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  The Ernie dude coughed, let out spit.

  “Watch Roachkiller’s shoes!”

  “The police…,” the dude said, breathing deep, “saw you there, man. That means everybody knows about you now. Listen to me, I can help you: I know who kidnapped them! I can help you.”

  “In exchange for what, puto?”

  “Exclusive…information. I want to tell the story from the inside, get ahead of the guys at the Voice and Post and…the old timers at the Daily News that won’t let a young buck like me write a lead story. And it’s not just this. Your boss Benny has been trying to make some big moves in town, expand his business, you know, and my guess is he’s going to use this opportunity to throw some weight around. That’s the kind of news that keeps on giving. And you’re the guy that can help me get it. And I will help you.”

  “Who’s the kidnapper?”

  “What about our deal?”

  Roachkiller wasn’t trusting the dude but was thinking, if this was on the level, it could get Tio Cheo off his ass, so he could go back to taking it smooth. Roachkiller grabbed the reporter around the neck and for a second Roachkiller thought of the roosters. “Just give me the goddamn name.”

  “Carrion,” the dude said, wheezing. “Juan Carrion.”

  Roachkiller woke up the next day at the crack of noon in Miriam’s house. She was off to her job at the salon and Roachkiller was hoping her moms could cook up a big breakfast and then Roachkiller’d be on his way. But when Roachkiller got out the shower, he lost his appetite hearing a familiar voice.

  “Of course he has a job now. I got him one!—Oh, there is Mr. Cucaracha Shoes!”

  Tio Cheo was sitting at the kitchen table, eating from a plate heaped up with eggs and platanos and toast and bacon. Roachkiller’s stomach grumbled.

  Miriam’s mom, who looked like her daughter except, you know, older and puffier, had been sitting at the table, too, but she got up to leave after saying “Good afternoon.”

  Roachkiller sat across from Cheo. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m picking you up for work.”

  “How did you know Roachkiller was here? How you know where Miriam lives?”

  “Ah, a good soldier always knows where his target is. That is part of the job. You’ll get the hang of it.”

  “Listen, Tio, you know Roachkiller don’t want nothing to do with this. But Roachkiller went out, did some asking around, you know, found out who did the kidnapping, all on his own.”

  Tio Cheo looked up from his plate for the first time. “Say what?”

  “Roachkiller got a source.”

  “A source? What do you mean?”

  “A source, man. Like that guy Deep Throat.”

  “Deep Throat! For crying out loud! This I gotta hear. Who did this source of yours say is the kidnapper?”

  Roachkiller paused, swallowed. “Guy named Juan Carrion. Roachkiller don’t know who that is, but you can do your ’Nam stuff on your own from there.”

  Tio Cheo laughed, food in his teeth. “Impossible. And I’ll tell you why. Because Juan Carrion is Benny’s second cousin. I know him personally. There’s no way Juan would do that to family. Who is this source of yours?”

  “Just…just people I overheard at the disco.”

  Tio finished cleaning up the plate with a last sweep of toast. “People you overheard? Who were these people? What did they look like? How would they know?”

  “I don’t know. It was…it was dark in there.”

  “Sobrino, how stupid can you be? People talk all kind of shit when they’re drunk and high off their ass. I’m surprised you can hear anything in there with that disco music playing so loud. C’mon, we have to go.”

  Roachkiller looked around for Miriam’s mom. “Roachkiller was hoping he could get some eggs.”

  “I already ate them for you. Don’t worry, you can get pizza where we’re going.”

  At least it wasn’t a basement.

  Sitting at a back table in Pizza Palace II, on Myrtle Avenue, Roachkiller was stuffing a double stack of pizza slices into his mouth. Next to the table some kid was playing the arcade game, and it was making this loud wocka-wocka-wocka sound like a drill in the head, and Tio Cheo got up and unplugged the machine and told the kid to get lost.

  Pedro, the guy with one solid eyebrow across his face who ran the place, said, “Like I was saying, I didn’t see nothing.”

  “Not a young piece of ass, hanging around playing one of these stupid machines?”

