A Twist of the Knife

by Stephen Solomita

  “I guess that was a stupid question. I mean if you really thought about it, you could never do it. Never. But what I wanna know is, did you warn your friends and relatives? Did you say, ‘Hey, folks, better not go up to Macy’s, ’cause we’re gonna burn up thirty people?’ You wouldn’t want your friends to get burned up, would you? ‘Course not. So you must’ve let them know somehow. Did you hint? Did you call up and say, ‘Look, Ma, that sale down at A&S ain’t shit. It’s a rip, Ma. Don’t go down there?’ And did your Momma call you back that night and say, ‘Jeez, Jane, it’s a good thing I didn’t go down to Herald Square, ’cause all them poor motherfuckers got burned up down there’?” He felt the anger rise in him, felt it blaze behind his eyes. If he allowed it to build, it would begin to affect his judgment and he was having enough problems with his “memories” of Rita. Very deliberately, he picked up a small, glass vase and hurled it at Theresa Aviles. The vase struck her on the shoulder and shattered, nicking her throat. The wound was slight, but several drops of blood dropped to the collar of Theresa’s blouse, calming Moodrow so that he returned to his task, eyes sweeping the street in front of the house. It was almost two o’clock and Johnny Katanos would be home soon. He’d hidden his blue bag, along with the shotgun, in a cabinet under the sink, keeping only his .38-service revolver, safely tucked into the back of his trousers, in case the Greek should be armed.

  24

  IT WAS ALMOST NOON and the early spring heat continued to press relentlessly down on New York. The white disc of the sun was at its highest point in the spring sky and the thin layer of haze only seemed to extend its radiance. As he drove his van east along the Staten Island Expressway, Johnny Katanos was playing his favorite game—he was pretending that he’d just that minute been reborn. He did not know how long he’d been dead, nor could he predict how long he’d remain alive. He’d played this game many, many times and though he always lost, always died in the end, the intensity of the life to be derived from the game more than compensated for its inevitable outcome. The premise was that he could keep himself alive by watching for his death, by remaining continually alert, like a cowboy walking down Main Street in some 50s Western. Gunslingers inhabited every window, sat atop every horse, peered down from the rooftops. To defeat his attackers, he must anticipate the attack before it came; he could not hope to survive an ambush, but the ability to see it coming was enough to secure his future existence. The curious thing was that the only way he could know he’d lost was by remembering the game, realizing that he was dead and deliberately resurrecting himself. But on this particular day, returning from a small martial-arts dojo in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, he was having no trouble maintaining his concentration. He practiced as if doing katas in front of his sensei, a legendary master of half a dozen disciplines who now taught a mixture of styles optimistically entitled Warrior’s Way. Katanos’ eyes flashed from object to object, evaluating danger (resting them was the first sign of impending annihilation) while his mind tried to put labels on the data. He observed a woman in a car alongside his van reach across the front seat to tighten the seat belt around her child’s waist. A truck was coming up behind him, a big Kenworth, rapidly closing the distance between them. His eyes flicked at the rearview mirror, saw the amber signal flashing, darted to the windows of a smoked-glass office building alongside the expressway, explored the small trees lining the shoulder. By definition, the game was over as soon as he forgot to play.

  As he approached the Verrazano Bridge, Johnny noted that he was as high as he ever got. He did not use drugs (though he always accepted the ritual marijuana joint when it was passed), because he believed that it was possible to alter, even to elevate, his state of consciousness without them. Danger could do that all by itself, though the fear associated with dangerous situations was enough to drive ordinary humans away. Johnny Katanos had long ago learned how to eliminate the fear while retaining the intensity; and the result was an enormously increased sense of power, a super-alert state in which anything was possible. He had explained the sense of it to Muzzafer on more than one occasion.

  “I feel like a praying mantis looks. Nothing can get past me. I’m faster and stronger than anything out there.”

  “And what happens,” Muzzafer had responded, “when some hungry bird comes down out of the sky looking for dinner?”

