A Piece of the Action sm-5

by Stephen Solomita

  “Look, I’m willing to help you out,” Maguire replied evenly. “As long as I don’t have to put my head on the chopping block. You hear what I’m sayin’, Stanley? I got three kids and a heavy mortgage.”

  What Moodrow wanted to say was, “Luis Melenguez had a wife and kids, too,” but he held his tongue. Antagonizing Maguire wouldn’t get him any closer to the man who’d killed Melenguez. Still, he couldn’t help but wonder how many other cops hid behind their families and their mortgages when a superior officer snapped his fingers.

  “Why don’t you start by telling me what happened with Patero? Did he just order you to stop investigating? Did he give you an excuse?”

  “The first thing you gotta understand is that my partner, Samuelson, is in Patero’s pocket. He wants to make detective, first grade, and Patero’s his rabbi. As for Melenguez, we did all the usual things. Interviewed everyone in the house, recovered the slugs, diagrammed the crime scene, took blood samples, dusted for prints. We knew that O’Neill was bullshitting us, but him and his old lady were busted up pretty bad, so we let ’em go off to the hospital. What I figured to do was come back and squeeze ’em, but then Patero says to lay off. He says the investigation’s going over to Organized Crime, that certain people (which he naturally can’t name) are registered informants in a city-wide probe and we don’t wanna blow their cover. I figured he was full of shit, but I kept my mouth shut. I’m not sayin’ it didn’t bother me, because it did. That’s why I’m here …”

  “Wait a minute, Paul,” Moodrow interrupted. “You said you dusted for prints?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You come up with anything?”

  “The problem is that we came up with too much. According to the lab boys, we got eight identifiable unknowns. You get one print, you can try to match it up. It takes about a week, but it can be done. You get eight prints, you gotta have a suspect before it does you any good.”

  “I get the message.”

  “What about you, Stanley?” Epstein said. “What have you been doing?”

  Moodrow took a moment to think about it, then detailed most of his visit to the O’Neills, leaving out any mention of notarized statements. Up to this point, he’d trusted Epstein completely. But Epstein had kids and a mortgage, too. “What I need is a photo,” he concluded. “Something to show around the neighborhood. The story is that Santo and the men who killed Melenguez all work for Steppy Accacio. If I can run down Santo, I can use him to find the shooters.”

  “You’re most likely right, Stanley,” Epstein said, “but what’re you gonna do when you find them? With the O’Neills on the run, you haven’t got any witnesses.”

  “Maybe I’ll find the gun they used. Maybe I’ll encourage them to confess to their evil deeds. Maybe I’ll take their statements and hand them over to the newspapers.”

  “You can’t do that,” Maguire said. “You can’t go to the papers.”

  “Why not?”

  “Try to understand,” Epstein said. “There’s a lot of good cops out there, cops who hate guys like Patero. Believe me, Stanley. You haven’t been around long enough to know. Those good cops’ll help you when they can. But not if you’re gonna take it outside the Department.”

  “That means they’ll help me as long as there’s no risk to their precious reputations.”

  “Yeah,” Maguire shouted. “As long as they don’t get hurt. What do you think, everyone’s got your balls? Lemme tell ya something, Stanley, your chances of getting out of this are about a hundred to one. If you go public, if you crack the blue wall, you won’t have a friend in the job. Nobody. That’d reduce your chances to a million to one. You gotta find another way.”

  Moodrow sipped at his coffee. He needed friends, that was obvious enough, friends with access to the pool of information available to every detective. If he lost his temper, he’d have to dial the operator for information.

  “You’re right,” Moodrow said. “And l know it. I just got pissed for a minute. But it couldn’t hurt if Patero and Cohan …”

  “Pat Cohan?” Maguire shouted.

  “That’s right. Inspector Pat Cohan. Like I was saying, it couldn’t hurt if Patero and Cohan believe I’ll go to the papers. Think about it. As long as Patero and Cohan are willing to protect the shooters, nothing’s gonna happen. What I have to do is convince the bastards that an aggressive prosecution is in their own best interest. Patero and Cohan may be accessories after the fact, but they didn’t pull the trigger. They weren’t in that office when Melenguez showed up. The way I see it, my job is to put a killer in the electric chair, not reform the New York Police Department. But that doesn’t mean I can’t bluff.”

