Shoot the Moon

by Joseph T. Klempner

  “Bathroom?” DeSimone asks.

  “Why not?” Kwon says. He finds a magnetic Kel mini-mike and places it on the back side of the pipe leading to the toilet tank.

  “This guy farts, you’re going to know it,” DeSimone tells Weems.

  Back in the main room, they check to make certain that all three devices are transmitting on the same frequency and that there’s a minimum of static and no chance of feedback.

  “We’re outa here,” Kwon says, packing up the briefcase. They slip their shoes back on and relock the door on the way out. Weems checks his watch: 1511. Counting the four minutes it took them to get inside, the entire operation has taken less than twenty minutes.

  It’s some time after noon when Big Red wakes up. The hours of a drug dealer tend toward the nocturnal, and Big Red often sleeps until three or four in the afternoon. But something has him up earlier than usual today.

  It’s nothing he’s terribly worried about. Things have been going well enough for him lately. No one’s bothered him about the unfortunate accident that took Russell Bradford’s life. His own day in “the system” following his arrest was a small price to pay for an alibi. Hammer and Tito and the rest of his people are behaving themselves. As far as he can tell, nobody’s stealing from him too blatantly.

  The something that’s woken Big Red up earlier than usual this Monday comes under the heading of “business opportunity.” He’s found out over the years - and in this business, even a couple of years operating at his level is generally considered a pretty fair run - that in order to stay on top of things, you have to be constantly alert for new opportunities to develop and expand your business.

  The kilo of pure he and Hammer took off the little Caucasian guy was a good example of just such an opportunity. From an investment of absolutely nothing, Big Red was able to turn a profit of nearly $140,000, virtually overnight. He now realizes - from the fact that the bags and bundles sold so quickly, and from the number of customers who’ve come back asking for more of the same product - that he probably could’ve whacked the stuff even harder. He’d had his mill workers cut it six times; now he knows it could’ve easily taken a seven, maybe even an eight. He tries to remember the last time he’s had his hands on something so pure. He’d have to go all the way back to the early eighties, when he was buying direct from the Italians on Pleasant Avenue. And even then, the stuff they were calling “pure,” some greaser had already stepped on it.

  What bothers Big Red is that he realizes he may have been a little quick to kill off the goose that laid the golden egg. Sure, he’s got no way of knowing if the guy had any more after the kilo. And yes, he did hedge his bet by giving his DEA buddies Zelb and Farrelli the guy’s name and address from the wallet in his pants. That way, if they hit the place and came up with anything else, they’d turn in part of it and throw the rest of it his way to put out on the street for their mutual benefit.

  But the thing is, it’s over two weeks now, and he hasn’t heard squat from Zelb. What Big Red’s thinking now is that maybe it’s time for him to do a little investigating of his own. He gets out of bed, walks to his closet, and starts going through the pockets of his jackets. What he’s looking for is a wallet, the same wallet he found in the pair of pants he and Hammer took off the guy who had the kilo of pure.

  He finds the wallet in the inside pocket of a red suede jacket. He carries it to his bed, where he turns it upside down and spills its contents onto his satin sheets. He smiles when he spots the driver’s license with the inked-in new address. It’s landed heads-up, a good omen for sure.

  He sits down on the bed and lights his first cigarette of the day, inhaling deeply. Then he reaches for the phone beside the bed and slowly punches in the number code for Hammer’s beeper.

  Goodman finishes up at work and heads to the subway. He’s grateful for the job, which has at least given him a place to go two afternoons a week and supplied him with a bit of spending money. But he knows that’s all it is - spending money. Even if he saved every penny of it, he could never hope to begin to pay for Kelly’s medical expenses, let alone the pile of other bills he has.

  He wonders when he’ll hear from Vinnie about their deal. Can it really be that Vinnie’s people will be able to come up with $3.5 million? The number is so staggering that it seems totally unreal to him. So he tries to blot it out of his mind, concentrates instead on the five twenties in his back pocket. Now that’s real, he tells himself.

