Shoot the Moon

by Joseph T. Klempner

  “Awright,” Vinnie says, disappointment in his voice. “I’ll call you again in a day or two. We’ll talk the same way, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Goodman hangs up. He stops into the store on the corner of Ninety-Second Street to pick up a copy of the Times. Coming out, he almost bumps into a man in a tan coat. The man looks familiar, but Goodman’s unable to place him.

  “I think he made me,” Sheridan tells Weems as soon as he gets back to the plant. “He ducked into a newsstand to see if he was being followed, and he almost got me. From now on, you better take him.”

  “Where did he go?” Weems asks.

  “Corner of Ninety-third.”

  “What happened?”

  “Whaddaya mean, ‘what happened’? He talked on the fucking phone and I froze my fucking ass off. That’s what happened.”

  “We gotta get that phone,” Weems says.

  When Kelly’s out of earshot for a moment, Carmen asks Goodman how it went.

  “He says they’re ready,” he says. “I put him off till Friday night. He’ll call again.”

  “Are you sure about all this, Michael?” she asks him.

  “Of course not,” he says.

  The conversation ends there. It’s been brief, and they’ve kept their voices low. But it’s taken place at the very center of the studio apartment, directly under the ceiling fixture.

  “Bingo!” shouts Harry Weems. “Friday night it is. We gotta get that phone,” he says again.

  By “get that phone,” Harry Weems means tapping the corner pay phone Goodman used to call Vinnie back. Weems calls Ray Abbruzzo at home and brings him up-to-date on the morning’s events.

  “We gotta get that phone, Ray” is how he sums things up. “You think Maggie-O will go for it?”

  “I doubt it,” Abbruzzo says. “We’ve been to the well too many times already. We got the search warrant, we got the tap, and we got the bug. And we still got diddly-squat to show for it.”

  “We’re getting close.”

  “This ain’t horeshoes, Harry.”

  “So what do we do?” Weems asks.

  “We call in the Fu Man.”

  Fu Man Feldman is the closest thing the NYPD has to a black-bag-job specialist. A former detective himself, Feldman was forced into early retirement when an investigation revealed that, in addition to his official duties, Feldman had a one-third interest in a hazardous-waste-removal company. That interest probably never would have been discovered, except for the fact that two company employees accidentally started a fire while dumping flammable chemicals underneath an overpass of the New Jersey Turnpike.

  Physically, Feldman has been likened to a fireplug, a bowling ball, a toad, a stump, and no doubt many other objects - most of them physically squat, more than a few of them decidedly loathsome. Squat, because at an even five feet tall, Feldman weighs in at close to 230 pounds. Loathsome, because he is rude, foul-mouthed, and generally unpleasant to be around.

  That being said, Fu Man Feldman (his first name, Isadore, having been replaced long ago by the nickname that derives from his droopy mustache and goatee) has always been in great demand, both when he was on the job and since his retirement. The reason is simple: Fu Man Feldman can tap a phone, bug a room, hot-wire a car, crack a safe, or do any number of similar chores. He can do these things quickly. He can do them with his own equipment. And, best of all - unlike Detectives DeSimone and Kwon from the technical team - he’s willing to do them without a court order.

  Feldman works for cash, something many detectives are happy to pay out of their own pockets in order to avoid the paperwork, legalities, and headaches that come when you go through proper channels. His rates are actually quite modest - a hundred here, a fifty there. The truth is, Feldman rather likes doing the occasional job, even aside from the pocket money it brings him. He enjoys being around cops, even though you’d never know it from the way he treats them. He likes to keep his skills sharp. And he loves to show off.

  Feldman arrives at Ninety-Third and Lexington at one o’clock in the afternoon. For the occasion, he’s wearing a NYNEX hard hat and a telephone repairman’s belt, complete with an assortment of tools, wire loops, and a handset. He carries an official-looking metal box.

  He spots two pay phones on the northeast corner. He has the equipment to tap both, but he knows that won’t be necessary.

