All Saturday afternoon into the night and throughout Sunday morning, Beck kept working, tracking everything, getting information, evaluating it, issuing instructions, planning, re-planning.
At five P.M. he’d gotten a text from Phineas: Def stopped Brx DA plans. At minimum have delayed NYPD. Walter pushing FBI. Probably nothing final til Mon. Still working on everything.
By eight P.M. both Manny and Demarco had checked in, telling Beck they were making progress, but slowly.
By one A.M. the Bolo brothers had called in with their final report.
By two A.M. Ciro had called to tell Beck, “Everything is jake. See you at seven.”
At three A.M. Beck forced himself to trudge up to his bedroom, where he slowly settled onto his bed in sections, trying to find a position that didn’t hurt, trying to stop his racing mind. He set his cell phone to wake him at six so he could go over everything one more time before he and Ciro were scheduled to head out for Bronx River Houses.
Beck would have slept until noon, but when his phone woke him he forced himself to sit up and get his feet on the floor. By the time Ciro arrived to pick him up, he hadn’t done much more than shower, dress, and drink enough coffee to get him functioning.
He and Ciro arrived at the Bronx River Houses shortly before eight A.M. Ciro parked his Escalade on Harrod Avenue, while Beck listened to the first call from Ricky and Jonas Bolo telling him they had already spotted eleven men they judged to be part of Juju Jackson’s crew stationed around the perimeter of Bronx River Houses.
Beck had no way of knowing how many more were inside the housing project. Nor did he know where Jackson and Bondurant were.
He had less than thirty minutes to make a crucial decision, and he felt his concentration faltering. He’d stopped taking pain medication so he could stay sharp, but the pain from the upstate beating and lack of sleep continued to drain him.
He sat in Ciro’s Escalade, staring at a satellite image of the Bronx River Houses and a detailed street map of the area. He kept looking back and forth between the two, trying to predict all the moves that might happen, all the lines of action.
Beck took another swig of coffee, rubbed his face, and told himself, fuck it. He folded the satellite image and map, and shoved them under his seat. Either this will work, or it won’t. They were all about to walk into a trap. He’d done what he could, but he knew there were so many variables that a large part of what happened next was out of his control.
* * *
Juju Jackson’s cell phone rang at exactly nine A.M.
“Where you at?”
Esther said, “Gonna be walking out of building twelve at the north end of the complex in one minute. The one off Harrod and the expressway.” And then she ended the call.
Jackson and Bondurant were in a silver Range Rover on Bronx River Avenue. Jackson behind the wheel, Bondurant in the passenger seat. Behind Bondurant sat one of his men by the name of Amir.
Jackson shoved his phone into his shirt pocket and pulled out onto Bronx River Avenue heading north, circling quickly around to Harrod Avenue, while Bondurant called his men, telling them to head for the last building at the northeast end of the housing complex and spread the word.
* * *
Amelia and Esther emerged from the building facing Harrod Avenue and walked without hurry toward a semicircular plaza south of the building. At the back of the plaza, a concrete platform rose up three steps, forming a rectangular stage. Behind it rose the twelve-story back wall of the next building south.
As Jackson pulled over to a fire hydrant on Harrod, Bondurant spotted Amelia and Esther. It looked like they were going to cut across the plaza and take the path that led to 174th Street.
“There they are.”
“I see ’em.”
Bondurant looked around, trying to spot any of Beck’s men lurking.
Jackson said, “If this is an ambush, you’ll see them soon enough. Just get in there and pull them bitches out. You’ll have at least twenty guys covering you in a minute.”
“I hope it is an ambush. We see any of that crew, we gonna shoot ’em down like dogs. I put the word out, as soon as we finish off the last one, everybody gets paid.”
“Good. Bring the bitches out fast, load ’em up, and we’re gone. If you can’t make that happen, you shoot ’em both, and get the fuck out of there.”
Bondurant and Amir stepped out of the Range Rover, drawing their guns. Bondurant held a .45 caliber Colt 1911 out of sight against his leg. Amir’s small Taurus .38 six-shot revolver was almost invisible in his hand.
