Damaged Goods

by Stephen Solomita

  He listened, briefly, to the light buzz of Agent Bob’s snoring as it drifted down from an upstairs bedroom. Then he pulled on his trousers, walked quietly into the bathroom and opened the mirrored door to the medicine chest. Again he stopped, again he listened, again he heard only the natural sounds of the house, the hum of the refrigerator, the ticking of the wall clock in the living room, the groaning of the bedsprings as Ewing tossed in his sleep. Satisfied, he quickly wrapped the mirror in a heavy towel, then flushed the toilet, turned on the water in the sink and shattered the glass with the heel of his hand.

  Catching the edges of the towel between his fingers, he pulled it away from the frame without allowing a single shard of glass to fall to the tiled floor. Then he shut off the water in the sink and carried the package, handling it as if it held his own beating heart, through his bedroom and over to the wall next to the air conditioner before laying it gently on the carpet. Finally, he unplugged the air conditioner, chose a long, narrow shard of glass, and began to saw through the cord where it entered the machine.

  When Jilly had the entire cord in his hand, he stopped again. Ewing’s snores had grown louder, the familiar sounds of water running in the sink and toilet apparently lulling him into a deeper sleep. As Jilly listened, one ear cocked toward the empty stairs, he felt an odd mixture of anticipation and regret. Curiously (to himself, at least) he found that he had nothing against Agent Bob Ewing, felt no inner rage, either at the fact of his imprisonment or the double-cross Ewing had admitted to a day before. Instead, he experienced a profound inner calm, as if his hands were being guided. As if he’d rehearsed it all a thousand times before and was simply following a memorized script.

  Yet, at the same time, he was looking forward to the next day of his life as if it was Christmas morning and he was four years old and his father was still alive. Jilly Sappone had only two memories of his father. The first was of his father bursting into his room on Christmas day, a child’s football helmet jammed onto his head. The second was a confused jumble of sunlight on broken glass, a two-inch patch of hairy scalp, dripping knots of pink tissue on his face, chest, and lap, his own blood running down into the collar of his starched white shirt.

  Carefully, so as not to cut himself, Jilly stripped the insulation from the last few inches of the cord, exposing the inner wires, then knelt just to the side of the door leading to the outer room and wrapped the wires around the steel bar closest to the floor. Finally, he carried the glass-filled towel back into the bathroom and laid it gently on the floor of the shower.

  Back in the outer room, he slid the mattress and the bedclothes to the floor, exposing the bed’s steel frame and its platform of small springs. Noise didn’t matter now, it was time for Agent Bob to rise and fry, but Jilly paused anyway. He took a deep breath and held it for a moment, then let it slowly wash over his tongue and lips. Ewing continued to snore away and Jilly wondered, briefly, if the agent was locked into a happy dream, if he was holding onto a woman, caressing her breasts with the tip of his tongue. If he was so lost in his dream that he wouldn’t wake up at all.

  Time to find out, Jilly decided. With a grunt, he hoisted the bed frame up onto his right shoulder, ran forward several steps, and slammed it into the Plexiglas window. Then he began to scream.

  “What, what, what?” Bob Ewing snatched his gun off the night table and leaped out of bed. Sappone’s insane rant, a series of choked obscenities surrounded by a high-pitched wail, seemed to fill the room. Then a second crash shook the small house and Ewing’s confusion was instantly replaced by a mixture of rage and panic. Sappone could not be allowed to escape; Sappone could not be allowed to live.

  Ewing took the stairs two at a time. He could see Jilly Sappone through the bars, see him raise the bed frame, slam it into the window, then raise it again.

  “Put it down, you bastard.” Ewing pulled the trigger, sent a round into the ceiling, then dropped the sights onto Sappone’s chest and pulled the trigger again. The slug hit the bars and deflected into the base of a lamp. Sappone froze briefly, then tossed the bed frame onto the floor and jumped out of sight against the wall next to the barred door.

  “Come on out, Sappone. Come out so I can kill you.” Ewing’s panic, now that he could see the window still intact, dropped away, leaving only rage to guide his actions. Sappone had been torturing him for days, just as he’d tortured Theresa Kalkadonis, just as he’d tortured his partner and so many others before that. He had no right to live.

