outta bed, get dressed and shit, and meet him at an apartment on One Hundred Forty-Eighth Street and Frederick Douglass Boulevard. It was an unusual situation. Letâs just say one of our sales managers seemed to be having a little problem with his bookkeeping, and we had a large shipment coming in that the motherfucker was supposed to be responsible for. So Church wanted us to pay him a little visit and make sure, you know, his spreadsheets were in order.â
As Supreme talked, Lucy frantically took notes. She noticed that every once in a while the former drug dealer would lose the attitude and the edgy street argot and sound a lot smarter and more sophisticated than maybe he wanted to. Even though he lived in a Beaux Arts mansion, the whole gangsta thing was critical, she figured, to who he was and everything he was about.
Lucy didnât say anything while Supreme told his story, except to quietly utter an occasional âright,â just to make sure he knew she was listening. A. J. had always told her to stay out of the way once someone gets rolling. âLet the momentum work. Allow your subject to unload whatever it is they need to unload. Do not interrupt,â heâd tell her over and over. âToo many reporters want to hear themselves talk. They want their subject to like them or they want to show how smart they are. This is not about you. Save your questions until later. Even when a subject stops talking, donât say anything for a few minutes. Silence makes people uncomfortable, and their instinct is to keep talking to fill up the space. And sometimes thatâs when they let their guard down and give you the best stuff.â
âSo weâre in this apartment, which we used for an âoffice,âââ Supreme said, actually making air quotes with his two hands around the word âoffice.â He did it in such an exaggerated way that Lucy knew he was teasing her, making fun, she guessed, of what he considered an overused, twentysomething-white-girl gesture. He smiled at her in a surprisingly gentle way and she couldnât help but smile back.
âThere was some serious fuckinâ weight in that room and a substantial amount of cash too. We were explaining the importance of accurate accounting to this ignorant motherfucker who worked for us when the five-oh showed up. No knock, no shouted identification from the hallway, no nothinâ, man. Two fuckinâ uniforms, patrolmen of all goddamned things, came through the door with their guns drawn. Iâm tellinâ you, it was no joke. There was enough rock and pure coke in that room to send some niggas away for life, know what Iâm sayinâ? And the whole thing was supposedly some stupid-ass screwup. A fuckinâ mistake,â Supreme said in disbelief, as if the incident had just happened.
âThe cops said they were responding to a domestic-disturbance call. Some drunk-ass fool was waving a piece at his old lady, scarinâ her and threatening to cap her ass or some shit. The cops were supposed to hit apartment 504. But these two shining examples of New Yorkâs finest musta been dyslexic or something, because the backward-ass motherfuckers came bustinâ into 405, which was our place.â
While Supremeâs shock and indignation were sincere, it was all Lucy could do to keep from exploding with laughter. The absurdity of the situation and Supremeâs description of the cops were almost too much for her.
âSo as Iâm sure you can understand,â he continued, âwe were in a severely compromised position. Totally fucked, actually. But somebody musta been lookinâ down on our asses. Hey, Ira,â Supreme said, interrupting the story. âAsk Marta to bring us some iced tea or somethinâ, okay? Iced tea okay?â he asked Lucy.
âAh, sure. Thatâd be great.â
âSee, Kevin was one complicated nigga,â Supreme continued. âHe was an