A Twist of the Knife

by Stephen Solomita

  The AMERICAN RED ARMY announces the execution of the Zionist-Imperialist dog, Gerald Gutterman, for crimes against the peoples of the world. The AMERICAN RED ARMY demands an end to the fascist United States Government’s support of the Zionist state. The AMERICAN RED ARMY demands an end to the genocide practiced against the helpless peoples of El Salvador and Nicaragua. The AMERICAN RED ARMY demands that the Imperialist-Fascist United States Military remove its mercenaries from European soil and end its support of the illegal government in South Africa. The AMERICAN RED ARMY will never cease its activities until its demands are met. The VICTORY OF THE PEOPLE IS INEVITABLE.

  Some days, as any worker knows, are better than others. There are, of course, no good ones, but, occasionally, one might, at least, pass quickly. A few, however, are so terrible, so degrading to the heart and spirit, that they require 50 milligrams of Valium and a pint of Jack Daniels just to get even. For Rita Melengic, Friday, March 23, fit neatly into the last category. Awakened at 9:15 AM by a desperate manager, she’d dragged herself out of bed, faced the reality of the bathroom mirror and gotten herself to the job by 11, despite having worked until two on the previous night. Her first hour passed uneventfully, but then, at 12:30, an effusive patron swung his arms into her path, knocking a tray of Budweiser drafts into her lap. Twenty minutes in a surprisingly (for once) clean lady’s room, had served to dry the black, polyester pants all the barmaids wore, but her heavy cotton panties remained damp, exuding a faint odor of sour beer. Then, with the entry of six Ukrainian construction workers, freed from their day’s toil by a sudden downpour, the pinching had begun. After an hour of pleading, Rita had had enough and simply refused to go near their table. However, in the spirit of good clean fun, one young man, his face smeared with soot, had taken a chair at an empty table, pretending to be angry with his comrades. When Rita passed by, carrying a tray laden with corned beef and brisket sandwiches, he turned quickly and with surprising strength, attempted to ram his left thumb into her rectum. All concerned thought this turn of events hilarious, until an incensed Rita smashed the offender with a Heinz ketchup bottle, opening a five-inch cut above his right eye and driving him, senseless, to the floor. His friends, even as they considered their revenge, found themselves surrounded by four off-duty cops who, while not exactly unsympathetic, knew of Rita and her relationship with Moodrow and could easily guess what the sergeant’s reaction might be if they allowed five Ukrainians to kick his old lady’s ass. The Ukrainians, recent immigrants from the Soviet police state, never even bothered to question the justice of the situation. They simply retrieved their fallen comrade and made a hasty exit.

  Nevertheless, the bar’s manager, Ramon Iglesia, had been less than understanding, declaring that pinches and pokes are part and parcel of a bardmaid’s existence and, while not exactly to be encouraged, need not be met with first-degree assault, especially when the customers are still able to drink. Rita hadn’t furthered her cause by calling Mr. Iglesia a “subhuman piece of shit” and, in fact, had, not for the first time, been fired on the spot. Her disposition was unimproved by the cold spring drizzle or the thought of Stanley Moodrow, who was waiting for her at home.

  Thus she pounded up First Avenue, not even bothering to dodge the inevitable winos. She simply shouldered them aside, all the while imagining Moodrow, still in his underwear, waiting for dinner, or, better still, with the parts of his .38 Special spread across the kitchen table, a can of Schaefer in his hand. The image infuriated her and by the time she got to her doorway, she was ready to step on a butterfly, so it was not surprising that, upon finding a fully dressed Moodrow, pen in hand, writing doggedly, she responded, her curiosity excited in spite of everything, by shouting. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

  Moodrow turned to her, deadpan. “I’m writing a letter.”

  “A letter? Who could you write a letter to?”

  “Ann Landers.”

  “Ann Landers.” Almost a smile, “Are you kidding me? I’m not in the mood, Stanley.”

  Moodrow stared serenely into her eyes, face so straight it drooped. “I’m serious. I write Ann every month. I used to write to Dear Abby, but I had to quit her. Too conservative.”

  Rita hesitated momentarily, finally deciding that Moodrow was putting her on. Once again her voice rose. “Why would you write a letter to Ann Landers?”

