Shoot the Moon

by Joseph T. Klempner

  But something in Goodman tells him that there’s no time for all of that now, that spotting the suitcase at the very moment that the beginning of the parade is coming up the avenue is a good omen of sorts, and that it might be a mistake to hesitate. So before he can analyze the situation too closely, he forces himself to start off again, making a straight line for the two men, suitcase approaching suitcase.

  Lenny Siegel, as the leader of Group Two, is supposed to be directing the DEA agents from the radio in his Cadillac, close to where the deal’s supposed to go down. But Siegel finds himself stuck in the same gridlock traffic that’s earlier forced Zelb, Farrelli, and the rest of the field agents to abandon their cars on Fourteenth Street.

  “This is fucked up,” Siegel now tells his driver. “What street is this?”

  “Twenty-third, sir,” replies Luis Sandoval. At twenty-two, Sandoval is the youngest agent in the group, and the newest, with less than two months on the job. Fresh out of John Jay College, he’s yet to make an undercover buy, be present at an arrest, or take part in a seizure. He doesn’t drink, smoke, curse, or seem to understand the occasional need to testify creatively in court. As a result, there are still serious doubts about Sandoval’s potential to fit into the law-enforcement community. Siegel has appointed him his personal driver for the time being, since none of the other agents want to be burdened with such an untested agent as a partner.

  “This is really fucked up,” Siegel says, looking at the wall of traffic ahead of them. “Make a U-ey, Louie, and we’ll head uptown, get ourselves out of this fuckin’ mess.”

  “Yessir,” says Sandoval.

  Goodman comes up on Vinnie and T.M. from the rear, and can tell that they’re totally absorbed in the parade. He sets his suitcase down a few feet behind theirs. For a moment, he wonders if he might actually be able to slide theirs out from between them. It’s a maneuver he’s seen his daughter make when playing Pickup Sticks - gently pulling one stick free without disturbing those on either side of it. But he sees that T.M. has his leg pressed against the suitcase and decides he better look around for another move.

  The noise is overwhelming. The first marchers are passing right by them, led by some guy dressed up like a majorette, wearing these huge rubber tits. Behind him are a couple of people wearing Newt Gingrich and Bob Dole masks, waving to the crowd. Two others are dressed up as huge ears, suspending a tiny likeness of Ross Perot between them. Next comes a huge smoke-breathing dragon, held aloft by a dozen people in black costumes. A full calypso band can be seen - and heard - coming up the avenue.

  There’s so much noise - music, shouting, cheering, laughing, and applauding - that Goodman finally has to tap Vinnie and T.M. on their shoulders to get their attention. They spin around in tandem. For a fleeting instant, Goodman imagines he reads disappointment on their faces, or even sexual rejection. But he’s sure he must be mistaken - it’s only a parade they’ve been watching, after all.

  “Hi, fellas,” he says.

  “Hi,” they respond in unison, looking a bit out of their element. The greeting “Hi” is apparently not real big in either drug parlance or DEA agent machismo.

  “How’s the parade?” Goodman asks them.

  “Good,” Vinnie answers, his eyes now darting back and forth between Goodman’s suitcase and their own. “How do you want to do this?”

  Goodman starts to answer, but his voice is completely drowned out by a giant roar of laughter from the crowd. Passing them is a huge float, featuring an outrageously attired couple engaged in mock fornication on a purple velvet four-poster. The breasts of the “woman” are every bit as bare as those of the majorette before her, and every bit as awesome. Above the display is a giant reproduction of the Nike logo - apparently corporate sponsorship has extended yet another tentacle into American life - and the slogan just do it.

  “Let’s just do it,” Goodman says. And with that, he reaches for their suitcase with his left hand, yanks it off the sidewalk, and gives them a crisp salute with his right.

  Dumbly, Vinnie and T.M. return the salute. T.M. takes a step toward Goodman’s suitcase, grasps the handle, and picks it up. He smiles slightly, apparently reassured by the discovery that it’s even heavier than the one he’s been lugging.

  “Let’s do this again sometime,” Goodman says. As he backs away, he stumbles over something. Looking down, he sees it’s a big orange cone, one of those high-visibility rubber markers they use. He picks it up and looks for a place to toss it, but every inch of the sidewalk seems to be already occupied by a body. He shrugs and turns into the crowd.

