Bronx Requiem(50)
But not so reckless as to overpack. Just enough for one day
Walter smiled ruefully. He could have packed for a week, or a month, or a year. There was no cat. No houseplants. Nobody on Livingston Street waiting for him.
Walter put that last thought out of his mind and concentrated on the task at hand. Pack for one night. Think about how he could help Beck find out what had happened to Paco Johnson, and why. And then come home to his empty apartment.
29
Tyrell Williams’s apartment building on Daly Street was about a five-minute walk from Bronx River Houses. When John Palmer dropped him off, he made a point of saying to Tyrell, “So this is where you live?”
“This is it.”
Tyrell pulled himself out of the patrol car. Palmer watched him enter a five-story brick building and kept watching until the lobby door shut behind him.
During the drive from the precinct, Palmer had alternated between threatening Tyrell with all the bad things that would ensue if he didn’t come through as a witness versus the good things that would happen if he did.
Tyrell entered the building and walked up one flight of stairs before he turned around, went back to the lobby, and left the building. He walked to the Bronx River Houses and went straight to Derrick’s apartment, arriving at 1:15 A.M. Tyrell was one of the few who knew about the spare key Derrick had taped under the handrail out in the stairwell between the sixth and seventh floors.
He let himself into the apartment, turning on lights as he made his way through the rooms. News of Derrick’s death would have already swept through the neighborhood so he wasn’t surprised to see Leon Miller had disappeared. It wouldn’t be long before Biggie or someone else came to clean out the apartment of anything incriminating or valuable. Worst of all, it wouldn’t be long before word spread that the cops had arrested and released him. Juju Jackson would assume that meant he was working for the police, so Biggie, or God forbid Whitey Bondurant, would be coming for him soon. Time to quickly scavenge what he could, and then go convince Biggie he had no intention of ratting anybody out to the cops, and see if Biggie and Juju would agree to let him testify against the white guy. Hopefully, they’d see it was the right move. Keep the cops running in the wrong direction while he and Biggie hunted down that bitch Amelia and made her pay for what she did.
Tyrell walked back to Derrick’s bedroom. He lifted the queen-size mattress off the box spring and tried to prop it against a wall, but the cheap mattress folded onto itself and sagged onto the floor. Wrestling with it sent a jolt of pain through Tyrell’s broken nose and cracked cheekbone. He lost his balance and became dizzy for a few seconds. Tyrell cursed the son of a bitch who had sucker punched him. He vowed he would do everything he could to see that bastard dead or in jail.
He kicked the box spring away from the mattress and tore off the flimsy cloth covering the wood frame. In between the springs were three bundles of cash, two guns, two boxes of ammunition, and two ledger books.
Tyrell stuffed everything into a pillowcase barely big enough to hold it all.
He carried his plunder with him as he rifled through drawers, looked into closets, checked the freezer in the kitchen, the tension building in him as he progressed from room to room. Even though it was after two in the morning, he feared Biggie Watkins might come busting in on him at any moment.
He decided he needed something better than a pillowcase. Anyone seeing him in the dark of night with a stuffed pillowcase, especially cops, would know he’d robbed somebody.
He found a red nylon laundry bag in one of the closets. He shoved the full pillowcase into the bottom of the laundry bag, then added a sheet from Derrick’s bed for cover.
All right, he told himself, time to get the f*ck out of here.
30
James Beck and Walter Ferguson pulled in to the small courtyard of the old motel on the outskirts of Napanoch, New York, at one-twenty on Thursday morning. Walter had recommended the place, having stayed there on previous visits to Eastern Correctional Facility.
It was a no-nonsense, utilitarian motel from a time gone by, set back off the road with a half-circle gravel driveway leading to a reception office. A line of ten rooms ran to the right of the office.
They parked the Mercury and approached the office door. An envelope had been taped to the locked front door labeled: W. Ferguson. Beck pulled the envelope off the door. Inside were two keys to two rooms. The keys were attached to old-fashioned plastic fobs with the room number.
Beck felt like he had stepped back in time. That, combined with their discussion about Eastern Correctional on the drive up, brought back memories and feelings Beck would have rather let lie dormant.
He and Walter exchanged quick good nights and agreed to meet at seven-thirty for an early breakfast before they set out for the prison.
Beck knew before he entered his room that it would be clean, functional, without frills. It was. Not even a TV. A little more worn down than he might have preferred, but no matter.
He showered quickly and slid in between the stiff sheets. There was a blanket covering the bed, too thin to keep him warm against the falling temperature. Much like in prison. Worn sheets and blankets, small foam pillows, and cells that were always too hot or too cold.
Beck closed his eyes, exhaled slowly, trying to dispel the sense of dread and anger and loneliness sweeping over him. When he’d left Red Hook, he had expected these emotions to intensify. He’d felt them to one degree or another nearly every time he’d lain down to sleep in the years since he’d been released from prison. But now he could feel the behemoth that was Eastern Correctional Facility looming a few miles away; its presence imposing on him, intensifying the familiar feelings.