Cop Without a Badge (Chapter 16)

Chapter 16

Maher introduced Beverly to go-go dancers Carmen and Sara. Not only did the girls seem to take an instant liking to their new roommate, they also were happy to fill the third bedroom of a large apartment, this lowering their monthly share of the rent.  Of course, to pay her share of the rent, Beverly would have to get a job.

“I was a dancer in Miami,” Beverly said.

“We can get you into Gallagher’s,” Carmen assured her. “They’re looking for dancers.”

Gallagher’s was a strip joint on Queens Boulevard in Woodside, a favorite hangout for coke dealers. At first Maher thought it was a good idea. He could identify dealers while he watched Beverly dance. But then, a week later, he saw her onstage. And suddenly it wasn’t such a good idea at all.

For he debut at Gallagher’s, Beverly emerged in a bra and G-string, her beautiful body exposed for all to see. With each seductive pose, Maher could feel blood rushing to his head. And each time she cast her gaze into the audience and stared at a man, Maher felt a rush of anger. He hung around all night – through all three of her performances – and then ushered her out of the club.

Thanksgiving and Christmas at the Maher house were unhappy occasions. Neither Maher nor Beth could walk away, yet both wanted to be somewhere else. For Beth, it was a romantic allure that tugged at her. But for Maher, every minute away from Beverly drove him crazy. What is she doing right now? Is she fucking somebody? And so, on most nights, he would rush to  Gallagher’s where the anguish increased. When Beverly seemed overly friendly to the club owner, Maher imagined that she was granting him sexual favors. And when Beverly became the featured dancer after the first of the year, Maher saw that as proof of his suspicions.  You don’t become the featured dancer at Gallagher’s making six hundred a night unless you are fucking somebody. Additional “confirmation” came when the club owner arranged for Beverly to move into an apartment of her own on Cross Bay Boulevard.

“The owner’s friend owns the video store in the building,” Beverly said. “He gave me a good deal. Four hundred a month.”

Over the next two months Maher shuttled back and forth to Florida five times. Each trip, he found that Uribe’s mind had deteriorated a little more and his psychosis appeared to have returned, as was demonstrated on bizarre night in early March.

Maher and a rich kid from the Hamptons named Herman – who was one of Uribe’s regular customers, especially during the summer season, when he needed party favors – were staying at Uribe’s stash house. Uribe had rented the apartment under a false name expressly for the purpose of storing cocaine. Maher had claimed the bedroom. And Herman was sacked out on the couch. In the middle of the night, Uribe burst into the apartment, brandishing his Uzi.

“The fucking bitch!” he roared. “The fucking bitch!”

Herman cowered under a blanket. Maher jolted out of a sound sleep and ran out of the bedroom.

“What’s the matter, John?” Maher asked.

Uribe, wild-eyed and perspiring, ranted and raved about a fight he had just had with Laura. The he ran into the bedroom and called her. The argument continued via phone for fifteen minutes. No word was vile enough for the way Uribe felt about Laura. Finally Uribe stomped into the living room, holding a cordless phone.

“She hung up on me!” Uribe howled, the squeezed the trigger on the Uzi and fired a round into the floor.

Herman began to quiver and grabbed a couch pillow, holding it front of him like a shield. Maher looked at Uribe, stared at the gun, and decided he had to do something before Uribe accidentally killed himself or Herman.

“Hey, John,” Maher said with a laugh, “you’re scaring Herman.”

Uribe frowned as her peered at the diminutive Herman, who was shaking violently.

“You think a couch pillow will stop a nine-millimeter Uzi?” Maher asked.

Herman whimpered. Uribe couldn’t help it. He started laughing. And Maher took advantage of the opportunity. He snatched the Uzi away from the larger, stronger Uribe.

“All right, John,” Maher said. “Calm the fuck down!”

Herman locked himself in the bedroom while Maher talked to Uribe. An hour later, Uribe left.

“He’s gone, Herman,” Maher yelled through the bedroom door. “You can come out now.”

