A Black Sail Read online

  He finally turned away for the subway. Mason the Labrador retriever needed his walk. Taylor wanted a normal evening with Samantha. Maybe get dinner at the local Italian. Talk some about their days. First thing tomorrow, Taylor would squeeze in a trip to find out what addicts were saying about the heroin they were buying. He didn’t owe Novak anything until five tomorrow evening, the time he was supposed to board the boat.

  Chapter 8

  The stair under Taylor’s foot creaked with a noise like a small scream as he approached the fourth floor of a condemned building on West 135th Street off Lenox Avenue. This was his third stop. They were all supposed to be places junkies went to get high. Shooting galleries.

  Problem was shooting galleries moved. Junkies switched pushers and sought spots closer to their supply. Junkies died. On rare occasions, the police raided a gallery when neighborhood complaints got too loud to ignore. Cops hated those raids. Junkies were a mess to arrest, all for little gain, unless they were holding more than the four ounces needed for the severe penalties under former Governor Nelson Rockefeller’s drug laws. That was hardly ever the case.

  This was tough work for a Saturday morning, but Taylor was used to chasing stories on weekends. He figured at least a quarter of his scoops came from working while his competitors let their weekend staffers cover. And most weekend reporters spent their shifts praying nothing major would break. Weekend reporters didn’t chase.

  A Harlem detective had given Taylor the list of galleries. When he’d told the cop he was looking for China White, the man chuckled. “Way above my pay grade. And it’s going to get you hurt.”

  Taylor turned the tarnished brass knob and slowly pushed open the door. At 8:15, junkies weren’t likely to be dangerous, but he was taking care to avoid any trouble. He just wanted to get his questions answered. He’d timed his visits in hopes of finding the addicts just waking up after sleeping off nighttime highs—coherent yet not desperate for the next fix. That and ten bucks might get him some information.

  Once the door was open, the stink of unwashed people hit his nose like an invisible punch. Whatever arrangements they had for bathrooms, Taylor was certain it didn’t involve running water. Several sleepers were in the first area, a former living room. Most of them leaned against the walls, sleeping in sitting positions. One was curled in a ball. Their clothing was anything you could pull out of the Salvation Army pile. Shorts, beat-up jeans, faded T-shirts, sundresses even more faded, sandals, and sneakers. One woman wore a big blue winter coat. A sheen of sweat coated her forehead.

  He moved quietly into the next room and found the same. He didn’t want to wake anyone. That put a junkie in a bad mood. A low murmuring from farther back. He walked toward the source and stopped in the doorway of the former apartment’s kitchen. A man sat on the floor next to a giant wooden spool once used to hold cable. It now served as a makeshift table. Taylor thought the guy was talking to himself, until he saw a small transistor radio turned on low.

  Sitting cross-legged, the man, black with a full beard and large Afro, pulled on a cigarette like his life depended on it. “Haven’t seen you before.”

  He didn’t sound worried. Criminals didn’t bother with galleries. There was nothing to steal. Any money junkies had, they stuck in their veins. That went double for the smack. They survived from fix to fix.

  “I’m a reporter. Mind if I sit?” Taylor pointed to a spot on the dirty tile floor next to the table. Cops talked down at junkies. He didn’t want the same vibe.

  “You’re going to mess things up for me you write about this place.”

  “Won’t mention it at all. Totally different story.”

  “Then pull up a chair, man.” He pointed to the floor and hacked a wet laugh that sounded like it hurt.

  “Name’s Taylor.”

  “I’m Lowell. Didn’t think you were looking for a spot in our little chalet here.” That laugh again.

  “You the chaplain?”

  “M’yes. Found the place three months ago. Fifty cents a night to stay. I’ve a deal with the building’s caretaker. He stops by once a month. Think the owner forgot he owns the place. Or wishes it would go away.”

  “They burn ’em down in the Bronx when they want them to go away.”

  “Too right. That shit’s crazy. Makes Harlem paradise.”

  “For the insurance.”

  “Still crazy when there aren’t enough decent places for people in the city.”

