By the time Beck, Manny, and Ciro arrived at the second landing of the rickety wood-frame building, the creaking and squeaking of the wood steps made Beck raise a hand and tell everyone, “Hold it.”
Beck held his Browning Hi-Power pointed down, tight against his right leg. Manny held two guns, his long-barrel .38 Colt Special in his left hand and his Charter Arms Bulldog .357 in his right. Ciro Baldassare had the Benelli cradled in his left arm. He’d shoved his Smith & Wesson M&P .45 in the front of his pants where he could reach it easily.
Besides being worried about the noise they were making, Beck wanted to give Demarco time to make it up the fire escape in back.
Of the three of them, Demarco was best suited for a stealthy climb three stories up a fire escape. Ciro was by far the strongest. Manny Guzman was the oldest of the four, the shortest, and the least physically capable, but in a fight he would be the one with the most focus, least encumbered by nerves or tension. Beck didn’t have the athletic skill of Demarco, the strength of Ciro, or the stone-cold nerves of Manny, but he always managed to do what had to be done.
While the others held their positions, Beck slowly edged toward the apartment door on the second-floor landing and pressed his ear against it. He heard nothing, just like he’d heard nothing on the first floor.
He turned his attention to the apartment above them, thinking it through one more time. He turned to Manny and Ciro, speaking in a whisper.
“They’re going to hear us coming up this last flight of stairs no matter how slowly we go, so I’m going to take it all in one shot and hit the door hard.”
Beck shoved his Browning under his belt in front, pushing it down low so it would be as secure as possible. From his pants pockets he slid out a pair of custom-made brass knuckles cut from a single piece of solid nautical brass, highly polished, no seams. He slid the brass over both his fists.
“We move fast. We put them down. Don’t kill anybody unless you have to.”
Beck turned and stepped up the last flight of stairs, slowly at first, taking the steps one by one. He quickly picked up speed. By the time he reached the top half of the stairway, he was moving as fast as he could, taking two steps at a time. By the time he reached the landing he was moving at full speed. His right foot hit the door with so much force the handle lock, dead-bolt lock, and one of the hinges all broke through the frame.
Beck’s forward momentum carried him into the front room. Everybody in the room jumped up, but Beck went straight for the biggest within his reach and overhanded a punch into the middle of Tyrell Williams’s face, breaking his nose and cracking his right cheekbone. Tyrell fell back, knocked out, hitting the floor hard. Beck felt rather than saw a body closing in on his right. He whipped a backhand in that direction and connected with something that felt like a head.
Manny and Ciro came in right behind Beck, yelling for everyone to get on the floor. Beck heard the slap-cracking sounds of blows landing on body parts, shouts, curses, and the kitchen window in the back shattering. Somebody tried to grab him from behind, but Beck spun him off. Two deafening blasts from Ciro’s Benelli exploded. Chunks of plaster and lath fell. Everyone ducked and froze in place. Beck swept the feet out from under somebody standing near him, yelling, “Get down.”
Manny whipped the long barrel of his .38 against someone’s head to put him down. Ciro rammed the butt of the Bennelli into the last man standing.
It took nine seconds from the time the door broke open until everyone lay flat on the floor.
Beck felt his heart pounding. He was out of breath. He wiped his brass knuckles off on an old upholstered chair then slipped them back into his pockets.
Demarco walked into the room holding the Winchester shotgun in one hand and the arm of a barefoot young woman showing a good deal of skin in his other hand. He sat her in a straight-back chair near a beat-up red velour couch.
All the shouting had stopped. Ciro kept his shotgun pointed at the crew while Manny went from prone body to prone body, telling them to put their hands on the back of their heads as he searched them for weapons and ID. When he found a gun, he tossed it on the ratty couch.
Beck heard gasping from the man he’d knocked unconscious, the kind of labored breathing that occurs when a brain has shut down except for the autonomic reactions that keep a heart beating and lungs working. He rolled Tyrell Williams over on his side so he wouldn’t choke on the blood flowing from his broken nose.
He looked for the one he thought he’d skulled with the brass-knuckled backhand, hoping he hadn’t killed him. He found him lying flat on the floor, his right hand pressed against a bleeding forehead. It was Derrick Watkins, quietly cursing at the pain.
Beck walked to the front door and wedged it into the cracked frame, sealing off the apartment from the landing. Demarco took a position near the door, his shotgun held low, aimed at the group.
Beck asked Demarco, “Anybody else in the back?”
“Nope.”
Ciro firing the Benelli had caused a lot of noise, but it certainly helped put a stop to anybody fighting back. Nobody was dead. None of Beck’s crew was injured. So far, so good, as long as the two shotgun blasts didn’t bring the police.
