Bronx Requiem(26)

Beck sat next to Demarco, let the crowbar slide from under his arm down next to his right leg, and asked, “What do you have?”

“A lot of bad news.” Demarco glanced at the crowbar. “We have to be careful. I got his apartment number, but I don’t want to bust in there without knowing what’s on the other side of the door.”

Manny sat down on the other side of Beck. Beck tapped the curved end of the crowbar on the asphalt.

“What’d you find out?”

Demarco motioned toward the two elderly black ladies sitting on the bench.

“Had a talk with those lovely ladies.”

“And?”

“You ever spend much time in the projects, James?”

“No. They didn’t build anything special for us in Hell’s Kitchen. It was ghetto enough the way it was.”

Demarco nodded, still intent on making his point. “These projects go back a long way. Thirty, forty, fifty years. There are housing projects in every borough. Hundreds of thousands of people. Acres and acres, pretty much cut off from everything around them. People hardly ever think about it.”

“Your point being?”

“I could make a lot of points.” Demarco nodded toward the two old ladies he’d been talking to. “But for now, my point is—all the time these places have been around, those old ladies and thousands like ’em have been defending ’em. They’re the sentinels, always watching. They know everything. Even back in the worst days, they were watching, defending the turf. Not just against the bad boys, against everybody. Drug dealers, cops, Housing Authority, everybody.”

“Except you,” said Beck.

Demarco smiled, “Me, they like.”

“What’d they tell you, Demarco?”

“Told me our man Packy was here last night around ten. He came in hot. Blazing hot. Packy walked right out front of Derrick’s building and called the man out. And his daughter. Just yelling for blood and his kin.”

“Calling out for what, exactly?”

“For his daughter to get the hell out of Derrick Watkins’s apartment.”

“Then, what?”

“Watkins’s family has been around here a long time. This is home ground. Bunch of his crew live in this project. By the time Watkins came out, there were five, six guys backing him up.”

“Christ. Then what?”

“One of the ladies, Miss Margaret, lives on the sixth floor there.” Demarco pointed to the building in front of them. “She had the best view. Said it went down mostly in front of the entrance over there. She could see, but not hear what was said. There was shouting. Packy and Watkins having it out. She called the cops. She’s sure other residents called the cops, too, but before they arrived, everything blew up. They swarmed Packy. He fought back, but there were too many. They beat him down. Kept pounding on him until they heard sirens, then disappeared like cockroaches when you turn on the lights.”

“And Packy?”

“The other lady, Maxine, said they left Packy on the ground, but before the cops pulled in Packy got back on his feet and walked away.”

“Did the cops stop him?”

“Not that she could see. He was out of view when the cops showed.”

“What the hell was he thinking? What was so important he couldn’t wait until the next day and come talk to us? Come in here with some backup. Make a plan before he came into some goddam pimp’s turf and got killed.”

Manny said, “Maybe that was it.”

“What?”

“Maybe Packy figured he’d just be dealing with a lowlife pimp. Nothing he couldn’t handle himself.”

Beck said, “I don’t know. But like I said, why the hell come in here blind? Why risk hitchhiking into town and rushing over here first thing?”

Demarco said, “Obviously he wanted to get his daughter out of her situation. Why he was in such a damn rush is something we’ll have to find out.”

Beck pulled out his smartphone and clicked on his map app. He waited impatiently until a street map of the area appeared and a blue dot showed his location. He traced the route from where they sat to where the police found Packy’s body near Longfellow Street.

“Based on where they found him, it looks like he went straight out onto 174th Street, across the bridge over the Sheridan Expressway, and then walked three more blocks. Watkins and his gang might have scattered when the cops came, but they could have easily followed him and shot him once he was out of here.”

Manny grumbled, “Goddam cowards.”

Beck tapped his crowbar on the ground, looked around the area where they sat. There was a small playground within sight. Two women with four kids among them had drifted into the park. An older man in neat slacks, a square-cut short-sleeve shirt wearing a straw Kangol cap sat down on the bench with Miss Margaret and Maxine.

Beck said, “We’re not going to find out anything more sitting here. I want to see if Derrick Watkins is home.”

Demarco asked, “You open to a suggestion?”

“If it’s an idea on getting into his apartment.”

Before Demarco could explain, Beck’s cell phone buzzed.

“Ciro.” Beck paused and listened, then told Ciro Baldassare where to meet them.

Demarco asked, “Ciro’s coming?”