The Lotus Crew (14 page)

Nightfire

POLICE SWEEPING OUT
the Lower East Side heroin emporium did not wipe Tommy out … completely. It cost him plenty. It was apparent that the primary focus of the police blitz was Triad. They were hit with all the ferocity of an urban swat team in frontal assault. Rodent scraggly junkies with snot dangling from torn coats suddenly whipped out badges and guns, rematerializing as undercover narcs. Plainclothes burst out of Con Ed trucks with guns drawn and arrest reports dangling from their back pockets. Burly dicks oozed out of taxis, laundry trucks, out-of-state cars, after watching or triggering a transaction. Sirens, police whistles, and the metal click of locking handcuffs.

The occupation was complete, and the street became a shadowed tomb. The vibrance of an open market was gone.

Every crew lost heavy on the invasion. Continued police permeation forced the crew owners—used to heavy cash flow—into stepping back.

But Tommy's losses were, well, to him somehow more personal. His mind had always been methodical. Now he was filing, referencing, analyzing bad news so frantically he felt like hitting the cooker … just enough to achieve some remnants of detached objectivity and be able to look this mess in the face. Whew! Ugly face. Inverted daydreams.

He stashed the Jaguar on Staten Island and rolled a rented Chevy out onto the open road. Clunky old heap of Detroit iron. Didn't come near his own wheels. But obviously the heat knew a lot about Triad. After the sweep it came out in the papers that stakeout had been planted for months gathering a picture of the narcotics market on the street. They'd pin the Jag. Somehow the cops thought JJ—who was missing—was the main man. Amusing. Police science, T thought. Like the ginzos Uncle Satano did shylock with, cops are procedural, predictable. A tip becomes a lead. The lead becomes a theory. Progressional logic takes over, however flimsy the first premise.

After driving onto the ferry, T took out a mirror, a narrow sterling straw, and a small plastic bag of pure goodness. Two snowy lines went up his nose. The ferry ride from Staten Island to Manhattan took just over one-half hour. He set his alarm watch for twenty minutes. That way he'd return to the car and sniff a line of coke so he'd be straight enough to drive off the ferry. Just a brief interlude of reflection.

Tommy took a walk and found a deserted spot lower starboard.

With Alvira gone, it all rested on his head. The dope giving him distance, he began the dreaded inventory. He'd just reupped when the shit fell. He lost virtually millions in cash and material. Some of it, most even, was his own. But over three bucks belonged to Unc and his wise guys. Ginzos. They would not be amused, forgiving, understanding.
Pissed
is what they'd be! Pissed and nasty. Well, T did have some assets left, and some material. But he needed cash to bail out men he hadn't gotten to already, before someone sang. So far every Triad arrested had pulled a tight lip. T had to keep up his end of things. His cash stash was almost gone, but he did have dope. The dope was worthless without a crew. He couldn't let the old crew work while out on bail. Too risky. And throwing a new crew together would be all but impossible. Triad had already assimilated the cream of the crop as far as slumbums. Very little worthwhile human material left. Maybe he could off some shit on other retailers, but he'd have to sell wholesale and take losses.

Other retailers! Had ShyWun known about …? Nawww. The throne is on fire! My kingdom for some horse.

He poked on a reefer, watching Manhattan lights get closer as the sun dropped below the horizon. Everything was sure different just a short few weeks ago. Oh, there were problems. Alvira's desertion threw a swamp of business details on him, and petty complications proliferated. But Triad was set up and functioning. Leadership was only necessary to keep things smooth.

All different now. Unfamiliar, fear-inspiring. He'd dumped the downtown cribs and rented new digs on 100th Street and Riverside Drive, looking down on the Hudson River. A nice sunny place. But one with no past, and with none of his boys around to remind him of how essential he was.

JJ was missing and had been since the first day of combat. Chu had blown away an informer and was undercover in Philly chilling out. Muggles made bail and was stashed away with some relatives in Wilmington, Delaware. That fact threw a wrench into the Rasta reefer trade. No cake coming in.