Beck waited until Manny finished disarming and collecting identification from the last man on the floor, then he sat on the scabby red couch and gathered the guns and other weapons into a pile.
There were six men of various sizes and ages on the dirty floor of the Mount Hope Place apartment. All of them had been armed, but none of them had been able to get off a shot.
Beck looked at the girl sitting to his right. She was dressed in a way that revealed nearly everything about her body. Her short-shorts and tight T-shirt made it difficult for Beck not to stare, which, of course, was exactly the point of the clothes.
He didn’t want to hear the answer to the question he was about to ask, but he asked it.
“Young lady.”
Amelia looked over at Beck.
“What’s your name?”
She paused for a moment, staring at Beck with an expression he couldn’t quite decipher. She seemed stunned, yet, at the same time, strangely alert. She took a quick look at the bodies on the floor, and then answered, “Princess.”
Beck paused. Speaking carefully, he said, “No. I don’t mean your working name. What’s your real name?”
“Why?”
“Are you Amelia Johnson?”
She stopped looking at Derrick’s crew on the floor and turned to Beck. “Who are you?”
“My name is James Beck. I was a friend of your father’s.”
He saw a look of confusion on the young girl’s face. It confirmed two things. She was, in fact, Amelia Johnson, and she probably didn’t know her father had been shot and killed.
Amelia asked, “What do you mean, was?”
Beck hesitated. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen him. Which one of these is Derrick Watkins?”
Amelia didn’t answer, but tipped her head toward Derrick.
Beck said to Amelia, “Would you do me a favor? Go in the kitchen and get a towel or something. Run cold water over it, wring it out, and give it to Derrick.”
Amelia stared at Beck for a moment, then got up to do as he’d asked.
Beck turned to the bleeding man on the floor.
“Derrick, get up and go sit in that chair.”
Derrick lifted his head off the floor to glare at Beck, but made no move to get up. Manny Guzman stood closest to him. Without a second’s hesitation, he began kicking Derrick Watkins—hard, fast, brutal kicks into his leg and ribs. Derrick scrambled away from the kicks and got to his feet. He staggered over to the chair and fell into it more than sat on it.
The others watched, but didn’t move.
Amelia returned from the kitchen with a threadbare hand towel she had rinsed as Beck had asked. She’d also put on her pink hoodie, zipping it up to her neck. She handed the towel to Derrick without looking at him.
Beck thanked her and said, “One more favor. There are bedrooms back there, right?”
“Yes.”
“Go back and find me a couple of pillowcases if you can, and bring them out here.”
Beck spoke to Amelia, but stared at Derrick Watkins, taking in the sight of him. Coming to an opinion about him.
Derrick sat in the upholstered armchair, holding the wet towel to his bleeding head.
Beck took note that Derrick appeared to be older than most of the others in the room. He wore better clothes than expected: a square-cut oversized shirt that hung out over black, pleated slacks, and black suede sneakers.
Beck figured him for midthirties, about twenty pounds overweight, mean, blank eyes. He had none of the expected gang tattoos or garish jewelry, but he did have a typical hateful, defiant expression.
One other person on the floor also looked to be older than the others. He was the largest in the room, and like Derrick dressed in conventional clothes instead of the baggy jeans and T-shirts the others wore. Beck figured him for close to 230 pounds and had the feeling he was the kind who used his size to intimidate. Maybe he could actually back that up, thought Beck, but he had the feeling the guy would probably be more likely to pay or coerce somebody else to do his violence for him.
The question was, which one of these had shot his friend Packy Johnson?
Beck turned his attention back to Derrick Watkins.
Amelia Johnson returned carrying two pillowcases that at one time must have been white, but were now discolored with indelible stains where too many dirty heads had lain. She handed them to Beck without a word. She also had a small handbag over her right shoulder and had put on a pair of platform high-heeled shoes.
Beck thought, maybe she thinks I’m going to let her leave now, but she sat back down on the chair near the couch.
Beck looked carefully at her face, trying to see signs of drug addiction or fear or depression in her eyes. She looked alert, although he did see a remoteness in her eyes he couldn’t quite figure out.
Beck used one of the pillowcases to methodically wipe down all the guns they had taken from the crew. He divided the guns evenly into the two pillowcases, tossing in a few knives Manny had also collected. Then he tied off both pillowcases and laid them on the couch.
Finally, Beck spoke to Derrick Watkins.
“Why are you and all your friends here?”
Derrick stared back at Beck, saying nothing.
Beck held his gaze on Derrick Watkins, resisting the urge to put a bullet in one of Derrick’s limbs and asked again.
