The Subtle Art of Brutality, page 8
I venture on into the slums. Jeremiah would be pissed if he found out I was taking his car down here again.
Last time someone stole his stereo.
Grantham Blvd is a major artery running through here; not hard to get to. It winds for miles; widens in some parts and contracts in others. The apartment complex unfolds on the east side. Dilapidated. Fit for rodents and cockroaches. Or a wrecking ball.
I park in an open slot next to a burgundy ghetto sled with gold spokes in the wheels and a license plate reading BMPIN. Out of Jeremiah’s car. Gritty, dirty ice underfoot. I crush out my smoke on the BMPIN windshield.
A stern knock on the door and somebody stirs. Answers.
Read on Benny: front line dealer, thug punk, bully only because he has bigger guys standing behind him to push the threat, basic drug-addled shitbag. His meth mites must be biting; his forearms are covered in scabbed sores.
“Benny?” I say, looking over his shoulder. Listening.
“Yeah?”
He must deal out of his place. Anyone in this neck of the woods who, with a stranger knocking, doesn’t get alarmed must have a lot of strangers knocking.
“You alone, Benny?”
“What?” He is. I know it. He gives all the tells.
I punch his face and hear his jaw crack, shut the door behind me.
16
I clamp Benny’s groin to the floor with my foot.
When he comes to, he doesn’t react well to being cock-pinned. He screams. Thrashes. Heels dig up carpet fibers and his fingers are nothing more than claws as they rake the floor. He loses a nail in the ridiculous ordeal.
Pointing the .44 Magnum at his face sobers him up.
“Where is Delilah Boothe?”
“What?”
“You’ve been sniffing around for her. Tell me where she is.”
“I mighta been sniffin’ but I ain’t fuckin’ found the bitch! Swear!” Good. I figured he’d lie about knowing her for just a minute or so; as long as he could take the searing heat crawling up from his balls into his abdomen. But him just spilling makes this easier.
“Why even look?”
“She rolled my homie on some dope! Jesus, my damn dick is turnin’ blue! Get your fuckin’ foot offa me!”
“No. What friend?”
“Oh, Jesus!”
“I doubt Jesus Christ is hunting Delilah Boothe over drugs.” I cock the hammer back. Benny’s eyes turn red and glisten at the sound.
“Nicky! She owes Nicky!”
“Spill the deal and I’ll let you keep your twig and berries. Otherwise I’ll start popping.”
“I don’t know much of anythin’! Swear! Nicky just said I could pay him back for fuckin’ up back in August—I got bounced for possession! I was ferretin’ for him! So I tried to pay him back! Fuck me, that’s it!” Mental note: get that report as well.
“How? How did you pay him back?”
“He said the bitch hosed him on a deal and I ain’t got no idea about the deal at all! None!”
He squirms. I lean in. He screams, cries.
“Get offa me motherfuc—”
My foot comes off. My heater swings so hard into his left knee I feel something give under the skin. My foot comes back down on his cock.
Rage: “Answer me, motherfucker! How did you pay up?”
Blabbering: “I went to some address! I asked for her and some douche told me she ain’t stayin’ there no more but I swear I saw her through the window so I told Nicky and he said get her so I went back but it wadden’t her and the douche shows up outta nowhere and fuckin’ decks me! Swear! Pigs swarmed the place! Swear!”
I lean off. His nuts have breathing room. He cuddles with his knee. Palms his junk. Digs his face in the carpet and tries to stop blubbering like a bitch. Consider this setting a scene. I’m working up to something here.
“Where is Nicky?”
“Over on 11th and Elm. Apartment 2B. Swear.”
A tell. Big time.
“You let Nicky know Delilah owes me bigger than shit, and if he puts his hands on her before I get my shake I will fucking ruin him. Got it?”
Quiet, between wet sobs: “Yeah.”
“I will fucking ruin him.”
“Okay.”
His wallet, keys, cell phone, smokes, lighter and meth pipe are all on an end table next to the door. A small ghetto-quality 9mm also. A small amount of Big Fry in plastic baggie. I pocket the pea shooter. I smash his cell phone and knock the table over.