Bondurant pointed south and told Amir, “I’m going to head that way and get in front of them. You hang back and move in behind.”
Bondurant, wearing his sunglasses, scanned the surrounding area. He saw five of his men heading his way from the north. More would be coming in from the south, and more converging from the west perimeter of the complex.
Everything looked normal for an early Sunday morning. He saw only one couple who looked like residents, probably heading for church. Maybe Queenie was playing this straight. Either way it didn’t matter. He’d already decided he was going to shoot both women as soon as he got close to them. If anybody showed up from the crew who’d taken out Derrick and the others, he wanted to be free to kill as many of them as he could.
Bondurant hustled to get ahead of Queenie and Princess, keeping an eye on them as he moved into position. He’d forgotten how good Princess looked. He smiled. She has no fucking idea she’s got about one minute before she takes a bullet in that pretty face.
* * *
Beck and Ciro had seen the silver Range Rover come racing around the corner onto Harrod Avenue and pull in next to the fire hydrant. They were parked across the street from the Rover about five car lengths south. Both of them slumped down in their seats and watched two men get out of the Range Rover, one of them a hulking black albino—Whitey Bondurant. Beck had little doubt the third man sitting behind the wheel was Eric Juju Jackson, hanging back to let others do his dirty work.
* * *
Bondurant watched Princess and Queenie moving almost parallel to him. But instead of continuing across the plaza toward 174th Street, the two women turned and walked up onto the platform at the far side of the plaza. Once there, they stopped and stood in the middle of the stage.
That didn’t make any sense. What the hell were they doing?
Bondurant’s men were converging from every direction, including several of his hard-core gangbangers, and still Bondurant couldn’t see anybody who looked like one of Beck’s crew.
Bondurant turned west and headed directly for the platform, confident nobody could stop him now, but before he reached the middle of the plaza, he saw one of his crew gesturing and pointing behind him.
Bondurant turned and spotted the massive shape of Pastor Benjamin Woods heading in his direction, three men on his left, four on his right, all of them serious. Six were deacons in Wood’s church. The seventh was Emmanuel Guzman. A crowd of at least forty, most of them men, followed Woods and Manny. They were residents of Bronx River Houses, their number growing as more people from the surrounding buildings joined them.
Bondurant looked south and saw another procession, this one mostly women, led by Belinda Halsted Smith, rolling along on her Rascal scooter, chin high, staring straight ahead through her thick glasses, a determined look on her aged face. On one side of her walked Ms. Margaret and Ms. Maxine. On the other side, Demarco Jones. And behind them, more of the older female sentinels of Bronx River Houses along with many of their daughters and granddaughters.
All told, there were three generations of women and men converging on the area, their numbers swelling with every step while Amelia and Esther stood alone bravely waiting for them.
In the face of the marching residents, almost all of Bondurant’s crew heading toward the plaza had stopped. They were both confused and exposed as the residents engulfed them.
Windows were opening. Heads leaned out to see what was going on. More and more residents were coming out to either join the marchers, or watch what was happening. Many of Bondurant’s men who hadn’t made it to the plaza were being engulfed by the crowd of well over a hundred people and growing.
Bondurant yelled and waved for his men nearby to continue toward the plaza. More were coming in from the periphery. Bondurant had no intention of letting anybody stop him. Maybe he couldn’t shoot Queenie and Princess in front of so many witnesses, but he could damn well drag them out of the complex with his men clearing the way. Let these fools try to stop him. All they had to do was make it fifty yards out to the street, get them in the Range Rover, and get the hell out. A couple of gunshots in the air and all these assholes would duck and run. Why the hell did any of them give a shit about these damn whores anyhow?
Bondurant ran toward the stage, yelling for his men to come forward, but by now there were five or six residents for every one of his. The two groups of residents merged into a throng that surrounded Bondurant’s men. Several of Bondurant’s crew tried to push their way to the stage, but the residents stood firm, blocking them. A few of the older women from the complex who had known some of young men since childhood yelled at them, reprimanding them as if they were their own children, warning Bondurant’s bullies not to dare push them aside.
