Shoot the Moon

by Joseph T. Klempner

  1227 Subject & paramore return on foot to subject’s residence & enter premises. Still with boukay.

  “I guess it was nothin’ after all,” Riley shrugs.

  “Yeah,” Abbruzzo agrees. “The lovebirds must just be into flowers, is all.”

  But if the lovebirds are into flowers, they show their interest in a somewhat peculiar fashion. As soon as they’re back inside the apartment, they lock the door behind them and attack their new possession. They don’t bother to notice that the paper is white on both sides; evidently, T.M. didn’t shop at the same florist they did. Nor do they pause to admire the flowers themselves, which are actually a tasteful mixture of red roses and white baby’s breath. Instead, they pull them apart and go directly for a white envelope that’s been wedged between the stems. Goodman retrieves it gingerly from the thorns that guard it and begins to tear it open. He’s ready for anything - play money from a Monopoly set, cut-up pieces of newspaper, even a note that when unfolded will tell them they’ve been duped.

  What he finds instead are twenty-five $100 bills.

  That evening, in Michael Goodman’s apartment, the two of them sit facing each other across the card table. Between them are two cups of coffee, two paper napkins, a single spoon, and a stack of $100 bills.

  “I’m a drug dealer now,” is Goodman’s first spoken thought.

  “Depends on how you look at it,” Carmen says.

  “It’s how I look at it,” he says soberly. “Why’d you change the plan all of a sudden? You were supposed to give the package to me, not to T.M.”

  “You looked a little lost,” she tells him, putting a hand on his forearm that tells him not to take it as a criticism. “And besides, like I said, if you’re in this, I’m in this, too. You know that old saying, When someone saves your life, you owe them forever. You have to be willing to follow them into hell.”

  “I never heard that.”

  “Well, it’s something like that,” she says.

  He lets it go. “What do we do with the money?” he asks her, as though he’s not quite sure he’s ready to do anything with it.

  “Well,” Carmen says, “I think the first thing you should do is take it to some bank you have nothing to do with, where nobody knows you. Have it changed into smaller bills. People tend to notice hundreds - no use arousing suspicion if you don’t have to. Then you can spend it.”

  “How?”

  “Money orders. You take Kelly’s most urgent medical bills, and you start there.”

  Goodman tries his best to visualize doing what she suggests. As always, he reduces it to a matter of numbers. “I guess I could start by paying off the first MRI test and part of the neurologist’s bill,” he says, “and still have something left over to give them toward the new MRI.” He realizes that his getting engrossed with the numbers is his way of ducking more difficult issues, in this case, the little matter of spending money he’s earned by selling drugs. But then he pictures his daughter’s tiny pale face and imagines it contorted in pain, ravaged by a brain tumor that could have been treated, if only he’d had the money for the doctors and the tests she’d needed. And he knows without any further thought that first thing tomorrow, God help him, he’ll spend this money.

  Money is on Big Red’s mind, too, as he drives his Bentley home well after midnight. He’s got over $16,000 in cash in his pocket, and - although he’s accustomed to dealing with amounts far larger than that - he doesn’t like to be driving around with it on him. Never can tell when some hotshot cop might take offense at the idea of a black man sitting behind the wheel of a fine car, decide to pull him over and go through his pockets. So, just to be on the safe side, at the next red light, he takes the money from his pocket and goes to stuff it up into the special compartment in the springs underneath the passenger seat.

  Only as he does so, he feels something in his way, something flat and smooth. Then he remembers - it’s the wallet that was in the pants he and Hammer took off that Caucasian guy they relieved of the kilo. He removes it and places the money in the spot where it had been.

  The light turns green. He slips the wallet into his pocket and continues on his way home.

  Goodman is up early Friday morning, and by nine o’clock, he’s at the Chemical Bank on Eighty-Sixth Street. It’s a branch he hasn’t been inside for thirty years, and he figures it ought to be as safe as any.

