Shoot the Moon

by Joseph T. Klempner

  “I’m pretty sure he’ll go twenny-five,” Russell says.

  -his Visa bill-

  “Course, if I can getcha twenny-five, you’d hafta give me the five as my cut. Okay?”

  “Okay, what?” Goodman realizes he hasn’t been paying attention.

  “Lissen up, man, pay attention,” Russell says. “This here is bizness.”

  “Sorry.”

  “The guy’ll give us twenny-five for the kilo. I get five - that’s what’s called a finder’s fee. You clear twenny. Deal?”

  Goodman’s brain shuts down. It’s not the numbers that throw him - numbers are his language; numbers are his life. But whatever it is, his mind goes totally numb. Finally, from somewhere far, far away, he hears a voice say, “Deal.” Vaguely, he recognizes the voice as his own.

  There’s some more conversation, but, walking home, Goodman is able to recall none of it, other than an agreement to meet Russell back in the park at seven o’clock tomorrow evening. Nor is he the least bit aware of the two men who, from across the street and a half a block behind him, follow him home.

  Russell goes straight back to the Bronx. He finds Big Red, as always, on 140th Street. Red notices him and signals him to stay put. Russell chills for five minutes, ten, watching the junkies and crackheads filtering into the block. Buying drugs tends to be an afternoon and nighttime thing; mornings are for sleeping. Here on 140th Street, one of the biggest marketplaces in all of the South Bronx, it’s already one o’clock in the afternoon, but the day’s action is just beginning to pick up.

  When Russell next looks back in Big Red’s direction, he doesn’t see him. In his place is Black Jimmy, so called because his skin is as dark as skin can get. Russell knows him to be one of Red’s crew.

  The beep of a car’s horn startles Russell, and he looks up, to see Big Red’s Bentley pulled up to the curb, Big Red behind the wheel. The car’s deep maroon paint is highly polished, and its chrome sparkles. Russell has seen it many times in the neighborhood; everyone knows whose car it is.

  Big Red waves Russell over and motions him to get in. Russell circles the car to the passenger’s side. He opens the door, slides in, and closes it behind him. It sounds like the door of a huge vault shutting.

  It’s warm inside, like being in some rich person’s living room. Russell is surrounded by the smell of new leather. His body molds into a seat so soft and deep that he imagines he’s a ball nestled in the pocket of a fine baseball glove. Everywhere around him is tan leather and grainy wood. Darkly tinted glass obscures the outside world in three directions. Boys II Men sing softly to him from what must be a dozen hidden speakers. The thought comes to him that this is what heaven must be like.

  The car moves away from the curb and glides silently west.

  “‘Sup, Russell?”

  “‘Sup, Red.”

  “You meet the dude?”

  “Yup.”

  “We got us a deal?” Big Red asks him.

  “We got us a deal,” Russell says.

  Back in his apartment, Goodman dials his mother-in-law’s number.

  “I’ve got some good news,” he tells her. “I took care of the problem with Kelly’s MRI. They’re sending the results over to Dr. Saltz.”

  “I’ve got some bad news,” she says. “They already did, and his office called to say he wants you to bring Kelly in tomorrow. He sounds like he wants her to see a specialist.”

  Goodman feels his insides shrivel up and knot. He’s unable to speak.

  “Are you there?”

  “Yes,” he manages to say. “I’m here.”

  He waits for her to say something, but she, too, is silent.

  “What kind of specialist?” he finally asks.

  “I don’t know,” she says. “I didn’t ask.”

  For once, he can hardly blame her.

  Big Red drops Russell off on the corner of 144th Street, and Russell all but floats the rest of the way home. In his mind, he’s already spending his money: fifteen thou from Big Red and another five from the white guy. Twenty thousand dollars! He imagines himself investing the money in other deals, watching his bankroll grow into a hundred thousand, two hundred-

  A car door swings open just in front of him, causing him to break his stride and jump sideways out of the way. A white guy climbs out, a big white guy who’s got the Man written all over him.

  “Hello, Russell,” he says.