  “Where you gonna hide, Jilly?” Ewing crossed the room quickly, reminding himself that the steel bars on the door were only an inch apart, that Sappone could not reach through, with his hands or with a weapon. “Where you gonna hide, Jilly,” he repeated. “There’s no place to hide.”

  Sappone responded with another drawn-out scream and Ewing, momentarily stunned, paused in mid-step. Then Sappone, his choked, phlegmy voice nearly unintelligible, began to curse him.

  “You ain’t got the balls, you fucking faggot. You ain’t got the balls to kill me. That’s why your boss put you here. Because he knew you were too chickenshit to do what’s in your heart.” Sappone slammed the side of his fist into the door, then dropped to his knees and snatched the plug off the floor. “Too chickenshit to pay the price.”

  With his head slightly forward, Jilly could see a few feet beyond the interlaced bars. Agent Bob was standing in the dim light, one foot off the ground. He was shouting something, most likely another threat, but the words were lost on Jilly who was listening to a familiar melody as it sounded faintly in his consciousness. He couldn’t put his finger on it, couldn’t put a name to the tune, but it compelled all his attention until Ewing stepped forward and pressed the fingers of his left hand against the steel mesh.

  “Sympathy for the Devil,” Jilly muttered as he jammed the plug into the wall.

  The resulting crack, as sharp as a bolt of lightning, was as purely satisfying to Jilly Sappone as the rush of heroin through his bloodstream. The sight of Agent Bob, jerking like a landed fish, was even better. Jilly wanted to stay right where he was. He wanted to savor the moment, to suck it into his memory, but he knew he had work to do. With a sigh of regret, he picked up the bed frame and began to heave it against the Plexiglas window.

  It took longer than he expected, a full seven minutes before the window popped out and he climbed into the yard. The grass was cold and wet against his bare feet as he trotted around the side of the house and came in through the unlocked front door. Agent Bob had stopped twitching, but he was still lying on the carpet, moaning softly with his eyes closed. Sappone stared for a minute, then picked up Ewing’s nine-millimeter Glock.

  “You think it’ll work, Agent Bob?” he said. “I mean I never seen an electrocuted gun before.” Smiling, he put the barrel of the gun against Ewing’s head. “Nothing to say, huh? Well, I gotta find out anyway. Being as your boss is gonna pay me a visit and I don’t wanna be caught unprepared.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  KARL HOLTZMANN FELT HIMSELF to be every inch the commander in chief. Never mind the jerk, Abner Kirkwood, sitting off by himself on the edge of the little stage. There wasn’t a single man in the room, not from the FBI or the DEA, who didn’t know Karl Holtzmann was in charge. It was something even the locals could understand.

  There was no way to maintain it beyond the actual bust, of course. That was why he had to savor the next twenty-four hours, why it was so important. Once the bad guys were in custody, the politicians would simply assume the glory. Karl Holtzmann would be expected to stand off to the right or the left, a few feet behind Abner Kirkwood and Rudolph Giuliani and Commissioner Bratton and whoever else had the juice to put himself at stage center. If he was lucky, real lucky, one of the reporters would ask a question the politicians couldn’t answer and he would be summoned to the microphone, allowed to bark out a short answer, then returned to his cage.

  “Gentlemen,” he said, quickly adding, “and ladies” with a nod of his head and a warm smile. “Thi
s is an aerial photo of the target area.” He snapped on the laser pointer almost hidden in his fist, dropped the little red dot on a narrow rectangle in the center of the photograph. “And this is Ground Zero. I realize that most of you haven’t had a chance to familiarize yourselves with the terrain, so take a minute to study the photo before we get into the specifics.”

  Holtzmann pressed the pointer’s switch and the red line seemed to withdraw into the hard plastic case. He stepped away from the easel, took a deep breath, let it run out through his nose. Kirkwood had stood up and was approaching. The poor man looked as if he’d had a very bad night. His eyes were shot through with jagged streaks of red and underscored by heavy, gray pouches. No stranger, looking at the two of them, would believe Abner Kirkwood to be Karl Holtzmann’s superior.

