A Piece of the Action

Twenty

It sounds great, Izzy Stein thought. The dope business seems like the greatest thing since chopped liver. But what it really is, is standing out in the rain. It’s looking over your shoulder for the narcs and the thieves. It’s sick, sniveling junkies begging for an extra bag. Or for credit. Or for anything to relieve the endless misery of their endlessly miserable fucking lives.

“Oh, man, you gotta take this watch. It’s a gold Lady Hamilton, man. With diamonds. It’s gotta be worth ten bags. I got it uptown.”

“It ain’t worth shit to me, pal. My girlfriend’s already got a watch.”

“Please, man. I’m sick.”

“Whatta ya want me to do about it? Do I look like a fuckin’ doctor? Go out an sell the watch to the guy you stole it from. Me, I’m only interested in cash.”

“But everybody takes merchandise. Everybody.”

“Yeah? Well, maybe you should go find everybody.”

“I would, man. I ain’t bullshittin’. But like it’s late and I don’t know if anybody else’s around. If you could do me this favor-just this one time-I’ll never bring you nothin’ but cash.”

And that was another thing. That was the worst thing. You couldn’t discourage a sick junkie. No matter what. You could punch ’em, kick ’em, stab ’em. It didn’t matter. They popped up like balloons, wiped the snot off their lips and continued to beg. Please, please, please. Gimme, gimme, gimme. It was disgusting.

“Lemme see the fuckin’ thing.” It was a Lady Hamilton, all right. But that could mean anything. The watch might be gold or it might have been dipped in yellow paint. The little stones on the face might be diamonds or they might be paste. How was he supposed to know?

What Izzy did know was that he was standing in the rain, in the projects, with ten junkies waiting their turn, and he wasn’t going to get warm and dry until he took care of everybody. On the other hand, if he accepted the watch and it turned out to be a piece of shit, Jake would most likely go through the roof. Well, maybe Jake could give it to his mother.

“Three bags. Take it or leave it.”

“Oh, man, three bags won’t even get me straight. Like, I gotta go through the whole night. Plus I got a job lined up. I got a fucking warehouse. In Greenpoint. Just gimme ten bags and I’ll make it up to ya tomorrow mornin’. I swear it on my mother.”

“You could swear it on ya fuckin’ needle tracks and it still wouldn’t mean shit to me. Take the three bags or go find somebody else. And don’t interrupt me, ’cause I’m runnin’ outta patience.”

“Five, please. Five bags. The watch’s worth at least a hundred bucks. Five bags is only twenty-five dollars. Ya gotta help me out here.”

What Izzy was tempted to do was pull his.38 and relieve this miserable junkie of his miserable sickness forever. But what he did was count out the five bags, take the watch and motion the next junkie forward, the one pulling a wire cart stuffed with rags.

“I got a radio,” the junkie said as he approached Jake. “A fucking Motorola, man. Like it’s worth a hundred bucks. At least.”

It took Izzy an hour to finish up. An hour standing in the rain with the prospect of another session with a dozen sick junkies still ahead of him. Well, at least Houston Street was the last stop. Then he could walk back to the Paradise and catch a hot bath and a couple of shots of bourbon. Maybe he could even figure a way out of this bullshit. Maybe he could talk Jake into taking a turn standing in the projects. Being as they were fifty-fifty partners.

Izzy, despite his years on the street and his prison experience, was so wrapped up in his own misfortunes that he failed to notice the elderly man in the black trenchcoat until the man spoke. By then, it was too late to run.

“Police. Stop right there. You’re under arrest.”

Izzy’s mouth said, “What?” But the gun in the cop’s hand left no doubt as to his intentions.

“Get up against the car. Spread your legs.”

The hands crawling over Izzy’s body were experienced. Experienced and confident. They relieved him of his.38 and his dope, then slapped on the cuffs. All in less than thirty seconds.

“I want a lawyer,” Izzy said. “I wanna make a phone call.”

“Don’t worry, boyo,” Pat Cohan replied. “You’re going to get everything you deserve. Now, why don’t you hop in the back seat like a good little criminal? Then we can drive on down to the stationhouse and give you that phone call.”