  On the tabletop sat a tuna-can ashtray, needle, the radio, and three small glassine bags. Stamp bags. They had two uses: protecting postage stamps for collectors and holding doses for heroin dealers.

  The three were empty, so Taylor pointed. “Mind if I have a look?”

  Lowell hesitated. Taylor took out a five and put it on the rough wood of the spool table. Lowell picked up all three bags and handed them over. They had been stamped with black symbols. Two had an A and a diamond and the third some sort of helmet. Here was the third meaning behind stamp bag, since heroin suppliers stamped symbols on the envelopes, a kind of branding for their product. If a particular stamp got a reputation for offering a good high—one with legs—junkies would seek it out by name.

  Taylor held up two of the bags, “Ace of diamonds?” Lowell signaled yes. “What’s this one?” He put the envelope with the black helmet on the table and pushed it toward Lowell.

  “Black Knight. Play on words like most of them.”

  “How long have these been on the street?”

  Lowell lit another cigarette, all the while looking at the five spot. Taylor put another five on top of the first, knowing it would see Lowell fixed for the day. Made junkies cheap sources. Add in the rent he was collecting from the residents of his gallery, and Lowell was likely one of the more prosperous heroin addicts in the neighborhood. Taylor couldn’t guess his age. Anywhere from twenty to forty. The junkie life had worn him out. The chances he’d get on methadone or kick the habit, the chances he’d get out alive, weren’t worth talking about.

  “Few months. A while as stamps go.”

  “Same strength, same color? Brownish powder?”

  “What … are you shopping?”

  Taylor ignored question. He’d paid for answers. “Is it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Anything new on the street? New stamps? White powder?”

  “What is it now ….” He looked at the two bills. “There is one. Black in the name.”

  A voice from behind. “I want five dollars.”

  Taylor turned around and found a petite white girl with medium-length black hair and black eyes. Her age was easier to guess, somewhere between eighteen and early twenties. She didn’t have the emaciated look brought on by time on smack and the street. Which meant she hadn’t been doing this too long. Might be a college kid starting to fall down the hole.

  She held out a glassine bag. “Five bucks.”

  “Mary, Mary quite contrary.” Lowell tapped the spool in time to the nursery rhyme. “This was my conversation—”

  Meaning his money.

  “I paid cash for this conversation so I say what happens next.” Taylor handed Mary her own five. It disappeared into the watch pocket of flared jeans tight around her hips and opening as they went down her legs. Her feet were bare.

  She handed over the empty bag. “Black Sail.”

  The stamp was rough, but it looked like the sort of ribbed sail you saw on a Chinese junk. Next to it, a Chinese character.

  The sailing ship is called a junk. Heroin gets the same street name—and its addicts are called junkies.

  He’d never known anyone in the narcotics game to have a sense of irony. Pretty much the opposite. They were all literal as death. This must be a linguistic accident, a funny one were it not for the pain and death involved.

  “Black Sail for China White?”

  “I guess. Couldn’t tell you why. Maybe some yin-yang Chinese thing. Opposites describing opposites.”

  “It’s a white powder?”


  “Yeah. And it is good.”

  “Can you take me to who’s selling?”

  “No fucking way, man. I’m not squealing.”

  “You wouldn’t be squealing. I’m working a story.”

  She shook her head no.

  “Ten bucks.”

  The shaking slowed.

  “Twenty.”

  Money was often the only way to get information from the addicted, the poor, and the frightened. Too bad City News wouldn’t reimburse him.

  “Oh my lord,” said Lowell. “I’ll run up and down every street in the neighborhood to find you someone selling that shit. Long as I don’t have to be there to finger ’em.”

  Mary stepped into the kitchen. “I’ll only take you to his corner.”

  The twenty bucks vanished as fast as the five. Mary collected a pair of sandals, and they walked the route she chose. Her face, with a small nose and pale smooth skin, was pretty. That wouldn’t last. A long-term drug habit would grind her down like it had Lowell.

  “Where does your connection set up?”

  “Morningside Drive and 121st Street.”

  Columbia. Taylor might have guessed right. “You a student?”

