Keeplock: A Novel of Crime (35 page)

“Gotta pass, Oono. I work alone. The last time I went partners with someone, I ended up doin’ ten years.”

He laughed appreciatively, then looked down at a huge Rolex. “Time to go back to work. If you’re on the block around midnight, we’ll go up to a club I know in the Bronx.”

I continued my stroll along Pitt Street. The dealers, having observed my conversation with Oono, besieged me as I passed them. I made sure each one looked in my face as I explained that I was looking for a gram or two, but I wasn’t interested in greasy lumps of street cocaine. I wanted something special I could flash around as I made my way through what the Puerto Ricans call
Loisaida.

I found what I wanted between Rivington and Houston streets. One of the dealers took me to an empty apartment, explaining that he was Oono’s biggest dealer and he had a special cut for special customers. The only problem was that he couldn’t sell less than an eight ball—three and a half grams—because it’d been prepackaged and he didn’t have a scale. On the other hand, the eighth had been cut from a single rock and then ground into a fine powder. It was ready for use and came in a small glass vial instead of wrapped in paper. Also, the price was right, especially for a friend of Oono’s. Two hundred and fifty dollars: his cost exactly. Just try this sample line. See for yourself.

In another life, he would have been working on Madison Avenue. It’s funny how fast hard-eyed dealers loosen up if they know and trust you. It’s tempting to believe that dealers have no side except the one they display on the street, but many of them have families and, one and all, they want to get off the street.

I did the line, paid the man, and left. Now that I’d secured my little package of hospitality, I had a lot more freedom to roam. I crossed Houston Street and strolled up Avenue C. I was amazed by the number of newly rehabilitated tenements. And the number of well-dressed whites on the street. The bars were different, too. They weren’t bars anymore; they were taverns, complete with neon artwork and Continental menus.

But the Yuppies hadn’t driven out the junkies or the players. As I walked my way through the afternoon, I kept running into people I knew well enough to spend a minute bullshitting with.

“Hey, Pete, where you been? On vacation?”

“Yeah, baby, I won me an all-expense paid, deluxe, five-star vacation in beautiful upstate New York.”

Some I knew well enough to offer a line of coke, but none of them was exactly right for what I had in mind. Still, I tested them, hinting that I was hot, that the man was looking for me. I wanted them to pry, to push me for details, but I didn’t get my wish. They weren’t rats looking for a salable piece of information.

I was having a beer at the Life Cafe, across from Tompkins Square Park, when I got my first break. It came in the form of a high-pitched greeting.

“Petey-Sweetie!”

If the voice was vaguely familiar, the face was instantly recognizable. Choo-Choo Ramirez had come to the Institution cursed with the triple whammy of being Dominican, gay, and the size of an undernourished jockey. His only hope of survival was to latch on to some stud and (for reasons beyond my understanding) he initially chose me. I had less than no interest in the homosexual scene at Cortlandt and I discouraged him, gently at first, then with curses and the back of my hand. Eventually he got the point and turned to one of the wolves who prey on feminine homosexuals, but his affection for me remained undiminished. Whenever we ran across each other, he tossed me sorrowful looks that drove his lover crazy.

“Petey-Sweetie, wha’chu doon in my world?”

Choo-Choo wasn’t in full drag, but he wasn’t exactly subdued, either. He was wearing a flaming red silk shirt and pair of incredibly tight, blood-red trousers. My first instinct was to tell him to fuck off, but something about the phrase “my world” caught my attention.

“You want a beer, Choo-Choo?”

“A beer? Do I look like a construction worker?” He patted his hair, then turned an exasperated face to the waiter. “A Chardonnay, Roger. When you got a moment to spare.” He took the chair across from me. “Is so nice to see you, Petey.”

“Look, Choo-Choo, you wanna sit, it’s all right. You wanna play this ‘Petey-Sweetie,’ you’re gonna find my foot in your ass.”

“Promises, promises. Tha’s all I get.”

The rules thus established, we set out to do the town. Or at least the small part of it called the Lower East Side. Choo-Choo knew everybody and, fueled by cocaine, insisted on introducing me. Wherever we went, I let the same story out. I was just out of the joint, back in business, and looking for a place to lay low for a few days. My problem wasn’t serious. Two detectives, working out of Midtown South, had a hard-on for me. If they caught up with me before their attention turned to more pressing matters, they’d violate me and I’d have to spend thirty days in Rikers waiting for a parole board hearing.

