“Did they fuck?”
“Them?” Schwartz catches right on. “No way. They were down for the count by 2200.”
“It’s the big day,” Riley says. “They wanted to be well rested.”
Looking in the bathroom mirror as he wipes the last traces of shaving cream from his face, Michael Goodman feels anything but well rested. What he does feels is a growing sense of dread, which he recognizes as the prelude to eventual panic. He feels outnumbered, outwitted, and absurdly out of his league. He feels a little bit like he’s just woken up on the morning he’s scheduled to be executed.
But then again, he feels totally, helplessly in love.
There’s a knock on the bathroom door. Goodman pushes it open, and Carmen slips in, flannel shirt and all. Her smile reassures him that not all of last night was a dream.
“Good morning,” she says, running the back of one hand down the side of his face. He’s never been so glad he’s shaved in his life.
“Morning,” he smiles, heading out the bathroom door.
“Your pajamas are on backward,” she tells him.
Jimmy Zelb wakes up around 9:15. Remembers he’s been looking forward to this day for some time. Today, after all, is the day they’re going to take Michael Goodman down.
Zelb has directed Operation Pushover since the beginning, since Big Red told him about the guy living on East Ninety-Second Street who was dealing pure heroin. It was Zelb who convinced Lenny Siegel, his group leader, to let him put Carmen Cruz in with Goodman. It was Zelb who concocted the rape scenario, knowing that Goodman would be sucker enough to take her in. And it was Zelb who created Vinnie and T.M. In fact, the cute initials - T.M. and C.O.P. - were Zelb’s idea, too.
And it’s all worked like a charm.
Goodman went for the bait like a bear goes for honey. Bought the whole line about Cruz’s fight with her pimp boyfriend, her threat to go back to the street, her connected brother. And before you knew it, Zelb - playing the role of T.M. - had a sample. True, it was actually Cruz who handed him the sample. (But when it came time to do the paperwork, they’d taken care of that little detail by writing Cruz out of the transfer altogether. No big deal.)
And what a sample it turned out to be!
Zelb had taken it to the police chemist himself, bypassing the lab messenger they usually called for. He’d watched as Dr. Krishna or something like that - the “Dr.” no doubt being some sort of an honorary degree, seeing as no Ph.D. chemist would ever stoop to work for what the city pays - had opened up the baggie and examined the contents.
“Notice the gray cast to it,” he’d told Zelb. “And the graininess. I hear South Florida is starting to see this kind of stuff.”
“Where’s it come from originally?” Zelb had asked.
“Colombia, most likely. Though we’re seeing more and more high- quality heroin coming out of Peru lately, too.”
For the next fifteen minutes, Zelb had watched as Krishna had weighed the powder, taken small samples from various parts of it, and added drops of different solutions to the samples, comparing the colors that resulted against standard color samples on index cards. Then he’d turned to Zelb.
“We won’t know the exact numbers until we run it through a neutron activation analysis,” he’d said. “But I’ll stake my reputation on this stuff’s being better than 98 percent pure.”
It turned out that his reputation was safe. The analysis showed the sample to be heroin hydrochloride, 99.8 percent pure. Though Zelb doesn’t know it, heroin in its soluble form is anhydrous - it craves water, tending to combine even with the moisture in the atmosphere, meaning it will almost never test out at 100 percent purity under normal conditions.
Then there’d been the negotiations between Goodman and Vinnie, who was of course none other than Zelb’s partner, Frank Farrelli. Goodman had driven an unexpectedly hard bargain, insisting on $3.5 million for the nineteen kilos he has left. But the truth is, Farrelli had been prepared to offer as much as 5 million if he’d had to. Money is no object when you’re not going to spend it. But Farrelli had nevertheless been compelled to seem reluctant to meet Goodman’s price: As any drug dealer knows, if a buyer agrees to pay too much, he’s either intending to rip you off or he’s the Man. But then again, Goodman wasn’t just any drug dealer. An exhaustive search of the files of DEA, FBI, and even Interpol revealed no mention of him, except for a three-year stint in the navy in the seventies. To this day, nobody’s been able to explain how he suddenly appeared on the drug scene. There’s been some speculation that he may even have stolen someone else’s stash. That notion’s recently been fueled by an unconfirmed report from an informer that in the past day or two a handful of Latino heavyweights have flown up from the Miami area to reclaim something they consider to be rightfully theirs.