Demarco had walked with Belinda as she drove her Rascal toward the stage, but now he broke and moved fast to get to Amelia and Queenie.
Big Ben Woods, the fearsome enforcer from Dannemora, head and shoulders above the crowd, also strode toward the stage, holding his Bible over his head with his left hand while using his massive bulk and powerful right hand to push aside any of Bondurant’s men in his way, all the while excoriating them and promising damnation to anybody who dared oppose him.
Bondurant made it to the steps of the platform, gun in hand. In two strides he ascended to the stage. When they saw him, Esther and Amelia backed up until they were trapped against the wall. Bondurant headed for Amelia. She yelled, “Get the hell away from me!”
* * *
Out on Harrod Avenue, Beck and Ciro were about to step out of the Escalade when Beck said, “Wait. We can’t both be on the street while he’s in a car. If he tries to drive out of here, run the son of a bitch off the road.”
Beck slipped out the passenger door. In one hand he carried Ciro’s fish bat. In the other, his Browning forty-five. The only way to get to Jackson without being seen was to duck down and walk hidden by the cars parked along his side of the street. But the damage Remsen’s men had done to him made walking bent over excruciating.
By the time he reached a spot across the street from Jackson, he had to take a knee and recover. He leaned out past the front bumper of a parked car. Jackson stared off to his right, trying to make out what was happening in the roiling mass of people gathering in and around the plaza.
Beck saw Bondurant emerge from the crowd and make it to the platform. He saw Jackson shifting in the driver’s seat as if about to make a move. Was he going to flee the scene to save himself? Get out and help Bondurant? Start firing into the crowd?
Juju Jackson shoved the Range Rover into gear.
* * *
Amelia’s shout stopped Bondurant for a moment. And in that split second Demarco Jones leaped onto the concrete stage and yelled at Bondurant.
“Hey!”
Whitey Bondurant turned toward him. There wasn’t much distance for Demarco to cover, but it was enough so that Bondurant had time to raise his gun into firing position. Even though he was a trigger pull from taking a bullet, Demarco kept coming. As Bondurant’s gun came level with Demarco’s chest, he heard a primal scream as Amelia Johnson threw herself at Whitey Bondurant. She hit him hard, knocking him back, but only a step. Bondurant was much too big to go down. He shoved Amelia away, sending her sprawling onto the hard concrete. It took only two seconds, but time enough for Demarco to close the distance and grab the barrel of Bondurant’s Colt, twist the gun out of his hand, and backhand the butt of the gun across Bondurant’s face.
Bondurant’s sunglasses flew off, his cheek split open, and this time he staggered backward.
Demarco casually looked behind him and underhanded the gun to Manny Guzman who had stepped up onto the platform. Manny caught the Colt, then turned and joined Big Ben Woods and his deacons, who had taken up positions on the top step, ready to hold back Bondurant’s crew. But none of them tried to storm the stage. Every person in the plaza stood where they were, waiting to see the fight about to happen between the feared Whitey Bondurant and someone who almost matched his size.
Demarco circled between Bondurant and the women as Esther helped Amelia to her feet and moved her out of the way toward a door set into the wall bordering the back of the stage.
Demarco taunted Bondurant. “You like hitting girls, you nancy bitch?”
The crowd stood, transfixed. For years, every one of them had dreaded even hearing the name Whitey Bondurant. It didn’t seem possible that someone had taken away Bondurant’s gun and stood taunting him, goading him to fight.
Bondurant’s men called out, telling him to kick the guy’s ass. To kill him. To tear him up. They wanted to see what Whitey could do. They needed to see it.
Without warning, Bondurant rushed Demarco, throwing all of his two hundred fifty pounds at him. Demarco countered. He met the force of Bondurant’s rush with a forearm rammed into Bondurant’s chest. He grabbed Bondurant’s right arm, turned, and threw him onto the concrete stage.
Bondurant hit the concrete hard. He rolled over onto his hands and knees. Demarco took a step and kicked him in the ribs.
