Forced Entry (21 page)

If the smoke was coming from below, the bedroom door was, indeed, a legitimate way out; the air had to be cleaner out there. That was the way to go; the way to go right now, before the smoke got any worse. She tried to move backward, but was unable to make any progress with only one leg. If she turned left, in the general direction of the bedroom door, she would have no landmarks once she left the side of the bed.

I’m going to die if I stay here, she told herself. The statement seemed curious; it seemed like the kind of statement she might hear in a college philosophy class, an absurd consideration designed to undermine her resolution. She smiled contemptuously, then began to turn her body away from the bed, toward the door and escape.

She lost her sense of direction almost immediately, veering to the right, toward the head of the bed. The smoke was very heavy now; she held each breath as long as she could, trying to avoid the oily taste that scorched her throat each time she tried to breathe. Funny, her leg wasn’t bothering her much. It seemed far away, as dull and empty as the bedside lamp when she’d turned it on a few minutes before. The leg was the easy part; it had always been the easy part. Will, on the other hand…well, that was another problem altogether.

She made no conscious decision to stop, no conscious decision to lay her head on the carpet. She felt light-headed, almost girlish, as she inevitably did on those few occasions when she took a glass or two of wine. What, she thought, was I worried about all this time? There was certainly no problem here; she could breathe as easily as she could on those country vacations she took with her husband forty years ago. And she could also, for the first time, see the smoke, see its separate tendrils finding their way through the air currents. The tendrils looked like currents, like charts of ocean currents in the geography textbooks (although the charts were always multicolored and the smoke, of course, was gray or black).

But, monochrome or not, the smoke was beautiful nonetheless, undeniably beautiful and not the least bit frightening. She listened for sirens, for the sounds of rescue. Thinking it wouldn’t make any difference, now. Even if they came, it would take them a long time to find her, because they’d probably go to the basement first; they’d go to the basement, put out the fire and, only then, come looking for old ladies trapped in their apartments.

She fell asleep a few minutes later, knowing it was sleep because she returned to her original dream. Marilyn was a terrible pianist, barely able to pound out the chords while the fingers of her right hand doggedly poked their way through the melody, but her clumsy attack went unnoticed as all three bawled the words to the song, laughing as they went along. Sylvia, watching the girls (they were seated alongside each other on the piano bench) wondered why it couldn’t always be like this. Betty was so close to the family that she and Marilyn often fought like sisters. Well, better to be thankful for the peaceful times than perpetually angry over life’s problems; Sylvia was a firm believer in a positive attitude, despite the leading exponent of that philosophy, Norman Vincent Peale, being not only a
goy
, but some kind of Protestant priest.

Marilyn was enthusiastically missing the last few chords of the song when the bell rang. Not the persistent insect buzz of the smoke alarm, but a deep gong that continued to echo through the house after the button was released.

“I’ll get it,” Sylvia said. “It’s for me.” In her dream, she didn’t ask herself how she knew the visitor was looking for her. Marilyn had lots of friends in the neighborhood and they often came calling. But she did know.

“What do you want to do next?” Marilyn asked Betty.

“ ‘The Wayward Wind,’ ” Betty responded without hesitation, fishing through the sheet music spread across the top of the piano. “Here it is.”

“Okay, you do the train whistle,” Marilyn commanded, already searching for the opening chords.

Still smiling, Sylvia suddenly found herself by the open door. She was surprised to see her husband standing there; he rarely got home before six o’clock. “Bennie,” she cried happily, “what are you doing at home? It’s only four-thirty.”

“I came to get you,” he answered.

“I don’t want to go anywhere,” Sylvia said, doubtfully. “I’m having such a good time with the girls. We haven’t had this much fun together in months.”

“Don’t worry about them.” He reached out and took her hand, an old familiarity that Sylvia, awake, would never have remembered. “The kids are doing fine. You come with me, Sylvia. There’s something I’ve got to show you.”

