Nearby, a couple of plainclothes cops monitored the conversation. They seemed anxious to just get on with it already.
But Gittens was in no hurry. He came over and shook our hands. Martin Gittens was not an imposing guy. His face was unlined and pleasant, even bland. The forgettable face in the crowd. A receding hairline and prominent forehead — which together formed a headland, a tall forehead shaped like a sperm whale’s brow — were Gittens’s only irregular features. He wore khaki pants and sneakers. If not for the small nylon holster and badge on his belt, you might have taken him for an accountant or a high-school teacher, if you remarked him at all.
‘This kid is getting ready to make a buy for us,’ Gittens said. ‘He’s almost there.’
‘Should we come back?’
‘Nah. This isn’t a bad kid. He’s just having a little crisis. He’ll figure it out. Then we can talk.’ He gave us a knowing look, letting us in on the game. You know how it works; you know the score.
A few feet away, the kid let out a sigh. It seemed to take all his strength to look up at Gittens and say, ‘I can’t do it.’
Gittens went back to him. ‘Alright, Michael, no problem. If that’s what you want.’
‘So what happens now?’
‘Well, I’ll file my report with the DA, see how they want to handle it. When they get around to it, they’ll indict you. Couple of weeks maybe. They’re busy. It’s just a drug thing.’
‘I can’t believe this shit.’
Gittens nodded sympathetically.
‘What would you do, Detective?’
‘It doesn’t matter what I would do. It’s your life, Michael. I can’t tell you what to do. I’m not your lawyer.’
‘Well guess what: My lawyer isn’t here at this particular moment. Just tell me, what am I supposed to do?’
Gittens knelt beside him. ‘Look, I gave you this opportunity because I thought you deserved it. I don’t see you in state prison, Michael, I really don’t. But what am I gonna do? I’ve got a job to do, right? I can’t just shit-can the thing without a reason. I need you to give me something in return. Tit for tat.’
‘Where will I do the time? Walpole?’
‘No, Concord probably’
‘What’s Concord like?’
‘What do you think, Michael? It’s state time, it’s bad.’
The kid sagged against the wall, disconsolate. ‘I don’t know how I got here. I really don’t.’
‘You don’t know how you got here?’
‘No, I mean I know. But it was a fucking dime bag. What the fuck! Three years for a dime bag? Mother fucker!’
‘It wasn’t a dime bag, Michael. It was sixteen grams.’
‘I didn’t weigh the shit! I told you, it wasn’t mine.’
‘Michael, you put yourself here. You should learn to take responsibility.’
‘I told you, I was just holding it.’
‘Holding it, selling it, putting it on a hot dog, whatever — if you have sixteen grams, that’s trafficking, end of story. You have to own that.’
The guy made a face. He wasn’t up for the lecture.
‘Look, Michael, you want to try and beat it? Go for it, take a chance. I’ll be rooting for you. Hey, you never know, right? Maybe you’ll walk.’
‘And if I don’t?’
‘It’s a three-year minimum, and that’s day-for-day — no parole, no good time, no work release, no nothing. You sit there. There’s a war on drugs, maybe you haven’t heard.’
‘I got two kids, Gittens, you know that. I can’t go away for three years. I can’t go away for three days. You got kids, Gittens?’
‘Yeah, I’ve got kids.’
‘Then you know how it is.’
‘I’m offering you a way out, Michael.’
‘A way out with a fuckin’ cap in my head.’
‘I told you, they’ll never know who you are.’
‘They’ll know.’
‘No. You won’t be named in any of the reports; no one will ever name you in court. You have my word on that. What’s between you and me stays between you and me. Have I ever broken my word to you?’
‘They’ll know.’
‘Not if everybody does their job.’
The man breathed deep, considering his options. ‘This is the last one. I can’t take no more of this shit.’
‘Last one, Michael.’
‘After this, I’m out.’
‘After this, you’re out.’
‘What about the DA? What’s he gonna do with my case?’
‘There won’t be any case. The DA doesn’t have a case until I bring it to him. Until then, it’s my case. This is between you and me, Michael. I’ll take care of you. You know you can count on me.’
‘Truth?’
‘Truth. The DA will never hear your name.’
‘Last time,’ Michael warned, relenting.
Gittens nodded. ‘Last time. Alright, you know the drill. Stand up, empty your pockets. Detective,’ he called to one of the plainclothes guys, ‘will you come witness this?’
The kid emptied his pockets and turned them inside out for good measure. He left his things in a tidy pile on the rubbery surface of the roof, then raised his hands and allowed Gittens to frisk him. Boredom registered on both their faces. The procedure had become routine for them. Gittens carefully copied down the serial numbers from two twenty-dollar bills and handed them to the kid with the advice, ‘Knockout, Michael, nothing else. Tell him it’s got to be Knockout. And make sure the money goes to Veris himself. Big guy in the red FUBU shirt.’
‘I know who the motherfucker is.’
‘Alright, Michael. We’ll be watching.’
‘That makes me feel much better,’ the kid sniffed, and he disappeared down the stairs.
Gittens invited us to watch. ‘Step right up, men. Showtime at the Apollo.’
We moved to the edge of the roof, which overlooked Echo Park five stories below. Like so many things in Mission Flats, Echo Park was not what its name suggested, a rolling green meadow where sounds echoed off trees and hills. Instead, it was a crooked pie piece wedged into the joint where North Tremont Street branched off from Franklin Street. Gittens said the locals called it Hypo Park for the hypodermic needles found there. Inside were a few stringy trees and some park benches — the unfancy kind, green slats in concrete bases. A Y-shaped walkway connected the three corners of the park. Graffiti on the walkway read, Fuck the PoPo, DeeZee, the ubiquitous MP, and some markings I could not interpret.
Gittens looked down at this scene, rapt. He held a pair of binoculars, which he passed to me occasionally.
I mimicked his posture, craning slightly, forehead creased with concentration.
I tried to detect something more than a few kids hanging out in a ratty park. There wasn’t much going on, though. A half dozen young guys — kids, all of them black, wearing baggy hip-hop styles — were draped over the benches. A few people came and went, loitering, talking, moving on. From all appearances, the Echo Park drug trade had shut down for the day.
‘What’s Knockout?’ I asked Gittens.
‘Heroin with some other garbage in it. It’s been turning up the last few weeks. We had a kid die from it.’
One of the cops with us muttered, ‘Come on, shithead.’
‘Give him a minute to get down the stairs,’ Gittens soothed. ‘Be patient.’
Echo Park struck me as an indiscreet place for a drug market. There was nothing to hide behind, no privacy
