Force of Nature

by Stephen Solomita

  “Two sixty. And it’s gettin’ soft as shit.”

  “Whatta youze benchin’?”

  “Three thirty.”

  “Y’ova the hill, Porky. I benched four twenty-five last mont.”

  “At the Favara Athletic Club?”

  “Very fuckin’ funny. It just so happens I belong to the Vertical Club on 61st Street. The dues is maw than ya pension.”

  He glanced around the room and, as if he’d thrown a switch, the old men huddled around the tables looked up and laughed softly. When he returned his attention to Moodrow, they fell back into immobility.

  “You shouldn’t make fun, Matty. One day you’re gonna get old, too. If your buddies don’t put a round between your eyes. I wanna see Dominick Favara.”

  “Who?” Once again the acolytes announced their appreciation with a low chuckle.

  “Dominick Favara. Also known as Little Bullets. Emperor of Blue Thunder.”

  “Blue Thunder? I thought that was some kinda Air Force crew. Ya know, like they do flyin’ shows and shit like that.”

  “Listen, fuckhead…” Almost involuntarily, Tilley took a step toward the gangster. He was wearing a charcoal Izod shirt with oversize sleeves and his arms were so tight the veins crawled over his flesh like blue snakes. Instead of reacting with his fists, however, the gangster stepped back and let his hand slide up toward his armpit.

  “Moodrow, keep this crazy fuck away from me. Youze got no cause ta be in this domicile. If youze make trouble, we’re gonna defend ourselves.”

  Moodrow put out a hand to restrain his partner. “Jimmy don’t know the neighborhood too good,” he said evenly. “He don’t understand that you’re a cultural landmark. He thinks you’re a regular scumbag like the rest of the fuckin’ mob.”

  Not a sound. Matty, despite his seven hundred dollar sports coat, was out of wisecracks and he clearly had to make a decision. Unfortunately, as decision-making was beyond his talents, when he spoke his voice was unsteady. “Dominick ain’t here.”

  “Really?” Moodrow said evenly.

  “No foolin’. He ain’t here.”

  “That means if I go out in the back and smash the shit outta that silver Mercedes with the license plates say ‘LilBull,’ he won’t be pissed about it?”

  “Why couldn’t his car be here and him be gone? Did youze think about that?”

  The game could have gone on forever, except that the back door opened and a small, serious man stepped through. He was extremely thin, with a sparse black beard and a matching yarmulke. His suit, a dark blue pinstripe, more suitable for January than August, was dusty and wrinkled. “My name is Morris Teitlebaum. I’m Dominick Favara’s attorney. One of his attorneys. Would you please tell me what your business is and why you’ve entered private property without permission or a warrant?”

  Moodrow was taken aback. The presence of a lawyer eliminated the possibility of threat as a tool. “Tell Dominick that Stanley Moodrow would like to speak with him on a matter that benefits both of us. Please.”

  “Mr. Favara is not here.”

  “Fuck that shit!” Moodrow’s roar filled the room. Even Matty lost his smirk. “He’s the fucking client. You’re the fucking lawyer. You don’t decide. Go tell him Stanley Moodrow is here and see what he says.”

  Morris Teitlebaum disappeared without a murmur, despite the obvious fact that he wasn’t intimidated by Moodrow’s outburst. Lawyers regard cops as slightly above Great Danes (but well below German Shepherds) in intelligence. And less of a threat than either. Cops, in turn, when referring to lawyers, invoke the one virtue which they (the cops) have in abundance: courage. Every cop dreams of being in a locked, soundproofed room with some lawyer who made him look like a fool on the witness stand.

  The wait seemed endless. Minutes went by, but the door remained closed. Finally, Moodrow asked Matty what was happening and the bodyguard inched back to cover the doorway. “Dominick don’t see so many people these days. He’s kinda semi-retired. Just like you’d be if ya had a fuckin’ brain in ya head.”

  Moodrow regarded him narrowly. “Favara’s my age. Fifty-five. I heard of wiseguys running the show when they’re eighty.”

  Matty shrugged his shoulders (a heavy motion that resembled a worker hoisting a side of beef) and started to whistle. They were waiting and that was it.

  Finally, after Tilley had become convinced that Dominick Favara was hotfooting out the back door while they cooled their heels in the front parlor, Morris Teitlebaum reappeared and motioned them inside.

