A Piece of the Action

Fourteen

Greta Bloom departed, carrying her little circle of energy with her. Moodrow finished dressing in the island of calm she left behind, then he, too, left. It was cold outside, as expected, and Moodrow felt the urge to break into a trot, to begin his roadwork as he had so many times before. It had been much simpler when he was still fighting. An opponent stood in front of you, gloves up, and you either beat him or you didn’t. The whole thing was over in a few minutes. It was over and the result became part of your record forever.

Now, he could see any number of ways to win and lose at the same time. For instance, to put Inspector Cohan where he belonged while losing Inspector Cohan’s daughter. Or to marry Kate and find her dragging a lifetime load of resentment into their marriage. What was clearly lost was the fantasy that’d carried him through all the hours in the gym. The June-moon-spoon fantasy that had the two of them, Stanley Moodrow and Kate Cohan, living happily ever after.

He walked down First Avenue, past Houston, to Stanton Street, then turned left for a block, then right on Orchard. In the summer, the shopkeepers along Orchard Street stood outside, hawking their wares to passersby. Now, the doors and windows were shut tight against the cold, but, still, an occasional shopkeeper stood by the glass with his back to an empty store. One and all, they knocked on the window and waved to the former cop who’d protected their merchandise, to the local boy who ran through the streets in search of glory.

Moodrow waved in return, but kept on walking. He was a block from Pitt Street before he admitted where he was going. Begin at the scene of the crime. That’s what the instructor at the Academy had told the new recruits. In this case, of course, the crime scene wasn’t exactly fresh, but, according to Maguire, there were witnesses who hadn’t come forward with the truth, who could make sense of Pat Cohan’s bullshit.

He went over it in his mind as he walked toward the doorway of 800 Pitt Street. The pimp’s name was Al O’Neill. His wife’s name was Betty. The prostitute who’d serviced Melenguez was named Mariana. He had no last name for her and no intention of questioning her, either. At least not right away. He had to assume that Patero and Cohan were covering for somebody. If he left O’Neill alone for any length of time, O’Neill would call that someone and that someone would call Patero. The last thing Moodrow needed was Patero showing up before the interrogation was completed.

Moodrow rapped sharply on the door, then stepped in front of the peephole, which looked newly installed. After a moment, a man’s voice called out: “Whatta ya want?”

Moodrow held up his shield. “Police,” he announced.

“Whatta ya want?”

“Open the door.”

“You got a warrant?”

Moodrow answered by driving the heel of his right shoe into the peephole. The door held, but the muffled cry of pain from inside the building was so pleasing that Moodrow decided to give it another try. The door opened before he could deliver.

“Ya cut me.” The man holding his eye was fat and middle-aged. A thick bandage covered his forehead and his mouth was grotesquely swollen.

“Try being more hospitable. Then you won’t draw these hostile reactions.” Moodrow stepped inside.

“I can’t give no more. Ya hittin’ me up every other day.” The fat man stood his ground, arms folded across his chest.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Al. I’m here to investigate a homicide. You remember Luis Melenguez? Got blown away on December 26. One day after Christmas.”

O’Neill, shocked, took a careful look at the huge cop standing in front of him. He, himself, was a large man, heavily muscled beneath the fat that coated his body, but his head barely came up to the detective’s shoulder.

“The cops already checked that out,” he said. “It’s been taken care of. You should call your boss before …”

“I wanna go back in the office where it happened.”

“Look …”

“Just fucking do it, Al.”

O’Neill shrugged and led Moodrow past the staircase and down a hallway to the back of the building. The office, Moodrow noted, was a long way from the stairs. Melenguez didn’t just happen to wander back here. Something must have drawn him down the corridor. Something loud and violent.

“Okay if I make sure my wife is dressed?” O’Neill asked.

Moodrow answered by drawing his.38 and holding it down by his side. “Don’t say a word, Al. Not a word. And you better hope there’s no surprise behind that door. Because if there is, I’m gonna shoot you first.”

“Are you crazy?”

“Open the door.”

Betty O’Neill was seated behind the desk when the door swung open. She looked up in surprise, muttering something inaudible.

“Her jaw’s wired,” O’Neill explained. “She had an accident.”

“What about her hair? That an accident, too?” Betty O’Neill’s skull was shaved in three places.

“Yeah. She had stitches.”

“Where’d the accident happen?” Moodrow shoved the.38 back in its holster.

“On Houston Street. She got hit by a car.”

“That right, Betty? You get hit by a car?”

“Yeah,” Betty mumbled. “I got run over.”

“You make a report?”

“Huh?”

“An accident report. Did you make an accident report?”

No answer. Moodrow let the silence stand while he checked the room. He went through the desk, finding a.22 caliber revolver which he pocketed, then walked over to a door at the back of the room and opened it to reveal a tiny bathroom. There was a window set high up on the wall, too narrow and too far up for an adult to crawl through.

“All right, here’s what we’re gonna do,” Moodrow announced. “Betty, you’re gonna go in the toilet while I question your husband. When I’m finished with him, I’m gonna bring you out and ask you the same questions. What I’m sayin’ here is that I wouldn’t like it if you gave different answers. Let’s go.”

