A Piece of the Action sm-5

by Stephen Solomita

  Two hours later, the missing statements found and already on their way to the DA’s office, Moodrow signed out and began to walk through the remains of the morning’s snowstorm to his apartment a few blocks away. He was due out in Bayside at eight-thirty and his thoughts were on Kate and what she might have told her father. The last time they’d spoken, he’d begged her to defy the priest. Kate, after much argument, had agreed to think about it. What bothered her was the distinct possibility that Father Ryan might decide that, despite the theoretical sanctity of the confessional, it was his Christian duty to have a little talk with Pat Cohan. It had happened too many times in the past to be entirely discounted.

  “Stanley.”

  “Huh?” Moodrow turned to the man who’d fallen into step beside him. It was Paul Maguire.

  “Just keep walkin’, Stanley. I wanna have a little talk with you.”

  “Whatever ya say, Paul.”

  “The thing of it is, Stanley, that this conversation never happened. Understand? Never.”

  “Sure.”

  “Because if it gets back to Sal Patero, I’ll be walkin’ a beat in Far Rockaway. It gets real cold out there near the ocean. The wind never stops blowin’.”

  “Paul, I get the message.”

  “Okay, what you said about Melenguez? You’re right. There was no hit and Melenguez was in the building to get laid. One of the whores told me she’d just finished takin’ care of him.”

  “I didn’t see that in the interviews.”

  “Maybe somebody took it out. Maybe your buddy, Sal Patero, took it out. I’m not here to solve this crime. All I wanna do is whisper a few words in your ear. Then, it’s up to you. You hearing me?”

  “Loud and clear.”

  “O’Neill runs the house. Him and his wife. I’d bet my gold shield that both of them were in the office when the shooting went down. Someone put a heavy beating on the pair of ’em and it sure as shit wasn’t Melenguez.”

  “The beating wasn’t in the files, either. What you’re sayin’ is that somebody’s covering up a homicide. A fucking homicide.”

  “Stanley, I’m here to give you a piece of advice. If you’re smart, you’ll keep your nose out of it. This goes a lot further than Sal Patero. But, if you’re stupid, here’s what you should do. O’Neill and his old lady are still running the show on Pitt Street. Squeeze ’em. Squeeze ’em like tubes of fucking toothpaste. I got a hundred bucks here that says the same guys who pounded on O’Neill and his old lady shot Melenguez. I got another hundred that says O’Neill knows the shooter.”

  Stanley Moodrow knew he’d stepped in it when the door of Kate’s home opened to reveal her mother, Rose. Decked out in widow’s weeds, the small slight woman took a backward step and raised her fist to her mouth. A rosary, its onyx beads as black as her dress, dangled from bony fingers.

  “Mr. Cohan wants to see you,” she hissed.

  “Where is he?”

  She continued to back away until her heels were against the first riser of the staircase. Then she turned and fled.

  Moodrow stood in the open doorway for a moment. A mixture of emotions coursed through him-dread, rage, fear. He didn’t want to sort them out; he wanted to flee from the situation, just as Rose Cohan had fled. It’s bad, he thought. It’s so bad it can only get worse.

  He recalled a day, early in his fighting career, when he’d been asked to spar with a hotshot middleweight named Virgil Thomas. Already over a hundred and seventy-five pounds and cocky as hell, he’d jumped at the chance. Thirty seconds later, as the slap of leather against flesh echoed through the small gym, he’d known he was in deep trouble. He also knew there was no remedy except to go through with it and that was what he’d done. Now, he was going to have to go through with it again.

  Moodrow crossed the living room and opened the door to Pat Cohan’s den without knocking. He’d been hoping against hope to find Kate inside, but Cohan was alone.

  “You don’t knock?” Cohan asked.

  “Where’s Kate?”

  “What’s the hurry, Casanova? You so horny you can’t spend a few minutes talking to me?” Cohan lit the stub of a cigar and sucked it into life. He was fully dressed, his jacket and vest buttoned, his hair sweeping out and back like the lion’s mane he imagined it to be.

  “Where’s Kate?” Moodrow stepped forward. There was a chair between him and Pat Cohan’s desk. He swept it away with a casual wave of his right hand. “Where’s Kate?”

  “I thought it best she not be here for this.”

  Moodrow watched Cohan shrink back in his chair. The Inspector was staring, not into his eyes, but at the still-red scar on his brow. Moodrow, like all fighters, drew energy from his opponent’s fear.

  “Why’s that?”

  “Look here, boyo …”

  “I’m not your fucking ‘boyo,’ Pat. I’m twenty-five years old. And Kate’s not your ‘darlin’ Kathleen,’ either. She’s a twenty-two-year-old woman. You can’t keep her in diapers forever.”

  “I didn’t call you in here to fight with you, Stanley.”

  “This I already figured.”

  Pat Cohan’s face contorted with anger. “Listen, you little prick, I made you and I can break you.”

  “That works both ways, Pat. The way I see it, we’re in this together. Till death or the Department do us part.”

