But the surprises weren’t over for Jackson and Goldberg. Having separated and catalogued the witnesses, they expected to proceed in a routine manner. What with the presence of Sergeant Paul Dunlap and the ex-cop, Stanley Moodrow, the statements were sure to be concise and accurate. What they didn’t expect was an ex-cop with a big reputation, a thirty-five-year veteran, who could tell them nothing of what happened.
“Explain something to me,” Jackson said in the course of the interview.
“Explain what?” Moodrow’s voice was sharp and impatient. He had to get out of there, but he was trapped. As a civilian, he had no right to leave until the detectives decided to release him.
“That thing beneath your jacket…That bulge over there. Is that a gun?”
“Yeah, it’s a gun.”
Jackson took his time with the next question. His partner and five other detectives were in different parts of the Jackson Arms lobby, conducting interviews with the various witnesses. The crime scene was at last secured and the victims, wounded or dead, had been carted away to Elmhurst Hospital or the morgue.
“You got a license to carry that gun, right?” he finally said.
“You already seen it.” Moodrow’s voice began to rise, both in tone and in volume. He’d conducted thousands of civilian interviews, but had never sat on the other side, never had to deal with the deliberately slow pace of the questioning. He knew that Jackson would slow down still further as they went along, would cut from one subject to another without transition. The game was designed to increase the anxiety of the guilty, to make a suspect indiscreet. Of course, Moodrow was not the perp, a fact which only aggravated his sense of being needled.
“And how long have you had this permit?” Jackson, a tall black man, was also aware of the game, but he was more than unhappy to discover that his second-best witness, a man trained to observe accurately, had had his eyes shut throughout the incident.
The answer Moodrow wanted to shout began, Ever since your mother…But he knew that defiance wouldn’t get him out of there. In the course of his own career, he’d almost always reacted to defiance with a further application of whatever abuse he happened to be dishing out. And he had to get out of there. It was that simple. There were too many things to put right and he might never get to the end of them if he didn’t start immediately.
“Since I came on the job. 1952.”
“Have you ever used your gun?”
Moodrow put his hand inside his jacket and pulled the .38, holding it gently on his lap. “You mean this gun?” he asked.
“That one.”
“Yeah, I used it a lot. One time I had the record for active cops. That was before the Rambos came into the job.”
Jackson turned away angrily. “Put the weapon back in the holster,” he ordered.
“I’d like to put it in your mouth and pull the trigger until your brains go into orbit.”
Moodrow giggled. The words had come unexpectedly; they were so wrong in terms of his real needs that he found it funny. Now Jackson, if he had any balls, would drag Moodrow’s ancient ass into the precinct and hold him there for eight or nine hours as a lesson in good manners.
“What’d you say?” Jackson sounded like he was in shock.
“What I said is that I’m not a fucking suspect. I’m a witness and I don’t wanna be cross-examined as if I pulled the goddamned trigger.” He smiled up at Jackson. Challenging him. The action made him feel much better, but did little to prepare him for Jackson’s response.
“Tell me how come,” Jackson said evenly, “you didn’t pull the gun when the shit went down? Tell me how come you turned around and hid your head? I just wanna know for my own curiosity. Like, did you crap your panties? Or maybe you settled for pissing down your leg.” He stared directly into Moodrow’s eyes, his hands on his hips. “The whole thing amazes me. The perps fire more than forty rounds before Dunlap takes them out. You’re listening to screaming civilians and you have a legal gun inside your jacket. But you don’t pull your gun. Oh, no. You don’t protect them. You turn away and close your eyes. Now, all of a sudden, you’re a hot shit again. You threaten me and I’m supposed to be afraid, but I gotta tell you I don’t see anything to be afraid of. What I see is an old man with his balls shriveled up into his asshole.”
