Shoot the Moon

by Joseph T. Klempner

  “Then, to make a long story short, I found out that I wasn’t the only one who was out there saving Paulie’s life. We had a pretty good fight. He laughed at me, told me he’d cut his own face, that there weren’t any debts or guys looking to kill him or break his knees, and that I was one of six girls he had working for him, and that he could do anything he liked with me. To prove his point, he tied me up, stuffed a washcloth in my mouth, and raped me. Afterward, he guaranteed me that if I ever went to the police, he’d have me killed. When he fell asleep, I untied myself, crawled out the window, and climbed down the fire escape. It was raining, so I found a place to get out of the rain. That’s when you found me.”

  They sit in silence. Goodman wants to say something, wants to tell her it’s all right, but he can’t think of any words that seem to fit. “I’m sorry” is what he settles for, and it seems to be as good as anything, because it draws a smile from Carmen, though certainly not one of her smiles.

  They have more coffee and they sit, mostly in silence. At one point, Carmen takes his right hand in her own, and they continue to sit.

  That night, Goodman gives up his spot on the floor and lies on the sofa bed with Carmen. They are in their underwear: he in his wrinkled boxer shorts and sleeveless undershirt, she in matching pink bra and panties. They lie a good two feet apart, and - just to make certain that no funny business goes on - Pop-Tart plants himself squarely between them.

  Nonetheless, Goodman doesn’t have a prayer of falling asleep. He lies in the dark, feeling his pulse pound in his chest, his wrists, his temples, and even his penis. He tells himself it’s the caffeine, but he knows better than to believe everything he hears.

  Sometime around three, just when he’s almost asleep, he feels a hand brush against his own. It will cost him another hour of restlessness.

  Goodman awakes Friday morning to the smell of coffee brewing. He looks at the clock. 7:33. He figures he’s gotten maybe four hours of sleep, tops.

  Yet when Carmen brings him a cup of steaming coffee, she looks rested and gorgeous. She’s put a denim shirt on. He catches a glimpse of her pink panties, then quickly looks away. He accepts the coffee gratefully.

  “I’ve got to take Kelly to the hospital this morning,” he tells her. “I’ll probably be gone most of the day.”

  “Do you want me to look for a place to stay?” she asks. “I mean, I’ve got friends-”

  In the firmest voice he can muster at this hour of the morning on four hours of sleep, he says, “I want nothing of the sort.”

  She leans forward and kisses his forehead. The thought that comes to him is that his nose has missed its turn.

  At 0915 hours, Ray Abbruzzo and Daniel Riley are back at Maggie Kennedy’s room on the sixth floor of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor’s office. She has the papers for the eavesdropping order all drawn up, waiting for Abbruzzo’s signature.

  By 9:45, they’re across the street in part 70 of the Supreme Court. Even though court’s supposed to begin at 9:30, there’s no judge in sight.

  A few minutes after ten, a small woman with glasses perched on the end of her nose comes in from a side door and mounts the step to where the judge is supposed to sit. In a voice that can charitably be described as somewhere between a rasp and a whine, she asks if there are any ready cases.

  “Not yet,” says Tommy, the clerk.

  “There’s a wiretap order, if you want to take that,” says Dennis, the sergeant.

  “Okay,” says Justice Arlene Silverman. “Come on up.”

  Maggie Kennedy, papers in hand, approaches with Detective Abbruzzo. She hands the papers to the judge, who, while she looks through them, asks Abbruzzo if he swears to the truth of his affidavit.

  “Yes, I do,” Abbruzzo says, right hand in the air.

  “Very well,” Justice Silverman says after a minute. She signs her name three times and tosses the papers to Tommy, who stamps them up.

  After a quick trip to the clerk’s office on the tenth floor to get a seal imprinted through the judge’s signatures, Ray Abbruzzo and Dennis Riley have their wiretap order.

  Goodman picks Kelly up at nine, and they walk over to Madison Avenue and then uptown toward the Mount Sinai Medical Center, Larus in tow. Kelly seems upbeat, doing her best to be brave in the face of whatever this day will bring. Only once does she ask if what they’re going to do to her will hurt.

