Damaged Goods

by Stephen Solomita

  “What about the credit cards?”

  Moodrow registered the sharpened tone. He allowed himself a smile before responding. “I can’t ask you to commit a crime. No matter what kind of risks I’m willing to take.”

  “Look, Moodrow, it’s not like you could actually get caught. Or like anybody in law enforcement gives a damn. Didn’t you tell me you had experience in this business?” She ran on before he could respond. “There’s a lot of illegal information out there and it’s all for sale. The problems kick in when you try to use the information, but in this case the target isn’t likely to complain. After all, it’s not like we’re cops.”

  Moodrow scratched his head, smiled ruefully. “No, it’s not like that,” he said. “Not like we were cops.”

  “So, you wanna give me the card numbers?”

  “If I do that, I’ll have nothing. No names, no addresses.” He stood up and started to walk away. When the phone dropped to the floor, he stopped short. “Shit, you still there? I knocked the phone off the desk.”

  “I’m still here.” She kept her tone sharp, but felt no insult whatever. “Why don’t we stop playing games? I was a cop long enough to know the rule: nothing for nothing. Give me the card numbers and tomorrow I’ll tell you if they were used. Favor for favor. Just like the good old days.”

  Moodrow took a moment to think it over. He could always take the names Ann Kalkadonis had given him and hire another computer expert to run down the addresses. But that didn’t help him with the credit-card numbers.

  “You wouldn’t consider billing me at the regular rate? Maybe if I paid cash?”

  “Sorry, pal, your money’s no good here.”

  Moodrow read off the card numbers, made an appointment for the following morning at nine, then hung up. He was pretty certain she was going to ask to go along with him, to become a partner. What else did he have to offer? And the truth was that he could use her, as long as she was willing to commit a few more felonies along the way.

  He got up, crossed to the window at the far side of the room, and started out. The gloom failed to hide the expected flash of a propane lighter on the rooftop across the street, though it successfully hid the faces of the huddled crack junkies who gathered there nightly. Not that they cared one way or the other about anonymity. The entire building, though officially unoccupied and actually owned by the city, was given over to the sale of one drug or another. The cops, at the behest of the Fourth Street Block Association, had been through a dozen times, making nearly a hundred arrests, but the trade continued, the sellers and buyers seemingly as uniform and interchangeable as lightbulbs.

  All right, enough with the local color, Moodrow told himself. Do what you have to do.

  The words failed to move him, though fatigue continued to wash through his body. The call he had to make, the last detail of a day filled with details, was to Betty in California. In the course of their conversation, she was going to ask him how the investigation was progressing and he was going to lie and he didn’t want to lie. No, what he wanted, at that moment, was to have her close to him, to take her in his arms and into his bed, to wake up in the morning and listen to the soft hiss of her breath against the pillow.

  The ringing phone jerked him away from his small fantasy. The mountain, he thought, coming to Muhammad. He picked up the receiver on the second ring, muttered, “Hello.”

  “Stanley, I thought you were going to call me.”

  “I just got in.” The first lie of the evening. “How’s Marilyn doing?”

  He listened to the sharply indrawn breath, knew she was holding back tears. “Marilyn’s broken, Stanley. Her body is gone, smashed. The doctor tried to prepare me, but it didn’t help. I wanted to run out of the room, out of the hospital. I can’t believe she’s still alive.” Another quick breath. “We’re just waiting, now. Waiting and hoping.”

  Hoping Marilyn would die. Moodrow heard the words without Betty saying them.

  “Is she conscious?”

  “Her eyes were open; I think she was there, but she can’t talk. Not with the tubes. And she can’t move, either. Not enough to let me know for sure.”

  Bad things happen to good people. The cliché popped into his mind, though he managed to keep himself from actually saying it. “What about Artie?” Artie was Marilyn’s husband.

  “Artie’s out of it.” Her voice was edged with anger. “He spent his whole life making money. Everything else was up to Marilyn. Now he acts like an infant who needs his diaper changed. I didn’t come out here to take care of him, Stanley, but that’s apparently what he expects.”

  “It sounds like he’s lost.” Moodrow tried to imagine life without Betty, how he’d feel if she was suddenly gone. Lost didn’t begin to describe it. “They’ve been together a long time.”

