Demarco turned the Mercury onto Harrod Avenue bordering Bronx River Houses forty minutes after Ippolito and Palmer had left.
“I remember coming here when I was a kid. My Auntie Esther and her husband, Mickey, lived here back in the day.”
Beck asked, “How many aunts you got, D?”
“Lots. In my community aunts come in varying degrees.”
Manny said, “Back in the day?”
“When this place was known for all the hip-hop stuff going on.” Demarco peered out the windshield. “Man, I remember there being a lot less grass and trees, and a lot more junkies back then. Place looks livable now.”
“Still the damn projects,” said Manny.
“True. They’re like gulags, these places,” Demarco eased the Mercury alongside the curb. “If Derrick Watkins is in one of these buildings, I’ll find him. My cousin Giles still lives here. My Aunt Esther’s oldest.”
“You think your cousin is still around?” asked Beck.
“Doesn’t matter. I know you’re burning to get in there, James, but give me a little time to look around before we storm the place.”
Demarco slipped out of the Mercury before Beck could answer and ambled into the projects. As Beck watched Demarco walk away, his cell phone rang. He checked the caller ID. Ciro.
He quickly told Ciro Baldassare where they were, and what was going on. Ciro told him he was heading north on the Henry Hudson and would be there in about thirty minutes.
Beck answered, “Okay, let me know when you’re in the area and I’ll tell you where to meet us.”
When he broke off the call, Manny asked from the backseat, “You hungry?”
Beck looked up and down the block on the other side of the street. The only place that appeared to sell food was a Pioneer Supermarket.
“Better than sitting here waiting.”
Beck and Manny killed time walking the cramped aisles of the little market. Beck found a sealed bag of cashews, unsurprised at the high prices typical of stores in minority neighborhoods. He matched it with a single can of beer from a limited selection, particularly since he didn’t drink malt liquor. Manny picked out a banana.
Beck paid for the food. They crossed back to the other side of the street and ate leaning against the Mercury, watching the comings and goings of the housing project residents, almost exclusively minority women and young kids.
Beck could feel the heat of the midday sun seeping into his back and shoulders.
Demarco hadn’t been gone very long, but Beck was restless. He remembered the duffel bag he’d taken from Lorena’s apartment. He reached into the backseat, pulled out the bag, and dropped it on the trunk of the Mercury. The items he’d taken from Amelia’s dresser drawer were on top of Packy’s clothes. He shoved aside flimsy undergarments that looked inappropriate for a teenager, trying to ignore them. He felt inside the pants pockets of Packy’s slacks. Checked the shirt pocket. Nothing.
He looked through Amelia’s things, seeing nothing of interest until he spotted the small bundle of receipts. Beck pulled them out of the bag and thumbed through them.
Most of them were for amounts under ten dollars. Some were from fast-food outlets. There were several cab receipts, and one for $83.68 from Old Navy. Who were these records for? Beck decided they had to be for Amelia’s pimp. The thought both saddened and angered him.
Beck dropped the receipts back into the duffel bag and tossed it into the backseat. He was almost ready to go into the housing project and find Demarco when his cell phone vibrated.
He answered it, seeing Demarco’s caller ID.
“Yeah?”
“Walk in on that path I took. Go past three buildings. I’m sitting in front of Derrick Watkins’s building.”
“Good work. On my way.”
Beck cut the call. He opened the trunk of the Mercury and pulled out a three-foot steel crowbar. He positioned it under his right arm to conceal it, and hustled into the complex to find Demarco. Manny followed as quickly as his bowed legs allowed.
* * *
Demarco Jones sat on a bench wearing black cotton slacks, an extra-long designer T-shirt, Allen Edmonds slip-ons with no socks. Despite the expensive clothes, most would have thought twice before they sat on the same bench. He looked like a man who wanted to kill somebody, and could easily do it.
Beck walked into the courtyard and headed quickly toward Demarco. Manny Guzman lagged behind, taking time to check his surroundings, look for security cameras, take note of every person nearby.
There were two elderly black ladies on a bench about twenty feet away. A young woman wearing a halter top and blue shorts stood near the front entrance of Watkins’s building rocking a double stroller with her left hand as she yelled into a cell phone in her right hand, warning whoever listened at the other end they better goddam remember to pick up some motherfucking Pampers.
Beck sat next to Demarco, let the crowbar slide from under his arm down next to his right leg, and asked, “What do you have?”
