TALKER PURDY WAS HAVING the hardest time getting used to his new digs. He hadn’t felt so unnatural, so out of place, since his mother had dragged him from the teeming slums of London to deposit him, at ten years old, in the teeming slums off Fourth Avenue in South Brooklyn. That took a lot of getting used to, because the neighborhood was mostly Spanish and the other kids spoke and understood broken American-English. At best.
So, Talker, despite his belief that he’d emigrated to an English-speaking country, had quickly discovered that his East End yowl might as well have been Hungarian for all the effect it had on his ability to communicate. The local kids at P S. 242 had instinctively begun to treat him like a freak, to pack up and to use him for a target. A few confrontations, however, had put an end to that. As it turned out, Talker Purdy was dead game and had the scars to prove it. Dead game kids were hard to find, even in Sunset Park, and Purdy had cooperated in his own acceptance by learning Puerto Rican Spanish. And thus earning his nickname: Talker. His real name was Percival. Percival Purdy.
After passing that first test of heart, very little of what he encountered in the course of a rebellious adolescence bothered Talker Purdy, and he finally developed into a taciturn (though criminal) young man. Even when the pigs took him over to the baby unit on Rikers Island for the very first time, he accepted each indignity with grace and patience. Sure, they’d try to fuck him. The other prisoners, especially the black ones who took him for some sort of half-breed Rican, would move on his ass; they’d move on his gold, too, or even his fucking sneakers. They’d move on whatever he had, regardless of its value, because that’s the way it was in the baby jail on Rikers. But he knew people, too, and he knew enough to service his own pack. Take someone else’s ass. Take someone else’s gold. After a week, he had a place in a serious crew and steady access to the pleasures of prison.
What he really couldn’t get through his head was that the Spanish people who lived in the apartments surrounding his new home went to work in suits. He knew they were Spanish, because they spoke Spanish to each other, but they were as far from his bro’s in el barrio as the old white people who kept appearing in the lobby to stare at him through thick, cloudy glasses. Where were the kids?
How come these white people didn’t have babies? How come the Spanish people who did have babies kept them locked up in their apartments? And what about the wogs? He knew all about the wogs; he’d been old enough when he’d come over to remember the wogs from London. What he remembered is that you could do almost anything to the wogs and they wouldn’t fight back unless they outnumbered you ten to one. Then they’d tear you to pieces.
Talker Purdy’s best friend and mentor in the criminal world was Rudy Ruiz, who was called Rudy-Bicho by his friends even though bicho meant “prick” in Spanish and should have been an insult. Talker and Rudy-Bicho were testing out the lobby of their new home in Jackson Heights, sitting on a small ledge that, once upon a time, had held house plants. They were listening (or, at least, Talker was listening; Rudy-Bicho was somewhere else altogether) to the Spanish jazz of Hilton Ruiz. The prominent horns slashed at the staccato beat, exciting Talker Purdy, who tapped out the stops and starts of the exotic rhythms perfectly.
“Mira, check out these feets, man,” he told Rudy-Bicho seriously. “I shoulda been a dancer. Or I shoulda been a singer.”
“You should take your fucking head out of your culo and start lookin’ around.”
“What’s the matter with you, man?” Talker asked sincerely. They’d both shot the sweet decata only two hours before and they were waiting for an afternoon delivery from their new regular connection, who lived above them on the fifth floor. They did armed robberies to support their moderate habits (not bullshit street rip-offs, but jewelry dealers, furriers, securities messengers). The man they worked for, a wiseguy who lived in Bensonhurst, provided information and bought all the merchandise for twenty cents on a dollar. Not a lot, but since the individual hits were big and came off reasonably close together, Rudy-Bicho and Talker Purdy were living the rent-free high life in Jackson Heights. Which is why Talker Purdy was so surprised by his partner’s mood.
“I don’ like the way these patas keep watchin’ me like I’m some kinda bug,” Rudy-Bicho finally said.
Talker Purdy, who hadn’t realized he was being insulted by his fellow tenants, blushed bright red. For all his learning Spanish and dumping his cheapside English accent, he couldn’t rid himself of a schoolboy complexion that flashed a deep scarlet whenever he did something stupid. Which was often. “But we livin’ here for nothin’, man. And we got dope right next door. And don’ forget there’s no peoples here to rip us off. I don’ even see no cops.”
Rudy-Bicho reached over to take the much larger man’s shirt in his hand, twisting it as he pulled his protégé closer. “How come you go in the joint and you don’ learn nothin’? These people look at you like that, they disrespect you, maricón. You let them disrespect you today, tomorrow they have their bichos so far up your culo, you gonna be chokin’ from it.”
