A Piece of the Action

Thirty-five

January 29

“I chickened out, Greta,” Moodrow explained. “I chickened out twice. There’s no other way to look at it. When I left you and got in that car, I was determined to arrest Jake Leibowitz by myself. I wanted to drag him into the Seventh and toss him to the captain. Jake was gonna be my trophy. Proof that I was right all along. Only, I kept thinking about what might happen if he got past me. I mean he killed four men that we know about. I couldn’t take a chance, so I called in the troops. If I’d been there alone, I think I might’ve talked him out.”

He watched Greta reach into the oven and remove two sliced bagels. She dropped them onto a plate, then licked her fingers.

“Hot,” she said without turning around.

“You should use a fork.”

“One more thing to wash.” She unwrapped a bar of Philadelphia Cream Cheese and began to spread it over the bagels.

Moodrow watched her for another moment. He’d been postponing this talk for the last five days. Knowing it had to take place, despite his preoccupation with Kate and the swirl of events following her father’s suicide.

He’d come home that night to find a note: Gone to Bayside. Back this evening. Much love. The only problem was that “this evening” had already come and gone. Between a dead Jake Leibowitz, a dead cop named Strauss, more than five hundred rounds of police fire and fifty reports to be filed by fifty patrolmen, Moodrow, the only detective on the scene, hadn’t left the 7th Precinct until well after midnight.

What he’d assumed was that Kate had decided to spend the night in Bayside. The only question was whether she’d somehow fallen back under her father’s spell. But that hadn’t seemed possible. Not even to a thoroughly shell-shocked Stanley Moodrow. No, most likely Kate had called a half-dozen times and gotten no answer. Maybe she’d even called Greta. There’d been no way of knowing, because it was nearly one o’clock and he couldn’t make it into an emergency no matter how many scenarios he concocted.

He’d awakened the next morning to find Pat Cohan on the radio, on television, on the front page of every newspaper in New York City. The murder-suicide had transformed Jake Leibowitz and the rooftop shootout from a banner headline to an item on page fifteen.

The first phone call had come at ten o’clock in the morning: “John Hughes, from the Journal-American. You were Kate Cohan’s fiance. Could you …?”

Could you? Would you? Do you? It’d gone on for days. Despite his muttered, “No comment.” Despite hanging up again and again and again. It was still going on, though the volume of calls had slowed now that the funeral was over.

The sad part was that he’d answered every call, each time hoping to hear Kate’s voice. His own calls out to Bayside had been fielded by any number of unidentified friends and relatives. Most had been firm, but polite. A few had called him a bastard. One, a woman, had fairly hissed at him.

“Haven’t you done enoughhhhhhhhhh?”

Desperate, he’d driven out to St. John’s Cemetery in Flushing and watched the funeral procession pass through the cemetery gates. He’d seen Kate in the back of the limousine following the casket, a small veiled figure encircled by men in black overcoats. Were they relatives or cops? And where were the women? The helpful aunts? The trusted friends?

The questions were making him crazy. He’d sought Greta’s advice, then Allen Epstein’s. Both had delivered the same message: give her time to sort it out. Time was the only cure.

He should, he knew later, have taken their advice, because when he’d finally driven out to Bayside, the trip had made him even crazier. Kate’s Uncle Bill, her mother’s brother, had answered the door. An elderly man, he’d looked embarrassed at first. Then he’d invited Moodrow inside.

“She’s not here, lad,” he’d said. “You can look if you want.”

Moodrow, a cop to his bones, had taken the old man up on the offer, wandering from room to room. He’d found a lot of empty space and a single locked door. It led, he knew, to Rose Cohan’s bedroom.

“It hasn’t been cleaned,” Bill Brannigan had said apologetically. “It’ll have to be cleaned soon, I suppose. If we’re to put the house on the market.”

Moodrow had responded by kicking the door off the hinges. Only to find that Bill Brannigan hadn’t been lying. The room was covered with dried blood. The furniture, the floors, the walls, the ceiling. Brannigan, staring helplessly at the carnage, had begun to cry.

“Take as long as you have to, Bill. I’m not leaving until you tell me where she is.”

“She’s on retreat.” Brannigan had peered at him through bewildered eyes. “Holy Mother Church has taken Kate to her sacred bosom.”

