Shoot the Moon

by Joseph T. Klempner

  They walk onto the Sheep Meadow, but the grass is wet, and the dirt muddy from all the rain, and Goodman carries his daughter so she won’t ruin her shoes. She puts her head against his neck, and as he feels the softness of her hair, he asks nothing more than to be able to carry his little girl always, to be able to protect her from spots in her eye and tumors in her brain for as long as his arms can hold her.

  They sit in the sun on the rocks and watch children running and nannies pushing carriages and dogs chasing balls and Frisbees. They talk about Kelly’s school, but she’s missed so many days lately that she doesn’t have much to tell him. He asks her if she wants lunch, but she says she’d like a pretzel from the pretzel man instead. He spends $2.50 buying them two pretzels, ends up finishing all of his and half of hers when she says she’s full. Then she looks up at him expectantly, as if to say he’s put it off long enough.

  The Ballerina Princess (Continued)

  Now, because of her headaches, it became necessary for the Ballerina Princess to visit some doctors and have some tests. And I must tell you, these tests were no fun! Some of the doctors would put the Ballerina Princess into a big machine that could take magical pictures of her head; and other doctors would hit her little knees with rubber hammers and stick her little toes with safety pins; still other doctors would shine magic flashlights into her little eyes.

  But all the time, the Ballerina Princess was very good. Even when she got tired of all the tests - even when some of the things they did to her seemed scary and downright mean - she kept being good, because she knew the doctors were only trying to help her, trying to figure out a way to make the headaches go away.

  And her grandma kept taking good care of her, even if she didn’t know any good stories, and the brave and loyal Prince Larus never left her side. And her daddy who loved her more than anything in the kingdom - more than all the castles and the banners and the unicorns and the winged horses - her daddy promised her that he would work as hard as he could at his magic numbers, so that he, too, could do his part in making the headaches go away forever.

  By two o’clock, Kelly can barely stay awake and, though the day seems warm to Goodman, her fingers and the tip of her nose are cold to the touch. He picks her up once again, and they head for her grandmother’s.

  * * *

  Later that afternoon, Goodman meets up with his navy buddies at Krulewich’s apartment. There’s no baseball game on - the World Series has apparently ended, unbeknownst to Goodman - and the Giants aren’t playing till tomorrow night, on Monday Night Football. So Lehigh Valley makes good on his promise to teach them how to play hearts.

  They sit around Krulewich’s card table, a pretty close relative of Goodman’s. Lehigh deals the cards. Krulewich holds his up to his thick glasses. The Whale gets as close to the table as his girth will permit. Goodman, whose facility with numbers makes him a pretty good card player (he and Shirley used to play bridge with her parents), listens as Lehigh explains the rules.

  “Everybody gets thirteen cards,” he begins. “Whoever gets the two of clubs lays it down. It goes around the table. You got a club, you gotta follow suit. You don’t, you can play anything you want. Each heart is worth a point. Only” - and here Lehigh shakes a finger of warning at them - “points are bad. There’re twenty-six points altogether - thirteen hearts, plus the queen of spades, which is worth another thirteen points.”

  “All by herself?” Goodman asks.

  “All by herself,” Krulewich says. “So the winner is the one who gets stuck with the least points.”

  “So all you gotta do is dump your hearts every chance you get,” the Whale decides. “Pretty fuckin’ borin’, if you ask me.”

  “Well,” Lehigh says, “it would be, except for one thing.”

  “What’s that?” Goodman asks.

  “Shooting the moon.”

  “Hey!” the Whale protests. “I ain’t flashin’ my butt for a buncha guys!”

  “You don’t hafta flash your butt to shoot the moon,” Lehigh explains. “You gotta get all the points.”

  “All twenty-six?” someone asks.

  “All twenty-six.” Lehigh nods. “Do that, everybody else gets stuck with fifty points.”

  “Suppose you don’t make it?” Goodman asks. “Suppose you come close but you only end up with, say, twenty-three or twenty-four?”

  “Tough luck,” Lehigh says. “You don’t get ‘em all, they count against you. Which is why you better be damn sure you can make it before you try to shoot the moon.”

