A Piece of the Action

Fifteen

January 18

Steppy Accacio was in a towering rage. In the first place, it was only eleven o’clock in the morning, way too early to be dealing with major problems. In the second place, his bitch of a Sicilian wife was nowhere to be found.

“Where ya hidin’, Angie?” he shouted. “Ya humpin’ the paperboy? Ya humpin’ the goddamn Fuller Brush man? Who ya humpin’, Angie?”

Accacio roared through the house, screaming his wife’s name at the top of his lungs. He knew he was wasting time, wasting valuable time, but he couldn’t help himself. When his temper went off, it went off. There was nothing he could do except ride it out.

Still, he’d feel better when he found his lazy wife and gave her a few good reasons to answer him the first time he called her name. When he let the pressure roaring in his temples out through his fists.

He was down in the basement, still shouting, when he heard his Cadillac (his brand-new Cadillac) pull into the garage. There she was, out shopping when he wanted her. Playing around in the department stores. Buying some kind of bullshit they didn’t need and never would need.

“Welcome home, bitch,” he hissed as she came into the kitchen with a bag of groceries in her arms.

“I got fresh rolls,” Angie said, holding the paper bag between them. “And some fruits. For you breakfast.”

Steppy Accacio slapped the groceries out of her hand. The truth was that he didn’t care what was in the bag. He didn’t give two shits if it was filled with hundred-dollar bills. The bitch was gonna get what she deserved. Even if she didn’t deserve it. He slapped her in the face, then slapped her again.

“I want you here when I want you here,” he shouted. “I don’t want you somewheres else.”

She made no move to defend herself, her arms limp at her sides, head lowered. For some reason, this made Steppy Accacio even angrier. It made him want to really work her over, to bust her ribs, crack her nose, split her lips. He could almost taste the blood.

But there was no time for it. Joe Faci and Santo Silesi were on their way over. If he did the job on Angie, she’d require some kind of medical attention and that would only complicate what was already getting out of hand.

He reached out and pulled her coat off, then grabbed her blouse and yanked it so hard the buttons flew across the kitchen.

“Get out of those clothes,” he ordered. “You could sit up in your bedroom for the rest of the day. I don’t wanna see ya dressed. Maybe you won’t go nowheres if ya tits’re hangin’ out.”

Angie, already tugging at the hooks on her bra, started to walk past him, but he pushed her back against the kitchen table. “Do it here. I wanna make sure ya don’t defy me. Bein’ as ya not a person I could trust.”

Steppy grinned, enjoying her obvious humiliation. She was probably blushing, he decided, even if you couldn’t see it through that dark Sicilian skin. Angie was a devout Catholic, and despite all the bullshit about Sicilians being so lusty, sex with her was an obligation, like going to church on Christmas and Easter. Ordinarily, he much preferred the kinds of games he played with the whores under his control, but this was different. This was an opportunity. He felt the blood pounding in his temples start to pound in his crotch.

“Nice tits, Angie. I admit it. Ya got a nice set of bazoomas.”

And it was the truth, too. Maybe, someday, their kids (if they ever managed to have kids) would drag those grapefruits down to her waist. But for now they rode high, pointing right at his lips. He reached out and took her nipples between his fingers and twisted until he was sure it hurt. She didn’t cry out, of course. She never cried out.

“Keep goin’, Angie. I’m gonna give ya what ya deserve.”

He watched her step out of her shoes. Watched her wriggle out of her skirt, then slide her panties down over her hips.

“Open ya legs. Open ’em wide. That’s a good girl. That’s a very good girl. See how nice I am when ya give me what I want? Now, turn around, Angie. Show me that sweet brown ass.”

He stepped forward, pushing his crotch into her buttocks, then slammed her down against the tabletop.

“Reach behind ya, Angie,” he hissed. “Reach behind and take it out for me. I’m feelin’ lazy at the moment.”