  Russell stops in his tracks, his mouth wide open. A second door of the car swings open, and before Russell can say a word, he finds himself sitting in the backseat, staring at the backs of the heads of two detectives. There’s a squeal of rubber, and they lurch forward into traffic.

  Nobody says anything for about ten blocks. By then, they’re heading north on the Grand Concourse. The car is nothing like Big Red’s Bentley. It’s a beat-up Chevy. The plastic seats are torn and lumpy, and there’s all sorts of shit on the floor - newspapers, empty coffee containers, crushed soda cans. It smells like moldy bread. Every once in awhile, the two-way radio comes on. It’s full of static, and Russell has a hard time understanding the voices he hears.

  He spots Yankee Stadium down the hill to the left as they pass 161st Street.

  “What’s this all about?” he finally asks.

  “You know fuckin’ well what it’s about,” says the driver without turning around. He’s the bigger of the two, the one who was first out of the car. He’s got black hair and a big nose, looks Italian to Russell. Every couple of blocks, he eyeballs Russell in the rearview mirror. The other guy is thinner and looks younger. He’s got reddish hair, sort of a crew cut. Probably Irish, Russell guesses.

  At the very top of the Grand Concourse, they turn left and go under the elevated tracks at Jerome Avenue before coming to the beginning of Van Cortland Park. At the far side of the park, the Italian one pulls the car over and kills the engine. He turns halfway in his seat to face Russell.

  “Hello, Russell,” he says again.

  Russell says, “Hello.”

  “I’m Detective Abbruzzo; this here is Detective Riley.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” Russell says.

  “Do yourself a favor, kid,” says Italian. “Don’t be a wiseass, okay?”

  “Okay. Am I under arrest?” Russell asks. “Or am I free to go?” He once saw on a Law and Order episode that you’re supposed to ask that when you think you’re being falsely detained by the police.

  “Whaddayou, a fuckin’ lawyer?” It’s the first thing Irish has said. Russell decides it’s one of those rectangular questions, the kind you’re not really supposed to answer.

  “Russell, my friend,” says Italian, “the word on the street is, you been walkin’ around with some mighty fine pure shit.”

  “You must be crazy, man,” Russell says, and as soon as the words are out of his mouth, he feels the back of Italian’s hand smack him on the side of his head. So fast is the blow delivered that Russell doesn’t even have a chance to get a hand up.

  “Didn’t I tell you not to be a wiseass?” Italian reminds him.

  Russell doesn’t say anything. His ear stings and feels hot, but he doesn’t want to rub it, doesn’t want to give these pigs the satisfaction. Instead, he tries to focus on figuring out who’s dropped a dime on him.

  “Thing is,” Italian says, “it’s not you we want. Oh, we’ll lock your ass up if we gotta. But that’s not really what we want.”

  “Whatta you gonna lock me up for?” Russell knows something about his rights, after all.

  It’s Irish who answers him. “Conspiracy, criminal facilitation, criminal solicitation. How’s that for starters?”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “What that means is about $10,000 bail,” Italian tells him. “Mama got that kinda change?”

  “No,” Russell says.

  “Didn’t think so.” Italian again. “But like I said, it’s not you we want.”

  Russell tries to think. He knows they’re bluffing. He’s been through the
system two or three times - a couple of farebeats and a misdemeanor possession - and he knows that even a Legal Aid’ll be able to beat this one, a drug case with no drugs. Problem is, he can’t afford to take a chance on getting busted: In the time it’ll take him to get out, he’ll blow the deal with Big Red and the white guy.

  “What do you want?” he asks.

  “That’s easy,” Italian says. “We want the guy you got it from. You give us him, we’re finished with you.”

  “What does that mean - I give you him?”

  Irish explains it to him. “You tell us his name, that’s all. His name and where he lives.”

  Russell tries to remember the guy’s name, he really does. But he’s never been good at names - he has this habit of not listening when he’s introduced to somebody, so he finds it’s not so much that he forgets names; he never gets them in the first place. As to where the guy lives, he’s got no clue.

  So he says, “I don’t know his name, or where he lives.”

  “Whaddaya call him?” Irish asks.

