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  With a deft flick of the wrist, Willie Hoyte sent a buckwheat pancake sailing toward the kitchen ceiling. It arched lazily just high enough so he had to glance up to track it, made one midair turn, then floated down, where it hit the edge of the frying pan and split in two. One half of the maimed flapjack slid back into the bubbling butter of the skillet, the other half oozed down into the stove’s burner well, where it was immediately incinerated by the gas flame.

  “Sheeeit,” Willie howled in disgust as he dragged the smoking remnant from the burner. He’d made flapjacks perfectly a thousand times before, and this mishap infuriated him. Not only was his jerkoff second-in-command, Ted Slade, nowhere to be found on this important morning, but he was going to be late to meet his men if he didn’t haul ass out of the house soon. But first Willie wanted his momma to have a good breakfast. Of all the people in the world who worked hard for their daily bread, Celia Hoyte topped the list.

  He turned off the burner and discarded the pancake. The three warming in the oven would have to do. With the care and skill of a downtown caterer, Willie removed the plate and centered it on the tray set out on the kitchen table. His eyes scanned the setup-knife, fork, spoon, linen napkin, a half-grapefruit with brown sugar, flapjacks, a small pitcher of real maple syrup, and a bud vase with a single rose-it was all there. Momma was sure to like it. If nothing else, it meant today was a holiday, and that meant she didn’t have to work.

  As he washed his hands, Willie tried vainly to avoid the small photograph of his father that confronted him from the windowsill over the sink. It was no use. Ralph Hoyte’s brilliant smile and flashing eyes were too provocative. Willie finally gave in and began the ritual of staring his father down in absentia. Everyone said Willie was the spitting image of Ralph, but he didn’t see any likeness. Ralph was broad and well over six feet; Willie was slender and barely five-eleven. Ralph’s skin was as dark as pitch, a throwback to his African ancestors; Willie was so light-skinned he was embarrassed that in his face could be read the proof of two hundred years of mistreatment by-and interbreeding with-whites. Were it not for the same cat-green eyes and the ingratiatingly sly smile, Willie and Ralph Hoyte were as opposite as night and day. More so now that Ralph was doing time for armed robbery.

  Willie shook his head in disgust and quickly dried his hands, suspecting he’d never forgive his father. Not that Willie didn’t understand the toll poverty can take on a man’s pride, but shit, he’d risked not only his own future but also Willie’s and, more important, Celia’s when he took part in the robbery of that liquor store. And he’d lost the gamble. He’d been caught less than an hour after the heist in the back room of the same bar on Lenox Avenue where the plans for the job had been made. No, Willie could never forgive his father-because Ralph hadn’t confided in his son before fucking up their lives. And that made Willie feel insignificant. It was a judgment he was still trying to repeal.

  “What’s all this, Willie?” Celia asked as he entered her room. She’d been dozing, dreaming of the day Ralph would return.

  “Breakfast in bed. What else?” He waited expectantly by the bed as she pulled herself up and fluffed the pillows.

  “Boy, sometimes I wonder ’bout you. Sometimes I suspect you ain’t all there.” She tapped a finger mischievously on her right temple.

  “Don’t take brains to cook, Momma, just a skillet and some grease.” He began to fidget. A fourth call to Ted Slade had been fruitless. Something was wrong; Slade was a good man, even though he was white. “Come on, Momma, let me put this down so’s I can get goin’.”

  Bolstered by three pillows, Celia lay back, tingling with pleasure at the attention her only son paid to her. There was a time a while back, just after Ralph went away, when it looked like Willie would be joining his daddy behind bars. Those tense months after Ralph’s sentencing, something got into Willie. He started goin’ bad. It was as if whatever malaise had infected his father was spreading throughout the household. Overnight Willie became a problem and Celia prayed to God to deliver him from his troubles. Then, just as quickly as it’d begun, it was over. Willie had his boys riding the subways and her prayers were answered. Seeing him now all dressed up in khaki slacks, a powder-blue dress shirt open at the neck to display the gold cross on a chain he was never without, and the running shoes he seemed to live in, Celia found it hard to imagine she’d ever worried about him at all.

  “You did all this by yourself?” She suppressed a smile. It wasn’t the first or even second time he’d done exactly this.