Four crew workers were dead, nine arrested, six on the lam. Two for shooting cops. This was eternal heat. The
14-K
was wiped out before it could bud. In fact the whole upper echelon of Triad—excluding the Emperor—was gone. Whoosh. No more. Regards from Cognito.

Just Tommy left. With no one to acknowledge his masterful position.

For the first time since it happened, T admitted to himself that maybe it wasn't weakness or stupidity that made Alvira duck out. Walking away from power was incomprehensible to T. Maybe Alvira understood something T didn't.

The alarm watch sounded, summoning him back to consciousness. He jumped. It was uncool to get too far inside himself now. No one to cover his back.

Tommy Sparks was now as vulnerable as the next man.

Later, T's head rolled loose and light as the fix hit. He laid back on his couch when the phone sounded.

“Listen, kid, make a move quick. I'm not futzing around, Tommy. If you don't show class I'm a dead man.”

T knew Uncle Satano never spoke on the phone. The urgency scared him. He'd never heard fear in Unc's voice before.

“I can throw out half a buck right now, Unc.” He would dump material below cost and wipe out his gold coin collection. Dump some valuable jewelry. His Rolex collection. The genuine Tiffany lamps he'd bought when things were looking good.

“Half a buck! We're talking over three bucks! These people are dangerous, T. Even for me. You're going to make sparks, Mr. Sparks!”

“Toss them the half and ask for a little time. Gimme a month to turn some material above wholesale and—”

“Month? We're talkin' days, kid. Look, come drop the half and we'll talk. No, don't come here, for chrissakes.”

“I dumped the Jag. Got a rented car—”

“Good. Meet me in Brooklyn. You know that cemetery where your father is buried?”

“Sure. Caton and McDonald—”

“Right. One hour from now. Be there.”

“Unc—”

“How the fuck did I let so much money ride on your wild ideas?”

“Uh, Unc … can't you think of a more cheerful spot to—”

Click!

The Chevy topped a hill, and Tommy could see a multi-stratified set of dimensions. Directly below was his father's grave, set into imposingly beautiful landscape. The marble structure of the family plot was awe-inspiring. There was a space for him there. His eyes moved up, and he could see beyond the park, across Brooklyn to the water. The breathtaking complexities of the view distracted him until …

The chauffeur-driven Buick pulled up below. Ominous forms moved behind smoked glass. T's eyes took in a place of the dead. His father was dead, and who'd ever had more life than the old man?

Unc's driver got out, checked around until he spotted T, got back inside.

Triad was also dead. Somewhere in the depths of his subconscious this seemed untrue or at least impermanent. No matter how shitty things seemed, at his level recovery was possible. He was Tommy Sparks!

But for now, best act on the tip it's dead. His brainchild. No funerals. Just a fade, like when a day is over. The sun has set. The day is gone … like Furman D. Whittle. Once he liked Furman, but that part of Tommy was long dead as well.

He was in silent harmony with the rows of graves.

They spoke briefly in the back of the Buick. Tommy dropped his half-buck, stacked out neat in an attaché case on the seat. He promised more soon.

“They have to show class, too, Unc.” T looked down. “They all know shit fell on me.”

“They're afraid you'll pack it in or get killed. Then what?”

“I'll be cool.”

“Or get busted. I don't know about you, Tommy. You had to run it to the ground. You could've done it a little less formal, you know, where you're on and off with material. Work a week, skip a month. Guys get rich doin' that, and the cops are always lookin' for the other crews, the ones that keep it up steady. Why'd you have to set up ongoing and permanent?”

“Worked a long time, Unc. How many times I double cake for you and your bozos?”

“Don't be cute, Tommy. There's no play here. Cool the debt in forty-eight hours or we're both dead men. I'll help if you can't pull it. Only way to keep either of us alive. But I can't turn up cash like that without some frantic inconveniences, to say the least.”