  To the casual observer, the two and a half minutes Feldman spends at the phone are devoted to servicing the equipment, making sure all the connections are tight, and checking to see that the wire-jacketed cord is intact.

  In fact, Feldman does none of these things. What he does is to loosen the cover of the phone box, reach behind it, isolate the two wires that form the pair unique to the phone’s seven-digit number, and clip a tiny remote transmitter to those wires.

  Then he sets the frequency of the transmitter to match that of a “middleman,” a relay unit capable of receiving the signal and forwarding it to a third unit located anywhere within a quarter-mile radius.

  The only drawback to the middleman is that it needs an AC power source. This problem Feldman solves at the corner lamppost, where he unscrews the plate at the base and connects the unit to the live wires inside. A green light on the unit flashes three times, informing him that the system is in business.

  Next, he goes to the second pay phone. Fishing a self-adhering sticker out of his toolbox, he pastes it onto the phone, covering the coin slot. Experience has taught Feldman that that little sticker is all it takes to ensure that any caller will now use the first phone, the one he’s tapped. The message on the sticker is short and to the point: “Sorry. Out of Order.”

  By two o’clock, it’s time for Goodman and Kelly to leave for the MRI place. Kelly asks Carmen if she can come, too. When Carmen hesitates just a second before responding, Goodman answers for her.

  “I’m sure Carmen’s got things she has to do.”

  “No,” Carmen says. “I’d like to come.”

  Kelly is so pleased, she decides to leave Larus home. “He can keep Pop-Tart company,” she explains.

  Walking along, holding one of his daughter’s hands as Carmen holds the other, Goodman tries to remember the last time Kelly’s complained of a headache. He’s tempted to ask her but fears the power of suggestion. He settles for daring to hope that she might be getting better, that there may be no tumor after all.

  The MRI place is busy. They repeat the registration process and the questioning regarding Goodman’s lack of medical insurance. They take his Bronx Tire Exchange, Special Account, check in the amount of $550.00. They are led to the same procedure room as last time, where Kelly trades her clothes for a gown.

  “I’m afraid only one parent may remain during the actual test,” says an attendant.

  Carmen makes a move toward the door, but Kelly asks her to stay. Goodman bends down to kiss his daughter goodbye. “I don’t want to hurt her feelings,” she whispers into his ear. “Okay, Daddy?”

  This from a six-year-old.

  He walks back to the waiting room, takes the only empty seat, across from an old Hispanic man wearing a patch over one eye. They smile at each other. He wonders what misfortune has brought the man here. Has he already lost an eye to the ravages of a malignant brain tumor?

  Goodman finds an issue of Time magazine from last December; there doesn’t seem to be a more recent one. He skims an article about the fragile peace accord in Bosnia, ignores an analysis of what seems to be shaping up as a Clinton-Dole campaign, and glances through an editorial about Princess Diana’s bulimia. The story that begins on the next page stops him.

  THE RESURGENCE OF HEROIN

  The article discusses how emergency-room admissions, police statistics, and prisoner interviews over the last year all point to a “disturbing trend.” The use of heroin - which had declined steadily for almost a decade - is on the rise again. Users who had been scared off by fears of getting AIDs from shared needles, or drawn to less expensive and more plenti
ful crack cocaine, have been returning to heroin, lured by higher quality and greater availability. A public health official is quoted as saying that the good news is that heroin users tend to be less violent than crack users. Police Commissioner Bratton warns of turf wars already beginning to break out among rival drug sellers. And Representative Guy Molinari blames needle-exchange programs, calling for their immediate curtailment and demanding the death penalty for all drug dealers.

  Goodman closes the magazine. Is he about to do his part in contributing to this “disturbing trend”? How many new addicts will be created as a result of the heroin he sells to Vinnie and his people? How many overdoses will there be? How many deaths? In his battle to save his daughter’s life, how many other lives will be destroyed?

  He shuts his eyes, pinches the bridge of his nose. Wonders if it’s too late to stop this whole business, if there isn’t some other way. . . .

  “Mr. Goodman?”

  He opens his eyes, realizes he’s been asleep. For a moment, he has no idea where he is or whose face it is that peers down at him.