There was nothing to be done about it. At least, not right away. The cop had searched him without a warrant and maybe a good lawyer would find a way to prove it to a judge. But that was in the future. The first step was to establish himself in the Tombs. Which was where they’d eventually take him. The second step was to find a lawyer. The third step was to make bail. The fourth step was to find a way to pay the …

The Ford screeched to a halt on 11th Street, between Avenues A amp; B. Izzy looked up, expecting to see the 7th Precinct, but they were parked next to an alley.

“Well, boyo, bein’ as I’ve an appointment elsewhere, I think I’ll be off. But have no fear, the officer in front will see you safely to your destination.”

Only “the officer in front” wasn’t an officer. The “officer in front” was Santo Silesi. And he was holding a small automatic. And he was smiling.

The door opened, then closed, then opened again before Izzy could pull his thoughts together.

“Hi, Izzy,” Joe Faci said, squeezing into the back seat.

“What’s the game?” Izzy finally said.

“No game. Just that I gotta thank you for giving my friend this opportunity to make his bones. I’m sure Santo, when he remembers his manners, will thank you, too.”

Izzy took a moment to think it over, then smiled and spit directly into Joe Faci’s face. Despite the handcuffs. Despite Santo Silesi’s automatic which began to bark, to spit fire, to project small chunks of lead into Izzy’s chest.

“Jesus, Santo, what you done is stupid,” Joe Faci said. “This is no place to be shootin’ nobody.”

Izzy heard that, though he missed Santo’s reply. He couldn’t move and, for a few seconds, he couldn’t remember why. It was very strange. His eyes were closed and somebody was kicking him. They were forcing him onto the floor of the car, covering him with an overcoat. He felt shoes on his back, then remembered what had happened. Oh shit, he thought, I’ve been shot. Oh shit, I’m bleeding. Oh shit, I’m dead.

What saved Moodrow’s butt, in the end, was simple habit, a series of reflexes built up over years of practice. But what got him into trouble was simple inexperience. Moodrow spent eight hours sitting in his car on the south side of Houston Street. It was his first stakeout and, all things being equal, he would have had a veteran detective sitting next to him. He would have had a guide to warn him against falling into a mental state that was closer to sleepwalking than alert and ready.

Eight hours in the rain, Moodrow supposed, thinking about it later, is enough to blur anyone’s concentration. Eight hours peering through the drops at a tiny park jammed between twelve-story brick buildings. What it did was get your mind to drifting, to thinking about what you’d spent the last couple of days trying not to think about. Which was Kate Cohan.

There was a basic unfairness in his relationship with Kate that went beyond the sins of her father. The simple fact was that if he wanted to marry her, to spend his life in her company, he was going to have to leave his world and enter hers. The reverse, he’d come to think, could never happen. In fact, whenever he tried to imagine Kate in her fox coat strolling down Avenue C, he was tempted to laugh out loud.

And the change would involve much more than packing a suitcase and moving the twenty miles from the Lower East Side to suburban Bayside. He’d have to leave his attitudes behind, have to build up an entirely different way of addressing the world. And their children would never understand. No more than Kate understood. Bayside, as far as Moodrow could make out, didn’t have a history at all. It was a place to go after you made it. After you escaped.

What it is, Moodrow thought, is that the suburbs mean the same thing to the second generation that the Statue of Liberty meant to the first. And maybe that’s what Kate Cohan means to me. Maybe all I want to do is get away from the junkies and the projects and the rotting tenements. Maybe I’m watching all the kids I grew up with stuff their crap into moving vans and I think I’m being left behind.

He closed his eyes for a moment, concentrating until Kate’s image, nearly solid, floated behind his eyes. For some reason, she was smiling that same quick smile that flashed across her face whenever he said something wicked. The spray of freckles running across the bridge of her nose was especially vivid, a burnt-orange contrast to her innocent blue eyes.

Innocence. That was another thing. The women who’d come in and out of his life before he’d met Kate had been any number of things, but never innocent. They’d all seen too much, grown up too fast. Some would stand beside you in a bar fight. Others would sell you out in a hot flash. Yet, for all their variety, they never represented anything more than aspects of a world he already knew. A world that, waiting in the rain, wishing he smoked cigarettes so he’d have some way of passing the time, didn’t seem all that bad to him. There was something about sitting in Greta’s apartment and hearing the living history of the neighborhood (his neighborhood) that yanked at him like a magnet grabbing a paperclip.