Betty O’Neill’s face reddened. She tried to protest, but her words were a hopeless jumble. Not that it mattered, because Moodrow wasn’t interested anyway. He took Betty’s arm and hauled her to her feet.

“Well, well, well. Take a look at this.” He ran a finger along the dark scars on the veins of her left forearm. “Ya know somethin’, I bet if I looked real hard I could find where you hid your dope. And if I did, I bet I could get you thrown in the Tombs for a few days. And if that happens, you’d have to kick the habit cold turkey. You probably wouldn’t like that, would you?” The look in her eyes, a mixture of absolute terror and fierce hatred, gave him all the answer he needed. He stroked her face and smiled. “But don’t worry. What I’m doing here is investigating a homicide. You help me out and I’m willing to overlook your nasty habit. You fucking lie to me, on the other hand, and you’ll be puking your guts out before the sun goes down. And you might wanna keep in mind that sunset comes early this time of year.”

Betty O’Neill walked into the small bathroom and closed the door. Moodrow motioned Al O’Neill into the chair behind the desk and turned on a small radio, setting the volume loud enough to guarantee that Betty wouldn’t overhear the conversation. Then he sat on the edge of the desk, two feet from Al O’Neill, and grinned.

“You did it, Al. You killed Melenguez.”

“You’re crazy.”

“Melenguez was shot from inside this room. This room just happens to be your office. I know Melenguez came here to get laid, because I know the name of the girl who took care of him. You killed him. You or your junkie wife. What I wanna know is why.”

Moodrow was sure that Al O’Neill hadn’t killed Luis Melenguez. He was almost sure that the killer and the man who’d smacked Betty O’Neill around were one and the same. His problem was that he couldn’t come back to 800 Pitt Street. The minute he left, O’Neill would call his contact who’d call his contact who’d call his contact. Eventually, it would get back to Patero and Cohan. That would be the end of that.

“I didn’t kill him. I wasn’t even here. I was checking one of the girls. Ya know what I’m sayin’, right? She didn’t wanna service her john. Didn’t wanna do what he asked her.”

“And the little lady? Where was she?”

“Betty was visiting her mother.”

“Wrong, Al. According to the first cops on the scene, the little woman was in the building.” Without shifting his weight, Moodrow slapped Al O’Neill across the face. It wasn’t much of a blow, by Moodrow’s standards, but it came so fast that O’Neill, unprepared, flew out of the chair.

“The thing about it is,” Moodrow said calmly, “that I know you keep your money and your records in this office. Which means that nobody gets in here without your permission. You were here, Al. In the room. Now, I can accept that maybe it wasn’t a murder. Maybe he surprised you and you shot him because you thought he was a thief. I could buy that. But what I can’t buy is that you weren’t here. And I’ll thank you for not insulting my intelligence by insisting on that particular piece of bullshit.”

O’Neill dragged himself off the floor, then pulled the chair upright. “I didn’t do it. I didn’t kill Melenguez. How could I mistake that little spic for a thief? He looked like he was right off the fuckin’ boat.”

“You saying your old lady killed him?”

“No, I ain’t sayin’ that.”

“Lemme see if I got this straight. You were in the room, you and Betty, but neither one of you killed Luis Melenguez. Does that mean someone else was here, too?”

O’Neill slumped in the chair. “Figure it out for yourself,” he muttered.

Moodrow held out his hand, palm forward, men slowly curled his fingers, one at a time. His hands, small for so large a man, were still huge by ordinary standards. The knuckles had been so flattened by years of workouts with a sixty-pound bag that his fist looked like a block of wood.

“I’m not leaving here without answers, Al. It’s that simple.”

“So what’re you gonna do? Kick my ass? Throw me in jail? If I talk to you, I’m dead. Simple as that, cop. I’m dead.”

“You might wanna consider something, Al.” Moodrow, knowing that if he was in O’Neill’s position he wouldn’t talk either, was thinking as fast as he could. Which translated as saying the first thing that came into his head. “New York is a death penalty state. Now, I got a good idea who’s covering for you down at the precinct, but this case isn’t in the precinct anymore. The Hispanic Improvement Society is pushing the mayor and the mayor’s pushing the commissioner. That means the case has got to get cleared. Somebody’s goin’ down, Al, and I don’t see any reason why it can’t be you.”

“It wasn’t me.”

“You’re not thinking logically, Al. You were here. In this fucking room. You think I can’t prove it? Look, I’d like to nail the bastard who pulled the trigger. I’m a cop, a hunter. I don’t like settling for a rabbit when I’m after a bear. But if I gotta settle, I gotta settle. I’m not in a position where I can go back without a trophy.” Moodrow paused long enough to grab O’Neill’s face and raise it up until their eyes met. “You know what’s gonna happen if I walk upstairs and start leaning on the whores? I’ll tell ya, buddy. What’s gonna happen is two or three of ’em are gonna say they saw you come out of that office right after the shots were fired. That gives you opportunity. The same two or three, plus two or three more, are gonna say they heard your wife screaming just before the shots were fired. If you and Betty were the only people in the room, then you were the one kicking her ass. Now here’s what the prosecutor’s gonna say. He’ll say that Melenguez, on his way out, heard the screams and came riding to the rescue. He came through that door and you, in a blind rage, shot him down. Which gives you a motive. Motive and opportunity. When the jury sees the medical reports on your wife, they won’t be asking what happened to the gun.”