Thirty minutes later, when Joe Faci and Santo Silesi finally arrived, Steppy Accacio’s mood had gone from bad to good to bad again. The way Accacio saw it, the small, fragile niche he’d managed to carve for himself on New York’s Lower East Side, his stepping stone to bigger and better things, was being threatened by forces he’d thought were under control. True, he didn’t have all the facts yet. Maybe, just maybe, his young nephew had misjudged the situation. Maybe Sandy had simply panicked. But one thing for sure, the bosses who’d given him permission to occupy his little niche would yank that permission the minute they felt he couldn’t control his territory. There was no shortage of aspiring businessmen looking for the same chance he’d been given.

Accacio didn’t bother showing Faci and his nephew into the den. With Angie naked in their bedroom, there was little chance of being overheard. He didn’t bother with espresso and pastries, either. What Accacio felt as he led the two men into the living room was cold hard fear. It was like being nineteen years old and back in the army again, back in that minefield in France. The lieutenant had led them into that field as if they were taking a stroll through Central Park. It wasn’t until the first mine exploded, showering the platoon with bloody chunks of PFC Trevor Jones, that the dumb bastard figured it out. The following hour had been the longest in Steppy Accacio’s life. He still dreamed about it.

“Awright, Sandy,” Accacio said, his voice surprisingly quiet, even to himself, “let’s hear it.”

“There’s not much to tell. I’m supposed to go into O’Neill’s twice a week to drop off forty bags of dope. If he needs anything extra, he sends one of the whores out to pick it up. Yesterday, I’m making my regular delivery and I find the front door wide open. I knock and call out, but O’Neill doesn’t answer, which is very unusual because he mostly stays by that door. Now I don’t like the situation, but I still wanna deliver the dope because I’m finished for the morning and if O’Neill doesn’t take it, I’m gonna have to hold onto the forty bags all day. So, I’m walking back to the office, still calling O’Neill’s name, when someone says, ‘C’mon in.’ Me, I think it’s O’Neill, but when I go inside, I find this cop sitting on O’Neill’s desk. My first instinct is to get the hell out of there, but I manage to hold together and make the delivery. I figured the cop would be more suspicious if I ran.”

“But you didn’t actually hear what they were talkin’ about,” Accacio said. “For all ya know, they coulda been talkin’ about the weather. I mean it coulda been the cop was tryin’ to shake the pimp down. Happens all the time.”

“I thought about that and I guess it’s possible. But what keeps bothering me is the look on O’Neill’s face when I walked into the office. I thought the pimp was gonna have a heart attack. I’m telling you, Steppy, his face was dead white, like he was looking into his own coffin. Then the cop tells me that him and O’Neill are having a private conversation.”

“Did O’Neill say anything? Anything at all.”

“Not a word. But his hands were shaking so bad, he could hardly count out the two hundred.”

“If the situation was so fucking serious, how come you waited this long to tell me?” Accacio’s voice rose as he asked the question. He could feel his anger returning.!

“The kid didn’t do nothin’ wrong,” Joe Faci interrupted. “Him and the hebes had to go to Jersey in the afternoon. Then he had to go back in the projects at night. He called me as soon as he was finished, but you was already outta touch by then.”

“Yeah,” Sandy said quickly. “The thing was I didn’t wanna tell Jake before I spoke to you. The job we had to do in Jersey with SpeediFreight? If I didn’t show up for that, Jake would’ve known something was wrong. He’s not a dope, Steppy. He’s smart, like all the Jews. What I did was go through the day like nothing happened. Then, after I got finished in the projects, I found Joe and told him exactly what I’m telling you.”

Steppy Accacio leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. His nephew’s story was based on nothing more than instinct. Instinct, Steppy knew, was important. You couldn’t really make your way in this business without it, but you could also let it get away from you. Facts were a lot better, but sometimes facts were hard to come by. You might spend weeks digging out the facts and, meanwhile, your whole life was going down the drain.

“Could you describe this cop? Would you know him again if you saw him?”

“That’s easy,” Santo Silesi replied. “He was a fucking giant. Six-five, at least, and built like a refrigerator. Plus, he had a scar in his eyebrow. The scar was still red, so he must’ve gotten it recently. I could make out the stitch marks.”

“I seen this cop before,” Joe Faci said quietly.

“You know him?” Accacio asked. “You know who the fuck he is?”