  “Does that mean I should make his bed for him?”

  “Not unless you slept in it.”

  A momentary silence followed by a deep chuckle. “Only you, Stanley.” She sighed, then rushed on. “It’s much worse than Artie led me to believe. I thought I was coming to help Marilyn, but it’s actually a death watch. The doctor told me her liver’s barely functioning. They’re not sure about her brain, how badly damaged it is.”

  “Look, I’ll fly out there if you need me.” The second lie. Moodrow couldn’t have been pulled off the case with a crowbar and he knew it.

  “Did you find the girl?” Betty’s surprise at the offer was evident, exactly as Moodrow had expected.

  “No, but there’s a lot of other people looking.”

  “Stay where you are, Stanley.” She sounded weary now, weary and resigned. “Stay where you are and do what you have to do.”

  TWELVE

  IT WAS BAD, ALL right, as bad as it got for old Jilly Sappone. Even Jackson-Davis could see that. And for once it really wasn’t Jilly’s fault. No, the way it was, dark as a bandit with the rain pouring down so you couldn’t see the street names, even old Reverend Luke would’ve lost his temper. Hell, they must’ve gone over this one bridge six times. Back and forth across some kinda river Jackson couldn’t see, until finally Jilly made him get out to ask somebody where they were.

  “That’s Harvard.”

  The tall, bearded man pointed to these old buildings, then hurried on through the downpour. That seemed kind of strange because the man had on a slicker and an umbrella, while Jackson-Davis was standing out there in a little-bitty jacket with the cold rain pounding his hair into his skull.

  “That’s Hazzard,” he told Jilly Sappone once he was back inside the car.

  “Hazzard?”

  “Yeah, like in the Dukes and … and stuff.” He’d started to say shit, but caught himself in time. Little Theresa was sitting next to him in the back and it didn’t seem right-like to curse around Little Theresa. Not no more it didn’t.

  “What the fuck does that mean? ‘Like in the Dukes’?”

  Jackson-Davis Wescott’s mouth curled into a tiny circle. He’d complained to old Jilly about cursing in front of Theresa. (“Little pitchers have big ears, Jilly. Can’t say you never heard that one.”) But Jilly had just laughed at him.

  “The Dukes of Hazzard, Jilly. The TV show?” He wrinkled his nose, not once, but twice. That was by way of explaining to Jilly how he felt about the cursing. Course, it was too dark for old Jilly to actually see his nose, but it made Jackson-Davis feel much better.

  “I thought I told you to find out where we are.” Jilly pulled away from the curb. His head was pounding and the oncoming headlights carried a familiar halo. He wanted to tell Jackson-Davis to drive, but with a shitstorm on the immediate horizon, he didn’t trust himself near the kid.

  “I did find out, Jilly. Them buildings back there? Them’s Hazzard.” He hesitated momentarily as an idea began to form. “Say, what if it’s the real Hazzard?”

  Jilly didn’t bother to respond. He was having a hard enough time driving the car. The lights pierced his eyes like knives, even though he’d already flipped up the rearvie
w mirror, even though he tried to keep his eyes glued to the side of the road. The lights and the pounding (which didn’t really hurt, more like somebody put his heart where his brain should be) were always the first sign that he was about to lose it altogether. Unless he did something real quick, the buzzing would sound, the lightning flash, the world narrow down to a thin, angry slit.

  “Fiiiiive bottles of beer on the wall.

  Fiiiiive bottles of beeeeeeeer.

  If one of those bottles should happen to fall,

  Fooooour bottles of beer on the wall.

  Fooooour bottles of beer on the wall.

  Fooooour bottle of beeeeeeeer.”

  “Shut the fuck up.” Jilly spat the words through clenched teeth.

  “But, Jilly, you told me to make sure little Theresa didn’t do no whinin’.”

  “I didn’t tell you to fuckin’ sing.”

  “You didn’t tell me nothin’ about no singin’.” Jackson-Davis folded his arms across his chest. He knew he had a good point, a damn good point.

  “I’m tellin ya now.”

  “Why are you whisperin’, Jilly? You sick or somethin’?”