  Johnny’s response was more carefully constructed than Muzzafer expected. “It’s not that it’s real. Feeling like Superman doesn’t make you immune to bullets. But it’s just then you’re most alive. I mean if you’re gonna be honest about it, you have to admit that compared to that, regular life isn’t worth the trouble.”

  The game was an attempt to bring about that sense of strength without the danger. The results of the game, the results of the efforts made during the game, could then be applied to situations in which actual danger was present. It was possible to walk into a strange barroom late at night and be aware of everyone and everything; to be present at an enormous drug deal and know beforehand that the man in the blue coat would try to rip you off. And knowing it would keep you alive.

  But he was not thinking of these things as he rolled off the bridge and onto the Gowanus Expressway. To think in a straight line required too much attention. It would kill and the game would be over. Thoughts had to be marshaled, pushed in the direction of increased alertness. The Gowanus Expressway was elevated. On his right, row upon row of tenement rooftops, dotted with small, brick chimneys, ran off into central Brooklyn. On his left were the manufacturing lofts of the Brooklyn waterfront, each with its row of enormous, dirty windows. Impossible to see into, yet the Greek remained on guard, reminding himself that his eyes were receiving a complete image. If he could stop himself from getting lost in particular parts, he would be able to sense everything.

  Ahead of him, shadows in the haze, the twin towers of the World Trade Center began to grow closer as he neared the northern end of Brooklyn. He was conditioned to the drive from Ridgewood into New Jersey; he made it several times each week. As part of the Army’s general cover, it was decided that some of them would leave the house every day, as if going off to work. Effie actually had a job, while Johnny was content to maintain the fiction that he used his van to freelance for one of the many courier services in Manhattan. Nevertheless, though as an independent he could make his own schedule, he had to spend long hours pretending to work, hours put to good use honing his skills in an obscure gym far enough away to make chance meetings with the neighbors almost impossible.

  The owner of the dojo, an Italian named Mario Possomani, recognized Katanos for the maverick he was. He had to be treated with respect (in combat, he was every bit the sensei’s equal), but he was to be kept away from the true life of the school. He would never be allowed to teach or to spar with the students and no one would ask him to coffee after a workout. However, once these precautions were taken, Mario felt free to enjoy the beauty of this predatory beast who’d come through his front door one day asking to “work out.” Katanos would spend hours practicing a move, sometimes just a single kick or punch, exploring one variation after another. He seemed tireless (or, better, simply unconcerned with fatigue), utterly committed and always willing to take direction.

  He tried to bring this same commitment into his ordinary life, to charge the most mundane activity with life and death possibilities. The game he played was not an attempt to pass the time while he drove along a too-familiar route. Rather, the trip itself was an excuse, an opportunity to practice the game. It was just as he passed the Atlantic Avenue Exit, as he drove along beneath the Promenade in Brooklyn Heights, that he “died” for the first time. A young woman in a sports car, an expensive Porsche, pulled alongside, then slowed, matching his speed almost exactly. Her skirt was hiked to the tops of her thighs and the Greek entered into a fantasy of them pulling off the highway and searching for a room, before he could catch hold. The woman glanced up, noted his interest, composed her face into a contemptuous little frown and slowly drew the
hem of her skirt over her knees.

  The action woke Katanos up. He jerked his eyes away from the small car and returned to his rounds. The woman had killed him and this resurrection represented a new game. From experience, he knew that as his attention faded, he would begin to go through these quick deaths and rebirths, only able to extend the game by powerful efforts, the way marathon runners keep themselves going in the last stages of a race. Less than a mile away, as he drove beneath the Brooklyn Bridge, traffic came to a stop and Katanos reacted the way all New Yorkers react to the inevitable traffic jams—he felt the frustration quickly rise into anger, into resentment of a system that refuses to get better, despite the tens of millions poured into it, but this time he was able to pull himself up immediately. Traffic jams were familiar temptations. If you let them, they would drain your energies like vampires drain blood.

