Brad Parks - Faces of the Gone

“So maybe he tried to leave the gang and they killed him?”

“Nah, because that don’t account for the other three cats that got smoked with him,” Tee said, crossing his arms as if preparing for a scholarly lecture in Hood Studies. “The Browns are pretty old-school. If they had a beef with Dee-Dub, they would put him down nice and quiet, not make some big thing out of it.”

“Good point,” I said, shifting my weight and fixing my eyes on a blob of melted wax that had once been a candle.

“However,” Tee said, pointing one finger in a professorial manner, “they might know something about what happened, being that it involved a former member. You know what I’m saying?”

“For once, yes, I know what you’re saying,” I said. “You got any kind of in with the Browns?”

Tee looked thoughtful for a moment.

“Well, let me ask you something,” he said.

“Shoot.”

“That cat of yours. You got someone who will take care of it in the event of your untimely death? I don’t want no orphaned cats in this world.”

“Don’t worry,” I said, cracking a smile. “It’s dealt with in my will.”

Tee had me follow him back to his store. It shouldn’t have been hard to trail Tee’s mammoth truck, except he squeezed it through the tiniest holes in traffic. He and I had once had a debate about what made a “good” driver. To me, it was someone who didn’t get in accidents. To him, it was someone who could make a fifteen-minute trip in ten by doing a grand slalom through three lanes of traffic, one of which was oncoming.

I could see he was talking on his cell phone, and by the time we pulled up in front of his store, he had already made some arrangements. I parked behind him and rolled down my window as he walked toward my car.

“Okay,” he said, “I got you an interview with the Browns.”

“Great.”

“There’s just one condition.”

“Okay.”

“At some point they’re going to offer you some weed,” Tee said. “I strongly suggest you smoke it.”

“And if I don’t?”

“They’ll think you’re a cop and they’ll shoot you.”

“Well, then, tell them to put on Marley and bring on Mary Jane!” I said.

“I thought you’d see it that way.”

“You coming along?”

“Hellllll, no,” Tee said. “Those dudes is messed up. I mean, I know them. If they come in my store, I’ll talk with them. But that don’t mean I hang out with them. Besides, if my wife found out I was smoking weed while I was supposed to be at the store? She’d beat me silly.”

That was another way Tee’s tough-guy look belied what was underneath: he readily admitted to being afraid of his wife.

“Well, I sure don’t want to go pissing off Mrs. Jamison.”

“Damn straight,” Tee said. “I keep telling you, that bitch is scary.”

Tee told me to drive to an intersection a few blocks down on Clinton Place, get out of my car, and wait for the Browns to find me-which, he assured me, wouldn’t take long.

I drove to the designated spot and immediately began hoping the Browns got to me before someone else did. Dusk had come quickly, and the corner had an ominous feel to it. An intersection with three abandoned houses tends to be a bit foreboding that way. None of the houses had been boarded up-or if they had, the boards had been removed. You don’t want to know about what kind of stuff goes on in an abandoned house in Newark.

Down the street, there was a row of particularly slummy-looking brick apartments, the kind where the front door hadn’t existed in decades, allowing the drug dealers free access. Each apartment had a NO LOITERING sign near the entrance, promising that Newark police would arrest anyone who disobeyed. It was a sure indication a building was bad news.

But on this block it wasn’t the only indication. There were enough shoes hanging from the telephone wires to start a Foot-locker warehouse. Broken glass-some of it old booze bottles, some of it used crack vials-littered the sidewalk. And a row of brown bandanas flying from the traffic light stanchion told me I was clearly in Browns territory.

But where were the Browns?

I got my answer quickly enough when I felt something hard and metallic sticking in my back. “Don’t turn around,” said a voice that could put skid marks in even the bravest man’s underwear.

I raised my hands.

“Put yo’ hands down, fool. You want some cop driving by here thinking this is a stickup?”

“I thought it was,” I said.

“You the Bird Man, right?” my friend said.

“Yeah.”

“Well, then this ain’t no stickup. We just going to take you for a little ride is all. And you gonna have to put this on.”

I saw a hand reach around in front of me. It was clutching a brown bandana.

“Can’t I just promise to keep my eyes closed?”

“This ain’t no comedy club, Bird Man. Put it on. And put it on tight.”

“You got it,” I said, and tied a sturdy knot around the back of my head. He tugged on it, then came around in front of me. I felt a rush of air on my face, like a punch had been pulled just inches short of my nose. My friend was checking if I could see through my blindfold. But I didn’t flinch. In truth, I didn’t really want to see what was going on.

I heard a car-no, a van? — pull up beside me. The next thing I knew, someone picked me up, bride-across-the-threshold-style, and carried me a few steps toward the sound of the engine. From the ease with which he handled my 185 pounds-think child carrying rag doll and you’ve got the idea-I knew I didn’t want to pick a fight with him.

“Watch your fingers, Bird Man,” my friend said, and I heard two doors slam.

“Thanks,” I said, not sure if he could hear me.

Soon the van was rattling down the street and around several corners. After a while, I got the distinct feeling we were really just driving in a circle-we kept making right turns. But if that’s what they had to do to feel comfortable with me, I was fine playing along.

Finally, I felt the van coming to a stop and heard the engine cut. Someone opened the back doors.

“Come on, Bird Man,” my friend said. “We going to Brown Town.”

The Director was not a religious man. Far from it. But if he was ever moved to prayer, it was for the continued existence and prosperity of Newark Liberty International Airport. Those ten thousand acres of paved swampland were the world’s most fertile source of heroin.

One flight came directly each day from Colombia. The rest came through Miami, Atlanta, or other points south. Then there were the cargo planes. Altogether, it kept the heroin pouring in day and night, 365 days a year, helping to nurse addictions up and down the Eastern Seaboard one landing at a time.

The heroin entered in the lining of suitcases, hidden in freight, sewn in clothing, tucked in nooks and crannies. Powder is an easy thing to conceal and a 747 is a massive piece of real estate with plenty of hiding places. The liquid form of heroin-which could then be extracted using methylene chloride and baked into a solid-offered other possibilities for the creative smuggler.

One kilo of heroin-2.2 pounds of powdery white gold-cost roughly $8,000 on the streets of Bogota. That same kilo was worth at least $60,000 on the streets of America, even before it was cut with cheaper products. With a cost ratio like that, there was a tremendous market-driven incentive to import as much product as possible. Caution didn’t pay. Daring did.

No one knew how much heroin poured through Newark airport. The Director wondered if his competition-primarily ethnic mobs-was getting even more of it than he was.

But, as the Director often told Monty, he got his share. He made sure of it.