  As he spoke, Moodrow began to ask himself questions. Would he be satisfied to get the killers of Luis Melenguez? Or did Patero and Cohan have to pay as well? How would he accumulate enough real evidence to convict the shooters? Forced confessions were fine for criminals like the Playtex Burglar, but judges were quick to toss them out in trials involving the death penalty. Defendants in capital cases always had lawyers who always appealed their convictions.

  “What I need right now is a photograph of Santo. A photo and a last name. Which means I have to gain access to the mug books.”

  “You know he’s got a record?” Maguire asked. “Suppose he’s not in there.”

  “He’s there, Paul. I could smell it on him. But even if I’m wrong, I could always go with my memory and … but don’t worry about it. He’s there.”

  What Moodrow was about to say, what he held back, was that he could always go with his memory and a police artist. It was the word ‘police’ that brought him up short. There were any number of artists living on the Lower East Side. They came because the neighborhood bordered fashionable Greenwich Village and because the rents were cheap. There was no reason why Moodrow couldn’t go to one of them. No reason why he couldn’t keep his business to himself.

  “The books can’t leave the precinct,” Maguire said. “You’d catch a suspension for even tryin’ it.”

  “What about Inzerillo?” Epstein asked. “He still the desk officer on the late tour?”

  “Yeah, last I heard.”

  “I think what he oughta do is get Stanley inside late at night, when it’s quiet. We could stash him in the basement, bring him the books one at a time. Inzerillo’s a decent guy. I think he’ll go along.”

  “I got a better idea. I wanna send him over to the Thirteenth on Twenty-first Street. I got some friends over there. Detectives. I could just take him over, show him the books.”

  Epstein shifted in his chair. He picked up his mug, found it empty and handed it to Moodrow for a refill. “It’s too risky. Half the cops in the city know Stanley’s face. It might get back to Patero. We have to get him in without being seen. The duty sergeant’s the ranking officer on the late tour. If we can get Inzerillo to cooperate-and I’m sure he’ll cooperate-we can bring Stanley through the side door. It’s not that big a deal, really.”

  “No,” Maguire admitted, “it’s not such a big deal. I’ve done it myself. Sometimes with a reluctant witness, you have to guarantee they won’t get recognized. How long will it take you to set it up with Inzerillo?”

  “A few days. At most.”

  It was only eleven-thirty and Moodrow’s patience had already worn down to nothing. What he wanted to do was get to work. He could smell his quarry, like a hungry wolf crossing the track of a lame deer. The whole thing was going to be easy. He was sure of it. Find Santo and use him to find Luis Melenguez’s killers. What could be simpler?

  But there was no way he could avoid spending the afternoon (and the evening, too, in all probability) with Kate. After all, she was coming at his request.

  It wasn’t, he told himself, that he didn’t love and want her. It wasn’t that at all. But love wasn’t something you felt every minute of the day. Sometimes you were preoccupied. Sometimes you had important things to do. Sometimes you had better things to do.

  Moodrow looked arou
nd his apartment, trying to imagine Kate Cohan living there. He saw a living room, two bedrooms and an eat-in kitchen. Nine hundred square feet, all furnished in solid maple. Maple was better than pine, but it was still a long way from the oak and mahogany Kate Cohan was used to. Plus, the living room carpet was threadbare. And the walls needed painting. And the windows stuck in their frames. And whenever he tried to do something about the cockroaches, they retreated to the Sawitzkys’ apartment, only to be chased back. Mrs. Sawitzky was a demon with the Flit.

  What was the point? The Lower East Side of Manhattan was never going to be suburbia. No matter how many coats of paint Moodrow threw up on its walls. No matter how many gallons of insecticide he poured beneath the sink or behind the icebox. Kate would just have to live with it, because he wasn’t about to move. He wasn’t about to spend the rest of his life chasing her middle-class dreams. The price was too high. Just ask Pat Cohan.