  He smiled for the first time, showing small, closely set teeth. “Listen, I got problems, too. You think I’m just a big, meathead cop, but lemme tell you something, Rita, this is America and in America anybody can write to anybody they want. Anybody.”

  Resigned, Rita sat down on the other side of the table. “OK, I give up. Read the damn thing.”

  “Dear Ann. I am a married man who has been married for nearly twenty-three years and the Lord knows how I do love my wife and my marriage is as good as they get. But lately something terrible has happened because my wife stated that she is no longer happy with our sex life. What with six kids she says she has gotten so big that she can’t feel a goddamn thing. Well you can imagine my surprise, as I have always enjoyed having sex with my wife, especially when she asked me would I consider doing it in her rear end because that way she could feel something again. Now I don’t know what to do and I have made all sorts of excuses because to tell the truth many years ago I made a solemn vow to my dick. I said ‘Dick, as long as there is pussy in this world I will never give you a shitty deal.’ As you know a vow is an immortal thing and not something a man can just take back because his wife bends over, so I would appreciate your advice as soon as possible. I love my wife very much but am TORN TO PIECES.”

  7

  THE ASSASSINATION OF GERALD Gutterman was referred to the offices of Agents Higgins and Bradley as a matter of course. Although they operated independently of the crime-solving process—the gathering and analysis of physical clues—they were automatic consultants on any terrorist activity in the New York area and had access to all reports, including the identities of confidential informers. Specific teams might be assigned to specific terrorist groups—Omega 7, the FALN, the PLO and, now, The American Red Army, but Bradley and Higgins formed a bridge between all the teams and thus were routinely briefed on any individual incident. Emerging from just such a briefing, an exhausting three-hour marathon in which all the physical evidence as well as autopsy reports on Gutterman and the two dead junkies, was examined in detail, each felt a presentiment of doom, a dark, hovering thunderhead waiting to descend. Their search, by the only method they knew—the pursuit of information through spies and informants—had produced no new results. The American Red Army remained invisible.

  “It’s almost like random killings,” Leonora said as they left the building. “Like motiveless murder where no logical connection exists between murderer and victim.”

  “Worse.” Bradley nodded agreement. “It’s true that with the Hillside Strangler or Son of Sam, if they don’t make a mistake, you don’t catch them. But those killers were amateurs. They wanted to be caught, while Muzzafer is a professional with decades of experience and, as far as we know, has never been in jail for a minute. He won’t screw up. Of course, it’s also possible that he’ll make contact with the international movement again—for supplies or money or maybe just for a chance to brag before his peers.”

  “Sure, but in the meantime, with the material they have, assuming Muzzafer is responsible here, they can cause unbelievable damage.”

  Bradley shrugged his shoulders. “What you say is true, but we can only play with what we’ve got. We don’t have the manpower to begin searching New York City street by street.”

  They entered Ruben’s Deli on Queens Boulevard, a black-and-white oddity of a kosher restaurant, and took a table in the back, ordering pastrami sandwiches, french fries and Dr. Peppers. The waiter, bent and gray, wrote laboriously. “You’re saying french fries?” He asked, black eyes darting from Leonora to George Bradley.

  George answered, clearly annoyed at having his atten
tion pulled away from his problem with Muzzafer. “Is there something wrong with the french fries?”

  “There is for some people,” the waiter replied.

  Leonora giggled. “Go ahead. Tell us.”

  “The french fries come straight from the freezer.” He held up one finger in triumph. “Now the potato salad we make every morning. Fresh. You wouldn’t believe how creamy.”

  “French fries,” Leonora said, cheerfully.

  “French fries,” George echoed.

  The waiter, outflanked, moved off to fill their orders, not even bothering to frown, and the agents resumed their conversation.

  “There’s two things to do,” George began. “First, we get out some photos of Muzzafer, though what we have is pretty fuzzy and very out of date, even assuming he’s wearing the same face. We can distribute them in the precincts and hope for the best. But, better yet, we can press that barber who delivered the weapons for the Cubans. What’s his name? Rodriguez? No, Ramirez. Even if he can’t help us with Muzzafer, we can turn him, let him work for us for awhile. There’s always the chance they’ll use him again if Muzzafer needs to rearm.”