  “I’m afraid it will,” he says. “But the doctor said I could be right there with you, holding your hand, so I will be.”

  “Promise?”

  “Promise.”

  His only wish at this moment is that he could change places with her, that her headaches could be his headaches, that whatever tumor lurks deep inside her tiny head could only be in his, and that the terrible needle they’re readying for her spine could instead be aimed at him.

  Almost as if she can read his thoughts, his daughter gives his hand a tiny squeeze and looks up at him. “I’ll be okay,” she announces.

  They enter through continuously revolving doors - Kelly decides they’re “magic portals,” and Goodman is not for the first time astounded with her vocabulary - and follow color-coded signs down long corridors. It seems they have to walk underneath the hospital for almost as long as they walked to it. Finally, they reach an elevator that promises to take them to the Same-Day Procedure Unit.

  They fill out papers together, Kelly contributing her full name, date of birth, and home address. When it comes to allergies, she says, “I really hate sardines. I almost barfed once when I tasted one. Does that count?”

  “Why not?” Goodman agrees, and he lists sardines under allergies.

  He has a bit more difficulty with the section entitled “Medical Coverage.” He’s tempted to list the insurance company from his old job, but he worries that he could be accused of fraud or misrepresentation or something, so long has it been now since he was fired. Instead, he simply writes, “None.”

  “None” doesn’t quite seem to do the trick at the reception desk, however, and Goodman is directed to see the cashier. There, he’s informed that the charge for the procedure is $825, of which $500 must be paid in advance when there’s no proof of insurance.

  “Does that include the doctor’s bill?” he asks.

  “Oh, no. That’s extra.”

  “How much extra?”

  “They generally charge somewhere between 1,000 and 1,500.”

  He takes out his credit card case. He’s been using it ever since he lost his wallet - along with his pants, his shoes, and the first kilo of heroin - in his first attempt to become a drug seller. Behind the five twenties, behind the worthless credit cards, behind the expired library card, he finds what he’s looking for: a single check bearing the imprint of the Bronx Tire Exchange. His handshakes slightly as he fills it out and signs it. Walking back to rejoin his daughter, Goodman promises that no matter what happens, whatever it takes, he’ll pay this money back to Manny, who’s never done anything to him but hire him and trust him.

  Shortly after noon, a white NYNEX truck with blue-and-yellow trim pulls into a block and double-parks. Two uniformed technicians climb down from the cab, assemble some equipment from the back, and head for the building listed on their work order. They ring the bell, wait a few minutes, and are met by the superintendent. He leads them downstairs and shows them the telephone wire panel that links each of the building’s apartments with the incoming lines.

  “You need anything else, just let me know,” he tells them. “My name’s Tony.”

  But they don’t need anything else. One of them punches a seven-digit number on a red handheld phone strapped to his belt. The other one fastens a wire to a terminal on the panel by means of an alligator clip. Then he begins touching another alligator clip, connected to another wire, to other terminals, one by one. As soon as he touches the fourth terminal, there’s an audible dial tone.

  “That’s a pair,” he says, fastening the wires.

  That easily, and that quickly, Michael
Goodman’s phone has been tapped.

  As they pack up their equipment and prepare to leave, the first technician looks around. “Nice setup,” he says. “I sure wish my building had storage lockers like this.”

  Goodman and Kelly are led by a nurse to a small room. There is an examining table, two chairs, a rolling cart with drawers in it, and two waste-baskets - one marked biohazardous. There is no window. Goodman seats Larus on one of the chairs.

  The nurse hands Goodman two white gowns. “She needs to take off all her clothes and put this on,” she says. “And if you’re going to stay, you need to put this over your clothes and wear one of these.” She hands him a surgical mask, not unlike the masks Hammer distributed at Big Red’s heroin mill.

  Goodman unfolds the gowns, which turn out to be the same size. He helps Kelly on with hers; it’s so big on her that her hands disappear, and he has to roll up the sleeves to find them. The strings in the back go all the way around her waist and can be fastened with big bows in the front.

