limits professionals like herself were supposed to put on the freaks involved pain, both giving and receiving. The saddest part was that Marie usually thought of her customers by their first names. She
liked
her clients, but the Freak was the Freak and always would be.

Not that she’d outright refuse him. That would disappoint her pimp, George Wang. George Wang was her savior. He’d spotted her when she was working Madison Avenue, too dark to play the ingénue despite being sixteen years old.

Marie had begun her street life as a throw-away: her mother had locked her out of the family apartment when she was fifteen. For a year, she’d lived with relatives, attended school, struggled to stay alive. Then an uncle had introduced her, first to the serenity of heroin and then to what all prostitutes call “the life.”

Within a month she was the property of a pimp named Hector Cortez. Hector, called Poppy, specialized in teenage flesh, male and female, and kept his workers diligent with the lit ends of Marlboro cigarettes. In his estimation, teenagers were prone to run off unless properly terrorized.