  They try a few hands. At first, there’s a lot of grumbling. Krulewich has trouble seeing the cards that have been played, and they have to call out each card to him. The Whale wants to bet on the final score. Goodman, who’s able to keep track of every card that’s been played, is soon winning. After four hands, he’s comfortably ahead.

  KRULEWICH 36

  WHALE 29

  GOODMAN 15

  LEHIGH 24

  They decide to play one more hand before calling out for burgers.

  Goodman picks up his cards and studies them. Only three hearts - the two, the four, and the nine. No queen of spades, and no spade higher than the queen. He knows he’s home free - all he has to do is to discard his hearts every opportunity he gets.

  As play begins, it’s clear that everyone else has the same game plan. Krulewich and the Whale dump their hearts, too, but Goodman’s so far ahead of them on points that he knows they can’t catch him. As for Lehigh, he runs into a streak of bad luck and is soon groaning as he gets stuck with hearts he’s unable to underplay.

  “Tough luck, sucker!” laughs the Whale, playing his last heart, the jack, on Lehigh’s king.

  It’s not until the final few tricks that they realize what’s been going on. By then, it’s too late to stop Lehigh from winning all thirteen hearts and the queen of spades. Final score:

  KRULEWICH 86

  WHALE 79

  GOODMAN 65

  LEHIGH 24

  That night, secure behind his repaired door and new locks, as Michael Goodman prays for his daughter to be all right, he remembers he was supposed to meet Russell back in Carl Schurz Park earlier in the day. He feels guilty for a moment for not having showed up. Then he tells himself that, for all he knows, Russell was in on the plan to steal the drugs from him. He realizes how stupid he’s been to trust someone who only days ago was trying to mug him. He guesses he’s lucky to be alive still. He vows to throw away the rest of the drugs first chance he gets. He’ll do it tomorrow.

  By Monday morning, Pop-Tart’s eye is less swollen and he (and Goodman’s finally gotten around to checking, and has confirmed that the kitten he’s thought of until now as an it is definitely a he) can open his eye slightly. Goodman tries dabbing a bit of old antibiotic cream into the eye, but Pop-Tart will have none of that.

  As for his own wounds, Goodman sees in his mirror that the left side of his face is slightly larger than the right, but you really have to look to be able to notice. The numbness is gone, replaced by a dull ache, and there’s no more dried blood, though he wonders if he’s hearing out of his left ear as well as before.

  The loss of his pants, shoes, and wallet is another nuisance Goodman has to deal with. The pants were old anyway: He’d worn them because he didn’t want to expose a newer pair to the rain. But the shoes were new ones, and he’ll have to replace them at some point. As for his wallet, he’ll miss the money that was in it, but with no car, he has little need of his driver’s license. He’d left his credit card case at home, since the cards had become totally worthless anyway. He remembers being thankful walking back from Carl Schurz Park that his keys had been in his jacket pocket rather than in his pants, and he laughs now at remembering how he hadn’t needed them to get back inside after all.

  By 12:15, he says goodbye to Pop-Tart, locks up his new lock, and heads to work, grateful for the opportunity to earn another $100.

  First thing Monday morning, even before getting out of bed, Jimmy Zelb
remembers Big Red’s phone call. Wasting no time, he hits the memory button on his phone that dials his partner’s number.

  After a single ring, he hears “Farrelli is speaking.” He knows Frank copied that line from some movie or something he’d seen, but Jimmy forgets the details.

  “Hey, Frankie.”

  “What’s up, Jimmy?”

  “Ready to work?”

  “Now?”

  “I’ll let you wake up first, if you insist.”

  “I guess so,” is about as enthusiastic as Farrelli’s willing to get.

  “I got a call from the Red Man,” Zelb tells him. “I think he’s got something good for us, but it may take some doing. How ‘bout I come by and pick you up in thirty?”

  “Make it forty-five?” Farrelli pleads.

  “Forty,” Zelb says. “And I think we might want to use Cruz on this one, too, so watch what you say.”

  “No problem,” Farrelli says.