“T
HE THING IS, I
can’t go to funerals anymore.” Moodrow was standing by the window, trying to explain himself to Jim Tilley. He was looking out at the street, his back to the kitchen table where Tilley was playing with a cup of coffee. “When Rita died four years ago, I sat through the wake for two days. It was the worst thing that ever happened to me. Not the death, Jim. Sitting through those hours with her body right there in the room was a fucking nightmare. My blood was on fire. I felt like if I stayed there another minute, I’d ignite, but I sat by the coffin anyway. It was very bad. In those two days, I did all the funerals and wakes I had left in me. I can’t do no more.”

Tilley, who’d never seen his friend in this mood before, tried to frame a response, but after a moment’s reflection, decided that no response was necessary, that Moodrow was only pausing for breath, that he needed a sounding board, not a counselor.

“What’s making me crazy is that I know I fucked it up,” Moodrow said, turning back to the table. He was looking for the solid ground of police procedure. “I should have…”

“Wait a second,” Tilley reminded him patiently. “I don’t know what happened out there except there was a fire and a fatality.”

“It was arson,” Moodrow said flatly. “And the lady that got killed was named Sylvia Kaufman. She’s having her funeral right now. While we’re talking.”

“You know for sure it was arson? You found a gas can and a blowtorch?” Tilley, like all cops, preferred to deal with the details of investigation. It’s always easier, when viewing the body of a raped and battered woman, to think in terms of semen traces and genetic matching. Of entry wounds and exit wounds instead of breathing, bleeding tissue. Instead of holy life slipping out of the body.

“It’ll be arson, Jimmy. Take my word for it. The fire was all smoke and no heat. It was a warning that got out of hand and it was a professional job. No gasoline can. In fact, no accelerant at all. Gasoline, kerosene…they cause damage, Jimmy, and whoever set this fire didn’t want damage.”

“What does the fire marshal think?”

“I haven’t spoken to him yet.” Moodrow poured himself a cup of coffee, his fifth of the day, and sat down across from Tilley. “I have a problem with that. I’m not a cop anymore and I don’t know if he’ll even talk to me. For sure, he ain’t gonna let me argue if he thinks it’s accidental.”

“No problem,” Tilley said. “I’ll go out there with you.”

Moodrow looked up, appraising his friend. “I appreciate the offer, Jimmy, but I’m trying to line someone up from the One One Five. Make it an official police investigation.”

Tilley was, to his surprise, relieved at not having to partner with Stanley Moodrow and he made a note to think about why he was relieved as soon as he had the chance. In the meantime, he kept to his role, absorbing his friend’s mood and method. “I hope you’re not thinking of that Community Affairs Officer. What’s his name?”

“Dunlap. Paul Dunlap, but I hear the cops in the house call him Porky.”

“Maybe you should find a real cop.”

“From where?” Moodrow waved Tilley’s objection away. “Dunlap’ll be okay as long as he lets me run the show. Plus he’s got a big advantage in that his job consists mostly of giving speeches and not too much of that. He doesn’t usually work during the day, which is another plus. I spoke to him over the phone this morning and he seemed eager.”

“Is he coming here this afternoon?”

“They’ll all be here later. They’re at the funeral right now. You knew Sylvia was Jewish, right? According to her religion, she has to be buried within forty-eight hours. Then her family sits around her apartment for a week. It’s called sitting
shiva
. I think it’s better to do the mourning without the body around. It’s easier. Anyway, Sylvia’s daughter, Marilyn, flew in from Los Angeles yesterday and she’s going to sit
shiva
, so I guess I’ll go over there tomorrow. That won’t be a problem. It’s being near the body I can’t stand.”

Once again, Jim Tilley chose silence. He pushed back his chair, went to the refrigerator, and cut himself a piece of cheesecake.

“The thing that bothers me,” Moodrow continued, “is that I should have known what was going on, but I was an asshole. I thought it was funny. Not the assaults, but the idea of a bunch of middle-class citizens running around in panic over something we see everyday on the Lower East Side. I checked the building and found two drug dealers and two prostitutes.” He stopped suddenly and raised his right hand in front of him, curling his fingers into a fist. “I got big hands. All my life, I’ve been using them to solve problems, especially in the job. I figured I could be a hero. Toss the dealers out on their asses and save the Jackson Arms. I shoulda known better.”

“How?” Tilley finally asked. “You don’t even know right now what’s happening out there.”

