“Surge, Sarge,” Patrolman Shawn O’Connell said. “Any time. Hop in the back.” O’Connell was a twenty-five-year man, looking for thirty, and an old friend. He was one of those cops who had long ago set aside personal ambition. A heavy, florid man, he was content to patrol his beat and keep out of trouble. He liked the check and he liked having some place to go in the morning. His wife had left him so long ago, he no longer knew where she and his son were living. Or with whom. “Hey,” he joked, as soon as Moodrow was inside, “I hear you’re gettin’ married. And at your age, too. How ya gonna get it up, old man? You gonna watch dirty movies?”
“Fuck off, Shawn. We’re only living together. Not married. And we don’t need dirty pictures.”
“Yeah? So whatta ya got, then, a trained dog?” O’Connell worked hard to maintain the crudity of his sexual imagination.
“No dog,” Moodrow answered. “We don’t need a dog. Your sister’s letting us use her duck.”
“You shouldn’t say that.”
“Why not?”
“Because,” O’Connell explained soberly, “what if my sister was dead or somethin’?”
“You don’t even have a sister.”
“But if I did, she could still be dead. Ya never know. By the way, I got a kid you could use. From the projects. Name of Richard Hatchley. The Rads are fuckin’ him around and he wants to even up. I’m too old to bother with that shit, but if ya want him, Stanley, I’ll turn him on to you.”
“Does he have anything?”
“Maybe now only a little. Like he’s still a kid. Sixteen or something. But in a few years, who knows? Think about it.”
They drove up First Avenue to 23rd Street, then cut over toward Sixth. Under ordinary circumstances, Moodrow would have requested that O’Connell throw the lights on top of the cruiser so they could make time, but there had been a rash of complaints in the prior two months about the inappropriate use of sirens, so they contented themselves with crawling along with the traffic, until they got to Sixth Avenue, where the radio called all available units to a report of gunshots on 18th and Eleventh.
“End of the line, Sarge,” O’Connell announced, finally throwing on the lights and siren.
“Catch ya later, Shawn,” Moodrow returned, hopping quickly out of the cruiser. He watched, for a moment, as the car began to cut in and out of the line of vehicles edging toward Manhattan’s West Side, then, resigning himself to the inevitable, he began to walk the eleven blocks up Sixth Avenue toward an already impatient Rita Melengic.
He made slow progress, constantly shifting from one side of the sidewalk to the other, trying to avoid the knots of window shoppers and the truckers loading and unloading an incredible variety of wholesale and consumer goods. At every intersection, his path was blocked by Con Edison or New York Telephone or Empire City Subway or the Department of Water Supply or… and even when there were no workmen, cars and trucks, desperate to get out of the traffic-choked avenue, cut in front of him, ignoring the lights. Pausing, the sweat standing out on his forehead, Moodrow reflected on the myriad ways New York had of taking the pleasure out of even a beautiful, spring day. Then he heard the sounds of two enormously angry females from across the street, and like everyone else, he was grateful for the interruption.
“You dirty fucking whore. You better stay away from my old man.” The girl was slim, but wiry and totally unafraid, though she was dwarfed by her taller, heavier opponent.
“And what’re you gonna do about it, hole?” Effie Bloom’s laughter rolled over the motorists and pedestrians, drawing everyone’s attention in a way no male argument could. Here, with two women involved, nobody felt threatened or had a serious urge to stop it.
Suddenly, Theresa Aviles slapped Effie across the face, much harder than they’d planned at rehearsals. “How about I do that? How do you like that?” She grinned for the crowd and Effie, without thinking, shot a right hand, fist clenched, into Theresa’s mouth, sending Theresa to the sidewalk.
In an instant, they were all over each other. It was the plan and it wasn’t the plan, though it was certainly convincing and no one, not even Moodrow, suspected that they were putting on an act. Moodrow actually considered crossing Sixth Avenue to break it up, so serious was the fighting, with both women getting marked. But, of course, Rita was waiting in front of A&S and he was already late. He could feel himself pulled in two directions, with one foot in the street, when the situation resolved itself.
“Now, I’m gonna kill you,” Theresa screamed, remembering herself and her waiting partners. She reached out, hooked two fingers on Effie’s halter and ripped it off the larger girl’s body.
That was the final straw. When Effie’s huge breasts with their enormous dark nipples tumbled forth, even the most hardened New Yorkers popped their eyeballs, staring at the hapless woman. Hardly surprising, then, that Johnny Katanos, who’d been working his way across the street, dodging cars, was able to slide a package of plastique, complete with detonator, between the steel bulkhead protecting the driver’s compartment and the heavy cylinders of oxygen and acetylene chained to the sides and front of A&B Oxygen Supply truck number 4.
“Well, that’s that,” a young black trucker said to Moodrow as Effie disappeared into 31st Street and Theresa walked triumphantly down Sixth Avenue. Within minutes, both would be safely on subways, their argument forgotten by potential witnesses.
“Sure wouldn’t mind gettin’ some of that,” the driver continued.
“Which one?” Moodrow asked, deadpan.
“Shit, I take both of ’em. They be the bread. I be the bologna.”
“And who supplies the mayonnaise?”
