Apaches Read Free Page B

of what had started the evening as a shiny Impala.
    “To keep up his insurance payments,” Boomer said.
    •    •    •
    B OOMER F RONTIERI NEVER stopped working. Maybe it was because he had nothing else in his life. Maybe it was the feeling of power he got when he walked into a dark bar and every criminal eye turned his way. It could also have been the nods and smiles he garnered from the working people of the tough, put-upon neighborhoods he made it his business to clean up. Whatever it was, Boomer Frontieri was never far removed from the streets, always minutes from his next bust, doing all he could to cause havoc in the pursuit of civil peace.
    In between, he always managed to make time for a little fun.
    •    •    •
    “I DON’T KNOW if I can do this,” the informant said, standing in the darkened vestibule, Boomer by his side.
    “Do what?” Boomer said, his eyes farther up the corner, checking out a small circle of dealers. “Point out a friend?”
    “They find out it’s me that whispered them out and they gonna smoke me for sure,” the informant said.
    “You showing up at that job I got you?” Boomer asked, eyes still searching faces.
    “That job sucks,” the informant said. “It’s long and hard and don’t pay for shit.”
    “It puts money in your pockets and keeps you out of Rikers,” Boomer said. “That’s all your mother gives a shit about. Now, cut the chatter and let me have the dealer.”
    The informant hesitated, his feet shifting nervously back and forth.
    “Guy in black,” he finally said.
    “They’re
all
in black,” Boomer pointed out.
    “One with the panama hat,” the informant said. “He’s always got pockets full of change. Jiggles ’em all the time. Thinks it’s funny.”
    “He got a name?”
    “His boys call him Padrone,” the informant said. “Don’t know his real catch.”
    “Disappear,” Boomer said, leaving the vestibule and heading down the front steps.
    He walked down the street, one hand at his side, the other holding an old New York Telephone meter. It was thick, black, and heavy. It had a reading on it, running from green to red, with a white button at its center. A squeeze of the button and a thin black needle would move from the green area to the red.
    The six men, huddled in a circle, turned still as stone the minute they spotted him.
    “Five-O on the block,” one said.
Five-O
was the current street code for narc, derived from the Jack Lord TV series
Hawaii Five-O.
    All of the men except for one carried 9-millimeter semis tucked inside their stonewashed jeans. The one they called Padrone, short and heavyset, a pockmarked face ringed with stubble, was clean. A nail clipper in his shirt pocket was his only brush with a weapon.
    “What’s the matter, guys, library closed?” Boomer asked as he came up to them.
    “We did our reading,” Padrone said. “Now we thinking about it.”
    “Anything I might like?”
    “I don’t know what you like,” Padrone said. “Don’t give a fuck either.”
    The men around him snickered, and one, the tallest of the bunch, laughed out loud, baseball cap tilted over his eyes, the Rikers cut of his arms gleaming in the afternoon sun.
    “So let’s forget books,” Boomer said, “and let’s talk drugs.”
    “Got any on you?” Padrone said.
    This time the laughter grew louder. Even Boomer smiled.
    “Nope,” Boomer said. “But I know one of you does. The question is, which one.”
    “That’s a good question,” Padrone said. “You gonna give us three guesses?”
    “I thought you might just want to tell me.”
    “Think again, badge,” Padrone said. “Even if we had the shit, which we ain’t, we gotta be dumber than sand to tell you.”
    “Then I’ve got no choice,” Boomer said, lifting the old New York Telephone meter. “Gotta use the machine on you.”
    All eyes shifted down to the box in Boomer’s hand.
    “Fuck is that thing?” one of the men asked.
    “It’s a drug