The durham mob, p.13
The Durham Mob, page 13
His class was like family. They joked and laughed and always found some excuse to have a party or to bring food. They used to say to William, “You too skinny,” in their thick Spanish accent. And they would bring him food. Mrs. Villanueva used to call Mr. Mercado, “Mr. Market” with her strong accent. One day, they asked William where he was from. Because he spoke Spanish, they thought he was Hispanic. He told them he was from North Carolina. Mrs. Villanueva told him and the class in her very strong accent. “I had a son who was in the Army and he was in a big estaciòn in North Carolina. I went to visit him. One day, I went to a restaurant to eat. The man said to me, ‘Go round to the back.’
‘I said, I’m Puerto Rican.’ The man said to me, ‘We don’t care what kind of Nigger you are.’ ” William couldn’t control his laughing. He recognized that scenario. He grew up there. He said, “That’s the South I know and love. Nothing has changed.” He tried to explain it to the class that in the South, there are whites and coloreds, and occasionally Indians, but even the Indians were considered colored. Everyone who is not white is colored. Puerto Ricans don’t look so white even if their papers say they are.
Great class that day! They learned a lot of English and some history, and had a lot of fun. That’s what teaching and learning should be about.
He had forgotten how much he enjoyed teaching, and he would be earning a good salary; more than survival money.
One day when William went to the school office, he saw another young very attractive Puerto Rican girl working in the office. He greeted her and introduced himself. Her name was Iliana Delgado and she was a student at City College of New York. She was nineteen years old and a Spanish major. She was very friendly and very pretty. Right away the wheels started spinning in his head. He knew he was going to hit on her. He decided to wait another day. He didn’t want to pounce on her and frighten her away. She lived in the projects next to the church. He waited a few days to ask to take her upstate to Croton Point Park on the Hudson River where he had begun taking all of his first dates. She smiled broadly and said, “I would like that very much.” He made a date with Iliana for the following Saturday. He picked her up in front of her building and took her on a picnic at the park. She had never been there before and was very excited. They had a wonderful time and good sex on a blanket under some trees. She was so sweet and innocent that it was impossible not to like her. It wasn’t that long since he had gotten involved with Lottie. Now, he would be dating these two young ladies. The situation with Iliana was easy because she lived with her parents. There would be no pressure or drama from her. This relationship was too good to pass up.
His homeboys who had all of the money may have been having more sex with more women, but he wouldn’t trade their life styles with his. He had quality women in his life who were attracted to him more for his intelligence, his personality and his looks. In fact, the guys quietly envied the quality and beauty of his ladies and even at times, complimented him on his taste; which also meant that they would love to have those ladies in their stables. On a few occasions, Roy, who owned the garage where he parked his car and Swazy offered to trade a few of their ladies for one of William’s. That was the way they played the game, but William played in a different league.
William dated several women, but he was always honest and treated them with the greatest respect. What he was doing was the norm for that time. Many ladies might have wanted to be the only ones, but they all understood the game and they played their parts and hoped for the best.
Now, he was at peace. He had a good paying job; a few quality relationships and he wouldn’t have to stoop to ask his homeboys or his brother for any help. That security was comforting.
CHAPTER 25
After a few months on his new teaching job, William was earning enough money to live comfortably. One day, he got an emergency call in the school office. He went to the phone, and on the line was Bill Stewart. He said, “They are evicting you from your apartment. They’re putting your furniture in the hallway to take away.” William told the secretary to take the class, that he had to leave immediately. Why was this happening? Fortunately, his job was only fifteen minutes away, just across the 149 ST. Bridge. When he arrived, he saw his furniture in the lobby of the building. It was a strange feeling. His personal belongings were there for anybody to see or to invade. He spirited to the elevator and ran to his apartment. He found the City Marshall and two workers. He told the City Marshall to hold on that he was going to the office to stop his actions. He ran to the office in the next building. When he entered, he was told that a guy with a beard had given them a check for his rent. William told the assistant manager that he needed to come immediately to stop the process. The assistant manager could hardly keep up with William as he was jogging to his building. As soon as they arrived, the assistant manager told the City Marshal to stop and to put the furniture back into the apartment. They immediately began taking the furniture from the lobby and putting it on the elevator. Finally, they put all of the furniture back into his apartment. The workers did not put all the furniture in the order that it was before. They just piled it mostly in the living room. William called Lita, a Philippine lady whom he had recently met and befriended, to help him organize his apartment. She came up immediately and decided to clean the place since there was a lot of dust that had accumulated over a year. When the place was spotless, William called C. Red to help put the furniture back in place. When he put his desk in place in his bedroom, he discovered that his coin collection that he kept in the bottom desk drawer was missing. There were several very old silver dollars and two-dollar bills that were collectors’ items because of the dates on them. He also noticed that all of his leather coats and suits had been put together tightly so they could be easily taken. He had no doubt that they would have stolen them if he had not arrived. He heard that when people got evicted, their possessions were placed in storage until they came to claim them but that valuables were always allowed to be stolen by City Marshalls who always looked the other way. If there were sufficient valuables, the City Marshalls would share. Lita wanted to know how this happened. William realized that since the apartment was in Coy’s name, he had started paying the full rent for the past year without asking William for his share. William had never asked for this, but when Coy started amassing huge amounts of money, he started paying the monthly rent. It made him feel good since he was not sharing the money with William. At least, William was living rent free. It was only $600 each month, of which William had always paid half. It appears that Coy had stopped paying the rent without telling William, and, of course, William had not received any notices that the rent was due. He could have paid it. It was just another betrayal by Coy. William called him to tell him what happened and to find out why he had not disclosed this crucial fact. “If you had told me, I could have paid. You didn’t have to pay the rent in the first place. You decided to do it and now you stopped without telling me. It was humiliating and stuff was stolen from me.”
