Bad Guys Read Free Page A

Mercedes. If they’re not too cramped up front. But what the fuck? After this pickup, he could spring for a stretch limo—easy. The Clam smiled.
    Vinnie Clams believed that the secret of his success was caution, and even though it went against his better judgment to jinx himself by getting cocky, he couldn’t help himself today. This was his biggest score to date, three hundred grand, cash. The smile stretched wider across his meaty lips. He’d come a long way from the days of selling nickel bags to high-school kids in Washington Square Park.
    As Vinnie saw it, the turning point in his life came three years earlier when he was busted on a relatively minor possessions charge. Normally his lawyer would have plea-bargained the charge down to a fine plus probation, but that goddamn eager-beaver assistant DA wouldn’t play ball. In his closing argument the asshole made Vinnie sound like some kind of child molester, and that old bastard of a judge sentenced him to six months upstate. When you’re five foot seven and you weigh two sixty-five, sharing an eight-by-ten cell is no fucking fun. By the time Vinnie was let out, he’d lost thirty-seven pounds and swore to God that he’d never ever see the inside of a goddamn jail cell again.
    Just thinking about that prison cell made him panicky. A day didn’t go by that he didn’t remember sitting in that cell, heaving and wheezing for air, promising himself over and over that he was through with penny-ante shit. He would tell himself every single day that when he got out, he’d work big drug deals for big payoffs. It would be less work and he’d be off the streets. He swore that he’d never get caught with shit on the street again. He’d learned his lesson. It was stupid even to be in the vicinity of a dope deal . . . not when you can get someone else to do it.
    The Clam’s plan wasn’t original; it was more or less traditional in his line of work, the established way a street pusher works his way up. A junkie will kiss his connection’s ass, lick it clean, then lap up the turd off his shoes, just as long as he gets his fix. All of Vinnie Clams’s regular customers were like that. So like many others before him, Vinnie Clams figured that he could take advantage of this available labor pool and form a small company of very loyal bagmen, whom he would pay with quality dope. There was only one problem with this: Vinnie Clams worked for the Mistretta family, and Mr. Mistretta, like a few of the other New York bosses, had these stupid old-world ideas about honor and decency. Vinnie thought the old man’s rules were crazy. It was okay to sell dope to dealers; Mistretta just didn’t want his people directly involved with the street action. The families considered selling dope directly to the junkies “nigger business,” even though they handled better than sixty percent of all the dope sold in Harlem.
    Sitting in jail, the Clam had worried that this would be a problem, but by the time he got out things were different. It was a whole new ballgame. After Richie Varga everything was different. It was incredible. The families had made Varga a prince, but the guy ended up screwing them all. What balls! Turned state’s witness and fried their asses. When the Clam got out, the families were in chaos, their people scattered, their power just about gone. And with all the capi di capi either in jail or about to go, New York belonged to the small-timers, guys like Vinnie Clams. When Varga’s testimony ruined the families, things really started to percolate in New York. Before long, disorganized crime swept through the city like a plague. And it was still going strong.
    But for guys like Vinnie Clams, the disruption of the families was both good and bad. Sure, it freed him to operate the way he wantedto without all that outdated Code of Honor bullshit, but without the backing of the Mistrettas, he had nothing to