The Good Cop

CHAPTER 7

Having shared his big theory, Raul Ibanez got in a hurry to have me depart. I guess he was worried someone else might step into the stairwell in the endless search for good cell reception. We agreed that if I had any more questions, I would call his secretary and identify myself as Robert Upshur. (An obscure reference to the first and middle names of the greatest reporter in journalism history, but I digress.)

That left me to stumble out back onto the street, into an afternoon that was trying to get sunny without much luck. Not to get all literary, but it was an appropriate metaphor for how my brain was working on this story.

If Fusco didn’t kill himself-and I believed Ibanez’s science more than I believed anything else I heard so far-then someone else did. Brilliant deduction, I know, but I did graduate in the top 10 percent of my high school class. Was it the same person who killed Darius Kipps? Or did Fusco kill Kipps and then someone else kill Fusco for revenge? I couldn’t say.

At the very least, I had enough new information that when I presented it to Public Disinformation Officer Hakeem Rogers for comment, it was going to make him feel like he was passing a kidney stone. Because, really, I could only imagine two scenarios here, neither of them particularly flattering for Rogers’s employer: One, Newark’s finest were allowing themselves to be snowed by cunning bad guys-possibly a minister, of all people-who were killing cops and getting away with it simply because the police chief didn’t want to look bad in the media; or, two, Newark’s finest were lying.

I couldn’t imagine why they would want to lie about something like this-other than that they’re cops, so lying to reporters comes rather naturally. But I had a fairly simple test to determine which scenario was true.

It hinged on the phone call Fusco allegedly made to Captain Boswell. If that call actually existed, then Fusco was acting under duress-calling because the cunning bad guys put a gun to his head. If that call didn’t exist, I was going to ask our editorial cartoonist to draw a caricature of Captain Boswell with a nose like Pinocchio.

Luckily, I had a way of finding out which it was-providing Fusco was a Verizon Wireless customer and the bosses at that fine company hadn’t yet gotten wise that fearless Eagle-Examiner reporter Tommy Hernandez was dating one of their customer service representatives.

I called Tommy to find out.

“It’s so good to hear from you,” he answered.

“And why is that?”

“Because I wanted to ask: When I saw you in the newsroom earlier, were you, in fact, wearing the same horrifically boring shirt, tie, and pleated pants combination you were wearing yesterday?”

“I was.”

“You know my eyes were still hurting from the last time I had to see it. Couldn’t you have given me a rest?”

“Guess not.”

“So, okay, he was wearing the same clothes … his eyes looked like a raccoon’s … he had a certain rumpled look … did someone have a big night last night?”

“Something like that,” I said. Tommy was a notorious gossip-the TMZ of the newsroom-and didn’t need to know I had spent the night at Tina’s place. He’d have the paparazzi hounding me for weeks.

“Oh, you don’t need to play coy with me. Everyone knows you’re shacking up with Kira the cute library chick.”

“Yep, you got me.”

“What about Tina?”

“What about her?” I asked, perhaps a little too quickly.

“I thought you guys were going to make me Carter Jr.’s special uncle. Or, even better, his fairy godfather.”

“I think that’s on hold for the time being.”

“So you can sow your oats?” Tommy said, clucking his tongue at me. “You’re such a mhore.”

“What’s a mhore?”

“A man-whore.”

He giggled, then apparently decided I had received a sufficient amount of abuse for one phone call, because he switched subjects.

“Hey, I visited my girl in the council clerk’s office this morning,” he said. “She told me there’s been nothing new put in for Reverend Alvin LeRioux, Redeemer Love Christian Church, or any of its various affiliates. So if your pastor is getting something for his cooperation, it isn’t coming from the Newark city fathers.”

“What if it was just expanding or extending an existing contract?” I asked.

“If it meant more money was being spent, it would still have to be approved by the city council. That’s Government 101. The council controls the purse strings.”

“Okay. Thanks for checking,” I said. “Mind if I press you for one more favor.”

“Sure.”

“Your current love interest still work for Verizon Wireless?”

“Yeah.”

I found Mike Fusco’s phone number in my notebook and recited it to Tommy. “Ask him if there were any outgoing calls made by that number around four o’clock this morning.”

“Sure. Want me to do it right now?”

“Wouldn’t hurt.”

“I’m going to put the phone down and call on the landline. Hang on.”

I leaned my elbow against the car door and rested my head on my hand as Tommy called “Stephen” and bantered a little bit before getting around to the purpose of his call. I listened as he asked a few follow-up questions, then made some way-too-precious kissing noises before getting off the phone.

“Sorry you had to hear that,” he said. “I know it offends your hetero sensibilities.”

“Yeah, why do you queers have to rub it in everyone’s face all the time?” I teased back. “I mean, next you’re going to want to hold hands in public or, God forbid, sully the sacred institution of marriage.”

“Yeah. Can you imagine the horror?”

“Anyhow, what did Stephen say?”

“Your subscriber made a phone call at four-oh-four this morning to here,” he said, reading a number with a 973 area code, which I copied. “It lasted a grand, whopping total of two minutes.”

“Two minutes, huh? Do you think you could confess to murdering your best friend and then announce your intention to kill yourself in two minutes?”

Tommy thought about it for a moment and said, “Sure. Not everyone is as wordy as you.”

Especially not when they’re a taciturn tough guy with a gun pointed at his head. I thanked Tommy for his assistance and promised his next fruity, umbrella-topped girl drink would be on me.

Just to make sure the call was for real, I dialed the number he had given me. It rang four times and then went to a voice mail for Captain Denise Boswell.

So Fusco really did talk to her. And it was his last worldly act. As I pulled out of my parking spot and began traveling back down South Orange Avenue toward the office, I conjured this image of Fusco in his final moments. He was bewildered, scared, and fuming, being made to call his captain and confess to a crime he never committed. And then, maybe while he was still trying to figure out how he might save himself, the gun pointed at his head went off.

I was so distracted by that thought, I nearly missed another image-and not one that existed only in my imagination. This was a real image, in my rearview mirror.

It was of a silver Mercedes. And it was closing in fast.