“Stanley, you want lox on your bagel?” Moodrow looked up quickly. Telling himself to stop drifting off. Willing himself to remain in the present. Reminding himself that his career was on the line, that he had to be in Deputy Chief Milton Morton’s office in less than two hours and that he’d better be ready.

“Yeah, fine.” He sipped at his coffee and ran his fingers over his newly shaven face. “What was I saying?”

“About chickening out. Which only a meshugganer could believe you’d do.”

“Yeah, right.” Moodrow watched Greta set the plate down in front of him. “I guess ‘chickening out’ is a kid’s way of putting it, but I had choices and I made them. I didn’t have to call in the troops, but I did. And I didn’t have to obey the captain, either. When he so much as told me that he wasn’t gonna give Jake a chance, I didn’t have to help him create a diversion. I could have taken the gold shield and rammed it up his ass. Why not, Greta? If my mother could use a hatpin, why couldn’t I use a badge?”

“Nu, because a captain is not a horse.”

Moodrow bit off a chunk of bagel and began to chew thoughtfully. “I loved the hunt,” he said after a moment. “You know, the investigation. Tracking Jake down. Boxing him into a corner. That’s the way I fought in the ring. The way I had to fight. I was too slow to catch anybody on the run.”

“Stanley, please. Life is difficult enough. Only a shlemiel goes through life making things more difficult. A man is killed; a killer is dead. Nu?”

“Yeah? Well, it wasn’t ‘nu’ for Al and Betty O’Neill. Maybe they were a couple of pimps, but they didn’t deserve the death penalty.”

“This was your fault?”

“And then there’s Rose Cohan. And Kate.”

It was Greta’s turn to fidget. She brushed a small pile of crumbs into the palm of her hand and dumped them on the edge of her plate. “She’ll come around, Stanley. It’s only been five days.”

“You do one thing and ten things happen. There’s no way to control it.” He shook his head. “It’s like throwing a punch at your opponent and hitting a spectator.”

“Stanley, could I tell you a story?”

Moodrow smiled for the first time in days. “Please,” he answered.

“This happened in nineteen thirty-three. A strike at Goldman Furs. At the time, I was pregnant with my second and I wasn’t even working. But Yussel Mittman, from the union, came to me and begged me to help out. ‘It’s a mitzvah, a mitzvah. Please, we need a woman and there’s nobody else.’ ”

Greta drew a deep breath, then let it out in a long sigh. She looked up at Moodrow and shrugged. “So, what could I do? I went and I made speeches and I walked with the pickets. The morale was good, the workers inspired, but the strike went on and on. Goldman wouldn’t budge. He was a rich man, Stanley, a millionaire, but also a skinflint. Instead of bargaining, he offered to lower the wages. Five months we stood out there, all through the winter. ‘He can’t hold out forever.’ That’s what we told ourselves and we were right. Spring came around and Goldman’s two sons took over the business. I remember the celebration when they settled with the union. This was in the middle of the Depression and there were no jobs to be had, so you can imagine how the workers felt. But for me, it wasn’t such fun. I was at the party when the pains started. The doctors called it a ‘spontaneous abortion,’ which was probably the truth, but I blamed myself. I still do. You know how it is, nu? The head says one thing and the heart says another. Eventually, you live with the past and keep on going.”

An hour and a half later, Moodrow found himself in the waiting room of Deputy Chief Milton Morton’s Centre Street office. Morton’s secretary, a very grizzled, very male sergeant named Goldfarb, hadn’t even bothered with the customary, “Chief Morton will be right with you.” He’d checked Moodrow’s i.d. carefully, then nodded him into a seat.

Moodrow picked at his nails for a moment, then grabbed the Daily News off a low table and glanced at the headline: CAMPY FIGHTS PARALYSIS.

“Jesus Christ.”

“What’s that?” Sergeant Goldfarb peered over his reading glasses to nail Moodrow with his hardest stare.

“Nothing.”

Moodrow edged closer to the light and examined the newspaper closely. There were two photos on the front page. The one on the right showed Roy Campanella’s wife holding a telephone to her ear. The one on the left showed a man lying face-down on a stretcher. Oddly, the man was still wearing his hat.

