Hawk parked the car and ambled into the Stillwell projects on foot, alone, in direct defiance of the Chief’s orders, as usual. Nick was back at the squad, processing a collar for an armed robbery they’d caught early this morning, waiting for the ADA to arrive. The apprehended perp wanted to proffer some information, hoping to make a deal. Hawk intended to head back soon and see if they’d gotten anything interesting, but first he wanted to check if any of his confidential informants was out; there’d been a lot of activity lately in the Eight-two precinct, including a homicide, two shootings and four robberies, and he was hoping to catch word off the street.
Hawk observed Devon Taylor, Will Carver and Jahmel Barnes sitting on a bench about half-way up the block, waiting for customers. They noticed the red-haired detective just as that old crack-head Ernest came around from the back of Building Twelve, clutching a raggedy bill in his hand. As Hawk drew near, he could hear Ernest, oblivious to his approach, alternately threatening and complaining that the three of them were rat bastards for refusing to sell him a rock. Devon’s hand shot out and grabbed Ernest’s chin, forcing his pockmarked, toothless face sideways in Hawk’s direction. Comprehension dawned slowly in the old man’s wasted eyes as the three young hoodlums laughed and cursed at him. Hawk had no doubt that if any of them lived as long as Ernest, they would be no less pathetic. The decrepit addict slunk away, back the way he had come. He would wait for the despised cop to pass, and pray fervently he didn’t intend to linger; Ernest needed a fix desperately and for once, he had a little money.
Hawk grinned amiably as he came level with the bench. “Hey, what’s going on?”
“Ain’t nothin’ goin’ on. You see somethin’ goin’ on?”
“Just asking.”
“We don’t gotta talk to you. It’s a free country, man.”
Hawk shrugged. He turned and walked into the bodega directly across the street. When he came out, the three of them were still sitting on the bench. From the corner of his eye, he could see Ernest skulking along the side of the building, no doubt checking to see if Hawk had gone for good. Poor Ernest, this wasn’t turning out to be his day.
Hawk opened the bag of potato chips he’d just bought and crossed back to the bench. He plopped down right between Devon and Jahmel and popped a chip into his mouth. All three of them jumped up.
“What you doin’, man?!” they cried in disgust. “What you want?!”
“It’s a free country,” Hawk said, happily. “Chip?”
“Aw shit, man.” As the foul trio walked away, Hawk laughed. Poor, poor Ernest.
Just then, his phone vibrated in his pocket. Before he could check his text messages, Hawk heard shots fired nearby. It sounded like they were coming from the inner courtyard between Six, Seven and Eight, an ugly cluster of twelve-story brick buildings in the southern quadrant of the Stillwell projects, due south from where Hawk was sitting. Hawk dropped the chips and ran behind Twelve, intending to cross behind and over to the east before circling around to come from the back of Six. Ernest had disappeared. There was no sign of anyone. The project’s inhabitants had all taken shelter, like small animals instinctively aware of the need to hide from a large predator stalking the forest.
As Hawk approached Six from the rear, he heard the popping of gunfire again and then voices, shouting back and forth. He stopped moving. Something was wrong. His mind raced: another round of firing? Was this a standoff situation? No, there was no volley to indicate provocation and response. In fact, all the shots had come from the same location, maybe the same gun. Also, what about the shouting? Though Hawk couldn’t make out the words, the tone was neither threatening nor hostile. It seemed conversational. There was none of the typical screaming and scattering he’d been listening for, either. The eerie silence seemed almost expectant.
He waited.
An endless two-and-a-half minutes passed before Hawk heard more shouting. He crept closer along the side of Six, toward the open center courtyard which joined all three buildings. And then he heard, clearly, two – no three – males calling out to one another from what seemed to be the front entrances of each of the buildings.
“You seen him?”
“No,we ain’t seen him, mothafucka.”
“Somethin’s messed up, man.”
“Jes’ wait, he comin’.”
“Nah, dawg, it been too long. He ain’t comin’.”
“Nah, man, he comin’. I am damned sure!”
“Shut the fuck up, you damned sure! He ain’t comin’. An’ even if he is, I ain’t stayin’. Because you know who gonna be here in a minute? Mothafuckin’ cops, that’s who. Curt, we leavin’.”
“Okay.”