  He tried to picture Kate’s face, the spray of freckles across the bridge of her nose, the firm jaw and bright blue eyes. But the image that kept forcing itself into his mind was of his mother armed with a hatpin, of mounted cops urging their horses into a crowd of striking workers. He could hear the accents: Italian, Yiddish, Russian, Polish. He could hear the horse scream as the hatpin slammed home. He could hear the terrified shout of the cop as he came off the horse.

  The phone rang and Moodrow, still preoccupied, was halfway to the door by the time he realized it wasn’t the doorbell. He walked back into the kitchen and picked up the receiver.

  “Hello?”

  “Stanley, it’s me.”

  “Kate?” Moodrow looked up at the clock. It was almost noon. “Where are you?”

  “I’m home.”

  “Home?”

  “In Bayside. Daddy and I had a terrible fight. I can’t come over. Daddy’s forbidden me to come over.”

  What it is, Moodrow thought, is that if you’re not an adult at age twenty-two, you never will be.

  “Why don’t you tell your daddy to go fuck himself.”

  “Stanley, don’t use that language.”

  “Because your daddy’s a crook.”

  “What?” Her voice rose an octave. “How can you say that?”

  “That’s why you’re living in that house in Bayside. Because your daddy’s been taking bribes for the last thirty-five years.”

  “That’s a horrible thing to say. Daddy would never …”

  “You’re gonna find out about it sooner or later, Kate. Pat Cohan is as crooked as they come and what he’s trying to do is have me follow in his crooked footsteps.”

  “Why are you telling me this? What do you want me to do?”

  Moodrow took a moment to think about it. “What I want you to do is go into the bedroom, undress, and step in front of the mirror. Take a good look at yourself. What you’re gonna see is the body of a woman, not a child. And what you have to do is let your mind catch up to your body. The shit’s gonna hit the fan, Kate. It’s gonna hit real soon and your father’s got his face right in front of the blades.”

  It was Kate’s turn to think about it. When she spoke again, she was in control, her voice almost cold. “Are you telling me that you, Stanley, you are going to do something to get my father in trouble?” She hesitated again. “That you’re going to put my father in jail?”

  “I’m a detective, Kate, and I’m investigating a murder. Your father didn’t commit the murder, but he’s trying to cover it up. He’s impeding the investigation.”

  “Can you prove this?”

  “Not in a courtroom. Not yet.”

  “I didn’t think so.”

  “Look, Kate, I didn’t set out to get your father. Things just happen. They happen and then you have to make decision. A decision about yourself. Remember Father Ryan’s penance? I’m sure it came as something of a surprise, but once he gave it out, you had to do what your conscience told you was right. Personally, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with making love. In fact, I think there’s something wrong with not making love. But fornication is nothing compared to murder. Nothing. Go talk to your father. Tell him everything I’ve told you. See what he says.”

  There was nothing more to be said, but Moodrow couldn’t bring himself to hang up the phone. “Listen, Kate,” he continued after a moment, “I know how much this is hurting you. I know how much you love your father. But there’s no escape, now, for either one of us. What you have to do is look at it straight up and make a decision. There’s lots more I could tell you. About me and Sal Patero collecting payoffs from every pimp and bookie in the Seventh Precinct. About me not wanting to be anything more than an ordinary detective. About a neighbor of mine named Luis Melenguez who’s being shipped back to Puerto Rico in a box. You go talk to your father. Then, if you’re still interested, I’ll go through it blow by blow.”

  As he hung up the phone, Moodrow was only vaguely aware of what Kate’s loss (assuming he did lose her) would mean to him. He saw it as an obligation, a debt to be paid sometime in the future. Would it be crushing? He didn’t know. All he knew was that it wasn’t crushing at the moment. At the moment, what he wanted to do was get to work.