I leave. Make for Jeremiah’s car fast. Before Benny can work up the intestinal fortitude to move from the carpet. It could be a good while. I get the car, relocate. Vantage point. I sit there and steam for a minute about how guys like Benny can use the Big Fry and survive, while guys like me get the short dick. I resolve to beat him a good one just for being better genetically predisposed to the drug than I am.
I smoke three cigarettes before I see him leave his front door. No cell phone to call Nicky; he’s got to go see him.
Benny’s tell: the Venetian Apartments were located at 11th and Elm before they burnt down last year. Nicky doesn’t live there.
Benny’s tell: a lie. Even to the end. It’s all about posturing. Probably just stupid; the rule of the street is to be arrogant and foolish above all else. He probably doesn’t even think about it anymore. He just does stupid shit, even in the face of death. Bangers are like that. Retards demand respect from perfect strangers and then go out of their way to disrespect everyone, everywhere. It’s all about posturing. Benny lies.
Benny’s tell: coffin nail.
17
Falcon Ridge Apartments.
Northwest side of the Burrows. The kind of place that has the dumpster right next to the pool. The dumpster is overflowing; the pool is drained. An old bloodstain makes a small, brown and rust-colored splatter pattern in the deep end. Trash has blown inside the pool, half-covered in snow.
The scent of nail polish remover in the air is redolent of a clandestine lab. The complex is small; there might be ten cars in the single lot that serves the place. A mile over is the newest landfill. As long as the breeze is coming in off the ocean it’ll blow that trash stink through here. Cover up the drug-cooking stink. Not today, though. I smell the complex.
I throw another glance at the dumpster. Coffee filters. Empty jugs of solvents. I kick a discarded propane cylinder. The nozzle is tarnished. Blue, corroded. Propane doesn’t do that. Anhydrous ammonia does. I leave it. Someone’s operation here is either sloppy enough to be an industrial accident in the making, or worse, brazen enough because no one cares or is too afraid.
Benny had parked and limped as quickly as he could down to a secluded office nestled in the guts of the small, still-as-a-bone-yard complex.
Ghost town. Litter and dilapidation are the twinkles in this complex’s veneer. One hand on my iron. I follow Benny; good distance.
He knocks on a door, waits. The door talks to him, he shouts through it. Voices muffled; he says it’s an emergency. In short order the door opens enough for a hand to yank him inside.
I walk down the flight of creaky, rotted steps to the door. All by itself. Near the laundry room. Says MANAGER.
This door is not stock. It doesn’t match the others on the surrounding apartments. Replaced. Drug house door. Faux gold on the door’s hardware, boiled up in spots with rust. That means there is a decent chance that the folks inside this apartment, while not expecting a raid, are prepared for one.
MacGyver drug dealers will rig wires and guns to their external doors. Some will keep loaded, cocked, locked and ready firearms within arm’s reach to snatch up when the door comes shattering inwards. Some will have nine deadbolts. Then again, some won’t do shit.
Curtains closed, shouts from inside. Chaos. Distractions. A prepared dealer isn’t reaching for a loaded, cocked, locked and ready gun when he’s fighting with some jackoff like Benny instead of paying attention to who’s busting through his door. Surprise.
Entry Music.
I step back, breathe in deep. Hurl one foot into the door next to the handle. Knock, knock.
18
A shower of splinters and dry wall dust announce my arrival.
A deafening blast of shattering wood fills the room, and before anyone can really compute what’s happening, I take a big step inside. Eye contact with Benny.
He’s being manhandled by a thug with a lazy eye. A more effeminate man is a few feet away. I have to assume he’s Nicky.
In the blink of an eye: I close the gap and my arms propel to Benny’s head like pistons breaking free mid-pump. Right palm heel strikes his chin; pushes it away. Left hand grabs the back of his head. With a fistful of hair yanks it towards me.