  The room they entered was about one-third the size of the front room and light years removed from the dirt and grime outside. The rear of the Favara Athletic Club was a hospital room, replete with beeping monitors and a white uniformed nurse. Against the back wall, a single hospital bed, adjusted so the patient was nearly upright, held what appeared to be an old, shrunken man. This was Dominick Favara. His body was so thin his black eyes, enormous in a sharp face all bones and transparent flesh, bulged insanely. Thin plastic tubes ran from bags of fluid hanging from aluminum stands, one to his wrist and another to a large vein on his neck. Two other men, besides the nurse and Morris Teitlebaum, sat on chairs near the edge of the bed. All through the conversation, they kept their backs to Dominick Favara and their eyes on the two cops. Though they laughed on cue, their attention never wavered. Like prizefighters, they didn’t even blink.

  “Dominick,” Moodrow began. Then his voice trailed off. “I didn’t know about your sickness.”

  “Whatsa matter, Stanley? Ya see yaself? You and me, we’re the same fuckin’ age. Whatta ya think? Just ’cause the average lifespan is seventy-two, you got another fifteen years? A year ago I get a pain in my leg. A little pain, but it don’t go way. Naturally, I see a Jew doctor and he takes me to Sloan-Kettering Hospital where they put pieces of me under a microscope. Thirty-two thousand dollars and this little faggot comes to my bed and he says, ‘You got bone cancer. We gotta take the leg.’ I’m not happy, but I ain’t surprised, neither. I say, ‘Sure. Take the fuckin’ leg. I’m too young. I don’t wanna die yet.’ But what happens is the cancer comes back in my lungs, then my kidneys. Now I go on a machine ta clean my piss and my Jew doctor says I got between ten minutes and six months. Ya feel sorry fa me, Stanley?”

  Moodrow ignored him. “I gotta ask you for something, Dominick. Greenwood ripped you off today. Took your dope.”

  “Don’t say a word.” The little lawyer actually jumped at Moodrow and began to push him out of the room. “This is insane that you should come in this room with such a statement.”

  “Morris.” Favara’s voice was husky, but surprisingly strong, as if the very habit of authority was enough to power him, despite his weakness. “Take a hike, Morris.”

  “For God sake, Dominick, don’t say anything I can’t defend.”

  “Listen, Morris, me and Stanley go back to high school. I hated his asshole guts from the first day I met him, but I know he ain’t so stupid he should come here with the idea he’s gonna arrest me. He’s just a precinct flatfoot.” Suddenly, he dropped back against the pillow and his mouth twisted with pain. The nurse ran to his assistance and began to prepare an injection. Morris Teitlebaum, without a sign of sympathy, left the room.

  The drug took effect within seconds. Favara’s eyes reopened and he smiled a ghastly smile. He couldn’t have weighed more than eighty pounds. “There are things,” he said confidentially, “which even a Jew lawyer shouldn’t hear. Like ain’t it strange that what I sold all my life to the spics and the niggers should be goin’ in my own arm? The doctor gives me morphine, but after a couple weeks it don’t do shit. Then I switch to my own dope and it makes the pain better. The nurse says I should put it right in the intravenous. Let it drip continual, but ya know somethin’, Stanley? I like the rush. Does that make me a junkie?”

  Moodrow looked at him evenly. He obviously felt no compassion and no need to pretend that he did. “So who’s taking over when you kick, Dominick? Who’s the new king
of Blue Thunder?”

  Favara laughed. An ugly, rattling sound that made even his bodyguards wince. “Youze was always a kidda. Even back in high school when I hadda kick your ass a few times, yiz had a sense a humor.” Then the smile faded from his lips. “I ain’t got much energy these days, Stanley. Tell me what the fuck ya want and then get out.”

  Moodrow pulled no punches. “I want you to keep Blue Thunder off the streets for a week. You already know Greenwood took your dope, but he won’t be the one to put it back on the market. Somebody else is running Greenwood and the only way to find him is to pick up the dealer when he tries to put your dope into circulation. You know the heat’s been going down in the neighborhood over the last few weeks? You want it should continue indefinitely? We’ll never close it down until we get Levander Greenwood.”

  “Ya threatenin’ me, Stanley? That what ya doin’?”