  The Antarctica film is a big hit with Kelly, and she’s still talking about it as she and Carmen climb the steps back up to the apartment.

  “Didn’t those bears look like they were about to jump right off the screen?”

  Carmen laughs. She finds that in spite of herself, she’s become terribly attached to this little girl. “They reminded me a little of Larus,” she says.

  “After my mommy died, I carried Larus around wherever I went,” Kelly says. “He was my security blanket, if you know what I mean.”

  “I know what you mean,” Carmen says, doing her best to match Kelly’s suddenly serious tone.

  Carmen unlocks the door. Inside, Kelly’s first stop is the refrigerator. After a quick inventory, she reports on her findings. “We need more kid food in this place,” she announces.

  “I’ll be sure to pass that suggestion on to the management,” Carmen says.

  With the first sound of a key in the lock of Goodman’s door, the plant springs to life. Abbruzzo and Riley have joined Weems, who’s waiting for Sheridan to “bring home” Michael Goodman’s kid and girlfriend. The two technicians, DeSimone and Kwon, are hanging around to make sure the bugs are operating properly. As they listen, they hear, “Didn’t those bears look like they were about to jump right off the screen?” The voice comes through loud and clear, almost as if the speaker is in the same room.

  “Beautiful.” Abbruzzo smiles.

  “Hey,” Kwon says, “we do good work.”

  The next thing they hear is, “They reminded me a little of Larus.”

  “That’s the broad,” Weems said.

  “No shit.”

  They continue to sit around the receiver and listen to the conversation. This they do despite the fact that they’ve all been given precise typewritten instructions on what the wiretap statute calls the “minimization requirement.” By that, the law specifies which conversations they’re permitted to listen in on: those to which the person who’s the target of the investigation - or someone else reasonably believed to be involved with him in his criminal activity - is a party, and - even then - only those portions that relate to the criminal activity. At all other times, the detectives are supposed to “spot-monitor” the apartment by turning the equipment on at occasional intervals, just long enough to see if criminal conversations are taking place. If the conversation is about anything else, they must turn the equipment off immediately.

  Or so the theory goes.

  In actuality, the detectives pretty much leave the equipment running all the time. They justify doing so on several rationales. They start by assuming that the girlfriend must be in on this business. So whenever she and Goodman are talking, they could lapse into “relevant conversation” at any moment, without notice. And even when Goodman’s not around, and it’s just the girlfriend and the kid, one of them could drop a remark about what Daddy’s doing, which could, in turn, tip the detectives off to a deal about to go down. So everything becomes relevant.

  Besides which, listening in on an eavesdropping device is pretty dreary stuff. People watch television, they read, they talk about drivel. When they’re not talking, they sing off-key, they hum, they belch, they fart. The bugs pick it all up. So you end up listening for two things: conversations about the criminal activity (because that’s your job) and about sex (because that’s the only other thing you’re ever going to hear that could be of any possible interest to you).

  And while no one says anything about it now, every detective in the room could tell you that tonight, when
Goodman’s back in the apartment with his girlfriend and the kid’s been put to bed, whichever team’s in the plant will somehow get a second wind - they’ll find themselves hunching over the receiver and turning the volume up a notch, desperately hoping to catch the telltale sounds of the Mole and the Molestress going at it, doing it. Grown, married men, somehow transformed back to the mentality of their high school teens, or the barracks behavior of their early twenties. Listening Toms.

  It may sound silly, but police work tends to do have that effect.

  Goodman arrives home around six, bearing the requested pizza and a six-pack of soda.

  “Yea, Daddy!” Kelly cheers.

  Our hero!” Carmen joins in.

  Goodman can’t tell if she genuinely shares Kelly’s taste for pizza or if she’s simply being an awfully good sport about it. But then again, he reminds himself, she is Italian.

  “I got an invitation to a party Friday night,” Kelly announces. “Can I go?”

  “Where is it?”

  “Far away,” she says solemnly. “Two hundred West Tenth Street.”

  “Of course you can go.” He thinks - but doesn’t say - if you’re feeling up to it. Be optimistic, he tells himself.