* * *

Daytime running lights save lives. I can now testify to that because it was the Mercedes’ daytime running lights that first caught the corner of my eye in that mirror. Otherwise, I never would have seen it coming, and that very likely might have cost me the privilege of continued respiration.

As it was, I had perhaps two seconds to make sense of what I was seeing, and four seconds of useful reaction time. I was puttering along, doing thirty miles per hour in the right lane of an avenue that had two lanes heading in my direction. The Mercedes was coming up behind me in the left lane doing at least sixty.

I had, as best I could figure, two choices: try to stop in the hopes that the Mercedes would overshoot me; or hit the gas and lose them in a chase.

My six-year-old Chevy Malibu couldn’t outrun a well-tuned moped, much less an E-class Mercedes with a magnificently engineered eight-cylinder engine. But I knew if I stopped, I might as well just strip off my shirt and scrawl “shoot me here” on my chest. Besides, for all my outward refinement and education, I’m still a Jersey guy. Aggressive driving is a state birthright. So I straightened my right leg to the point of hyperextension and pressed the accelerator down into the floorboards.

The Malibu’s engine hesitated for an instant-its protest to the more-than-111,431 miles it had been forced to carry me and other travelers throughout its life-then finally caught with a roar reminiscent of a gas-powered golf cart climbing a steep hill. In my peripheral vision, I could see the speedometer begin a determined journey up the dial.

The Mercedes was still gaining on me, albeit more slowly as I blasted through the intersection of Norfolk Street-if “blasted” is, in fact, a verb that can be used in conjunction with a used Malibu. South Orange Avenue squeezed down to one lane at that point, which meant I had a momentary reprieve from being overtaken, assuming my friends in the Mercedes weren’t going to want to tussle with oncoming traffic.

But I was knowledgeable enough about the roads of Newark-probably more familiar with them than any town I ever lived in-to recognize I had a problem coming up. South Orange Avenue would soon funnel into Springfield Avenue, then cross Martin Luther King Boulevard, then feed down into Market Street. And there was no possible way, here in the middle of the day, I was going to get through all of that without having to stop for a traffic light, a pedestrian, or a slow-moving city bus.

And stopping, as previously mentioned, was not a real savory menu option.

Without touching the brake, I pulled my wheel hard to the right at the next intersection. The Malibu’s tires, which I had replaced relatively recently-I had, right? — made a horrible squealing sound, and for a moment I wondered if they were going to slip right off their rims and leave me running steel-on-asphalt. But they held and I was soon hurtling down Prince Street, a narrow two-lane road and one of the better car chase venues in downtown Newark, if only because there wouldn’t be as much stuff on it to hit.

I hoped my one fancy maneuver would be enough to lose my chasers, but the Mercedes easily made the turn with me and was closing in on my rear bumper. The driver was not being particularly subtle about his intentions. Then again, why did he need to be? He didn’t exactly need to rely on artifice or subterfuge. He had the vehicle with the better engine, the better handling, the better suspension. Me? I was probably better at Scrabble, but that was about it.

He made a move to pass me on the left, which I countered by drifting to the middle, leaving no room to pass on either side. Knowing he couldn’t get by me, I laid off the accelerator a little but was still getting along quite quickly.

In this manner we sped down Prince Street, with the town houses of University Heights on my left just a blur, toward the first of two traffic lights. The second one, I knew, I wouldn’t have to worry about. It was just Court Street, a road that wouldn’t have much traffic on it. But the first? The first was a concern-the aforementioned Springfield Avenue, one of the most heavily traveled arteries in New Jersey’s largest city.

As I closed to within about a hundred yards, I could see the light facing me was still red, while the light for Springfield was still green. There was no chance it would be able to cycle through from yellow to red in time. I thought about slowing down a little. I couldn’t just bomb right through, kamikaze-style, could I?

Then, with about fifty yards to go, I heard a popping sound from behind me, then another, and I knew damn well it wasn’t the Mercedes backfiring. I was being shot at, again. And that sort of solved the dilemma of whether to slow down. My quandary, instead, became how to elude whatever was in the intersection as I barreled through it. I glanced left and saw the way was clear. I wasn’t so lucky with the right. A red sedan of some sort, a Pontiac maybe, was approaching. If I maintained my current speed, I judged my front bumper would impale its side panel at roughly a ninety degree angle, and that wasn’t going to be good for either of us, especially the driver of the Pontiac.

Then again, if I jammed on the brakes, there was a good chance the Mercedes-now mere feet off my back bumper-was going to rear-end me. And that didn’t seem like it would end well, either.

I was left with one option, and that was to ask for more from the Malibu than it was perhaps able to give me. Using every muscle in my right leg to generate as much force as I could, I hammered the accelerator. Then I laid on the horn with my right palm, hoping it might alert the red car’s driver to the fact that I was coming, traffic signals be damned.

Then I held my breath and tensed my body for the collision.

* * *

I careened through the intersection like that, with the expected impact never coming. The red car responded to my blaring horn with an angry bleep of its own, but its antilock brakes were doing the job, bringing the Pontiac to a noisy but safe stop.

The next block was a short one, and I could already see the light was green. I was in the clear for a little while, except for the minor annoyance that there were some hostile young men behind me. I finally allowed myself a glance at my pursuers in the rearview mirror. On the passenger side of the car, I saw an arm stuck out of the front window holding a handgun. The muzzle flashed twice more, and I heard the shots, though the noise was surprisingly distant, almost like a BB gun.

I couldn’t tell where the shooter was aiming or where the bullets were going. I was fairly certain they weren’t hitting my car-I would have felt that, right? — and I knew for sure they weren’t hitting me. This, I was rapidly discovering, was the way to go when being shot at: pick assailants with lousy aim.

Still, there’s this thing about bullets. They’re cheap, disposable hunks of metal, and therefore no one thinks twice about expending a lot of them when the situation arises. And I was betting it would take only one landing in the right/wrong spot to make this whole little jaunt a lot less fun. I needed some kind of plan beyond hoping the jarring of Newark’s potholes would keep the shooter unsteady.

Prince Street made a quick jog to the left as it passed through Kinney Street. I followed the road, riding the brakes slightly as we sped through a residential area. The Mercedes kept attempting to overtake me on the left. And I continued blocking him. The Malibu may not be good for many things, but getting in people’s way is one of them. It has got a nice, wide rear end-the J. Lo of the car world.