  “Me? You kiddin’?” He balanced the tray on the covers over her legs. “I jes’ told the cook to assemble your favorite eats.”

  “You’re a good boy, Willie. Since your father left us, I don’t know what I’d do without you.” Her voice faltered for a second, but she quickly recovered. “Who else would serve an old lady breakfast in bed?”

  “A woman’s good-looking as you could have her pick of men. You know that, Momma.”

  “Now, don’t go spoilin’ it, Willie.” She dug her spoon into the grapefruit and took a bite. There was a time right after Ralph went away that Willie tried to talk her into getting a divorce, then remarrying. She refused to discuss it, and when he insisted, she’d slapped his face for the first time in her life.

  “You got somethin’ to do today, Willie?”

  “I’m jes’ leavin’. Some reporter’s goin’ to meet me downtown and tag along all day.”

  “Be careful, son.”

  “Momma, no one wants Willie Hoyte to stay in one piece more than Willie Hoyte himself.” He leaned over the bed and kissed her forehead. “You have a good day.”

  “Honey, I already have.” She winked and dislodged a joyful tear.

  Fifteen minutes later Willie stood on the south-bound 135th Street IND platform waiting for the AA train to arrive. The station was crowded with knots of people headed for the beach at Coney Island. Everyone seemed to be in a constant state of motion as they impatiently killed time until the local train arrived. Not Willie. He stood with his back rigid, his legs spaced wide apart, and his hands clasped behind his back. And despite the staggering heat and humidity, he’d donned his Dogs of Hell jacket. This was his badge of honor, his claim to fame, the proof that Ralph Hoyte’s son was somebody, after all.

  As the AA roared into the station and came to a screeching halt, Willie had an overpowering premonition of danger. It was just like the feeling of dread that had gripped him the night his father was arrested. The train doors opened and the throngs pushed forward into the crowded car, but Willie remained motionless. He wanted to step back, to edge his way out of the dark gloom of the subway into the bright sunlight and the hot summer day. The doors began to close and Willie darted inside, stationing himself as planned at the center door of the fifth car. This was the position of preeminence, of power. This is where Willie Hoyte and only Willie Hoyte stood.

  But as the train rattled into the dark tunnel, Willie’s fear began to grow.

  By the time the AA pulled into the 103rd Street station there were seven men from the Dogs of Hell elite corps guarding the train. He’d picked up James, Tico, and Henry at 125th Street; Sam and Willie H at 116th Street; Buster at 110th. Miguel and Ernesto would be waiting on this platform, and Ted Slade, if he dared show his white face, at Ninety-sixth Street.

  Willie scanned the station, cheered by the sight of his men stationed outside their assigned cars. Somewhere in the crowd Miguel and Ernesto were making their way toward the first and last cars, and that would do it for this ten-car train. Except for the sixth car-the second-in-command’s position. Slade’s place. Another shiver of fear coursed through Willie’s body, but he quickly shook it off as the doors closed and the train began to move.

  A moment later Willie looked up and found Miguel Esperanza approaching him. Miguel was almost too short to be a Dog of Hell, but his body was solid muscle and he looked formidable, if not tall. He would have been handsome at twenty had his nose not been broken and rebroken in the nu
merous street fights that typified his life before meeting Willie Hoyte. Like so many of the Dogs of Hell, Miguel found that his belonging gave some meaning to an otherwise meaningless existence. But none of that mattered now. Esperanza was AWOL from his post.

  “What the hell you doin’ here, Miggie?” Willie barked incredulously. “Your place is up front.” First Slade, now this.

  “I gotta talk to you, Willie. There’s trouble.”

  Willie pulled himself taller. “There’d better be a shitload of trouble or your ass is grass. What is it?”

  “Slade’s gone.”

  “What you mean, gone?” Willie swallowed hard, tasting fear. “You crazy. I talked to him last night.”

  “I was with him last night,” Miguel assured Willie. “We was out ridin’ around-”

  “In uniform?”

  “Shit, no, man. I know it’s against the rules.” Miguel wiped a thick layer of sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. “We was on the Seventh Avenue express, just shooting the rails between Ninety-sixth and Forty-second. Everything was cool till Slade started staring out the window each time we pulled into Ninety-sixth. Shit, Willie, he looked scared.”

  “Scared?”