Demarco yelled, “Get up, bitch!”
Blind with rage, Bondurant rushed Demarco again, this time shooting in low, trying to get his long arms around Demarco and take him down.
Demarco absorbed the force of Bondurant’s rush, sprawled backward, grabbed Bondurant’s left arm, dug his right arm under his chin, and dropped all his weight onto Bondurant’s neck and back, forcing the bigger man to the ground.
He leaned close to Bondurant’s ear and whispered, “You can’t beat me. I’m not a girl.”
Bondurant tried to twist away, to get out from under Demarco, but Demarco pulled up on his choke hold and kept him under control.
One of Bondurant’s hard guys rushed the stage, pulling his gun. Ben Woods slapped the side of his head hard enough to send him flying back off the steps. Another made it to the second step, but Manny cracked the barrel of Bondurant’s Colt across his jaw, and he went down. Pushing and fighting broke out among the residents and a few of Bondurant’s men. A third man pushed past one of Woods’s deacons and made it onto the top step, and then Beck’s final line of defense appeared. The door behind the stage opened and Willie Reese stepped out holding a Serbu Super-Shorty 12-gauge shotgun.
He raised the weapon with one hand and aimed it at Bondurant’s man who had tried to join the fight. The man froze. Willie took two steps toward the man, planted his huge foot on his chest, and sent Bondurant’s thug flying off the stage.
Willie stood at the edge of the platform, sweeping his shotgun back and forth, keeping back anybody else who might want to help Bondurant.
Behind Willie, in a desperate move, Bondurant managed to grab Demarco’s left elbow, pull down and twist out from under Demarco, landing with his back on Demarco’s chest. A flurry of motion exploded. Demarco tried to counter and push off the bigger man. Bondurant surprised Demarco with his speed. He twisted and landed on top of Demarco, scrambling forward, avoiding Demarco’s guard, straddling his chest. He reared up and landed a huge punch to Demarco’s forehead, driving Demarco’s head onto the hard concrete.
Everything went black. Demarco blocked most of the next punch, he turned away from another punch, but Bondurant landed a fist that caught him on the side of his head. Another hit his left eye. Demarco cursed himself for throwing Bondurant around and taunting him instead of taking him out fast. He knew he was only one or two more punches away from Bondurant beating him to death.
* * *
Eric Jackson shoved the Range Rover into reverse.
Beck stepped out from behind the parked car and awkwardly ran toward Jackson as fast as he could. He had to catch him before he could back up enough to clear the parked car in front of him, but Beck already knew he didn’t have enough time to get to Jackson. It would be up to Ciro to block Jackson’s escape. And the only way to do that would be with a head-on crash.
And then Beck skidded to a stop.
In a move Beck hadn’t predicted, instead of backing up to get out of his parking space, Jackson made a Y-turn into the middle of the street toward Beck. He braked and reversed into Drive. Jackson wasn’t fleeing. He intended to drive over the sidewalk and mow a path through the crowd with the Range Rover to clear the way for Bondurant.
Desperate to stop him, Beck threw the fish bat toward the driver’s-side door. The nineteen-inch bat, weighted at the end, spun end over end and smashed into the window. Glass shattered. Jackson slammed on the brakes, turned, and saw Beck coming at him.
He put the Range Rover into Park and calmly stepped out into the street, pulling his gun.
Beck wanted him alive, but it was too late. Too late for his plan. He went down on one knee, raising his Browning into firing position as Jackson pointed his gun at Beck.
* * *
Bondurant was big. He was strong. He had the controlling position. He tried to shove aside Demarco’s arms, getting ready to deliver a final knockout punch.
Maybe it was the clarity that comes before death. Maybe it was because Demarco Jones knew if lost this fight Amelia and Esther would die, too. But mostly it was Bondurant making one mistake. He rose up so high trying to deliver a final, killing blow, that Demarco had enough time to free his left arm and block Bondurant’s downward fist with a sweeping block, followed by one ferocious right hook that hit Bondurant squarely on the temple.
