Damaged Goods

by Stephen Solomita

  Moodrow glanced from the side of Gadd’s face to her reflection in the rearview mirror. Was she repressing a grin? A smirk? He couldn’t be sure. But she was definitely holding the car’s speed down. Old ladies in Hyundais were passing them like they were standing still.

  “Okay,” Sappone said, “I think I got this figured out. Somebody’s got a grudge against me for somethin’ I don’t even know nothin’ about, right?” He paused, tried to pull his head back far enough to focus on Moodrow’s eyes. “Hey, somebody else wants my territory, that’s fine with me. I’m already gettin’ tired of the life, plus my woman’s bustin’ my balls I should take a test for the Post Office. Hell, man, I got a kid, she’s not even a year old. Ya wanna see a picture?” He stopped again, rubbed his nose with the back of his hand. “Kids need their fathers, right? Ain’t that what’s fuckin’ wrong with America these days? Kids growin’ up without no fathers? You don’t want that on ya conscience, do ya?”

  “You can’t have something on your conscience,” Moodrow observed, “unless you have a conscience.”

  “Yeah, I could definitely see that. But think about this …”

  Moodrow put his left forefinger to his lips, then raised the automatic and laid it against Sappone’s temple.

  “If you don’t shut the fuck up,” he whispered, his mouth inches away from Sappone’s ear, “I’m gonna open the door, pull the trigger, push you out, see how far you roll before somebody runs you over.”

  “All right, all right. I won’t say another word. But just think about what I been tellin’ ya, because I’m willin’ to do whatever it takes to walk away from this.” He made a cross on his left breast. “Sacred word of honor.”

  Moodrow was tempted to put the question to Sappone right then and there. The man was ripe, that was obvious enough, but making Sappone talk (assuming he really did know where Jilly was living) would lead to another problem. What was to stop Carlo, once he was released, from warning Jilly? There was fear, of course, but who Carlo would be most afraid of was anybody’s guess. Handcuffing the man to a tree in a place where he wouldn’t be found until the following morning—that was the kind of guarantee Moodrow needed. He wasn’t about to settle for anything less, even if it put another hour between himself and Jilly Sappone.

  They rode in merciful silence, the traffic thinning out as they pierced the heart of the Long Island pine barrens. The headlights of oncoming cars revealed a dense, seemingly impenetrable curtain of scrub pine and dwarf hardwoods that turned solid black as the cars rushed by. Carlo Sappone’s hopes seemed to darken as well. Moodrow could smell the pungent mixture of cocaine sweat and pure terror rising off the man’s body like fog off the surface of a swamp.

  Carlo only stirred once. As they came up on the exit for William Floyd Parkway, a mile from his home, he turned to gaze at the off ramp. When it slid by, he looked up at Moodrow.

  “This is really gonna happen, right?” His voice was soft, wistful, surprised.

  Moodrow didn’t answer and fifteen minutes later, at Exit 70, Gadd turned off into a landscape so dead black they might as well be driving down into a cave. She made the first right, as instructed, onto a two-lane road, and gradually eased the Caprice up to sixty miles per hour.

  “Ya think I could have one last snort? Like for old times’ sake?”

  Moodrow, having other things on his mind, carefully maintained his great-stone-face impression. His eyes were riveted to the cone of illumination thrown by the car’s headlights. When they swept past a white, red-roofed house with the single word GRACE’S painted on its siding, he breathed a sigh of relief. The place was a glorified hot-dog stand, the only restaurant within miles. He and Betty had stopped there on their visit to eastern Long Island the previous summer. Which meant the Shrine wasn’t more than a couple of miles down the road.

  “Rrrrrrrrrroar, rrrrrrrrroar.” Jackson-Davis bounced his plastic dinosaur along the top of the front seat. He’d found the tyrannosaurus in his McDonald’s Happy Meal and now he was pretending to entertain little Theresa. What he was really doing was entertaining himself. Wishing that someone had given him a plastic dinosaur when he was growing up. Thinking his life would’ve turned out a lot different if his old ma had given him a plastic dinosaur instead of sinnin’ with Reverend Luke.

  He looked over at Jilly, wondering if maybe he should say what he was thinking, but old Jilly was spooning the last of his third icecream sundae into his mouth. Bitter experience had taught Jackson that Jilly didn’t like to be interrupted when he was eating.