Another shot echoed harmlessly behind me, and I was beginning to feel like I must have had some kind of force field behind me or guardian angel on my shoulder. Then the force field disintegrated, and the guardian angel flew off as two more shots rang out and definitely hit … something.

All I knew for sure is that I was starting to lose control of my car. One bullet felt like it had hit somewhere in the vicinity of my trunk, which shouldn’t have been debilitating to anything other than perhaps the golf clubs I had stored in there. Then I quickly began to figure out where the second one hit: my right rear tire.

The entire car listed back and to the right. Even with power steering, staying straight was suddenly a battle. The only thing that was saving me was that the Malibu was front-wheel drive, and the front wheels seemed unaffected.

The light at Muhammad Ali Avenue was blessedly green. Still, a pivotal decision time was coming. There had been a lot of construction in recent years, so I wasn’t entirely certain about this, but many through streets in Newark now dead-ended, and I was fairly sure Prince Street was one of them.

Partly because of that, and partly because it was the direction my car seemed to want to go, I made as hard a right onto Muhammad Ali as I dared, veering out into the oncoming lane just slightly.

The Mercedes dropped back slightly and made the turn smoothly. I could guess having all four tires intact probably helped in that regard. Then it began closing in on me anew.

And this time, maybe because my flapping right tire didn’t give me much choice, I allowed it. It was beginning to dawn on me that letting the Mercedes slowly shred my car from behind was a losing proposition. The Malibu was the only weapon I had, and I needed to find a way to use it while it was still running. Unless I could make this a demolition derby-not a carnival shooting gallery-I would be facing the prospect of a prolonged underground slumber.

Knowing the shooter was on the right side of the car, at least for the time being, I fought the wheel to stay in the left lane, giving the Mercedes plenty of room to overtake me on the right. As soon as its front bumper was even with my back bumper, I hit my brakes.

It was all happening at about fifty or sixty miles an hour on an urban street, so it all felt very fast. But as soon as my passenger side door was even with the thugs’ driver side, I went back to the accelerator, veered out slightly to my left-to give myself a little room to build some momentum-then brought whatever tonnage the Malibu had slamming into the Mercedes.

The cars hit with a jolt and a thump that sounded more like plastic-on-plastic than metal-on-metal. Without being able to see through the tinted windows, I couldn’t say this for sure, but I felt like I caught the bastards by surprise. The collision sapped us of some of our speed, though we were still traveling fairly fast, with our cars acting like they were caught on each other.

The intersection for Irvine Turner Boulevard was quickly approaching, and I saw that, on our current course, I was going to be steering the Mercedes straight into a utility pole. It was going to be a head-on collision. A nasty one.

The driver of the Mercedes obviously saw it, too, because at the last minute he peeled right, bouncing over a low curb onto the sidewalk and then through a small, empty parking lot. Then, to my surprise, he continued the right turn, hopped down on Irvine Turner Boulevard, and kept going, actually speeding up, like he was eager to get away.

I pounded my brakes and screeched through a (thankfully empty) intersection, barely missing a fire hydrant on the other side-at the price of plowing over a pedestrian crossing sign.

Still, that had to be significantly better than plowing over a pedestrian.

* * *

My Malibu finally came to rest in the side yard of some garden-style apartments. I sat in it for a moment and did some deep, grateful breathing, then got out to assess the damage to my car. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. The small crease in the front bumper could be hammered out. The glass in the passenger side mirror was gone, but at least the housing was intact. The scrapes along the right side of the car were superficial, and I wasn’t exactly worried too much about cosmetics at this point. The right rear tire was a floppy mess. I couldn’t see any damage from where the other bullet had hit.

Before long, a lanky teenager wearing a too-long white T-shirt, riding a too-small bicycle cruised up behind me.

“You aight?” he asked in a languid voice. He seemed unimpressed by what he had just witnessed, as if car chases rolled through his neighborhood every Wednesday afternoon right around two o’clock.

“Yeah, thanks.”

“They dropped they gun.”

“They … they did?”

“Yeah, it’s back there,” he said, jerking his head behind him.

“Show me,” I said.

He wheeled his bike around, and I followed him as he crossed the intersection and pedaled back up the sidewalk. Sure enough, there was a handgun lying on its side against the curb, right around the spot where I had sideswiped the Mercedes. That explained why it sped off the way it did: the occupants were no longer armed.

I squatted next to the gun and studied it, not wanting to touch it in case there were usable fingerprints on it. Using the sum total of my knowledge about handguns, I could tell this one was black, plastic, and nasty.

Out of curiosity-and because I wasn’t exactly going to pick it up and check out its action-I shifted myself to get a good view of the underside of the gun. Sure enough, there was a tiny red dot emblazoned on the butt of the handle. It was so small I’m sure I wouldn’t have noticed it unless I had been looking for it specifically.

“There’s a red dot on this gun,” I said to my bike-riding friend. “You ever heard of red dot guns?”

He smiled at me like he knew something but said, “I ain’t into nothing like that.”

Yes, I’m sure a teenaged kid who was puttering around on his bike during school hours wouldn’t know anything about a criminal enterprise. Oh well. At least I was getting shot at by the very latest in thug chic.

My buddy rode off, leaving me alone to ponder what had just transpired. Obviously, I had been attacked by the same punks who had given me the drive-by treatment outside of Mimi’s place-I didn’t need to match license plates and VIN numbers to recognize that Mercedes. But how had they found me this time? It’s not like I rang up Mimi and tipped her off I was going to see the medical examiner. Heck, I hadn’t even told Tina.

Had they been following me? They obviously knew where I was. But then, if they had really tailed me from the newsroom all the way to the medical examiner’s office and watched me park and walk inside, wouldn’t they have just waited for me there and put a slug behind my right ear as soon as I departed the building?

So was it just dumb luck? Were they driving around, doing their gang thing, when one of them happened to recognize my car? No, that didn’t work. Because when they shot at me the last time, I wasn’t in-or near-the Malibu. They wouldn’t have known it was my car, and besides, it’s not like an aging Chevy Malibu is a rare, priceless vehicle scarcely seen on the streets of Newark.