But that’s all idle speculation and rumor, what the Justice Department classifies as “soft” information. Jimmy Zelb likes to deal in facts. And the fact is that today’s the day Michael Goodman’s going to bring them nineteen kilos of the purest heroin law enforcement has seen in three decades. And he’s going to put it right in their hands.
“Going somewhere?” Carmen asks, eyeing the suitcase as she comes out of the bathroom, drying her hair with a towel.
“We can talk about it later,” Kelly says, cutting between them to take her turn in the bathroom.
“It seems your ‘brother’ had it dropped off on our doorstep,” Goodman explains.
Carmen examines the tag on the suitcase. “It’s brand new,” she says. “They’ve no doubt bought another one just like it. That means they want to do another switch.”
“Boy, they think of everything.”
“Oh, they’re three moves ahead of you, Michael. First, this forces you to get the drugs out of hiding so you can transfer them to the suitcase. Next, it’s nice and visible, so you’ll be easy for them to spot when you show up. Finally, it’s big and unwieldy, so you can’t disappear with the money that’ll be in the other suitcase.”
“They really do think of everything.”
She takes his face in both hands and makes him look her in the eyes. “Promise me you’ll tell Vinnie you can’t go through with it, Michael.”
“Promise me my daughter’s not going to keep needing tests,” he says.
She releases his face but not his eyes. “Your daughter needs you,” she says.
By midmorning, the plant is packed with cops. Abbruzzo and Weems, by virtue of their seniority, will run the operation from there. Lieutenant Spangler is the supervisor, and he’ll act as field commander from his car. Riley and Sheridan will cover the buy location, aided by a dozen plainclothes police officers. DeSimone and Kwon will be nearby if technical assistance is required. They’ve even thought to have a female officer assigned, in case they arrest Goodman’s girlfriend. And someone from the Bureau of Child Welfare is on standby, since it’s possible they may end up with a kid on their hands. All told, there are twenty-one people assigned to the operation at this point, not counting Maggie Kennedy, who’ll be at her desk in the DA’s office should legal advice be needed.
In addition to cellular telephones, each unit has a handheld radio to keep in touch with all other units. Finally, the deputy commissioner in charge of Public Affairs has been briefed; he, in turn, has notified certain trusted contacts in the media. If all goes according to schedule, the seizure should make both the eleven o’clock news and the morning papers.
At 1145 hours, a call comes in from the Special Equipment Unit telling them the MOUSE is ready for their use. Abbruzzo tells Sheridan and Riley to go pick it up. “And don’t be playing with any of the gadgets, for Chrissakes.”
“You want us to bring it back here?”
“Fuck no,” Abbruzzo says, looking around for his Maalox tablets. “I don’t want the Mole to see it anywhere around here. I want you to call me when you got it, then just hang loose until we find out where this thing is going to go down.” He finds the Maalox, pops one.
“Then we head for the
set?”
“You don’t do anything,” Abbruzzo says, “until I tell you to.” He downs another Maalox.
Gustavo Fuentes wakes up Friday morning in a suite he’s rented for the weekend at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. It’s a large suite, which the Waldorf categorizes as one of its “premiere” accommodations. It consists of a large sitting room, a bedroom, a dressing room, a full bathroom, and a half bathroom off the sitting room, for guests. It has a service area complete with refrigerator, cooking facilities, dining table, and a full wet bar. It rents for $ 1,850 per night. Yet it somehow fails to please Mister Fuentes.
“It’s so, so old,” he said when he first saw it.
Mister Fuentes wakes up this Friday morning with the same headache he’s been waking up with for several weeks now. It has proved to be a very stubborn headache, the kind that doesn’t seem to go away with even extra-strength Tylenol.
Over time, Mister Fuentes has learned that his headache has a name. Its name is Michael Goodman. Mister Fuentes has had enough of his headache. He’s come all the way to the East Side of Manhattan, in New York City, to get rid of it. And as he wakes up this Friday morning, his very first thought is that today is the day he’s going to do precisely that.