  “Yeah. No. Not one who goes to class. They’re nowhere, man. Boring. I’d rather party.”

  The morning air was fresh and clean. Give it a couple of hours. Mary walked close enough to Taylor that he could tell she had somewhere to bathe. She didn’t give off the pong of the shooting gallery.

  “You move out of the dorms?”

  “No,” she watched a car pass, “not completely. I go to use the showers. Lowell’s facilities … well they aren’t. You get what you pay for.”

  “Why do you need his place?”

  “My roommates threatened to report me. Shitty bitches. Made me find somewhere else to party.”

  Compared to a Columbia dorm, Lowell’s was definitely somewhere else. Still, Mary didn’t seem lost to the streets yet. Wishful thinking? What could he do? Find the parents? That didn’t always go well. Get her into rehab? He remembered back a year and a half to the girl of nine, a heroin addict, her mother also an addict. The little girl became the story that almost wrecked his career. In the end, he’d been able to help her. It was a tough ride. And this was a different situation. Mary would take any money he’d offer, but he was pretty certain she’d refuse his help. Even if she hadn’t been sucked into the world of galleries and men like Lowell, she was addicted. Prying an addict from the spike in her arm was a serious battle, a full-time project.

  They were walking south on Lenox Avenue, called “Harlem’s heartbeat” in a Langston Hughes poem. Taylor, not much of a poetry fan, liked that particular one because it read like a rock and roll lyric. It helped that his father hated everything Hughes had written. That was always a good literary recommendation where Taylor was concerned. This morning, the heart of Harlem already beat loudly. Trucks, buses, cabs, cars pounded down Lenox. Thump, thump, thump. Taylor and Mary weren’t the only whites on Harlem’s main thoroughfare. There were others. Taylor didn’t worry about where he was in New York as long as it was daytime. From Alphabet City to Harlem and on into much of the Bronx, day versus night mattered. At night, anyone any color would get mugged anywhere. The South Bronx was the one exception; it was dangerous at all hours. A building or two always burning. The acrid smell you tasted like a kind of poison. Gunfire was the South Bronx’s heartbeat—or death knell.

  Anyway, what choice did Taylor have? He had to go where crime happened. If someone suggested he was brave—or crazy—he’d demur. The stories he wrote weren’t found in the newsroom or by visiting the comfortable precincts of the Upper Eastside and the Village.

  Mary rubbed one hand over the other. Fear or the beginning of withdrawal? She told him her last name was Singer.

  They reached Morningside Drive half a block north of 121st. Mary pointed to the corner. “That’s where he works. Won’t show until noon, when folks are already looking to get hooked up. He likes us hungry.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Reggie. All I know. He leans on the light pole and has his patter. Almost like he’s talking to himself. Black Sail. I got a Black Sail. Get blown away by a Black Sail.”

  “I’ll wait.” Again, he tried to come up with something to say that might get this young woman to alter course—even a little bit. Nothing came. He was digging for ten more bucks, lying to himself maybe she’d buy food rather than heroin, when she touched his hand.

  “He’s early. That’s him.”

  A black man, medium height, strolled past the pole to the corner and looked up Morningside Drive, stepped off the curb to get a better view and stepped back. He hopped up and down like a fighter doing warm-ups, but to Taylor he seemed nervous—nervous and waiting for something.

  “You need to leave. I can handle the rest.” Taylor crossed the street midblock and walked toward the pusher. This would be a one- maybe two-question interview. It was about getting basic confirmation and hightailing it out of there.

  Mary remained where he’d left her. Didn’t she get what would happen if Reggie saw her? He waved at her once to go, but couldn’t afford to attract any more attention. She stayed put.

  A shiny yellow AMC Pacer—a fish bowl on wheels with big curved back windows—pulled up next to the Black Sail pusher. Was that what Reggie was on the lookout for? Two Asians sat in the front seat—Taylor was willing to bet Chinese.

  Taylor altered his plan. He’d walk by, see what he could, and keep going. He could come back for Reggie later. Best not to be outnumbered.