He spent a moment trying to put a name to that attraction. Pride? No, it wasn’t pride. He was aware of the flaws, of the poverty and the violence, the alkies sleeping in doorways on the Bowery, the junkies looking for something to steal, the prostitutes (most often junkies themselves) parading up and down 3rd Avenue. Maybe there wasn’t a name for what he was feeling. Maybe he was just looking for something to hang onto. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

It was nearly eight o’clock when he gave it up. The junkies had come and gone, apparently unsatisfied. Which, Moodrow supposed, was better than having a dealer other than Santo show up to service them. Tomorrow was another, hopefully dry, day.

There was no place to park in front of his building, a fact which came as no great surprise to Stanley Moodrow. The space he eventually found, nearly three blocks away, was par for the course. He pulled the key, turned up the collar of his overcoat and stepped out of the Ford. The streets were deserted and he let his thoughts drift from Santo to Kate to a mystery witness somewhere up in Hell’s Kitchen. Epstein had urged him to be patient. Father Sam, too. Still, he’d begun the day with every expectation of finding the killers of Luis Melenguez.

What I am, he thought, is a rookie. An amateur. What I should be …

He didn’t notice the man behind him until the bat was actually in motion. Even then, he had no more than a split second to react. Not enough time to think, much less plan a response. He did what any experienced fighter would do, what every trainer from Sam Berrigan to Allen Epstein had taught him to do-he pulled his shoulder up to protect the side of his face. The bat struck the point of his shoulder, then clipped the top of his head.

Damn, he thought, I’m bleeding. I don’t want to bleed anymore. I’m through with that.

He was facing his attacker, now, though he couldn’t remember turning around. He watched the bat drift away, then begin its arc. Once again, he reacted instinctively. Instead of pulling his head away, he stepped forward and the bat curled over his shoulder, thumping harmlessly against his back. Moodrow grabbed his assailant’s throat with one hand, then began to drive his fist into the man’s face. He didn’t stop until bat and man were lying motionless on the sidewalk.

The first thing Moodrow thought was that the man was dead and he, Moodrow, was going to spend all night in the precinct filing reports and being interviewed. Dropping to one knee, he turned the man over and began to search for a pulse. He was still searching when the man began to moan and tried to sit up.

“Stay on the ground,” Moodrow growled. “Don’t move your hands. I’m gonna frisk you and if your hands move while I’m doin’ it, I’m gonna slow ’em down by smashing your face into the sidewalk.”

The search turned up nothing, neither weapon nor identification. Moodrow put his hand up to the right side of his scalp. The blood was still flowing, a thin trickle that mixed easily with the rain soaking his shirt collar.

“You better have a good story,” Moodrow said. He rolled the man onto his stomach and cuffed him tightly. Very tightly.

“You’re gonna cut off my circulation. I’ll lose my hands.”

“Guess that means you won’t be swinging any more baseball bats. You got a name?”

Nothing. Moodrow’s attacker spit up a wad of blood-soaked phlegm, then turned his eyes to the ground.

“C’mon, pal, you ain’t gettin’ out of this without some answers. Gimme a name. Yours or somebody else’s.”

“Joe Jones,” the man said without looking up.

Moodrow spun Joe Jones around and drove his right fist in the left side of Joe Jones’s lower back. He was rewarded with a scream.

“Ever piss blood, Joe? Lemme tell ya, the first time it happens, it really shakes you up. And it can do a lot of long-term damage.” Moodrow smashed his fist into Joe Jones’s ribs. “When you crack a rib, on the other hand, all the damage is done on impact. If, God forbid, the rib breaks up, you gotta worry about splinters cutting into the lung. That can make the lung collapse, which, believe me, leads to all kinds of complications. Are you listening?”

Moodrow’s breathless soliloquy was interrupted by the sound of a car horn. He turned, reaching for his gun with one hand while he held onto Mister Jones with the other.

“Take it easy, Stanley. It’s me, Samuelson. What’s going on here?”

It took Moodrow a moment to realize that “Samuelson” was Detective Paul Samuelson. He was accompanied by a second detective, a man unknown to Moodrow.

“What’re you doing here?”

“We’re working, whatta ya think? Comin’ back from a homicide on 14th Street. Figured to make a stop on First Avenue for coffee when we heard this guy scream. What’s goin’ on here? You’re bleedin’.”

