LC patted me on the back. “Welcome to the family. Now, let’s go get something to eat, because I’m famished. Killing a man really helps you build up an appetite, you know?”
So, for the past ten years, I’d been learning and mastering both the public and private side of the family business. Unlike him or his children, though, I was not willing to get my hands dirty, especially when it came to the violent side of the business. Don’t get me wrong. I was far from innocent, and I understood the need for the heavy-handed approach, but I preferred to stay in the shadows, walking that thin line between attorney and crook.
Still, what I’d just witnessed LC doing to Miguel was just plain stupid and a little scary. Aside from that first murder I saw him commit, LC usually had other people handle that type of thing. He claimed to be proud that he stayed above the fray, but as we drove back to the dealership and I looked in his face, I was starting to think that he enjoyed it—which was probably why I was scared to death by my wife’s threat to tell him about our physical confrontation that morning.
“Orlando, I wanna know who’s got that damn truck and my dope, and I wanna know now. We don’t have much time before Alejandro realizes that Miguel wasn’t on his plane and starts asking questions about him,” LC barked at his son, who was sitting in the front passenger seat while Lou drove. “I want you to put it out on the street that I got a hundred grand cash to anyone who tells me where to find that truck. No questions asked. We only have a short window before that shit hits the streets—if it was even in the car.”
“Already on it, Pop,” Orlando replied, pulling the phone from his ear. “With that kinda money, we should have every crackhead in the five boroughs turning over every rock to find it.”
“What about Alejandro? When he finds out we have Miguel, he’s gonna go through the roof. You want me to—”
LC cut me off. “Don’t worry about Alejandro. I’ll take care of him when the time comes. What I want you to do is call our friend at One Police Plaza and see if he can offer any assistance. Have him check the stoplight cameras and all the toll cameras. If that truck left the five boroughs, I wanna know it.”
I reached for my phone to make the call, but my finger froze over the SEND button when Orlando turned around and said, “Pop, Pablo’s dead.”
“What did you say?” LC asked, even though he sat only a foot or two away.
Pablo was one of LC’s best friends and a trusted lieutenant. He ran most of the drug trade in Spanish Harlem and the Bronx. By taking him out, someone was sending us a message. From the expression on LC’s face, it was a message delivered loud and clear.
Orlando elaborated. “His brother Carlos said some people busted into his brownstone and shot him in the head in front of his wife and kids.”
“Shit! Does Carlos know who they were? Did anyone recognize them?” LC asked, surprisingly calm in the face of this gruesome news about his friend.
“No, but he said they spoke Spanish fluently.”
“Some of his Bronx beef coming back to bite him. I told him to let the Puerto Ricans have that block,” Lou complained. “He was just too stubborn.”
“No, Uncle Lou, I don’t think so. Carlos said they weren’t Puerto Rican or Dominican,” Orlando retorted. “Pablo’s wife thought they sounded Mexican from their dialect.”
Everybody quieted, probably thinking the same thing as me: Alejandro. This wasn’t common knowledge, but Alejandro was the middleman for most of the Mexican drug cartels.
“Son of a bitch!” LC shouted out, breaking our silence.
“You want me to turn the car around so we can go back and talk to that motherfucker Miguel again?” Lou asked, looking at LC in the rearview mirror.
“No. Let him sit on ice while we figure this all out. I don’t know what it is, but I think we’re missing something.”
“Well, I hope you figure it out fast, or we’re going to be in the biggest damn fight of our lives,” I warned.
London
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