“The Teflon President. Well, I want to scratch the Teflon,” he said. “If we can find the right thing to hook the media’s attention. Just that one thing, that when the hook is in, set, it doesn’t go away. With Nixon it was Watergate. With Ford it was his pardon of Nixon. With Carter it was the hostages in Iran. I’m looking for something that will stick to this administration and refuse to go away.”
“What were you thinking of? Specifically?” I asked.
“Randolph Gunderson,” he said.
“Oh, no,” I said.
“Oh, yes,” John said. “He could be the weak link. If he’s indicted. Not this secret grand jury crap. A criminal trial, right out in public. Every day new witnesses. New testimony. New denials. Every day a new story. To remind America that the FBI covered up, that Reagan knew about the allegations but still stood by Gunderson. It’s got to cling to the President. It’s got to say something about his judgment. Once they start to question one item, they question the rest.”
Maybe it was worth considering. It might be fun to try to bring down a President. And it was certain to be a long assignment, steady money. On the other hand, Vernon Muggles would be delighted to have a second chance to read me my rights. The days when prisons provided such amenities as squash courts are long gone. Then there’s prison food. And prison sex. I said, “Forget it.”
“Why not?”
I wanted to decline gracefully. Straightman had been a client before and could well be again. So I pointed out that the special prosecutor had already failed with a million bucks to spend, and the FBI, and a team of attorneys, and subpoena power.
“You underrate yourself,” Straightman said. “You really do. There were a lot of people looking for the complete version of the special prosecutor’s report. CBS, NBC, the Gambino family. You’re the one who found it.”
“John, do you realize how much money this’ll cost? For something that might not work.”
“You should think about that. That you underrate yourself,” he said. “The reason I called you is that I think you’re the best. But look at yourself. Working low rent on low-rent cases. Living low rent. All it takes in this world is that one big score. You win the big one, it all changes. You’re Joe Namath, Reggie Jackson. You’re Woodward and Bernstein. Just that one big win and you become a winner. Forever.”
A great rush filled me. It was eager and cool all at once, and I had the sensation of seeing many things simultaneously. On the one hand, Gunderson had all the weight of the federal government behind him—FBI, IRS, DEA, Justice, Treasury, even the President. On the other hand, he had at least one of the five families willing to kill to protect him. I had seen the light. It was the light of sanity.
Quickly, while I was still in that peaceful golden glow, I said, “No.”
15.
The Other Mario Cuomo
Q: Why do Italian dogs have flat noses?
A: From chasing parked cars.
A joke (Courtesy of the Wayne Collection)
THE FIRST THING GLENDA said to me when I got home was, “Did you read the red herring?”
“Not yet,” I said.
“Hey-y-y, Tony-y-y,” Wayne said from in front of the TV set. “You wanna come watch this with me?”
“Want to,” Glenda corrected reflexively, not for Wayne, who couldn’t hear her anyway, but for herself, so that she wouldn’t end up speaking like a ten-year-old, and for me, so that I might, someday, come around to setting a better example.
“It’s Rocky, the big fight scene! Pow! Pow! Uh! Uh! … Bam!”
“We can’t afford to ignore it. It would be financially irresponsible to ignore the issue,” Glenda said, meaning the actual money matters, not the issue.
“We don’t want to be financially irresponsible,” I said, mimicking just enough to be irritating. I felt that what she said was a barb, pricking at my earning powers. A neat little nip in my macho. But it probably wasn’t. Or it was, but not intentionally.
“There’s a tenants’ meeting next Tuesday. And you probably should go,” she said. “For once.”
“I’ll do my best,” I lied outright. “If it’s possible.”
“This should really be our decision. It concerns both of us.” Which was getting close to the real issue, the issuance of binding fiscal ties, the creation of a relationship of property. Still not marriage but close enough to the heart of marriage that it would alter the pronouns of separation from “thee” and “me” to the possessive forms, as in have “your” attorney call “my” attorney.
“If I can’t make the meeting,” I said, “—and I really will try—if I can’t and you can, you really can just tell me what happened. Really.”
“I don’t think that’s fair. Or responsible.”