I hadn’t made much headway on the subject when I saw a Newark Police patrol unit roll to a stop near the corner. They had either gotten a report about shots being fired and had come to investigate, or they were going to give me a ticket for abandoning my derelict car on someone’s lawn.

I walked back to my Malibu just as the two officers emerged from the squad car.

“Man, I could have used you guys about five minutes ago,” I said.

The driver, an older black guy with a bull-like build, a shaved head, and “B. Jones” on his nameplate, looked at me like he was thoroughly uninterested as to when or how I could have used or not used him. This set the tone for what followed, when I explained to Baldy-that’s what the “B” stood for, right? — who I was, what had happened, and how I was truly the victim in this whole scenario.

I went through my story at least three times, and he remained circumspect throughout. Finally, I took them over to the gun, which he picked up bare-handed and walked over to his patrol car, dumping it in the front seat.

“Isn’t that … evidence or something?” I asked. “Aren’t you going to check it for prints?”

Baldy glowered at me and said, “This isn’t television, sir. We never get usable prints off of guns like this.”

“Oh,” I said. “But did you see the red dot on the bottom of it?”

“Huh?”

“There’s a red dot on it, and … I didn’t know if it was something you guys were tracking. I’m told guns with red dots on them are all the rage. I was going to be writing a story about it, and…”

He was fixing me with this I-don’t-give-a-crap stare, so I shut up. He seemed mostly concerned about getting me and my car-and him and his car-out of this area just as soon as was possible, so he could return to … whatever it was he did with his time. Presumably not conditioning his hair.

He asked where I wanted my car to be towed, which seemed like a real leap of faith, inasmuch as I’m not sure the thing was worth fixing. But I gave him a name and number for Mickey the mechanic, the guy who owned the garage across the street from the Eagle-Examiner offices, whom I entrusted with keeping the Malibu in its pristine condition.

Next, I called Tommy, swore him to the usual secrecy, then told him briefly about how my automobile had been incapacitated and that I therefore needed his services as a chauffeur. He responded with a crack about how it would have been better if a bullet had caught me in the ass, thus ridding the world of one more pair of my pleated pants. But he also promised to come pick me up.

The cop eventually gave me a card, which identified him as Bryson M. Jones-personally, I liked “Baldy” better-of the Newark Police Department’s Fourth Precinct. There was a report number on the back that he said I could use when making a claim with my insurance company. I had already given him all my contact information, and he halfheartedly assured me someone would be in touch if they needed anything more from me.

“Are there going to be any criminal charges against the guys who, you know, tried to shoot me?” I asked.

“Yeah, just as soon as we find ’em,” Baldy replied, heavy on the sarcasm. “You know where they are?”

“No, I suppose not.”

“Yeah,” he snorted in reply. “Me neither.”

* * *

As I waited for Tommy to arrive, I began focusing on the matter of my immediate survival. Somehow, outwardly, I was maintaining a placid facade. Inwardly, I was more like one of those big-eyed purse dogs that gets scared by its own chew toys. I needed to figure out who was shooting at me and hopefully figure out why-and how to avoid any future encounters.

Somehow, I didn’t think Baldy Jones was going to be much help, so I decided to tap a different part of the Newark Police Department and call my buddy Pritch. He was in the gang unit, after all. Chances were good-if my assailants were, in fact, affiliated in some manner-he might be familiar with them.

“Hey, Woodward N. Bernstein!” he crowed. “I might have to pretend I don’t know you, with all the stuff you been stirring up lately. You a bad man.”

“You’ve been hanging out with Hakeem Rogers again, haven’t you?”

“That ass hat? Naw. I’m just talking about what I’m reading in the paper. You been lighting fires, my friend.”

“It’s what I do,” I said. “You got a second to help me put out a fire by any chance?”

“Yeah, I’m just walking to get some lunch downtown. You want to join? I’ll let you pay.”

The Eagle-Examiner had paid for a number of Pritch’s lunches, and he was worth every one of them. “Love to,” I said. “But my transportation has just been shot up by some guys I’m thinking might be acquaintances of yours.”

“No kidding. Who?”

“Well, I’m not exactly sure. That’s why I’m placing this call to the pride of the Newark Police Gang Unit. You know of a crew that rolls around the city in a silver Mercedes E-class with tinted windows?”

I absentmindedly toed the pedestrian crossing sign that was still sticking out from underneath my car like it was the Wicked Witch of the West’s legs.

“Yeah, that sounds like BMF,” Pritch said.

“And BMF is…?”

“Black Mafia Family. I actually should say it’s a group of knuckleheads pretending to be Black Mafia Family. The original BMF was out of Michigan, Detroit or Flint, I think. They got hooked up with some Mexicans that were supplying them with product, established themselves nationally. You ever hear of Big Meech?”

“Sounds like a burger sold at McDonald’s.”

“Not quite. Big Meech is a legend in the hip-hop community. He was the guy who started BMF. He and his brother lived large for a while. They were pretty stupid about it, you ask me. Too flashy. The best hos. The VIP table service. The best cars.

“You can’t just rub it in our face like that, you know?” Pritch continued. “They were also sloppy and dumb. It ended up being one of those big RICO statute things. They got them blabbing all over the place on wires and arrested all of them, eventually. And I think they’re all still in jail. The original BMF doesn’t really exist anymore. As far as I know, it’s been dismantled.”

“So who are these guys who don’t seem to like me much?”

“They’re just playing around, acting like they all bad, like they’re the real BMF. Everyone knows the name Black Mafia Family. Now these guys are just using the name. It’s like if the real McDonald’s went bankrupt and you decided to open up a fast-food joint with golden arches on it that sold hamburgers. It’d probably fool some people, but it’s not the real thing.”

“I have to say, it sort of felt like the real thing when they were chasing me through Newark shooting at me.”

“Well, let me ask you something: You dead yet?”

“No.”

“Then, trust me, it wasn’t the real thing. These guys are small-timers. They’re just driving that Mercedes around, doing their best BMF imitation. The only reason we haven’t shut them down is that they really haven’t done anything worth shutting down. We’ve had bigger fish to fry.”