Carmen and Kelly are curled up on the sofa, watching something on Channel 13 about why people sneeze. Goodman sits at the card table, staring off into space. When the phone rings, it startles him. He looks at his watch. 12:18. Even as he reaches for the phone, he knows who’s calling him.
* * *
At the sound of an incoming phone call, the plant springs to life. Abbruzzo turns down the volume on the three bugs - whatever the static problem was with bug number three has been fixed - so they can listen to the conversation directly from the wiretap.
GOODMAN: Hello?
VINNIE: Hey, Mikey boy. How ya doin’?
GOODMAN: Okay.
VINNIE: Today’s the big day.
GOODMAN: Yup.
VINNIE: Everything cool?
GOODMAN: I don’t know. I’ve been thinking. I’m not sure this is something I really want to do. I mean-
VINNIE: What the fuck are you saying?
Abbruzzo has to turn the volume down, Vinnie’s voice is so loud.
GOODMAN: It’s just that I’ve never done anything like this. It’s wrong, for one thing-
VINNIE: Don’t you get cold feet on me now, man! I know where you live. I know you got a little kid. You can’t back out now - not after my people’ve put everything together. We’re goin’ through with this thing - that’s all there is to it. You hear?
There’s a pause.
GOODMAN: I hear.
VINNIE: Good. I picked out a place. It’s downtown, like you said.
GOODMAN: Yeah?
VINNIE: Yeah. Tenth Avenue, corner a Nineteenth Street. It’s real quiet over there at night. Nobody’ll bother us.
GOODMAN: No, that’s no good. I told you, I have to take my daughter to a party. We’ll have to make it near where she’s going to be.
VINNIE: Where’s that at?
GOODMAN: Sixth Avenue and Tenth Street.
VINNIE: No good. I’ll never find a parking place over there.
GOODMAN: You’ll have to double-park, I guess.
VINNIE: Shit. Hold on a minute, will ya?
There’s a pause, and Vinnie can be heard in muffled conversation with somebody in the background at his end. Abbruzzo turns the wiretap volume switch all the way up, but they can’t make out the words. Then Vinnie’s back on the phone.
VINNIE: You there?
GOODMAN: I’m here.
VINNIE: Okay. If it’s gotta be, it’s gotta be.
GOODMAN: It’s gotta be.
VINNIE: Which corner?
GOODMAN: Make it the southwest.
VINNIE: Okay. Hey, you get the present we dropped off?
GOODMAN: Yup.
VINNIE: Use it.
GOODMAN: I will.
VINNIE: Okay. Southwest corner a Sixth Avenue and Tenth Street, eight o’clock sharp. And Mikey?
GOODMAN: Yeah?
VINNIE: Stop worrying so much. It’s natural to worry about these things, but it’s gonna be okay. Trust me.
A cheer goes up in the plant as soon as they hear Goodman and Vinnie hang up.
“Quiet down!” Abbruzzo yells, but even he can’t help smiling. “Okay,” he says. “We’ve got a location.”
Goodman’s first thought after hanging up the phone is to wonder why Vinnie has suddenly been willing to take the chance of talking on Goodman’s home phone. Then he remembers: Vinnie’s not taking any chances - Vinnie’s a federal agent. All that stuff about needing to have one pay phone call another pay phone was just part of the act, part of the charade to help convince him that Vinnie was a typical drug dealer - cautious to the point of being paranoid. Evidently they’re now satisfied that Goodman has bought the performance, and they no longer feel the need to keep playing the pay-phone game.
His second thought is that, for a federal agent, Vinnie sure got upset when he learned that Goodman was having second thoughts about going through with the deal. Shouldn’t he have been happy to hear that a would-be heroin dealer was considering the wrongness of what he was about to do? And didn’t he step way over the line when he told Goodman it was too late to back out, that he’d do something to Kelly if that happened?
He wants to ask Carmen these questions. But when he looks over at her on the sofa with Kelly, he knows this isn’t the time to do it.
He looks at his watch. It’s 12:25. Less than eight hours left.
Big Red wakes up a little after one o’clock. He remembers right away there’s something he wants to do today, but he can’t recall just what it is. He reaches for his cigarettes and lights one, inhaling deeply, holding the smoke in his lungs as long as he can.