“Nah, Rog, Curt, c’mon. Y’all heard what the man said! He be here any minute. He jes’ bein’ careful.”
Hawk heard two more gunshots. He inched back slowly, steadily, ducking behind Six, flattening himself against the bricks, trying to think over the loud, rapid beating of his heart. That they’d been waiting for him, he was absolutely certain. This was a trap that had been set specifically for him. Someone must have given the signal that he was here. Ernest? Those three punks outside the bodega? Cold sweat trickled down Hawk’s spine. It was sheer luck he had not responded the way cops usually did, by running straight towards the sound of gunfire.
He felt his phone vibrating persistently in his pocket and realized it had been buzzing non-stop the whole time. With his gun drawn and ready, Hawk quickly flipped open the phone. Glancing down, he saw that there were a number of messages from Nick, two more from the lieutenant. He was startled to see a missed call from the Captain, as well.
Hugging the sides of the buildings as closely as possible, only exposing himself when it was absolutely necessary to cross a portion of the yard with no cover, Hawk made his way cautiously, quickly, to the car. He climbed in, shaken. He turned the key and drove several blocks before pulling over and parking at the curb, leaving the engine running. He listened for a minute to the familiar static of the police radio, staring out into the street, seeing nothing as the adrenalin coursing through his body began to abate.
Finally, he began to read his messages. They were increasingly urgent, pleas and then commands to call the station. The one from the Captain was a brusque order to make contact immediately. They knew. Someone must have tipped them off. Hawk dialed the lieutenant’s office.
“Goddamnit, where the hell are you?” the lieutenant shouted into the phone.
“In the car. What’s up?” His voice sounded distant, disconnected, betraying nothing of the tension that was only now beginning to recede.
There were muffled voices and Hawk knew the lieutenant was talking to someone in the office, his hand covering the mouthpiece. A short, harsh laugh burst from his throat. If they only knew the futility of their efforts to hide from him what they believed to be a developing situation.
“You armed?”
“Of course.”
There was a pause at the other end, and then the lieutenant’s sharp voice spoke again. He sounded much calmer now. “Get in here. Now. No stops. I mean it.” He hung up.
Hawk was baffled. How could they have known the exact moment he was walking into a trap?
* * * * *
When he came into the station house ten minutes later, his usual calm, controlled self, they were all waiting for him.
“There’s someone you need to talk to,” the lieutenant said, as Hawk entered his office.
Nick and the sergeant were there; the Captain as well, leaning his massive bulk on the window-sill, waiting for the soft click as the lieutenant pulled the door closed behind him. Something had already been decided, Hawk could tell. He looked at his partner, whose face was pale, his eyes shiny, excited. Hawk could see the effort Nick was expending to keep from blurting out whatever was going on and he knew if the Captain hadn’t been there, Nick would not have bothered to restrain himself.
“What?” Hawk said, feigning ignorance as he looked around at the three of them.
“Detective Corrigan’s perp just told us there’s a hit out on you.”
Hawk looked at Nick. “Oh yeah?” His heart was racing again. But there was no fear in him. It was pure fury, now. “Who?”
“Leon Robinson.”
Hawk shook his head after thinking for a moment. “Not ringing a bell.”
“Got him in Room 2. He’s saying Raheem Stallings was setting up to waste you over at Ingram houses.”
“Not Ingram,” Hawk growled in a low voice that only he could hear.
“What was that?” The Captain was watching him closely.
Hawk’s slate eyes looked at him through heavy lids, shielded by white-blond eyelashes. He raised one brow as if to say, “I didn’t say anything,” but silently cursed his own stupidity; the Captain was uncannily perceptive and for some inexplicable reason, always seemed to know what was happening in Hawk’s life.
Captain McKinney was a tough, iron-gray, American Irishman. Six feet, built like a barrel, with twenty-two years on the force and ten years as a firefighter before that. He was as unapproachable and dangerous as a wild mountain lion, but fiercely protective of his boys in blue. He felt particularly paternal toward Hawk, although the only evidence of that was that he scowled at him a fraction less than everyone else. No one, not even Hawk himself, was aware that McKinney had known Hawk’s father. He’d been silently watching over Hawk since he’d come out of the academy, but that was McKinney’s secret and he had his reasons. If a need ever arose to change his plan, he’d deal with it then.