“So why would they try to shoot the friendly local Eagle-Examiner reporter?”

“Aw, hell, I don’t know. Maybe they didn’t get their paper on time this morning. Who knows with some of these punks?”

“Does shooting at a reporter mean they’ve escalated into something worth frying?” I asked hopefully.

“Not when it’s you,” he cracked.

“Ouch?”

“Come on, I’m kidding. I’m kidding. Could you ID the driver or the shooter?”

“Nope, just the car.”

“Well, that ain’t gonna do much for us. But I’ll put the word out with some of the guys in the unit, maybe have them put a little heat on these turkeys, get them to cool it with whatever beef they got.”

“Thanks. Hey, mind answering another question? It’s about Mike Fusco. I assume you heard about that.”

“Yeah. I don’t know anything about it, though. And I don’t really know him. He got to the Fourth after I left.”

“It’s not about him. It’s about his gun.”

“Okay, go.”

Since my most recent conversation with Raul Ibanez, this question had been coalescing in my mind and was now fully formed: “The word from Captain Boswell is that Fusco killed himself with his service weapon. I got a source in the medical examiner’s office that confirmed it for me, matched the serial numbers and everything. But Fusco told me the day before he was killed that his service weapon had been taken from him when he was placed on leave. So how is it possible that gun was used?”

“Well, it’s possible Fusco was lying to you. His captain knew if she was placing him on leave, she’d have to take his gun. It’s policy. But maybe if he bitched about it enough, she let it slide. Some cops feel naked without their weapon, even off duty. Or…”

Pritch actually chuckled, but it was the kind that didn’t have a lot of mirth behind it. “Or what?” I asked.

“Well, officially, all our guns are under lock and key, tighter than Fort Knox.”

“Unofficially?”

“Unofficially, we’ve had a problem for years with guns that were supposed to have been under lock and key showing up on the street again. I know guys who have brought in the same gun two, three times only to have it get back out.”

“How is that happening?”

“We’re just sloppy. Eventually, a confiscated gun gets destroyed. But the department doesn’t do it right away. In the short term, the gun just gets locked up. Each precinct has a locker and there are only certain people who are supposed to have access to it, but that doesn’t mean a lot. They’ll hide an extra key near the locker because everyone keeps losing the main one, and before long anyone with a uniform is helping themselves.”

“What about people without uniforms?” I asked. “Like, maybe, people in an overly aggressive prayer group?”

“A what?”

“Never mind. I guess I’m just asking if you thought it was possible for a civilian to have gotten his hands on Fusco’s gun.”

“Possible? Sure. Do this job long enough and you’ll swear anything is possible,” Pritch said. “But maybe if you put something in your paper about it, it’ll embarrass the brass enough that they’ll actually do something about it for a change.”

“That sounds like a magnificent idea,” I said, then asked the following question facetiously: “You want to go on the record with that, Detective Pritchard?”

He snorted. “Yeah, about as much as I want to be hanging out with you the next time that Mercedes comes around.”

* * *

The tow truck and Tommy arrived within a few seconds of each other, so I ended the call with Pritch and watched as my Chevy Malibu, the car that had served me for more miles than its busted odometer knew how to count, was winched onto a flatbed and taken away, all forlorn and dented. If this was truly its end-and I can’t imagine it’s very hard to total a car that doubles in value every time you fill the gas tank-it had served me well.

I said good-bye to Baldy Jones, who acknowledged me by slightly lifting his head from the form he was filling out and then immediately putting his head back down. I suspected we wouldn’t be swapping cute text messages later.

“You know, if you wanted to pimp your ride, I could have found someone to do a better job than that,” Tommy said as I lowered myself into his car, an import that was a bit on the small side for a strapping American male such as myself.

“Yeah, but you’d probably send me to a guy who would outfit the seats with pink slipcovers.”

Tommy said something in Spanish, which is his go-to move when he wants to deliver a withering putdown that I simply cannot match.

“I accept your compliment,” I said.

He snorted.

We drove for a moment in silence, giving me a chance to appreciate how nice it was riding in a car that wasn’t being assailed by bullets.

“Your little car chase went out on BNN, you know,” Tommy said.

BNN was the Breaking News Network, a company that paid people to listen to police scanners and then report the good stuff to nosy journalists like me. In the old days, BNN subscribers got broadcasts sent out on a pager; now it was an Internet site.

“Too bad they don’t use names on BNN,” I replied. “It would have been good for my street cred.”

“Yeah, yeah. But just … be careful, okay? You’re a newspaper reporter, remember? We write about this sort of stuff happening to other people. I’m worried about you.”

“Oh, I’m fine,” I said, even though I really wasn’t.

“You’re only ‘fine’ because those hombres can’t shoot straight. I mean, what the hell is going on?”

“I just talked to a cop source who said it’s just a group of guys pretending to be the Black Mafia Family street gang.”

“Whoever that is. What did you do to piss them off?

“I’m not sure, actually. I guess I should at least try to find out before they come back, huh?”

“Sounds like a good idea. Because, you know, if they start shooting at us between here and the office, I’m going to kick you out of the car and let them have you. I just got this thing paid off, and I don’t want it getting all full of bullet holes.”

I wished I had a ready repertoire of Spanish insults with which to counter him. Instead, I pulled up Tee Jamison’s name on my phone’s contact list and hit the Send button.

Tee answered the phone the way he always does, with a short, “Yeah.”

“What is up, my brother?” I said, intentionally overenunciating each word.

“You know, you sound like them politicians who only come into the ’hood when it’s time to hustle votes. They teach you white people to talk like that?”

“It just comes naturally,” I assured him, then spent a few minutes telling him about my new propensity for having to duck bullets, thanks to my sudden association with guys masquerading as Black Mafia Family.

“So you beefin’ with BMF?” he said when I was done. “You mean them guys who were hooked up with Young Jeezy?”

“And that is…?”

“A rapper. For you people, that’d be like, I don’t know, Neil Diamond or something.”

“Well, sweet, Caroline.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind. I just need to figure out what these guys are into and why they’re after me.”

