“Heard about you,” Anderson opened up, his eyes probing Moodrow’s. He knew he was about to be asked for something that, at best, should come from higher authority and at worst, would be outright illegal. He had no intention of risking his ass for an insane cop.
Moodrow made a broad movement, as if brushing away a thick cobweb. “I need a private apartment up near Metropolitan Avenue. By the diner. I know you guys got places you work outta when you’re on the street. Maybe there’s some rooms you ain’t used in a while. Just for a coupla days.”
“You should go to the captain. Get clearance. I don’t have any objection to loaning you a place. Long as the captain tells me to.” He made a movement back to the weights, but Moodrow held him.
“I lift weights too,” he said quietly. “I mean I used to lift weights. I swear I’m too busy to do anything but walk these days. Sleep, eat, walk. Sleep, eat, walk. Sleep eat walk. I’m sure you know how it is when you’ve been after something so long you lose track of the days. So you find yourself knocking on empty stores on Sunday.” He paused for confirmation, but Anderson just waited impassively. “Only now I’m right on top of what I’ve been chasing and I don’t want no fuckin’ brass taking it away from me. Understand what I’m saying? Maybe if I get through this, I could go back to lifting weights.”
“Sure, I understand.” John Anderson stared ferociously at Moodrow. “I understand that you’re a perfect stranger who wants me to do something because you happen to be on some kinda personal revenge trip. I mean, everything I’ve heard about you makes me admire you, but not enough to put my ass on the line.” He hesitated, without turning away, waiting for the idea to sink in, then continued. “Now it just so happens that there’s a small apartment building down on Admiral Avenue, by the railroad tracks. It’s real old, rundown. People come and go and nobody asks questions in that building, not even about 2H, which’s been empty for a long time. You get in there any way you can, cause I’m not giving you no keys. In fact I’m not even talking to you except to say there won’t be no one over to that apartment for a long time.”
“If you don’t tell the boys to stay away, how do you know someone won’t come by accident?” Moodrow asked.
“We made one bust too many and the scumbags nailed the place. Best keep an eye out while you’re there. Maybe some junkie’ll come along lookin’ to get even.” He laughed, then reached out his hand.
“You’re taking a big chance going by yourself. What makes you think you won’t be the one to get blown away?”
“Don’t know,” Moodrow shrugged. “I ain’t really thought about it.”
Moodrow turned to leave, but Anderson again held him back. “Could be if you don’t try the door right now, it’ll be open tomorrow.”
The building was perfect for his use, a six-story brick apartment house just down from the Long Island Railroad station. When Moodrow went upstairs to get a feel for the layout, he found an anonymous door at the end of a long hallway with the number 2H scrawled on the chipped, gray paint. The walls were covered with the scrawl of would-be graffiti artists, the floor sticky. It was the perfect place for a private interrogation. After running down the superintendent, flashing his badge and explaining that he would be using 2H for a few days, Moodrow left through the basement, walking up a long, concrete ramp to the street, and immediately drove home.
He was in his own apartment before 11 AM and he wouldn’t be going out again until the following morning, which left him with a lot of time to think. He felt that he should—that he was obligated—to call Epstein, to say, “Look, Captain, I ran down those motherfuckers who’ve been blowin’ this town to pieces. If we put fifty men out there, we’ll have most of ’em tomorrow and the rest’ll be running for Libya.” The fact that the call was never made did not stop Moodrow’s conscience from pressing the issue and they paced—the cop and his sense of duty—the length of the living room for most of the afternoon.
Leonora Higgins, just as excited, sat a hundred feet away from the entrance to Moodrow’s building and waited until dark. She, too, considered calling her superiors, specifically George Bradley, and telling him both that Moodrow was very close and that he wasn’t about to ask for backup which meant the American Red Army stood a decent chance of escaping, despite the size of Moodrow’s ego. But she could not bring herself to share the results of her efforts, any more than Moodrow could share the results of his and so she sat, wishing for a bathroom, in the front seat of her Plymouth until dark.