  “I’m fine.” But he wasn’t fine; he was lost. And somehow the little streets all seemed to come back on each other so no matter what direction he took, he ended up back at Hazzard. Instead of on the bridge he shouldn’t have crossed in the first place.

  He turned onto a wide street, saw a sign and an arrow: DOWNTOWN BOSTON. Great, maybe the nightmare would finally come to an end. The way he saw it, he had two major problems and both of them were cops. With no paper for the car, no registration, and no license, he couldn’t very well stop and ask a cop for directions. And he couldn’t pull over at every corner to check the names of the streets, either, because a cop on patrol might decide to help out. Jilly had already made up his mind: He was going to kill any cop who approached, kill him quick, before he got suspicious.

  “Patty-cake, patty-cake,

  Baker’s man.

  Bake me a cake

  As fast as you can.

  Patty-cake, patty-cake,

  Baker’s man.

  Bake me a cake

  As fast as you can.

  Patty-cake, patty-cake …”

  Jilly groaned, his anguish spilling out despite all efforts to hold it in, then pulled to the curb. Pushing his cop fears firmly to the side, he fished a small glassine envelope out of his shirt pocket and sucked the contents up into his nostrils. His hands twisted the steering wheel, tried to rip it apart, while he waited for the heroin to take effect. As it did, as it slowly filtered down into his bloodstream, the pounding in his head withdrew, moving from his ears into the center of his skull where it panted like a sullen Doberman.

  “Jackson-Davis?”

  “Yeah, Jilly?”

  “What’d I say about singin’?”

  “We ain’t singin’, Jilly.”

  “Then what were ya doin’?”

  “We was playin’, Jilly. We was playin’ patty-cakes. You know, like when you pat your hands together?” He cocked his head and smiled. “See, your hands are the cakes. Paaaaty-cake. Theresa loves it.”

  Jilly took a deep breath. He was in control, now, though he couldn’t be sure how long it would last. The main thing, a thought he clung to as his eyelids sagged, was that he was too stoned to drive.

  “Jackson-Davis?”

  “Yeah, Jilly?”

  “I want you to come up front and drive.” He turned slowly, looked down at Theresa-Marie. She was already beginning to whimper. “I’ll sit in the back and try to read the map.”

  Jackson-Davis tried to think of some way to refuse without refusing. That was because old Jilly didn’t like people saying no to him. Unfortunately, refusing without refusing was beyond his abilities.

  “Jilly?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You ain’t gonna hurt Theresa, right? You ain’t gonna have one of your shitstorms if we get lost again?”

  “Look at it this way, Jackson. If we stay here, the cops are gonna stop and ask what the fuck we’re doin’ pulled over to the curb in the rain. If that happens, I’ll have to blow the cop away; I won’t have no choice.” He waited for Jackson-Davis to nod agreement. “You know me, Jackson. Once I get started, I got a real hard time stoppin’ again.” Another nod. “So maybe you better get up in front. Right now.”

  “Yeah, but Jilly?”

  “What, Jackson?”

  “You promised me you wouldn’t hurt Theresa no more.”

  “I ain’t gonna hurt her, Jackson.” Jilly was still drifting down, still perfectly calm. He could stare at his partner’s eyes, dream of the day when he’d empty a clip into those eyes, when they’d disappear, along with the back of Jackson-Davis’s head. “But if ya worried about it, we could put her in the trunk.”

  Now Theresa was really sobbing. Jackson-Davis pulled her close, glared at Jilly Sappone.

  “C’mon, Jilly. You know how Theresa hates the trunk. You promised you wouldn’t put her in the trunk unless it was darn sure necessary.”

  “What’s necessary, Jackson, is for you to get up here and drive the fuckin’ car. Before any of that other shit happens.”

  Jilly dropped into the backseat like a sack of potatoes. He was vaguely aware of the car pulling away from the curb, but he couldn’t bring himself to care about its destination. The dope was cutting its own path through his mind.

  “I should’na come up here,” he mumbled.

  “You say somethin’?” Jackson-Davis was hoping Jilly had gone into one of his dope nods. Dope nods made Jilly real quiet-like, maybe so quiet that Jackson-Davis could flip down the vanity mirror behind the visor and take inventory.