“Oh, well, I don’t really know those niggas. They sound like they a bunch of younguns, frontin’ like that. I don’t know the new generation that well. But you know who would?”

“Who?”

“Uncle Bernie.”

It was a good thing I wasn’t drinking a Coke Zero. I would have snorted it out my nose. “Come on, he’s so old I think he resold warrantied merchandise to Moses.”

“I’m telling you, that dude has got feelers everywhere. I mean, he’s getting boots from me, luggage from someone’s mom. He’s probably getting something from those guys, too. People in the ’hood know Uncle Bernie will give you quick cash for the right stuff. And who don’t like quick cash?”

Uncle Bernie did mention something about knowing everyone from the bubbas to the machers. (Whoever they were.) Maybe he’d know a few bangers, too. It was worth a try.

“Good thought, thanks,” I said.

“No problem,” he said. “And, hey, if you see Lil J, get his autograph, will you?”

“Yeah, right after you get me Neil Diamond.”

I ended the call, then told Tommy, “You mind making a little detour? It’ll take us maybe twenty minutes, and you might be able to get some new Pradas out of it.”

“I’d love to, but I have to be at a stupid ribbon-cutting at four o’clock. I wouldn’t want to miss the North Ward councilman congratulating himself for something he actually had nothing to do with.”

“All right. Then can you drop me somewhere? It’s just on Irvine Turner Boulevard.”

Tommy heaved a melodramatic sigh, the kind only gay guys seem to be able to pull off with the needed gusto. “And then, what, you’re going to be on the street, thumbing a ride back to the office when BMF comes back?”

“No, I’ll call Ruthie, have him pick me up.”

Tommy let out a groaning noise. “I don’t like that kid. He’s such a brownnoser.”

“I know, I know. But he’s actually not too bad once you get to know him. And I think he might be a pretty good reporter. We’re going to work on a story together as soon as I can get my plate a little cleaner.”

“Yeah, assuming you live that long,” Tommy said, but he had already started making his way toward Irvine Turner. I gave him the cross streets, then called Ginsburg to arrange for my ride home. He didn’t answer, so I sent him a text with the details of where to find me. He seemed like the kind of guy who wouldn’t ignore a texted plea for help from someone he thought might help his career.

After a quick stop at an ATM machine-this story was growing expensive, but at least I would be getting good bargains-Tommy pulled up to the curb outside the anonymous cream-colored building with its one-way glassed bodega and its insides stocked with the finest warranteed merchandise. I just hoped Uncle Bernie would again be chatty.

As I departed, Tommy called out, “Be safe, all right?”

“I’ll be fine,” I said.

“Okay,” Tommy said. He seemed to want to linger or maybe say something else, but talked himself out of it. Though as he drove away, I thought I saw him shaking his head.

* * *

The alley was just as strangely clean as it was the previous time I visited it, although at least I understood why this time. Gene seemed like the type who would want things tidy. I rang the bell and was immediately greeted by the sound of Uncle Bernie’s voice pouring through the speaker. “You changed your mind about the briefcase! I knew you’d change your mind.”

“Yeah, that’s right,” I said. Why not? My current briefcase was beginning to look like it had been sat on by a few too many elephants.

“I told you he’d change his mind,” Bernie said at slightly lower volume, like he was talking to someone else in the room, probably Gene. Then he returned to me: “Hang on. I’ll be right there.”

I stuffed my hands in my pockets and idly glanced up at the building. It turned out the camera above the door wasn’t the only one. There were also cameras high on each corner. They looked like the kind that could be controlled remotely. I guess Uncle Bernie didn’t want anyone sneaking up on him. He had thousands of dollars of product that had warranties against material or manufacturing defect but not, I suspected, against theft.

The same large, taciturn black man greeted me at the door. He led me down the hallway, punched in a numeric code on the inner door, and ushered me into the merchandise warehouse, where Bernie was already waiting for me.

He was dressed in a half-buttoned Hawaiian shirt that had too many colors to possibly catalogue. His pants were pink, perhaps the only color not represented in the shirt. The small wisps of his barely there, chemically enhanced blond hair were slicked back into their usual position. He was wearing the same yellow-tinted glasses as last time, though I thought perhaps he had changed pinkie rings.

“How are ya, kid?” He greeted me with a handshake.

“I’m good, Uncle Bernie. How you been?”

“I’m good, I’m good,” he said, then began patting my cheek, which I pretended wasn’t awkward. “Look at this kisser, heh? So young. You look good, you look good. You get a little sun since the last time I saw you? You go down south? Miami? I love Miami. We go to Florida at least once a winter. I could never live down there. I’d just be another one of those schmucks playing shuffleboard all day long. But it’s nice to visit, it’s nice to visit.”

“Yeah, Miami is great,” I confirmed. “Where’s Gene?”

Bernie made a dismissive gesture. “Eh, he’s upstairs, forging a receipt for the Cuisinart people. They’re very picky, those Cuisinart guys. You gotta get it just right with them. After he does Cuisinart, he has to do Best Buy. Another tough one. He’ll be here all night.”

“Sure.”

“So, briefcase, briefcase,” he said, walking quickly toward what I recognized as the luggage section. “You like Coach? I got Coach. Black or brown. The brown is nice, the leather is softer. Like butter. But you young guys, I know how you are, you like the black shoes, the black belts. Maybe you like the black better, huh?”

“Actually, Uncle Bernie, I was hoping you could help me with a story I’m working on.”

That stopped his white nurses’ shoes in their tracks. “What, you don’t want the briefcase? I got Kenneth Cole, too, if you don’t like Coach.”

“No, no, I’ll take the briefcase. The black one is fine. I was just wondering … my pal Tee thought you might have heard of a gang called Black Mafia Family.”

Bernie looked at me like he was mystified as to why I would care but said, “You mean those balegoolas who drive around in that Mercedes? Yeah, I know them. BMW makes a better car, you ask me. But, yeah, they’re all right. They’re a bunch of pishers, but they’re sweet boys.”

“Sweet boys? They’ve tried to kill me twice today.”