  “You mean after he uses up everything he’s got? By that time, we’ll be investigating hot car rings in Hobart, Indiana.”

  The waiter returned and spread the plates out on the table. The pastrami was too stringy, with the fat leaking over the edge of the bread, but neither of the agents complained, though both noted the fact. They waited, silently, for the waiter to move off.

  “There’s one other thing,” Bradley said. “I think it’s time you go see that cop again. Moodrow.”

  Leonora frowned. “I was hoping we could put that one off. Wouldn’t the captain contact us if something developed?”

  “Maybe he knows something he’s not telling the captain.”

  “That doesn’t mean I can get it out of him.”

  Bradley sighed, hands rising automatically to rub his sore eyes. “I realize it’s all nonsense, but I don’t know what else to do.”

  Rita Melengic was a big girl, five foot seven inches tall and heavy-boned, a Czech from rural, farm stock, but she could not put her arms around her lover. Sometimes, lying beneath him as they made love, she fantasized him suddenly dropping down to cover her, almost to smother her, so that she felt, at once, protected and panicked. Two husbands and a dozen lovers had conspired to produce a bone weariness composed in equal parts of the terror of being alone and the pain given to her by her men. Not that she judged herself guiltless. She willingly accepted responsibility for her failures, coming to expect them to leave her life, as she expected that one day Moodrow would also leave. She could easily imagine herself trudging home with a stranger in tow, a young laborer or a drunken cop. She saw them arrive at her apartment, saw the clumsy preliminaries followed by hopeless, desperate sex when sex was even possible.

  Still, in spite of these fears, she found herself thinking of Moodrow, more and more often as she went about her daily business. At times, she wondered if she was falling in love with him and, wondering this, she began to find the reasons. He never criticized her. He never patronized her. When she was sharp with him, and she often was, he flinched. And he was very funny when he drank, funny and truly crazy, his own man. Some of the older Spanish women spoke to him on the street as if he was the pope, according him the ability to pull off miracles of extra-legal law enforcement. But none of this explained the deeper kinship she felt for him, the kinship of two people who, though outsiders pronounced them strong and self-reliant, were so close to beaten that they could not begin to put it into words. Yet each knew of the other’s plight, respecting the need for privacy, the need simply not to talk about it, and Rita waited patiently, expecting, sooner or later, to wake up alone.

  For Moodrow, the problem was entirely different. He told himself, that, in fact, he didn’t really care at all, that when, as it inevitably must, their relationship dissolved, he would simply go on his way, plodding toward retirement. He did not fear loneliness. He welcomed it because it served the self-image he most respected. Moodrow feared only retirement, which he equated with the end of life—a haze of alcohol and rapid decay. It was the way of his father and his uncles, the natural condition of men and women in life. He had never married, never even courted, content to attach himself to a succession of experienced lovers, like Rita Melengic. Sometimes they left. Sometimes he did. The longest lasted just under two years. Moodrow tied himself to his job, to a police department that was both adversary and ally, an enormous family with all the intrigue, the petty jealousies and backbiting, as well as the camaraderie and loyalties, that family life inspires. But, of course, and Moodrow understood this, unlike a family, he would one day be forced to leave the department, to retire.

  Still, for all his self-reliance, for all his conceit, Moodrow was wrong about Rita Melengic. On April 2, he woke up in a sweat, still trembling from the effects of a bad dream. At first, he couldn’t remember the details, could only see Rita’s face disappearing into a mist, dropping away while he clung to his perch, safe and sound. Then it came rushing back. He was holding her against his chest, his right arm around her waist. He wasn’t afraid. She was so tiny, like a sparrow; he could hold her forever. Then he remembered that he was climbing a ladder and he got back to work, plodding upward. He was after Johnny Katanos who sat at the top of the ladder wearing Ronald Chadwick’s face.

  “Forget about me,” the apparition called cheerfully. “Nobody wants me.”

  “I’m gonna get you, scum,” Moodrow roared.

  “Well, I’d like to get down,” Rita said, ignoring Katanos. “This is really uncomfortable.”