Hawk hadn’t decided yet whether he was going to tell the Captain about what had just happened. If he didn’t, and it came out somehow that he was there at the scene, he’d be clearly guilty of withholding important information relating to a crime. He’d be risking a demerit, possibly a reprimand, which would mar his otherwise pristine record. However, if he did tell, the Captain could very well take him off the street for a period of time, and then only after he got reamed for being out in the field alone after the Chief of Detectives had expressly forbidden it. Hawk didn’t care about getting yelled at, but he wasn’t about to let himself be caged behind a desk for any length of time. He was going after Stallings.
Raheem Stallings was a minor heroin dealer Hawk had locked up numerous times since he’d worked as a housing cop. The last time he’d arrested Raheem, he’d found him in a very compromising position. Hawk and his team had been executing a search warrant at the notorious drug-lord Double Mint’s barber shop, which was really just a front for his drug and skin business. Double Mint, who weighed no less than 400 pounds and whose real name was Leroy Minty, was Raheem’s boss and master, and, as Hawk discovered to his utter disgust that night, special benefactor, as well. In Housing, it was known that Double Mint paid his sellers very well to transport drugs and other contraband in their rectums, a talent for which they were remunerated in both cash and product, which they were then free to sell or use as they wished. Invariably, they used up their stores almost as soon as they earned them. Thus, they were inextricably bound to Double Mint in the way of addicts to their supplier, as well as employees to boss, which was just the way Minty liked it. Double Mint had figured out, while sitting in jail for seven-to-ten on an armed robbery, that loyalty from your workers was paramount. It helped if you had a terrible secret to hold over their heads.
Hawk had jimmied the lock and quietly entered the shop through the back door, moments before the narcotics officers were set to bust in at the front. A bright, naked bulb hung from a ceiling cord, illuminating an ugly sight. Raheem was bent over a table with his pants and underwear in a pile at his ankles. Double was behind him, thrusting his enormous, black penis into Raheem’s anus, his tongue clamped between his teeth, his face a mask of intense concentration. Hawk must have made some involuntary noise or movement, because suddenly Double Mint turned his head and looked directly at him. Without a moment’s pause, he smiled at Hawk, and pumped even harder.
The sound of the police banging at the door seemed thunderous and even Hawk was momentarily startled. Raheem reacted instantly. He pulled his buttocks away from Double Mint reflexively, frantically reaching down to pull his pants up. When he straightened, he saw Hawk and screamed in horror. Double Mint was calmly zipping his pants, registering no emotion except, perhaps, a mild disappointment that his sport had been interrupted before he climaxed. He made no attempt to hide the drugs or pornographic materials lying all over the place as the police burst in. He knew he was going back to jail, and though the idea was instinctively objectionable, the reality of it evoked the same apathy Double Mint felt toward any of life’s harsh twists so far. Incarceration changed his life not one whit. Freedom meant nothing but having to pay rent and re-familiarizing himself with the drive-thru at the Kentucky Fried Chicken.
But Raheem was not as indifferent or seasoned as his boss, though at that moment, he was least concerned with the prospect of going to jail. Actually, he was in a state of near paralysis, horrified at having been caught in such a vulnerable position, filled with fear that his humiliating secret would be exposed and he would be relegated to a life in which he would be forever used as someone’s sex slave. If it ever became known, he would have to run away to a place where no one knew him. A bleak childhood consisting of being tossed from one foster home to another had made him terrified to be alone in a strange place.
For the duration of the evening, as he was arrested, transported, searched, fingerprinted, and processed, Raheem was driven by a single, burning desire: he had to get rid of the loathsome enemy who had been witness to his unutterable shame. Raheem could not even look at Hawk when he entered the interview room for fear of what he would see reflected back in those prescient, opaque, gray eyes. More perilous still, Raheem was certain the cop would be able to recognize the murderous intent in his own eyes.
The night dragged on interminably. Raheem was dying for it to end, ready to go to jail. He told the cops everything they wanted to hear as long as the tall, red-haired detective wasn’t in the room. Whenever Hawk came into the interview room, Raheem became silent and immovable as stone.