“I didn’t say that, Steppy. I didn’t say I actually knew him. I only said I seen him.”

“You wanna tell me where you seen him? Or do you wanna make it a goddamned mystery.”

“The last time Patero came in for his piece, the big cop was with him. The reason I remember it so clear is because the cop still had the stitches in his eye.”

“Holy shit,” Accacio shouted, jumping out of the chair. “Holy shit. Holy shit. Did Patero bring him into the office?”

“Nope. Left him outside at a table. They had lunch after you and Patero finished ya business.”

Accacio sat back down. “Maybe it’s not so bad. Maybe O’Neill got behind on his payments to Patero, like he did with us. Maybe the cop was there to teach him a lesson. Jesus, if the sheeny didn’t shoot that spic, we wouldn’t be worried about this bullshit. Sandy, you didn’t say nothin’ to the Jew, right?”

“Right.”

“Okay, we gotta move fast. And it ain’t the cops I’m mostly worried about. We’re just startin’ out, just gettin’ established. If we look like a bunch of fuck-ups, Tommy Rosario’s gonna cut us out like he was pullin’ a used rubber off his dick. Sandy, you go back to Leibowitz and tell him Joe Faci wants to see him. Joe, you tell Leibowitz that O’Neill and his old lady gotta go. What I’m thinkin’ here is that even if this bullshit with the cop ain’t directed at us, O’Neill’s junkie wife is a liability. They seen the spic go down. It’s like a sword hangin’ over my head and I want it outta there. You tell the sheeny to do it quiet, Joe. Like he done his buddy. I want them two pimps should disappear like they never been born. Meanwhile, I’m gonna personally call Lieutenant Patero. I’m gonna tell him that if he can’t control what goes down in his own precinct, he can take his protection and shove it up his fuckin’ ass.”

Pat Cohan was so pissed off he couldn’t believe it. He hadn’t felt this way in years, not in years. What he wanted to do was fire his long-unfired.38 into Stanley Moodrow’s chest. Except that Stanley Moodrow wasn’t there and Sal Patero was. Sal Patero was sitting in a chair with his legs crossed like nothing was happening.

“You know what’s buggin’ you, Pat?” Patero said. “What’s buggin’ you is that you totally fucked up when you picked this kid out to marry your daughter. You misjudged his character and you put him in a position he couldn’t handle. Now you got your family mixed up in it and you don’t know what to do.”

“Listen, you little wop,” Cohan screeched, “don’t tell me what I shouldn’t have done. You’re the one who put me onto Steppy Accacio. I was clean before that. You hear me? Clean.”

“You never been clean a day in your life. And what you’re doin’ right now leads me to believe it’s time you got out of the game. You’re not being objective. You oughta be thinking about what you’re gonna do. Instead, all you can think about is what you’ve already done.”

“What I wanna do is kill the bastard.” Cohan, once he’d gotten it out, began to calm down. Patero was right, of course. The important thing was to stop Moodrow before he did any damage.

“You wanna go out and kill a cop, Pat? Is that what you wanna do?”

Cohan sat in a chair behind his carved mahogany desk. He lit the stub of a Cuban cigar and blew out a cloud of gray smoke. “I’m not sayin’ we should actually kill him.”

“Why don’t we talk about the future? Let’s talk about what we are gonna do.”

“I suppose you’ve got that all figured out.”

“I haven’t been wasting my time thinkin’ about the past.”

“Look, you guinea bastard, keep the sarcasm to yourself. I don’t need that crap.”

Patero laughed. “Hey, Pat,” he said quietly, “you and me are sleepin’ in the same bed. If I get fucked, you get fucked. Why don’t you try to clear the potatoes out of your stupid Irish brain? Just long enough so you could hear what I’m gonna say. The first thing is we gotta separate young Stanley from the Seventh Precinct. I’m not talkin’ about a suspension. Just a two-week vacation, followed by a transfer to the Hundred and First in Far Rockaway. That’s step number one. Step number two is I make it clear to the squad that Stanley Moodrow is not to have access to the paperwork in the Melenguez case. Under pain of following young Stanley out to the boonies. Maybe we could also spread the rumor that Stanley is talkin’ to the press, that he’s tearin’ down the blue wall. I’m not sure the boys’ll buy it, but it can’t hurt us.”

