Sons of the City (2 page)

Bravelli was in his early forties, and he had an athletic look, like a tennis player, though I doubt he ever even saw a tennis game in his life. There weren’t exactly a lot of tennis courts in West Philly.

He had gold chains around his neck and his hair slicked back. So did Canaletto, who always walked around with his chest stuck out. Even Goop had the gold chains and the slicked-back hair. That was the look.

Bravelli led the way as the three of them crossed the street at an angle in front of us, heading toward the red canopy. They all turned to see who was in the police car, and it took Bravelli about two seconds to recognize me. He had seen me plenty of times when I was in OC, but I was always in plainclothes.

Without stopping, Bravelli gave me a puzzled look, like he was asking, What are you doin’ in uniform? Like he was actually concerned about me. But I could tell by his mocking eyes that he thought it was funny to see me sitting there in my little police car.

They kept going. And as the three of them neared the canopy, the TV crews spotted them and swung their cameras around like a flock of birds suddenly shifting direction. Bravelli, striding toward the entrance, smoothed back his hair with both hands and straightened his tie and his suit jacket. I realized then why he had come on foot—if he had pulled up in a car, he would have been on camera for only a few seconds. But walking down the street with his men, like he was leading a gang of gunslingers into town, he could be the star of his own movie. Sure enough, the TV crews couldn’t get enough of him—their cameras picked him up as he strutted across the street, and stayed glued to him until he was through the front door.

There was an emergency tone on the radio—priority call.

“All units, we have Ninth District cars in pursuit of a black Mercedes heading west on Walnut from Thirtieth. Wanted for a founded carjacking.”

Nick looked at me. “Maybe he’ll turn off of Walnut.”

“Yeah,” I said. “And maybe he won’t.”

We were on Walnut at 72nd. The pursuit was more than forty blocks away, but it was heading straight toward us.

“We could pull the car into the middle of the street,” Nick suggested.

“And what?” I said. “Be a one-car roadblock? What are we gonna do, hold up our hands and say, Could you please stop?”

I knew that as the Mercedes flew down Walnut, it would pick up every police car in the district. Which meant that if the pursuit got this far—and it would only take three or four minutes—they’d all be screaming by Lucky’s at ninety miles an hour.

And there, halfway out into the street, were four TV camera crews, side by side, all getting the same pointless shot of the front of the restaurant, all about to be mowed down. I jumped out of my car and ran down the middle of the street toward them. Nick was instantly at my side, and we both turned up the handheld police radios on our gunbelts.

“He’s past Thirty-fifth!” someone yelled over whooping sirens.

“Thirty-sixth! Now Thirty-sixth!” shouted another voice. Jesus, he was moving fast.

I reached the camera crews. “Get out of the street, now,” I ordered.

We tried to herd them toward the sidewalk. A perky-looking blond TV reporter in a red dress and bright red lip-sticked lips put her hand on her hip.

“Officer, we have every right to be here—”

“We got a high-speed pursuit coming right down Walnut,” I said, trying to stay calm so they would be calm. “Get out of the street.”

I could hear on the radio that they were past 45th. The perky blonde looked over my shoulder at her cameraman. “Eric, let’s get a good shot of it.”

“Now!” I yelled.

“OK, OK,” she said, almost pouting.

Tim Timberlane, a jerkoff TV reporter from Channel 7, had his hand to his earplug and was yelling into his microphone, “I wanna go live, I wanna go live.”

I had seen Timberlane a lot on TV. A real smarmy guy about twenty-seven with a talent for showing cops in the worst possible light. No matter what the story was, we were always the bad guys. A true asshole.

The other camera crews were drifting toward the sidewalk, but Timberlane wouldn’t move. We began to hear the sirens.

“Get out of the fucking street!” I yelled at him.

He still didn’t move. I couldn’t believe anyone could be this stupid. I just grabbed his arm and started pulling.

Timberlane didn’t take his eyes off the camera. “We’re being harassed by the police, right here on live TV, you’re seeing this live. Officer, will you give us your name, can we have your name, please?”

The pursuit was less than two blocks away, its chorus of sirens growing louder each moment, beginning to drown out everything.