Moodrow turned the pages quickly, scanning the headline as he searched for the main story. Principal Dies In Leap, Faced HS Crime Quiz; 6 Wined-Up Teeners Knife Two Girls on Stairs of Subway; 200 Police Hunt Nebraska Teen Lovers Who Killed 7; Sketch Put Out in Hunt For Knifer of UN Sec’y; 2 Ganglings Seized In Murder of Youth; Crime Rises 25 % In State; Police Budget Up $13,519,136.

He got all the way to the classifieds before he realized that he’d passed over the Campanella story. Thumbing quickly, he worked his way back through the pages until he found the story on page three. Roy Campanella, the veteran Dodger catcher, had been on his way home (the old J. R Morgan estate on East Island) at three in the morning. He was within a mile of his house when his car had skidded off the road and slammed into a light pole. Now, his neck was broken. Not only would he never play baseball again, the doctors felt he’d spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair.

Moodrow let the paper drop to his knees. Roy Campanella, the second Negro player in the major leagues, had come to the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1948, a year after Jackie Robinson. Short and squat, always smiling, life seemed to roll off his broad shoulders. Jackie may have paved the way, but Campy was the steamroller who’d held everything in place. In the ten years since he’d come to Ebbets Field, Campanella had been named National League MVP three times.

“Damn,” Moodrow said aloud, “Goddamn.”

“What’s the matter, you got a twitch or somethin’?”

Moodrow looked up at a scowling Sergeant Goldfarb. “You hear about Campy?” he asked.

“Yeah, I heard he missed a curve on Long Island and now he’s a loaf of bread.” Goldfarb leaned forward, grinning wildly. “That’s one nigger who ain’t gonna play in Los fucking Angeles.”

The intercom on Goldfarb’s desk buzzed once, a sharp jolt that brought the sergeant up short. He waved toward the door behind him. “Batter up, kid.”

Moodrow crossed the room quickly, took a deep breath and opened the door. Deputy Chief Milton Morton was seated behind an enormous wooden desk. The dark wood gleamed with polish. A gold fountain pen lay on a square of black marble. It, too, gleamed, drawing Moodrow’s attention. As, he understood, it was meant to do.

“Sit down, detective,” Morton said.

Moodrow obeyed. Just as he’d obeyed Captain John McElroy in that hallway. What he’d come to understand over the past month was that he wanted two incompatible things. He wanted to be independent and he wanted to be a cop. That couldn’t happen. Somewhere along the line, he was going to have to pay for his independence. Milton Morton’s job, as Moodrow understood it, was to name the price.

“You did well, detective,” Morton said.

Thin and sallow, Deputy Chief Morton looked like anything but a cop. The story, among the rank-and-file, was that his lofty position was a gift to the Jews of New York. Pure politics, from beginning to end. Moodrow had gotten another story from Allen Epstein. According to Epstein, Morton had been a decent patrolman, as willing as any to wade into a bar brawl or mediate a violent family dispute. Not that he stayed a patrolman very long. Within twelve years, he’d passed the sergeant’s, lieutenant’s and captain’s exams. At age thirty-six, he’d been appointed deputy inspector. Then full Inspector. At each stage, he’d demonstrated an ability to command.

“The point is,” Epstein had explained, “that whenever Morton was in charge, things went smoothly. He controlled his cops. Kept his statistics up. Never went on the take. Never made a complaint against anyone who did. The guys walking a beat think you have to break heads to be a good cop. That’s why they stay patrolman. Morton was smart enough to know that the New York Police Department is one giant headache waiting for an aspirin. He dedicated himself to being that aspirin.”

Moodrow looked over at Chief Morton, noting the folded arms and the patient expression. “Did well at what?” he asked. “I thought I was here to walk the plank.”

Morton smiled. “I’m talking about Pat Cohan. The reporters have been in touch with you, right?”

“Yeah.”

“And you must have been tempted, at some point or other, to put the whole thing on the table. Patero, Accacio, Jake Leibowitz-the whole thing. Yes?”

“Yes.”

“But you didn’t. You held it back. You protected the Department instead of protecting yourself. You did well.”

“Thanks.” There wasn’t anything else for Moodrow to say He settled his bulk in the chair and let his hands drop into his lap.

“You have a package, I believe,” Morton said.

“A package?”

“Patero’s statement, the Leibowitz case file, the other evidence against Pat Cohan. A package.” Morton paused, his eyes fixed on Moodrow, obviously waiting for a response.