“Wait a second, Sal. How do you know he hasn’t already seen the file?”

“Seeing the file is one thing. Copying it is something else. Now, step number three is we prepare a case against Stanley for corruption. Or dereliction of duty. Or disobedience. Or spitting on the sidewalk. Something to use if he doesn’t take the hint. Because the thing about it is we can’t call him off. Any cop has the right to investigate any crime when he’s off-duty. It’s a tradition and we can’t mess with it. Now …”

The doorbell rang, interrupting Patero’s lecture. Pat Cohan knew who it was. He also knew that he should stay in his den, that there was nothing to be gained from a confrontation with Stanley Moodrow. But he got up anyway, got up and walked out of the den to find his darlin’ Kathleen in Stanley Moodrow’s arms.

“Lord Jesus,” he muttered. “What have I done to myself?”

The young couple gave him plenty of time to think about it. Reacting like any pair of lovers after a separation, they continued to hold each other, continued to press their lips together.

“Stanley,” Pat Cohan said when he could stand it no longer. “Stanley.”

Kate jumped back, her hands unconsciously smoothing her skirt. “Daddy,” she said, “I didn’t know you were there.”

“It’s all right, darlin’, I was young once, too. Stanley, boyo, do you think I could have a moment? Just a moment, then I’ll leave you two lovebirds alone.”

“Sure, Pat. Whatever you want.”

Pat Cohan felt his ears begin to redden. There hadn’t been a hint of fear in Moodrow’s voice. It was as if he was totally unaware of what happened to cops who made enemies of NYPD inspectors. Unaware or unconcerned.

“Hey, Stanley,” Patero said as Moodrow came into the den. “What’s goin’ on?”

“Nothing much, Sal. How’s by you?”

“Enough of the bullshit,” Cohan said, trying to keep his voice down. “Just what in hell do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m visiting my fiancee.”

Cohan’s mouth opened, but no words came out. Stanley Moodrow was staring directly into his eyes.

“Relax, Stanley,” Patero said. “You know what Pat’s talkin’ about. He’s talkin’ about your visit to the Pitt Street pimp. Can I assume you weren’t there to sample the merchandise?”

“What I do on my own time is my own business. The job doesn’t own me twenty-four hours a day. Maybe you wanna tell me why you bullshitted me about Luis Melenguez.”

“If you had a problem with what I told you,” Pat Cohan shouted, “you should’ve come to me.”

“Sal,” Moodrow said, ignoring Cohan altogether, “We’re talking about a homicide. You’re a cop. How can you bury a homicide?”

“What makes you think I’m burying anything?”

Moodrow hesitated, then smiled. “Melenguez was my neighbor. I saw his wife the other day. She came from Puerto Rico to pick up her husband’s effects. We talked for a long time. A long time. What you told me about Melenguez being a pimp was pure bullshit. He was just an ordinary citizen who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Think of it like this, Sal-if you’re not guilty, then you got nothin’ to worry about.”

“You,” Pat Cohan said, “you have plenty to worry about. I’m going to bury you so deep, they won’t be able to find you with a steamshovel.”

“You already gave that speech,” Moodrow growled, turning back to the inspector. “Two days ago. Wanna hear something funny? I believe you a hundred percent. Which means I don’t have a hell of a lot to lose.”

“All right, enough small talk.” Patero got up and approached Moodrow. “Here’s what’s gonna happen, Stanley,” he said, poking his index finger into Moodrow’s chest. “You’re on vacation, starting right now. You got a problem, take it to the P.B.A. Plus, I don’t wanna see you in the Seventh. Maybe I can’t lock the door, but I got a lotta friends in that building. You come in there, someone’s gonna be watchin’ you every minute. Besides which the Melenguez paperwork’s already gone over to Organized Crime. Where everybody’s my friend.”

Patero continued to jab Moodrow’s chest as he spoke, his thin smile gradually widening into a grin. “You figure out what I’m sayin’ yet, Stanley?”