“I forgot. I had a lot of important things on my mind.”
“Do you realize I could have lost all of my possessions and I would have had no place to stay?”
“You always have a place to stay as long as I have a place to stay.”
“That’s no consolation and no solution. I still would have lost my clothes and all of my other valuable things! I’ll take care of it myself from now on,” and he hung up. He was more pissed than he had ever been with Coy but he realized that did no good. Coy was the way he was and as much as he wanted him to be more like when they were in college, that was not happening anytime soon. William started paying the rent, but the apartment was still in Coy’s name, as Coy’s apartment remained in William’s name.
Many people had asked William what was going on in their relationship. They were curious as to why Coy had seemed more distant and colder towards him. They too, remembered when they used to hang out together and double date. He tried to think when he first noticed the change. He remembered that when they were in graduate school together and Coy finished his master’s degree by the end of the first semester, William had one semester to go when Coy got the job teaching accounting at South Carolina State College. That was the first time they were apart since they were ten and eleven years old, except during the summers after high school when Coy worked in Atlantic City, and William worked in New York City. He remembered that Coy bought a nice Chevy, and he got a new sophisticated girlfriend from NYC who taught at the same college. He was a college professor, and although William was only a semester behind him, Coy seemed different. He thought that was to be expected somewhat because during that time, college professors, especially Black college professors were given a great deal of respect and admiration. That might have gone to his head. At the end of that semester, Coy was hired by a Fortune 500 corporation, Burroughs Machines, as the first Black accountant. That certainly was an ego booster, so he realized that the change in him came earlier than he had realized. It just got worse when he got the director’s job at the Neighborhood Youth Corps, and started getting that big cash, along with Charles. He still couldn’t understand why that would make him change towards his own brother. That was enough pondering for now. He had to move on with his life.
He and C. Red put the furniture back in place, and he took Red and Lita out to dinner. After dinner, he drove Lita to her apartment and he and Red returned to theirs. He put it behind him and got ready to go back to work the next day.
William liked his job teaching the adults. It was much easier than teaching middle or high school kids, and it paid more than the public schools. His supervisor was pleased with his work and had promised to promote him to assistant supervisor by that January. He felt he had earned the position, but in January, she came by to tell him that she was giving the position to this Puerto Rican guy who was a friend of hers. Since she was also Puerto Rican, he believed this was favoritism. He was very disappointed and became angry. Without thinking the situation through clearly, he decided to quit. Of course, it was a terrible decision that he made on the spur of the moment. He felt he had been disrespected and unappreciated and that his professionalism and work ethic should have been enough to get the promotion. The salary was great, and he had no other job waiting. He had saved some money, so he walked away.
CHAPTER 26
Charles was back in college finishing his law degree, knowing all the time that he could not practice law. He just didn’t know what else to do. He needed goals to pursue and what he knew best and easiest was to go back to school in his home town. He was also famous there, and infamous to the church going people. He also realized that he could get all the sex he wanted. He still had a lot of money, which could last a while there, much longer than in New York. He got a nice apartment and furnished it well. He had constant parties and he could still get his coke, even in the southern city. Just as in New York, the girls liked the cocaine, but could not afford to buy it. Charles was the man! He was still rowdy and well dressed. Even with all of the activity, he was able to study and pass his tests. He really wanted to finish this endeavor. Maybe he thought that after he got his law degree, somehow, things would change and one day, he would be able to practice. It was a hope, a dream, but he was really in denial. They made it very clear to him in New York that he would never be able to practice law in the United States. He just didn’t know what else to do! Like Coy and Sid, money was going out and none was coming in. At least they were selling a little coke and trying to cash some checks, but Charles had no source of income and he spent his money as though it was never going to run out. Even after all that had happened, and all that he saw, he still hadn’t learned the simple lesson: If all the money is going out, and nothing is coming in, the money will eventually run out. He continued to live that way.