Moodrow began walking uptown even as Benjamin Wild, driver of A&B Oxygen Supply Truck number 4, still imagining the sensation of his unshaven face between Effie’s soft breasts, pulled out. For the next few minutes, he made only slightly better progress than Moodrow and they arrived at 32nd Street almost at the same time, but then, as the traffic finally cleared an enormous double-parked, tractor-trailer, Ben Wild shot ahead, hooked left and took the cutoff for 33rd Street. Muzzafer and Jane Mathews, noting the move from the other side of Sixth Avenue, smiled at each other. This would bring the truck even closer to the pedestrians, even closer to Rita Melengic, who, by this time, could see Moodrow and was anxiously waving, trying to catch his attention, until the truck carrying Ben Wild passed directly in front of her and Muzzafer, hand inside a large shoulder bag, flicked the toggle switch on his transmitter.
There was no huge blast, as Muzzafer had hoped. The cylinders carrying the oxygen and acetylene were made of cast steel, an inch and a half thick, the industry having long ago recognized the danger inherent in the transportation of compressed gases. Instead, the muffled explosion had two unexpected effects. It blew the valves off the tops of six of the cylinders while at the same time igniting the rapidly escaping gases and creating a small fireball which quickly melted the remaining canisters. The result was a second, much larger, fireball, almost white in its intensity, which instantly spread across the west side of Herald Square engulfing A&S, Herald Center, two dozen cars and trucks and more than fifty pedestrians, including Rita Melengic.
After the explosion, Moodrow found himself frozen, body and mind. The words in his brain kept going around and around, like an endless tape loop, pushing right up to the point of the explosion, then stopping, returning back to the sight of Rita waving from beneath one of the round, green canopies protecting the store’s showroom windows. There was Rita. He was walking, stepping out into the street. A truck passed by. There was Rita.
His ears were full of the screams of the injured. He was a cop. A cop was supposed to help at times like these. There was something he’d just missed. He was stepping into the street. There was Rita. He was walking. Rita was waving. What? What? He was stepping into the street. There was Rita.
And then Detective Sergeant Stanley Moodrow, hardened veteran, did what no cop can ever do. He turned on his heel and ran from the sce
ne of a crime.
13
THE AMERICAN RED ARMY ANNOUNCES its greatest victory in the war against OPPRESSION. The AMERICAN RED ARMY demands the removal of the ZIONIST DOG from PALESTINE. We demand FULL CITIZENSHIP for the oppressed BLACK PEOPLE of the United States. SOUTH AFRICA must be made FREE. The AMERICAN RED ARMY demands the government of the United States end its WAR OF GENOCIDE against the people of NICARAGUA. The AMERICAN RED ARMY will never end its HOLY WAR until its DEMANDS are fully met. We urge the OPPRESSED PEOPLE of the United States to RISE UP and CRUSH the oppressor. The AMERICAN RED ARMY demands the IMMEDIATE RELEASE of the HEROES imprisoned around the WORLD. ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE.
For the first time in one hundred years, the Fifth Avenue Easter Parade was canceled. Instead of the usual celebration, the balmy skies of Easter Sunday found a city in mourning. All over New York, families gathered beside the remains of charred, unrecognizable victims. And the mood was not of anger, though that would inevitably come, but of shock, of numbness, as if a deed so awful could not be confronted. The citizens of New York, famous for their impatient rushing about, moved slowly, as if disoriented. They moved with the air of people who’d forgotten something very important, something right on the verge of consciousness.
The Honorable Dave Jacoby, mayor of New York City for eight years, sensed this mood precisely. He understood his obligation to pull his people out of their lethargy, yet he could not bring himself to conduct the press conference called for Sunday evening. He chose to sit it out, turning it over to the police commissioner after a brief introduction. A lifelong Democrat, Jacoby knew it would be political suicide to speak the thoughts crowding his brain, but he was so angry, he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to control himself long enough to make a speech.
In my city! In my city! The phrase refused to leave his mind, commanding his attention despite the obvious necessity of organizing his political machine to deal with the fears of the people. If he had his way, he would cordon off the whole town and search the buildings, one by one, until he ran down the animals responsible. Then…
He’d made the obligatory visits to Herald Square and to the hospitals where the injured had been taken as soon as the cops declared the areas safe. At every stop, as soon as they recognized his limousine, the reporters, like vultures, tore after him, screaming for a quote. Apparently, no act, no matter how awful, could destroy their armor. Yet it was in avoiding them that his own defenses were thoroughly penetrated. He arrived at Bellevue Hospital to find his way blocked by an army of microphones. His initial reaction was to order the half-dozen uniformed police officers stationed at the main entrance to clear the area, but his town was too jittery to accept any high-handed behavior from its leader, and he finally got through by promising an impromptu press conference when he came out. Only then, like the waters of the Red Sea, did they pull back, still screaming questions and waving microphones in case he should utter some passing words of wisdom. Inside the building, with the cops and the doctors flying about, he took a deep breath and then turned, unprepared, to confront the thing in the stretcher by the radiology-room door. At first, he thought it was a heap of melted candlewax, but candlewax never cries out in pain and it was the sight of a nurse running over, syringe in hand, that made him realize he was dealing with a human being, that the white cubes near the top were teeth and the black spot, an eye.