That was almost twelve months ago. Double Mint had been sent upstate for five years, but Raheem had only served a ‘city’ year and now he was back out, crashing on the sofa at his aunt’s apartment in the Ingram housing project, a couple of blocks away from the Stillwell projects. Raheem was traveling in dangerous circles, these days. He’d been hanging out with Roger and Curtis Petrie, nineteen-year old twin brothers who were known for their own brand of terror in a place where brutality was built into the landscape and abject cruelty coursed in the veins of its savage inhabitants. Roger and Curtis were insatiably violent, erupting at the smallest slight, real or imagined. They regularly beat each other bloody, senseless, although they were identical in every way, including their ferocity, and neither ever won those absurd matches. In short, they were maniacal psychopaths, so unpredictable and uncontrollable, no gang bothered to recruit them.
But Raheem needed them; they were his cover. His security was equivocal, however; he was safe only as long as the twins never found out his secret. For, in the nauseating turbulence of their insane reactions and behaviors, the twins’ most virulent provocation to violence was homosexuals. No one who wanted to remain living would dare accuse them or one of their “associates” of being gay.
It was common knowledge what Roger and Curtis had done to that faggot teacher at Lincoln High when he’d tried to have them split up and placed in separate classes. He’d died of internal bleeding, inflicted with a broken broomstick. Although police always suspected the Petrie twins, they were unable to collect enough evidence to make an arrest. The case remained unsolved. No one had claimed to know anything during the investigation, of course, but ever after, residents of the Stillwell projects were careful to give the brothers a very wide berth when they came around.
Except Raheem. He, of all people, should have kept as far away from them as possible, but he’d come out of jail reckless and furious, bent on revenge against Hawk. The Petries were just the right kind of vicious thugs to help him. Unfortunately, Raheem was no better able to perceive the lethal danger to himself by hanging around these two than he was to change the disastrous course of his life.
* * * * *
Hawk entered the holding cell alone, determination glittering in the stony eyes that silently examined Leon Robinson as he stared at his shoes, not bothering to look up.
“I need to piss.”
“What do you know about the hit on that cop?”
“I told y’all everything I know, man. I ain’t goin’ through it again. I need to piss. You gonna violate my rights some more?”
Hawk answered coldly, “What rights are those?”
“All of ‘em. I been here all day and no one give me nothin’ to eat. I wanna smoke, I need to piss, and y’all just keep comin’ in here, askin’ me do I know this, do I know that – the same fucking questions night and day.”
“You’ve been here less than three hours.”
Leon rolled his eyes. “Yeah? That what it says in the log book?”
“Yup. Or, maybe I read it wrong. Maybe it says you’ve been here one hour.”
Leon muttered some obscenity.
“So, what did you hear about this cop?”
“I ain’t talking till you take me for a piss!”
“Fine.” As Hawk turned and opened the door to leave, he added, “But we’re out of your size pants.”
“Aw fuck you. Wait a minute.” Leon finally looked up at Hawk. “I can’t hold it no more. Take me to the fuckin’ bathroom and I’ll tell you along the way.”
Hawk uncuffed Leon from the prisoner bar and recuffed his hands behind his back before taking him out of the interview room. Leon talked the whole way, not even pausing as Hawk uncuffed one hand so he could unzip himself and then recuffed him once he had finished.
“So, what I said is that there’s this cop, they call him The Eagle or The Hawk or something like that, and they all want to waste him, but Stallings, Raheem Stallings, who got out of Rikers the other day and is staying over at Ingram, or somethin’ like that, wants to waste him worst of everybody. So they was talking about how they was gonna shoot him down. So, someone was gonna call when the cop showed up and I know they was setting it up for one of these days, today, tomorrow, someday soon. And then, if no one saw him down there, they was gonna do a fake shooting and Raheem was gonna hide and then when the cops come, he was gonna shoot this bird guy in all the confusion. And that’s all I know. That’s it.”
By then, they were back in the interrogation room and Leon was cuffed once again to the prisoner bar. “Who’s Stallings working with?” Hawk asked.
Leon looked at him squarely in the face, and in a hard voice he said, “I ain’t got no idea.”
“Yes, you do.” Hawk said it so quietly, so seriously, Leon was struck, suddenly, by the realization that he was in a ton of trouble. All jocularity disappeared from Leon’s speech and movements. All the put-on walk-and-talk dissolved like an icicle in August, and the raw, real, Leon Robinson spoke out from behind his black eyes.