Moodrow did not begin to prepare in earnest until after sundown. He took an old, blue gym bag from his closet, emptied it of yellowed towels and elastic bandages and carried it into the kitchen, tossing it on a chair. Then he began to lay out his equipment on the table: eight pairs of handcuffs and ten feet of chain with a padlock fastened to one end, a tube of Mace, a pair of gleaming brass knuckles, a blackjack and a sawed-off twelve-gauge shotgun, barely eighteen inches long, followed by a half-dozen shells for his .38-caliber service revolver.
Then he paused to consider the possibilities. This would be the real thing, not a fantasy, and there was no way he would get a second chance. He would grab Effie Bloom, if she was alone (and George Halulakis had insisted that she was always alone), and use her to find the others. But what if he was going into some highly fortified stronghold? He recalled the struggle in Philadelphia to oust the MOVE crazies from one building. They’d used helicopters and bombs, hundreds of policemen; an entire neighborhood had been destroyed by the resulting fires. In such circumstances, a single cop would have no chance. Effie, of course, would give him information, but he would have to guard against accepting a lie just because it suited his needs. In the end he decided that if the situation was impossible, he would call for help.
Satisfied for the moment, he went back to work, dropping two hand grenades—two utterly illegal hand grenades—on the table. If he couldn’t get them all, he would get as many as possible. They key would be entering the building (or buildings) unobserved. The American Red Army could not be outwardly militaristic or its headquarters would already have been found. Was it possible they had people in every window? Watching twenty-four hours a day? For all these months? Ronald Chadwick thought he was safe, too.
Moodrow threw a set of lockpicks, an enormous ring of keys, a glasscutter and a short, thick, crowbar into the pile. Then a roll of two-inch masking tape, a package of gauze pads, a set of screwdrivers, a ball of nylon fishing line, a man’s necktie. As the pile grew, so did the possibilities. He stripped off his shirt as he flew from room to room, gathering his materials; his breath came hard and the tension grew in his body until the heavy muscle stretched the skin of his shoulders and back.
By 2 AM he’d worked himself into a frenzy, pacing from room to room, his hands in his pockets, eyes on the floor. What if they were separated, in different apartments all over the city? If they had regular check-in times; if one missed phone call would send the Army running? What if they lived with the innocent the way the Vietcong or the Palestinian terrorists had, forcing soldiers to kill civilians? As he shifted from scenario to scenario, he never really considered the possibility that all would be in one building, that there would only be five of them, that he could enter their stronghold at his convenience and pick them off one by one. The Red Army’s greatest strengths were its size and its anonymity, its ability to take on the appearance of a normal household. Muzzafer had created his own scenario of being discovered and it invariably involved squadrons of police; it had never crossed Muzzafer’s mind that one crazy cop, working all alone, would come knocking on his door.
By 5 AM Moodrow could stand it no longer. His equipment had been packed and repacked and the small gym bag was stuffed until he could barely close it. There was nothing to do but get dressed and get into the street. He began with a jockstrap and a white plastic cup, then a leather groin protector, the type boxers wear, to protect the vulnerable area above the pubic bone. He was preparing for Johnny Katanos. Even though he knew about Muzzaf
er and understood that the Greek was only a soldier, Katanos stood at the center of his fantasies. He wanted to arrest Katanos in a personal manner; he wanted to beat him into submission. He took a bulletproof vest, one of the old, heavy ones, and put it on. It might or might not protect him from whatever the American Red Army had in storage, but it would certainly protect his chest and solar plexus from Katanos’ fists.
He stepped into his black trousers, pulled a sweat shirt over his head and was done. He felt like a snowman and his movements were definitely restricted by the vest, but he knew that he was not going to out-speed the Greek. Frankie Baumann, the gang leader Moodrow’d interviewed in Vermont, was tough and shrewd; if Katanos could impress Baumann, then he was strong enough to offer the cop a challenge. Which was just fine with Stanley Moodrow—the idea that he would hurt Katanos, corner him and hurt him, drove away any need for sleep. Moodrow felt like he was in a locker room before a fight, unafraid but very excited, almost joyous. When the combat began, he would suddenly become calm, but the tension in the lockerroom was as necessary as the weeks of training in the gym.