  The teller gives him a look when he says he wants to buy $2,500 worth of money orders, but he decides it’s only because it’s work for her. At one point, he thinks he sees her whispering to someone he imagines is her supervisor, but when she comes back, she has the money orders - four for $500, three for $100, and three for $50. He has to use the last $50 to cover the commission the bank charges.

  He leaves the bank and heads back to his apartment, where he’ll match the various denominations with the stack of bills and envelopes he has, then begin filling in the payees’ names.

  He doesn’t notice the two men who fall into step behind him as he crosses Lexington.

  “He must be laundering his money,” Sheridan says to Weems. “Maybe one of us oughta go back to the bank and talk to the teller he dealt with.”

  “I wouldn’t chance it,” Weems says. “From what Abbruzzo says, this guy’s a real piece of work. I guarantee you he does business at this bank all the time. That woman he dealt with inside, she’s gotta be his regular contact. He pays her off to wash his cash without making any record of it. We approach her, next thing you know, she’ll be tippin’ him off. Could blow the whole thing.”

  “Good thinking, Harry,” Sheridan agrees. “When you’re right, you’re right.”

  Weems smiles. “Hey, I’ve learned a thing or two after twelve years on the job.”

  “So this Mole is some slick operator, huh?”

  “You got that right.”

  On his way to the subway to the Bronx, Goodman stops at a mailbox and deposits three envelopes. Each contains money orders in various denominations. He checks to make sure that the envelopes have dropped down into the box. Despite the fact that he’s been doing that for as long as he can remember, he’s yet to find one piece of mail that’s defied gravity and hung there in midair. But he continues to check anyway.

  He checks coin returns after using pay phones, too, though he’s almost never found any money that way. But habits are funny things, and Michael Goodman seems to derive some sense of pleasure from the ritual itself, separate and apart from any more tangible reward that might be at stake.

  At work, nothing is mentioned about Goodman’s having come in Friday rather than Thursday. Manny continues to take the position that he doesn’t much care how or when the work gets done, so long as it gets done. Goodman suspects that back when Marlene was keeping the books, Manny had to pay much more attention to details. Now he seems happy to have someone who can take over for him.

  By four o’clock, he’s pretty much finished whatever work he has to do. He dials his mother-in-law’s number, hears her pick up on the second ring.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, it’s Michael.”

  “Hello, Michael.”

  “How’s everything?”

  “So-so,” she tells him. “She’s still getting the headaches. But she did say the spot in her eye doesn’t bother her as much as it did before.”

  “Well, I guess that’s something. Can I talk to her?”

  “Sure. Hold on.”

  After a moment, he hears his daughter’s voice. “Hi, Daddy.”

  “Hi, angel. How you doing?”

  “I’m fine. When are you coming to get me?”

  “I’ll come straight from work, okay?”

  “Good,” she says. “And Daddy?”

  “Yes?”

  “You owe me two chapters!”

  “Two chapters?” he laughs. “Then two chapters it’ll be! See ya later, alligator.”

  “After awhile, crocodile.”

  “In a shake, snake.”

  “Watch out for your
gizzard, lizard.”

  Long after he hangs up the phone, he marvels at how she never seems to forget a single thing he teaches her.

  Manny comes back into the office a little before five and peels off his customary five twenties. For some reason, it doesn’t seem like so much cash this time.

  “Thanks,” Goodman says.

  “My pleasure,” Manny says. “Have a good weekend.”

  On his way to catch the train at 161 State Street, Goodman makes another stop at a mailbox. The envelope he drops in this one contains a Bronx Tire Exchange deposit slip and the last of the $500 money orders, covering the check Goodman had written to Mount Sinai Hospital a week ago for his daughter’s MRI.

  As always, he opens the mailbox lid a second time and looks inside. Just to be sure.

  “So what’s the story on Michael Goodman?”

  The person asking the question is Assistant District Attorney Maggie Kennedy. She’s asking it of Detectives Ray Abbruzzo and Daniel Riley, whom she’s summoned to her office this Friday afternoon.

  “He’s a slick one,” Riley tells her.