The thug can’t comprehend Benny’s death happening. Poor Benny probably doesn’t understand either as I appear from nowhere and snatch his head. His neck breaking gives one staccato snap into the room. He crumples. One more step and I’m in the thug’s personal space. Elbow to the eye socket. He’s cradling his dangling lazy eyeball in one palm because the bone that used to hold it in place just doesn’t work as well broken into pieces.
He starts to scream but I clock him square on the head with my sap. Goes down. I’m pretty sure he lands square on the eyeball.
I look up at the girly-man and say: “Nicky?”
“Oh shit...” He turns around and starts to run.
He doesn’t make it far.
19
Bathroom.
Before I shoved Nicky’s head into the toilet I saw the water had a yellow tinge.
Getting information from someone the Arab terrorist way—that is, horrendous mutilation and slow, punishing torture—doesn’t work. Ask anybody except for an Arab terrorist. When your testicles are being sawed off you’ll say anything. I guarantee.
The PD teaches the newer guys all about how to gather information, define a suspect, interview the suspect, ask various types of questions such as open-ended or close-ended questions, leading questions, ask what they call baiting questions and just gather, gather, gather. Develop themes to use as a noose later. Develop hooks. Get them to commit to a story. Lock it down. Then you leave the room for a moment. Make a battle plan. Figure out your hooks and themes. Where to place the squeeze. Come back in and lay it on thick.
Of course, I am not a cop. Not anymore.
One part question, one part violence, one part threat of greater violence. Easy enough. Sniff out a nerve and press down hard. Hawk eye for hinks, tells. Jitters, hesitations, moments where lies are being concocted. I don’t have all day to ask questions, gather and maneuver.
There is very little the correct, strategic application of brutality won’t get you.
When people fear worse what will happen to them if they don’t cooperate than what will happen if they do, people usually cooperate. Benny lied some, but that happens. You can’t fix stupid, and stupid people do stupid things for no better reason than because they are stupid. In the end he gave me what I wanted.
What I know about Nicky: early thirties, rail-thin, calculating look in his eye. He’s got a tattoo of a ring on his left ring finger. He’s got to have some intelligence because he’s apparently got something of a business going on here in the apartment complex. A small manufacturing gig. It’s like any other legitimate business: you have production costs, distribution, supplies, labor, a schedule to keep, in-flow and out-flow, hours of operation.
If Nicky is the brains behind this he’s got to be squared away at least in that sense. A clandestine lab requires management. If he has Benny and the lazy-eye thug as his enforcers, he might have others I haven’t dealt with yet. I’ll keep that in mind.
Nicky has been face down in the toilet for almost a minute now. Timing method: how many drags off my cigarette I’ve had. I know he’s still alive because he hasn’t stopped struggling. Good enough. I pull him up, and as he gasps for air I exhale into his face. It’s always good for a laugh.
“Jesus Christ, what the fuck is going on here?” he screams between hulking intakes of air.
“Let’s make this simple. Delilah Boothe. Talk.”
“I don’t—”
He hinks. Bingo. I bounce his face off the porcelain rim. The spot above his teeth and below his nose is...out of alignment. His teeth just red flecks in his mouth.
“Fuck you!” Before he spits I crank his head and his gob of blood-tinged slobber paints the wall crimson. Back in the bowel. Out. In. Out. I hover his face over the rim again, the threat of more pain sinking in.
“Talk and you won’t be drinking piss and blood.”
“She and I used to date a little bit so I just wanted to know if she was still into me. That’s all.”
“Lie.”
Back into the bowel. The yellow becomes orange with mixing blood. Out.
“Why send the punk to check up on her then?”
“Restraining order for a fight—”
“Lie.”
Back into the bowel. I light a new smoke. Out.
“Come clean or we will move on to worse things.” I turn his head towards the old wooden toilet plunger beside us. One foot kicks his ass, X marks the spot. He eyeballs the chipping paint, the splinters on the plunger.
“I swear I swear—”
Bounce again. Back in the bowel. Drags. Exhale, making leaps. He didn’t know her; at least not intimately. No restraining order showed up when I checked her out. Nicky is trying to avoid whatever dope involvement there is. Must be a good reason why.
