Circle of Six (13 page)

We were back in front of the 2-5. I had a million questions. He now spoke in hushed tones, and I understood why. The information he was giving me should have been sent directly up to his detective squad at the 2-5. But he was on his uncle's dime, and Clint was my friend.

Evans shrugged his shoulders, “Now I ain't got too much time on the job, but the less anyone...” he looked up the precinct steps again, “...knows about my business with you...”

Evans handed me a folded slip of paper; an address was scribbled on it. I recognized the handwriting, Clint's—400 West 132nd Street. I looked at Evans unsure; he said, “Candy Man said she could use some groceries.”

I understood what that meant. The woman had information for me, information worth some money. I tucked the address in my pocket. Then I noticed a 2-8 RMP barrel east on 126th street, head the wrong way on Lexington Avenue, and come to a screeching halt in front of the station house. Bart Gorman jumped from the car. He screamed, “Randy, your house, something happened, call home!”

I was confused. I lived alone in a quiet section of East Bronx. The only people who knew my address were my mom and dad. The thought of my parents hit me with a sudden wave of fear. But no one knew their particulars either. I didn't panic, not yet. I charged up the steps into the dreary pit of a precinct, into the
124 room
, or the clerical office. I dialed my mother's house. The line was busy. I breathed a little easier. Mom loved the phone. She was probably on it. I waited another thirty seconds and dialed again, same results.

I went out to Bart, who was waiting at the RMP. I shrugged my shoulders. He shook his head quickly, “Come back to the 2-8. They know what's up.”

I ran to my car and followed Bart's RMP, lights and sirens blaring, wildly careening down Lexington and across 125th. As I drove, I tried to block out the dark thoughts that washed over me. I skidded to a stop in front of the precinct and jumped out of the car without even turning off the engine. I bolted up the steps three at a time. As I ran past the muster room, I noticed a group of uniforms clustered near the 124 room. They yelled my name. I didn't turn. I hit the stairs, my heart in my throat, pounding relentlessly, the blood flowing through my neck, ringing in my ears; the faster I charged up those steps, the less I wanted to get into that squad.

My sister Betty was on her way home from her office job in midtown Manhattan. She was thinking about the wedding dress that she and mom were going to pick out on Saturday. The pressures of her impending nuptials to a cop never seemed to bother Betty. She thrived on it.

As she made the turn onto our street, she noticed two out-of-breath black men running up the block toward her. They seemed to be coming from the middle of the street on mom's side of the block. This normally wouldn't have raised her suspicions—the neighborhood was a melting pot of cultures—these men, however, were wild-eyed, sweaty, and hauling ass.

The nearing sirens got Betty's heart racing. She quickened her steps, falling hard to the ground in her need to get home. As she got up, three RMPs screeched up the block. Uniformed cops emerged from the cars, charging toward our mom's home. Betty dropped her purse on the ground and screamed, “Nooooo!”

I kicked open the squad room door. First person I saw was Amby, placing the phone down in its cradle. The man was nervous. He asked, “Why aren't you on your way to your mother's?”

I was bordering on hysteria. I knew who roamed those streets. I knew I was on a specific list. The words tumbled forward, “What the fuck happened, Amby? What's going on?”

“Someone called the 5-2, said some men were trying to get into your mother's house. They were looking for you. That's all we know. No one's had a face-to-face yet. I just tried; phone's busy.”

No cop wants to bring hell home with him. But the longer and harder you play the game in hell, the easier it is for hell to find you, and more important, your blameless loved ones. I didn't want to believe the ghetto spores that attached onto me had mutated and were now on the hunt to obliterate my family members.

This was the cold slap of my reality. I couldn't wallow in self-pity. No one had eyes on my mother, and I was twenty minutes too far to the south. I instinctively grabbed hold of my five-shot pistol, no need to check the load. I ran for the phone and dialed, busy. I swallowed all the anxiety and ran downstairs to the muster room. Bart Gorman was in the middle of the tight knot of cops. I pointed at him, “Get me to the 5-2!”

Bart was an excellent wheelman. He knew every backstreet and alley of Harlem and Inwood, which then traversed into the Fordham section of the Bronx. Within minutes, we'd scorched the earth and had gone half the distance. I switched the radio frequency to the citywide band, “Central, what
do you have at 2-9-1-4 Heathe in the 5-2, K?”