  The good thing about pizza is that there’s not much in the way of dishes to wash afterward. Kelly is permitted half an hour of television before getting ready for bed.

  “Aren’t you forgetting something?” she asks her father.

  But the truth is, he hasn’t. All afternoon and evening he’s been thinking about her MRI test tomorrow afternoon, wondering if there’s any way he can use his story to help her deal with the anxiety she must be feeling over it. But nothing’s come to him, and now he’s forced to improvise.

  The Ballerina Princess (Continued.)

  It was the night before the very last test, the one where they were to give the Ballerina Princess the injection and put her into the scary machine. The Ballerina Princess was sitting around talking with her father, the Keeper of the Numbers, and with the beauteous Lady Carmen. They had just finished devouring the royal pizza.

  “I don’t want any more tests after this one,” said the Ballerina Princess. “Can this really be the last one?”

  “Yes,” replied the Keeper of the Numbers. “This shall be the last one.”

  “Do you promise?” asked the Ballerina Princess. “I promise,” he said.

  “Suppose they say I have to have more tests?” the Ballerina Princess asked. “What if they make me?”

  “Then,” said the Keeper of the Numbers, “we shall flee the kingdom. We shall go into hiding, and the Lord High Royal Doctor will never be able to find us.”

  “But what of the brave and loyal Prince Larus?” the Ballerina Princess asked. “We can’t abandon him, can we?”

  “Of course not,” the Keeper of the Numbers agreed. “He shall flee with us.”

  “And what of our cat?”

  “Ah, yes,” said the Keeper of the Numbers. “The strange and peculiar Kat Mandu. We could never abandon him, could we? He shall come, too.”

  “And what of the beauteous Lady Carmen?” Kelly asks. “We can’t abandon her, either.” She reaches out for Carmen’s hand.

  “No, I guess that wouldn’t be fair, would it?” Goodman is forced to admit.

  “No way.”

  “Well,” Goodman says, “if it ever comes to that, we’ll have to give Lady Carmen the choice, won’t we?”

  “Yes,” Kelly says. Then, turning to Carmen, she pleads, “Will you come with us, Carmen?”

  “I don’t know, sweetie” is the best Carmen can offer her. “We’ll have to see.”

  “Listen to that!” Riley exclaims. “They’re planning their fucking getaway!”

  “Could be,” Abbruzzo says. They’re the only two detectives left at the plant. Weems and Sheridan had gone off duty at 1800; DeSimone and Kwon split as soon as it was evident that the bugs were working well. “Or it could just be a story” Abbruzzo offers as an afterthought.

  “Bullshit it’s just a story,” Riley says. “I’m telling you, Ray. The Mole’s going to do his deal, and then he’s going to cut and run. Only thing is, we’re going to be standing smack on top of his tail.”

  “Take it easy,” Abbruzzo tells him. “I don’t even know if moles have tails.”

  Later, Goodman and Carmen sit across the card table and finish the last of the wine.

  “No word from Vinnie yet?” Goodman asks.

  “No,” she says. “Michael?”

  “Yes.”

  “Would you really leave if it happens?”

  He thinks for a minute. “I guess we might have to,” he says. “I can’t imagine sitting around here, waiting for someone to come and get us.”

  “And me?”

  “You heard the story,” he tells her.

  “That’s just a fairy tale.”

  “Fairy tales can come true.” He tries to sing it, but he’s never had much of a voice, and they both end up laughing.

  Getting up from his seat, Goodman - who holds his wine about as well as he carries a tune - trips over his own feet and bangs noisily into the card table.

  In the plant, Abbruzzo and Riley cover their ears in pain.

  Big Red picks Hammer up just after midnight. The temperature has fallen to the low thirties, and steam rises from manhole covers, joining smoke from tailpipes. But inside the Bentley, it’s warm and quiet. They head south, across the Madison Avenue Bridge into Manhattan, then head down Second Avenue. At Ninety-sixth, they cut over to Lexington and continue to Ninety-second, where they make a left turn.