“Look,” I said, “I have a light day tomorrow. I’ll read it tomorrow.”
“Why not tonight?”
“Gimme a break.”
“Will you really read it tomorrow?”
“Yeah,” I said.
When it came time to turn the lights out, we found separate rooms in the double bed.
The next day was, in fact, an easy day. Organizing another report to evict another illegal tenant for Jerry Wirtman. If my father happened to stick his head out of the grave and snatched a look at whose side I was on, he would have grabbed a shovel and dug himself back in. I itemized the bill.
My partner was out in Brooklyn. Criminals continued to betray Snake Silverman’s trust. It wasn’t cause for alarm when Joey didn’t call in or return to the office, but he’d been a little erratic lately. Feeling poorly. He didn’t answer his phone, so I decided to drop by his apartment on my way home.
He lives on Forty-fifth, between Ninth and Tenth avenues, a neighborhood that vacillates between calling itself Hell’s Kitchen and Clinton. It no longer deserves the melodrama of the former—a nom de guerre that dates back to the Civil War—but neither is it entitled to the posh sound of the latter. Yet. But the deals have been cut for a super cleanup. The players are in position. The moment the thirty-eight lawsuits opposing the Forty-second Street depopulation-reconstruction project are settled, the economic energy will sweep west and wide, fast as fire, through Hell’s Kitchen, making it Clinton at last.
When he got the apartment, New York had rent control, Brooklyn had the Dodgers, and Joey had a wife and two kids. His wife and kids went to Florida in ’59, the Dodgers had gone to Los Angeles in 1957, and Joey hasn’t gone to a ball game since. The apartment is very empty, but still rent controlled.
From Times Square I walked west across Forty-second Street, the block with the highest arrest rate in the city and thirteen movie theaters. A cheery glow announced triple-action sex action—Sleazy Rider, Nympho Sizzle! and Bodacious Ta-Tas—flanked by a double Rambo on one side and triple-action action on the other: Fists of Fury, Fists of Fire, and Sister Fist and the Seven Shaolin Monks. The Superfly Boutique offered suits at drastic reductions. Sneakers were on special. Porn was specially discounted. There was the special glass flicker of base pipes in the windows of narrow-slot head shops. After all these years, my eyes still see, and my neurons remember. Drop in a rock, hit it with the bright blue flame, watch your brain go up like neon gas in high-volt rain. Preachers with porto-mikes ranted at each end, bookending the glandular street with Jesus.
All will vanish, we have been promised. And vanish with it will be all tieless dark-skinned persons, especially those who make eye contact that is not contact as they mutter with still-lipped ventriloquism, “cheba, crack, blow.”
All will be replaced by high-rising monuments of corporate rectitude, stolid, solemn Philip Johnson shapes. More monochrome, better-mannered, they will bring Midtown West a better breed of people, those who breed apart and keep their minds over money.
I let myself in the front door, walked up to Joey’s top-floor apartment, and knocked. There was a shuffling sound. I knocked again.
“Come on in,” he called. “I’m too tired to move.”
He had f
allen asleep with a bottle of beer in his hand, two empties on the table beside the gun, and he looked tired. The phone was disconnected. Mario, lying on the floor beside him, just looked lazy and maybe a little stoned.
“The Snake has called upon us, once again, to defend the Magner Carter and the Seventh Amendment.”
“That’s good. Who this time?”
He pointed at the file on the floor. Elijah Sampson, eight post-juvenile arrests, including murder, three convictions, not including murder, and still entitled to the presumption of innocence. Like Randolph Gunderson. There was an address.
“The address is no good,” Joey said.
“You look like hell,” I told him.
“He’s got a girlfriend,” he said. When fugitives flee, they head for the familiar. “Look at his rap sheet, victim on the second assault charge. Angela Moreno.”
I looked. “He cut her?”
“Cut each other. It’s a sure sign of an enduring relationship.”
“You been out there?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “He’s been around.”
“Living in?”
“Nah. And he’s not the only one she sees. Goddamn six-floor walk-up, and she’s on top.” He sighed. “But I miked the place, so’s I can sit in the basement and just listen for him.”
“When you going back?”