Choo-Choo, as soon as he heard my sad story, offered me his own place.

“Is only one room, but we be comfy-comfy.”

I politely declined and he didn’t pursue it. Nobody else went for the bait. Not until we got to a small bar on Avenue B and 6th Street called Downtown Sarajevo. It was a trendy bar, in its own way. The walls, of splintered plywood, were painted a dead, flat black and decorated with instruments of torture—yokes, whips, thumbscrews, electric wires, and batteries. The centerpiece was a rack, complete with block and tackle.

Most of the patrons were leather-jacketed punks, but a few bone-thin anarchists seasoned the stew. They were very impressed with my being an actual real-life ex-convict. I suppose they wanted to be tough, but they seemed more like a gang of middle-class kids at a costume party. Still, they had enough street smarts not to offer me a place to lay up. They nodded sympathetically, drank a beer, did a line, then moved on.

I was about to give up on Downtown Sarajevo when a tall, fat kid entered the bar and came directly to our table. He was wearing the proper uniform-black leather jacket, stiff crew cut, studded bracelet, and motorcycle boots—but he lacked the youthful innocence of the other patrons.

“What’s happenin’, Choo-Choo?” he asked before turning directly to me. “My name’s Jocko.”

“Wha’ you wan’ here, Jocko? This ain’ no place for you.” Choo-Choo tossed me a warning with his eyes.

Jocko shook his head, jerking his thumb in Choo-Choo’s direction. “Ever since I told her that she couldn’t suck my cock, she’s got a fuckin’ attitude.”

“Pete,” Choo-Choo cried, “don’ let him talk to me like tha’.”

“You wanna sit at this table,” I said evenly, “you respect everyone else sitting here. This is not a difficult concept, even for a slimeball like you.”

If he was legit, he would either have walked away or gotten in my face. But, of course, if he was legit, he wouldn’t have insulted Choo-Choo in the first place.

“Hey, take it easy, man,” he said, rubbing his wrist across his mouth. “I’m just havin’ a little fun.” He had large, fleshy lips, a short snout of a nose, and piggy black eyes. If I’d been a casting director making a movie, I would have chosen him to play the role of informant without hesitation. “Anyways, I heard about how you got a problem and I think I could help.”

I leaned forward, thankful that at least I didn’t
look
like a rat. “Keep talkin’.”

“He said you were feelin’ some heat. And, like, you needed a place to chill out.”

“Who?”

“A street kid. Name of Marty. Said he ran into you and Choo-Choo in the Cafe. I figured I could help.”

I was tempted to keep pushing his buttons, to see just how much abuse he’d take before he reacted, but I couldn’t afford to indulge my curiosity. “Let’s go outside. Too many ears in here. Choo-Choo, it’s been great.”

It was almost ten o’clock and much cooler. My jacket had been driving me crazy all day. I couldn’t take it off, despite the heat, because I had the PPK tucked into my belt. Now I was grateful for it.

I took young Jocko into a doorway and put several lines up his nose by way of getting started.

“What’d your friend tell you about me?” I tried to put a little desperation into my voice. Just enough to let him know that I needed him, despite the fact that I didn’t like or trust him.

“He said you had a beef with some cops. You’re lookin’ for a place to stay.”

I took my time answering. “You ever do time, Jocko?”

He grinned, driving his fat upper lip into his nose. His front teeth were yellow. “Not
hard
time. No. I spent a few nights at Rikers on a piece of shit reefer bust, but I never been upstate.”

“What happened with the bust? You beat it?”

“I got probation.”

I knew that he expected me to question him about what he’d
done
to get probation, but I turned the conversation in a different direction, offering him the exalted status of comrade when he expected to be called a rat.

“Then you could understand my problem,” I declared. “I’m on parole, so even if I’m popped for bullshit, I’m gonna have to spend a month in Rikers before I get a hearing with the board. Meanwhile, I got these two pigs from Midtown South climbing up my ass, the same two pigs who got me sent away. I need a place to lay quiet for a couple of days. I’m tryin’ to make contact with a friend of mine on the coast. As soon as that comes through, my ass is in the wind.”

“Why don’t you got to a hotel?”