  Jackson-Davis shifted his focus to little Theresa. She looked so cute with a napkin spread across her lap, nibbling at the edges of her little hamburger like she was eating an ear of corn.

  “How is it?” he asked. “Ain’t that a deeeeee-licious hamburger.” His old ma us to say it like that: “deeeeee-licious.”

  Theresa looked at Jilly, then back at him. “It’s fine, thank you.” Then she looked over at Jilly, again, ready for an explosion.

  But Jilly didn’t explode. Instead, he tossed the remains of his sundae out the window, leaned against the seat, and closed his eyes. They were a few blocks off the Long Island Expressway in the town of Little Neck. Their small house was still an hour away and he was very tired.

  If he’d kept to his original plan—his game plan—he’d already be moved out of that house. But, of course, his game plan hadn’t included shooting himself in the leg or staying overnight in Worcester, Massachusetts. That didn’t mean he couldn’t move. After all, there was no furniture, no dishes, no silverware to pack. How long could it take him to throw his small wardrobe into a plastic trash bag? Only he was tired after all the driving and his leg was starting to throb.

  “Hey, Jackson.”

  “Yeah, Jilly.”

  “You remember what I said about movin’ today.”

  “Sure do, Jilly. Only it ain’t today no more. It’s tonight.”

  Jilly resisted the urge to slap his partner, knowing that if he indulged that urge every time it rose into his brain, Jackson’s ugly face would be swollen to the size of a pumpkin.

  “Now, listen up, Jackson. This is important.” Jilly waited for Jackson-Davis to face him. “Whatta ya think about movin’ tonight? Because, what it is, I’m worried about that punk, Carlo. Sooner or later, somebody’s gonna figure they can find us by findin’ him. I mean let’s face the truth, Carlo’s a fuckin’ coke junkie and he’ll give us up in a hot second. You with me here?”

  Jilly watched Jackson’s face work as he considered the question, watched his eyes roll, his nose twitch, his mouth scrunch up. The performance was so disgusting that Jilly was instantly sorry he’d brought the subject up.

  “Darn it all to heck, Jilly, I just can’t, for the life of me, see why you gotta use that language around little Theresa. Ain’t you got no respect for innocence?”

  Moodrow had almost given up when he saw the small metal sign in the grass by the side of the road. There wasn’t much to it, just an arrow and the single word SHRINE.

  “Take the right,” he told Gadd.

  The Caprice swerved onto an even narrower side road without slowing down. A few seconds later, the lanes separated and the car’s headlights swept over a full-size, intensely white replica of Michelangelo’s Pietà. It was gone in a moment, seeming to Moodrow almost an afterimage, a dream memory, yet it had the desired effect on Carlo Sappone.

  “What kind of fuckin’ place is this?” he asked.

  “It’s where people come to pay for their sins,” Moodrow replied. He pressed the .25 into Sappone’s ribs. “Slow it down,” he said to Gadd. “I don’t wanna miss the trail.” A few seconds later, a small wooden sign mounted on metal strips swam up in the headlights. “This is it. Right here.” The car slowed further, then came to a stop with the lights illuminating a single word, “CALVARY.”

  Moodrow reached across Sappone’s body, pushed the door open. “Last stop, Carlo. Everybody out.”

  Slowly, as if nursing an injury, Sa
ppone slid his right leg over the edge of the seat. His foot grazed the asphalt, then came back into the car. He turned to Moodrow, a half smile on his sweating face.

  “I don’t wanna hear no sad stories,” Moodrow said. “I’m in a hurry.”

  He shoved Carlo out, followed quickly, breathed in the cool, country air. A steady breeze whistled through the pines, forming a base for the repetitive, metallic cry of some animal. Moodrow, his left hand gripping Sappone’s right bicep, listened for a moment.

  “What is that?” he asked.

  “What’s what?” Gadd, four-cell flashlight in hand, was standing behind him. Her voice was chipper, actually cheery.

  “That noise. What is it, some kinda bug?”

  “Tree frogs,” Sappone said. “Spring peepers. It’s like a mating call.”

  Gadd ran the flashlight beam through the scrub for a moment. “Must be invisible tree frogs. Invisible alien tree frogs from outer space.”