Herman emerged and went back to the couch. Maher crawled back into the bedroom.

That’s what women can do to you, Maher concluded as he stared at the ceiling, unable to sleep. They can het you crazy. They can get you killed.

But it hadn’t been Laura’s fault. Uribe was full of coke. And he was holding a gun. It didn’t occur to Maher that he was doing a lot of coke, owned tow guns, and Beverly was making him crazy.

While most Irishmen stay up all night on St. Patrick’s Day, Maher got a jump on the celebration. At eleven in the morning on March 17, 1987, he had already been up more than twenty-four hours. He was on a cocaine binge, and as he watched Beverly get dressed to head to Gallagher’s, his mood grew dark. I know she’s fucking the owner. Maher patted his jacket. He was carrying his .25 caliber Berretta.

“You’re not going to Gallagher’s,” Maher said with a growl. “You’re not working there anymore”

“Yes, I am,” Beverly said defiantly as she stuffed the last of her work clothes into a gym bag.

“No, you’re not.”

“Watch me,” Beverly said and then strutted out the door.

Beverly climbed into her 1979 Oldsmobile Cutlass, and Maher got into his Porsche. He followed closely behind her. When they arrived at Gallagher’s, Beverly ran inside. Maher walked in a moment later and caught a glimpse of Beverly hurrying down the stairs and started after her. But there was a large obstacle in his way: Eddie, the 350-pound bouncer. Maher tried to push Eddie aside. It was like trying to move the QE II.

“Get the fuck out of here, you little punk,” Eddie said as he shoved Maher back out of the stairwell, pinning him against a wall.

Maher maneuvered his hand to his waistband and pulled out the Berretta. He pointed the gun at Eddie’s temple and tried to get his left arm around Eddie’s huge girth so he could reach the slide mechanism that would load the chamber with a bullet. But because of Eddie’s waist size, Maher’s right hand, which was holding the Berretta, could not make contact with his left hand.

“Get the fuck off me!” Maher screamed.

“Fuck you,” Eddie responded, unaware there was a gun to the side of his head.

Someone yelled, “Eddie, he’s got a gun!”

Eddie turned slowly and found himself starring down the barrel of the Berretta. He slowly backed off.

“Everybody get down!”

Eddie, the waiters, the busboys, everybody got on the floor.

“First one to get up buys it!” Maher shouted.

Haring the commotion, Beverly came upstairs.

“You’re crazy!” Beverly screamed, then looked at the people on the floor. “He’s crazy.”

Maher sneered at Beverly. “Whore!”  Then Maher stormed out the door.

“I’m calling the cops,” Eddie said as he heaved himself to a standing position. He headed for the phone.

“Don’t do it, Eddie,” Beverly yelled. “You don’t want to fuck with him.”

“I’ll fuck with him,” Eddie huffed. “The little punk.”

Eddie picked up the receiver.

“Eddie,” Beverly continued, “you don’t understand. He works with the fucking FBI and the DEA. It won’t do any good to call the cops.”

Eddie slowly placed the receiver back on the cradle.

Later that night, Maher showed up at Beverly’s apartment. Incredibly, she let him in. Even more incredibly, she wasn’t angry.

“You shouldn’t have done that, Kevin,” she said with a smile.

Beverly laughed. Maher laughed. Then they tore each other’s clothes off.

Maher continued his trips to Miami. By now it had become a routine. But in mid-April something unusual happened. There was a DEA raid on one of the dealers Maher had identified. In May, there were two more. When Maher asked about the raids, Slavanki and Becker were tight-lipped. They paid him his bounty and told him to continue making the trips. But Maher sensed that D-day was coming, and it frightened him. When he returned home from a Florida run at the end of May, he studied his doorstep. There in large black numbers was 30. Maher thought about removing the numbers, but instead he went to the hardware store and bought a number 4. The house number became 34. He reasoned that if one of the dealers managed to get his address, they wouldn’t be able to find the house.