I was trying to drag Timberlane and his cameraman to the sidewalk, but they kept resisting, they didn’t want to move. And then I turned and there was the Mercedes, heading right at us, right in our lane. Shit, I thought, he’s going to get us all.

The driver must have suddenly seen us as well, because he jerked the wheel and the Mercedes swerved across two lanes of Walnut. It was going out of control, and started clipping all the guests’ parked Lincolns and Cadillacs, BANG, BANG, BANG, and then it jerked back across Walnut toward us and Lucky’s canopy.

Timberlane and his cameraman finally started running, leaving me for an instant facing the Mercedes, meeting the eyes of a terrified black teenager behind the wheel. I jumped back, falling onto the street, and the Mercedes whooshed by, brakes screeching. People dove out of the way as the car jumped the curb, knocked down the brass poles supporting the canopy, then slid along the restaurant’s red stucco front wall, shooting out sparks and leaving a trail of the car’s black paint. The Mercedes probably would have kept going forever, but it hit a brass standpipe coming out of the wall and bounced back across the sidewalk, spun halfway around, and lurched to a violent stop.

All over the street, police cars were squealing to a halt. The doors of the Mercedes popped open and two black kids jumped out. Both had guns, big ones. They looked around and saw that in a moment they would be trapped on all sides. And they started running toward me.

I grabbed my gun and tried to get on my knees, so I could at least get off a shot. I looked around for Nick, he was pulling his gun out. But it wasn’t me the two young carjackers were heading for, it was the restaurant. They darted under the half-fallen canopy and disappeared through Lucky’s front door.

Nick reached me and grabbed my arm, boosting me onto my feet. By now, cops were jumping out of their cars, un-holstering their guns. Nick and I ducked under the canopy and pulled open the door. My view was blocked by the big fountain at the entrance, and we heard the chaos before we saw it—shouts of men and women, tables being overturned, plates crashing.

As I swung around the fountain, I saw the two carjackers careening toward the rear of the massive dining room, knocking into tables, pushing back waiters. They seemed to be headed toward the kitchen, straight back, but they suddenly darted to the left, toward a set of closed rough-hewn wooden doors. They probably didn’t notice the hand-lettered sign over the doors, but I did. In a smooth, cursive script, it said “Roma Room.”

The kid in the lead pulled open one of the wooden doors, and they both dove inside and disappeared as the door closed behind. Bravelli and his guests were about to get a very big surprise.

We barreled past a blur of families who were already half on their feet, clutching white tablecloths that were turning red with spilled wine. There was no direct path to the Roma Room, only around this table, back around that one. At last I reached the door. Holding my gun in my right hand, I grabbed one of the big wooden handles with my left and pulled. Nothing. Maybe you were supposed to push. I tried that, nothing again, then tried the other handle, pushing and pulling, knowing the doors were locked, not accepting it.

“Police!” I yelled. “Open it up.”

Something was happening inside, I could hear it through the doors. Shouting, yelling, something heavy falling. I was waiting for gunfire.

Nick was right there with me. “How could it be locked?” he asked.

“You think I know?”

Cops were piling around me. Three or four of us grabbed the handle together and pulled as hard as we could.

“Now push,” I said.

From inside, we heard the crash of glasses and plates, and some kind of slapping sound, like a beaver’s tail hitting the water.

We all pushed, and still the door didn’t move.

“I don’t fucking believe this,” I yelled in frustration. “Let’s try through the kitchen.”

A few moments later I was leading a dozen cops past big pots of steaming spaghetti sauce. We headed in the direction of the Roma Room—basically, to the left—but the kitchen was like a maze. Bread warmers, walk-in freezers, boxes of potatoes stacked to the ceiling. Twice we hit dead-ends.

A chef was staring at us.

“Where’s the Roma Room?” I yelled at him. He blinked and his mouth dropped open. We all waited, waited, waited. He blinked again.

A few feet away, a wide-eyed Hispanic guy was watching us, frozen in the act of pulling silverware from a dishwasher.

“Roma Room,” I said. “Where’s the door?”

He shrugged. “No
Inglés.”

“Roma!” I shouted at him. “Roma! Is Roma fuckin’ English?” He shrugged again.

We tried another route, past a wall of employee lockers, and this time we saw a set of swinging stainless-steel doors with small windows at eye level.