  “You’re Kelly’s father?” the face asks him. It belongs to a black woman with a pleasant smile.

  “Yes,” Goodman says, embarrassed at having dozed off.

  “We’re all done,” she tells him. “Your doctor will have the results tomorrow morning.”

  “Thank you,” Goodman says, pulling himself to a standing position.

  “Why don’t you come with me; we’ll go back and join your wife and daughter.”

  Goodman’s about to correct her, but as he begins to move, he finds his foot has fallen asleep. He half-walks, half-hops down the hallway, causing the woman to turn around at one point.

  “We don’t give group rates, you know,” she cautions him.

  The side effects of an MRI with contrast fall somewhere in between those associated with a spinal tap and those with a simple MRI. So while Kelly’s head doesn’t have to be held rigid afterward, her head hurts, her back is sore, and she’s somewhat wobbly from the procedure.

  Carmen takes one look at Goodman hopping into the room and says, “I guess I’ll have to carry both of you home!”

  But they get a cab to carry all three of them, and by six o’clock, Kelly’s asleep on the couch, joined by Larus and Pop-Tart. She’s so exhausted, she doesn’t even think to ask for another chapter of the story.

  “Thank you,” Goodman says to Carmen.

  “Thank you for letting me be part of your family for a while,” she says.

  He says nothing further, but the phrase “for a while” burns into his memory. Is she gone, then, this person who came into his life so suddenly, so unexpectedly? Is she history as soon as this business with her brother Vincent is finished? He can’t bring himself to ask her, so afraid is he that she will say yes.

  Ray Abbruzzo sits in the plant alone. With things under control, he’s let Daniel Riley have the night off to go watch his kid play in a fourth-grade basketball game, though Abbruzzo has his doubts about the ability of fourth graders to reach the basket. What’s the final score going to be, anyway - four to two?

  They know now that the Mole and Vinnie are going to do their deal Friday night. Abbruzzo and his team have got the building entrance under surveillance, the apartment bugged, the phone tapped, and the corner phone covered, as well. You just can’t do much more than that.

  The way Ray Abbruzzo sees it, the good guys are sitting pretty.

  The way Big Red sees it, he’s given No Neck too much time already.

  “Remember that apartment we checked out last night?” he asks Hammer over a drink at the Homeboy Lounge on 127th Street?

  “Yeah,” Hammer nods.

  “Well, I think it’s about time we paid our respects to our little friend.”

  “Tonight?” Hammer’s always ready. It’s one of the reasons Big Red knows he can rely on him.

  Big Red thinks for a moment. “No,” he says. “We’ll wait till the Man’s gone home to the suburbs for the weekend. We’ll do it Friday night.”

  First thing Wednesday morning, Goodman calls Dr. Gendel’s office to get the results of the MRI.

  “Doctor isn’t in right now,” a receptionist tells him, as though she’s speaking to a small child. “But he left a message asking that you come in and see him this morning at eleven, if that’s convenient with you.”

  “Does he want me to bring my daughter?” he asks.

  “Well, she is the patient, isn’t she?”

  He thanks her and hangs up the phone, his palms already slippery with sweat. What can this mean but bad news? he asks himself. Had the pictures shown nothing, surely they could have told him so on the phone. Leaving a message for him to come in is a truly ominous sign, a sure indication that things are so bad that whatever the news is, it has to be delivered in person, the way you tell someone that a loved one has died. “We’ve scheduled her for immediate brain surgery this afternoon,” he can hear Dr. Gendel saying.

  He tries to avoid Carmen’s eyes, but there’s no hiding from them.

  “The doctor wants to see us at eleven,” he tells them, trying to make it sound as matter-of-fact as he can. But he fools no one. Nothing else is said, but Carmen bites her lower lip and breaks off eye contact. Kelly walks to the corner of the room and picks up Larus. Even Pop-Tart sulks away.