“I don’t know; maybe tomorrow. … Jesus, I’m tired. Will you get me a beer?”
Beer is one of several words Mario knows. His tail thumped against the floor. Literate doggie. I got two beers from the ’53 Frigidaire. I poured a couple of drops in Mario’s bowl. It’s easy to get the wrong idea about Mario, but he’s only a social drinker, not an alcoholic. I rubbed the loose flesh beneath his chin. “You’re a smart guy, aren’t you, Mario, even if you are a police academy dropout.” Which is something we say to be polite. The truth of the matter is that he was expelled, unable to control himself around bitches.
“Time is money,” I said.
“Well, I ain’t moving.”
“He’s gonna turn up there at night, you know that,” I said.
“Am I outa beer?”
“I’ll go out there,” I said. I hadn’t read the red herring, and if I went home, all I’d find was an argument.
“Whatsmatta? You don’t wanna go home?”
“You know what I did yesterday, Joseph? I turned down a job. From Straightman. He wants us to go after Randolph Gunderson.”
“You turned it down?” Joey said.
“Yeah.”
“Good boy. Showing some sense for a change.”
I went down to the bodega and bought him another six-pack. When I got back, he was asleep, pale and snoring, in his chair. I put the beer in the refrigerator and took Mario Cuomo out to Brooklyn to keep me company.
Angela Moreno, Elijah’s dear one, lived on Halsey near Atlantic Avenue. Parking was not a problem, since the radio is already gone and the hood is secured with a lock and chain so no one can steal the battery. I took the last remaining hubcap with me to serve as a water bowl.
The basement—storage, boiler room, and what had once been a laundry room—was supposed to be locked. I found it open. I let Mario go first. It was deserted, no one blowing crack, turning tricks, or stealing the plumbing. I bolted the steel door from the inside, put water in the hubcap from a still functioning sink, and set up the receiver.
Angela Moreno’s life came in loud and clear. It consisted mostly of rap music. I put my ears on autofilter.
Around 2 A.M. she turned on the TV. Without turning off the radio. Run-D.M.C. meets Gilligan’s Island. There were also toilet flushes, a baby crying, and something boiled over on the stove. Crazy Eddie announced that his prices were insane, and I thought I heard a knocking.
“Hello, baby. Lemme unlock the locks,” Angela said. I waited for her to call baby by name.
“I miss your sugar lips, sweet thing,” a male voice said. The music was up as loud as ever, and I was straining to hear. Mario started to growl, which made it more difficult.
“Shut up,” I told him.
He didn’t. He barked. I put my hands over the earphones to block him out.
“Wha’d you bring me? Wha’d you bring me?” she said.
“I got something else for you, even better,” he said.
“Come on, call him by name,” I said.
“Arf! Arrrf!” Mario barked.
“I’m a straight white dude,” the radio announced. The White Rapper with his all-time classic, “White Boy Do It 2.” “ ‘ … come from Minnesota/I wear Bass Weejuns/I’m a Republican voter/I ain’t lyin’, I ain’t struttin’/I’m selling futures at E. F. Hutton … ’ ”
“You rushin’ me,” she sighed, not complainin’.
“I needs what I need,” he said. “I ain’t waitin’.”
“You so big,” she said, and “You so strong.”
“Baby, I got to put it where it belong. You know what I can do, it’s my claim to fame.”
“That’s what they all say,” I said. “But what’s your name?”
Then Mario barked. He ran to the door. He put his paws on it, then howled some more. Upstairs they were panting, he was ready to score.
“ ‘Lemme do it once, lemme do it twice,’ ” the White Rapper requested, “ ‘one for nasty, one for nice/I learned to do it watching Miami Vice/sugar, sugar babe, lemme do it to you/white boys, white boys do it two.’ ”
“Don’t fuss with my clothes, you tearin’ my dress. Lemme slip it off, before you make a mess.”
“Let me see yo legs, let me see that bottom,” he said. “Uh, yeah,” then, “Yes, yes, yes.”
There were Ooos and Ahhs in my earphones. Mario had a problem, and was starting to moan.
“Baby, ohh baby,” he said, “spread ’em wider.”