  One of the Chinese men stepped over to the pusher and gave him the soul handshake, an odd-looking meeting of the races. Harlem and Chinatown didn’t mix. Not till now, at least. As their hands parted, Taylor glimpsed a half-folded wad of cash in the Chinese man’s hand. Reggie must have passed it. The second guy brought over two cardboard Chinese takeout boxes. The black image of a Chinese junk was stamped on the sides of each box.

  Christ, only in New York can a dealer resupply in broad daylight. Local narcs still on the pad?

  Taylor approached, paying too much attention to what they were doing—a stupid mistake caused by too much curiosity. The man who’d taken the cash stared over Reggie’s shoulder straight at Taylor. He said something to the dealer, who turned to face Taylor, now steps away from the pair.

  “Fuck you looking at, Wonder Bread?”

  Taylor didn’t answer. Just keep moving.

  Reggie pointed past Taylor. At Mary.

  She walked slowly toward the scene of the exchange, like the drugs in the takeout boxes were a force pulling at her.

  “The fuck you do?” Reggie said. “You put a cop on me? I’m gonna spark your ass.”

  “No! Nothing like it.” Mary’s hands trembled. “Wouldn’t do that. He’s a reporter. Not a cop at all.”

  Oh shit.

  “Reporter’s as bad. Easier to kill though.”

  Reggie reached behind his back with his right hand, balancing the two takeout boxes against his chest with his left. Taylor closed the distance in seconds—his only move if a gun was coming out—and like a football block, threw his arms up at Reggie’s left, launching the boxes into the air.

  The two boxes rose high, tumbled end over end and smashed open when they hit the edge of the concrete curb. Hundreds of stamp bags spilled all over the place.

  Inventory was more important than Taylor. Reggie dropped on the mass of bags, a cat on a mouse. He grabbed up handfuls and crammed them into his pockets.

  Mary froze for an instant and stared at the hits of smack splashed all over the sidewalk. “I’ll help.” She hustled over and stooped to pick up the little squares.

  “Off, bitch.” Reggie backhanded her. With a scream, she fell to the sidewalk and rolled into the gutter.

  Taylor quickly bent, snatched up three bags that’d landed the farthest away and pocketed them.

  The Chinese gangsters were still on the sidewalk next to their Pac
er. They pulled out large, ugly knives. Taylor dodged to the street side of the car. Ice cut through his core; fear forced him to concentrate. The two of them could circle around the car and get him easy. He was the kind of witness they didn’t want. Mary remained face down in the gutter. If he took off, they’d take care of her.

  The Pacer’s engine idled. Taylor yanked open the driver’s side door. Back seat: a pile of takeout boxes. He put the car in gear, turned the wheel hard toward the curb, stamped on the accelerator and threw himself to the sidewalk as the car jumped the curb, turning in the direction of both men on the other side. Yelling, they dodged sideways to avoid getting knocked down by the fishbowl on wheels. Taylor hit the sidewalk on his back, waking up his ribs. The pain climbed from a quiet grumble to a scream. In spite of the pain, he rolled in case the car changed direction. It didn’t. Now he’d put their inventory in jeopardy. The Pacer finished a quarter circle on the sidewalk and slammed into the corner of a Columbia building.

  The two men, yelling at each other in Chinese, pointed at the Pacer.

  They must have come to some decision, because the one who’d handed Reggie the boxes jumped behind the wheel, threw the car in reverse and took off down Morningside Drive, trailing smoke and steam.

  Mary—coming to her feet, apparently with some sense back in her head—sprinted across the street and went through a hole in the fence around Morningside Park.

  Reggie rose from collecting the last of his envelopes and went behind his back again for his weapon.

  The tong member who had stayed behind pulled up an automatic pistol.

  Taylor remained the only target in this shooting gallery.

  He dashed into the street as a sanitation truck rumbled south. He had to cross in front of the truck and get out of the line of fire.

  The driver leaned on his horn.

  Brakes squealed.

  Tires screeched.

  Taylor barely slipped past the corner of the bumper. The crack of gunfire cut through the noise of tires and brakes. The truck turned hard left and smashed into a light pole. The stink of New York garbage cooked by New York summer sun.