  “Only boys waste their money with that crap. The sound drives me crazy all day long, but it’s a big moneymaker.”

  “Any pretty girls hanging around at all?”

  “Nah. It was late. Just a bunch of guys, you know, the usual crowd. I was just waiting for Benny to make his pickup.”

  Roachkiller stopped chewing, his mouth half full of hot, delicious cheese, oil, and sauce. “It was a regular pickup?”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “So somebody knew he was going to be here. So the people who did this must know his schedule. That could make it—what do they call it?—an inside job.”

  Tio Cheo shook his head. “Nah. People in the neighborhood know Benny’s face. Doesn’t have to be someone inside. Anyway, by the sound of these people, I think it was just a spur-of-the-moment robbery that turned into a SNAFU.”

  “But it’s possible.”

  “Don’t look for trouble where there isn’t. These kinds of people are not that smart, or else they wouldn’t be messing with the Godfather.”

  Just then the guy behind the counter said there was a phone call for Cheo. “It’s Johnny D.”

  Tio Cheo went to go to the phone.

  “Pedro, can you get Roachkiller one of them calzones? You don’t gotta heat it up.”

  Tio Cheo came back to the table at the same time as the calzone. “Take that to go. We gotta split.”

  In the car, Tio rolled down the automatic windows. He was too cheap to use the AC. He said, “Listen, sobrino. You know how to use a gun, right?”

  “Yeah. Of course. But why?”

  “Look in the glove department.”

  Roachkiller opened it and found a .38 wrapped in old tighty whities. “What the fuck?! Are these clean?” Roachkiller said, picking them up with the tips of his fingers.

  “Of course they’re clean. Except for the gun oil skidmark, ha ha!”

  “Oh man,” Roachkiller said, just wanting to wash his hands.

  “Stop being a pussy. Now listen, sobrino. The only good thing about the Marines was they taught us how to kill people like we was in school. Tonight you’re going to bust your murder cherry. Ha ha ha. Just kidding, man. You should see your face.”

  “You’re not funny, Tio.”

  “You won’t need to use the gun tonight, boy. You’re just a little latrine-green recruit, remember, wet behind the ass, and normally I wouldn’t even let you have bullets. But, you know, just in case. C’mon, stop looking like you just shit on yourself. You knew this is what we’re leading up to. Relax. Let’s go to your house. I could use a home-cooked meal and no one makes arroz con habichuelas better than your grandma.”

  Back then Roachkiller lived with Abuela and Moms in the same tiny apartment Roachkiller grew up in, two blocks from the BQE. You could hear the cars and trucks all night. Our windows was always black from the exhaust. We had a little kitchen and little kitchen table, but we kept the seat at the front empty for Papi, god have him in heaven. But when Tio Cheo came around, he always liked to take that seat, like he was king of the castle. Our one-bedroom castle.

  “I need more rice and beans,” Cheo said to Abuela. “I shouldn’t have to ask, since I pay for them.” He laughed by himself.

  Abuela was quiet, like she always was when Tio was around. She filled his plate with more arroz con habichuelas and added two more pieces of chicken without waiting to be asked.

  Mami was out at her second job at the factory. She
only came home to shower and sleep nowadays.

  “I got your grandson working now,” he said. “Real man’s work. You should be proud of him.”

  Abuela looked at me straight in the eyes and then looked away.

  Tio finished the last of our beer and said, “You better change. For what we gotta do tonight, you need to look less like John Travolta.” He smacked Roachkiller in the back of the head.

  Roachkiller shrugged and fix his hair.

  “I’ll pick you up tonight,” Tio said. “Right now, I gotta pay a visit to my Dominican friends.”

  Roachkiller needed to get his head clear. It was a cool day for July, so Roachkiller picked up some roses, walked to the Unisex Beauty Salon in Bushwick.

  All the ladies said, “Hiii!” when Roachkiller walked in. “Oh look at that!” one said. “Those are beautiful!” another one said about the flowers. “Gorgeous!”

  Miriam said, “What the hell are you doing here?” She and the lady she was working on, her head wrapped in curlers, both stared at me.