  “Yes, Abner?” He allowed his voice to betray just the slightest touch of annoyance.

  “I’ve been thinking, Karl. Maybe we should wait on our boy in New Jersey. Wait until after …”

  Holtzmann shook his head. Like all good officers, the foot soldiers under his command came first. “Bob Ewing’s served us well, Abner. We can’t, in good conscience, leave him to baby-sit while we steal the glory.” He kept the reprimand gentle, but let his eyes go hard. “And afterward, of course, we’ll be very busy. What with the paperwork and the news conference.”

  Kirkwood started to answer, then looked down at his hands for a moment before meeting the agent’s stare. “It’s fuckin’ wrong, Karl. What we’re gonna do is fuckin’ wrong even if we get away with it.” Too late, he realized that his speech had returned to its Bronx roots, that he’d lost control, that Karl Holtzmann knew it.

  “Unless you’ve written your resignation,” Holtzmann said, a triumphant grin raising the corners of his mouth past the tip of his nose, “I really suggest you sit down.” He ran his fingertips along the lapels of his jacket. “And allow the troops to prepare for combat.”

  Carmine Stettecase scooped a forkful of Josie Rizzo’s soufflé into his mouth and swallowed without chewing. With a deep sigh, he sliced off another piece and repeated the process. He was in his glory, now, and he knew it. The way the numbers broke down, after paying off the investors and taking care of his boys, he’d be sitting on thirty kilos of the purest China White in the good old USA. The dope would take a full step, then be sold in quarter pounds to a cadre of dealers up and down the east coast who’d step on it again before passing it on to a thousand neighborhood retailers. By the time it was all done, by the time a half million addicts were blasting it into their veins, Carmine Stettecase would be packing a very full suitcase for his trip to the old country. Meanwhile, he was so nervous he couldn’t stop eating, not for a second.

  “Listen up,” he mumbled, ladling fruit salad into his bowl, “I’m gonna make a last-minute change.” He dropped a spoonful of fruit onto his tongue, let the taste of slightly overripe papaya wash through his mouth. “What I’m after here is a little more security.” He swallowed quickly, then glanced at Vinnie Trentacosta. Vinnie was looking down at his plate, as if the sight of a feeding Carmine Stettecase was too gruesome to contemplate. “Let’s put cellular phones in all three vans, stay in contact from the time we leave. Instead of the decoys goin’ to the garage, we’ll have ’em check for tails, then circle up to White Plains Road by the subway yard. If the Chink decides to pull any shit, I’ll have ten shooters a few blocks away.

  By the time Peggy McDonald answered her telephone, a little after nine o’clock, Leonora Higgins was eager to press her point home. She’d passed the prior three hours telling herself, over and over, that Peggy McDonald was in her debt, that a marker was a marker at every level of law enforcement. Even if the favor had been given freely. Even if testifying for Peggy McDonald had been a matter of principle.

  And that, Leonora admitted to herself, was exactly what it had been. Peggy, an agent for less than a year, was being harassed by her direct superior, a middle-aged ex-marine named Bertrand Pendleton. The harassment included frequent grabs at Peggy’s flesh, front and rear, usually accompanied by a nasty comment, a short bark of a laugh, and a quick wink to anybody else in the room. At first, Peggy McDonald, seeing the dreams of a lifetime impaled on one man’s indifferent ego, had been devastated. Then she’d gotten a lawyer.

  Potential witnesses had begun to melt away even before the suit was actually filed. By the time McDonald’s lawyer was ready to take depositions, only two remained, one of them Leonora Higgins. At considerable risk to her own career, she’d backed her graphic descriptions of Pendleton’s behavior with notes from a detailed journal.

  The end result—Peggy McDonald still an agent ten years later, Bertrand Pendleton retired to southern Arizona—was deeply satisfying. It should, Leonora knew, if virtue was truly its own reward, be enough. Meanwhile, Stanley had to be found and Peggy McDonald was going to have to break a few rules and that was the end of that.

  Ten minutes later, after listening to a series of excuses, Leonora finally got herself to say the magic words: “You owe me.”

