So it was necessary to get that minimum yearly requirement of spring glory before it was too late. Moodrow had worked throughout the day and Leonora had lost April altogether. Now he was ruining her May as well, for she could not get him out of her mind, not even when walking through the forest of azaleas that covered the central section of the park. She had never seen a man break that way and the memory of him (the blood had run down his arm so fast it dripped from his fingers) trying to rise from the floor while he wept like a deserted child could not be thrown off. She would have to see him one more time or he would haunt her springs forever.
The newspapers had made him a hero. The case had been broken in the classic, flatfoot tradition, and if any of the reporters suspected his injury had been a deliberate attempt to prevent the execution of five people, they didn’t write about it. Even Effie Bloom, alive though battered, was keeping her mouth shut while an embarrassed Federal Task Force (in league with an equally embarrassed New York City Police Department) had come to the conclusion that Moodrow’s public hanging, fitting as it might be, would only further increase the avalanche of ridicule coming from the media. Moodrow’s success (along with his street accent) and their failure had become a regular feature on the five o’clock news.
And there was a debt here as well. She felt that at last she knew who she was (she’d passed her resignation across the desk of an amazed George Bradley the day after Moodrow’s victory) and the first push along the road had surely come from Stanley Moodrow, with his mocking laughter and his speech about “instincts.” He’d demonstrated the flaws inherent in all procedural thought, the futility of trying to apply the same rules to every situation. Once again she concluded that he deserved better than he’d gotten. If she hadn’t been there, he would have had his revenge, for better or worse. Leonora felt like a mother who’d punished her child for breaking one of the family rules. The necessity of the act does not diminish the quality of the tears.
So she made her pilgrimage, driving straight to Moodrow’s apartment, and found that the Lower East Side had undergone it’s own spring transformation. There were radios everywhere, suitcase-sized monsters blaring rock or salsa. They represented the territorial focus of small groups of young, mostly Spanish kids in Tshirts and headbands. The radios would go far into the night and the newcomers, the immigrant yuppies in search of affordable space, would complain only to each other. Still, despite their determined posture, the Puerto Ricans now shared the streets with groups of newly arrived refugees from the suburbs. Like exotic birds, these white kids wore crests of multicolored hair and black clothes (leather whenever possible) studded with chrome and steel. They were outrageous, but not threatening (though they wanted to be) and they liked their drugs in immoderate doses, so the Spanish kids (who were threatening) usually left them alone. Altogether, Leonora reflected, the area had its charms, and not least among them was its tolerance of diversity. The Lower East Side had long been the neighborhood most favored by multi-racial couples.
The lock was broken on the entrance to Moodrow’s building and Leonora felt a sudden rush of anxiety as she pushed the door open. What in God’s name was she doing here? What would she say to him? As she walked up the stairs, she found herself praying that he wouldn’t be drunk. Little visions of him sitting on the couch with his revolver in his mouth kept popping into her train of thought, and by the time she got to his landing, she was ready to bolt.
But his door was slightly ajar. She could see him through the opening. He was seated at his kitchen table, his back to her. Bandages covered most of his left side, though he didn’t appear to be in pain. At first, she thought he was reading, but when she knocked on the door, the right hand he raised in greeting held a ballpoint pen.
“C’mon in,” he called without looking up.
Leonora walked inside, stood behind him for a moment, then finally annoyed, asked, “What are you doing?”
Not recognizing her voice, he turned to her for the first time. “Well, well. I gotta say you have a knack for turning up unexpectedly. I thought you were my landlady.”
“What are you doing?” Leonora repeated, moving to the opposite side of the table. Now that it was clear that he was not the suicidal drunk she expected to find, she felt like a fool.
“I’m writing a letter,” he answered, breaking into his most innocent smile.
“A letter?”
“Yeah. I’m writing to Ann Landers about one of her reader’s problems. I write to her a lot. She’s very understanding. Wanna hear it?”
“Sure.” Leonora, reconsidering her judgment about his sanity, sank into one of the chairs across from Moodrow. “Let’s hear it.”
“Dear Miss Landers I am writing you this letter concerning your reader signed FRUSTRATED who said how she had such a problem communicating with her husband about when they wanted sex. She said he would never know when she wanted sex and vice versa she couldn’t tell either so both of them would want it when the other didn’t and they would feel rejected and hurt. But I would like to tell poor FRUSTRATED about the signals which I have worked out with my wife so we will know in advance if each other wants what we want. For instance it may happen that I will come home from work in a horny mood so bad I would do it with a sock but I don’t just grab her because she might not be in the mood and who likes to get their bosoms pinched when they are not in the mood? Instead I just throw out a signal like I say, ‘Hey, cunt, how ‘bout a little hole tonight?’ and if she is feeling the same she might give me a sign by saying something like, ‘Sure, scumbag, if ya think ya could get it up for a change.’”
In the silence that followed, Leonora stared into Moodrow’s small black eyes, trying to get a fix on what might have brought forth such a document.
“Let me see that,” she finally demanded, and Moodrow obediently passed it across the table. She took a few seconds to read it thoroughly, as if trying to will the words off the page, then sat back in her chair. She could feel a grin rush up from nowhere to claim her face. “You know something, Sergeant Moodrow?” she said calmly. “I should have killed you when I had the chance.”
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copyright © 1988 by Stephen Solomita
cover design by Erin Fitzsimmons
978-1-4532-9054-5
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A Twist of the Knife Page 31