There’s a stirring in the bed, and Big Red recalls he’s not alone. A body alongside him groans, lifts her brown head an inch or two, opens one eye, and groans again. Then she turns away, covering her head with a pillow.
Big Red tries his best to remember. First, he tries to figure out who it is that’s in his bed. He recalls a party at an after-hours spot, a fair number of vodka and cranberry juices, and a sweet young thing sitting next to him in the Bentley awhile later. He has a vague memory of arriving home, putting on a couple of CDs, downing another vodka and cranberry juice or two, and doing some slow dancing. After that, nothing. He wonders how good this little girl was. He wonders what her name is, for that matter. Something with a G, he thinks. Georgia? Gina? Georgina?
And right about then, he remembers Goodman. Goodman, the little Caucasian guy they relieved of his pants. That’s what he wants to do today - go visit the guy and see if he’s got any of that pure shit of his left. ‘Cause that fuckin’ lazy sonofabitch No Neck Zelb never followed up on it, that’s for damn sure.
Big Red reaches for the phone and punches in the number of Hammer’s beeper. Then he lifts the covers off the lower half of the body alongside him, revealing as fine an ass as he’s seen in a long time. He’d like to remember more about last night but cannot. He rolls to his side, places a hand on the ass. It’s a beautiful milk-chocolate color, warm to the touch and wonderfully firm. He begins tracing a finger slowly down the line where the cheeks meet, from top to bottom. He’s about halfway when the phone rings.
He gives the ass a good slap. The head bobs up again, this time both eyes open, staring at him with some mixture of indignation, confusion, and expectation.
“Get packin’, sugar,” he says. “Big Red’s got some business to take care of today.”
“Daddy, is it time for me to get into my costume?” Kelly wants to know.
“It’s only two o’clock,” he tells her. “The party isn’t until six.”
“We’ll all start getting ready around three-thirty,” Carmen says. “That’ll give us more than enough time.”
“We can’t all go,” Kelly says.
“Why not?”
“�
�Cause if Daddy drops me off, all the kids at the party will recognize him and know who I am.”
“You’ve got a point there,” Carmen admits. “Michael, I’ve got good news and bad news for you. The good news is, you don’t have to drop Kelly off at her party. The bad news is, you have to make dinner while I’m gone.”
“Deal,” he says, though he’s barely heard what she’s been telling him. He walks over to the suitcase with the yellow-and-green floral print. “Will you two excuse me for a few minutes?” he asks, lifting the suitcase. He unlocks the front door, opens it, and steps out of the apartment. Closing the door behind him, he heads down the stairs.
“Fuckin’ guy” Abbruzzo marvels. “Excuses himself when he goes to the fuckin’ bathroom.”
“Whitey gonna have hisself a little adjustment problem when he gets to Rikers Island,” Weems observes.
“Oh, they’ll adjust him pretty good out there,” Abbruzzo says. “Specially the brothas.”
“Sheeet.” Weems laughs. “Give him two days of good black lovin’, he’ll be beggin’ for more. Kinda like the white dude who gets tossed into a cell with this big brother been locked up for ten years, been doin’ nothin’ but weight training? The brother introduces himself. ‘You gots two choices,’ he tells Whitey. ‘You can be the husband, or you can be the wife.’ Whitey thinks a minute, finally says, ‘I’ll be the husband.’ ‘Okay,’ says the brother, ‘come on over here now and suck your wife’s dick!’”
The room dissolves into laughter.
In the basement, Goodman sets the suitcase down and sits on it in front of his storage locker, facing the black duffel bag. Inside the bag, he knows, is either eternal wealth or eternal prison. He thinks of a “Peanuts” comic strip he once saw: Snoopy’s composing a love letter. “And I shall be yours forever,” he writes. “Forever being a relative term, that is.”
Eternal wealth or eternal prison being relative terms, Goodman thinks now. But not too far from being completely accurate.
Goodman realizes that there is one component of his dilemma that’s been eliminated. Before, he had to contend with the fact that, by selling the heroin, he was going to be responsible for its getting out onto the street and into the hands of addicts - kids, some of them. Now, he knows that’s not going to happen. Since Vinnie turns out to be a DEA agent, once Goodman sells him the drugs, they’re kept off the street. Then again, so is Goodman.
Shoot the Moon Page 33