The sporadic DEA raids in Miami continued through May, June, and July. Since they were all dealers who in some way were associated with Uribe, Uribe earned the nickname “Black Cloud.”

“What the fuck is going on?” Uribe wondered aloud as he and Maher sped along the Inland Waterway.

“I don’t know, John,” Maher said with a shrug.

The only reason the drug community didn’t suspect Uribe of being an informant was because it was his coke that was being seized. And while it would seem that he would naturally suspect that Maher – an admitted FBI informant – had something to do with all the busts, Uribe never showed any suspicion. In Maher’s mind, there were two reasons why Uribe was so trusting: (1) He had told Uribe he was an FBI informant only because he was testifying against a “baby-killer.”  (2) Uribe had not been busted. Thus Uribe’s logic told him that Maher was honest for leveling with him at Astoria Park that night and that Maher couldn’t be a DEA informant; other wise, Maher would have already locked him up.

By now, Uribe had accumulated two Uzis, the one Maher bought for him and a stolen 9mm with a thirty-two-round clip.

“Will you take this gun back to New York for me?” Uribe asked. “There’s too much heat down here to be carrying a hot piece.”

“Sure, John,” Maher assented, then thought: I bet the ATF never got a weapon away from a dealer this easy. Maher had added another weapon to his arsenal.

In late August, simultaneous raids from New York to Miami netted carloads of cocaine, suitcases of cash, and dozens of dealers. One dealer had not been arrested: John Uribe. The DEA had kept its word to Maher, and made him feel even more like part of the law enforcement community. Honor among cops.

Maher, who was in New York when the raids went down, spoke with Slavanki and was told that the DEA owed him $126,000, an amount that far exceeded any single payment the Justice Department had ever made to an informant.

The first thing Maher did with the money was got a new 1987 Porsche, for $61,000/ He added special $4,000 seats, a $5,000 cellular phone system, and $8,000 stereo, $4,000 BBS wheels and tires, and a $3,000 high-performance exhaust, among other enhancements. By the time he was finished, he had spent more than $80,000.

As autumn moved in, Maher was ready to retire his imaginary badge once again. He had proved himself, and for Maher that was the most important thing. I could’ve been a cop. I could’ve been a federal agent. I could’ve been anything I wanted to he if I hadn’t stolen that Roadrunner.

But what now? Maher believed he still loved Beth. Then there was Beverly. He loved her too , didn’t he? Or was he just obsessed? And what about children? Maher longed to have a child of his own, but Beth was staunch in her refusal to get pregnant. Yet when he daydreamed about starting a family with Beverly, he realized that Beverly wasn’t mother material. Was she? Maher became confused by it all that he did the only thing he thought would help him reach a conclusion: He bought an ounce of coke. Which is how he wound up at Gallagher’s. High. And carrying an Uzi. Only this time, the police were called. When Maher chose to challenge the cops, a scuffle ensued.  He was arrested and charged with assaulting a police officer.

Maher realized he was in real trouble when he asked a lieutenant from the 108^th Precinct to call Slavanki.

“The DEA will straighten this shit out,” Maher insisted.

But when the lieutenant got Slavanki on the phone. It wasn’t much of a conversation.

“The DEA has no jurisdiction here,” the lieutenant told Slavanki. “And I’ll tell you this: Nobody hits one of my cops.”

A hour after Maher was brought to the precinct, Beth showed up. She looked weary, sick of all the trouble, tired of the struggle. Here she was, a top executive at a respected publication, and she was visiting her husband in jail.

“Excuse me, Mrs. Maher,” the lieutenant said, “I think you should know what brought all this about. Your husband has a girlfriend. A stripper named Beverly.”

“You motherfucker!” Maher screamed.

Maher drew in his breath and was about to hurl a flurry of insults at the lieutenant. But then Maher looked at Beth. She was hurt. Devastated. Maher slumped in the cell. The charade of marriage was over.

Beth walked to the bars of the holding cell.

“Look Beth,” Maher began. “I –“

“You’re hurt,” Beth said, not wanting to hear some lame excuse.