  “Is my butt covered?” she worries.

  “I can’t even tell you’ve got one,” he assures her. He puts the second gown over his own clothes. Kelly ties the strings for him.

  A second nurse comes in and tells Kelly to lie on the table, facedown. She unties the strings of the gown, completely revealing Kelly’s tiny rear end.

  “Hey!”

  “Sorry,” the nurse says, arranging the gown more discreetly. Then she proceeds to wash Kelly’s lower back, first with soap and water, then with alcohol, and finally with some chemical that leaves the area a bright yellow color. “Stay like that,” she says, and leaves the room.

  What seems like half an hour goes by. Kelly complains she’s cold. Goodman suspects she’s frightened or embarrassed, or both. He rubs her upper back, being careful not to touch the yellow area.

  Finally, Dr. Gendel comes in, accompanied by yet another nurse. “How are we doing here?” he asks.

  “We’re cold,” Kelly says.

  “Well, we can’t have that, can we?” the doctor says, leaving the room as quickly as he’d entered. He returns in a moment and says, “That should be better.” Within seconds, the temperature has already begun to rise. If he can do that, Goodman tells himself, surely he can make my little girl better again.

  While the doctor and nurse lay out instruments on a towel, Goodman puts on his surgical mask and takes a position at his daughter’s head. He strokes her hair, tells her how much he loves her.

  The doctor spreads Kelly’s gown, exposing the tiny butt she’s so protective of, but this time she doesn’t complain. He swabs the center part of the yellow area with more alcohol. He probes the base of her spine with his fingers until he finds the spot he’s looking for, then draws a circle with what looks like a Magic Marker.

  The nurse hands him a small syringe with a tiny needle, and Goodman feels reassured, knows this is something Kelly can handle.

  “This is going to sting,” the doctor tells her. Goodman watches as the needle goes into the marked area, feels his daughter tense.

  “Ow,” she says softly. “That burns.” But after a moment, he can feel her begin to relax. He’s about to tell her that wasn’t so bad when he sees the nurse hand Dr. Gendel a second syringe. This one is huge, and the needle attached to it looks like it could pierce an engine block. Goodman suddenly feels so light-headed that he has to place one hand on the examining table for support. The other hand continues to stroke Kelly’s hair.

  He cannot watch as the second needle pierces his daughter’s skin, though he knows the exact moment from her tensing and beginning to whimper again. He grits his teeth and holds his breath as the needle knifes into flesh, through muscle, and finds the spinal column itself. He leans his weight against the table with one hand as the other continues to stroke his daughter’s hair over and over and over again, until it seems as though his hand is no longer a part of him.

  * * *

  Ray Abbruzzo, Daniel Riley, and a third detective sit around a basement apartment across the street and two doors down from where Michael Goodman lives. The name of the third detective is Harry Weems; he and a fourth detective have been assigned by the Organized Crime Control Bureau of the New York Police Department to assist Abbruzzo and Riley on their investigation.

  Until yesterday, this basement apartment was unoccupied: a single damp room with a sink, a hot plate, a motel-size refrigerator, and a bathroom down the hallway. The landlady had long ago given up on it as one of those rarest of all things - an unrentable Manhattan apartment.

  That was before two men in business suits showed up inquiring about its availability. The landlady had looked them up and down slowly before shaking her head and saying, “You’re not gonna be happy there. No way.”

  Both men reached for their pockets, and for a second, the landlady thought she was about to be murdered. But one had reached for a gold badge, and the other for a checkbook.

  Before she knew it, she was looking down at a check in her hands in the amount of $3,000, a sum representing two months’ rent on the apartment.

  She’d chuckled to herself later on. “Damn thing’s worth no more’n a thousand!”