She said, “Tha’s wide’s they go. Come on, Elijah.”
With great relief, I tore off the headset. He was here. I had him. All I had to do was climb six flights and pick him up.
Mario grabbed my pants near the ankle. He was tugging at them. It wasn’t time for play. Then I saw what was making him excited. Smoke coming in, under the door. I could smell the fire. I could even feel the heat, beating its way in from the hall, through the steel door.
I told Mario to shut up. I told myself to stay calm.
I went over to the door, and it got hotter as I got closer. I didn’t really want to know what was on the other side. As I reached for the knob, I could feel the heat beating off it. To test it, I spit on the door. It spit back, hotter than a skillet on a stove. I could smell the fire also. Paint, wood, kerosene, with a frisson of cucαrαchαs.
I looked around and found some rags. I soaked them in the sink and refilled Mario’s hubcap. I splashed the hubcapful of water on the doorknob to cool it down some. It sizzled and steamed. Then, wrapping the doorknob in wet rags, I tried to open it. The knob turned, but the door stuck. The metal had expanded in the heat. I tugged, feeling the heat through the soaked cloth. One knuckle brushed the door by accident, I felt it burn. I went back to the sink, even while figuring that it was a stupid waste of life-and-death time to tend to one knuckle, and ran cold water over it. As long as I was there, I clogged the drain with one of the rags and left the taps open, full. It wasn’t much, but it might retard the fire.
This time I wrapped the wet rags directly around my hands. Using both arms and bracing my legs, I was able to start the door moving. The heat came off it in waves. I was close to pain and full of fears.
It opened.
I heard and felt the fire before I saw it. Hungry for oxygen, it sucked air out from my basement room, roaring and screaming all the while. It was ravenous. Red and wild, it filled the hall, it carpeted and surrounded my way out. Someone had been lavish with kerosene. Generous and uninhibited, like a chopper leaving napalm.
I slammed the door shut as fast as I could. Gasping, sweating, and scared. My shoulder, where I’d shoved the door, felt sunburn raw.
The
basement was a genuine basement, not half submerged, with windows at street level. I made one more circuit, looking for another door or window or any other conceivable way out. It was getting thick and smoky. Mario dogged my footsteps.
There was no way out. My eyes stung, I was starting to cough, and I had a very vivid vision of becoming a roast.
There was one way out. Through the steel door and down the hall where the fire had been started.
Actually, fire deaths are most often caused by inhalation of smoke and noxious fumes, death usually occurring before the corpse burns. Alive or dead, burning usually takes the same course. It begins with blistering, then charring, at which point the victim is almost certainly in shock. If rescue occurs, and it sometimes does, and the victim does not die from shock, survival is sometimes possible. Rehabilitation and reconstruction are extraordinarily painful processes. If the victim dies, the corpse is almost invariably found in what is known, in the jargon of the trade, as the pugilistic attitude: fists clenched, arms raised, and knees bent. This is not because the victim’s last moments were spent in trying to punch it out with a fiery and anthropomorphic vision of death, but because the muscles contract from the heat. This contraction takes place even in those bodies already deceased.
When a dog dies in a fire, I don’t know what position the corpse assumes, though obviously a similar set of contractions occurs.
I could open that door, take a deep breath, because there was probably nothing breathable in the passage, and make a run. If I didn’t stumble, if nothing fell on me from above and knocked me out, if I didn’t get caught on something or blinded, I might make it out alive. Fricasseed to one degree or another, but with enough left to heal from. I could stay and wait, hoping the fire department battled its way into the basement in time. If they didn’t save it for last. Which they probably would. Fires are fought from the top down.
“Here, Mario,” I said, calling him over to the sink. Water was pouring steadily over the edge. He saw it and backed away. “You stupid little fuck, I ain’t screwing around,” I snapped at him. He slunk down low and humble, his Mahatma Gandhi passive-resistance bit. I was not impressed. I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and dragged him under the slow-falling shower. “Stay!” I said in my most commanding tones. He did. He will do that. Unless he smells a bitch in heat.
You Get What You Pay For (The Tony Cassella Mysteries) Page 14
