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14 PECK SLIP
"For two nights we'd been trying to locate Bobo Rizzo, the hood who had run the Fulton Fish Market since the Fifties.
The City was negotiating for a multi-million dollar seaport mall on Fulton Street. Construction as slated to begin late in 1983, less than a year away. The police commissioner wanted to know what kind of grief he could expect from the fish market mob. Mob grief was our specialty.
"For once in your life, Ryan," he said, "do something bold".
Gregory snapped up his raincoat collar, walked twenty feet, waited behind a highway support pillar until the forklift emerged
from between the Tin Building and the New Market. I shoved my hands into my pockets and positioned myself wide to his right. Backing him up, as I had for the last fourteen years.
The forklift veered right,
going toward Peck Slip.
I stepped into the hollow of a steel girder. Behind me was a parking area, then the stone support for the century-old Brooklyn Bridge. I could feel the velocity of the cars on the highway above and smell the stench of urine. Gregory walked into my peripheral vision a long flickering shadow. For a second I thought he'd decided to forget about it, but he was swinging a wider circle, a tailman's arc. A good tailman changes the angle, doesn't get too close.
Gregory sprinted across South Street in front of a slow-moving Con Ed truck. He followed the forklift, heeding his instinct.
It's not instinct, my wife says, it's cop paranoia. She says that people who
trust no one are bound to be right often enough to believe they can see through any lie. I tell her that cops deal exclusively with deceit and learn to read the signs. The signs flashed in neon to Joe
Gregory."
Ed Dee, "14 Peck Slip", Chapter One, pages 3-4. Copyright (1994 by Ed Dee. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of Warner Books, Inc. 1271 Avenue of the Americas, NY,
NY 10020. Publishers.
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