“All right, Mr. Watkins, let me explain something. Just so you understand. If I ask you something and I hear anything that sounds like bullshit, I’m going to have my friend shoot off your left foot.”
Ciro Baldassare pumped the Benelli and pointed it at Derrick’s foot.
“Then we’ll tighten a belt around your calf and I’ll ask you again. Make a second mistake, and we’ll blow off your right foot. Think you can make it past your hands?
“One more time. What are you and all these others doing here?”
Derrick shifted in the overstuffed upholstered chair. Ciro stood unmoving, the unwavering shotgun aimed directly at Derrick’s left foot.
Derrick pointed his chin at Amelia. “Had a run-in with her father. I figured it was best to clear out of the area for a bit. Any shit happens over in Bronx River Houses, cops always come knockin’ on my door.”
“You’re getting close to losing a foot, Derrick. Why are all of you here?”
“It’s my fuckin’ crew, man. We hang together.”
Beck looked at Ciro. Ciro lowered the shotgun so the muzzle was even closer to Derrick’s foot. Derrick moved his foot back. “Wait, wait. It wasn’t just me. We all took him down. Someone calls me out, they call all of us out.”
“Uh-huh. So it took all six of you lowlife cowards to beat up one guy?”
“He’s the one who came lookin’ for trouble, man. And it wasn’t all six. Just five of us.”
“Oh, so who wasn’t there?”
Derrick hesitated. From the floor, Jerome Watkins spoke. “I wasn’t there.”
“And who are you?”
“I’m his brother.”
“What’s your brother doing here, Derrick?”
“We got business to talk over.”
“What business?”
Derrick tilted his head toward Amelia again. “Got to decide what to do with that bitch. Guy comin’ around causing all sorts of trouble, bringing attention on me. Fuck it. Time to cut her loose. Goddam, broke-ass bitch can’t even earn a pimp his money. So we discussed kickin’ her to the curb. Lettin’ her go back to her broke-ass father.”
Beck looked at Amelia for a moment. She stared intently at Derrick. Beck turned back to Derrick, thinking about his answer. It didn’t escape him that Derrick Watkins talked as if Packy Johnson were still alive.
“Just like that. Let her go? Like everything is okay? She doesn’t owe you anything?”
“Hell yeah, she owes me. But like I say, fuck it. She a bad investment. A mistake. Smart businessman cuts his losses. What the fuck is the problem? Her father’s the nigger who started all this mess. He come into my hood callin’ me out, what you think is going to happen? He got a ass whipping. So what? Why you all up in here with guns and shit?”
Beck leaned forward, “Because after the ass whipping, you or one of your crew followed Packy Johnson out of that housing project and shot him in the back of the head like the sneaking, pimping, lowlife cowards you are.”
Derrick Watkins pulled the bloody towel from his head. His reaction was immediate.
“Fuck we did. Nobody…”
But the thunder of a gun exploding in the enclosed room obliterated Derrick’s words.
Amelia Johnson stood firing a handgun at Derrick Watkins, a gun still cold from the kitchen freezer, its barrel hissing as the exploding gunpowder heated the barrel.
The first bullet hit Derrick in the upper chest, slightly to the left. As the recoil bucked the handgun higher, the second bullet hit his mouth, taking out most of the lower third of his face. The third bullet hit him slightly off-center in the middle of his forehead, blowing most of his brains out the back of his skull. The fourth bullet missed entirely, burrowing into the wall behind Derrick Watkins.
Ciro and Manny both ducked and turned their weapons on Amelia, but their discipline held, and they didn’t shoot her.
Beck was about to lunge off the couch to knock her down, but held back, knowing if she kept pulling the trigger she might hit Manny as she fell.
And then, as quickly as it had started, the gunfire stopped.
While she pulled the trigger, she’d kept her eyes on her target, but now Amelia swept the gun from side to side, yelling, “Stay back. Back away,” as she walked toward the front door.
Beck held up a hand. Manny kept his gun lowered. Ciro did the same with the shotgun. Demarco stood between the door and Amelia. He had laid down the Winchester and now held his Glock 17 behind his back, his eyes never leaving Amelia as she moved toward him. He glanced at Beck, knowing the safest thing would be a head shot, killing her instantly, eliminating any chance she could pull the trigger and injure one of them.
The decision had to be made now. Shoot her, or let her go. Demarco glanced again at Beck. He gave him a quick headshake, no. Demarco reached up, grabbed the top of the battered door, and tipped it open, holding it between him and the girl, his Glock still ready behind his back. Amelia pointed her gun at Demarco as she slipped out the door.
As soon as Amelia disappeared, Demarco, Manny, and Ciro turned to Beck. He knew he didn’t have much time to make several crucial decisions. In fact, he had no time.