The blow paralyzed Bondurant, not quite knocking him out, but gave Demarco a chance to land two hammer blows to Bondurant’s ribs and shove him off. Demarco scrambled to his feet. He staggered away from Bondurant, trying to clear his head from the damage he’d taken, shaking off the pain in his right hand.
Bondurant also made it onto his feet, wobbling and stepping back, trying to recover from Demarco’s punch that had sent his brain banging from one side to the other of his massive skull.
Both men circled each other. Both knew the fight wouldn’t last much longer. No more taunting. No more unmasking Whitey Bondurant in front of his men. And no more risking broken fists.
Bondurant edged forward. Demarco leapt forward, closing the space between them before Bondurant could react. He twisted from the hip and torqued the edged of his right wrist and arm into the vagus nerve and carotid artery on the side of Bondurant’s neck. The blow paralyzed Bondurant. Another twist of legs and hips whipped Demarco’s left elbow into the Bondurant’s jaw, cracking the right mandible. In almost the same move, Demarco brought his left fist up, around, and down, landing a hammer blow that broke Bondurant’s collarbone into two pieces, followed by a last twist, which brought Demarco’s knee slamming into Bondurant’s floating ribs, crushing his liver.
Demarco stepped back. Bondurant, already unconscious, dropped onto his knees, his eyes dead, his brain shut down, he fell forward and his face smacked into the concrete platform.
Four moves. Three seconds. Fight over.
The sound of Bondurant hitting the stage made Willie Reese turn for a second to confirm what he already knew. He turned back to the crowd struck silent at the sight of Whitey Bondurant down, out, maybe dead. Willie walked slowly backward, shotgun aimed at the crowd.
Demarco placed a hand on Willie’s shoulder, guiding him back toward the door held open for them by Amelia. Willie waited for the other three to step into the open doorway, shotgun still ready, and then he disappeared with the others behind the closing door.
Manny Guzman quickly made his way to Bondurant’s prone body. Behind him Bondurant’s men, shocked at having seen the feared assassin take such a beating, began leaving as police sirens filled the air.
Big Ben Woods, his deacons, and several of the residents remained on the steps, blocking the view of Bondurant, who had yet to move.
Manny rolled the still-unconscious albino onto his back, and pressed a gun into his lifeless hand. But this wasn’t the Colt 1911 Bondurant had come with. This was the Ruger 9-mm Amelia Johnson had used to shoot Derrick Watkins, Tyrell Williams, and Biggie Watkins, fully loaded with the ammunition Amelia had found in Tyrell’s laundry bag.
The first police cars appeared moving slowly through the crowd as they converged on the plaza. Woods and his deacons motioned for the cops to come to the stage. Manny pointed to Bondurant and yelled at the nearest cop, “Careful, he’s got a gun.”
The cop drew his own gun. Manny melted into the crowd.
* * *
Juju Jackson stood behind the Range Rover door, calm, aiming, not a hint of emotion in him. He knew the man in front of him had to be James Beck. He knew he had the drop on him. He almost smiled knowing he was going to put a bullet into Beck’s heart.
Beck’s only hope was that maybe he wouldn’t take a direct hit. Maybe he could get a shot off, maybe he could hit Jackson even though he was covered by the Range Rover’s driver’s-side door.
And then, suddenly, inexplicably, Eric Jackson disappeared with a sudden, metal-crushing bang as Ciro’s Escalade slammed into the Range Rover’s door, knocking Jackson off his feet. Ciro backed up, jumped out, wrenched the bent door out of his way, and kicked Jackson’s gun out of his hand.
Ciro lifted Jackson up with one hand and threw him against his Escalade. Jackson hit the front fender and slid onto the street.
It took a moment for Beck to realize he hadn’t been struck by a bullet. And a few more seconds to stand up. He checked out the scene in the plaza. He couldn’t tell much about what had happened beyond seeing the police cars rolling into the area and the crowd dispersing.
Ciro asked Beck, “So?”
“Looks like they made it out.”
“Good. Let’s get this piece-of-shit pimp off the street and get the hell out of here.”