  “Roachkiller just thought it’d be nice to walk you home from work.”

  She was trying to be fake-angry at Roachkiller, but her eyes were all on the flowers. “Walk me home? You never did that before.”

  “You’re lucky, sweetheart,” the curler lady said, “My husband hasn’t brought me flowers in years. On account of inflation, he says.”

  Miriam took the flowers and Roachkiller waited in the shop a half hour before she was ready to go.

  “Have a good time,” the ladies of the salon said after us. “Gorgeous flowers!”

  Roachkiller and his girl walked slowly back to her place, she carrying the roses, me holding her hand. We was small-talking, enjoying the spicy smell of summer, enjoying the music of the neighborhood. If Tio came looking for Roachkiller, Tio could wait.

  At Miriam’s house, her moms saw the flowers and said she suddenly remembered she had a bingo game that night and took off.

  In Miriam’s room, through the open window we heard someone playing Rose Royce. “Wishing on a Star.”

  “Someone’s having a good time out there,” Roachkiller said.

  “Someone’s having a good time in here,” Miriam said.

  Those glossy lips were sweeter than a Jolly Rancher and got Roachkiller higher than he’d thought he could ever get.

  Two hours later, the mood kind of changed.

  “Are you freaking kidding me?” Miriam said. She was pissed and didn’t bother to cover herself with a sheet.

  “It’s just tonight. It’s just this one thing. It’s my uncle. He’s an asshole but he’s done a lot for the family. I owe him.”

  “No, no, no, no, no,” she said, lighting a cigarette and then pointing it at Roachkiller. “You don’t owe him shit. You understand what he wants you to do—he gave you a fucking gun, RK. Wrapped in his dirty underwear! Baby, you have to get out of this. You can’t keep going down this road. It’s bad enough you selling drugs.”

  “Bad enough. Wait up—”

  “What do you think, I like dating a drug dealer?”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa, Miriam. I—Roachkiller thought you understood.”

  “Listen to me, boy! Have I liked not having to lie to get food stamps to survive? Have I liked the extra money you give me? Have I liked the good times? Yeah, sure. A little danger is fun. There’s advantages. It’s nice. But you can’t do this forever. If the cops don’t get you—”

  “Nah, the cops won’t get me—”

  “If the cops don’t get you, another drug dealer will. And now this?”

  “Give me a break!”

  “You don’t get it, RK, you don’t listen to me. I’ve been lucky and I’ve been smart. I finished high school, I live with my parents but I don’t have to. I got no kids and I ain’t never been pregnant. Knock on wood! I’m halfway out of this stinking neighborhood, but you’re the only thing holding me here like a chain around my heart. Now I want to take you with me—you don’t know how much, RK, you really don’t know—but you have to meet me halfway.”

  “Miriam—”

  “You stay. You stay tonight or you go and don’t come back.”

  Roachkiller slid out the bed, put on his Sergio Valentes. “Miriam, baby, Roachkiller’s got to go.”

  Back at home, Roachkiller played some Euro-disco remixes on the stereo, put on black slacks, black turtleneck, black leather jacket. The last few days had been chilly for July. Then Roachkiller put on my new black roachkiller boots and sat in the living room, staring at the painting of Christ on the wall looking depressed, and waited for Tio to honk for him to run out.

  Abuela was snoring on the couch, the novela on the TV was watching her.

  The phone rang and Roachkiller jumped and got it. Maybe something bad happened.

  “Yo.”

  “Roachkiller. It’s Ernie. Ernie Fuentes. You know—the reporter.”

  “What you want?”

  “I’m not going to ask for any info, okay? I know what’s going down tonight. I know the dropoff is going to happen by the waterfront, and I know when it’s going to happen.”

  “So? What you bother me for?”

  “I just think I should tell you: Watch your back.”

  “You threatening me, man?”

  “No, no. Pay attention. Benny has been making moves all over Brooklyn, and he’s aggravating people, pissing them off. And the thing is something stinks inside Benny’s crew. I don’t know who it is, but word is someone is not kosher and may try to take over, you know, and tonight when all this shit goes down, well, that could be a great chance for somebody to jump to the front of the line, you know?”