  Overnight, the room has become a “plant.” A collapsible aluminum table is covered with electronic equipment. There is a large tape recorder, capable of recording from as many as six phone lines simultaneously. There are headsets plugged into the recorder. There is a device called an automatic electronic impulse starter, which activates the equipment 1,000 times faster than the human ear can pick up the ring of an incoming call or the hum of a dial tone. And there is a pen register, a machine that deciphers the electronic codes and spits out a continuous list of every call made and received, complete with area code, extension (if any), time of connection, and time of completion.

  There are also telephones, log sheets, boxes of tape cassettes, pens, pencils, a space heater, and - because detectives work here - newspapers, guns, coffee containers, handcuffs, jelly doughnuts, spiral notepads, and antacid tablets. Come back in two days, there’ll also be burger wrappers, pizza boxes, Chinese-food cartons, soda cans, ketchup packets, chicken bones, and an awful lot more coffee containers.

  “Any activity?” asks Weems, who has been in the apartment less than ten minutes.

  “Nothing yet,” Abbruzzo says. “He must be out.”

  “Probably setting up a deal,” Riley adds.

  Weems nods thoughtfully. He’s already been warned at a briefing session that this Mole guy is a major player, who’s already had a CI killed and who must be considered very cautious and extremely dangerous.

  “Who’s going out for coffee?” Abbruzzo wants to know.

  Goodman carries his daughter and her stuffed animal up the five flights to his apartment. The sound of his key in the lock is enough to bring Carmen, who swings the door open for him and, without saying a word, takes Kelly in her own arms. For somebody so slender, she is surprisingly strong.

  Goodman opens the sofa bed, and Carmen lowers Kelly onto it and places Larus alongside her. Kelly is awake, but she’s been told to keep her head from moving as much as possible. It’s the fluid inside the skull that cushions the brain when the head moves. The spinal tap has drained much of that fluid and, until the body has time to replenish the supply, any sudden motion can cause the brain to collide with the inside of the skull, causing pain or even bruising of the brain, which can be serious.

  Goodman is exhausted, physically spent from carrying his daughter and emotionally drained from worrying about her, and he collapses onto a chair. Carmen attends to Kelly, removing her shoes, loosening her clothing, asking her if there’s anything she needs.

  “Can I have a drink of water?” is all Kelly asks.

  Carmen looks at Goodman, who nods. Fluids are good, he’s been told: They hasten the replenishment process. He watches as Carmen pours Kelly a glass of water and finds a straw - something that Goodman didn’t even know he had - so that Kelly can drink from the glass without havi
ng to lift her head. Watching this, Goodman is overwhelmed by the sheer tenderness of the act, and he’s forced to look away, so that his tears won’t give him away again.

  Later that evening, the three of them sit on the bed and eat leftover veal stew, this time over noodles. Kelly eats very little, but Goodman tells himself not to worry, that that’s probably to be expected. Pop-Tart is delighted.

  After dinner, Goodman tells Kelly he’s going to lower the lights and let her go to sleep. She looks paler than ever, but she still manages to smile. “Not yet, Daddy?”

  “Why not?”

  “I need some more of our story.”

  The Ballerina Princess (Continued)

  So it came to pass that the Ballerina Princess had the Great Unfair Test, the one that really hurt. But with the brave and loyal Prince Larus at her side, and the Keeper of the Numbers at her head, the Ballerina Princess was wonderful. She said “Ouch!” and cried the tiniest bit, which was good, because otherwise the doctor might not have known she was still awake.

  And when the test was over, the Ballerina Princess allowed the Keeper of the Numbers to carry her to the top floor of his castle and place her on the royal bed,

  “You didn’t put me on the bed,” Kelly reminds him. “Carmen did. With the help of his friend Lady Carmen.

  “The beauteous Lady Carmen,” Kelly corrects him again, the beauteous Lady Carmen, that is.

  And all that evening, the Ballerina Princess was required to keep her head very still, lest her crystal crown fall off and shatter, causing seven hours of bad luck. And she decided that the best way to do that was to go to sleep right after dinner, so that she wouldn’t forget and suddenly move her head. And that’s exactly what she did.

  After Kelly closes her eyes, Goodman wedges Larus against one side of her head and a pillow against the other. He kisses her softly on the cheek.