Apaches - Lorenzo Carcaterra [7]
All of the men except for one carried 9-millimeter semis tucked inside their stonewashed jeans. The one they called Padrone, short and heavyset, a pockmarked face ringed with stubble, was clean. A nail clipper in his shirt pocket was his only brush with a weapon.
“What’s the matter, guys, library closed?” Boomer asked as he came up to them.
“We did our reading,” Padrone said. “Now we thinking about it.”
“Anything I might like?”
“I don’t know what you like,” Padrone said. “Don’t give a fuck either.”
The men around him snickered, and one, the tallest of the bunch, laughed out loud, baseball cap tilted over his eyes, the Rikers cut of his arms gleaming in the afternoon sun.
“So let’s forget books,” Boomer said, “and let’s talk drugs.”
“Got any on you?” Padrone said.
This time the laughter grew louder. Even Boomer smiled.
“Nope,” Boomer said. “But I know one of you does. The question is, which one.”
“That’s a good question,” Padrone said. “You gonna give us three guesses?”
“I thought you might just want to tell me.”
“Think again, badge,” Padrone said. “Even if we had the shit, which we ain’t, we gotta be dumber than sand to tell you.”
“Then I’ve got no choice,” Boomer said, lifting the old New York Telephone meter. “Gotta use the machine on you.”
All eyes shifted down to the box in Boomer’s hand.
“Fuck is that thing?” one of the men asked.
“It’s a drug detector,” Boomer said. “New. FBI brought it out. There’s a sensor in it picks up a drug scent. When that happens, the needle here starts to move. Tell you the truth, I’m not all that sure myself how it works. All I know is that it does work.”
“That’s bullshit,” Padrone said, one hand in his pants pocket, nervously jiggling coins.
“You got nothin’ to worry about either way,” Boomer said, staring directly at Padrone. “You’re clean.”
Boomer turned to face the man closest to him and pointed the box directly at his torso. Staring intently, he kept his finger away from the white button.
“Back off,” Boomer finally said. “You’re just a dope without dope.”
Boomer moved through the next two in the circle in the same manner.
Then he came up to Padrone.
“Mr. Clean,” Boomer said, smiling. “Time to read your fortune.”
Boomer held the box to Padrone’s face, slowly moved his finger to the white button, then pressed down. The needle jumped from green to red. Padrone, sweat already pouring down the sides of his face, swallowed hard, coins in his pocket jiggling at a trotter’s pace.
Boomer’s smile widened.
“Bingo,” Boomer said.
“It’s the change,” Padrone said, looking around to his men, desperation filling his eyes. “Like at the airport. They make noise, that’s all. Empty your pockets and they stop.”
“I’ll bite,” Boomer said. “Empty your pockets.”
Padrone hesitated, running a beefy hand across the stubble.
“Like you ain’t got all the fuckin’ cards in your hands already,” Padrone finally said, lifting the back of his flowered shirt and handing two five-pound heroin bags over to Boomer. “Now you got yourself a fuckin’ machine too. What am I gonna do?”
“Three-to-five,” Boomer said, taking the drugs in one hand and pulling Padrone away from his cronies.
• • •
BOOMER LIVED IN a well-kept two-bedroom apartment on the second floor of a four-story brownstone on West Eighty-fourth Street, between Columbus and Amsterdam. The living room furnishings were simple, boiled down to one frayed blue couch, two dusty-gold wing chairs, and a marble coffee table. He kept his twenty-one-inch Zenith in the bedroom and had small stereo speakers in every room. His extensive record collection, jazz, blues, and Sam Cooke mostly, filled the left side of the living room. A framed photo of Rocky Marciano landing the knock-out blow to Jersey Joe Walcott’s chin in their 1952 heavyweight title bout hung over the mantel of the shuttered fireplace. A small statue of the Blessed Mother rested on a bureau in the hall, left to him by his mother.
The kitchen was well stocked, although Boomer was hardly ever home long enough to make himself a meal.