  Moodrow grunted, then dragged Sappone onto a narrow path leading up through the trees. He could feel Carlo tremble, feel the man’s fear through his fingertips as they followed the narrow beam of light. Moodrow was expecting some kind of resistance, a last stand, but Sappone stumbled along in silence until he caught sight of the first statue, a kneeling Roman soldier leaning on a shield. The soldier was looking up, one hand in front of his face, as if to ward off a blinding light.

  “Oh, Lord,” Carlo moaned. “Lord, Lord, Lord.”

  His knees buckled, but his forward progress continued because Moodrow simply dragged him along, refusing to allow the smaller man to fall. Then the second statue, a soldier on one knee holding a spear, jumped into focus as if the flashlight beam was a theatrical spotlight exploding onto a darkened stage.

  Sappone began to cry, then actually wail as Gadd’s flashlight swept relentlessly forward to reveal a white-robed Christ standing with upraised hand and face, then a flat, gray building with a square of stone pushed off to one side of an open doorway.

  Moodrow half carried Sappone through the door, pushed him down into the long, rectangular sarcophagus inside, then stepped back. He took the flashlight from Gadd and shoved it to within a foot of Sappone’s face.

  “You like game shows?” he asked.

  Sappone shook his head, nodded, shook it again. He couldn’t stop crying long enough to form a sentence until Gadd slapped his face. Then he took a sharp breath, whispered. “I don’t know.”

  Moodrow cocked the little automatic, producing a sharp click that sent Carlo back to blubbering. Gadd slapped him again, this time much harder.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Sappone almost shouted. “I like game shows.”

  “Good,” Moodrow said, “because I’m gonna ask you some questions. If you get them right, you win a nice prize. On the other hand …” He let his voice trail away, let the silence surround them for a moment. “First question: Who sent us?”

  Sappone finally managed an expression beyond pure terror. While it wasn’t exactly hope, it did show interest in the possibility of a life beyond the grave.

  “What’s the matter,” Gadd said, “cat got your tongue?”

  “I’m tryin’ to think.”

  “That’s all well and good, Carlo,” she continued, “but letting the buzzer go off without giving an answer may not be in your self-interest.”

  As he waited, the silence as enveloping as the darkness outside Sappone’s illuminated face, Moodrow felt his heart pounding in his chest. He’d been moving from point to point with perfect confidence. As if he was certain that Carlo Sappone knew where his cousin was hiding. Now that the moment of truth had finally arrived, his own doubts threatened to overwhelm him.

  He told himself that, no matter how it came out, he’d made all the right moves, that he’d been forced by circumstance to race headlong into the investigation, to keep his face forward, that even if his assumptions were correct, even if this miserable coke junkie led them directly to Jilly Sappone, Theresa might be already beyond help.

  “Carmine sent ya,” Carlo finally whispered. “Carmine Stettecase.”

  Moodrow’s breath whooshed out. He started to ask the next question, realized he was panting and his knees were shaking.

  “Why?” he finally said. “Why did Carmine send us?”

  “I didn’t mean nothin’ bad for Carmine,” Carlo whined. He was looking directly into the flashlight beam, as if into Moodrow’s eyes. “I swear to God, man. When Josie called me last year, told me Jilly was gonna get out, when she sent the retard over? Swear to Christ, man, I didn’t know Jilly was gonna go crazy. What was I, fifteen years old when he got sent upstate?”

  Moodrow dropped to one knee, pushed the flashlight closer to Sappone’s face, watched a bead of sweat roll the length of his nose to hang from the fleshy tip like a drop of snot.

  “Where is he, Carlo?”

  “Are you gonna kill me if I tell ya?” The question was innocently put, the query of a child.

  “No, I’m not. I can’t kill you, because you might be lying to me and if you’re dead I can’t ask you again.” He tapped Sappone’s forehead with the edge of the flashlight. “See, what I plan to do is handcuff you with your arms around one of those trees outside. If you’re tellin’ me the truth, I won’t have to come back and somebody’ll find you in the morning. Me, I’ll be too busy with Jilly to worry about you.” He dropped the beam of light onto Carlo’s face and waited.

  “Jilly’s got a house.”

  “Where?”

  “On Middle Island Road. Six-twelve Middle Island Road. In Medford.”

  Moodrow started to rise, then remembered the most important part. “What township, Carlo. If you don’t tell me the goddamned township, I’ll never find it on the map.”