  Still, this one was a beauty, an utter nightmare with endless minutes spent at a dead stop. Drivers got out of their cars, stepped up on the bumpers trying to see an end to it. Even the exits were jammed with trucks and cars looking for alternate routes. He stayed in it, still struggling with his game, for over an hour. The boredom made it much more difficult. He kept thinking of Jane, hoping that Theresa had decided to spend the afternoon at the library, then bringing himself back, involving himself with the present and only with the present, which was all the game required.

  He inched past Flushing Avenue, eyes flashing back and forth to the same cars and trucks that had been alongside him for thirty minutes. As always, the goal was to extend his efforts into infinity (though he would have been happy just to reach home “alive”), but it was becoming more and more difficult. Idle daydreams were beginning to force themselves into his consciousness, little fantasies of the future or replays of past events. The man in the truck reminded him of a counselor he’d fought with in one of the many juvenile facilities in which he’d lived. Another woman reminded him of a foster mother who’d taken him into her bed when he was fourteen. Her husband, a long-distance trucker, was away from home for a week at a time and Lori just didn’t like to sleep alone. Johnny saw the woman in her black Chevrolet, flashed to Lori, her blonde hair and especially the salty-warm smell of her breasts, then pulled himself back to the moment.

  Finally he told himself to try to make it until the jam broke up, to really believe that every one of these distractions was an assassination attempt. Ahead, where the Expressway merged with Manhattan traffic coming over the Williamsburg Bridge, he could see the flashing lights of a dozen police cars and ambulances. All lanes were closed, but there was just enough room on the left shoulder for a single vehicle to inch past. It took twenty minutes to get to the accident and Katanos managed to hold himself together, struggling the way he struggled with his workouts, demanding the last inch from his body. But as he went by, as he congratulated himself on having made it, he gave in to the urge to rubberneck, to take a quick look at the activity surrounding the accident. A huge tanker filled with milk had swerved over into two small foreign cars, driving them into the railing on the outside of the elevated roadway. Several people were trapped in the cars and, just as Johnny Katanos came alongside, one of them, a young girl, was pulled free. She was obviously dead, her arms hanging limply at her sides, her pink blouse soaked with blood.

  The Greek couldn’t take his eyes off the sight. He didn’t even think of his game. The procession of ambulance attendants was almost stately. The girl was carried to a waiting stretcher and laid on it. Her arms were carefully folded across her chest before she was lifted and carried through the open doors of the ambulance. Johnny, his eyes glued to the passengers still trapped in the cars, slid by the wreck. He wondered why they didn’t put the girl into a body bag. Perhaps they didn’t want the others to know. Or maybe she wasn’t dead. Maybe there was something still alive inside that mangled body. Picking up speed, the Greek reflected on paralysis, the danger of having your choice to live or die taken from you. By the time he reached the foot of the Kosciuszko Bridge connecting Queens and Brooklyn, he was fifteen minutes from home and utterly lost.

  The subway ride home from the 42nd Street library, where Aftab Muzzafer had spent most of his day, took almost an hour, but Muzzafer didn’t mind at all. The weather, thankfully, had held and he was anticipating the most productive night of his life. Two high school girls sat across from him, gossiping in rapid-fire Spanish. One, a brunette with crimson lips and scarlet cheekbones, wore tight-fitting gray sweatpants and a nylon tank top barely covered by a sky-blue jacket. She was sitting with her heels up on the seat, legs far apart—an open display of her claim to the status of woman. The soft material of her sweatpants had worked its way between her buttocks and into the folds of her sex, reinforcing her assertion as well as advertising her distaste for underwear.

  Muzzafer stared openly, undressing her with his eyes, even as he thought of Johnny Katanos. Curiously, the contradiction did not occur to him and when he left the train, he fully expected to conjure an image of this girl as he made love to his boyfriend. He was very excited, but he remembered to check the street as he hurried from the subway toward the safety of his home. Unfortunately, he was looking for an army of FBI men, not a single traffic agent in a brown Plymouth, and he walked past Leonora without giving her more than a glance.