  To Zelb and Farrelli, the switch has happened faster than their wildest dreams. They’d counted on the fact that Goodman, as an accountant, would surely want to crack open their suitcase to assure himself that the money looked right. That would’ve given them time to do the same with his, to make certain the drugs are there, before signaling the backup team to move in. But Goodman’s sudden departure has thrown them off.

  On top of that, not having been able to bring their car to the set has forced Zelb and Farrelli to abandon their original signal, which had, of course, been the traditional opening-of-the-trunk move. They’d hastily switched to an exchange of high fives, a gesture considered obvious enough to be easily spotted by the backup team.

  Finally, with the gridlock caused by the parade, the backup team - once close to twenty strong, complete with vehicles and radios - has been reduced to two men on foot. And at this very moment, those two men are doing their best to follow Michael Goodman and the suitcase full of the government’s money, while at the same time watching Zelb and Farrelli for signs of anything approaching a high five.

  Desperately, Zelb drops to his knees right there in the middle of the sidewalk as Farrelli does his best to keep the crowd from trampling them. Zelb needs to check to make sure that the drugs are there before they can give the signal for the backup team to move in. Otherwise, it may turn out that the seller has engaged in what’s termed a “dry run” - a delivery of something other than narcotics, just to see if the police are going to swoop down at the moment of the transfer. (Zelb knows of one case in which a wary seller delivered ten pounds of sanitary napkins to test whether things were safe for the actual sale.)

  Zelb opens one latch, then the other. Then, holding his breath, he snaps the lid open and peers inside. What he sees is nineteen large plastic bags, each packed full with a grayish-white powder.

  He breathes. He slams the lid shut, fastens the latches, and jumps to his feet. “Bingo!” he shouts to Farrelli, who has to lip-read his answer, because the crowd has broken into a roar once again. Then the two give each other a series of high fives that are, at least by white male standards, more or less identifiable.

  The only problem is that at that moment, a marcher dressed up as a giant Barney the Dinosaur has begun to throw candy into the crowd. Not anything wonderful - chocolate Kisses, M&M’s, Neco Wafers, and the like - but more than enough to cause people who’ve been standing around in the cold for an hour and a half to react. And the way they react, naturally, is to raise their hands high as they attempt to catch the treats in midair.

  This activity by the crowd lasts just long enough (and is just similar enough to the high fives of Zelb and Farrelli) to confuse the two backup agents, who are forced to hesitate a moment longer before closing in on Goodman and his suitcase. The last they see of him is his suitcase and his bright orange jacket, framed against the entrance of a large apartment building on the corner.

  “That’s it!” one of them shouts. “That’s the high five, the signal!”

  Joined by Zelb and Farrelli moments later, they will still be arguing over whether Goodman went into the building or somehow disappeared into the crowd.

  “Calm down,” Zelb tells them. “We’ve got a backup system.” He reaches into his pocket and produces an object that looks like an electronic garage-door opener but is actually the locator unit of a powerful state-of-the-art homing device. He presses the On but
ton. Immediately, a red light begins to flash every two seconds or so, accompanied by a beeping sound.

  “He’s still nearby,” Zelb announces, “probably inside the building. This little gadget’ll tell us as soon as he makes a move.”

  “You mean as soon as the money makes a move,” Farrelli corrects him.

  “Same difference.”

  “It’s a switch! It’s a switch!”

  The voice is that of Lee Waters, coming over the radio to Ray Abbruzzo at the plant.

  “Who’s with you?” Abbruzzo asks.

  “Just me and Gleason.”

  “Can you see the MOUSE?”

  “No,” Waters says. “They drove off.”

  “Drove off?” Abbruzzo can’t believe his ears. “MOUSE! Come in, MOUSE!” he shouts over and over again.

  Finally, he hears Daniel Riley’s voice and a timid “MOUSE here.”

  “Are you still there?” Abbruzzo asks.

  “Not exactly,” comes the reply.

  “Can you tell me where the fuck you are, then?” Abbruzzo screams into the microphone.

  “Uh, not exactly.”