“No way, man. No fucking way I’m going there with you.”
Hawk stared at him. He was utterly still. He didn’t even blink. All those metaphors about how the eyes were the windows to the soul were just childish bits of romantic fantasy, for to look into his eyes was to see nothing of the depth or wrath of the man inside the gray. On the contrary, their expression was flat, distant, impenetrable. Leon perceived the detective’s infinite patience and, responding to the pressure he felt emanating from that implacable gaze, he repeated, “No way.”
Hawk realized that no amount of persuasion or coercion would move Robinson to say anything further. But he really didn’t need anything from him anyway. It would be an easy thing to find out whom Raheem had been hanging out with since leaving Rikers. With a shrug, he broke the tension that had settled between them, and let the atmosphere become impersonal once again. He walked to the door and opened it. He heard Leon say, “Hey, you know this Hawk guy?”
“Yeah, I know him.”
He paused, waiting to see if Leon had something more to say. He heard an intake of breath, and then, “Man, it’s you, ain’t it?”
Hawk turned to see Leon staring at him, eyes wide, incredulous.
There was a slight pause before Leon’s eyes narrowed and then he gave a snide, little chuckle. “Man, they sure do hate your ass.” The ghetto Leon was back, attitude, posture, belligerence, all slipped neatly back in place.
“What’re you gonna do?” Hawk closed the door behind him as he stepped into the hall.
* * * * *
“So, what’s the plan?”
Hawk’s shrug was noncommittal which Nick understood to mean, “Wait and see.”
“Just don’t kill him in front of everyone,” Nick said, looking over at his partner sitting silently in the passenger seat. He knew Hawk was churning with rage, but outwardly, he appeared as calm and aloof as ever. “We can just pick him up now, nice and easy, save the beating for later.” He thought a bit of levity might penetrate the wall Hawk had erected. “We can always send him upstate to keep Double Mint company.” Glancing over again, he saw Hawk staring at him as if he were very far away. Nick grinned his crooked grin and noticed something flicker in Hawk’s gray eyes, but then it was gone and they were hard once more.
“Don’t worry,” Hawk said finally, looking away again, out the window.
“That’s what you say, but I’ve already been called up twice, and they’ll be looking for us to do something stupid right now.” To take the edge off his words, Nick added, “Well, I guess we can always go into show business, with my looks and your…” His let his sentence peter out and looked over to see if Hawk had cracked a smile. Nothing. Serious once more, Nick said wistfully, “Sure would hate to lose the pension though. Wife would be real upset.”
Hawk remained silent for the rest of the way until Nick pulled up beside the curb closest to Building Six of the Stillwell projects. The records showed that Raheem’s aunt lived in the Ingram Houses, but for some reason Hawk had directed him to park here.
Hawk exited the car and looked around. He felt strange. This morning seemed like a thousand years ago. He saw a large crowd gathered in the courtyard, clogging the footpaths. Everybody was buzzing excitedly. The cops that had eventually responded to the complaints of shots fired had apparently disturbed the hive with their intrusive questions; now folks were slow to settle. Hawk walked through clusters of people who muttered at him as they moved out of his way. He heard his name but couldn’t make out specific voices or words. They all knew something was up. Like sea creatures, residents of the projects were attuned to the fragile equilibrium of their environment; disruptions created ripples that could be felt throughout the ten-block radius.
Within seconds, Hawk’s sharp eyes spotted Raheem standing next to the Petrie brothers, twin monsters he knew very, very well. They were violent, soulless creatures, the worst kind of criminal: young, pathological, devoid of conscience, utterly impossible to rehabilitate. Hawk began to move swiftly through the crowd, leaving Nick to follow in his wake.
Raheem’s eyes detected the sudden movement toward him – or perhaps he felt the force of Hawk’s energy coming upon him like a tidal wave – and he immediately turned to run. The Petrie brothers had neither the time nor the instinct to bar Hawk’s way. The chase was on. Hawk swerved to lessen the impact as he ran into bystanders standing stupidly in his way. He could hear people running behind him and hoped at least one of them was his partner.