“Excuse me! Excuse me!”
Talker Purdy, jarred by the loud voice, was even more startled by the apparition limping toward him. He made the old man for a poppy love, for the kind of victim he’d often stalked before he’d connected with Rudy-Bicho and taken up armed robbery. In Talker’s world, rabbits didn’t approach lions.
“You got business here, you should make a lounge out of this lobby?” the same figure demanded.
Then a second man came over, one of those weird spics who wore a suit to work. “What is your business here?” the suit demanded.
“We live here,” Talker Purdy explained patiently. He was playing for time while he tried to get a handle on the situation. “We’re neighbors.”
“Chinga tu madre, mother-fucker,” Rudy-Bicho said. His voice took on a prison-sharp edge which (though it went unrecognized by Mike Birnbaum and Andre Almeyda) alerted Talker Purdy to the fact that he was supposed to get mad. “How come you got the balls,” Rudy-Bicho continued, “to come over here and talk to me? A bug comes and talks to me and I gotta put up with this shit? Don’ you know, Senor Whiteman, that I could crackle you up like a fuckin’ cucaracha?”
When Stanley Moodrow and Paul Dunlap entered the lobby of the Jackson Arms, they saw exactly the same phenomenon, yet they reacted quite differently. What they saw was an Hispanic male, approximately twenty years of age, five foot ten inches tall, 165 pounds, with one hand around the throat of an elderly white male, approximately five foot two inches tall, 120 pounds. There were two other males, one Hispanic, approximately thirty-five years old, and one white, approximately twenty years old. The latter pair were standing face to face, as if just about to enter combat.
Paul Dunlap, whose contact with violence was limited to breaking up fights between drunken Legionnaires, was uncertain. He stopped for a moment, trying to get a handle on the situation. Stanley Moodrow, on the other hand, unbuttoned his jacket before the door closed behind him, bellowing, “Stop! Right now! You, mother-fucker! I’m talkin’ to you!” He pointed to Rudy-Bicho with his left hand. “Let that man go or I’ll rip ya fucking heart out. Right the fuck now, faggot. And you, too.” This time he pointed at Talker Purdy, who was just beginning to anger. “Sit ya fucking ass down and shut off the goddamn radio. Here, fuck it, I’ll shut it off myself.” He took two steps across the lobby and drove the toe of his brown wing tips through the radio’s speaker.
The initial silence was deafening. As Moodrow had hoped, it froze the participants in their tracks. In his estimation, he had come upon a scene that was almost, but not quite, out of control and his best move was to keep the lid on. Rudy-Bicho (making the two enormous men for cops) released Mike Birnbaum, who staggered back several steps. Andre Almeyda, who’d been eagerly closing with Talker Purdy, stopped in his tracks. Talker Purdy, confused and brokenhearted, stared at his radio with evident surprise.
“Dunlap?” Moodrow’s sharp voice broke the momentary silence.
“Right behind you.” Dunlap elbowed his way between Moodrow and Purdy, announcing, “Assume the position, asshole,” in the most bored voice he could muster.
Moodrow turned immediately and walked across to Rudy-Bicho Ruiz, who reacted by folding his arms across the chest. “The maricón attack me and I’m defendin’ myself. I wasn’t doin’ nothin’ when he attack me. He attack me for nothin’.”
Moodrow, though he took in the words, paid no attention whatsoever. He wasn’t looking for explanations; he’d just witnessed a felony and had absolutely no interest in explanations until the perpetrator was properly secured. Dominating the smaller man with his sheer bulk, he yanked Ruiz erect and spun him toward the wall, talking all the while. “Get up against it, prick. Get your fucking legs back. You make one twitch, I’m gonna crack your neck.” His hands were moving over Ruiz’s body, searching for a weapon, before he stopped speaking. Finding nothing, he yanked the man’s arms behind his back and cuffed him tightly.
“You’re under arrest,” he began automatically, forgetting that he had no powers of arrest and that he wasn’t a cop and that the loss of those powers was the reason why Paul Dunlap was with him. “You have the right to remain silent. If you choose to speak, anything you say can be used against you.” He went through the whole speech while he searched Ruiz down to his underwear and his socks. Having found no weapon, he was hoping for drugs, but, again, he was disappointed. Still, there was no question about the assault. It would stand up and if the man had any serious priors or if he was on parole, he might do real time.
“So what’s going on here?” Moodrow, much quieter now that the scene was under control, asked Mike Birnbaum.