  “Me? I call him ‘the white guy.’“

  “That narrows it down pretty good,” says Italian.

  “You got a phone number?” Irish asks.

  “Nope.”

  “How do you get ahold of him?”

  “We meet.”

  “Where?”

  “By the river, around Ninetieth Street.”

  “Which river? The Hudson?”

  “No, the other one.” Russell can’t remember what it’s called.

  “When’s your next meeting?”

  “Tomorrow,” Russell says. “Tomorrow night at seven.”

  Irish and Italian seem to think this over for a minute. They don’t say anything, but they look at each other as if they’re having a conversation without words. Then Italian turns back to Russell.

  “You make that meet, Russell. You get your ass there, if you know what’s good for you. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Yessir.”

  “And Russell-” He waits for a response.

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t fuck with us. Or you’ll find out what it’s like to get fucked with.”

  “Yes, sir,” Russell says again.

  “Go home now,” Italian tells him. “Or wherever you’re going.”

  Which means Russell gets no ride back downtown. He has to get out right there and watch them drive off in the Chevy. Has to walk back to Jerome, find the train station, hop the turnstile, and ride home.

  Fuckin’ cops. Think they own the fuckin’ world, he thinks.

  Jimmy Zelb and Frank Farrelli sit in Peppy’s Bar on West Fifty-Third Street Friday evening. It’s been a long day, and another unproductive one.

  “We gotta make a case next week if it kills us,” Zelb says.

  Farrelli finishes draining a bottle of Corona before nodding in agreement. “Yeah,” he says. “Bugsy’s counting on us.” “Bugsy” is their nickname for their group leader, Lenny Siegel.

  “Monday morning,” Zelb says, “we start making the rounds, paying visits to all our CIs.” CIs are confidential informers. “Put a little pressure on some of those lazy fucks.”

  “I like that,” Farrelli agrees, trying to shake out the little piece of lime from his Corona bottle. “Let’s start with Vinnie Ippolito. He hasn’t given us squat for months now.”

  “How ‘bout Alfonso Gomez? He’s usually good for something.”

  “If he isn’t too strung out,” Farrelli says, working his middle finger into the bottle.

  “Whaddayou, a gynecologist or something?”

  “I’m just trying to get this lime here-”

  “Who else we got?” Zelb asks.

  “We got Addison, we got Eddie Maple, we got DeSalvo, we got-”

  “What a crew of losers.”

  “No shit,” Farrelli agrees, giving up on the lime. “Oh, yeah,” he remembers, “we got Dwayne Reddington.”

  “Yeah,” Zelb says, drinking down the last of his J & B. “Why not? It’s about time we put some heat on Big Red.”

  Late that night, Michael Goodman sits in front of his television set, searching desperately for distraction. He spoke to his daughter earlier in the evening, and, even though she denied it, he could sense that she was in pain even as they talked. His mother-in-law got on the phone afterward and told Goodman he’s supposed to take Kelly to the doctor at eleven o’clock tomorrow morning.

  He changes the channel again, settling for an old black-and-white movie with Gregory Peck. He has no idea what it is, or if he’s seen it before.

  What kind of specialist could they possibly want Kelly to see? What do they think’s the matter with her? All that keeps coming back to him is brain tumor, brain tumor, brain tumor.

  Again, almost instinctively, Pop-Tart jumps lightly onto his lap, circles twice before finding a place to curl up, and settles in there. Goodman strokes its back absently until it begins to purr. He marvels at how such a tiny thing can have such a loud motor.

  By Saturday morning, a light freezing rain has begun to fall, and before leaving his apartment, Goodman pulls on an old orange jacket from his navy days and a rain hat Shirley once gave him. Still, he walks the twenty blocks to his mother-in-law’s building, not only to save a token but because walking in the rain is one of his secret pleasures.

  As he walks, he wonders if it isn’t time for his luck to change, for something truly good to happen. Perhaps this’ll be the day he finally gets some good news, the day that someone will tell him his daughter’s going to be just fine after all.