He’d run about thirty yards when he caught up with Raheem. He reached out a long arm and grabbed a fistful of shirt, stopping Raheem short for the split second it took to throw his other arm around Raheem’s neck. Raheem stumbled, twisted, tried to wrest himself out of Hawk’s talon-like grip, but he couldn’t escape and he fell forward, dragging Hawk down with him. Hawk crashed to the ground, falling partially on top of Raheem, his left knee smashing into the pavement. He heard the awful pop a moment before he felt the pain, but his involuntary groan was lost in the din of Raheem’s shouts as he thrashed wildly beneath him.
“Get off me, motherfucker, I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you,” Raheem screamed. His words were choked off abruptly as Hawk’s arm tightened around his throat.
“This is how you like it, isn’t it Raheem?” Hawk seethed in his ear, loudly enough for the gathering crowd to hear.
“No, no, no,” Raheem howled at the top of his lungs, still struggling fiercely, trying to drown out Hawk’s words before he could speak his death sentence.
Like a wrestler, Hawk jerked Raheem’s writhing body from side to side so that Raheem couldn’t gain a foothold, slamming him again and again into the pavement. He was, himself, in excruciating pain, and each time his knee hit the pavement, mind-numbing agony coursed through his body, but his rage was boundless and it carried him through the pain.
Finally, Raheem tired and stopped fighting, relaxing in defeat in Hawk’s grip. Hawk let him go and Raheem got shakily to his feet. By dint of his iron will, Hawk rose to his feet as well, though he could not suppress a grimace when he bent his left knee. Panting, Raheem stared at Hawk. He was pale, sweaty, his eyes wide with fear.
“You tried to kill me today,” Hawk said in a deadly calm voice.
Raheem knew it was meant to be rhetorical, that Hawk knew everything, but he could not prevent his lips from spilling a denial. “No, no, it wasn’t me.” Panic made his voice quiver.
“Don’t deny it. I know it was you. And I know why, too.”
Raheem’s eyes pleaded with him, their expression one of such complete desperation, Hawk nearly relented. But then an image of his children standing beside his grave flashed hot, like lightning, in his mind, and his chiseled face turned to granite.
Hawk’s eyes were glacial as he spoke his next, fatal words. “You don’t want everyone here to know what I know.”
Raheem muttered a tiny, “Please,” his eyes flicking to the crowd of faces around them to see who was listening. The silence was electric as the audience waited for Hawk to speak. Raheem didn’t even realize he was shaking his head, dumbly, back and forth, like a cow at slaughter. He wanted to apologize, to take it back; he fervently wished he had never provoked this white bastard who had the power to ruin his life. It was so unfair! But even as he thought those things, part of him was devising a new plan to kill this cop he detested more than anyone else alive. Fury at the failure of those idiots he had entrusted to help him get the job done surged through him in the instant before Hawk spoke.
“You don’t want everyone here to know that you’re a homo. That I saw you doing it with your boss, isn’t that right Raheem? Your dirty little secret was safe with me. You should have left well enough alone.”
A murmur went through the crowd. Hawk turned away, steeling himself against the throbbing in his leg, willing himself not to show how bad the pain was. Raheem shouted behind him, “It was me who tried to kill you, motherfucker! I confess, okay? Attempted murder. Arrest me! Arrest me!”
Hawk kept going. He had no intention of taking Raheem into his protective custody. Nick fell in beside him and the two walked slowly through the throngs, back toward the car.
“Okay?” Nick asked.
“Mmmhmm,” Hawk answered, and said nothing more. In the car, he leaned back against the headrest and closed his eyes, pretending to sleep while Nick drove back to the station.
At the precinct, Hawk quickly swallowed a handful of pain-killers before answering Captain McKinney’s summons to meet him in the lieutenant’s office. After an hour of what felt more like an interrogation than a debriefing, the Captain asked Hawk if he wanted to make an appointment with the psychologist. Hawk looked at him coolly and remained silent despite feeling lightheaded and exhausted following the events of this interminable day, not to mention the pain and persistent throbbing of his inflamed, injured knee.
“Well, we’ll talk about that later,” the Captain said, gruffly, suddenly unable to meet Hawk’s eyes.
* * * * *
Three days later, Raheem Stallings’ body was found down by the canal, violated, mutilated. There were no witnesses and no leads and the corpse had been washed clean of any potential DNA by the polluted waters of the canal. Other than a brief blurb in the crime section of the local evening newspaper, his passing was neither noted nor mourned.