  “Well, slick or not, I owe my boss an interim report on the results of the eavesdropping investigation. So you better give me something I can tell him.”

  “We know he’s in action,” Abbruzzo says. “We’ve got him discussing deals, making meets, talking about moves.”

  “We seen him launder his money, too,” Riley offers. “Weems and Sheridan spotted him in the bank he uses. He’s got a special teller, pays her off in cash. Won’t deal with anyone else.”

  “Have you learned who his co-conspirators are?” she asks.

  “To a certain extent,” Abbruzzo says. “There’s a mystery woman involved. He sometimes calls her “Grandma,” never refers to her by name. And there’s a guy up in the Bronx, looks like a muscle man, prob’ly uses him as a slugger, for protection.”

  “And don’t forget his paramour,” Riley reminds him.

  “Yeah,” Abbruzzo says. “He’s shackin’ up with this broad-”

  “Excuse me?” Kennedy interrupts him.

  “He’s cohabitizing with a female individual,” Abbruzzo says. “And we’re pretty sure she’s in on the thing, too.”

  “The Molestress,” Riley explains.

  “Well,” says Maggie Kennedy, “you guys better come up with something pretty soon if you want to stay in business on this one.”

  “I got a feeling he’s gonna make a move this weekend,” Abbruzzo says.

  “I hope so,” Kennedy tells him. “Otherwise, they’ll be pulling the plug on us the minute our thirty days are up.”

  Goodman stops at his mother-in-law’s to pick up his daughter. As soon as he sees Kelly, he knows she’s having one of her headaches. She doesn’t mention it, and she’s even learned to be less obvious about shielding her eyes from the light. But he can tell anyway. Her skin looks pale and slightly translucent and feels a bit clammy to the touch. And though she smiles as soon as she sees him and laughs when he hugs her and tickles her ribs, her smiles seem somehow forced and her laughter subdued.

  “I’m all packed for the weekend,” she tells him, pointing to a small red overnight bag that sits on the carpet, just inside the front door. The bag is dwarfed by Larus, who is also apparently ready to leave.

  Before they go, Goodman thanks his mother-in-law for looking after Kelly. The worried look she gives him mirrors his own concerns.

  They stop and buy a pizza on the way home, which means that for the last three blocks Goodman must balance the pizza, his briefcase, and Larus. Kelly carries her overnight bag. At each intersection, she dutifully takes her free hand and grasps his elbow before stepping off the curb. He knows this isn’t so much because she’s worried about crossing - at six, she’s already proclaimed she’s quite old enough to cross herself - but because she’s wise enough to know he worries about such moments, and therefore, she willingly defers to him.

  Carmen greets them with hugs and kisses, and the thought occurs to Goodman that the three of them are settling into playing family pretty comfortably. He looks on as Kelly and Carmen reacquaint themselves, and he can’t help wondering how long it’ll be before Carmen decides to pick up and get on with her life, and what the damage will be to his daughter when she loses a mother figure all over again. From there, his thoughts move on to how Carmen’s leaving will affect him. He goes to the sink, washes his hands, tries to busy himself with chores that need no attending to.

  Kelly shares one slice of pizza with Pop-Tart, and only picks at the salad Carmen’s put together, finally admitting that her head hurts.

  “Grandma said the spot in your eye seemed to be getting a little smaller,” Goodman says.

  “I think so,” Kelly agrees brightly, happy to have some good news to report. “I notice it mostly at the end of the day, or when I’m real tired.”

  “Like now?” Carmen asks.

  “Yeah, a little.”

  “Too tired for a story?” Goodman asks her.

  “No way, Jose.”

  While Kelly gets ready for bed, and Carmen clears the table, Goodman opens the sofa bed. Again he’s struck by the family roles they’ve fallen into, and the loss he and his daughter will soon be facing. He fluffs the pillows on the bed and concentrates on the next part of the story.

  The Ballerina Princess (Continued)

  Now you may recall that when we last left the Ballerina Princess, she had just fallen asleep after going through the Great Unfair Test, the one that really hurt.