  “I’m talking reality. I need your help, Dominick. I can’t take him without you.” Moodrow made the statement simply, then hesitated for a moment before he continued. “You do what I said and I’ll give you the name of whoever tries to sell your dope. After I find out where Greenwood’s holed up, I’ll give you the name.”

  Dominick Favara fell back against the pillow and signalled the nurse over. Her name tag—Ms. M. Favara—explained her presence in the room despite the sensitive nature of the discussion. Without asking, she filled a glass with juice from a thermal carafe and held it while he drank. Then she handed him a green, plastic oxygen mask and switched on a canister that stood at the head of the bed. For the next several minutes, while the patient sucked greedily at the pure oxygen hissing out of the tank, everyone waited. Then he passed the mask back to his nurse and smiled at them. “Soon comes the tubes. Tubes for the lungs. Tubes for the stomach. Make me look even prettier than I already am.” He smiled, as if he was talking about some distant relative, and folded his hands across his stomach.

  “We known each other fa how many years, Stanley? Forty-five years now and you never before come ta me fa my counsel or my help? Why cannot I rememba when youze invited me ta ya house fa coffee or fa dinner? What was you afraid I would do?”

  The two bodyguards, along with the nurse, began to chuckle. Moodrow looked confused and embarrassed. Tilley had never seen his partner caught off guard before and he didn’t quite understand what was bothering him. Or what Favara and company were laughing at. Then Favara held up his hand. “Don’t say nuttin’. Don’t talk. Youze figured America was a paradise. Youze figured youze would be a policeman and find justice. I couldn’t tell yiz how my feelings was hurt, but I neva tried ta push myself on youze. I said ta myself, Dominick, be patient, one day Stanley will come to you.’”

  Favara stopped, his efforts at speech producing only a breathless wheeze, but his bodyguards continued to laugh loudly. Even the nurse, probably a granddaughter, stared at the cops with open contempt. Then Tilley understood what the old man was doing. He was playing out the wedding scene from the Godfather. Where the undertaker, Amerigo Bonasero, goes to Don Corleone for vengeance.

  “Well it looks like you were right, Dominick,” Moodrow admitted. “Cause here I am.”

  “Yes, yes, but do youze come ta me with respect? Do youze come ta me fa justice? No, youze say ‘I give you the man’s name. I pay you with the man’s name.’ What did I ever do that you should treat me so badly?”

  Suddenly, Moodrow did a doubletake, apparently realizing the import of Dominick’s speeches. His face broke into a quick smile, then immediately composed itself. “Tell me what you want from me?” he finally asked.

  “If youze came ta me in the beginning, in the name of friendship, this Greenwood animal would already be in ya hands. Do yiz know this to be true?”

  It wasn’t true. Virtually every dealer on the Lower East Side had been trying for Greenwood. Apparently, nobody had even gotten close. Moodrow, however, nodded his head, then bowed it contritely. “Dominick,” he whispered, “please, be my friend.”

  This time the audience literally roared with laughter. In spite of their vigilance, the two bodyguards shook until tears ran down their faces. In their eyes, the humiliation of this supercop, this hero of the neighborhood, was worth any price.

  Favara’s bones, his knees and elbows, little pyramids beneath the sheets, trembled with pleasure. “Youze didn’t say my right name, Stanley.”

  Moodrow hesitated for a moment, then raised his head until he met the mobster’s eyes. “Don Favara,” he said. “Please do me this favor.”

  Slowly, wincing back the pain, Favara’s hand crept from beneath the sheets. His wrist and fingers were skeletal, the skin and nails yellow with nicotine and he shook with the effort of extending his hand toward Moodrow’s face. Everything else in the room had stopped and only Favara’s quick, labored breathing compromised the sudden vacuum. “To show your love,” he explained.

  Moodrow once again hesitated. If Tilley hadn’t heard Moodrow’s prediction before they’d entered the Favara Athletic Club, he would have accepted his partner’s portrayal of a man torn by doubt and hatred without question. Slowly, Moodrow bent forward, his head moving in short, tight jerks, and touched the hand to his lips, then waited while Favara withdrew it.

  “Youze understand,” Favara said, “that I ain’t sayin’ I got anything ta do with this ‘Blue Thunder’ shit ya talkin’ about. But what I am sayin’ is if youze should see any ‘Blue Thunder’ on the street this week, it won’t be mine.”