“We’re transferring him to a hospital,” an officer remarked.

After the briefest conversations with Beth, Maher was taken to a hospital and placed under police guard. For the next day and half, he was treated for the injuries he sustained during the melee.

An officer named Bell, officially the arresting officer, enter the hospital room. The first thing Maher did was apologize.

“I’m sorry officer,” Maher sighed. “The woman got me crazy.”

Bell was not impressed. He went over the charges with Maher – three assaults on a police officer – and proceeded to take down Maher’s version of events. When the statement was completed, Bell commented on a Marine tattoo that was on Maher’s arm.

“I was in the Marines too,” Bell said.

Maher then launched into one of his DEA stories. From the look on Bell’s face, Maher could see he didn’t believe it. So Maher called Slavanki and handed the receiver to Bell. After a five-minute conversation with Slavanki, Bell handed the receiver back to Maher and left the room.

“Okay, Agent Slavanki,” Maher said, “how do I get out of this?”

Slavanki explained that there was nothing the DEA could do. Maher was charged with a serious offense, and it was up to the NYPD how the case was resolved.

Maher panicked. Then he remembered the Vincent Caldera from 1983. The players were major league. A U.S. Congressman. A high-ranking law enforcement official. He had promised caldera he wouldn’t do anything, but that was because Caldera was an NYPD cop at the time and Caldera merely wanted his job back. Caldera had since left the force and was working for Metro Dade County Police in Florida. Maher felt he had no choice. The was a big case, big enough to get the attention of the Internal Affairs Division of the NYPD. Handing IAD the Caldera case was the only hope. Still, it bothered Maher that he was bartering a deal. Maher hadn’t traded information for help in mitigating a charge since the rug guy he gave Doherty more than a decade before. But then, Maher had never been in this much trouble before either.

Then next day Maher was shuttled off to court, where bail was set.

“Bail is four thousand,” the judge said. “Cash.”

Beth was there with the money.

When Maher returned home, he and Beth talked honestly. Maher was contrite about his indiscretion with Beverly.

“I’m glad it’s out in the open. I’m glad it’s over. All I can say is –“

Beth cut him off.

“That’s the past, Kevin,” Beth said sternly. “We have to talk about the future.”

After hours of apologies, tears, and even a little laughter, Maher and Beth agreed to try one last time to make their marriage work.

“But you have to be a good boy,” Beth insisted. “No more coke, no more guns, and no more women.”

“I’ll be a good boy,” Maher said. “I swear.”

However, even as they tried to tell themselves this was a second chance, they both knew it was an ending, not a beginning, a temporary truce until terms of surrender could be hammered out.

A couple days later there was another ending in Maher’s life. The arbiters at New Jersey Transit had reached a decision. On September 21, 1987, Maher was officially terminated. To Maher, it was a bitter conclusion to a dispute he felt certain would be settled in his favor. After all, the weed killer had caused his conjunctivitis, and he couldn’t help the fact that wearing goggles rendered him virtually blind. Maher retained a lawyer. He wasn’t going down without a fight.

The last week of September, at four o’clock in the morning, Maher was awaked by the ringing of the phone. He grabbed the receiver.

“hello?”

Instead of a response, Maher heard a grinding sound. An unmistakeable gnashing of teeth. Uribe. And Uribe only ground his teeth when he was coked up.

“John?”

“You fuck,” Uribe said with a growl. “You’re history, and so is everybody in that house.”

Click.

Maher bolted upright. Beth stirred.

“Who was that?” Beth asked.

“Uribe,” Maher said, offering no further explanation.

Maher remained awake the balance of the night. Where was Uribe calling from? Miami? New Jersey?

At nine sharp, Maher called the DEA. Becker answered the phone. Maher told Becker about the phone call from Uribe and speculated that Uribe probably put two and two together after the raids and had come up with Maher.

“Don’t mention Dakota,” Maher said. “North or South I’m going after him.”

