Piece of the Action (29 page)

“My family,” Pat Cohan nearly shouted. “He attacked my family. It’s getting to the point where nothing’s sacred.
Nothing.
”

“You already said that. Ten fucking times. Enough already.”

“And I suppose you think attacking a man through his innocent family is just ordinary business?”

“For Christ’s sake, Pat, Kate’s his fiancée. There’s no way you were gonna get through this thing without her finding out. Be realistic.”

“That’s easy for you to say. Your family isn’t involved.”

Patero chose to ignore the comment. What he was trying to do was bring a little sanity into the conversation. He’d made a decision and he wanted to put it on the table and go home.

“The way I look at this, Pat, what we should’ve done was let Samuelson and Maguire do their jobs. Which is what I told ya from the beginning. If we’d kept our hands off, most likely Don Steppy would’ve taken care of it by himself.”

“It’s easy to say that now, Sal. But how were we supposed to know that Luis Melenguez was Stanley’s neighbor? Do
you
have spies for neighbors?”

“Look, it doesn’t really matter what you say. The thing of it is that I’ve had enough. I’m jumpin’ ship. You wanna get Stanley, you gotta do it yourself.”

“You’re as dirty as I am. Dirtier, from a legal point of view.”

“You can’t threaten me, Pat. Ya can’t threaten me because I don’t care. But I got a real good piece of advice for you. This homicide isn’t in the precinct anymore. You had it sent out to Organized Crime. Well, if you got friends on Organized Crime, grab that phone and tell ’em to find the man who killed Luis Melenguez. Find him before Stanley does.”

“And why should I take advice from you, a man who’s taken bribes from dozens of assorted bookmakers and pimps?”

“Wanna hear something funny, Pat? I think that without knowin’ what I was doin’, I somehow walked into a loony bin on December twenty-sixth. Just an accident, right? Could’ve happened to anybody. Meanwhile, I been wanderin’ through the place ever since. Covering up a homicide? You
gotta
be crazy. Which is what I was and what I’m not gonna be anymore. Take my advice, Pat. Find the killer yourself and lock him up in a cage. That’s your only hope.”

“Well, boyo, thanks for the advice. Now, being as you’re no longer involved, I can’t see as I have any more need of your company this evening.
Adios,
as they say in the projects.”

Pat Cohan, calm for the first time in many hours, waited for the front door of his Bayside home to close, then picked up the phone and quickly dialed out. He listened for a moment, the fingers of his free hand absently running through his silky white hair, then said, “Get me Joe Faci. Tell him, Patrick’s on the phone.”

“S
TANLEY, I’M HEATING UP
my world-famous cheese blintzes. You’re maybe interested in one or two?” Greta Bloom set a mug of coffee in front of her guest, then turned back to the stove.

“I’d be
more
interested in ten or twelve,” Moodrow said, pouring cream into his mug. “How come you’re not making me use that white powder in my coffee?”

Greta shook her head. “From kosher you’ll never learn. I’m making blintzes. That’s dairy. With dairy you can have cream. So, how many blintzes should I put up?”

“A dozen’ll do.”

“Just like your father. Max wasn’t as big as you, but no one could fill
him
up, either.” She turned back to the stove, then began to giggle. “I just remembered a story about your mother and father. You wanna hear?”

“As long as you don’t forget the food.”

Greta pushed a cookie sheet dotted with cheese blintzes into the oven and closed the door. “Your mother was a very pretty girl. Even with a ring on her finger, men didn’t leave her alone. As it happened, we were working in a loft on Grand Street, sewing lace onto satin wedding gowns. This was considered skilled work by the bosses and the pay was good for that time. Anyway, there was a foreman in the loft named Kawitzski. A
brute,
Stanley, and always making remarks to the girls about coming into the storeroom. He went crazy for your mother. Every
minute
he was standing by her machine.”

“Wait a second. My mother was married at this time? Or single?”

“Married. And practically a newly wed. You can believe me when I say Nancy Moodrow had no use for Kawitzski. But what could she do except laugh it off? It was common for men in the garment business to makes passes at the girls. Bosses? Foremen? They strutted like Cossacks in a peasant’s cottage. A few of the girls went along, too. It means a lot to get the better jobs when you’re doing piecework. But that’s neither here nor there. One day this Kawitzski touched your mother in a way he shouldn’t have. It was not a thing you could throw off with a laugh. When your mother left work, she was so mad that she told your father what happened the minute he got home.”