  Cruz is relatively new to the DEA, having come over from the state police less than a year ago, and has only been in Group Two about six weeks. They both know that when you’re working with a new agent, you try to do things pretty much by the book. You can’t be too careful: You can never be too sure who you’re dealing with until you’ve worked with them a lot and know they’re someone you can really trust. Every once in a while, Inspection will sneak one of their people into a field group just to see who’s on the take.

  Manny isn’t in today - perhaps his boil is acting up again - but he’s left an envelope for Goodman. Inside is a list of things he’d like Goodman to do this afternoon, like balancing the checkbook, figuring out the right amount of withholding tax for a couple of employees, and trying to find out a way to get a tax deduction or something for giving away worthless tires that can’t be recapped anymore. Also in the envelope are forms for Goodman to complete so that he’ll be able to sign checks when Manny’s not around. And five $20 bills.

  With the office all to himself, Goodman gets absorbed in his work. The truth is, he’s a natural with numbers, and he likes dealing with them. The way some people get joy from completing a difficult crossword puzzle or figuring out the ending of a mystery story - that’s how Goodman feels when the numbers in the credit column add up the same as those in the debit column, to the penny. He balances the checkbook (no easy feat, because the legendary Marlene had done her best to translate everything into hieroglyphics), prepares the forms for the withholding, and - with a few phone calls - locates a rubber salvage company that will actually pay by the pound to pick up surplus tires.

  With nothing else to do and a half hour to kill, Goodman phones his mother-in-law. Kelly seems okay, she says. And Mount Sinai Hospital called to say that Goodman and Kelly have an appointment for the spinal tap Friday morning.

  For the fourth time in two days, Russell Bradford goes to 140th Street in search of Big Red. On each of the previous three trips, Russell has encountered either Tito (who’s back out on the street on bail) or someone else who works for Red. Each time, they’ve told him Red wasn’t around and they had no idea when he’d be back.

  Russell knows this could be good: It could mean that Big Red is busy cutting and bagging up the product or even moving it somewhere else. But at the same time, he can’t shake the feeling that Red is purposely avoiding him in order to put off having to pay him $15,000.

  Now, as Russell comes into the block, he spots Big Red in his usual spot, and his doubts are put aside. It takes Red a moment to notice Russell, but as soon as he does, he waves him over.

  “Yo, Russell, where you been?”

  “I been around,” Russell says. “Didn’ nobody tell you I was lookin’ for you?”

  “No, man.”

  “How’d it go?” Russell asks.

  “Good,” Big Red tells hims. “It went real good.”

  “And-”

  “And you want what’s rightfully yours.”

  Russell smiles sheepishly.

  “And so you shall have it,” Big Red says. “Ten o’clock tonight, you be at a Hunner and Twenny-Ninth Street, over by the Hudson River.”

  Russell frowns.

  “You want big bills or small ones?” Big Red asks him.

  Russell shrugs his shoulders. He hasn’t thought about that.

  “Better off with small ones,” Big Red tells him. “Twennies an’ tens. Harder to hide, but easier to spend.”

  “Okay,” Russell agrees. “Small ones.” The conversation reassures him; he can almost feel the money.

  “Good. Bring a bag with you, okay? A strong plastic bag. Best to have two, so you can make a double bag, okay?”

  “Okay,” Russell says. This sounds good.

  It’s not too long after Russell leaves the block that Big Red calls Tito and asks him to come over, take his place. As soon as that happens, Big Red goes and gets into his Bentley and drives down into Manhattan. He heads south on Lenox Avenue, then enters the Central Park Drive at 110th Street. There, he begins running red lights, slowly but deliberately. He makes it to Seventy-Second Street before he hears a siren and sees red lights coming up behind him.

  The officers who pull him over seem excited to have nabbed a black man in a car worth $100,000. To their surprise, the man, whose license identifies him as Dwayne Reddington, actually consents to their request to search the car; to their disappointment, they find no contraband. But they do find, through a computer check, that Mr. Reddington’s license has been suspended because of two outstanding unpaid moving violations.