Jackson stopped for a moment, giving Moodrow a chance to reply, but Moodrow, having no desire to explain his actions to Detective Jackson, held his peace until the detective went on. “I’ll be at the precinct from nine to eleven tomorrow morning. You get your ass in there and make a statement. I want your chickenshit response in writing, so I can send a copy to the boys in the 7th Precinct. Now get the fuck out of here.”
On his way out, Moodrow noted Betty Haluka and Paul Dunlap; they were huddled in a far corner of the lobby with the Chief of Patrol, a silk from One Police Plaza who stood just behind the Commissioner in the hierarchy of the NYPD. The presence of the chief, a man named Sean Murphy, meant the media was playing up the shooting as a major incident. Moodrow recalled the spring day a couple of years before when a black and Hispanic wolfpack had beaten a woman jogger over the head with a pipe before raping her. The jogger had been white and what might have passed unnoticed (by the TV stations and the papers, anyway), had it taken place in the South Bronx, became a source of page-one headlines for weeks. The presence of the Chief of Patrol in an obscure Queens precinct meant the Jackson Arms was getting that kind of attention. Good news for the tenants; bad news for the dealers. Moodrow knew from long experience that the department, faced with the kind of situation that could be resolved, would undoubtedly respond with a show of force designed to end the problem in a hurry.
“Moodrow.” The voice was deep, full of humor. It belonged to Franklyn Goobe, the Chief of Detectives for New York City.
“What’s up, Franklyn?” Moodrow wondered if he was about to get another lecture. He’d never gotten along with Goobe, never liked the pompous bastard.
Goobe straightened up, giving his carefully blow-dried mane of white hair a quick shake. “What’s the situation here, Moodrow?”
“Speak to those people over there,” Moodrow said, waving at Betty, Paul, and the Chief of Patrol. “I really have things to do.”
“Don’t be such a hard-on,” Goobe said. “I thought when you retired, you’d ease up a little.”
“Maybe I’m dedicated,” Moodrow said. “Maybe I try harder.”
Goobe nodded solemnly. “What I can’t really see is how this incident affects the detectives. Sure, there’s the shooters and the question of who, if anyone, sent them, but that investigation should go over to narcotics. The Commissioners calling for one of his ‘special efforts,’ but I don’t see what the detectives can do.”
“You know something, Goobe? For once I gotta say you’re a hundred percent correct.” Moodrow had already come to the conclusion that he’d been the target of the brothers Cohan. In his opinion, the presence of the three dealers in front of the building had been nothing more than a lucky (from the killers’ point of view) accident. “What you got here is a drug-related shooting in which the perps are dead. Of course, the detectives are supposed to find out who sent the shooters, but we both know that’s a longterm project. At best. Your move is to give it over to narcotics and forget about it. Let Patrol move anticrime into the building—make it a dozen men. And don’t pull ’em out as soon as the reporters disappear. Let ’em stay here for a couple of months. I guarantee the problem’s gonna disappear.”
It was almost five o’clock when Moodrow, released by Franklyn Goobe, pulled Betty’s Honda to the curb outside the offices of Precision Management (he knew Dunlap would arrange to get Betty home) and settled down to wait. Even with the seat all the way back, the Honda’s interior was too small for him, but he felt no discomfort. He was working.
The employees of Precision Management began to leave the building at five o’clock. They continued to leave for the next twenty-five minutes, and by a quarter to six everything was quiet
. Moodrow was waiting for Al Rosenkrantz; he planned to follow Rosenkrantz home, to find some private place for a conversation. The kind of criminal who’d send two assassins into a quiet neighborhood, with orders to keep firing no matter how many people got in the way, was very new to Moodrow. Even during the worst of the heroin wars in the 60s, some attempt had been made to confine the carnage to fellow combatants. The man (or men) responsible for the violence that had taken place in front of the Jackson Arms was certain to come back to do the job right, which not only put Moodrow at risk, but threatened any poor innocent who happened to be standing within a hundred feet of him. Moodrow was looking for the short road.
