Forced Entry (40 page)

“Word, my man,” Lily counseled. “You know the riff about all black men got their brains in their Johnsons? Seem like your white boys made us look like Catholic priests.” Lily Brown shook with laughter. “Up and down, Marty. Up and down and all around. Your shooters were lovers, not fighters. They took a little white bitch with them to help pass the time. When the shootin’ started, she come out the van like the devil was goin’ up her ass. Damn, but your boys was mad. Fact, Marty, they was so mad they chilled the bitch instead of the cop.”

Latif, who loved Blanks like a brother, couldn’t resist the chance to kid his friend. “Jus’ be grateful, bro. Be grateful the assholes got themselves killed. If one of them Irish boys
survived
, Moodrow’d be here right now.”

Blanks stared at his partner for a moment, then smiled. “I got an interestin’ piece of news for ya, Muhammad. The cops emptied the building today. We knew it was comin’ and got our people out. Only the asshole, the political dude, got busted and he can’t bring nobody back to us. I ain’t expectin’ to send no more people in there, man. Fuckin’ street cops’re all over the block.”

“What about the investment?” Lily asked.

“That shit don’t worry me. Najowski pisses his pants whenever I’m in the room.”

Marek Najowski pulled a torn and broken easy chair up to the window, laid newspaper on the arm, and sat down to wait. In some ways, he thought, still-hunting is as great a test of hunting skill as facing the charge of an angry buffalo. It not only tests patience, it tests the hunter’s understanding of the quarry’s territory. Marek was in the fourth floor bedroom of an abandoned tenement on Ninth Avenue, a position which offered a clear view of the short stoop leading to the 49th Street home of his partner, Marty Blanks. Sandwiched between two decrepit tenements, Blanks’ newly renovated building stood out like a Porsche between Volkswagens. There could be no mistake.

And the streetlight, with its halogen bulb, set conveniently at the foot of the stoop, only added to Marek’s confidence. As did the floodlights installed by a condo board terrified of crime. At one point, before he had reconnoitered the scene, Marek had planned to use a Litton nightscope. The nightscope could amplify available light several thousand times, but the image it delivered was often unclear and there was the danger that he, like the Cohan brothers, would shoot the wrong man. Now, of course, with the building lit up like the endless parade of whores working Eleventh Avenue, identification would be sure and certain.

What wasn’t certain, though, and what Marek hadn’t prepared himself for, was the number of tenants and visitors going in and out of the building. Marek was certain that Blanks was inside the building, but he was taking no chances; he scoped every head that passed through the doorway, snapping the Weatherby against his shoulder and sighting down in less than three seconds.

He would take Blanks out with a chest shot. Blanks was broad chested. (How many times had he watched Blanks inflate like the ape he was?) Marek’s shot could miss by four or five inches and kill Blanks, anyway. It would certainly knock him down and keep him down long enough for Marek to get off a second shot. Not that he’d need a second shot. Not that he needed
anything
, but the death of Marty Blanks.

Marty Blanks was drinking his third Miller High Life. Miller was, in
his
opinion at least, the perfect choice for a celebration. Didn’t the brewers call Miller “The Champagne of Bottled Beers”? And he hated
all
wine, especially the bubbly shit. Champagne had a place; he’d admit that. The only thing was that its place was grandma and grandpa’s 50th wedding anniversary.

“Say again?” Muhammad asked. “What we celebratin’?” Muhammad was pulling on a joint of super grade Thai weed. It had come to him, sticky as tar, from a low echelon dealer looking for a better connection.

“We’re celebratin’ me at last gettin’ ta do what I been wantin’ ta do since the first day I laid eyes on Marek Najowski. First, I’m gonna make him refund my investment, plus interest. Then I’m gonna bust him up.”

Lily Brown, sipping a glass of Chivas, giggled. “You sure do hate that partner of yours, Marty. Truth, man, I would never have a partner I didn’t like. I feel like if I don’t like someone, I can’t trust ’em.”

“I don’t
gotta
trust the asshole,” Marty grunted. “Marek came to me for muscle. If he could’ve supplied it himself, I never woulda heard his fuckin’ name. Which woulda made me ten times better off.”

