Adrian McKinty - Dead I Well May Be

I don’t know what Bill’s troubles were, but clearly he had a lot on his plate and didn’t get round to sending someone to look for his stash of coke until December, by which time the apartment was inhabited by someone else-our pal Pete. The Christmas burglar had found nothing, and Bill decided that he would investigate the whole thing when he got out of the clink in the summer.

You might recall that the night Shovel supposedly beat the crap out of Big Andy, as I was coming up the steps from the subway stop Mr. Berenson said that he’d had an intruder break into his place but not take anything. This was Bill out of jail and looking for his cache of cocaine, which was safely embedded in the floorboard. He didn’t find it or was too high to get it the first time, which was unlucky for him, because very soon after, Ramón saw him on the street and remembered his tall prison tales and took him to a place where all the pertinent information was extracted. Shortly after that, Ramón or an associate went to Mr. Berenson’s apartment, killed Mr. Berenson, and took a sports bag full of cocaine out of the apartment. I sometimes like to beat myself up with the thought that if I’d taken the old Nazi a wee bit more seriously that night perhaps I’d have gone over there myself and camped out and found the cocaine before Ramón did. With a bag full of cocaine to deliver to Darkey, I might have been forgiven all my sins and at the very least there would have been no reason to send all of us down to Mexico. Maybe they’d have gotten to me, but the boys would all still have been alive.

In any case, his little worker bees got going on the stash and with all this free money Ramón transformed himself from a small-time player into a bigger-time player. Ramón flooded his own wee part of the market, undercut the competition, and in no time at all was the cat’s pajamas.

It maybe wasn’t just chance then that the two areas I’d come across Ramón’s baleful influence were in the Bronx and Washington Heights. Both places Dominicans were moving into, Micks moving out of. Places where one could expect that Darkey White’s power would be on the wane and that of thoughtful young hoods from Hispaniola would be on the wax. Yes, in this part of town, Ramón and the Dominicans were the future, Darkey White and the Irish were the past. It wouldn’t last, but then again, what does?

Ramón was in the group of six that night, and I didn’t know it, but he’d come to see me.

You think you can be anonymous in this city, but you can’t. Things slip out, people chitter. Everyone’s a bigmouth. You can’t keep a fucking secret in America. The Irish aren’t much good at secrets either, but they’re better than Yanks. If a UFO really did crash at Roswell, there’d be a bloody Roswell World there by now.

Someone had blabbed and Ramón had heard about me and sought me out. At that time, I considered this my unluckiest break since coming back to New York. From my position, I was doing ok. I had a job, I had a place, and I was lying low and doing prep work. The last thing I needed was a major player taking an interest in me. But it is possible that nothing at all would have worked out but for my connection with Ramón. Without Ramón, it might have taken me years to find out where anybody lived and without Ramón, Sunshine might have got to me before I got to him.

Ramón was cool and had a lot of bottle. His boys were sitting in the booth drinking Coronas when he came up to the bar alone and sat opposite me.

Ramón’s big thing was telling you who the best prospects were in Dominican baseball circles. Largely, he was proved right and I have vague recollections of predictions of greatness for Pedro Martínez, Manny Ramírez, and Sammy Sosa, though doubtless there were others who didn’t work out.

Anyway, that’s how he started out with me. Baseball, Dominicans. On extremely limited knowledge I kept the chat going, hoping for a fat tip. We talked, and he got another round in. His English was great for having spent so short a time here, but apparently it was because of his uncle, who had gone back to the island after thirty years on 171st Street. He’d been raised by this uncle, who, in his retirement, became a minor and almost famous Dominican poet. After the death of his mother, Ramón was raised by the uncle and a succession of women, none of whom, it seemed, he had much affection for. He told me all this when baseball was exhausted.

Yeah, yeah, very interesting, I kept saying.

Ramón chatted on and on, and it looked like things were going ok, and I was just beginning to wonder if there was any kind of gay vibe here when quite suddenly he stopped talking, blinked, and said:

Listen, enough of this. I’ll come to the point, I know you.

You do?

Yes.

Ok, who am I? I said, laughing.

You are Michael Forsythe and you and your crew are the ones who killed Dermot Finoukin in a bar near the Audubon Ballroom in Washington Heights.

I don’t know what you’re talk-

I was there that day, I recognize you. I want to offer you a job. I’m starting a business in that part of town and I need reliable men who can handle a weapon.

Wrong guy, mate, sorry. Mistaken me for someone else, I said, concealing the fact that I was very close to panic.

Please, don’t play games, he said.

Jesus Christ, I was thinking. Ok, be calm. So I was rumbled. Bloody rumbled. Was he a peeler? No, not this side of the Great Divide. What was it that he’d said? Oh yeah, he wanted to offer me a job, because I was such a great fucking marksman.

Ok, pal, your whole crew over there are Dominicans. Now why would you want me? I don’t even speak Spanish, I said. No hablo español .

He smiled.

Michael, you’ll learn Spanish. I need good men, not hangers-on. It pays five hundred a week. Often much more. You do basic protection.

You talk like a cop. How come your English is so good? I asked suspiciously.

Listen to me, Michael, I’m no puta gangster smoking the product and blowing profits on cars and whores. My crew are the guys I could get, but I’m looking for quality and from what I’ve heard about you, you’ll fit right in.

What have you heard? From who? How did you know where I was?

Don’t worry, it is general information.

This, in fact, worried me a great deal, but my face was studied and blank. I tried to appear relaxed. I grinned and breathed.

Anyway, why would I want to work for you? I asked.

Apart from the money?

Yeah.

I’ll help you.

I looked at him. Ramón, a small man, but what presence, like a Dominican Rod Steiger. But even this doesn’t do him justice. Ramón took up a great deal of psychic space: he electrified the room and his prison eyes and wary stare brought up everyone else’s game, and we became hyperaware just as he was always cognizant of everyone and everything within a pistol shot.

Help me do what? I asked.

I’ll help you, he insisted.

I shook my head and tried to figure out what was going on. Was he a fucking mind reader? What did he know? Things didn’t seem quite right. Was this a trap of some kind? Had Darkey put him up to this?

Listen, mate, I don’t need a job, I already have one. I’m trying to keep a low profile, you know, I said.

I know, he said, and smiled a very irritating smile. I’ll help you with that, too.

I began to get a little scared now and measured the paces it would take me to get at the shotgun under the counter. Two steps, and it just pulls out. Neither of us spoke for a while, but I was first to crack:

I need to know how you found out about me, I said, slowly.

He nodded.

I understand, he said.

While he spoke, I tried to figure him out. The half-smile, Rolex watch, gold chain, expensive shirt, and yet it was all low key. This was the bare minimum he needed to impress his subordinates. Ramón wasn’t really the type for ostentation.