  On the other hand, Leonora Higgins recognized Muzzafer without having ever seen him. She was so high she could barely sit still. The arrests were going down, without benefit of backup, just as she’d expected. She should, she knew, call it in, get two hundred agents to block off every street, but she couldn’t seem to stop waiting. Everyone in the bureau knew an Arab was running the show. Bringing in an army of cops would spook him. So far, Moodrow had been right in everything and the only real question in her mind was exactly when she should go inside.

  Watching Muzzafer stride quickly up the block, she felt that she now understood Moodrow completely. There were no clues, no examination of microscopic evidence. Cops were better off being unimaginative; their work had to be done slowly, laboriously. Everything and everyone moved faster than Stanley Moodrow, but he would never give up. If he was after you, even hundreds of miles away, you would hear his breathing.

  Muzzafer, however, as he turned onto the walk leading to the front of the building, anticipated no breath heavier than that of his lover. The plastic panels of the storm door protecting the entrance to the house were nearly opaque and with the sun shining outside, it was impossible to see behind them. Muzzafer, unconcerned, fumbled for. his keys, cursing softly, then jerked the door open to find Detective Sergeant Stanley Moodrow standing inside.

  “Welcome home, Aftab. How was your day?”

  Muzzafer froze, his body rigid with panic. Where was the badge? Where was the gun? The man had called him by name, which made it very likely he was from the Israeli Mossad. Certainly, if he was from an American agency, he would have identified himself by now. In either case, why was he alone?

  Moodrow, smile widening still further, wrapped his fingers in the Arab’s coat and yanked him through the doorway, closing the door behind them. According to Effie, Katanos would be home very soon and Moodrow didn’t want to be away from the front window any longer than necessary. With Muzzafer’s hands cuffed behind his back, the detective first taped the Arab’s arms to his sides, then his legs to the seat of a kitchen chair. His movements were quick and highly organized and came of learning how to make arrests on hot summer nights in low-income housing projects.

  “Tell us who you are,” Theresa demanded.

  “I’m a relative of one of the victims. I mean, almost a relative.” Rita sprang out at him. Rita standing by a craps table in Atlantic City, her hands full of chips, eyes ablaze. So real he wanted to weep.

  “Where is Effie Bloom?” Theresa persisted.

  “She’s tied up right now.” Moodrow paused, like a comedian expecting a laugh. “But don’t worry. She says to tell you that she’s hoping you’ll all meet up again. In heaven.”

&nb
sp; This time his vision of Rita bore no relation to anything they’d done while she was alive. He was in the funeral hall, in the room with the closed black coffin. It was 3 AM and even Mrs. Pulaski had gone to bed. He could see Rita through the wooden sides of the coffin. She was lying on her back and she was not burned as the doctors had said. She looked perfectly natural, even happy, a broad smile dominating her face, as it did when she was playing one of her practical jokes. As he rose from his chair, Moodrow experienced a sense of terrible loss. Instinctively, like a child in a nightmare, he sent out a silent prayer for help. Please, Lord, let me hold together until I take this last one. Please. Let me push it back until after I’ve killed them all.

  “You must tell me who you are,” Muzzafer said. Though he expected Moodrow to hit him (which is what he would have done in the same situation), he couldn’t stop himself from asking the question. He’d imagined himself being arrested literally thousands of times. Had used his imagination to formulate strategy to prevent arrest. He could name the secret police of almost every nation in the world, but he could not put Moodrow anywhere. Just the one fact that he was alone defied analysis.

  “What’d you say?” Moodrow asked calmly.

  “Are you a policeman? Are you FBI? CIA? You do not look like a Jew so you cannot be Mossad. Tell me what you are.”

  Moodrow, his eyes flicking from the Arab to the window, replied matter-of-factly. As if he was passing on a weather forecast. “What I am is the immediate cause of your death. That’s what it’s gonna say on the autopsy. Cause of death: Stanley Moodrow.”

  “You can’t just execute us,” Jane protested. “We’re freedom fighters, not criminals.”

  The words sounded hollow, even to her, but Moodrow responded anyway. “Know how you’re gonna die? I’m gonna take this shotgun and put one barrel on your pussy and one on your asshole, then pull both triggers. Take about a half hour before you stop screaming.”