The boy had been killed five days prior, in Yorkville, East Side in the Seventies. A white building superintendent named Patrick Lynch was hosing down the pavement and asked some students to move so they wouldn’t get wet; Robert F. Wagner Middle School was holding summer classes down the street. When the kids refused to budge Lynch said, “Dirty niggers, I’ll wash you clean,” and sprayed them with the hose. In retaliation, the kids threw garbage cans and bottles at him, and a couple of curse words, which attracted more of the summer students to join in the taunting.
Lieutenant Thomas R. Gilligan, thirty-seven, was off duty and out of uniform, checking out TVs in an electronics store. He went to investigate the commotion and stopped James Powell, a ninth grader who had joined the mob of angry students. Powell was unarmed, according to witnesses. Gilligan maintained that the boy flashed a knife. He shot him three times.
Two days later, Harlem erupted.
Pierce told Carney, “You have the people who are angry. Justifiably so. And then there’s the police force. How are they going to defend this shit? Again! And city hall and the activists. And in the way back of the room, you can barely hear a little voice, and that’s the family. They’ve lost a son. Somebody has to speak for them.”
“They’re going to sue?”
“Sue and win. You know they ain’t going to fire the bastard.” Sermon crept into his voice here. “What kind of message will that send—that their police force is accountable? We’ll sue, and it will take years, and the city will pay because millions and millions are still cheaper than putting a true price on killing a black boy.”
“That was good,” Carney said. One of Pierce’s better tirades. Nearby members had glanced over and returned to their companions when they saw it was Pierce doing his shtick.
“You got to keep stuff like that in your back pocket,” he said, “city like this.”
They caught each other up on their children and wives. Pierce’s wife, Verna, was hot on Lenox Terrace—two of her friends had moved in and wouldn’t shut up about it. The amenities, the famous people in the elevator. “One thing she hates is people showing off,” Pierce said. “How’s Riverside Drive treating you?”
“Let me ask you something,” Carney said. “You ever heard of the Van Wyck family?”
“Van Wick? You mean Wike?”
“Like the expressway.”
“It’s pronounced Wike, but yeah. They’ve been players in this city since back in the day. You’re talking some stone-cold original Dutch motherfuckers. As in, charging the Lenape Indians rent on their own land type shit.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah,” Pierce said. “Robert Van Wyck was the first mayor of New York City, back in the eighteen-whatevers. And they still wear it like that—like royalty. Last time I saw the Yankees, they brought old man Van Wyck to the scout seats behind home plate, practically carried him on a litter like a maharaja.” He took out his cigarette case. “Got a hand in everything—politics, banking—but real estate is their main bag. Van Wyck Realty, that’s what the VWR stands for, on those little plaques on half the buildings in midtown.” He checked out the room and leaned in. “What’s up?”
“It came up.”
“They dropped in to look at some couches? They strike me as more downtown shoppers.” Pierce didn’t press. He removed a Chesterfield King and lit it. VWR were known for making their money off everybody else’s moves, Pierce said. According to lore, Thirty-Fourth Street was dead when they broke ground for the Empire State Building, but Van Wyck saw what was coming and put up his own office building across the street. “Look at it now.” They missed out on the main Lincoln Center contracts, but carved out a big residential complex on Amsterdam, ready for their piece when the arts center was finished.
“They’re sneaky.”
“Sneaky gets you paid around here.” He raised an eyebrow in reference to their fellow Dumas members. “It wasn’t my case—I had just started at Shepard—but there was this wrongful death suit we handled one time. Seemed cut-and-dried, criminal negligence. Unsafe conditions at a building site—crane topples over and crushes two men. And it’s a VWR operation, near the UN building. They were looking at an excruciating settlement. There was a VWR employee who was set to testify that his boss had ordered him to bribe the inspector and that he’d done the same at other sites, for years. We had him in the bag for months leading up to trial.”