“Well, that’s what happens when you get hit on the head with a Louisville Slugger. You bleed.” He put his hand up to his scalp. The bleeding had slowed considerably. Slowed, but not stopped.

“You’re gonna have to get that sewn up. Why don’t you give me the basics? I’ll take the bastard over to the house and book him. Tomorrow morning, you can drop by the Seventh and do the paperwork.”

“The basics are this asshole attacked me from behind and I punched his face in. Meanwhile, he’s not carrying i.d. What I’d like you to do is take a hike while I ask him a few questions about his secret identity.”

“I’m afraid we can’t do that.” Samuelson’s companion stepped forward. “We can’t allow you to abuse a prisoner.”

“Stanley,” Samuelson said, “this is Detective Lieutenant Rosten.”

Moodrow managed a smile. “You slumming, Lieutenant?”

“Patero’s transferring out to Forensics at the end of the month. What I’m doing is getting my feet wet.”

“You’ll get your head wet, too, standing out in the rain.”

“It doesn’t bother me. In fact, it reminds me of the old days. When I used to walk a beat. Samuelson’s right, by the way. You’d do yourself a favor by getting that wound sewn up. We can handle the details.”

Moodrow knew he could insist on coming into the precinct to make sure the details jibed with his own version of what happened, but he didn’t see what good it would do him. The idea that Samuelson, accompanied by Sal Patero’s replacement, just happened to be driving down the street was too stupid to contemplate. Most likely, his assailant (along with Detective Lieutenant Rosten) had been sent by Pat Cohan. Most likely, his assailant was a cop. Most likely, if he went down to the 7th Precinct, he was the one who’d be arrested. For the first time, Moodrow had the sense that he’d bitten off more than he could chew.

“I think you’re right about the cut,” he said. “It’s still bleeding. Why don’t we get in a car and write up a preliminary report. You got complaint forms in there, right?”

“Yeah, sure.” There wasn’t anything else Samuelson could say. Every detective carried a variety of forms. It went with the territory.

“Great, because the thing of it is, I want a copy. A signed copy. Everything I say, plus everything you saw. And don’t forget to put the bat in there. I haven’t touched it, so any fingerprints have to belong to this slimeball. The blood, on the other hand, which you’re gonna have tested, belongs to me alone.”

“Is that necessary?” Rosten asked. “It sounds like you don’t trust us.”

“Well, let me put it this way. If you refuse, I’m taking this asshole to the Thirteenth Precinct and book him there. It’s closer than the Seventh and being as I’m not in the greatest shape, it doesn’t make a lotta sense for me to walk all the way down to Clinton Street. You try to stop me and I’ll put your face through the windshield.”

“You’re crazy.”

“Thank you.” Crazy was the ultimate street compliment.

“I won’t forget this.”

“That’s just what I was hoping. That you won’t forget anything.”

Jake Leibowitz was just a little pissed off. Maybe it wasn’t necessary and maybe they hadn’t talked about it, but the least Izzy could have done was call to wish him luck. After all, their future hinged on what he, Jake, was going to do tonight. It hadn’t taken long to find out who Steppy Accacio’s rival was. The gangster (a wop, naturally) who’d controlled the dope in the projects before Accacio took over was named Dominick Favara. In a way, he and Steppy could have been brothers. Despite the fact that Favara was as dark as Accacio was fair. They were both young and ambitious, both trying to work their way up, both trying to impress the mobsters who ran New York City.

Well, Izzy or no Izzy, Jake was determined to pull it off, to make the switch from Accacio to Favara before Accacio knew what was happening. He was wearing his absolute best, his black cashmere coat over his double-breasted gray suit. Even his mustache was perfect. He’d allowed Mama Leibowitz to trim it, despite the anxiety he felt whenever she had a sharp object in her hands.

“All right, Jake,” he said aloud, “this is it. Ya fuck this one up, ya gonna have to leave town tomorrow.”

He pushed open the door of the Ragusa Social Club and walked inside.

“Yeah?”

The man who stepped in front of Jake was as wide as he was tall. One of those monsters, Jake thought, who spend their days collecting for the bookmakers and the shylocks.

“I’m here to see Dominick Favara. He’s expectin’ me.”

“Ya got a name?”

“Jake Leibowitz.”

“Leee-bowww-wwwitz?”