  “Why you telling me this? I don’t know you.”

  “So you can see that working with me can be more useful to you than not. I’ll be in touch.”

  “I won’t be doing this anymore after tonight.”

  “Heard that before. You gotta pick your allies now. I’ll be in touch.”

  Roachkiller hung up slowly. Tio was honking.

  Just as Roachkiller opened the door, Abuela took his hands in her knotted-up, angel-soft hands and said, “Respeta a tu tío, pero cuidate, mi amor.”

  Roachkiller kissed her and went out.

  Six men stood on the roof of an abandoned warehouse across from the Domino Factory. You could see the dropoff point easy from where we were: a garbage can in the middle of the block on Kent Avenue.

  “It’s a good spot to pick,” Johnny D. said. “No one comes down here but hookers, and truckers and Hasids looking for the hookers. But our friends with the Feds have brushed them a little farther down tonight. Streets are wide but break off into a bunch of side streets. Good for a getaway. I couldn’t pick a better spot myself.”

  Roachkiller took a long look at the small crew. Two he knew from around the way: Benjy, a half-Irish dude who started a protection racket in second grade, and Carmelo, who had a beard and wild hair like Serpico, smoked pot nonstop. Then there was Paco, straight from the island with no English and a scar straight across his throat. They made Roachkiller think about what Fuentes had said. Any of these jamokes could be a sellout. Then there was Johnny D. Benny’s number one lieutenant. Maybe he was looking to move up in the world.

  For a long time the six of them stood on the roof, and a long bunch of nothing happened.

  Then about a quarter to eleven, Benny’s Buick pulled up to the garbage can. He got out and threw a bowling ball bag on top of the trash.

  “The cops ask where he got the money?” Tio Cheo said.

  “They know not to,” Johnny D. said.

  Benny’s car pulled away, twenty minutes later a brown sedan pulled up. The back window opened up and a guy tried to reach for the bowling ball bag but it was in too deep. He opened the door, but got stuck because he was halfway out the window. Someone from the other side got out, ran to the garbage and got the bag. Then they all piled in and the car took off slowly.

&n
bsp; Two blocks down Kent, coming from Greenpoint, Roachkiller could see in the binoculars an unmarked cop car slowly moving forward to follow not too close.

  “Kid. C’mon.”

  We all rushed to the other side of the roof. The brown car was booking at top speed, but then, there at a corner, four big sedans came out of nowhere, coming together fender to fender to block the box. That unmarked cop car that was supposed to follow the kidnappers braked and was stuck there honking.

  “Where’d those cars come from?”

  “My Dominican friends,” Tio Cheo said. “They run all the car service in the neighborhood. I asked for a favor.”

  “You don’t want the cops to catch who’s doing this?” Roachkiller said.

  “That’s our mission. And we don’t want the boys in blue to get in the way.”

  Tio Cheo pointed farther down to where another car service car was following the getaway car. “That’s Julio in there. Wherever they stop, he’s going to let us know.” He held up an old walkie talkie. “Stay tuned.”

  In ten minutes, Julio called back with a location, and fifteen minutes later Johnny D., Paco, Tio, and Roachkiller were parked across the street and down the block from a five-story apartment building on North Eighth Street, less than a mile from the dropoff.

  “No lookout,” Johnny D. said. “Amateurs.”

  “Maybe they’re trying to be incognito,” Tio said.

  “Right. Light just went on the second floor, right side,” Johnny D. said from the front seat. “So much for incognito. Okay, here’s the plan. You two get to the roof from next door. Then it’s down the fire escape.”

  Tio said, “That’s you and me, Roberto…Roachkiller. Copy?”

  “I guess. Won’t they be watching the fire escape?”

  “Not with Benjy and Carmelo knocking on the front door,” Johnny D. said. “Besides, they won’t be able to see jack. I’m going to get into the basement and cut the power. That will be your signal to move.”

  “How are we supposed to see in the dark? Roachkiller ain’t a big fan of carrots.”