  “Please, Leonora …”

  “Don’t bullshit me, Peg. We both know there are only six cells for male prisoners in the entire building and they’re all on the seventh floor. How hard could it be to go up there and look for a six-foot-six-inch senior citizen? I just need to know if he’s being held.”

  “What if they’ve bused him over to the MCC?” The Metropolitan Correctional Center, a few blocks away, held federal prisoners awaiting trial.

  “Then you won’t find him at headquarters.” Leonora paused long enough to frame her next statement carefully. “Look, Peggy, I’d much rather have you refuse me than lie to me.”

  It was McDonald’s turn to hesitate. “If I do this,” she finally said, “we’re even, right? It’s over and done with?”

  “Well, it’d help if I knew whether or not he’s been formally charged. And if he’s had a nice breakfast.”

  Stanley Moodrow was sitting on the edge of his bunk, furiously writing in a small pad balanced on his knee, when Karl Holtzmann approached his cell. He glanced up at the agent, then returned to his writing.

  “I don’t mean to be rude, Agent Holtzmann with two ns, but I’m just finishing up here. I’ll be with you in a minute.”

  Holtzmann turned on his heel, ready to explode at the corrections officer who’d given pad and pencil to a federal prisoner. He was halfway across the room before he remembered that after confiscating Moodrow’s weapon on the street, his agents had been instructed to leave the prisoner alone. Apparently, they’d taken the instructions literally.

  Once again, he spun on his heel, this time marching up to the cell bars.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” he asked.

  “I’m writing a letter.”

  “A letter?”

  “Yeah. I got inspired by my partner. Of course, she writes on a computer and I still gotta do it by hand, but it comes to the same thing.”

  Holtzmann ran his fingers over the lapels of his jacket, took a deep breath, told himself to calm down. Even if he confiscated the letter, there was nothing to stop Moodrow from writing it again once he was released.

  “The letter, Moodrow,” he said calmly, “who’s it for?”

  “Ann Landers.” Moodrow tore off several sheets of paper. “You wanna see?”

  Dear Ann,

  I have always prided myself about the fact that in my life I have been a politically correct person. I learned to say black instead of Negro, then African-American instead of black. I learned to say Ms. instead of Mrs. or Miss; hearing impaired instead of deaf; Native American instead of Indian; morally challenged instead of psychopath. Believe me, Ann, I have really, really tried.

  But now things have just gone too darn far. The other day a professor friend of mine told me about the new conduct code at Antioch College in which a boy has to ask his girlfriend for permission to do every little thing they’re gonna do. For instance, the boy will say, “May I kiss you,” and the girl
will say, “Yes.” Then the boy will say, “May I kiss you on the mouth,” and the girl will say, “Yes.” Then the boy will say, “May I put my tongue in your mouth,” and the girl will say, “Yes.”

  Well, Ann, you can see how this is fine for young folks who have a lot of energy and plan to do somethin’ real simple, but me and my sweetheart, we have reached an age where we need to save ourselves for the genuine article. You see, we are the both of us cross-dressers and by the time we have worked our way from, “May I wear the blue, edible panties,” to “May I wear your Tower of Power green boxer shorts,” watchin’ David Letterman is startin’ to look mighty good. In fact the last time we tried it, I never even got to Joan’s adorable red rhinestone pumps. We stopped at, “May I wear your sweat-soaked leather chaps,” and went right to sleep.

  Ann, I tell you before God Almighty that I never thought I’d see the day when I turned my back on my ideals, but this afternoon when Joan came walking out of my closet wearing those dirty jeans and that oil-soaked sweatshirt and those mud-caked Knapp work boots, I near-about went crazy with desire. Then I done every damn thing I could think of without never once askin permission first.

  Now I am sitting here at my desk writing this letter and I have to say my conscience is far from clean. In fact, I feel like a child who has wandered into a deep, dark forest. Because, Ann, I know that tonight I’m gonna sneak into my sweetheart’s closet and try on that no-nonsense, double-breasted business suit she bought at Lord & Taylor the other day. And when I come out, I’m sure gonna be hopin’ Joan don’t ask permission to do what comes unnatural.

  Signed: He Used To Be A Good Soldier.