  “What is this, some Hertz commercial? What’s going on out there?”

  The answer that finally comes sounds small and far away, and almost like a question of its own. “We’re being towed away?”

  Abbruzzo grabs the neck of the microphone as if to throttle it. Twice, he starts to say something; twice, he stops. Finally, he releases the microphone, reaches for his Maalox tablets, and downs whatever’s left of them, wrapper and all.

  “What should we do, Ray?”

  Abbruzzo suddenly remembers he’s got Waters and Gleason standing by, waiting for orders.

  “How many of them are there?” he asks.

  “Hard to tell,” Waters says. “Looks like three or four of them, and the suitcase.”

  “Think you two can take them?” Abbruzzo asks.

  “Shit, yeah.”

  “Go for it.”

  Zelb, Farrelli, and one of the other DEA agents are still in front of the apartment building, playing with the locator device. The fourth agent is stationed at the service entrance of the building, a couple of doors down.

  “From the way it’s giving out a constant signal,” Zelb explains, “he’s gotta be inside. Otherwise, we’d be losing him.”

  “I don’t know,” Farrelli says. “It feels like we’ve already lost him.”

  “Have a little faith in technology,” Zelb tells him, his eyes on the flashing red light.

  “Freeze, motherfuckers!”

  Zelb looks up and sees two crazy guys pointing toy handguns at them from combat positions. “Go march in the fuckin’ parade,” he tells them. “Cancha see we’re busy here?”

  “I said, freeze!”

  Zelb takes a closer look. Maybe the guns don’t look so much like toys after all.

  Lee Waters keeps his gun trained on the guy with the big neck, the one closest to the suitcase. On Waters’s left, George Gleason has both hands on his own gun, pointed in pretty much the same direction.

  What Waters is thinking is that this is a career-defining moment for him. With the rest of the troops nowhere to be found, he and his partner have saved the day. They’ve brought down three perps with a suitcase full of pure heroin. This will mean a commendation at the very least, perhaps a promotion. Possibly even an appearance on the eleven o’clock news. He can’t wait to see his face on TV as he stands flanked by the mayor and the police commissioner, drugs displayed in front of them, answering Gabe Pressman’s questions in a steady, self-assured voice.

  Instead, the voice he hears comes from the guy with the big neck. “We’re on the job, here, assholes! Who the fuck are you?”

  Now if the one with the big neck had said, “We’re cops,” or “We’re police officers,” or even “We’re federal agents,” Waters might be having his doubts right about now, might even be cocking the hammer of his weapon to show just how much he means business. But “on the job” is a magic phrase, and as soon as he hears it, Lee Waters experiences a sinking feeling. He’s not sure yet, but he senses already that the whole Gabe Pressman interview is down the tube, so to speak.

  The standoff continues for a few minutes, each side demanding to see the credentials of the other but afraid of any move toward a pocket. There’s some swearing and name-calling, as well as an accusation or two that one agency has interfered with another’s investigation. But in the end, nobody gets shot, punched, or even arrested. Which is a pretty fortunate thing, considering how these jurisdictional disputes usually seem to wind up.

  Zelb continues to monitor the locator device, which blinks and beeps a steady indication that their target is still nearby. Farrelli uses a portable radio to call the group leader, Lenny Siegel.

  “Stay on the building,” Siegel tells them. “We couldn’t get any closer with all the traffic, so we’re heading uptown. We’ll swing by his house. If he slips past you guys, we’ll be waiting for him at his house.”

  “Don’t worry, boss,” Farrelli says. “No way he’s gonna slip past this team.”

  “Why am I not convinced?” Siegel asks. He clicks off before Farrelli can answer.

  But by this time, the team consists of six men, including Waters and Gleason. They represent the United States Justice Department’s Drug Enforcement Administration and the New York Police Department’s Organized Crime Control Bureau. All told, they have eight guns, 200 rounds of ammunition, five pairs of handcuffs, and the locator device. They’re waiting for a little, unarmed guy with a big suitcase to walk out of the building and into their arms.

  Now those are the kind of odds you’ve got to like.