  “Things were too good.” Jilly’s voice, like his thoughts, seemed to come from a great distance. “Just about ready to go and I had to take a goddamned detour.”

  “Go where, Jilly?”

  “Away,” Jilly whispered. “Away from Carlo.”

  “From Cousin Carlo? Fits and conniptions, Jilly, why’re we goin’ away from Cousin Carlo when he’s been treatin’ us real good-like?”

  Jilly was in too deep to explain. (Not that he would have bothered even when he was straight. Explaining things to Jackson-Davis was a losing proposition, like teaching algebra to a hamster.) But the truth was that Carlo Sappone was a weak link in every sense of the word, a drug dealer who snorted, shot, and smoked his profits. If the cops put the heat on Carlo, he’d give Jilly up. It was that simple.

  Coming out of prison after fourteen years with no money in his pocket, Jilly hadn’t had a lot of choices. It was Carlo Sappone or sleep on the streets. That had all changed when the package he’d retrieved from the puddle of blood surrounding Patsy Gullo’s body turned out to contain four ounces of reasonably pure heroin. Carlo’s small, dark eyes had flashed pure greed when Jilly broke the bags open; he’d been more than willing to part with every dime he admitted to having.

  Seven grand wasn’t half what the dope was worth, but it was enough to buy some independence. His Aunt Josie, now that he had the money to pay for it, had found him an apartment in Manhattan. All he had to do was pack up his few belongings and move in. But then he’d gotten this great idea: drive up to Boston, snatch his daughter, Patricia, then come back to New York and throw it in his wife’s face.

  It hadn’t seemed like any big deal at the time. Josie had gotten the address from a letter Patricia had written to her mother, had taken it right out of the mailbox as one piece of the revenge she and Jilly were determined to take. If it was going to happen sooner or later, why not sooner? Four hours of driving, a quick grab (or a quick kill, depending on whether Patricia decided to resist), then four hours back. No muss, no fuss.

  That was almost nine hours ago. Nine hours of heavy rain, of one construction project after another. A bad accident had forced him off the interstate and onto the mean streets of Hartford, Connecticut, at five o’clock in the afternoon. Another accident on the Massachusetts Turnpi
ke had pushed four lanes of traffic onto the shoulder. Finally, there was Boston itself, a nightmare of dark and narrow streets that curled back on themselves like snakes swallowing their own tails.

  “Jilly, you awake?” Jackson-Davis slid the mirror down, stole a quick look at his reflection. “Huh, Jilly?”

  No answer, not even a glance. Jilly Sappone was in a place beyond thought.

  “How ’bout you, Theresa? You with old Jackson-Davis?”

  “Yes.”

  Jackson-Davis took another look in the mirror. His “damn near to an albino” hair was plastered so tight against his head he seemed almost as bald as his old daddy. He ran his fingers over his skull, tried to fluff his hair up.

  “You wanna get a burger or somethin’?” he asked.

  “I wanna go home to my mother.”

  “Don’t say that.” Jackson-Davis glanced at Jilly Sappone. “If old Jilly hears you say that he’ll get himself into a terrible snit. We don’t want that, do we?”

  Theresa didn’t answer. She sat back with her head against the door in an attitude of utter resignation. Events, beginning with the sudden death of her father, had swallowed her whole.

  “I tell you what, Theresa.” Jackson-Davis stole another glance in the mirror, this time at his narrow mouth. He liked to watch his lips move when he talked. “Let’s go find that place old Jilly’s lookin’ for. That’ll put him in a good mood when he wakes up.”

  Jackson’s problem was that he couldn’t remember the name of the street, only that it was on some kind of a hill.

  “I bet,” he said to his reflection, “if I find that hill, the name’ll just come right back to me.”

  For once, Jackson-Davis Wescott was right. He found a steep hill after twenty minutes of random driving, paused at the bottom, and remembered the name of the street.

  “Myrtle. Ain’t that right, Theresa?”

  Theresa didn’t answer, the word having absolutely no meaning to her, but Jackson-Davis, preoccupied with another problem, didn’t seem to mind.

  “Dang and darn,” he said after a moment’s reflection. “Guess the joke’s on me. I couldn’t read them old signs even if I could see ’em, which I cain’t.”