  “How can I do that?” Moodrow protested. “There isn’t any place.”

  “Are you crazy?”

  Looking around, Moodrow found himself on a small platform. It stood at the top of the ladder, empty, surrounded by the dense, gray fog.

  “Well,” Rita said, “is it possible for me to stand on my own two feet? Or maybe you’re hoping, we’ll grow together? Like Siamese twins.”

  Disgusted, Moodrow set her down, knowing there was something he was supposed to say, but not remembering. He stared into the fog, searching his memory, and then she was gone, breaking into pieces, arms and legs whirling away like maple seeds searching for the earth. There was no blood, no final scream. The scene was quite peaceful until he realized that she was gone forever. Then, before he could hurl himself after her, he woke up, panicked.

  That morning, over breakfast, he offered to take her into his world, the cop world. He needed to share something with her, something that was important to him, and he made his offer while eating, which was, for him, most appropriate. “Say, Rita,” he began. “I’m gonna put an end to the great Jewish persecution.”

  “You mean that trouble with the kids throwing rocks over at the Asher Levy Homes?” She spread butter over her toast, systematically covering every bit of bread before putting it back on her plate. “Have you discovered the identity of the master criminal who’s been attacking our senior citizens?”

  “It’s not that funny. Seventy-year-old people get scared even when there’s nothing to get scared about.” He shoved a spoonful of raisin bran into his mouth and chewed slowly. “Anyway, I did run down the kid. A little Puerto Rican named Willie Colon. Willie’s got a brother in the Sixth Street Gentlemen and naturally Willie wants to be just like his brother, so he proves his worthiness by throwing rocks at Jews. It makes sense, right? Just like everything else on the Lower East Side. Well, today I’m gonna put an end to this campaign of violence and hatred.” He hesitated, watching her closely. “Wanna come with me?”

  Rita fiddled with her coffee cup, spinning it in her fingers as she tried to grasp his intent. “Are you going to beat him up?”

  “No, no,” Moodrow giggled at the image of himself pounding on a fourteen-year-old. “This kid is only fourteen, Rita. He weighs about one hundred and twenty pounds. I’m not the sweetest cop in the department, but
even I couldn’t go that far. Except in extreme circumstances. Besides, it wouldn’t do no good, anyway. I arrested the kid’s old man three times for child abuse and wife beating. One time I had to take both kids to the hospital, unconscious. Another time I found his brother trying to wash some burns in the East River. Can you imagine? In the fucking river. No, this one can’t be controlled by hitting, but I think I could shake him up. Actually, I’m gonna bluff him. Get me some sugar and some white flour. No, just tell me where they are and I’ll get them myself.”

  They walked down Allen Street to Delancey, then turned east to the precinct. Moodrow was greeted again and again by the local shopkeepers, by the old ladies, by Puerto Ricans and Jews and Czechs and Italians. The street criminals honored him by edging into doorways and alleyways, deserting their territories. At the precinct, Moodrow picked up an unmarked car and began to drive through the neighborhood, cutting back and forth through the narrow streets. They stayed south of Houston, Willie’s home territory, searching carefully—Norfolk, Suffolk, Clinton, Attorney, Ridge. After a fruitless hour, Rita suggested they try the area around the Asher Levy Homes. Perhaps the children were already at play.

  “Worth a try,” Moodrow responded shortly. He turned east onto Grand Street, a wider, two-way street lined with small shops offering heavily discounted electronic and dry goods. It was already 4 PM and business was slow. A few shopkeepers were pulling down the steel shutters that protected their goods through the long night. Moodrow headed toward Jackson Street, noting the many elderly people making their way home. It was a perfect time for an attack. The small forms shuffling along the sidewalk seemed completely helpless and Moodrow kept expecting a shower of small rocks to come sailing over the rooftops, but twenty minutes of driving in a square between Montgomery, Madison, Jackson and the East River failed to flush out young Willie Colon. Finally, Moodrow, annoyed and showing it, spun up Clinton toward the mouth of the Williamsburg Bridge, crossing Delancey Street in spite of the hundreds of vehicles trying to get up onto the bridge. He laughed at the horns, then sobered up as he caught sight of his quarry.