“I know what you’re trying to do, Sal,” Moodrow answered. “You want me to hit you. You want me to hit a superior officer in front of an officer who’s even superior to him. But I gotta tell you something you haven’t figured out yet.” He grabbed Patero’s wrist and held it motionless. “If it comes down to a street-fight, you’re gonna get your ass kicked. Now, if you don’t mind, I think I’ll go join my fiancee.”

Pat Cohan waited until the door closed behind Moodrow before he spoke. He was much calmer now. “Know what I’m gonna do, Sal? I’m gonna transfer the bastard out, just like you said. Then I’m gonna wait. A year. Two years. Until he thinks I’ve forgotten. When the right time comes, I’m gonna set him up. I’m gonna put him in prison, then I’m gonna visit him and tell him what I did. Because nobody …”

“Look, Pat, you’re …”

“Don’t interrupt me, Sal. I want you to get to Faci tonight. I want you to tell him the shooters have to go. I don’t care if he ships them across the ocean to spaghetti heaven or buries them in a swamp. They gotta vanish.”

“I’m not gonna say any such thing, Pat. It’s much too early to panic. How do you know what Stanley’s gonna find out? Besides, Faci and his boss aren’t stupid. If we let them know what’s happening, they’ll handle things on their own.”

“Give me a number, Sal.”

“What?”

“Give me a phone number. Faci’s. Accacio’s. I don’t care which one. Give me the number and I’ll take care of it myself.”

Stanley Moodrow couldn’t stop thinking about how easy it would be. He and Kate were sitting together on the living room couch watching television. Pat Cohan was upstairs, presumably asleep. The image on the screen was revolving wildly, but neither he nor Kate showed any inclination to adjust it. They’d just come out of a long embrace, an embrace that had begun with Kate’s lips drawn tightly together, then quickly escalated to all-out passion. Kate had pulled away first, as expected, but she continued to breathe heavily as she straightened her skirt.

What Moodrow figured he could do, assuming he wanted to, was draw Kate Cohan into his bed. Despite Father Ryan’s penance, despite all the good-girl myths, despite her fear of her father, Kate’s body would get the better of her. He could seduce her and get her pregnant and that would be all she wrote.

“Maybe we ought to talk about something else,” Kate said.

“I don’t recall us talking at all.”

She took his hand and squeezed it. “Stanley, what were you and Daddy fighting about? I heard him shouting.”

What could he say? Your father’s pissed off because I’m trying to prove he covered up a murder?

“I think his hair got messed up.”

“Don’t be evasive, Stanley. What were you fighting about?”

“I know you love your father, Kate, but you have to admit he has his faults.” He waited for her to nod in agreement. “And one of his faults is he thinks of you as a medal he’s giving out. If I want the medal, I have to earn it. Which basically means obeying him, even if what he wants has nothing to do with your welfare.”

“Daddy’s just being protective. The way fathers are supposed to.”

“But where does that leave me? I’m not a dog on the end of his leash. I have to live my own life. And after we get married, your life and mine are gonna be one and the same. The point I’m making is that sooner or later your old man has to let go.”

What he wanted to do was bury his lips in her throat, to run the tips of his fingers over her body, to join their flesh until neither of them could tell where one body left off and the other began. But he didn’t do any of that. It was the wrong time and the wrong place and he knew it.

“I suppose he does,” Kate said, “but I think it’ll come naturally. After we’re married. Daddy respects marriage.”

“Yeah, well, I hope so. But there’s something else we have to get straight and that’s where we’re gonna live.” The issue had been bothering him ever since he’d realized they were going to have to survive on his salary. If they saved their pennies, they might someday be able to afford a home of their own, but that was going to be in the future. Way in the future. “Because the thing of it is that I’ve already got a two-bedroom rent-controlled apartment right now. For which I’m paying eighty dollars a month.”

“But the neighborhood, Stanley. It’s falling apart.”

“Look, I know the Lower East Side isn’t much. It never was. But half a million people live there and they mostly get along. What I want you to do is come to see me tomorrow. It’s Sunday so you oughta be able to get away. Let me take you around, show you what the neighborhood’s really like. If you still think you can’t live there, we’ll find some other place. But at least come and take a look.”