“Eh,” he said, waving it away like it never happened. “They’re not so tough. You want tough? Try Fat Lou Larasso. Back in the day, he’d have someone cut out your eyeballs if you looked at him the wrong way. Those boys? Puppies. Kittens. They try their best. But I think their source dried up-sad, very sad. You need to have a good supplier in that line of work or else you’re tot. For me? They mostly do electronics. Televisions. Vizio. Vizio was the last thing they got for me. Vizio is good. Sony is better, but Vizio is good. You want to see it? It just came in. I could give you a deal.”

“Actually, I was hoping you could, I don’t know, arrange for me to talk to them somehow?”

He recoiled. “What do you think I am, a shadken? They’re business associates. This is a business I’m running here, not a dating service.”

“I know, I know. I was just … look, they keep shooting at me, and I’d sort of like to figure out why before I catch a bullet in the ear.”

“All right, all right. Hang on. You’re a customer, I don’t need my customers getting killed. Bad for business,” he said and produced an iPhone from his pocket. Cutting-edge guy, Uncle Bernie. He held it as far out as his arm could go, muttering to himself all the while, tapped at it a few times, then brought it to his ear.

“Yeah, yeah. Don’t give me that ‘yo’ stuff. It’s Uncle Bernie.”

He listened for a moment. “Yeah, the Vizio worked out nicely. You get any more, you bring ’em to me, you hear?”

Another reply. “Okay, okay. Listen, I know a goy, says you keep shooting at him.”

Pause. “Yeah, tall skinny white guy. That’s him.”

Uncle Bernie nodded, then pulled the phone away from his ear and put his hand over the mouthpiece. “Yep, they’re shooting at you. It sounds like they’re a little pissed they keep missing.”

“Can you ask them why they’re shooting at me? What did I do?”

Bernie returned to the phone and said, “He wants to talk.” He furrowed his brow as he heard the reply, which went on for a minute or so. Finally, Bernie cut it off with “Okay, okay, I got you.” He then addressed me: “It doesn’t sound like they want to talk to you. Someone hired them to kill you, so they have to kill you.”

“Can you ask them who they’re working for?”

“He wants to know who you’re working for,” Bernie said into the phone, waited, then announced, “They can’t tell you.”

“Is it a church?” I asked.

“They said they can’t tell you,” Bernie objected.

“Just ask. C’mon.”

Bernie gave an exasperated grunt. “Fine, fine,” he said, returning to his phone. “Is it a church you’re working for?… Okay, okay, I’m not deaf. I hear you … Well, that’s very nice of you, I’ll be sure to tell him … Yeah, Panasonic is good, too. The bigger the better. I don’t bother with anything much under forty these days. No market for it … Right then, I’ll see you by the end of the week.”

He hung up, then turned to me. “They said they can’t tell you who they’re working for, but that you shouldn’t worry for the rest of the day because they lost their best gun trying to kill you the last time, and they won’t be able to get another one until later. See? I told you they’re nice boys.”

* * *

Uncle Bernie was just turning his attention back to briefcases when a chiming sound echoed throughout the warehouse. Bernie looked around, annoyed.

“Meh, what is this, Grand Central Station?” he grumbled, then shuffled over to an intercom on the wall. He pressed a button, then said, “Gene, who is it?”

I heard Gene’s slightly static-garbled voice reply, “He says he’s here to pick up Mr. Ross.”

Bernie looked at me, “You expecting someone? What is this, your mommy coming to pick you up from baseball practice?”

Before I could reply, Gene said, “He says his name is Geoff Ginsburg.”

“Ginsburg. Ginsburg?” Bernie said. “Sounds like a mensch. I probably know his grandfather. Let him in. Maybe he wants a nice pen. I got Cross, you know. Silver or gold. Very classy. I got a guy who engraves them, too. Makes a good gift.”

The black guy went back through the entrance, and Bernie turned back to me. “So, the briefcase. Retails for three hundred. Uncle Bernie gives it to you for two hundred. I’m going to have to ask for cash, though. Normally, returning customer like you, I’d let you open up an account. But it sounds like you might not be around long enough to pay it off. So we’re going to have to make it cash.”

“Fair enough,” I said, digging the bills out of my wallet just as Ruthie appeared.

Bernie was on him like twists on challah bread. “Come in, come in, my friend. Mr. Ginsburg. Fine, fine young fellow you are. A real kluger, this one. I bet you like to read. You look like a reader. You want a Kindle? I got the latest. Give you a good deal.”

I hadn’t prepared Ruthie for this, and he was looking around the warehouse with the same slack-jawed wonder I did when I first saw it.

“Geoff is an intern, which means he makes about five hundred bucks a week,” I said. “I’m not sure he’s in the market.”

“Fine, fine,” Bernie said. “When you get a raise, call me. I got some Farberware that I can tell your mother would just love.”

I put myself in between Bernie and Ruthie, if only to help stop the sales pitch.

“Hey, thanks for coming to get me,” I said. “I’m having a little car trouble.”

“Yeah, no problem,” Ruthie said. “I actually have to talk to you anyway. I got some amazing stuff on red dot. You’re going to want to move it up on your schedule.”

“Oh yeah?” I said. I hadn’t even told Ruthie about my close encounter with a red dot gun.

“I went back and talked to those corner boys a little more. At first they were giving me a hard time, doing all that ‘I ain’t no snitch’ stuff. Then I sorta made a deal with them…”

He glanced down and toed the concrete floor of the warehouse a little bit. “What?” I asked.

“Well, we got talking a little more. And it turns out they’re aspiring rappers.”

“Okay,” I said. This was not surprising: I think roughly two out of every five young men in Newark identifies himself as an aspiring rapper, the same way two out of every five parents on a suburban travel soccer team thinks their kid is going to get a college scholarship. In each case, the chance for even a modest fulfillment of the goal is roughly the same.

“So they were saying they were having a hard time getting noticed and … I promised them I’d do a Good Neighbors about their group.”

“A Good Neighbors? About kids who are hanging out on the corner selling drugs?”

“Well, they said that was just temporary until the stuff they have on iTunes takes off. Besides, they said they rap about positive themes-don’t get your girlfriend pregnant, don’t shoot anyone who doesn’t deserve it, that sort of thing. I thought that’d be good enough. Besides, it was the only way I could get them to talk to me. Trust me, it was worth it.”

