The Fence - Dick Lehr [50]
Within a minute of leaving, Kenny and Bobby overheard that another patrol car had stopped “suspicious persons” in the parking lot of a liquor store several blocks away. The radio chatter included mention of drugs and prostitutes. It was no big deal, really, but Kenny turned the cruiser in the direction of Blanchard’s. “We like to outnumber them,” Bobby said, “so we swung over.”
By 2:30 A.M., the dozen or so members of the gang unit had filed into their office in a nondescript building on Warren Street. “Lick our wounds, so to speak,” said Mike Cox. The unit was not accustomed to coming up empty. “We were usually pretty successful, you know, working a Friday or Saturday night and arresting two or three people for doing things,” he said. “To work with that many of us together and not get anybody, and when you hear shots fired—it was more than frustrating.”
The office was located upstairs in the two-story brick building with tinted glass. Warren Street ran north from Blue Hill Avenue in Grove Hall to Dudley Square, where the Roxbury police station known as B–2 was located. The building was also about equidistant between Walaikum’s and Winthrop Street where Mike grew up.
Mike and the others talked a bit about what went wrong, but mainly began to “break down” for the night so they could head home. Some of the guys sat at desks, others were in the locker room or the bathroom cleaning up. They filed some paperwork. Before leaving, each would leave behind the keys to their unmarked cruisers.
It was pretty quiet, except for occasional crackle and buzz from the handheld radios they usually kept clipped to their belts. Most were turned to channel 3 because that was the channel covering Roxbury and Dorchester, the busiest areas in the city, crime-wise. The office had the feel of a losing team’s locker room. There was no way around it: Hip-Hop Night had been a bust.
“What a waste of time,” Mike said.
This much they knew.
What they didn’t know was everything was about to change.
Smut and Boogie-Down were already standing at the bar when Smut heard Tiny and Marquis outside Conway’s looking to be let in. Smut went to the door. He was thinking the shooter at the Cortee’s must have been Little Greg even though he had not gotten a look inside the car. “Tiny had no beef with anyone else.” Smut opened the door and Tiny rushed inside all hyped up.
I told you, I told you, Tiny said. Talking fast, he told Smut and the others he’d seen Little Greg in the front seat, next to the driver. I told you he was up to something, he said.
They all had a drink. Smut was feeling drunk—not staggering drunk, but a mellow, feel-good buzz. He wanted things to settle down. Most of all, he wanted to call it a night and get home to Indira. But his interests had to be melded with the crew he was with—that’s just how it worked—and a roundabout conversation ensued as they debated a plan that would respect everyone’s needs. In the end, they settled on a plan that seemed logical to them—at least for that hour of the night.
Tiny felt he needed to get Marquis home. But that meant driving all the way back up Blue Hill Avenue to get to where Marquis was staying near Dudley Square. Smut felt a similar obligation to Boogie-Down. “He’d been riding with me all night,” Smut said. “He was my responsibility.” Boogie-Down’s destination was close to where they’d just been; his girlfriend’s apartment was walking distance from the Cortee’s.
But the last thing Smut wanted to do was to head back up Blue Hill Avenue, only to turn around and drive back down to get to Indira’s. It was all so circular—so Smut had an idea. He suggested that since Tiny was going to be making a big loop to drive his younger brother home, he could take Boogie-Down too.
Smut and Tiny got into a little argument. Tiny didn’t like the idea. He chided Smut, saying Smut was always trying to