He waited until six o’clock before going inside, expecting Rosenkrantz to be long gone, and found the security guard, an elderly black man, sitting in a folding chair at the top of the stairwell leading to Precision Management’s offices.
“Whatta ya say?” Moodrow grunted.
“All right,” the man answered. His nametag, a black bar with silver letters, read T. Sawyer.
“Glad to hear it.” Moodrow, wondering if the “T” stood for Tom, flashed his ID at the guard. “I’m looking for Al Rosenkrantz. I didn’t see him come out.”
“The fat boy’s workin’ late tonight. He’s up in his office.”
“You mind if I go up?”
“Don’t mean shit to me.”
The main floor was deserted when Moodrow crossed it. With no humans scurrying about, the offices appeared even dirtier than on his first visit. The wastebaskets, each surrounded by a halo of crumpled paper, focused Moodrow on the contrast between the patches of white paper and the dirty brown tile floor. The condition of the offices hinted of corruption, not violence, and Moodrow came to the firm conclusion that Rosenkrantz could be no more than an office boy in this operation—a mouthpiece for the violent center. The only question was whether Rosenkrantz was a collaborator or a dupe. And the only important information to be gained was the source of his instructions.
Moodrow wasn’t surprised to find Rosenkrantz still in his office, despite having been convinced, only a few moments before, that Rosenkrantz had gone home. The tension growing inside Moodrow’s body was familiar and pleasant; it was like the memory of something especially helpful, something he should have known all along. He pushed open the door and stepped inside the small office, noting the sudden leap, from surprise to fear, that flashed across the fat man’s features. Rosenkrantz knew what had happened and he knew Moodrow was the target.
“You’re gonna fall,” Moodrow said. “You gotta fall. How’s about doing me a favor and not taking all day about it?”
Though he liked taking orders—carrying through was what he was good at, he’d never been creative—Al Rosenkrantz hated to be pushed around. Like many civilians who hadn’t had a fight since junior high school, he thought of himself as a tough guy, willing to look any tenant right in the eye before launching into a line of bullshit. He liked saying “Trust me” to people he intended to destroy and felt himself stronger than any man who played by the rules. Of course, the simple fact that Moodrow had no intention of playing by the rules was manifestly obvious, but without any other real option, Rosenkrantz decided to test Moodrow anyway. He was a large man, six foot tall and well over 250 pounds; when his bullshit hadn’t worked, he’d often used his size to intimidate building inspectors as well as tenants.
“Do me a favor,” he said, before realizing just how far he had to look up to meet Moodrow’s eyes, “and get the hell out of my office.”
Moodrow responded by slapping him across the face, an openhanded blow that, nevertheless, had most of the ex-cop’s shoulder behind it. It sent Rosenkrantz sprawling over the wastebasket beside his desk and he hit the floor with a very audible splat.
“You’ll pay for this,” was the best response Rosenkrantz could manage to formulate as he rose to his feet. His voice nevertheless conveyed defiance; he clearly meant to stand up to Moodrow’s harassment. Unfortunately, when he raised his left hand to the side of his face (which seemed to be on fire), he exposed his ribs and, despite the heavy layer of protecting fat and muscle, Moodrow’s fist exploded against the bones just beneath his heart like a two-pound hammer against a bag of peanuts. This time he had the good sense to stay on the floor, and when he spoke, his voice was much more conciliatory. “What do you want?” he asked.
By way of an answer, Moodrow took Rosenkrantz by the lapel of his jacket and, despite the fat man’s 250 pounds, hauled him to his feet. “You tried to kill me,” Moodrow said flatly, pushing him up against the filing cabinets. “And I’m gonna hurt you for it.”
“I didn’t,” the fat man started to protest. “Please…”
Rosenkrantz saw Moodrow draw back his left fist, but, with his back up against the filing cabinets, he was unable to move away. The best Precision Management’s Project Supervisor could do was cringe, and cringing had no effect on the intensity of the blow that crashed into the right side of his rib cage, driving him, once again, to the floor.