“Pop always had a temper. What’d he do, kill the guy?”

“Killing is what he
wanted
to do, but like I already said, this Kawitzski was a brute. He saw your father coming and hid behind a door. When your father walked past, Kawitzki jumped out and hit him a
tremendous
punch. Down goes your father and Kawitzki starts to jump on top, but Nancy has a little trick of her own. Five rolls of pennies in a tiny purse. She hit Kawitzki such a blow I don’t think he woke up to this
day.
Then we all ran out before the cops came. Your father was so mad he didn’t talk to your mother for a week. Everybody was laughing at him for hiding behind a woman’s skirts.”

Moodrow blew on the steaming coffee, then sipped carefully. “I never got to know my father. He was always out working and he died before I was old enough to really talk to him. It was different with my mother. Especially after my father passed. I was serious about my boxing at that time, so I didn’t go out much. Between school and training, I had no time for a social life.” He hesitated for a moment, took the mug in his hands, then set it down. “I think what I’m trying to say is that I miss her. Things fall away and you can’t get them back. It makes you crazy if you think about it too much.”

“I miss her, too, Stanley.” Greta took the blintzes out of the oven and set them on top of the stove. “To tell you the truth, the way I feel this morning, pretty soon I’ll miss myself.” She crossed to the refrigerator, took out a bowl of sour cream and put it on the table. “
Nu,
so tell me. With the case, what’s happening?”

“I kind of messed it up.” Moodrow dug out the sketch of Santo Silesi and laid it on the table. “This guy’s first name is Santo. He’s a small-time heroin dealer. The men who killed Luis Melenguez work for Santo’s boss. What I’m trying to do is locate Santo so I can ask him a few questions, but I think I’m going about it the wrong way.”

“You’re going about it how?”

“The story I got from O’Neill …”

“O’Neill?”

“O’Neill ran the house of prostitution where Luis was murdered. The killers were there to teach O’Neill a lesson and Luis Melenguez walked into the middle of it. O’Neill gave me a statement, but you can forget about him testifying in court. He’s running for his life.”

“You’re a cop, Stanley. You could protect him.”

“I could if there weren’t other cops protecting his killers. You think those blintzes are ready?”

Greta forked several blintzes onto a plate and passed them over. “Stanley, would the cops doing this protecting be somehow related to your father-in-law?”

“I’m not married, Greta. I’m engaged.”

“Don’t be technical. Answer the question, please, or tell me I should mind my own business.”

“
Yes,
my father-in-law
is
protecting the killers. And you
should
mind your own business.” Moodrow cut a blintz in two, covered the half on his fork with sour cream and popped it into his mouth. “I spent most of yesterday knocking on doors in the projects where I think Santo works. I didn’t run into anyone I know and I didn’t get anywhere, either. I’m gonna go about it a little different today. I’m gonna visit some of the guys I grew up with and some of the guys I met when I was boxing. Even if nobody recognizes the picture, I’ll still be ahead of the game, because at least I can be sure I’m not being lied to.”

“To me it sounds good.” Greta said, shoveling blintzes onto Stanley Moodrow’s plate. “And I hope things work out with Kate. It’s not your fault her father’s a crook.”

The phone rang before Moodrow closed the door behind him. What he wanted to do was let it ring, to grab his gun, badge and coat, then get on the street where he could work. Unfortunately, the caller, almost as if he could read Moodrow’s mind, refused to hang up.

“Yeah?”

“Stanley, it’s Allen Epstein. I been phoning every ten minutes. Where you been?”

“I been having breakfast with my girlfriend.”

“Is Kate there?”

“Just kiddin’, Sarge. What’s up?”

“The pimp and his wife are dead. The cops in the Tenth found them last night. The way I hear it, the apartment was a slaughterhouse. There was blood in every room, even the toilet.”

“Sounds like somebody put up a fight.”

“Yeah, but not the pimp. He was sitting on the couch when the killer sliced his throat. It must have been his old lady.
She
was stabbed twenty-seven times.”

“Any chance the killer was injured? Any chance some of that blood was his?”

“It’s too early to know. With that many samples, the lab’ll need at least three days to separate them out. Anyway, I got something better than blood. There was a witness.”

“You’re bullshitting.”

“Oh, so I got your attention, eh?”

“Don’t play with me, Sarge.”