“Gotta be it,” I said, and we charged ahead, pushing through the doors into the Roma Room. We were on the far end, but in the center we could see ten, fifteen guys crowded together, kicking and yelling at something. When they spotted us, they hurriedly backed off, like jackals temporarily abandoning their kill. It didn’t take long to see what they had been doing. Lying on the floor were the two carjackers, their faces bloody and contorted in pain.

One was balled up in a fetal position, holding his side, tears and blood dripping onto the polished hardwood floor. The other was on his stomach, his left hand up, his head turned the other way. His eyes were squeezed closed, like he was waiting for the next kick. Their guns were gone.

“Call Rescue,” I told Nick.

I scanned the room. It was quiet now; all the men were back at the big round tables with their wives and girlfriends. They looked at us innocently, like they had showed up just a second ahead of us, and were as surprised as we were to see these two black kids bloody on the floor.

“Anybody want to tell me what happened here?” I asked, knowing it was a stupid question.

“I didn’t see nothin',” said a young guy sitting nearby, all serious. He looked around. “Anybody see what happened?” He waited a moment, then turned back to me apologetically. “I don’t think nobody here saw nothin', sergeant. Sorry we couldn’t be more help. Have a nice day.”

A few titters came from around the room. They knew they were going to get away with it, they didn’t doubt it for a moment. Now I had no choice but to nail as many of them as I could.

Goop was sitting at another nearby table. I definitely remembered seeing him in the group kicking the kids. I could start with him.

“OK, Goop, let’s go,” I said. “Stand up.”

“Huh?” He couldn’t believe it.

“Stand up.”

“You don’t got to do it, Goop,” someone yelled. I turned toward Nick. His regular partner, Steve Ryder, was with him now. He must have been part of the pursuit. “Nick, Steve,” I said. “Lock this guy up.” Goop seemed offended. “Wha’d I do?”

“What do you think?”

Nick and Steve reached to grab him, but he jumped up and took a few steps backward, knocking into the next table. “I ain’t goin’ nowhere,” he snarled.

Guys began standing at all the tables, and some of the ones at the far corners of the room were already starting to head in our direction. Most of the cops who had come into the room had already left, and there were only about seven of us now, standing together. There were maybe a hundred of these guys. Not the best of odds, and they were probably better armed than we were.

The kids were still lying on the floor, but now they were watching us. You could see them asking, in silent questioning, What is this wasp’s nest we’ve stumbled into?

Bravelli’s men were closing in on us, tightening the circle. Nick had his hand on his holstered gun, and he glanced at me. “Now I know how Custer felt.”

The doors from the kitchen popped open, and Tim Timberlane came through, followed by his cameraman. The camera light flipped on, bathing the room in a garish glare.

“Get them out of here,” I yelled. But who was I saying that to? All the cops were with me, the only people by the door were mob guys. We watched as four or five of them politely pushed Timberlane and his cameraman out of the Roma Room and back into the kitchen. I had to admit, they were a lot nicer about it than some of my guys would have been.

Maybe the camera would have helped us, maybe Bravelli’s people would have backed off rather than taken a chance of starring on the six o’clock news. I didn’t care—whatever was going to happen was between us and them. It was private.

I turned away from the kitchen doors, back to the menace at hand. And standing there was Bravelli himself, looking a little impatient, like his linguine was getting cold.

“I think it would be better if you just leave now, North,” he said. “And take these two Comanches with you.”

I ignored him, and turned to Nick. “Other than Goop, who else was kicking the kids?”

“What’s your fuckin’ problem?” Bravelli asked. “We did you a favor. Hey, nobody got hurt, right?”

I looked at the two kids on the floor. “Almost nobody.”

“They didn’t deserve it?”

“You don’t even know what they did, why they ran in here.”

“Like it makes a fuckin’ difference? They come in with guns, there’s women in here. You can’t do your job, North, we will.”

“So this is just more of your vigilante shit, is that what’s going on?”

Bravelli shrugged, like he didn’t know what I was talking about. But he knew. More and more during the last two months, people in the Italian neighborhood had been taking the law into their own hands. Whenever blacks were caught breaking into houses or trying to steal cars, people wouldn’t call the police—at least not right away. They’d dispense their own justice, and by the time we’d arrive, the blacks would be half dead.