  But no one will tell him anything of the sort this day. As they sit in the doctor’s office an hour and a half later, Kelly sitting in his lap and sucking her thumb, it isn’t good news that Michael Goodman hears.

  “The MRI films show what looks like a small shadow in her brain. And frankly, it shouldn’t be there,” Dr. Saltz tells him. He holds up a large film for Goodman to look at. It contains many images of what appears to be a brain. “It could be nothing much,” the doctor continues. “It could prove to be nothing more than what we call an artifact, a product of the imaging itself. But I’m concerned enough to want her to see a specialist.”

  Goodman wants to ask him what else it could be, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t want Kelly to hear the answer, doesn’t even want to hear it himself.

  Dr. Saltz makes a phone call. He swivels around on his chair so that his back is to them while he talks. When he swivels back, he announces that he’s made them an appointment for this afternoon. He pulls open his top desk drawer and fishes around until he finds a business card, which he hands to Goodman.

  “He can see you at two o’clock,” Dr. Saltz says.

  It’s only outside, outside in the rain, that Goodman is finally able to look at the card.

  SEYMOUR GENDEL, M.D.

  Board-Certified Neurologist

  1195 Park Avenue New York, NY 10028 (212) 555-1616

  Hours by Appointment

  The only word he sees is neurologist. Now he knows he’s right: The shadow in his daughter’s brain is a tumor, a tumor that will kill her, slowly but surely. He feels his entire world crumbling into ruins, crashing down upon him, smothering him. He carries Kelly tightly in his arms, shielding her frail body with his jacket, grateful for the raindrops mixing freely with his own warm tears.

  Russell Bradford is awakened Saturday by the sounds of his brothers fighting over which cartoons to watch on TV, Power Rangers or Superheroes. He tries to cover his ears with his pillow, but it’s a losing battle.

  In the bathroom, he recalls yesterday’s ride with the detectives, remembers telling them he’s supposed to meet the white guy tonight. He thinks about calling the meeting off or changing it to a different time, but then he realizes he’s got no way to do that: He doesn’t know the guy’s name, or where he lives, or his phone number. And if Russell doesn’t show up as planned, he’ll have no way of ever getting ahold of the guy again to set up another meeting. So he’s either got to g
o to the meeting tonight or give up the $20,000. And there’s no way he’s going to do that. No fucking way.

  He’ll just have to be careful, is all.

  He gets dressed. It’s time to go find Big Red, tell him to get his money ready. Russell figures the best thing is to do this deal quickly before these cops get a chance to fuck it up.

  Dr. Gendel turns out to be a small man without much hair, but with a pleasant manner. He’s able to coax Kelly out of Goodman’s lap and onto a chair, where he examines her, talking to her constantly, telling her what he’s about to do before he does it. Kelly is good about it, and she laughs when he tickles the bottoms of her feet.

  He spends a lot of time checking her reflexes, hitting her knees with a little rubber hammer and poking her toes with safety pins. He straps a device around his forehead that looks like a little satellite dish with a hole at the center. He snaps on a light that’s part of it, then spends the next few minutes examining her eyes, particularly the right one. Then he asks Kelly questions about her headaches, about school, about her appetite.

  “Do you ever see a spot in your eye?” he asks her.

  “Sometimes,” she says.

  “Both eyes, or just one eye?”

  “Just one.”

  “Which one?”

  She points to her right eye.

  “What color is the spot?” he asks.

  “Brown.”

  He gives her a pat on the head for being so good, then tells her she can put her shoes and socks back on.

  He takes the MRI film that Goodman’s brought him from Dr. Saltz and clips it up against a thing that’s a box with a light in it. Again, Goodman sees the image of his daughter’s brain, repeated over and over again. He watches Dr. Gendel study whatever it is he’s looking for.

  Finally, Dr. Gendel turns the light off and unclips the film. He speaks to someone on his intercom phone. Goodman tries to hear what’s being said, but he can’t make it out. It seems to have become suddenly hot in the room; Goodman has to dry the palms of his hands on his trouser legs. He’s aware of a high-pitched ringing noise in his ears, wonders how long he’s been hearing it.