“Listen, tubby, if you don’t turn ya fat ass around and go tell ya fuckin’ boss I’m here to see him, I’m takin’ a powder. That’s after I kick ya face in.”

“Could I help somebody?”

Jake answered without looking away from the man in front of him. “I’m lookin’ for Dominick Favara.”

“That’s me.”

“I’m Jake Leibowitz. We got an appointment.”

“I been expectin’ ya. Come in the back.”

“You oughta put a chain on ya dog,” Jake said. “He ain’t trained yet.”

“Don’t let Carmine bother ya. That’s just his way.”

“Yeah,” Carmine said, “that’s just my way. No offense.”

“None taken. And please forgive me for threatenin’ to kick ya face in.”

Jake crossed the room, shook hands with Dominick Favara, then stepped through the doorway into Favara’s small office.

“Pull up a seat, Jake. Take a load off ya mind.”

Jake removed his hat, then carefully arranged his cashmere overcoat before sitting down. “Hey, Dominick,” he said, “I’m sorry I lost my temper. What happened was I started off the day on the wrong side of the bed. I ate my mother’s cookin’.”

Favara chuckled appreciatively. “I heard you was a tough guy, Jake. In fact, I been hearin’ a lot about you lately. Ya did some time, didn’t ya?”

“Some? Try forever and a day.” Jake quickly outlined his problems with the army.

“Tough break. I mean ya had a perfectly good plan, but nobody could read the future. Sometimes it don’t turn out like you expect.”

“Yeah, but sometimes ya get a chance to make it right before the sky falls on ya head. I’m hopin’ that now is one of them times. Ya know what I’m doin’ in the projects?”

“I heard all about it.”

Jake, noting the sudden gleam in Favara’s eye, was careful to keep his own expression neutral. Now, they understood each other. “What it is is I ain’t happy with my current supplier. He thinks I’m an employee, but what I wanna be is an independent contractor. I mean, I been givin’ it a lotta thought and what I come up with is this. If I got plenty of cash, if I don’t need credit, why can’t I deal with more than one supplier? Competition. Ain’t that what America’s all about? Ain’t it competition that makes people work harder?”

“I think I get the point.”

“If ya do, then ya one up on Steppy Accacio. Steppy don’t want me buyin’ from anybody but him. That way he can make the price as high as he wants.”

“Can ya blame him?”

“Can ya blame me for not goin’ along? I didn’t do all those years in the joint so’s I could end up bein’ a flunky.”

Favara stood up and walked over to the window. “So that’s what ya want from me? To buy dope? Ya don’t want nothin’ else? You ain’t, for instance, askin’ me to watch ya back when Steppy comes lookin’ for ya?”

“Ya gotta protect your interests, right?”

“That guy you did in the projects? With baseball bats? Ya know he worked for me?”

“Not at the time.”

Favara walked back over to his desk and sat on the edge. “What I hear is that you’re crazy, Jake. What I hear is that you been killin’ people right and left. Like that spic in the whorehouse.”

“It was a mistake. Jesus Christ, does the whole world know about it?”

“You went in there for Steppy is what ya did. To do the job on the pimp and his old lady. They used to be my customers. Before Steppy took over the projects. O’Neill talks too much. Just like the rest of the micks.”

“Yeah? Well, he won’t be talkin’ no more. I ain’t pretendin’ to be no saint, Dominick. But I only made one mistake and there ain’t no witnesses left. I did what I had to do. I’m still doin’ what I have to do.”

“I ain’t sayin’ ya not, Jake. What I am sayin’ is if ya wanna buy dope from me, I’ll be glad to sell it to ya. But only for cash. As for the rest of it, I ain’t interested in coverin’ ya butt, because ya too fuckin’ hot. If ya happen to survive, which ain’t too likely, we could maybe do business long-term. But first ya gotta survive.”

Jake took a minute to think it over. Access to a dependable supply of dope would give him an income, but it wouldn’t protect him. He had to have help.

“On the other hand,” Favara said casually, “it happens I know some right guys who ain’t got work at the moment. If ya don’t mind dealin’ with Puerto Ricans, I could talk to ’em. Tell ’em you got a proposition to make.”

“Shit, Dominick.” Jake smiled for the first time. “I’m a Jew, ain’t I? I gotta take my friends where I can find ’em.”