  Miguel nodded. “I asked him what was going down, but he wouldn’t say dick, jes’ kept looking out them windows… said he seen somethin’ outside on the tracks. He got crazy and stood right up front and put his hands like this over the window”-Esperanza leaned his head against the door’s window and shielded his eyes from the inside light-”and all the time he was just staring, sayin’ he saw somethin’.”

  “Saw what, man?”

  “I don’t know. He jumped off at Ninety-sixth and ran to the end of the platform, you know, at the Ninety-third Street exit, and peered into the tunnel like someone was holdin’ a bag of money up to his eyes. When he said he was goin’ on in, I left.”

  “You know, Miguel, if I ever hear of you smokin’ reefer or drinkin’, you’ll be out so fast you won’t know what hit you.” Willie knew he neither drank nor smoked.

  “Shit, man, I’m tellin’ you Slade got into some kinda trouble last night. I called him when I got home, and he didn’t answer.”

  “There was no answer this morning, either.”

  “See? You shoulda seen the look in his eyes. He was scared shitless.”

  The train began to slow at Ninety-sixth Street. It was the perfect time to hustle Miguel back to his post. Willie had some heavy thinking to do. He didn’t like it at all. No way. One of his best men sees something in a tunnel, goes to investigate, and ends up gone. How? For a second Willie thought of Captain Dolchik. He hated all the Dogs of Hell almost as much as he hated Willie personally. It would be just like Dolchik to arrange a little trouble to discredit him and his men. Say, lure one of them onto the tracks and then…What?

  “You get up front where you belong, Esperanza. I’ll handle Slade later; the press is waiting up ahead. Did you tell anyone else what happened last night?”

  “I wanted to talk to you first,” Miguel said proudly.

  “Good thinkin’.” Willie patted the younger man on the shoulder. “Keep it that way. Now, get goin’.”

  The doors opened and Miguel spilled out with the other passengers. He paused for a second, turned back to Willie about to say something, thought better of it, shrugged, and disappeared down the platform to the first car.

  Ninety-sixth Street came and went with no sight of Ted Slade.

  2

  Corelli made his way through the holiday crowds in the Fifty-ninth Street station. As he sidestepped a Puerto Rican family with children, radios, umbrellas, and beach chairs in tow, he realized he no longer saw people anymore, only crowds. This depersonalization was more self-defense than callousness. Since Jean’s death he’d shied away from all involvements of any kind. There were no women in his life save an occasional and usually unsatisfactory one-night stand that began in a crowded First Avenue bar and ended with a phone number and a promise to call that was as worthless as a thirty-five-cent subway token. Jean had been everything to Corelli and if she were still alive he wouldn’t be underground every day trying to keep order in a city where the law was a joke and where human life was frequently no more than an obstacle between some punk and whatever he craved at that moment. If Jean were still alive.

  But Jean was dead.

  Corelli was waiting for Willie Hoyte. He was also waiting for Jed Thornbeck, the reporter from West Side News. Moments later a group of black kids ran screaming up the stairs. Corelli watched them closely until they were out of the station. Then he picked up another target-a young white man dressed in a pale tan summer suit, blue button-down oxford-cloth shirt, and red tie. He looked like he was searching for an ivy-covered wall to lean on. He paused, caught Corelli’s eye, then moved directly toward him.

  “Mr. Thornbeck?” Corelli correctly guessed. “Name’s Corelli, TA police.” He shook Thornbeck’s hand. “Willie Hoyte should be along any minute.”

  “Are you the official police spokesman?”

  “The department has nothing official to say, Mr. Thorn-beck.”

  Thornbeck nodded. “Even I know you and the Dogs of Hell don’t see eye to eye on most everything.”

  Corelli smiled at Thornbeck’s ingenuousness. The boy was in the wrong business; he should have been pushing ladies’ toiletries door to door. “I suppose by ‘you’ you mean the department.” Thornbeck’s eyes widened in agreement. “Keeping tabs on a quasi-police force like Dogs of Hell has its problems, as you well know. For one thing, they don’t report to anyone but their own leader.”

  “And you’d like them to be under the thumb of City Hall?” He opened a notebook and began scribbling in it with enthusiasm and a stubby pencil.

