American Gangster Read Free Page A

with the deliberation and lack of concern of mailmen.
    Javy waved the subpoena. “So who’s gonna do this?”
    Richie snatched it. “Campizi knows me; he’ll take it from me. I’ve known him since high school.”
    â€œHow the fuck many wise guys you know, anyway?”
    â€œHow many wise guys went to high school in New Jersey?”
    Javy smirked. “Well, this is not your fuckin’ class reunion, Rich. Just throw the damn thing in there—he doesn’t have to take it. That’s good service.”
    â€œYou takin’ law classes, too, Jav?”
    â€œWell, if you’re serving the moke, at least give me the sledge.”
    Richie handed it off.
    They stopped at Campizi’s motel room door. Their snitch said Campizi had been shacked up with a Puerto Rican hooker, and Richie and Javy, staked out across the way, had seen a female of that description exiting the motel lot in a nice new Trans Am convertible that indicated Campizi wasn’t her only well-heeled client.
    Javy knocked.
    The door opened slowly, just the length of the night-latch chain, revealing the balding, pot-bellied, mustached Campizi in a T-shirt, slacks and bare feet.
    Richie raised the subpoena and was about to say something friendly to his old classmate when Campizi’s eyes golfballed and Javy yelled, “
Throw it in!
”
    Richie flung the damn papers in, but his hand was in the crack of the door just as Campizi slammed the damn thing.
    â€œ
Fuck!
” Richie wailed, his palm wedged in there, and an ominous
click
told him the little bastard hadthrown the dead bolt. He threw his shoulder into the wood as best he could, which trapped as he was didn’t exactly give him a running start.
    Then something, other side of the door, clamped down on his captured fingers. . . .
    The prick was
biting
him! Fucking finger food!
    â€œJesus Christ,” Richie said, watching blood run down the door frame. “Do it, Javy, do it!”
    â€œGet
down
, Rich!”
    Richie did his best to comply, and the big iron head of the hammer flew past him and shattered the door to splinters, relieving the pressure on Richie’s hand, and then both cops were shoving through, taking what was left of the door with them, right off its damn hinges.
    Campizi did a pop-eyed take and scrambled for the bathroom; it would have been funny as hell if Richie’s hand and fingers weren’t a smashed bloody mess. Slamming himself inside, Campizi said, “Fuck you, guys!”
    This door was by comparison a hollow nothing to smash through, and two swings of the sledge made matchsticks of it. Bloody mitt or not, Richie took the honors, heading into the cubicle where Campizi was half out of the bathroom window, and grabbing him, flinging him into the shower stall like a little rag doll, plastic shower curtain going down like Janet Leigh dying in
Psycho
, smearing the thing with blood, some of it Campizi’s, some Richie’s.
    Richie started in giving him a goddamn good left-handed thrashing, and was just getting into it when Javy yanked him away from the cowering T-shirted fetus.
    Javy grinned at Richie and said, “So this is easier than night school?”
    The rage left Richie, and he laughed. But the throbbing pain hung on.
    Richie’s discomfort eased, however, when the paramedic who tended to his bloodied hand on their ambulance ride turned out to be female and brunette and friendly.
    A male paramedic was tending to Campizi, whose bloody face was pinched with contrition. “Swear to God, Richie, I didn’t know it was you! Would I slam a door on your hand? Knowingly?”
    Richie was off the little fold-down seat, startling the brunette paramedic as he lunged for Campizi and smacked him, yelling, “Would you bite my fingers knowingly, you prick?
Shit!
”
    The latter expletive reflected the burst of pain Richie felt, having instinctively used his right hand, the injured one, to