Prologue
The Quality of Life Task Force: four sweatshirts in a bogus taxi set up on the corner of Clinton Street alongside the Williamsburg Bridge off-ramp to profile the incoming salmon run; their mantra: Dope, guns, overtime; their motto: Everyones got something to lose.
“Is dead tonight.”
The four car-stops so far this evening have been washouts: three municipalsa postal inspector, a transit clerk, and a garbageman, all city employees off-limitsand one guy who did have a six-inch blade under his seat, but no spring-release.
A station wagon coming off the bridge pulls abreast of them at the Delancey Street light, the driver a tall, gray, long-nosed man sporting a tweed jacket and Cuffney cap.
“The Quiet Man,” Geohagan murmurs.
“Thatll do, pig,” Scharf adds.
Lugo, Daley, Geohagan, Scharf; Bayside, New Dorp, Freeport, Pelham Bay, all in their thirties, which, at this late hour, made them some of the oldest white men on the Lower East Side.
Forty minutes without a nibble . . .
Restless, they finally pull out to honeycomb the narrow streets for an hour of endless tight right turns: falafel joint, jazz joint, gyro joint, corner. Schoolyard, crêperie, realtor, corner. Tenement, tenement,
tenement museum, corner. Pink Pony, Blind Tiger, muffin boutique, corner. Sex shop, tea shop, synagogue, corner. Boulangerie, bar, hat boutique, corner. Iglesia, gelateria, matzo shop, corner. Bollywood, Buddha, botanica, corner. Leather outlet, leather outlet, leather outlet, corner. Bar, school, bar, school, Peoples Park, corner. Tyson mural, Celia Cruz mural, Lady Di mural, corner. Bling shop, barbershop, car service, corner. And then finally, on a sooty stretch of Eldridge, something with potential: a weary-faced Fujianese in a thin Members Only windbreaker, cigarette hanging, plastic bags dangling from crooked fingers like full waterbuckets, trudging up the dark, narrow street followed by a limping black kid half a block behind.
“What do you think?” Lugo taking a poll via the rearview. “Hunting for his Chinaman?”
“Thats who Id do,” Scharf says.
“Guy looks beat. Probably just finished up his week.”
“Thatd be a nice score too. Payday Friday, pulled your eighty-four hours, walking home with what, four? Four fifty?”
“Could be his whole roll on him if he doesnt use banks.”
“Cmon, kid”the taxi lagging behind its prey, all three parties in a half-block stagger“it doesnt get better than this.”
“Actually, Benny Yee in Community Outreach? He says the Fooks finally know not to do that anymore, keep it all on them.”
“Yeah, OK, they dont do that anymore.”
“Should we tell the kid? He probably hasnt even heard of Benny Yee.”
“I dont want to come between a young man and his dreams,” Lugo says.
“There he goes, there he goes . . .”
“Forget it, he just made us,” Daley says as the kid abruptly loses his limp and turns east, back towards the projects, or the subways, or, like them, to simply take five, then get back in the game.
Right turn after right turn after right, so many that when they finally pull someone over, and they will, itll take a minute to get their legs under them, to stop leaning into their steps; so many right turns that at three in the morning, six beers deep at Grouchies, everybody silently, angrily watching the one lucky bastard getting a lap ride in a banquette by the bathrooms, theyll be canting to the right at the bar, then, later in bed, twitching to the right in their dreams.
At the corner of Houston and Chrystie, a cherry-red Denali pulls up alongside them, three overdressed women in the backseat, the driver alone up front and wearing sunglasses.
The passenger-side window glides down. “Officers, where the Howard Johnson hotel at around here . . .”
“Straight ahead three blocks on the far corner,” Lugo offers.
“Thank you.”
“Whats with the midnight shades?” Daley asks from the shotgun seat, leaning forward past Lugo to make eye contact.
“I got photosensitivity,” the guy answers, tapping his frames.
The window glides back up and he shoots east on Houston.
“Did he call us officers?”
“Its that stupid flattop of yours.”
“Its that fuckin tractor hat of yours.”
“I gots photosensitivity . . .”
A moment later theyre rolling past the Howard Johnsons themselves, watching as the guy from the Denali makes like a coachman, holding the door for all the ladies filing out from the backseat.
“Huggy Bear,” Lugo mumbles.
“Who the fuck puts a Howard Johnsons down here?” Scharf gestures to the seedy-looking chain hotel, its neighbors an ancient knishery and a Seventh-Day Adventist church whose aluminum cross is superimposed over a stone-carved Star of David. “What was the thinking behind that.”
“Twenty-eight flavors,” Lugo says. “My dad used to take me every Sunday after my game.”
“Youre talking the ice cream parlor,” Scharf says, “thats different.”
“I never had a dad,” says Geohagan.
“You want one of mine?” Daley turns in his seat. “I had three.”
“I can only dream of a dad whod take me to a Howard Johnsons after my game.”
“Hey, Sonny.” Lugo catches Geohagans eye in the rearview. “Later tonight, you want to have a catch with me?”
“Sure, mister.”
“Pokey as fuck out here, huh?” says Daley.
“Thats because its your turn to collar,” Lugo says, waving off some drunk who thinks hes just flagged down a taxi.
“Somebody up there hates me.”
“Hang on . . .” Scharf abruptly perks up, his head on a swivel. “That there looks good. High beams going west, four bodies.”
“Going west?” Lugo floors it in heavy traffic. “Think thin, girls,” as he takes the driver-side wheels up onto the concrete divider to get past a real cab waiting for the light, then whips into a U-turn to get abreast of the target car, peering in. “Females, two mommies, two kids,” passing them, hungrier now, all of them, then Scharf ahoying once again: “Green Honda, going east.”
“Now east, he says.” Lugo does another 180 and pulls behind the Honda.
“What do we got . . .”
“Two males in the front.”
“What do we got . . .”
“Neon trim on the plate.”
“Tinted windows.”
“Right rear taillight.”
“Front passenger just stuffed something under the seat.”
“Thank you.” Lugo hits the misery lights, climbs up the Hondas back, the driver taking half a block to pull over.
Daley and Lugo slowly walk