  He walked into the bedroom, found his jacket, shrugged into it, then went back to the living room for his overcoat. As he opened the door and stepped into the hallway, he felt absolutely certain that whatever happened, even if Kate walked away, even if they took his badge and gun, he could deal with it. Maybe he was the proverbial fool, rushing in where angels feared to tread, but if that was the case, he’d rather be a fool than an angel, anyway.

  It was cold outside, bitterly cold, but the small shops along Orchard Street were doing a brisk business. Feltly Hats, Sidney Undergarments, Blue Chip Handkerchiefs, Jack Zabusky’s Housewares. Many of the shops were down in basements, others up a half-flight. Merchandise was piled outside in cardboard boxes and housewives struggled to control their bored children as they pawed through the goods. One shop, the one Moodrow was looking for, bore the legend Seidenfeld Shoes in red letters. Below, in deference to a new breed of customer, a hand-painted addition announced Zapatos.

  The interior of Seidenfeld’s was so crowded with piled shoeboxes that Moodrow could barely move through the aisles. The younger students at St. Bridget’s were going to make their First Holy Communion on the following Sunday, and the girls needed white patent-leather shoes to go with their frilly white dresses.

  “Hey, Moe, where ya hidin’?”

  A completely bald head emerged from behind the cash register. “Ah, Stanley, so how’s by you? I heard you became a big-shot detective. Congratulations.”

  “Thanks, Moe. I’m looking for Marty.”

  “My son, the beatnik?”

  Moodrow grinned. He and Marty Seidenfeld had met in grammar school, attending the same classes with the same teachers through junior high. Then Marty had gone off to the High School of Music and Art while Moodrow remained on the Lower East Side. On Sundays, to make a little extra money, Marty often worked the shoppers, doing charcoal sketches (caricatures when he could get away with it) for a dollar apiece.

  “I need him to do me a favor, Moe. Is he around?”

  “He’s in the basement. Most likely smoking marijuana.”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “Do I look like Milton Berle? You can see the customers for yourself. An hour ago, the beatnik went to bring up fresh stock. Wait, he’ll come back walking like a drunk.”

  “Maybe you should call him up. If he’s doing what you say, I don’t wanna see it.”

  “You shouldn’t take offense, Stanley, but I can’t leave now. I’m the only one here. If I leave, the merchandise will follow me out of the store. Besides, a night in jail would do him some good. Maybe they’ll give him a haircut.”

  Moodrow walked out of the shop and down a flight of steps into a cold, musty basement.

  “Hey, Marty, you down here?” Much to Moodrow’s relief, there was no smell of marijuana in the basement.

 
“Over here.”

  Moodrow made his way to the back of the room where he found Marty Seidenfeld squatting in a tiny cleared space. Surrounded by shoeboxes, Seidenfeld was mixing oil paints on a small palette. The colors, applied directly from small tubes, must have been brilliant, but in the dim light cast by a single bulb they seemed as dull as a newspaper photograph to Moodrow.

  “Stanley Moodrow,” Marty called. “Like, what’s happening, man? What brings the po-lease to Seidenfeld’s glorious emporium?”

  “How can you paint in this light, Marty? How can you even see in this light?”

  “I paint in the dark to paint the darkness,” Seidenfield replied. He shook out his shoulder-length black hair, ran his fingers through a beard that would have been the envy of an Hasidic rabbi.

  “I need a favor, Marty. Not a battle. For old time’s sake.”

  The beat generation’s presence on the Lower East Side had been the subject of endless newspaper and magazine articles. Most condemned the movement for its open advocacy of free love and its covert advocacy of experimentation with drugs. A few journalists tried to be understanding, but the beats themselves couldn’t have cared less. They turned up their collective noses at all authority. Especially cops.

  “Check it out, baby, the man comes in the name of the past. He invokes the glory years of St. Stephen’s.”

  “C’mon, Marty, don’t bust my chops. I need you to do a sketch.”

  “Of what?”

  “Of someone I saw a few days ago.”

  “Like, you got a photograph I can use for a model?”

  “If I had a picture, what would I need you for?”

  “An attitude. The man comes with a chip on his shoulder.”

  “We’re talking about murder here. You understand, Marty? We’re talking about a poor slob who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”