“I thought you knew what was happening?” I eyed him suspiciously. “I don’t have no luggage. I’m wearing blue jeans and a cheap jacket. Where am I gonna go, the fuckin’ Plaza? And forget about a flophouse. There’s more snitches in those shitty hotels than there are whores. Hey, I hope I’m not wasting my time here.”

“No, man, it’s cool. I just, like, spoke out without thinking. Whatever reasons you got are your own.” He dropped his eyes. “But I, uhhhh … I gotta get somethin’ for it.”

“How much?”

“Two bills.”

“No problem, Jocko. If it’s
right
.” He started to describe the wonders of my new home, but I cut him short. “Just tell me where it is.”

“A couple of blocks from here. On 6th Street.”

“Let’s go.”

The building he took me to was sealed up. Sheet metal covered the doors and the lower windows. I’d known a lot of places like this and they were always filled with drugs, with shooting galleries and crack dens, junkies and dealers.

“This is bullshit,” I said. “I need someplace quiet and you’re takin’ me to dope fuckin’ heaven.”

“No, it’s not like that.” He looked at me closely. “You must’ve been away for a long time. What you’re lookin’ at here ain’t a dope house. It’s a squat.”

“A
SQUAT IS WHAT
you do when you gotta take a shit in the woods.” Between the coke and the general situation, I’d reached a point where I no longer cared for (or was able to deal with) bullshit. “If you dragged me over here for nothing …”

“Take it easy, man.” He wasn’t so blind as to misinterpret the look in my eye. “Squats are, like, for squatters. They’re condemned buildings. Nobody’s supposed to live here.”

“Except for dopers and coke junkies,” I insisted. “
If
you wanna call what they do living.”

“No, it’s not like that, man. I mean, yeah,
sometimes
it’s like that. But sometimes people move into these buildings just because they need a place to live. They fix ’em up, then try to get the city to turn the property over.”

I thought about it for a minute. I
had
been away for a long time. “Does it work? Does the city just give the property away?”

“Sometimes yes and sometimes no. It depends on the real estate developers. If they want the building, the city kicks the squatters out. Man, there were riots over this shit last year. You didn’t hear about it?”

“I must’ve been preoccupied. Let’s go inside and take a look.”

He led me down a narrow alleyway to the rear of the building. The door was a hole in the back wall. I took one look and drew my piece.

“You first, pal.”

“Wait a—”

“Forget about it. You’re not backin’ out.” I’d like to say that I was giving him another excuse to hate my guts, to rat on me without feeling guilty, but the truth was that walking into a dark, abandoned building on the Lower East Side of Manhattan scared the crap out of me. For all I knew, this asshole was setting me up to get ripped off. He had enough reason. I’d been flashing money and coke all night long.

His whole face began to quiver. I thought he was going to cry. “Please, Pete, I’m playin’ straight with you. I’m tryin’ to help you out.”

“Then you won’t have any problem. Let’s go.”

I was expecting a typical abandoned building—busted-up furniture, ripped-out plumbing, fallen plaster covering the floor—but the building was clean. Pieces of the ceiling
had
fallen down. Parts of the floor had been torn up, too. But someone had carted the rubble away and swept the floors. There were lights in the hallway, though I hadn’t been able to see them from outside, twenty-five-watt bulbs that cast just enough light to reveal patches of newly applied plaster.

I followed Jocko up to the top floor, noting that half the doors we passed had people living behind them and that everything seemed to be exactly as he’d described it, although the building became more and more decrepit as we climbed the stairs.

“I got the whole floor,” Jocko announced, “but, like, it ain’t real fixed up yet. I’m just gettin’ started.”

He surprised me by pulling out a set of keys and unlocking the door. I’d never been in an abandoned building with a working lock. I let him walk in ahead of me, then followed, trying to penetrate the deep shadows.

“I’m still working on the electricity.” He thumbed a cigarette lighter and began to light candles. “I’ll have it going in a couple of weeks.”

The room had been swept, I’ll give it that, but it was a long way from looking like home. A few pieces of ancient, dusty furniture, a mattress on the floor, an electric coffeemaker, and that was it. The bare windows were a uniform dirty brown and parts of the ceiling seemed about to fall away at any moment. It was perfect.

“Lemme show ya this.” He crossed the room and pulled a sagging armchair away from the wall to reveal a small hole. “You can use this to get out in a hurry.” He tossed me a wink.