CHAPTER 27
The police continued building their case against Coy. They actually had enough evidence already. After all, he was in charge of all the money distribution. They just pretended that he could make his situation better by helping them; they were just using him to try to get information about other criminals and criminal activities. It didn’t help that Coy and Sid live in an expensive apartment in Riverdale.
A Black undercover agent put pressure on one of the drug dealers to take him along to one of Coy’s many parties or he would arrest him on “General Principles.” No drug dealer wanted to get arrested, even if he was clean at the time. He agreed and took the undercover cop with him. These parties were wide open. There was never any one at the door checking to see who all these people were. There was always lots of coke. Coy’s close friends could count on some samples but if they wanted more, they would have to buy it. The others usually brought their own, but bought more if their stashes ran out. Any of those parties could have been raided easily. The undercover cop realized what they already knew that Coy could not have furnished that place on his salary. He had to have used some extra money. They had also been watching one of Coy’s acquaintances with whom Coy had paid to help him hide some money. One associate, Tommy Harris, had a record. The police didn’t know exactly the relationship between the two, but they knew it was definitely something illegal. They decided on a plan. The police entered Tommy’s apartment and stashed some heroin in his closet and waited for him to return home. As soon as he entered his apartment, the police rushed in behind him, put handcuffs on him and searched his apartment. He was so afraid, like most people, that he didn’t ask if they had a search warrant. He had been to jail and didn’t want to go back. After looking around for a few minutes, they went to the closet where they put the drugs and had a “gotcha” moment. “What is this?”
Tommy’s eyes got very big. He looked around at the police with fear and anger. “You know that’s bogus. You put that shit in there. I don’t deal drugs!”
“I got three cops who can verify that we found these drugs in your closet, Tommy. Let’s take a picture of the drugs.”
“This is bullshit! I ain’t going down for this. Why you doing this? This is small time shit.”
“Well, we could walk out with these drugs and say it was all a big mistake, or….”
“Or what?”
“Well, we need your help. We know that you were doing some business with Coy Smith and we’d like some help. Can you help us?”
“Help you how?”
“Tell us exactly what you were doing for him.”
“I ain’t doing nothing with him!”
“Well, we got pictures of you meeting with him.”
“So, I meet with a lot of people. That don’t mean I’m doing any business!”
“Well, we can play this game any way you like, but you’re gonna lose. Just help us with a little info.”
“And if I do?”
“We’ll see what we can do. You do us a favor and we do you a favor. You know how this works.”
“See what you can do, what do that mean?”
“It means we didn’t find these drugs.”
“I know you didn’t, you put them there!”
“Okay, that’s the way you want to play this. Okay guys, let’s take him downtown.”
“Okay, I was hiding some money for him.”
“How much money?”
“Ninety-five thousand dollars.”
“Where was he getting this money?”
“I’m sure you guys know better than I do.”
“What happened to the money?”
“He picked it up a month ago.”
“We need one last favor, a big one. You do this and we’ll forget about the drugs.”
“The drugs you put here,” he repeated.
“We’ve had that discussion. What we need is for you to wear a wire and call him. Tell him that the cops have been asking you questions and you are scared.”
“What? You realize what you asking me to do?”
“Do you realize what’s going to happen to you if we take you and these drugs downtown?”
“You guys breaking the law!”
“This conversation is about over. You can say yes now or we’ll arrest you for the possession of drugs. So, what’s it gonna be?”
Tommy thought for a minute and realized, of course that he had no choice, cooperate or go to jail. “Okay, I’ll do it and you’ll leave me alone?”
“My word.”
“A cop’s word?”
“That’s the best you’re gonna get. Now, stop wasting our time or start doing what we ask!”
“Let’s get on with this bullshit. I want my life back.”
“Whatever life you have.” They arranged to have him wired and told him to call Coy. He called. “What’s up man?” Coy asked.
“Hey man, the cops came to my pad and were asking me questions.” Coy stopped him immediately. “Not another word, man. Meet me at the Midway in half an hour!”
“Done!” They met at the Midway Bar. Coy came early to check out the scene to see if Tommy was followed. He didn’t see anything suspicious, so he pulled up beside him and said, “Get in the car!” Tommy got in. Coy headed for the Westside Highway away from people. He drove north towards Washington Heights, the direction from which he had just come. “Now, what happened?”