He left his home at 5:30, speeding across the Brooklyn Bridge and onto the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway with an apprehensive Leonora Higgins, convinced she was about to receive the reward for her efforts, trailing a hundred yards behind. The traffic was light enough to allow her to remain well back without any chance he would disappear. She had a sudden image of herself losing him at this final moment and the idea chilled her. Still, she held back—the only question worth considering was exactly when she would reveal herself.
Moodrow drove straight to the apartment house on Admiral Avenue. Though he checked his rearview mirror a dozen times, the small, brown Plymouth, one of literally thousands rolling through New York’s streets, remained just as anonymous as Higgins had hoped; he didn’t notice it on the highway, nor on the streets—not even when it pulled past him to stop fifty feet from where he’d parked. He could no more imagine being successfully trailed by a black, female FBI agent then Muzzafer could imagine a city cop coming through his bedroom window. He went up to apartment 2H, found it unlocked and walked inside.
He wasn’t there five minutes before he was satisfied—a one bedroom apartment, dirty, with aged furniture that was no bargain the day it was bought. There was a squeaky bed (a set of springs with a thin mattress thrown on top), a kitchen table with several mismatched chairs, and the usual assortment of living room chairs and lamps. Moodrow checked the plumbing, the lights and the gas range, then left to drive the half-mile to the Metropolitan Diner. He parked in a busstop, directly in front of the 7-Eleven Store, prepared to flip his shield if a cop asked him to move on, and settled down to wait.
He had no doubt that she’d come along, just as George Halulakis had said. It was as if he’d done this again and again, thousands of times, each time a rehearsal for some final performance. As he looked around, he felt that he recognized the row of businesses lining Metropolitan Avenue. The faded sign over the printer’s dirty windows, the crisp neon flashing in the video store window (a window covered, as were all the closed shops, by a steel mesh that rolled up when the shopkeepers arrived in the morning and down when they went home at night)—were as familiar to him as if he was listening to a roll call in the squad room of the 7th Precinct. He suddenly realized that he’d never been higher in his life, and for a moment he felt he might be drawn into something beyond his comprehension, could actually feel it pulling at him. He handled it by leaving his car for the clean, bright safety of the 7-Eleven and a container of hot coffee.
The two Koreans behind the counter, man and woman, were arguing, actually shouting at each other, in rapid-fire Korean. Though he only understood one word—cash register, which the man kept repeating—their obvious rage calmed him. Almost sleepily, he watched the man raise his fist, as if to strike the woman.
“Stop!” They did stop. Instantaneously. And Moodrow felt confidence surge through him. “Would you mind fixing me a buttered roll? I’m a cop and I’m hungry.”
Twenty-five minutes later, right on cue, Effie Bloom walked past the old Buick and into the 7-Eleven. It was 6:45. Moodrow, cold and purposeful, waited on the sidewalk, watching, the way a snake watches a rat, until she was ready to come out. Always the gentleman, he held the door open, receiving a snarl instead of a thank-you, a snarl that disappeared when he placed the barrel of his .38 against her head. “Guess what?” he asked, stripping her purse from her shoulder. “Your life is over.”
The morning was warm and humid with a promise of summer by mid-afternoon. Effie was dressed in loose, sloppy jeans and a man’s khaki workshirt: No bulges meant no gun. Still, Moodrow pushed her face into the brick storefront with one hand while sliding the other quickly over her body, looking for a knife, a razor, Mace—anything concealable. His pistol was back in the holster, tucked into the waistband at the small of his back. He was hoping she would try to run, but Effie, her right arm locked in the huge cop’s grip, allowed herself to be pulled into the front seat of the Buick; she made no effort to resist as he handcuffed her left wrist to his right. In truth, she felt neither anger nor despair.
Still, she was somewhat surprised when they drove, not to police headquarters, but to an old apartment house a few blocks from the 7-Eleven. She’d been interrogated many times, always by squads of professionals, by federal “red squads” created especially for the task. This one, big as he was, had the look and smell of city cop all over him.