  Shortly before 8:30, Big Red pulls his Bentley into Ninety-Second Street, finds a parking place that’s more or less legal, and kills the engine. He taps a pack of Marlboros and extracts one of them. Before it reaches his mouth, Hammer has lighted a match and holds it ready.

  “What’s the plan, Red?” Hammer asks.

  “We gonna jus chill here a few minutes,” Big Red explains. “Then, if everything looks cool, we gonna pay Mr. Pure a little call.”

  Not thirty feet away, Harry Weems studies the Bentley in his binoculars.

  “Two wrong-looking characters sittin’ in a red Rolls-Royce right in front of us, Ray.” By “wrong-looking characters,” Weems, of course, means blacks. But being African-American himself, he chooses to state it somewhat differently.

  “What are they up to?” Abbruzzo asks.

  “Hard to say,” Weems says. “But nothing legal, that’s for damn sure.”

  “Keep an eye on them.”

  “Oh, I will,” says Harry Weems. “I will.”

  The black Mercedes 500S cruises slowly down Lexington Avenue. Johnnie Delgado is behind the wheel. Mister Fuentes sits alongside him. Two guys known as Papo and Julio ride in the back.

  “What street we looking for?” Mister Fuentes asks, turning up the heat. He wishes he were back in Miami.

  “Ninety-second,” Johnnie Delgado says. He knows the block well. He’s known it ever since a couple of their men followed the gringo there - the same gringo who stole the heroin Raul Cuervas was supposed to pick up at the airport in Fort Lauderdale. That little mistake had cost Cuervas his life.

  “Raul Cuervas was my cousin, you know,” Mister Fuentes says. He’s always had this uncanny ability to know what’s on the other person’s mind.

  “I didn’t know that,” Johnnie Delgado says, not sure if it’s really true or not.

  “Yes, it’s true,” Mister Fuentes says. “That’s why it’s so important for me to avenge his death.”

  Which strikes Johnnie Delgado as a bit strange, given the fact that it was Mister Fuentes himself who ordered the death of Raul Cuervas.

  “That was business,” says Mister Fuentes.

  “And now?”

  “Now we find our little gringo and avenge Raul’s death.”

  Johnnie Delgado has the feeling that there’s more i
nvolved here. Mister Fuentes hasn’t flown up from Miami just to kill some Anglo. He could have done that with a phone call.

  “And while we’re at it,” Mister Fuentes continues, “we’ll see if there are any black duffel bags lying around his apartment. Heh, heh, heh.” As usual, he’s his own best audience.

  “Good thinking,” says Johnnie Delgado.

  The two guys in the back of the car say nothing. Johnnie Delgado can’t remember if they speak English or not. In any event, they’re along for a reason, but it’s not to express their opinions.

  Big Red stubs out his cigarette. “Let’s take us a little walk,” he tells Hammer.

  They step out of the Bentley, slam the doors, and cross the street.

  “You packin’?” Big Red asks Hammer. “Packin’“ in this case means “strapped” - carrying a gun. Big Red doesn’t like to pack. Possession of a loaded weapon is a class D felony, get you seven years upstate. That’s one of the reasons he has Hammer.

  “I do believe I am,” Hammer replies, patting an area just to the right of his belt buckle.

  “Is it clean?”

  “Clean as a whistle.”

  Here, Big Red’s jargon leaves just a bit to be desired. Clean, when it comes to a gun, is a word that can be used to mean that the gun’s been cleaned since the last time it was fired, not only so that it will operate properly but so that if it’s seized by the police there will be no evidence of discharge visible upon examination. And indeed, it’s precisely that meaning of the term that Hammer has in mind when he assures Big Red that he’s recently cleaned the gun.

  But a clean gun has a second connotation altogether, and it’s actually that second connotation that Big Red was concerned about when he posed the question in the first place. A clean gun also refers to one without a criminal history, a gun with no “bodies” on it. Since guns and bullets can be matched by microscopic comparison, a seized gun can occasionally link its possessor to an unsolved homicide.

  But when you come right down to it, Hammer has a rather childlike mind. He tends to take things literally. So it’s really no surprise that he attaches the more literal meaning to Big Red’s use of the word clean. The gun is clean, he knows, because he cleaned it himself - just the other day, in fact.