Muhammad held out the joint to Marty, who waved it away, then opened another beer. Blanks was beginning to feel good, to shake off his disappointment at falling back into dependence on dealing. “See,” Marty continued, “I’m thinkin’ that Marek was makin’ me a
guarantee
. I didn’t go to him. He came to me and he said, ‘Do this and do that and you’ll make ten million dollars. You’ll be rich and you can retire forever.’ Didn’t I do exactly what he told me? Shit, I done it better than good, but here I am with my tail between my legs. Who am I gonna blame? Myself? Word, Muhammad, if I thought Marek had the bank, I’d beat the whole ten million out of his ass.”

After midnight, the traffic in and out of Marty Blanks building virtually stopped and Marek Najowski was denied even the small diversion of sighting down on potential targets. He was beginning to feel some fatigue, but his contingency plan, in case Blanks didn’t show by one o’clock, was sitting securely in his jacket pocket. Eight plans, actually—real beauties. Real
black
beauties. Taken every six hours, they’d keep him awake and alert until Blanks made his last appearance. They’d sharpen him, hone his desire, tighten his finger.

Still, even though his eyes were riveted to Marty Blanks’ front door, Marek’s mind began to drift. He thought about his early life, remembered the period before Flatbush had been overrun by the expanding black ghetto as being idyllic. It had all changed after his mother had been attacked. His father had spent his off-hours in the hospital with his mother, leaving the children to fend for themselves. His two sisters had married early. Irene, the oldest, took a garbage-man to her bed when she was seventeen. She’d been dropping babies ever since. Mary-Jo had done a little better. She’d married a bookkeeper who drank himself to death before he was thirty-five.

“ ‘And the sins of the fathers are visited upon the sons,’ ” Marek said aloud. The failures of his family only emphasized his own fitness. He had survived. They had drowned. He was rising. They continued to sink.

One by one, the lights began to go out in the occupied tenements on 49th Street, a small, homely drama that had Marek sighing for his own home. He wouldn’t be seeing Brooklyn Heights for a while. He was heading upstate—just in case Muhammad Latif decided to avenge his partner. There was always the chance, though he couldn’t
know
who pulled the trigger, that Latif would strike out at everybody. But Muhammad’s memory would only last as long as his next big deal. In the drug world, short term profits are measured in days, not fiscal years.

In fact, by the time Marie showed for her regular visit, on Saturday, the whole business would probably be over. Of course, he wouldn’t be there, but that wouldn’t matter. George Wang would yell at him in high-pitched chinky-English: “Why you make me bankrupt? I no can afford send girl for nothing.” And Marek would pay up, too. He’d pay for the chance to break her down, to erase, once and for all, the disrespect at the bottom of her discipline.

He thought about slavery, about the possibility of owning her. God, those were great days. Slavery had once been universal, the common fate of the common man. He felt himself beginning to sink into the fantasy and held himself back. After all, business
did
come first.

But he’d love to buy her once and for all, to buy and own her instead of merely renting. If he owned her, he’d break her down in a minute. She could maintain her illusion of control only so long as she was paid. But if there was force, if she performed for him because he forced her to perform, all dignity would be lost. Perhaps he could find a way to use force without angering George Wang. Maybe…

When the thought came to him, he pulled away from the window and shook with pleasure. Wang was even greedier than the whore: whereas sweet Marie would
do
anything for money, George Wang would
sell
anything for money. What Marek would do, as soon as he settled down upstate, was arrange to buy a full day of Marie’s time, with the single proviso that Marie shouldn’t be told. Let her come to him expecting an ordinary session, then be forced to stay. Let her perform without knowing when (or
if
) she was going to be released. He’d make it up to her later. Hell, he knew she’d do anything for money. And, if she wouldn’t…How much, he wondered, would the Chinaman charge if she
never
came back?

Marty Blanks was pretty drunk when the call came through. He didn’t usually allow himself to get drunk, but he’d been under a lot of strain and he wasn’t expecting to go out. Still Marty Blanks had put a protective routine into place when he first moved into the building and he wasn’t about to deviate just because he’d downed a few too many
cervezas
. He called his bodyguards into the kitchen where Lily and Muhammad were already present.

“We gotta go up to the Bronx,” he announced. “Little Benny’s holding and I wanna get to him before he offs the load. Hustle it up, but keep your eyes open. It’s late and we’d make easy targets.”

“You and Lily goin’, too, Muhammad?” Mikey Powell asked. “If you guys’re gonna go, we better take the van.”

“Lily’s goin’, but not me,” Muhammad responded. Blanks and Latif rarely traveled together. “Y’all take good care of mah sister, now, and don’t be playin’ with ya Johnsons.”