She was slow to respond, “Suspicious male blacks, no further.”

This wasn't good. The job hadn't been made a ninety yet, meaning it was still active.
What in the fuck was happening in my mother's home?
“Central, try to raise one of the units who's eighty-four, K.”

“Authority of whom, K?” she asked.

“Major Case Unit, K,” I don't think I screamed this, but it brought Bart's reassuring hand onto my shoulder.

“Randy, units are there; she's alright. We'll be there in less than five minutes.”

Bart was a good man, but I wasn't comforted.

As we neared Heathe Avenue, I felt my heart sink. Hovering low in the distance was an NYPD helicopter. Sirens blared in all directions, and then I heard that unmistakable sound—Big Bertha's whistle—I screamed, “God, Bart, No. Not my mother!”

We were on the Major Deegan Expressway. All four lanes were at standstill traffic. We were approximately six blocks from the exit ramp to her house. I flung open the door and ran. I ran in between cars, wherever there were gaps.

I was moving fast, pumping and kicking. I saw the exit ramp, still more cars were at a standstill on the service road. I wasn't thinking. I just needed to get home to her. In the distance I saw the source of the traffic. RMPs lined the service road, their jelly-bean turret lights spinning, shooting jagged shards of red light onto so many curious neighborhood faces.

I reached Heathe. Cars were deposited at differing angles up and down the block. Units responded to this call from three different Bronx houses, the 5-2, 5-0, and the distant 4-7. Had the source of this job not been Mom, I would have been awestruck by this response. But this
was
my mother, and someone had to have called with that information: a neighbor, family member, or God willing, Mom herself.

I saw a cluster of uniforms at the front door. The only shred of hope I had was that among all these first responders, there was no ambulance. I screamed as I approached, “I'm Detective Jurgensen. That's my mother's house!”

As I made my way to the front door, I noticed the cops holding their hands out to me.
Were they trying to stop me from seeing something no one should have to witness?
My tunnel vision guided me past about eight uniforms. I couldn't hear what they were saying. The only noise I was aware of
was an incessant white static and that nonstop pounding in my head.

Finally, I had eyes on her. She was surrounded by suits, probably 5-2 squad. Betty was sitting to Mom's left, their hands intertwined. I could see Betty had been crying. Mom had a look of intense fear. She seemed older, detached, shocked. There didn't seem to be any bruises. I was struck by two distinct emotions—relief and guilt. She was safe and outwardly unharmed. But if her son had been anyone other than the detective searching for members of the BLA, this whole thing wouldn't have happened. The guilt I felt was indescribable.
This was my mother, a civilian, off limits, no?
The rules of this game had changed.

She saw me at the jamb, between the front porch and the living room. She recognized her son's fear. Only then did I notice her far-off gaze return.

The suits separated, moved onto the porch, giving us time alone. I knelt down in front of her, but couldn't speak. I laid my head in her lap, holding onto her, momentarily transported in time. I was her little boy all over again. I knew this was going to bring her closer to home. I felt her hands stroking my head. I felt Betty's hand on my shoulder.

I looked up, “You're all right?”

“I'm sorry, Son. I'm so sorry,” she whispered.

I shook my head, “no.” “What happened, Mom? Tell me exactly what happened.”

Betty blurted out what Mom was trying to keep from me, “She was sitting on the couch, reading. She heard the front door rattling—”

Mom placed her hand on Betty's lap to stop her from talking. I'd interviewed enough complainants to know that she needed to explain the occurrence for two reasons, to come to terms with whatever victimization she felt and to control her fear. “I was reading. I heard the doorknob twist. It was early. I knew Dad wouldn't be home yet, though; I thought Betty might have caught an early train and forgot her keys. I wasn't thinking, about to unlock the door.”

Betty's hand impulsively moved to her mouth. Again, Mom reassuringly looped her arm into Betty's, “I heard men whispering. I looked out the window, and I saw them.”

She stopped, suddenly frightened. I gave her a second to collect and compartmentalize her fear. “Who, Mom, who did you see?”

I asked this gently. For that fleeting moment, I was able to detach from the mother-son relationship. She needed to be focused, clear. I didn't want any forced statements.