Moodrow ignored him. “Where’d they come from? Why’d two street dealers pick a neighborhood where there’s hardly any customers? They couldn’t have come from the streets because the action around there is almost nonexistent and what does take place, takes place behind closed doors, in the bars or the apartments. With this crew, the whores and the dealers, it was like they were out for publicity. It didn’t make sense and I should of seen it.” He paused for breath, looking over at Tilley, who was staring into his coffee. “Jim, I had the fuckers in that apartment. The dealers. I had them right there and I didn’t ask ’em where they came from. I didn’t ask who sent them. That Chinese kid was so scared he woulda given up his mother to stay out of the joint. And I didn’t even ask.”

Tilley, looking up, tried to find a safe comment and then opted for the truth. “You should have asked,” he admitted. “You definitely should have asked.”

Moodrow got up and went to the window again. He was looking for Betty, though he couldn’t help being impressed by the spring day unfolding outside his window. It was the first really warm day of the year and residents of the Lower East Side had abandoned their tenement apartments in favor of the streets. Radios blared. Children shouted. The dealers, who worked their corners in all weather conditions, shrugged off heavy jackets. “Looks like the homeless won’t have to worry about freezing anymore this year,” Moodrow observed. He forced the window open for the first time in weeks.

“What?” Tilley asked.

“It’s getting warm,” Moodrow said. “No more frozen bodies in the park.”

Tilley refused to respond, bringing the conversation back to the point. “Ya know, you weren’t running the show out there. What makes you think Sylvia would have installed an alarm in the bedroom, based on your suspicions?”

Moodrow didn’t hear the question. He turned away from the window, crossing the room to take his chair again. “When they lowered Rita’s body down, I wanted to get in with her. It wasn’t that I couldn’t face the pain. I was having trouble with the anger. As long as I kept the anger, I didn’t have to face the pain, but I knew there was a chance the anger might get out of control. That I could use it on the wrong people. So I pretended that I needed the anger to make sure Rita’s killers were punished. I pretended Rita needed revenge, but I knew, when they put her down in that hole, she was gone forever.”

“And what about Sylvia? Does
she
need revenge?”

“With Rita, I was the one who needed revenge. I had to do it personally, because I was in love with her, but I only knew Sylvia well enough to be sure she didn’t deserve to die that way. As for what I want to do—right now the best thing I could do for Sylvia is to save the building. And to get whoever did this to her. The one who set the fire and the one who ordered it.” Moodrow suddenly straightened in his chair, taking up a working posture. “Tell me what you think’s going on out there?” he demanded.

“The first thing that sticks out,” Tilley responded eagerly, “is the coincidence that drugs and whores came in right after the building changed hands. But let’s pretend that it was just a coincidence. No connection whatsoever. Then I’d say that some major dealer is trying to expand by setting up small-time dealers in a neighborhood where he won’t have to fight to keep his turf. The big dealers have a very hard time expanding in neighborhoods where drugs are sold on every corner. In those neighborhoods, you gotta kill to grow. Also there’s a lot of dealers who think that anyone who tries crack, from derelict to chief executive, is gonna get hooked. I don’t agree a hundred percent, but, from that point of view, it makes sense to jump into a clean territory. The second possibility is that the new landlord and the problems are connected. There’s plenty of instances of landlords hiring goons to empty out buildings, so it wouldn’t be a rare phenomenon, even if it doesn’t usually happen in neighborhoods as clean as Jackson Heights. It’s also possible that the landlord is personally into drugs. Crack dealers have lots of money to invest and just maybe a middle-level pusher figured a way to make his investment pay off double. When you think about it, the neighborhoods that go bad in New York go bad one block at a time. If this building and a few others turned into real horror shows, some of the small homeowners might try to get out while property values are still high. I don’t think it would work, but that doesn’t mean someone couldn’t be giving it a try.”

“You forgot about the arson,” Moodrow interrupted. “What kinda drug dealer uses a professional torch?”

“If it
was
arson,” Tilley returned quietly.

“It was definitely arson.”

“I admire your hunches, Stanley. You got more street sense than anyone I know and you’re probably right. But I’m a cop and I took an oath not to believe anything until I had evidence. If there was no smoking gas can, then I gotta hold off on making any conclusions.”