From violent crimes Joey transferred to the vice unit. It was there that he truly found his calling in life. Vice operations are generally kept under wraps even from the other investigative units on the force. Nighttime operations and undercover work were the standards of the job. Supervision was limited and regulated among prior vice officers, who respected and encouraged the “got your brother’s back” approach to law enforcement. Joey specialized in undercover work. It was said among his brothers in the unit that he could buy dope on the street in full uniform driving a marked patrol car. “Dope work,” or undercover narcotic buys, was Joey’s calling; it came natural to him, he was born to do it, and there was no place better for a dope cop than Miami, Florida, in the 1980s.
After four years with the Miami police, Joey D. took his talents to the federal level. The DEA came calling after they saw his skill set while working on some joint operations with the Miami Police Department. Joey found himself in the big leagues of drug work. At the federal level there was more freedom, more secrecy, and less supervision. He was assigned to a small undercover unit working everything from Fort Lauderdale to Key West. Their mission was simple: stop the import and dissemination of cocaine in South Florida by any means necessary. It was the Reagan era and the cocaine trade had taken over the southern portion of the Sunshine State. The US government needed Joseph DeMarco, a big Italian Miami Hurricane with a Spanish degree, to clean it up. Joseph lived the best years of his life in the 1980s. Times changed but Joey D. never did. He lived every day like it was New Year’s Eve, 1989.
Tiffany gave Seven the short version of the Uncle Joe story during the forty-five-minute drive from the middle-class suburbs to the somewhat seedier downtown area of Tampa. She never mentioned the “business” that Uncle Joe currently owned or why he took an early retirement from the job of his dreams. The truth was that Tiffany was somewhat in the dark as to the particulars of her uncle’s time in the undercover world. She was still a kid when he was formally disowned from the family. She secretly kept contact with her favorite uncle, a gesture that meant everything to Joey D.