Maher didn’t want to lock up Uribe, but he figured he didn’t have much choice. Uribe’s coke habit made him dangerous.

Becker contacted an agent in Florida to verify Uribe’s address. Uribe had been arrested on a domestic violence charge for a fight he had with Laura. According to the arrest report, Uribe was now living in Coconut Grove.

Maher called Beth at The Economist and told her he had to go to Miami. She wasn’t pleased.

“This is the last trip,” Maher said, “I swear.”

Within an hour, Maher was speeding toward Florida, arriving the following afternoon in Coconut Grove. Maher found Uribe’s house. Located down a dead-end street, it was even bigger than the previous one. As Maher peered toward the house, Uribe appeared at the huge picture window that overlooked the front lawn. Before Maher could get the car turned around, Uribe was out of the house. Maher jumped from the car and looked Uribe over. He didn’t appear to armed.

“How’d you find me?” Uribe demanded.

“It’s on your arrest record,” Maher said. “From when you beat the shit out of Laura.”

Maher and Uribe studied each other for a long beat. Maher could hear Uribe thinking: The fuck is a cop.

Maher smiled. “You fuck! You called me up and threatened me? What the fuck is up with that?”

“That wasn’t me,” Uribe countered.

Maher’s smile broadened. Of course it was you. No one else grinds his teeth like that.

“John,” Maher said, “you think I set up the DDs? You think it was me? Then what are you doing standing there? Why aren’t you locked up?”

Uribe fought back a smile.

“Come in,” Uribe said. “I have a present for you my friend.”

As they walked toward the house, Uribe asked: “What are you doing in Florida?”

“I’m down here to meet a DD I know and buy a kilo,” Maher answered.

Uribe reacted. Maher smiled.

“What?” Maher said. “You think you’re the only DD in town?”

Uribe seemed convinced that Maher was planning a buy. Now Maher would offer to make the buy from Uribe. Would Uribe take the bait?

“Hey,” Maher said, “I don’t care where I get the kilo. Why don’t you sell it to me?”

Uribe hesitated for a moment.

“Okay,” Uribe finally said. “Maybe tomorrow.”

The following day, Becker flew into Miami. Maher and Becker met with the DEA Florida Region group supervisor and outlined a plan.

“I’ll get him to sell me a kilo,” Maher said.

But the group supervisor was not so keen to the idea.

“Busting him for a key is a throwout case,” the group supervisor said.

The difficulty was that there already was an active warrant on Uribe for dozens of charges.

“Any defense lawyer will use that,” the group supervisor noted. “The lawyer’s bound to say to a judge: why didn’t they arrest him all these years?” Why did they accumulate all these charges?”

The answer, of course, was Maher’s deal: Don’t lock up Uribe.

It was decided that the obvious solution was to exercise the active warrant and forget about he one-kilo buy. Maher’s job was to make sure Uribe was in the house when the DEA arrived.

The next afternoon, Maher met Becker near Uribe’s house. There were DEA agents, detectives from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, and cops from the Coconut Grove Police Department. Twenty in all, each wearing bulletproof vests and hooded masks. They look like terrorists, Maher thought. The cops and agents were armed with Mac 10 automatic rifles equipped with a ten-inch silencer. It was the most fearsome display of law enforcement Maher had ever seen.

Maher drove the short distance to Uribe’s house and knocked on the door. A few seconds later, Uribe appeared.

“Hey, Kevin. What’s up?”

“Just checking to see if you’re going to be home. I’ve got to make a run. But I’ll be back in an hour.”

“I’ll be here,” Uribe said.

Maher walked to his Porsche, climbed behind the wheel, and drove slowly down the street. Two vans and three radio cars sped past him. Maher stopped the car and rolled down the window. Seconds later he heard the raid begin.

“Police!”

“DEA!”

“Don’t Move!”

“FBI!”

Maher laughed to himself. FBI. There were no FBI agents in the group. But the DEA often shouted “FBI!” because it had a harder sound. If someone didn’t know the acronym DEA, the certainly understood FBI.