  This kid has been watching too much television, Corelli thought. Or too many old “ace reporter” movies. “Without official recognition, those kids have no more power than anyone else in the subway. And the punks know it Hoyte has been lucky so far. No one’s been seriously hurt. There have been a few confrontations, of course, but one of these days the Dogs of Hell are going to run into a nut who doesn’t want to get pushed around by some junior G-men. And they’re going to get their balls cut off.”

  “Sounds like you care about them, Detective Corelli,” the reporter editorialized with wide-eyed innocence.

  “Of course I care, you schmuck,” Corelli exploded. “You think I’d be doing this lousy job if I didn’t?”

  Shit, he’d blown it. He’d only been talking five minutes and already he’d mouthed off, after he’d promised himself to keep a lid on his anger. But stupidity always got the best of him. Whether it came from the babylips of some young reporter or from between the snarling teeth of one of the misfits who used the subway as a playground, stupidity touched a core of rage in Corelli that had formed at the trial of Tommy Washington, the punk who’d killed Jean.

  “Why’d you do it, Tommy?” the prosecutor asked.

  He shrugged and rolled his eyes.

  “Come on, son. You don’t just stab someone for no reason at all.”

  “She wouldn’t give me her purse. I asked her real nice and she said no.”

  “So you stabbed her?”

  “She began screamin’. I don’t likes to hear womens scream. They’s supposed to be quiet.”

  “So you had to make her quiet.”

  Tommy Washington nodded.

  “And you stabbed her?”

  “It was like stickin’ my blade in butter.”

  Stupidity. Dumb, animal stupidity. A conscienceless following of an inner voice that says nothing matters but I want, I want, I want.

  The Dogs of Hell marched up the stairs and across the station in a tight pack, Hoyte at the forefront. Though they didn’t walk in unison, there was an air to their demeanor and carriage that gave the impression they were at least thinking in tandem. Each one wore the green signature jacket which, in the heat, looked noticeably out-of-place. Hoyte’s eyes fixed on Corelli and he qu
ickened his pace.

  “’Morning, Corelli,” Willie said with a totally insincere smile. “Glad to see the TA’s so efficient when the media are around.” He maneuvered his way between the two men and turned his back on the detective. “Mr. Thornbeck? I’m Willie Hoyte.”

  “Glad to meet you, Mr. Hoyte.”

  For a moment Willie’s eyes widened at the formality. After a quick appraisal of the suit and tie he relaxed; this turkey wasn’t smart enough to jive Willie Hoyte. “Let’s just make it ‘Willie,’ okay? And these are some of my men.” He half-turned and proudly read the roll call of the elite corps which was always assembled to meet members of the press.

  “Very impressive,” Thornbeck commented as he finished writing each name down in his book. “Now, what have you got in mind for today?”

  “We’re headed for Coney Island.”

  Corelli had watched the exchange with mild amusement He’d read all the reports on Hoyte-father in prison, mother working her butt off to support herself and her son, a couple of brushes with the law a few years back, but he was clean now. And smart. And Willie Hoyte had an advantage over Corelli and most of the TA cops-for a while he’d been one of them, one of the scum who caused trouble for others, for kicks. Willie understood the workings of that kind of sick mind. He’d tasted the bitter anger and the sweetness of getting revenge on his oppressors. Willie might even understand the workings of someone like Tommy Washington.

  “Hoyte, you got a minute?” Corelli moved into his line of vision.

  “Whatta you want, Corelli?”

  “A few words, that’s all.”

  Willie studied him suspiciously. Corelli and his pal Quinn were the only TA fuzz who even bothered to pretend tolerance of him and the Dogs of Hell. Still, Willie would have written him off completely were it not for a little matter of the night Corelli saved Willie’s ass-and his reputation. Willie was alone that night, off-duty, out of uniform, without his men. And he’d been mugged. Some drunken white sonofabitch plastered him up against the wall of the Ninety-sixth Street station while he waited for a train home from Slade’s apartment. Willie was smart enough to see he was helpless against this tall pile of shit, so he just gave up without a fight. He was handing over his wallet when Corelli pushed through the turnstile. He arrested the drunk, sent Willie home, and for the next two weeks Willie lived in fear each time he opened a newspaper. If word got out about the mugging, his credibility was blown. But nothing ever did appear. Corelli kept his mouth shut. And Willie owed him. Owed him big.