Mikey’s puzzled look only set Muhammad and his sister laughing. “Hey, forget about it, Mikey.” Blanks slapped his bodyguard on the back. “They’re makin’ fun of me, not you. Just go out and get the car. And keep your eyes open.”

“Does that mean we should take the Buick?” Stevey Powell asked.

Blanks thought for a moment, then shook his head. “No, we been takin’ the Buick too much. It’s like wearin’ a sign that says, ‘Here Comes Marty and Muhammad.’ Let’s take Mikey’s Ford for a change. Maybe I’ll buy it. Or trade it for the Buick. I got an itchy feelin’.”

The first thing the Powell brothers (who lived in studio apartments on either side of their boss) did was check the roof door to make sure it was locked. Then Stevey Powell checked the stairwell, while his brother secured the lobby. If their boss made a buy, they wouldn’t be coming back; they’d be going to a much more secure location. Blanks never kept drugs or cash in his apartment. He kept his merchandise all over the city, carefully dividing it so as to make a disastrous hit impossible.

“Everything all right?” Mikey asked when his brother stepped out of the elevator.

“No problems,” Stevey responded.

“You think somethin’s wrong with the boss?”

Stevey Powell grunted. “He’s drunk. Don’t mean nothin’.”

Leaving his brother to guard the lobby, Mikey Powell proceeded west on 49th Street to a Tenth Avenue parking garage. His ’84 LTD, a full size car designed for the taxi trade, was parked on the first floor, as were all the vehicles belonging to the entourage. The Ford, again like all the other vehicles, was fitted with a two-way radio. The radio, with a range of twenty miles, operated on an extremely narrow, unused frequency. Its very presence was a clear violation of FCC regulations, but as there were dozens of illegal car services in New York doing exactly the same thing, the gang’s small theft of the airways was unlikely to draw undue attention. As a security device, however, the two-way radio was extremely important to the safe operation of their business, and Mikey Powell was on the radio with Marty Blanks before he put the Ford into gear.

“Startin’ out,” he announced, neither receiving nor expecting a response. He drove up Tenth Avenue, peering into parked cars and watching vans for any sign of movement. He was looking for cops or killers (or, maybe, cops
and
killers) and he announced every turn. “Tenth Avenue, clear. 50th Street, clear. Ninth Avenue, clear. 49th Street, clear.” When he got to the front of the condominium, he double-parked, announcing, “In front” to the radio while signaling to his brother in the doorway.

“Mikey?” Marty Blanks’ voice crackled in the radio’s speaker.

“Yeah, boss?”

“Check out the blue van across the street. It’s new on the block.”

Mikey Powell, without a word of protest, left the Ford, walked to the van and punched it with his fist. Punched it hard enough to shake up anyone inside, then calmly walked back to the Ford.

“Nothin’, boss,” he said into the mike.

“I’m comin’ down.”

Marek’s heart began to pound as soon as Mike Powell’s face appeared in the doorway of Blanks’ home. It was one thirty and the first black beauty was rushing over him like the quick rush of anticipation at seeing Powell’s face.

“Game time,” Marek whispered, turning the scope back to Blanks’ doorway. He had never killed a man before, but he had no doubt that he would pull the trigger when his target appeared on the stoop. It was as if his association with Blanks and the violence that followed had removed the last piece of bullshit tying him to ordinary human values. If he wanted to be honest with himself (and he did), he had to admit that he was responsible for
all
the violence at the Jackson Arms. It had been his plan from the beginning and he had no regrets.

He watched the Ford pull in front of Blanks’ building, watched Powell stroll across the street and pound the innocent van. It was coming now, coming soon. He wasn’t angry anymore, just excited. Like a grateful son the first time his daddy takes him hunting.

The scope was already against his eye when Blanks appeared in the doorway. Already focused. Marek put the cross hairs on his ex-partner’s chest and muttered five words before pulling the trigger.

“Am I right, or what?” he said.

D
ESPITE IT BEING A
Saturday and her day off, Betty Haluka was nursing a cup of tea in the kitchen when Moodrow arrived home in the early morning. Her night had been full of unsettling dreams, dreams of terrifying danger, of hate and revenge. Dreams alternating with periods of wakefulness in which she tried to put all the events of the last few months together: Stanley Moodrow’s appearance in her life; the dark fire that had sought out Sylvia Kaufman; the overwhelming crash of exploding weapons; the cries of fear and pain stabbing at the empty silence—waking or sleeping, events chased through her mind like tumbleweed blowing through a Western movie. The inability to escape terrified her.