Van Buren unlocks the police chain on the rustic wooden gate, and we take the long driveway toward the ocean. The basketball court is also locked, but Van Buren has the key for that too.
“Were you the one who talked to Wilson originally?” I ask.
“No.”
“One of the other detectives?”
“No one talked to Wilson.”
“Three local kids are piled up on his lawn. Another deceased individual shows up afterward, and no one feels it’s necessary to talk to Wilson?”
“Ahh, no. That’s not the way we do things out here.”
I look around the estate, but other than the spectacular ocean views, there’s not much to see, or make notes on.
Eventually, Van Buren and I are standing on the veranda of the massive house, which, he says, is for sale.
“I’m a little pressed for cash right now,” I tell him.
Van Buren laughs, and actually, we’re getting along fairly well under the circumstances.
“There’s one name that’s come up,” he finally says. “Local dealer who calls himself Loco.”
I nod, scratch my head some. “You talk to this Loco?”
“Nobody’s been able to find him.”
“Mind if I try?”
Chapter 79. Raiborne
WHAT’S WRONG WITH
Soon as I got back to the city, we leaned on a network of junkie snitches to see what could be learned about a drug dealer named Loco.
The name didn’t mean a thing to several lowlife informants, but we found out that on the last Monday of the month, a major dealer drives in from the Hamptons and replenishes his supply from the Colombians operating out of a take-out place in South Williamsburg.
It’s called Susie’s Wok, and for the last two hours, I’ve had a pretty good view of its side door as a parade of tattooed hipsters in skinny black pants and old-school sneakers comes and goes. Remember when arty white kids like Hemingway went to Paris to write a novel? Well, now junkies from Paris come to Williamsburg to start a rock band.
The DA’s office has been doing surveillance on the Colombians for months, running wiretaps, working up to a major sting. So we can’t touch Susie’s. All they’ve cleared us to do is watch out for Loco. If there
If we spot him, we can follow him back to the LIE and pull him over for a traffic violation or something.
That’s if Loco shows at all.
I haven’t seen a single nonjunkie come up to Susie’s door in hours, and my knees are killing me. When I see a lumbering Hasidic Jew sneak in for an illicit fix of outlawed swine-I guess we all got something we’re afraid of getting busted for-I call it a wasted day and follow him in.
After staring at Susie’s Wok all day, I’m starving for some fried pork myself.
Chapter 80. Loco
ON MONDAYS, WHEN I make my pickup in Brooklyn, I leave the Tahoe at home and get a loaner.
“Weekenders” not due back till Friday are generous enough to leave a fleet of cars for me to choose from at the railroad station. Today, I select a ten-year-old off-white Accord so generic it’s practically invisible. After thirty seconds to pick the lock and hot-wire the ignition, I’m off to Crooklyn.
The cops have their network of snitches, and I got my network too. Actually, it’s the same network. I just pay a little better and play a lot rougher.
They tell me Susie’s Wok has been getting a lot of attention lately. Something about too many cops spoiling the Wok, so when I get there, I circle the block a couple times to scope things out.
The first time I drive around, everything looks copacetic to me.
The second time, I notice this white van parked a little too conveniently across the street. The third time by, I can see that the van’s blacked-out windows are a lot newer than the banged-up body.
If I had the IQ of a piss clam, or an iota of criminal discipline, I’d turn around and keep going, but I spent three hours getting into makeup and wardrobe, and in my gray-flecked beard and side locks, I barely recognize myself. So I park a quarter of a mile away, put on my wide-brimmed black hat and baggy black jacket, and head back to Susie’s Wok on foot.
I know my disguise is kosher because on the four blocks back to Susie’s two guys dressed just like me wish me “Good Yontif,” and a cute little Hasidic mommy gives me the eye.
Inside Susie’s, my man Diego is pacing impatiently outside his little back office.
“Shalom,” I say.
“Shalom to you too, my friend,” says Diego, nervously looking at his watch.
“When I say shalom, I truly mean
That gets Diego’s attention, and he stares at me warily before a faint smile sneaks across his lips.
“Loco?” he whispers.
“This would be true, my friend.”
Behind closed doors, our transaction is handled with brisk efficiency. Twenty grand for Diego and his people, a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of goodies for me. The drugs are packed up in little cardboard boxes and metal take-out tins, with a handful of menus scattered on top.
It’s a good thing too, because as I step out the door I almost bump into a large black guy whose carriage and black leather jacket shout NYPD.
“Good chow?” he asks.
“The best,” I say, and keep on stepping. I don’t even let myself look in the rearview mirror until my take-out and I are out of Williamsburg and back on the LIE.
“Lo-co!” I shout at the windshield of the stolen Accord. “
Chapter 81. Tom
IT’S FRIDAY, JUST days before the start of Dante Halleyville’s trial, and the first buses filled with protesters arrive in East Hampton just after dawn. The people out here are about to understand the scale of this case, its national implications.
The buses aren’t Jitneys, the tall, sleek air-conditioned models that drop queerly dressed Manhattanites at quaint bus stops up and down 27. They’re a rolling armada of rusted-out school buses, long-retired Greyhounds, and dented-up vans. There are hundreds of them, and they come from as far north as New Hampshire, as far south as the Florida Panhandle.
Like a medieval army laying siege, they stop just outside of East Hampton. Early arrivals fill the field across from the Getty station, and when it can’t hold any more, the protesters fan out onto the tony south-of-the-highway streets that lead to the water.
At noon, a mile-long column, twelve people across, marches into town, and East Hampton’s two perpendicular blocks, where you could go a week without seeing an African American, are overwhelmed with thirty thousand