  19

  INSTEAD OF RETURNING TO the car, the two cops walked up Mulberry to Houston Street, then turned east a couple of blocks to a hole-in-the-wall workingman’s bar with the name Cappolino’s hanging over the door. In spite of the Italian name, the bartender, the barmaid and the four customers clustered together at one end of the long, pitted bar were all speaking Spanish when Moodrow and Tilley stepped inside. The bartender, a small, wiry man with a strawberry birthmark covering the left side of his face, calmly strolled the length of the bar and greeted Moodrow. Enormous quantities of drugs are dealt in the hundreds of bars on the Lower East Side, most of it by independents who use the barrooms for offices. Nonetheless, the owners of these bars (especially the trendy neon-lit emporiums catering to the uptown trade) are fully aware that alcohol is only one of many drugs consumed on the premises and that, in some cases, the ready availability of cocaine is the only attraction they have.

  Except at Cappolino’s. One of the last of a vanishing breed, it was a bar dedicated to the consumption of alcohol. It was not a place to be seen; just a place to drink.

  Moodrow introduced the bartender as Paco Assante and the barmaid as his wife, Carmen. The customers, fully aware Moodrow and Tilley were cops, ignored them completely. Two wore hardhats and all were covered with dust, the sweat stains under their arms caked with dirt. They drank their shots and sipped their beers as if they were in a different universe.

  “What could I get you, Sergeant?” Paco asked. His wife, seated at a table with the National Enquirer in her lap, looked up and blew a kiss at the two cops. Like nearly every one of the small business owners in the neighborhood, they knew Stanley Moodrow and saw him as an ally; an ally, as Tilley was beginning to understand, even if their affairs ran against the current of standard police procedure.

  “Caulfield’s Wild Turkey. A double. No ice. Jimmy? You drinking?”

  “Yeah, why not. You got a Schaefer, Paco?”

  Paco turned his head away when Moodrow ordered the cheap bourbon. He looked like he was going to puke. “Don’t drink that shit, Sergeant. Have something decent. I ain’t gonna make you pay, am I?”

  Moodrow just shook his head and waited while Paco dragged a bottle of Schaefer from the refrigerator under the bar and passed it (without a glass) over to Jim Tilley.

  “Thanks, Paco. C’mon.” Moodrow, snatching both his glass and the bottle of bourbon, led his partner to a wooden booth tucked in a corner and collapsed heavily on the bench. To Tilley’s utter amazement, when Moodrow drained the gl
ass, his hand shook hard enough to spill some of the liquor onto his fingers.

  “What’s with you, Moodrow? You have a hard time kissing ass? I thought you were putting on a show back there.”

  “Did you see that guy? How could he be alive like that? He weighed about twenty pounds. Nobody could be alive like that. When we were kids he was one of the hardest guys in the neighborhood. I’m talking about the Lower East Side just after the War. Scratch the dope and it wasn’t that much different than it is today. Favara’d fight anybody, anytime. Fight just for the fuck of it. Now he weighs twenty pounds and they gotta wash his piss.”

  Tilley sipped at his beer and shrugged his shoulders knowingly. “For Christ sake, Moodrow, it’s an act of God.”

  “Which one?” He straightened up in his seat, the empty glass still in his hand. “Was it the gentle Jesus? Or the one that made the flood? Maybe the one that used Job to play party games with the devil. Or Allah with his flaming fucking sword.”

  For a minute, Tilley couldn’t think of anything to say. Moodrow was really shook up, which didn’t make the slightest sense considering the nature of their business. “Look, man, an hour ago we were standing in a room with two dead bodies, including a baby, and you didn’t say a word about it. Then you see one asshole with cancer and you start talking about God. I don’t get the point.”

  “That’s different. You could fight Levander Greenwood. You could be faster and smarter. You could even get lucky and duck at the right time. Shit, he could fall down the fucking stairs ten minutes from now and it would at least be the end of his killing. I don’t like these tubes. I don’t like little things that get in your body and make you weigh twenty pounds. I survived thirty fucking years on the job, but I ain’t gonna survive some little bug you can’t even see. It ain’t right.”

  “You’re talking like you already got the disease.” Tilley said it slowly, one word at a time. He was terrified of some revelation. Every minute he spent with Moodrow, his respect for his partner increased. In the 7th Precinct, Moodrow was God-like, an irresistible force spreading itself over the community. God ain’t supposed to get sick.