“Awright, I don’t have a name or an apartment number. I don’t even know if it was a man or a woman. What I do know is the witness lives in the building. Apparently, the killers made a lotta noise and the witness opened the door as they were leaving.”

“Ya know somethin’, Sarge,” Moodrow said after a moment, “this doesn’t have to work in our favor. If Patero and Cohan find out there’s a witness, they’re gonna pass the information on to Accacio. Any idea who caught the squeal?”

“Not yet, but soon.”

“So we don’t know if the witness is being protected or not.”

“Protection can work both ways, too. Whatta you lookin’ for, a guarantee?”

“No guarantee, Sarge. But I’m not gonna sit on my ass, either. I’m heading out to work.”

“Can’t wait to get busy, right?”

“Right.”

“It’s kinda funny you haven’t asked me about getting a look at the mug shots.”

Moodrow hesitated for a moment, then laughed. “You should’ve been a cop, Sarge. You got natural suspicion.”

“Forget the bullshit, Stanley. What’s goin’ on?”

“I already have what I need. I went to an artist I know and had him make a sketch. It’s not a photo, but it’ll do for a start.”

“I take it you don’t trust me, Stanley. Being as you didn’t mention this before.”

Moodrow took his time answering. When he finally spoke, his voice was cold. “Up until right now, I didn’t trust anybody. Not you. Not
anybody.
But if you were in bed with Patero and Cohan, you never would’ve told me about this witness. Or about the O’Neills, either. I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings, but I know what I have to do and I’m gonna do it the way I see it.”

It was Epstein’s turn to think it over. He waited a long time, until Moodrow was ready to hang up, before he finally spoke. “I guess I can’t blame you. The way you went from walking a beat to the bullshit you’re in now would shake anybody up. Most likely it would’ve worked out better if you’d spent the first five years of your career learning the politics of the job instead of waltzing around a boxing ring. But what’s done is done. You still wanna get inside the precinct?”

“It depends on whether I have any luck on the street. What I’d like to do, assuming I can’t find Santo by myself, is give
you
the sketch and let
you
go through the books. It can’t hurt if Patero and Cohan think I’m sitting on my hands. If they think I’m scared shitless.”

“All right, Stanley. But one piece of advice before you hit the bricks. You’re gonna need friends if you expect to get through this in one piece. And I’m in a much better position to know who to trust. I’ve been living with the bullshit for a long time. If I tell you somebody’s okay, they’re okay.”

“Yeah? You sayin’ you wanna come out in the open on this? You wanna put your name right next to mine on Inspector Pat Cohan’s shit list?”

“If you’re asking me to step into your shoes, the answer is ‘go fuck yourself.’ What you have to realize is that you
can’t
do it yourself. Once you get that tiny little thought firmly planted in your tiny little brain, you’ll stop taking so many punches.”

Moodrow, stepping out onto the street, looked up at an overcast sky and shook his head. After weeks of freezing days and below-freezing nights, it was finally warming up. That was the good news. The bad news was that it’d be raining by noon. And it’d probably keep raining until strong Canadian winds pushed the soup back toward Virginia where it belonged.

It was eight o’clock in the morning and Moodrow was headed for Berrigan’s, an amateur boxing gym on Allen Street that had to work around school schedules in order to train its aspiring champions. The gym was run by Father Samuel Berrigan, a no-nonsense Catholic priest who used early-morning workouts as a way to separate the serious from the merely foolish. He lectured his boys constantly, insisting that the most important factor in a fighter’s career was simple desire. Stanley Moodrow had been his favorite example.

“He’s slow. He’s ugly. He fights with his face. Stanley has no right to win, but he wins anyway. That’s because he
wants
to win. He
desires
victory.”

By the time Moodrow ran into a fighter with equal desire and far more talent, he’d moved through several trainers, leaving Father Sam far behind.

The gym was open and functioning when Moodrow walked through the door. There were fighters on both speed bags, sharp middleweights competing with each other to make the bag dance. Moodrow watched them for a minute, then drifted over to a boxing ring in the center of the gym. The two kids sparring inside couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred and ten pounds, but they were giving it all they had. The shorter of the two, stocky and short-armed, was bobbing and weaving frantically. The other kid was firing one jab after another, following each jab with a crisp left hook or a straight right hand. The only problem was that the short kid didn’t know how to close the space between himself and his opponent, while the taller kid didn’t have the timing to hit a moving target.