Maher slammed the Porsche into first gear and headed back to New York.

With the trial on his assault charges approaching, Maher contacted the IAD and told the Vincent Caldera story. Skeptical at first, the IAD became convinced after checking Maher’s references: Doherty, DeBellis, Slavanki. The only obstacle now was Officer Bell, the arresting officer in the case against Maher. If Bell would withdraw the complaint, the charges would be dropped. Bell agreed, and the case was dismissed. Maher went undercover for the IAD.

But Caldera refused to cooperate. So, despite an overwhelming amount of evidence gathered by Maher, there were no arrests. It appeared the incident was being “swept,” a term used by cops as a shorthand for “sweeping under the rug.” And at a level this high, no one could stop the broom from doing it’s work.

Still, for Maher the Caldera case had served his purpose. He avoided a jail sentence. And gained another opportunity to get his life straightened out. To that end, Maher kept his promise to Beth. He stopped using coke. Cold turkey. Actually it was Wild Turkey, which is how Maher got passed the withdrawal symptoms. He drank heavily. And once again, he merely switched drugs.

In January 1988 there was hopeful signs that New Jersey Transit might settle the dispute. But the signs were misleading. So on January 27, Maher’s attorney, Randi Doner – from the law firm of Sanford/Oxfeld – filed a $2 million lawsuit charging New Jersey Transit with wrongful dismissal, handicap discrimination, and violation of the whistle blower statute. A flurry of motions followed. By March it was clear that the railroad would contest. Doner’s assessment was that the dispute could take years before it even got to the courts.

Maher grew more anxious. His safety net, the railroad job, was a thing of the past.

“Guess what,” Detective Frank DelPrete had told Maher one day when the two of them ran into each other on the street. “Your buddy is dead.”

“Who?” Maher said.

“Brian Molese,” DelPrete had answered. “I just heard he died in prison of AIDS.”

The death of Brian Molese provided a punctuation mark to Maher’s career as an informant. Much had begun at 24 Sanford Road. So now Maher’s cop persona no longer existed, it seemed fitting that Molese no longer existed as well.

Seventeen years ago, when he stole the Roadrunner and took the cops on a chase to the Catskills, it was evident that Maher was an excitement junkie. And his sources of excitement took many forms. Uribe and Beverly were two. Each, in his or her own way, had always given Maher that needed fix of risk and adventure. But following Maher’s outburst at Gallagher’s, Beverly had quit her job and left her apartment. No one knew where to find her. And Uribe was locked up.

No undercover work. No Beverly. No Uribe. No excitement. So Maher looked to his wife to ease the craving. At least I still have Beth, Maher told himself. But on a hot and humid night in June 1988, he destroyed that, too.

Maher and Beth had just finished dinner when Beth mentioned something she had to do at the office.

“Like I was telling Richard –“ Beth began.

But before she finished her sentence, Maher jumped up from the table. He couldn’t bear the way she said the name “Richard.”

“I’m going out for awhile,” Maher said, and then walked out the door.

For the next six hours, Maher stopped at bar after bar.  By the time he staggered home at 3:00 A.M., he was mean drunk.

Maher entered the bedroom and turned on the light. Beth wake. She gave Maher a dirty look, then rolled over, facing away from him. Infuriated, Maher reached under the bed and emerged with his Smith & Wesson.

“Hey, bitch!” Maher screamed.

Beth turned around. Her eyes widened when she saw the gun.

“When I catch you and that motherfucker O’Rourke,” Maher said with a sneer, pulling the slide back to eject a bullet, “I’m going to blow his fucking brains out.”

Maher took the bullet and, using the tip, wrote in large letters across the wall: Richard O’Rourke.

Maher staggered over to the side of the bed and looked down at Beth, who was lying on her back. He held the bullet a couple of feet above her face.

“The next time you see one of these coming at you…”

Maher dropped the bullet on Beth’s forehead.

“…it’ll be coming at you a lot faster.”