“I come into my lobby and see two animals they wouldn’t even let in a zoo.” He wanted to say, “two spics” (if he’d been with his friend, Paul Reilly, the ex-fireman, he would have), but Andre Almeyda was an ally, so he held himself in check. “Nat’rally, I ask myself what they’re doing here. My lobby don’t look like the Waldorf Astoria. My lobby don’t look like the jail on Rikers Island, where these animals probably came from. Maybe they think it’s a day care center? Maybe they think they’re in shul? Maybe they’re looking for a minyan?”
“Mike,” Moodrow brought the old man up short. “Do me a favor and get to the point.”
Birnbaum tossed Moodrow his angriest look, but got only a blank stare in return. “I went up to this macher here.” He pointed to Ruiz. “I asked him what he thought he was doing in my lobby and he grabbed me by the throat without so much as a word.”
“That’s true,” Andre Almeyda chimed in. “I was coming from the mail and I see it happening. Mike didn’ do nothing to this guy.”
“We live here, too!” Talker Purdy suddenly cried out. “We’re neighbors.” The frustration was coming down on him hard. He was an easy-going man, but if they took Rudy-Bicho away, he wouldn’t be able to do the jobs anymore. And he wouldn’t have any good dope, either. In fact, without Rudy-Bicho’s connection in Brooklyn, he’d most likely have to take up his old profession, which policemen like to refer to as “opportunistic thief.”
“Tell me exactly what happened,” Dunlap asked Andre Almeyda. “Especially about this one.” He jerked his head toward Purdy.
As Andre launched into a detailed explanation of the assault (an explanation which, incidentally, exonerated Talker Purdy), the lobby began to fill with curious tenants. Moodrow’s first instinct was to protect the crime scene, but after glancing over at Dunlap, who seemed to be enjoying the show, he allowed the witnesses to assemble. Thus, almost a dozen tenants were present when Anton Kricic, his luminous, orange-red hair flaming in all directions, emerged from his first floor apartment to confront Moodrow and Dunlap.
“This man has as much right to be here as any resident,” Kricic screamed. He was extremely tall, taller than Moodrow, but stick-thin, with a narrow face framed by a halo of very curly, very long hair.
Dunlap put up a hand to stop the apparition. “What’re you talking about?” he asked, innocently.
“You have no authority to put this man out. He’s a human being with a right to shelter. You can’t put him on the street again.” Kricic, though he stopped coming forward, tried to make it clear that he was not about to be bullied by a couple of middle-aged cops. Not with this many witnesses handy.
“What’s your name?” Moodrow asked quietly. He was beginning to get the feeling that he’d been out-maneuvered again, that something new was sneaking up on him, and the feeling was making him very depressed.
“Anton Kricic,” Kricic announced proudly. “I live in apartment 1F In fact, my name is already on the mailbox.”
“Do you have a lease?” Moodrow asked.
“That’s not your business,” Kricic shouted.
“This man is under arrest for an assault,” Dunlap explained angrily. He didn’t care to be told that he had no authority any more than Moodrow did. “It has nothing to do with tenants and landlords. Now, I’m telling you to step back. I’m directly ordering you to remove yourself from the crime scene. If you don’t, I’m going to place you under arrest for hindering a police officer, which is a D Felony. The penalty for commission of a D Felony is an indeterminate sentence of up to seven years in prison. Now move your ass outta here.”
Kricic sneered, though he did, in fact, step away from Dunlap. His purpose in coming out had been to confront the other tenants with the reality of his existence. He had hoped, of course, that the arrest had something to do with the fact that Purdy and Ruiz were squatters with no legal right to their apartments, but he settled for the confused looks on the faces of his neighbors as he walked back to his apartment unmolested. Once they realized that he was living rent-free, they would protest to the landlord, who would move to kick him and the other squatters out. That would be a great day for the homeless: the day when the media chronicled the squatters’ physical eviction from warehoused apartments the landlord was deliberately keeping off the market.
Back in the lobby, Dunlap stepped closer to Moodrow, raising his eyebrows in a silent question.
“Forget about him,” Moodrow said calmly. “We’ll look into Anton Kricic later. As for this mutt…” He gave Ruiz a little tug, pulling him closer. “Call the One One Five and get a sector car down here. Give the collar to whoever shows up. Let ’em get statements from Andre and Mike and use them to write up the complaint. We can act as witnesses, but let’s not get trapped down at Central Booking. Let the uniforms sit around all day. We got a lotta work to do and it’s shaping up to be a very bad day.”