  It’s cold and gray outside, and they take a cab to Dr. Gendel’s office. No one questions Carmen’s coming along this time. Once or twice during the ride, Goodman tries for small talk, but he soon gives up. They stare out of the cab windows, as though the streets of the city have suddenly become so interesting as to demand their full attention. Goodman is reminded that he’s all but promised Kelly that there’ll be no more tests. How does he now tell her that he was wrong, that he lied? He’s afraid there’s only so much mileage you can get out of “Life isn’t always fair” with a six-year-old.

  “Doctor still isn’t in,” they are told when they arrive, and they take seats in the waiting room. They are the only ones there. Goodman sits Kelly in his lap, and together they leaf through a copy of National Geographic. He’s determined to do his best to keep her occupied, fearful that she might otherwise ask him to fill the time with another chapter of their story. He doesn’t know precisely what lies ahead for the Ballerina Princess, but he’s so certain it isn’t good that he’s afraid even to think about it.

  Carmen sits without so much as a magazine as pretext, her stare more or less aimed at the pattern of the wallpaper.

  Goodman is explaining to Kelly what makes certain animals marsupials when the receptionist pokes her head into the room. “Doctor will see you now,” she says.

  The three of them follow her. Goodman wonders when the doctor arrived, and through what side door. Or has he been there all along, stalling, trying to compose the words he’ll use to break the news to them?

  They’re ushered into Dr. Gendel’s empty office and take seats. Goodman says one of his silent little prayers, asking for his own death if that will spare his daughter’s life.

  “Good morning, folks,” Dr. Gendel says, walking into the room in a white lab coat. Goodman tries to read meaning into his casual air but finds it difficult to do so. Is it really casual, or is it an act, put on to disguise his anguish? Goodman wonders if they train doctors in medical school how to hide their emotions. Poker Face 101, three credits, pass/fail.

  “I’m Dr. Gendel,” the doctor tells Carmen, and Goodman is forced to mumble an apology for having forgotten to introduce them.

  “How are we feeling today, young lady?” Gendel asks Kelly, motioning her to join him behind his desk.

  “Okay,” she replies in a small voice, circling the desk and ending up in front of him. He takes her hands in his.

  “Okay, but freezing!” he says. “Cold hands, blue lips. Doesn’t your daddy bundle you up enough?”

  “I dress myself,” Kelly tells him. “And my daddy takes very good care of me.”

  So serious is her tone, so protec
tive her words, that Goodman actually feels his chest inflate with such intense, aching love for his daughter that he has to concentrate on his breathing. He’s aware of Carmen’s hand on his arm, is happy to have it there.

  Dr. Gendel opens a drawer and fishes out a device similar to the one he used last time to examine Kelly’s eyes. He fits the contraption around his head and flicks on a light that’s part of it. Then, spreading his knees apart, he draws Kelly closer to him, pinning her little body with his knees.

  “See this funny-looking nose of mine?” Dr. Gendel asks Kelly.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I want you to watch it as hard as you can, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  He examines one eye, then the other, pausing to make notes on a pad of paper. Then he snaps off the light and removes the contraption.

  “Do you still see the spot?” he asks her.

  “Only sometimes.”

  “Which eye?”

  She raises her hand to her right eye.

  “Is it the same size as before?”

  “No,” she says. “When I see it, it’s smaller.”

  “What color is it when you see it?”

  “Yucky color,” she says.

  “What’s yucky color?”

  “Yellowish brown.”

  “Sounds yucky to me all right,” Dr. Gendel agrees. “Was it always that color?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  He looks through some notes in his file. “Last time, you told me it was brown. Is it different now?”

  “I guess so.”

  He opens his knees and releases Kelly from their grip. She seems happy to escape and retraces her route around the desk to join Goodman and Carmen.

  Dr. Gendel swivels his chair to face them. Goodman braces for the worst. Isn’t it good that the spot’s fading? Isn’t yellowish brown better than all brown? Doesn’t that count for something?

  “I’m going to confess, I’m just a little bit baffled here,” Gendel says. “The MRI pictures are clear - there’s no tumor I can see. The spot on the eye has faded some - Kelly’s absolutely right about that.