He might think I’m a rival dealer looking to squeeze him. Or Delilah’s new man.
He comes out.
“Do you remember Benny in there?”
Gasping. His head tries to nod against my fist bunching his hair.
“All I had to do was stand on his cock and he squealed everything. Everything. Stop trying my patience. You want to avoid what I will do next,” I say, leaning in close enough to smell that whoever pissed last was very dehydrated.
I crack my neck; tilt my head side-to-side. Eyeball him.
“Talk.”
“Please, mister! I don’t know what you’re talking about—”
Back in the toilet he goes. I don’t have all night. When my Rum Coast is ready to be put out I yank his head back into the world.
“Know what I’m talking about yet?” I ask, the final bit of my smoldering cigarette tip staring at his eye. I lean it in enough to singe his frantic, fluttering eyelashes and just as I’m making contact with his cornea he screams: “Alright! Alright! She pawned a shit ton of my dope off on a rival dealer and I’m lookin’ at a turf war! A motherfuckin’ turf war! ” He screams. I think he’s crying now. I pull the smoke back just enough to encourage his cooperation.
“Why? Is she a street pusher of yours?”
“No! Here’s the score, alright? No lies, I swear! I met some broad named Candy Layne at a strip joint, okay? Bouncers over on Topping by the old grain wharfs. The bitch was hot and hooked on my shit. I let her fuck me for free dope.
“Well, she was a friend of a friend of Delilah’s and one night after blowin’ me Candy was goin’ go to a party over there and she wanted me to come. Said I could probably deal some small shit on the down-low to some partiers. I was in a good mood. What the hell, right?”
Rivulets of blood are coming out of the wound above his teeth. Every word puffs the droplets out of his mouth and pepper the toilet lid. He’s crying. Maybe it’s because I threatened to rape him with a toilet plunger. Maybe because my cigarette is burning a half inch from his eyeball.
“It wadden’t a gold mine or nothin’ but I made an easy wad of cash. So we came back. The Delilah bitch seemed real happy with a houseful of strangers. Like she was winnin’ a popularity contest or somethin’.
“People started talkin’ hush-hush like and pretty soon I was meetin’ folks. Just one or two dudes lookin’ to do business. So we made a date and used her party as a cover. I rolled up with ten pounds of Big Fry—”
Unbelievable: “Ten pounds?”
“I swear! No lies, I—”
“Where would some shitbird starving artist like you get that much dope in a single drop?”
“I got an operation! I got people! I got muscle! Now if the people you represent want to do business you know what I can produce and treatin’ me like this is just goin’ get your families killed you bullheaded piece of shit—”
Bounce.
“I represent no one.” I say, looking down at his now out of alignment nose. “Still want to make threats?”
Sobbing.
“I never said stop talking.”
“Oh God...oh, someone help me...”
I light a new smoke.
“I...I brought the ten spot. We started talkin’, and the cops came. Some neighbor musta...musta bitched. I think she had a new stereo and was showin’ it off and...and the cops came.”
“So?”
“So I stashed the ten spot in her garage and we rolled out while the cops were breakin’ up the party.”
“How cut was the drug?”
“It was barely cut at all. Fuck me I lost so much damn money—the fuckin’ pigs never roll up when you call them for help but when you’re makin’ a score it’s like them pieces of shit just smell it—”
“What turf war are you bitching about?”
“Shit comes and goes here. Man, if you knew the streets you wouldn’t be askin’ this shit. Elvis the Spic was untouchable five years ago sellin’ shit right in front of police HQ and the next thing you know he’s found sawed in half by the Jamaicans. Not the ones north of the river but the ones south. Those two cartels off-ed each other until us smaller guys started gettin’ footholds. Pushed ’em out.”
“And the other small guys?”
“Picked off. Jimmy Cagaloni whacked Mickey the Beef and then some coon with a mohawk whacked Jimmy. That coon went down for rape and his network melted, killin’ each other. I just kept pickin’ up scraps and then those two twats ruined my shit! Delilah and Candy’s stupid ass totally fucked me!”