“Yeah,” Moodrow finally said. “I’ve got your ‘package.’ ”

“Well, I want it. I want you to give it to me.” Morton fished a cigarette out of his shirt pocket and tapped it on the desk a few times before lighting it. “Coffin nails,” he said, blowing out a thin stream of smoke. “Now, I’ve told you what I want. Which also happens to be what the Department wants. The only question is what do you want?”

“You don’t waste much time.”

Morton managed a quick smile. “I don’t have much time to waste.” He gestured at the neat stack of paperwork on his desk.

“What if I don’t give you the ‘package’? What if I decide to hold onto it?”

“I believe we’re here to negotiate, detective,” Morton answered without blinking an eye. “But let me take it a step further. Pat Cohan is dead. The murder of Rose Cohan has been solved. Salvatore Patero has decided to seek employment elsewhere. As has Lieutenant Rosten. A year down the line, your evidence will be about as useful to you as five pounds of cat shit. If you’re going to survive, you’re going to need friends. You’re going to need a rabbi to protect you. I want the evidence you’ve accumulated. I want it dead and buried, just like the man it implicates. The only question, as I said before, is what you want.”

“I want to stay where I am. I want to stay in the Seventh Precinct and be left alone to do my job.” Now that it was out in the open, the request seemed modest enough.

“Is that it?” Even Morton seemed surprised. “No promotion? No transfer to Homicide or Narcotics?”

“Look, Chief.” Moodrow, suddenly annoyed, leaned forward. “I never set out to get Pat Cohan. Whatever I did, I did to survive.”

“I know all that. Believe me, I know everything that happened.”

“Then maybe you also know that what I hear you saying is that you can’t trust me. You’re afraid I’ll call in the reporters, that I’ll embarrass the Department. Let me ask you this, why should I trust a man who doesn’t trust me?”

“A good question.” Morton tapped the gray ash at the end of his cigarette into a glass ashtray. “Would you be willing to give me a copy of the evidence? To show good faith.”

“Done.”

“Good. Now tell me, Detective, do you understand the traditional relationship between a rabbi and his protege?”

“I’m sure you’ll tell me.”

Once again, Morton failed to respond to a verbal jab. “The protege,” he said, “functions as the rabbi’s eyes and ears. He does favors for his rabbi and expects favors in return. A protege’s favors usually involve an advantageous transfer or an out-and-out promotion, but in your case, I suspect that you’ll be more interested in protection. Am I right?”

Moodrow sat back in the chair. No matter what you did, it always came back to the same thing. The politics of the job reached into every cop’s working life. There was no way to get around it. What you had to do was find a way to satisfy the Department. And there was no magic formula. One day the tightrope would be as wide as the Brooklyn Bridge and the next it would be a single strand of wire suspended over the Grand Canyon.

“There’re no rules, are there?” he asked.

“There are nothing but rules,” Morton responded. “Pages and pages and pages of rules. The only question is which of them apply to what situation.”

“All right. You can call in your marker whenever you want. Only I’m not a trained poodle so don’t expect blind obedience. You ask and I’ll check the rules to see which ones apply to the situation. In the meanwhile, I expect to do my job.”

Morton puffed on the cigarette, sucking the smoke deep into his lungs before slowly exhaling. “Did I tell you that Captain McElroy is being transferred out of the Seventh?”

“No.”

“You might be surprised to hear this, but he’s not being transferred because he’s an incompetent moron who lost control of his command. Nor is he being transferred because I want to put my own man in charge of the Seventh. McElroy, who will soon retire, is being transferred because he let a cop die unnecessarily. Keep it in mind, detective. The first rule is to succeed. If McElroy had handled Jake Leibowitz without incident, he would have been a hero. Especially if he did it before the reporters arrived. But he didn’t and now he’s out.”

“Bad for him, good for me,” Moodrow said. “We weren’t the best of friends.”

“As a matter of fact, he blamed you for all his troubles.” Morton ground out the cigarette. “Is something wrong, detective?”

Moodrow snorted. If he started naming all the things that were wrong, he’d be sitting in Milton Morton’s office until he retired. Maybe, he thought, I oughta start with what’s right. The list’ll be a lot shorter.

“Because,” Morton continued, “you don’t seem very happy, detective. Which I find somewhat surprising. You did get what you wanted, didn’t you? You did get yourself a piece of the action.”