“A lot of bad news.” Demarco glanced at the crowbar. “We have to be careful. I got his apartment number, but I don’t want to bust in there without knowing what’s on the other side of the door.”
Manny sat down on the other side of Beck. Beck tapped the curved end of the crowbar on the asphalt.
“What’d you find out?”
Demarco motioned toward the two elderly black ladies sitting on the bench.
“Had a talk with those lovely ladies.”
“And?”
“You ever spend much time in the projects, James?”
“No. They didn’t build anything special for us in Hell’s Kitchen. It was ghetto enough the way it was.”
Demarco nodded, still intent on making his point. “These projects go back a long way. Thirty, forty, fifty years. There are housing projects in every borough. Hundreds of thousands of people. Acres and acres, pretty much cut off from everything around them. People hardly ever think about it.”
“Your point being?”
“I could make a lot of points.” Demarco nodded toward the two old ladies he’d been talking to. “But for now, my point is—all the time these places have been around, those old ladies and thousands like ’em have been defending ’em. They’re the sentinels, always watching. They know everything. Even back in the worst days, they were watching, defending the turf. Not just against the bad boys, against everybody. Drug dealers, cops, Housing Authority, everybody.”
“Except you,” said Beck.
Demarco smiled, “Me, they like.”
“What’d they tell you, Demarco?”
“Told me our man Packy was here last night around ten. He came in hot. Blazing hot. Packy walked right out front of Derrick’s building and called the man out. And his daughter. Just yelling for blood and his kin.”
“Calling out for what, exactly?”
“For his daughter to get the hell out of Derrick Watkins’s apartment.”
“Then, what?”
“Watkins’s family has been around here a long time. This is home ground. Bunch of his crew live in this project. By the time Watkins came out, there were five, six guys backing him up.”
“Christ. Then what?”
“One of the ladies, Miss Margaret, lives on the sixth floor there.” Demarco pointed to the building in front of them. “She had the best view. Said it went down mostly in front of the entrance over there. She could see, but not hear what was said. There was shouting. Packy and Watkins having it out. She called the cops. She’s sure other residents called the cops, too, but before they arrived, everything blew up. They swarmed Packy. He fought back, but there were too many. They beat him down. Kept pounding on him until they heard sirens, then disappeared like cockroaches when you turn on the lights.”
“And Packy?”
“The other lady, Maxine, said they left Packy on the ground, but before the cops pulled in Packy got back on his feet and walked away.”
“Did the cops stop him?”
“Not that she could see. He was out of view when the cops showed.”
“What the hell was he thinking? What was so important he couldn’t wait until the next day and come talk to us? Come in here with some backup. Make a plan before he came into some goddam pimp’s turf and got killed.”
Manny said, “Maybe that was it.”
“What?”
“Maybe Packy figured he’d just be dealing with a lowlife pimp. Nothing he couldn’t handle himself.”
Beck said, “I don’t know. But like I said, why the hell come in here blind? Why risk hitchhiking into town and rushing over here first thing?”
Demarco said, “Obviously he wanted to get his daughter out of her situation. Why he was in such a damn rush is something we’ll have to find out.”
Beck pulled out his smartphone and clicked on his map app. He waited impatiently until a street map of the area appeared and a blue dot showed his location. He traced the route from where they sat to where the police found Packy’s body near Longfellow Street.
“Based on where they found him, it looks like he went straight out onto 174th Street, across the bridge over the Sheridan Expressway, and then walked three more blocks. Watkins and his gang might have scattered when the cops came, but they could have easily followed him and shot him once he was out of here.”
Manny grumbled, “Goddam cowards.”
Beck tapped his crowbar on the ground, looked around the area where they sat. There was a small playground within sight. Two women with four kids among them had drifted into the park. An older man in neat slacks, a square-cut short-sleeve shirt wearing a straw Kangol cap sat down on the bench with Miss Margaret and Maxine.
Beck said, “We’re not going to find out anything more sitting here. I want to see if Derrick Watkins is home.”
Demarco asked, “You open to a suggestion?”
“If it’s an idea on getting into his apartment.”
Before Demarco could explain, Beck’s cell phone buzzed.
“Ciro.” Beck paused and listened, then told Ciro Baldassare where to meet them.
Demarco asked, “Ciro’s coming?”
“Yeah.”
“Then I think we should definitely try it my way before we start a war in here.”