  “The place is called the Shrine of Our Lady of Long Island,” Moodrow said, “and the reason I remember is because of the vans and the kids.” Having surrendered the map to his partner, he was driving with a heavy foot, steering the Caprice back toward the Long Island Expressway and not giving much of a damn for the speed limit. He was more than eager now, and the car seemed to echo his haste, jumping forward with every tap on the gas pedal. “What somebody did—or some group, I don’t know which—was buy up a big parcel, fifteen, twenty acres at least, and cut a path through the woods. Then they carved out niches between the trees and set up the Stations of the Cross. Were you raised Catholic?”

  Gadd shook her head, kept her eyes glued to the map. “My father hated organized religion, used to rave about it. My mother didn’t give a damn one way or the other.” She held the flashlight close to the map, found herself squinting nevertheless. “Go west on the Expressway, to Exit 64. I’ll figure out what to do next while we’re riding.”

  “Got it.” He eased the Caprice onto the Long Island Expressway, then accelerated up to seventy-five. “What I was saying about the vans. Me and Betty, we visited the Shrine last summer. Betty called it a ‘functioning artifact,’ something like that, which was why she wanted to see it. For me it was mostly boring, because I was raised Catholic, so the Stations weren’t exotic. Besides, this was in August and it was blazing hot. By the time we came out the far end of the trail I was soaked with sweat.”

  Moodrow stopped abruptly. His mind kept pushing ahead to Jilly Sappone’s house in Medford, running through the possibilities. A direct assault was clearly impossible. They couldn’t walk up and knock on the door, demand entry. Jilly would kill them, even if he thought they were cops. But that didn’t necessarily mean they had to sit in the car and wait for Jilly to come out. They might find the house unoccupied, try a little b&e, prepare a nice surprise for Jilly when he eventually came home. That would depend on how close the neighbors were, how much shrubbery surrounded the house. Or he could get Jim Tilley on the horn, let the NYPD notify the Suffolk County cops and the FBI.

  “What happened with the vans?” Gadd was looking over at him, the map lying across her thighs.

  “Yeah, the vans.” Moodrow glanced down at the s
peedometer, eased off the gas slightly. “All I could think about, when we finally got back to the parking lot, was the air conditioner in the car. I’d parked it under a tree so I figured it wouldn’t be too heated up. Then I noticed these vans, there must have been six or seven of them, unloading kids at the entrance to the Stations. Some of these kids had no hair, like it’d fallen out from chemotherapy. And all of them had that kind of gray complexion people get when they’re terminally ill.

  “It was something you definitely couldn’t ignore. Pitiful, right? Like they were making their own march to the cross. But what caught my attention was that the parents were missing. There were maybe twenty or thirty kids and only six adults, three of them nuns, to herd everybody up onto the trail. Hot as it was, I walked over to one of the vans, spoke to the driver, asked him what was going on. He told me they take the kids to the different Stations and pray for a group miracle. Like the miracle could hit one kid or be shared by all of them. I don’t know why, but it got to me. ‘Shotgun salvation,’ that’s what Betty called it.”

  “I see what you mean.” Gadd rolled down the window, took a breath of fresh air. “I guess Theresa Kalkadonis could use a little piece of a miracle right now. Like maybe there won’t be anybody home when we get to Jilly’s house. Better yet, she’ll be there by herself.”

  Moodrow, with nothing to add, kept his eyes glued to the road. The darkness seemed to be sucking the car forward, the headlights merely illuminating a path into the whirlwind. Jilly Sappone’s house stood at the calm center of that storm. It was as if there was nothing between the two of them but time.

  “I don’t know what Exit 64 is called,” Gadd said. “I can’t tell from the map. Could be Route 112, Medford Avenue, Patchogue Road—it seems like the name of the streets change from town to town. What you have to do is go north, then take the right-hand fork when you get past Horse Block Road. That’ll be Middle Island Road.”

  The first sign, EXIT 64/2 MILES, flashed by and Moodrow dutifully moved to the right lane and eased off the gas pedal. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Gadd take an S&W Airweight from her purse, open the cylinder, slide a bullet into an open chamber. Like many cops, she kept the hammer of her .38 on an empty chamber, accepting the loss of firepower in the name of safety. This despite the manufacturer insisting that the weapon cannot discharge with the hammer down.