“Whatever you’re gonna do, it’s better than dyin’. I talk to you, I won’t live a week.”

Moodrow let his left fist fly. “You don’t talk to me, you might not live through the day.” He peered down at O’Neill, wondering if he’d actually knocked the man out. He’d never knocked a man out with a jab. But no, O’Neill wasn’t unconscious, he was just smart enough to stay on the floor.

“Hey, Al, I’m sorry,” Moodrow continued. “I don’t actually wanna hurt you, but I need to make you understand that I’m serious here. I need to make you understand that after I establish motive and opportunity, I’m gonna drag your ass uptown and persuade you to confess to this awful crime. Now, you shouldn’t take this to mean that I can’t appreciate your point of view. I can see you’re in a tough spot and maybe it’s better you should risk gettin’ electrocuted five years from now than risk gettin’ blown away next week. But I got my own priorities.”

Moodrow reached down, grabbed O’Neill by the shirt, hauled his 225 pounds upright and slammed him into the chair. He was about to resume his interrogation when he heard a voice in the hallway.

“Al, where the hell are you? What’re you doin’?”

Moodrow, caught by surprise, looked around for a place to hide, then thought better of it. The panic in Al O’Neill’s face gave him a better idea.

“C’mon in,” Moodrow said. “I’m in the office.”

The man who walked into the room was young and blond. He hesitated when he saw Moodrow, but only for a second. “Hey, what’s doin’?” he said.

“Nothin’ much,” Moodrow answered. “How’s by you?”

The man turned to O’Neill without answering. “I got a delivery for you, Al,” he said. “Collect.” He dropped a small paper bag on the desk and stepped back while a sweating Al O’Neill counted out two hundred dollars, then handed it over.

“All right?” O’Neill asked without looking up.

“Fine, Al. Just fine.” The man started to turn away, then checked himself. “I think you cut yourself, Al. Up there next to your eye. Better put some iodine on that. You don’t wanna get infected. Also, your front door’s open. That’s why I came in. I figured something might be wrong.”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Moodrow said, standing up and turning toward the much smaller man. “We’re just havin’ a conversation. A private conversation, if you take my meaning. You could shut the door on your way out.”

“I’ll do that.”

Moodrow watched the man retreat, heard the front door slam, then turned back to Al O’Neill. “What’s in the bag, Al? You gettin’ a condom delivery?”

O’Neill groaned, but made no effort to prevent Moodrow from emptying the contents of the paper bag on the desk.

“This looks like dope to me.” Moodrow pointed at the forty small glassine envelopes. “It looks like a lot of dope. The little lady can’t be using all this horse. You gotta be supplying it to the girls. At a profit, of course.”

O’Neill, to Moodrow’s surprise, burst into tears. “He made you for a cop,” the fat man blubbered. “I know he made you.”

“You worried about a small-time pusher? A big man like you?”

“He’s connected. If he talks, I’m dead. And he’s gonna talk.”

O’Neill was close to caving in, to spilling his guts. Moodrow could feel it. The fat man was like a little kid standing by the edge of a swimming pool. He was afraid of the water, but once he got wet, he’d stay in there all afternoon. The temptation was to push him over the edge, but Moodrow instinctively knew that wouldn’t work. He knew that this particular child had to be convinced that jumping was in his own best interest.

“Tell me what you wanna do, Al,” Moodrow finally said.

“What?”

“Look, whoever that kid was, he’s already seen you, right? We can’t take that back. Plus, a murder was committed in this room. We can’t take that back, either. So, you take it from here. You tell me what you wanna do.”

“I wanna get my ass outta here in a hurry,” O’Neill said without hesitation. “I got money put away in the bank. I wanna take it and run.”

“Good. I’m glad you said that, because it means you know that going to jail won’t protect you. Whoever’s after you can reach right into the Tombs and pluck you out. Am I right?”

“Keep goin’.”

“Okay, you told me what you want. Being that fair is fair, I’m gonna tell you what I want. I want you to tell me what happened here on December 26. All of it. I wanna know who was here and why they were here. I wanna know who they worked for and if any cops were involved. Once you make me believe that you’re telling the truth, you get to write everything down in your own handwriting and sign it. Then your wife does the same thing and we stroll over to the drug store on Delancey Street so we can have your signatures notarized. After we’re all finished, I’ll let you run as far and as fast as you can. And I won’t ask where you’re going. How’s that sound?”

O’Neill stared up at Moodrow, his look a mixture of confusion and hope. “I don’t know what to do,” he admitted. “All I know is that I’m screwed.”

“Why don’t you start with the night of December twenty-sixth. Somebody came into this office and assaulted your wife. Why? Were they here to rob you? Was it another pimp? Tell me what happened, Al. These people are gonna to kill you if they get the chance. You don’t owe them anything.”

“There were three of them,” Al O’Neill finally began, “and they were here because I was late with my payments.”