Red Hook by Gabriel Cohen Read Free Book Online Page A

was going past Bay Ridge and Coney. To Floyd Bennis.”
    “Floyd Bennett Field?” There was a Coast Guard base out there. All of a sudden, Jack had a vision of a drug connection—this thing might turn into something big and ugly and blow up in his face. “Did you meet anybody there?” If the answer was somebody from the Guard, he was screwed.
    “Naw. We just stopped to take a piss.”
    “Any special reason why you went there?”
    “Naw. We go all over. Don’t matter where. We just ride.”
    “Do you meet people?”
    “I told you, mister. We ride. Tommy likes to go to the bridge.” Hector blinked. “Liked.” His friend had only been dead for a day.
    “Listen, Hector. Whatever you tell me, it’s just between you and me. Nobody’s going to get in trouble. We’re just trying to find out who did this to Tommy, okay?”
    Hector nodded.
    “Was he carrying any drugs when you went on these rides?”
    “No…” Hector chewed his lip. “Not really.”
    “Not really?”
    “It’s fucked up to talk to cops.”
    Jack lowered his voice. “Don’t worry about what your friends tell you. This is important.”
    “I have to go back.”
    “Nobody’s going to get in trouble. Just tell me what happened.”
    “He”—Hector turned to look down the street—“he had some chiba . Just enough for a couple of joints. That’s all, mister. I swear.”
    So much for a drug-free Tomas Berrios. Nobody got whacked over a couple of joints, but at least this was a start. “Who did he buy it from, Hector?”
    The kid squirmed. “I don’t know, mister. He never told me nothin’ about that.”
    Jack sighed. “You said Tommy liked to go to the bridge. What bridge?”
    “Verrazano.”
    “Why?”
    Hector shrugged. “He likes to sit in the park next to the bridge. To chill. We talk.”
    “Did you talk to him there the other night?”
    “Yeah. Everybody was bustin’ on me ’cause I was late. But he didn’t care. He was all hyped up.”
    “About what?”
    “My bike’s too small. He said, ‘Tomorrow, I’m gonna buy you a new mountain bike. Replace that piece of shit.’”
    Jack’s eyes narrowed. “Where would he get the money for a new bike?”
    Hector shrugged again. “I don’t know. He had a good job. He was making, like eight or nine dollars a hour.”
    Jack rubbed his hand over his mouth. This kid was no rocket scientist—you didn’t go around buying people new mountain bikes on less than three hundred take-home per week. “He was talking about ‘tomorrow,’ huh? What did he say was gonna happen ‘tomorrow’?”
    Hector shrugged again. “I don’t know.”
    “Did he say anything else?”
    “Yeah.”
    Jack leaned closer.
    “He said don’t let him forget he was s’posed to buy some Woolite for Mrs. Espinal.”

five
    A S THE DETECTIVES DROVE out Fourth Avenue toward Sunset Park, the midday sun flared on the asphalt. Bodegas flew past, auto-lube garages, auto-supply stores. Places to buy fuzzy dice or Playboy air fresheners. On the radio, the dispatcher chattered away, the woman’s voice always in the background of the detectives’ lives.
    Tomas Berrios had cycled out this same way less than forty-eight hours earlier. Five young men, pumping along the avenue at night, calling out to each other, laughing, joking—the image grew in Jack’s mind. He tried to draw it out, expand it. Where were they headed? Who did Tomas Berrios expect to meet? Put enough of these images together, and he’d create a mental movie of the vic’s last days.
    Near the Park, they passed a bus depot named after Jackie Gleason.
    “Look at that,” he said, grinning. “You gotta love this borough.”
    Daskivitch shifted his weight in the seat. “So what’s your take? I still think it looks like a Mob hit.”
    “Mafia sounds glamorous, but I think this kid probably just got in over his head with some bad local player. Took the drugs, owed the money.”
    Stopped at a light, he glanced to the west down a San Francisco—steep