  For the red lights, they issue him three tickets. For the suspended license, they can either arrest him or issue him a DAT, a desk-appearance ticket, directing an offender who has suitable identification on him to appear in court on a future date. Given the choice, they elect to arrest him and impound his Bentley.

  The rain begins again that evening, and Goodman, who’s had his fill of it over the weekend, sits in front of his TV set, watching a basketball game. Pop-Tart whines from the kitchen - which is nothing more than one end of the room, comprising a stove, a sink, and a narrow refrigerator - as a reminder that they’re out of cat food. But the game is a good one, the Knicks and Pacers tied eighty-one-all at the end of the third quarter, and he figures by the time it’s over, the rain may have stopped.

  Russell Bradford shows up at West 129th Street at ten o’clock sharp, the first time in his life he’s been on time for anything. He sees right away that Big Red has picked a good spot. He can see cars down by 125th Street, but up here, just four blocks away, it’s completely deserted. He pulls up the hood of his sweatshirt and waits for Big Red to show up with his money. In his back pocket is a double plastic bag from the A&P.

  After about ten minutes, a car pulls up, but it’s an old Mazda, not Big Red’s Bentley. A man gets out, and right away, Russell sees it’s Hammer, Big Red’s friend from the other night. And he’s carrying a bag that looks heavy with cash. He walks over to Russell before speaking.

  “Sup, Russell?”

  “Sup, Hammer?”

  “Red sends his regards,” Hammer says. “Said to tell you he got tied up, couldn’t make it. But he asked me to give you this.” And as Russell watches, Hammer reaches into the bag.

  His guard lowered by dreams of wealth, it suddenly dawns on Russell that there’s no money in the bag. His eyes dart first to the left, then to the right. He sees Hammer smile, sees his hand begin to come back out of the bag. Too late, Russell takes a step backward, then another. He spins around and bolts into the darkness. He gets ten feet, twenty, but suddenly there’s something loose under his feet, and he’s stumbling, slipping to one knee. He hears Hammer’s footsteps coming up fast behind him. He pulls himself up, tries to run again. There’s a brilliant flash of light and a deafening explosion, the last sight he sees and the last sound he hears before Russell Bradford becomes the second victim of the twenty kilos.

  Reggie Miller scores fourteen points in the final quarter, and the Pacers beat the Knicks, 104 to 99. Pop-Tart see
ms to sense that the game is over and that, with it, so is Goodman’s right to further procrastination. He rubs up against Goodman’s legs and - when that doesn’t do the trick - begins taking small bites at his ankles. Goodman gets the message. Before he leaves, though, he grabs his umbrella: enough of this walking-in-the-rain stuff.

  At the store, he selects three cans of cat food, forsaking the generic type he usually buys, in favor of one called Cadillac. He’s decided his new friend deserves something special. He picks out a tuna, a chicken with vegetables, and something called hearty beef stew. He also buys a container of evaporated milk, and a frozen pizza for himself. His purchases come to $12.33.

  Back at his building, he unlocks the downstairs door and is about to go inside when he thinks he hears a whimper.

  “Please,” he says, “no more cats.” The sound of his own voice causes him to wonder if maybe he isn’t becoming an emotionally disturbed person after all.

  But then there’s a second whimper, louder than the first, and almost human. It seems to have come from the area underneath the steps, where Tony the Super keeps the garbage cans on nights there won’t be a pickup. Goodman peers through the darkness but can’t see anything. In spite of himself, he’s unable to bring himself to ignore the sound, to turn his back on whatever it is and go inside the building. He is drawn to where it has come from, as surely as iron is drawn to a magnet.

  “Hello?” he says softly, prepared for anything from police to panther. “Anybody there?” And he is answered by a sound, this time a muffled sob, decidedly human.

  He sets down his bag of groceries and collapses his umbrella. He pokes his way through the garbage cans, shifting them to one side or the other. As his eyes grow more accustomed to the darkness, he finally makes out the form of a person, huddled in a sitting position up against the brick wall, knees drawn up tightly against chest, hands clapsed around shins. In the dark, he can’t make out if it’s a man or woman, an adult or a child.