It didn’t get any better. On the morning before today’s press conference, as he flew by helicopter to LaGuardia Airport for a quick meeting with officials from Washington, he realized, for the first time, just how big his city was. An enormous expanse of glass and stone that spread beyond the political borders of New York City, to embrace ten million people. The American Red Army could be anywhere, planning anything. Who would protect the city if Dave Jacoby backed off?
In the end, he and his aides gave approval to the speech Police Commissioner George Morgan was about to give. Initially, after a series of hurried conferences with Morgan, they’d created something very similar for the mayor, but then backed off and passed the outline to the commissioner’s speechwriters. These ideas, it was decided, couldn’t come from the mayor (not until he saw how the voters handled it), but he had made his wishes clear to the top brass in the department. They were not to worry about warrants. They might place bugs wherever they wished. They might tap any telephone. Above all, they were to recreate the old ‘Red Squad’ of the 50s and thoroughly penetrate the radical community at New York’s various colleges, especially City University, which claimed to house a dozen black and Puerto Rican ‘liberation’ societies.
Thus a short speech of introduction and George Morgan stepped in front of the camera, flashbulbs popping from all angles. His face was stern, mouth locked into a determined grimace. A black man, heavy-set and serious on the most festive occasions, he’d come up the hard way, starting in a violent, crime-ridden precinct in Brooklyn and progressing through the civil service system to the rank of captain before being appointed, first to inspector, then to commissioner. He’d been told by the mayor to keep it brief, businesslike, and thorough. The people of New York, His Honor had declared, must be made to feel the government (his government) was doing something and not merely reacting to situations.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the commissioner began. “I’m going to start with a brief statement, then answer all questions. As of now, we have an investigative force of fifty men working full time on the apprehension of these perpetrators. We expect that number to increase dramatically as we expand the scope of our investigation. Rewards from various sources totaling 500,000 dollars have been offered for information leading to their apprehension. A hotline has been set up and the number will be given out after the conference. All files relating to illicit political activity are being combed. We are going back ten years. Anyone, no matter how remotely tied to radical politics, will be brought in and thoroughly questioned. Anyone arousing serious suspicion will be held as a material witness. Every inch of the area around Herald Square is being searched. We are in the process of questioning people who were in the immediate vicinity before or directly after the explosion. We beg them to come forward and tell us what they saw. Let us decide whether or not it was important. Questions.”
Reporters began screaming, as was their habit, and the commissioner, as was his habit, picked the questions he wanted to answer, repeating them first so all could hear.
“You want to know if any arrests have been made or are close. At this point we are just beginning to evaluate physical evidence. Leads through informants seem more promising, but we are not close to making an arrest.
“Yes, the bomb was set off inside an oxygen supply truck. The driver was killed instantly. We are questioning everyone at A&B Oxygen Supply as well as anyone who came near their warehouse on the day of the explosion.
“You ask about the efforts of the federal government. As you know, First Agent George Bradley is in charge of those efforts and the question is better put to him. However, let me assure you that we are cooperating completely with federal authorities and will continue to do so.”
“The CIA? As far as we know, the CIA is not involved in domestic politics. On the other hand, it’s our understanding that the federal effort involves several agencies so, once again, I suggest you put the question to Agent Bradley.
“What are the constitutional grounds for detaining suspects as material witnesses? We are in a crisis situation and emergency measures must be taken. It is my fervent hope that radical lawyers do not begin springing out of their holes to tie up our courts and release these suspects.”
The American Red Army, at the height of their victory celebration, broke into spontaneous applause at the conclusion of Commissioner Morgan’s impassioned speech. In recognition of their success, Muzzafer had suspended the rule about drinking and Effie’s living room was littered with cartons of half-eaten Chinese food, boxes of pizza, crushed beer cans and two magnums of French champagne, one empty and one three-quarters full.
“It’s exactly as I predicted,” Muzzafer declared triumphantly. “Democracy is only a bone for their poor, oppressed doggies. I… Yowwwww.” He jumped straight in the air, then dashed across the room, trying to avoid Theresa and the ice-cold beer she was pouring down the front of his shirt.
“It’s exactly as I predicted,” Theresa mimicked, sending Effie into gales of laughter. “Exactly. Exactly.”
Already high, as were all the soldiers of the American Red Army except for Johnny Katanos, Effie, ordinarily fastidious, ignored the beer puddling on the carpet. She sat on the couch with Jane next to her, in her free hand a huge coffee mug filled with champagne, from which both were drinking, and gestured toward the television set. “It’s almost like the stupid bastard was working for us. What’ll they do when they find the deed wasn’t brought off by some leftover hippy?”
“Then they will arrest people randomly,” Muzzafer said, twisting the beer can from Theresa’s hand. “And when that…”
“No more speeches,” Jane declared loudly. “Put on a tape.” Everyone turned to stare at her. A few hours ago she’d been demanding to be allowed to cook. “Well, I’m a little drunk,” she explained, turning to Effie. “Sorry.”
A Twist of the Knife Page 15