They went up the stairs in silence, Moodrow taking the steps two at a time, dragging Effie along. She was not afraid yet; her arrogance kept the fear at bay. She was wondering about the others, if they’d been arrested, too. But that was unlikely. If they had the entire Red Army, there would be dozens of reporters to witness the event and praise the authorities. The cop, whoever he was, wanted information from her and she, of course, would never give it.
Even the loud snap of the closing deadbolt as Moodrow locked the door, a sound cold enough to signal danger in the worst B movie, failed to move Effie. Calmly, without saying a word, Moodrow removed the handcuff from his wrist and used it to fasten Effie’s hands behind her back.
“Don’t I have rights?” Poor Effie. If she’d practiced her rebellion in South America or in Asia or Africa, she would have been able to recognize the danger presented by Stanley Moodrow, would have been able to anticipate what was to come, but her experience was solely with agencies bound by constitutional guarantees. Thus the sarcasm in her voice as she repeated, “Don’t I have rights?”
Moodrow stood opposite her, swaying slightly, eyes fixed on hers: he was seeing Effie as she’d been on Sixth Avenue, hearing her enraged voice as she and Theresa enacted their charade. If he hadn’t stopped to listen, he might have gotten to Rita before.
“You’re under arrest,” he whispered, raising his right hand to the level of her eyes. Slowly, he curled the tips of his fingers to form a shallow cup, then smiled, waiting until he could see the confusion in her eyes. Finally, without changing expression, he brought his palm crashing against her left ear.
“You have the right to remain silent.”
Effie was unprepared for the intensity of the pain. She wanted to cry out, but could not seem to catch her breath. Then something crashed into her lower ribs—she heard the crack of yielding bone despite the intense ringing in her ears. Dizziness overwhelmed her and she would have fallen if Moodrow hadn’t caught her by the hair.
“If you choose to speak, anything you say can be used against you.” Moodrow’s fist traveled no more than four inches, but cartilage is much softer than bone, and blood spurted from Effie’s nose as she fell backwards onto the floor. “You have the right to have an attorney present during all questioning.” He stared down at her, neither of them moving. She was very frightened and he could see it. For a moment, Moodrow felt a wave of sorrow, sorrow that was not quite pity, that confused Rita with all women and with his personal loss. He wanted to reach down to Effie and was surprised to
hear the words coming out of his mouth. “If you do not have an attorney, one will be appointed for you.”
He drew his foot back, but despite the pain, Effie rolled away from him. “What do you want? Why are you doing this?” she asked.
“We’ve met before,” Moodrow said quietly. “I don’t suppose you’d remember.”
“Listen, mister, I don’t know why you’re doing this to me. You haven’t even shown me your badge or told me what I’m supposed to have done. Please don’t hit me again.” For the first time in years, she allowed herself to feel helplessness.
“It was on Sixth Avenue. You were having this fight with the Spanish girl. You remember? The one who pulled your tits out? That was just before they blew up all those people in front of A&S.” He unzipped the blue gym bag and removed a small, blue-black crowbar. One end was hooked and sharp, forked like a fishhook. He held it up for her inspection. “Know what the funny part is? I was walking up Sixth on my way to meet my old lady. Yeah, she was standing in front of A&S. I was a little late and she was really burnt up.” He hesitated. “Get it? Burnt up?”
Instinctively, Effie tried to get up and run, but the searing pain in her ribs drove out the last residue of her tough-guy stance. “Please don’t hurt me.”
“I guess that means you wanna live? Could I take it that means you wanna live? Rita wanted to live, too. And I wanted her to live. Didn’t help her, though.” He stepped toward Effie, the crowbar in his hand. “Fucked up way to die. Lotta pain.” He pulled her onto her back and laid the bar across her mouth, forcing it down between her teeth until she could taste the metal against her tongue. “What’re you gonna tell me? You gonna tell me everything I need to know? Huh?”
“Yes.” It was difficult to speak with the taste of steel in her mouth, but Moodrow understood her. He pulled her up to a sitting position and propped her against the wall.
A Twist of the Knife Page 27