“Then let's split, Unc. Let's take what we got and pull out! We could live a lifetime on combined cash.” He pointed to the attaché case.

Uncle Satano's eyes bulged in anger and outrage at the suggestion. Tommy didn't have to be told it was unthinkable to walk away from the power and position of one's own empire, even if things did turn around. Was it stubbornness, pride, ego? Uncle Satano had killed to etch himself a place in the moneylending game. He'd done time, bought and sold connections, favors, cops, judges and juries, businesses and people. He had been—until this unfortunate incident—a major force in his circle of dons. No walking away from that. Forget it.

“Break cupcakes, kid. But take care of it. Get up that cake. We have forty-eight hours. Call me every three or four hours. Goodbye for now.”

The driver's thick form appeared outside the car, opened it for Tommy. Nothing else left to say but …

“Unc—”

“Just get it up … or we die!”

He got it up. Most of it, anyway. Uncle Satano laid out half a buck, and T got the rest. His thank-you was:

“Good luck, kid. I don't wanna see you for a while. Almos' gave me a fuckin' heart attack. You really set me back with my people, Tommy. We're paid off and clean, and you don't owe me nothin'. Get lost … right?”

“Right.”

T watched his uncle get into the rear of the Buick. It drove off. He stood by his father's grave for a few minutes, then looked up at an angry sky.

He felt clean. He'd bailed out all his boys and advanced good lawyers a set sum to keep them all out of the can. That took most of his cash and personal possessions. To raise cake for Unc he had to dump all his heroin below cost to the few dealers who'd go near him. Most considered him too hot to touch.

He had three grand and an ounce of cut commercial heroin to his name. The Jaguar would bring in another few grand. But he still had debts and his resources would not come near the final number.

He stood over the family plot and hoofed a large pile of powder off a hand mirror. Next to his parents' grave sat space for his own. He stared at it a long time. Well, is it
no, not yet, I have things to do?
Or is it
yes, I'm ready?
Be so easy to do a few more snorts and just lie back on the grave. Be a warm soft pleasant death. No more problems or loose ends to torment over.

But wait! Not time! Whew! Of course not! He was
still
Tommy Sparks!

That afternoon Tommy returned the rented Chevy and took a modest crib in Brooklyn. The obscurity of Bay Ridge would cover him for now.

Wind blew fiercely through arteries and conduits of junk turf. There was ice on the street. On Eldridge and Houston a bright nightfire burned from the heart of an old oil drum, a crew of lotus ghosts shivering around it as they waited for customers to relieve them of their day's material.

“Dr. Nova is smokin', poppa!”

“The Doctor is in!”

“Fan out yo' cake!”

T stepped up just as a line was forming and had to wait his turn. The guy before him bought two bundles and cleaned out the bagman. Tommy waited ten minutes in the cold while the crew boss sent a runner to reup. He shivered, cold and junk-sick, praying he'd score before the police came.

Word was Nova was the smoker lately. Somehow ShyWun had survived the sweep. Others too. Who knew how or why? Since he lacked capital and credit, there were no lines of communication open between Tommy and ShyWun.

“Four,” he said as the bagman opened a fresh package.

T dropped his last forty bucks into the counter's hand and scooped up his bags. He had just enough change for a subway back to Brooklyn. That left no cash for morning.

Alone in the dark stillness of his dim Brooklyn crib, T clamped and unclamped his fist until the mainline stood out like a purple rope. He booted two bags. Already some scar tissue was forming. No need to be discreet. For the moment, he could track his arms all he wished.

The Emperor's eyelids descended calmly as he felt the lotus soothe his ravaged mind. “Heavy blood in you,” Alvira once said. “Got to live up to your father and uncle. Me, I have nothing to live up to. I'm free.” A smile crept onto T's lips. Alvira, as an infant, had been found in a garbage can in an alley behind Alvarado Street in L.A. The Mexican woman who discovered him sold him to a family of New York Jews.