  “It didn’t really hurt that much, Daddy,” Kelly tells him.

  “You’re just trying to be brave,” he says. “It’s okay to say something hurts when it does.”

  “It wasn’t that bad. Honest.”

  Be that as it may, the Great Unfair Test was partially helpful to the royal doctors. And it seemed to help the Ballerina Princess a little, too. The spot she’d been seeing in one of her eyes seemed to get a little smaller afterward, and sometimes she couldn’t see it at all.

  So the Ballerina Princess asked the Keeper of the Numbers a very natural question. She wanted to know if that could be the last of the tests. Which meant that the Keeper of the Numbers had to go to the Lord High Royal Doctor and ask him. And what do you think the Lord High Royal Doctor told him?

  “More tests,” is Kelly’s answer.

  “One more test,” proclaimed the Lord High Royal Doctor.

  “What kind of a test will it be?” asked the Ballerina Princess and the Keeper of the Numbers. “A test like the one where they put you inside the big machine and scare you, or a test when they stick a needle in your back?”

  “Well,” said the Lord High Royal Doctor, “since this might be the very last test, we’re going to scare and hurt the Ballerina Princess at the same time! First, we’re going to stick the needle in her back, and then we’re going to put her in the big machine.”

  “Why in kingdom do you have to do both of those terrible things?” they asked.

  “Because,” explained the Lord High Royal Doctor, “the combination of doing both of those things will show us exactly where these headaches are coming from. And then maybe - just maybe - we’ll be able to make them disappear for once and for all.”

  “Like magic?” Kelly asks. She’s turned over onto her side, and her eyes are already closed.

  “Just like magic.”

  “Do you believe in magic, Daddy?”

  “I very much believe in magic,” he tells her. “How else could such a funny-looking guy like me have ever have become the father of such a wonderful, beautiful, brave, smart girl like you, if not for magic?”

  In place of a spoken answer, the familiar sound of his daughter’s breathing tells him she’s already asleep.

  From Maggie Kennedy’s office at 80 Centre Street, Ray Abbruzzo and Daniel Riley went to Dominick’s Clam Bar in Little Italy, where Riley dutifully noted in his log that they “did have meal.” For the lowly civilian, policespeak is a wondrous thing to behold.
Why, for example, should one settle for “got out of the police car” when the far more graceful “did proceed to exit the departmental vehicle” is available? Thus “gun” becomes “officially authorized weapon,” “cop” turns into “member of the force,” and - as here - “ate” gives way to “did have meal.”

  “Meal” in this particular case consisted of two double orders of fried clams in Dominick’s seventh and very hottest red sauce, referred to on the wall menu as “Armageddon.” (Its six less lethal cousins begin with “Slow Death” and “Sudden Death,” warm up to “After Death” and “Way After Death,” before smoldering to “Meltdown” and “Purgatory.”)

  There were huge beds of linguine to soak up the sauce, and crusty bread to wipe up that which hadn’t been soaked up. A bottle and a half of Barolo, compliments of the house, added a pleasant tingle to the experience, to say nothing of the .08 blood-alcohol percentages the two men had in common as they drove uptown to begin their evening shift at the wiretap plant. Not quite “intoxicated” under the Vehicle and Traffic Law, but legally “impaired” - nothing, of course, that a couple of experienced detectives couldn’t easily compensate for.

  They’d reached the plant by eight, bullshitted with Weems and Sheridan for half an hour. The main topic of conversation had been trying to figure out which team was better off - Weems and Sheridan, who got to go home now to their wives and kids on Long Island, or Abbruzzo and Riley, who didn’t have to.

  By 2200, they’ve settled in, popping Turns and chewing Rolaids in a futile attempt to quiet the belches and ease the heartburn that’s all that remains from their having “had meal” at Dominick’s.

  The call comes in at 2216.

  Goodman grabs the phone on the first ring, not wanting it to wake Kelly. Before even speaking into the receiver, he glances at the clock, wonders who can be calling him at 10:15 at night.

  “Hello?” he says.