  “That’s the building, right there,” Big Red says as they pull to the curb 100 feet east of Michael Goodman’s building. See if his name’s on the buzzer.

  Hammer’s out of the car for less than a minute. When he returns, he’s shivering, but there’s a smile on his face. “M. Goodman,” he says. “Apartment 5F. We gonna pay him a visit?”

  “Not just yet,” Big Red says, putting the car in gear and pulling away from the curb. “But soon.”

  The phone rings shortly after nine Tuesday morning, while Goodman, Carmen, and Kelly are cleaning the apartment. Goodman dries his hands on his shirt and picks up.

  “Hello.”

  “Hey, Mikey boy.”

  “Hello, Vinnie.”

  “Wanna take a little walk, Mikey?”

  “If it’s important.”

  “It’s important,” Vinnie assures him.

  “Okay.”

  “Write this number down,” Vinnie tells him. He reads off a number - 555-3318 - which Goodman jots down. “Go to a pay phone and call it.”

  “When?”

  “Now when. I’m waiting at a pay phone, and it’s cold out here.”

  As soon as he hangs up, Goodman tells Carmen and Kelly he’s got to go out to get some Clorox. Kelly takes him at his word; Carmen knows better, and catches his eye.

  “Be smart, Michael,” is what she says.

  “Shit!” is what Harry Weems says. He and Sheridan have been manning the plant since 0800. They heard the call come in, heard Goodman identify the caller as Vinnie, heard Vinnie assure Goodman that it’s important they speak. But next thing, they’re arranging a secure conversation - pay phone to pay phone - which means the detectives can cover it visually, but they’ll have no way of knowing what’s being said.

  “Follow him,” Weems tells Sheridan. “See what phone he uses.”

  “Me again?” Sheridan whines.

  But Weems ignores him. He’s already on the phone, trying to reach Telephone Security. It takes him two minutes to get through to the unit he needs.

  “This is Detective Weems of OCCB,” he says. “I need an address on a local number, ASAP.”

  “Go ahead,” says a voice.

  “It’s five-five-five-three-three-one-eight,” Weems says.

  “Area code two-one-two?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Please hold.”

  Weems drums his finger
s on the phone receiver as he waits. He knows he’s got only a matter of minutes to get the address of the phone, call Communications, and have the nearest precinct send an unmarked car to respond. If he’s lucky, they’ll get there in time to get a look at this Vinnie guy. If he’s real lucky, they’ll be able to get a plate number, take him home, maybe even get a full ID on him.

  “That’s an unlisted number,” the voice tells him. “It’ll take me a few minutes.”

  “I’ll hold,” Weems says. Shit! is his first thought. His second is a bit more cerebral: Why should a pay phone have an unlisted number? But then he answers his own question - it must be someplace where they don’t want you calling back and bothering them, or tying up the phone without putting money in it.

  “Sir, I’m unable to locate a record for that number,” the voice tells him.

  “Shit!” says Harry Weems again. “Shit, shit, shit!”

  “Have a nice day,” says the voice.

  It’s colder than he figured outside, and Goodman uses the first pay phone he finds, one of a pair at the corner of Ninety-third and Lexington. He drops a quarter in and dials the number Vinnie gave him.

  The phone is answered almost before it has time to ring.

  “Mikey boy?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What took you so long?”

  “I thought I’d put shoes on-”

  “Okay, okay.”

  “What’s up?” Goodman asks. It’s so cold he can see his breath.

  “What’s up is, my people got their thing together. They’re ready to go.”

  Goodman waits for his heart to restart itself.

  “We can do it tonight if you can,” Vinnie says. “Otherwise, we gotta put it off till Friday night.”

  Goodman remembers the MRI. “Tonight’s no good,” he says. “I’ve got to take care of my daughter.”

  “Your daughter?” Vinnie sounds incredulous. “You remember how much we’re talkin’ about here, Mikey?”

  “Sorry,” Goodman says. “First things first.” The truth is, all this has happened much too fast. He feels almost grateful to have the MRI as an excuse to put things off.