Yes. Ruthie would end up doing fine in this business.

“Okay, so what’d did they tell you?”

“Get this,” he said. “The guys selling red dot guns? They’re policemen.”

“What?” I said, and not because my hearing is bad.

“They’re policemen. That’s why the red dot is so sought after. There’s this group of cops that makes money on the side selling guns. Every gun they sell, they put a red dot on the handle. When you buy one of their guns, it comes with a promise: if you get caught with it later, they won’t bust you, as long as it has their special red dot. It’s like automatic amnesty. That’s why the corner boys only want red dot guns. It keeps them from getting arrested.”

I had certainly heard stories of cops shaking down criminals in exchange for looking the other way; or, certainly, cops who made arrests and somehow “forgot” to turn in all the cash they confiscated. It felt like we wrote that story every other year.

But cops selling guns? Arming the enemy? That was something new.

“You sure about this?” I asked. “I mean, why would these kids just tell you this? All for a Good Neighbors?”

“Well, it sounds like the cops keep driving up the price of the guns, and they’re getting tired of it. It’s basically extortion.”

“Okay,” I said. “But how do we know they’re not just making it up?”

Ruthie shrugged, but I saw Bernie nodding out of the corner of my eye and turned toward him. “You know about this, don’t you?” I said.

“I heard stories, yeah,” Bernie said. “I don’t bother with guns. They’re more trouble than they’re worth.”

“Cops dealing guns?” I asked, still feeling like I couldn’t quite believe it.

“What, you think it’s a quilting bee out there? It’s Newark,” Bernie said, jabbing his thumb in the direction of the street. “I told you some of those cops are involved in some funny business. Not many anymore. But a few.”

“Like who?”

“Eh,” he said, waving me away.

“No, seriously, could you ID individual cops who are involved in this thing?”

“It’s none of my business, kid,” Bernie said. “I don’t want any trouble.”

“You don’t want any trouble? Young black men are slaughtering each other on a daily basis in this city, and easy access to guns is what allows them to do it. But you don’t want any trouble?”

Uncle Bernie shook his head, like I didn’t get it. “Those kids are going to do what they’re going to do. They’re going to get guns one way or another-if not from the cops, then from someone else. What does it matter…”

“It matters because these people are sworn to uphold…” I began to say, then stopped myself. “Never mind.”

A guy who had his brother upstairs forging receipts so he could defraud consumer products companies into sending him new merchandise was not exactly worth engaging in a debate of this nature. His moral compass pointed to wherever the money was.

But this was … well, the word “abhorrent” came quickly to mind. I don’t want to get into a debate about the Second Amendment or what it means. And hey, if you need a gun to shoot yourself some dinner-or raise a well-ordered militia to stave off attacks from the French, or whatever-I have no problem with you. What I have a problem with is a gun being owned by a seventeen-year-old kid with no impulse control and this weird idea that in order to be a “man” he needs to possess a gun and settle disputes with it.

“So these corner boys,” I said, pivoting back toward Ruthie. “Will they go on the record?”

“Well, we sort of have a problem there. It’s not that they’re off the record. I just … I don’t know their real names, and they wouldn’t tell me.”

“Yeah, we have a problem.”

And that was not the only one. Even if they gave us their full Christian names, along with their dates of birth, their Social Security numbers, and their blood types, Brodie wasn’t going to let us run a story like this-with such a damning accusation-on the simple say-so of some corner drug dealers.

We needed something to substantiate it, something indisputable.

We needed to see it with our own eyes.

“Ruthie, you think your corner boys would let us watch them make a buy?”

He thought about it for a second. “Maybe,” he said. “We can at least go over there and ask.”

“All right. Let’s go. Uncle Bernie, it’s been a pleasure, as always,” I said, making my way toward the door. I was starting to feel a bit dirty hanging out there anyway.

But before I could get away, Bernie grabbed my shoulder with a grip that was surprisingly strong coming from such a wrinkled old hand.

“Listen, young fella. These cops, they’re not good men, you hear me?” he said. “You’d be better off leaving them alone, you ask me.”

“No offense, Uncle Bernie,” I replied, “but that’s why I’m not asking you.”

“Okay, okay,” he said, releasing me. “You got to do your little crusade, that’s fine. Just remember: most of the knights who went on those crusades to the Holy Land? They never made it back.”

Word of Black Mafia Family’s second failure reached Red Dot Enterprises quickly enough, causing discontent among the associates. Perhaps they shouldn’t have contracted out that job. If they had handled it themselves-with the certainty of men who were trained in the use of guns-Carter Ross would be as dead as Mike Fusco by now.

There was a movement within the ranks to end the effort against Ross. It was not out of any sudden sense of mercy. It was just practical: now that Fusco was out of the way-and his “confession” had been happily consumed by everyone from the Newark police high command to the greater New York media-it was entirely possible life would return to normal. Killing a newspaper reporter, even one who was getting as dangerously close as Ross, was too much of a risk.

It was time to go back underground, argued some of the associates. Things had gone too far as it was. This was supposed to be about making a little money on the side, selling guns to thugs who were going to find a way to get guns anyway. That’s how they had always rationalized it. If anything, many of them thought, it was a perverse kind of community policing, inasmuch as it gave them a working relationship with the criminal element-and allowed them to keep tabs on it.

The Kipps matter had been unfortunate, right from the start. Kipps had seen something he shouldn’t have. Had it been some other cop, maybe they could have convinced him to shut up about it. But, no, it had to be Kipps-the one guy they could never convince to look the other way, the guy who couldn’t just drop it, the guy who believed being sworn to uphold the law was more than just a way to make a decent paycheck.

Killing Kipps was the only way to ensure the mess was contained. And then once Fusco started nosing around, he had to be killed, too.

But Ross? Maybe they didn’t need to get rid of him. Or at least that’s what some of the associates were trying to argue when they got the worst possible news from the Black Mafia Family’s botched job: the idiots had somehow dropped their gun.

And Ross had not only found it but identified it by its red dot-and started asking questions. That quickly ended any and all debate within Red Dot Enterprises on the what-to-do-about-the-reporter question.

He needed to be dealt with. And quickly.