This time he made up his mind not to get up under any circumstance, not to get up even if Moodrow kicked him to death. He curled himself into a ball and grabbed at the handles of a locked filing cabinet. When he wasn’t immediately attacked, he relaxed slightly, hoping against hope that the nightmare was over. Like a child pretending to evade a raging parent, he squeezed his eyes shut, opening them only when he felt Moodrow’s weight drop onto his chest. What he saw—the barrel of a .38 caliber Smith & Wesson less than twelve inches from the end of his nose—was so frightening, his bladder released and he began to urinate. Curiously, he was unaware of the sensation of warm fluid on his thigh; it was the odor, sharp and acrid, that made him realize what he’d done.
“Please don’t kill me,” he moaned softly. “Please, please, please, please…”
Though he had no intention of really hurting Rosenkrantz, Moodrow knew he was using more force than necessary. He also knew that, of all the guilty ones, Rosenkrantz and the lawyer were the most likely to walk away unscathed. As a cop, he would have accepted this reality; he understood law enforcement as a series of compromises. As the target of fifty rounds of 9mm ammunition, however, he had a vested interest in seeing Al Rosenkrantz squirm, and he cocked the hammer of his pistol without cracking a smile. “You tried to kill me,” he repeated.
“I didn’t. I didn’t. Oh, God, believe me. I didn’t know anything about it.”
Moodrow eased the hammer down, but kept the gun barrel in the fat man’s face. “When did you find out?”
Rosenkrantz, though still terrified, had a dim realization of the reality that any convict would have understood the minute Stanley Moodrow came through the door. Moodrow wanted information; the violence was only a way of demonstrating his side of the deal. And Rosenkrantz’s answer, should he decide to give it, would be the same as signing the contract.
“I got a phone call from Holtz about twenty minutes ago.” To his surprise, the dominant emotion sweeping through him was shame, not relief. Nevertheless, he continued. “That’s why I stayed late. He calls me this time every week.”
Moodrow, recognizing the fat man’s total capitulation (and anxious to put some distance between himself and Rosenkrantz’s wet legs), stood up, holstered his weapon, and took the visitor’s chair next to the desk. “C’mon, asshole,” he said, pointing to Rosenkrantz’s chair, “get off the fuckin’ ground. It’s time to spill your guts.” He waited until Rosenkrantz was seated, then took a small cassette recorder from his jacket pocket and laid it on the desk. “On the way over here, I picked up this recorder and five tapes. After I load the tape and get it going, I’m gonna ask you some questions. If your answers give a hint of the fact that I’m forcing you to submit, I’m gonna shut down the recorder and load another tape. Nowadays the experts can tell if you erase the tape and that limits me. I can only go through it five times, so you should remind yourself that it definitely pays for you to make sure I don’t run out of tape.”
“A
re you going to try to use this in a courtroom?” Rosenkrantz was careful to keep his voice soft.
“Could be.”
“But I don’t have a lawyer.”
“Oh yeah, that’s very interesting.” Moodrow, the tape inserted and ready to go, put the tape deck in his lap. “It used to be, when I was still a cop, that I’d have to do all kinds of shit before I could ask you any questions. But now that I’m retired, all the rules have changed. It don’t matter if I gotta break the law to obtain evidence against you. I mean you could always go to the precinct and make a complaint against me. Maybe you could even get me arrested. But none of that would make the evidence inadmissible. Miranda doesn’t have anything to do with civilians. You understand what I’m sayin’?”
Moodrow turned the recorder on, labeling it with the day, the date and the place, then laid it on the desk between himself and Rosenkrantz. “So when did you find out that someone tried to kill me today?”
“I got a call from the lawyer…”
“Say his name.”
“Holtz. Bill Holtz. From Bolt Realty.”
“He told you I was the target of the hit?”
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