“Colored men, two of them. When they saw me, the one at the door grabbed hold of the doorknob, and calmly said, “Open the door.” I was so confused, Son. I thought he was at the wrong address, but then he began to pull and push at the door. He was starting to yell and curse. Then he said...”

She dropped her head and whimpered, almost in tears. I held onto her, stroking her head. I whispered, “Shhhh. It's okay. I'm here. Randy and Betty are here. You see all the cops here; they're here to protect you...What did the man say?”

“Tell Detective Whitey we were here, and we'll be back.”

She placed her hands on my face, and in a sudden flurry of emotion, she said, “Son, please tell me they're not going to hurt you, please.”

She started to cry, as did Betty. This hurt. This selfless woman just lived through one of the most traumatic experiences in all her life, and her only concern was me.

The interview was over, temporarily. I knew what had occurred, and I knew the source of the threat. I didn't even need to show her one-on-one photos.

About a year prior, I'd received a tip that a wanted man was holed up in an apartment at 142 West 113th Street. I covertly drove the wrong way down the one-way street. When I noticed a man walking up the block, looking over his shoulder, I stopped the car before he made me. My partner, Sonny Grosso, and I got out and approached. I recognized how nervous the man was, and I saw a familiar bulge under his T-shirt—a large gun. He didn't even realize I was on him until I had both hands on his shoulders. He swung violently, but he was mine. We fell hard onto the six concrete steps, which led into a building. He made it into the hall and up the stairs. A woman, later identified as Phyllis Pollard, was in the hallway, pointing a revolver at me. She couldn't get a clear shot as I was rolling on the steps with the man, later identified as Twyman Meyers. My partner charged, disarming her. In the process, she was rendered unconscious by a vicious right.

Meyers, however, was determined to get away. In the struggle, Sonny and Meyers took their fall over the banister. Rounds and rounds of ammo fell from Twyman's pockets. From this, I determined he had anticipated us, and we had been set up for assassination, like so many cops before. There had to be more backup. I didn't want to find out until after he was in cuffs. I was able to free my hand. I furiously came down with the butt of my
revolver onto his head and neck, completely neutralizing him.

I peeked up the stairs and saw a man, later identified as Robert Vickers. He was armed. But when he saw his buddies cuffed on the ground, he turned and ran away. I couldn't give chase. Meyers came to, and in his haste to escape, he dragged Pollard, cuffed to him at the time, off the steps. My partner, again, had to physically subdue him. Meyers didn't want to get caught. He harbored a lot of skeletons.

We brought both Meyers and Pollard into the 2-8, where I arrested them for gun possession. It was later determined that Twyman Meyers was wanted for the murder of two New York cops, Waverly Jones and Joseph Piagentini. Before the information came back, he'd already been bailed out of the Tombs detention center with monies stolen by the BLA during the commission of a bloody bank robbery in St. Louis, Missouri. Corrections, of course, was unaware of these connections. All three of these individuals, Meyers, Pollard, and Vickers, were card-carrying members of the Communist Party, as well as active members of the BLA. During his arrest processing, Meyers went RMA—refusing medical aid. All throughout the booking process, he called me
Detective Whitey.
I knew who was at Mom's door.

I held my mother's hands in mine. I was able to reassure her with a smile. “No, Mom. No one is going to hurt me. And no one is ever going to bother you again...this I promise.”

For the most part, the streets are played a certain way, its derivatives unchanged, since the beginning of time. You rob, rape, or kill someone; you have made the choice to get into the game. The rules of this malicious and sometimes bloody game are like this:
We
develop evidence.
We
zero in on suspects.
We
narrow them down to one—you.
You
have every right to contest these accusations in a court of law.
You
have the right to get the fuck out of Dodge.
You
even have the right to come at us. If you're quicker with the gun,
you
win—that day. But remember,
you're
still in the game. You're in it till you are caught, or you die. We cops accept these rules. We've made the choice to get onto the field of battle with you. In doing so, we accept the fact that we could quite possibly fall to the ultimate sacrifice. And we fucking accept this. What we will not accept is deviation from any of these rules.
We
are fair game.
You
are fair game. Civilians and family members are off fucking limits.