  Cohan managed a thin smile. He sucked on his unlit cigar. “That’s not entirely true, Stanley, but I’m not here to threaten you. If you remember, I only asked one thing of you when you requested permission to see Kathleen. I asked you to keep her pure until after the wedding.”

  Moodrow finally sat down. He shook his head in disgust. “Why don’t you cut the bullshit. Stop living in Never-Never Land. She’s a woman, that’s all. And this ain’t the fucking junior prom. Nobody cares unless the woman gets pregnant. And the people I grew up with don’t even care about that. As long as you do the right thing.”

  “She committed a sin, Stanley. And you should have known better. You should have stopped her. Kate is innocent. She’s inexperienced, naive.”

  Moodrow thought back to that morning when she’d shown up on his door- step. Innocent? Naive? What she really was was stupid for going to the wrong priest. What she really was was weak for not telling him to stick his penance in his breviary.

  “All right, Pat. Let’s say it was a sin. Let’s even say that I took advantage of a naive young girl. So what? It’s over now and there’s nothing you can do to fix it. Kate and I are engaged. That means whatever advantage I took, I’m gonna be makin’ it up to her for the next forty or fifty years. Ya know, when I went to Catholic school, the nuns taught me that my sins were between me and God. So what are you doing here? You so high up in the job, you think you’re God?”

  Pat Cohan put the stub of his cigar in the ashtray. He ran his fingers through his silvery hair and leaned forward. “What I want, Stanley, is for you to go away. Take it from a man trapped in a miserable marriage, you and Kate aren’t right for each other. You’re not even close. So why don’t you tell me what you want?”

  “What I want is Kate. And if you say she doesn’t want me, if you put that lie in her mouth, I’ll drive my fist through the back of your head.”

  “I believe you would, Stanley. But I’m not here to lie to you. I haven’t sent Kathleen to a convent. She’ll be home tomorrow. In the meantime, why don’t you think about what I’ve said? Do you want Homicide? Narcotics? Safes and Lofts? How about a jump in rank? Detective, second grade, with a guarantee of first grade in a year.”

  Moodrow felt his anger begin to evaporate as the central truth of Pat Cohan’s message sunk in. This man, Kate’s father, had decided to prevent the marriage. It was just that simple.

  “Why are you doing this, Pat? And don’t tell me it’s because we went to bed together. You don’t give two shits about the Church. You’re the biggest goddamned thief in the Department.”

  “I’ll ignore that last comment, boyo.” Cohan opened the cente
r desk drawer and took out a fresh cigar. He studied it for a moment, then turned to Moodrow. “As for my reasons, I don’t know where to begin. I thought you were a tough guy, but I was wrong. You’re only tough in the ring. Mentally, you’re not prepared to do what’s necessary to guarantee Kate and her children the kind of life I want them to have. I wouldn’t say it’s your fault, exactly. No, I’d have to say the error was mine. But that doesn’t change anything, does it?”

  “Keep going.”

  “You’re impulsive and headstrong. Maybe that’s what comes from being victorious. You fought your way into the detectives, just like you fought your way into your engagement. But you never stopped to consider the consequences. You’re like a traveler who desperately wants to arrive at a certain destination without any clear understanding of what he’ll do after he gets there. Patero’s afraid of you. He thinks you’re unpredictable. Of course, Patero’s right in the middle of it, so perhaps he has a right …”

  “Bullshit.” Moodrow stood up. “All those rounds? All that training? I knew what I wanted. I wanted to be a detective. You made me into the precinct bagman. As for Kate, you think I’m using her the way I used the ring, but that’s not true. I love Kate and I want her to be my wife. Now, here’s something you might wanna think about: if you fight me and I win, I’m gonna take Kate and migrate to California, like everybody else in the country. Kate’s a religious girl, Pat. She takes all that bullshit about ‘love, honor and obey’ very seriously. If I tell her we’re going, she’ll pack her bags and get on the plane.”

  “You’re quick with the threats, Stanley.”

  “What have I got to lose?”

  “Everything, boyo. Everything.”

  “Ya know what I think, boyo? I think your promises are bullshit. Once you’ve got Kate under control, you’ll fuck me any way you can. That’s your rep, Pat. That’s what they say about you. Inspector Cohan never forgets. Never forgives, either. I got nothing to lose.”

  Moodrow backed toward the door. He expected Cohan to make some sort of protest, but Cohan merely lit his cigar and leaned back in the chair.

  “Something else you might wanna think about, Pat.” Moodrow opened the door without turning away. “Luis Melenguez. You lied to me about Luis Melenguez. It wasn’t a little white lie, either. It was a big black lie. Go confess to Father Ryan. Maybe he’ll order you to tell me the truth.”

  Thirteen

  January 17

  Stanley Moodrow, sitting down to breakfast, knew he had to make a decision about Luis Melenguez. He’d been angry the night before, angry enough to threaten his benefactor, Pat Cohan. He’d also been shrewd enough to recognize (and enjoy) the fear his threat inspired. But that didn’t mean he would or should follow through. Sure, he wanted Kate Cohan. That was obvious. But he couldn’t see how investigating the murder of Luis Melenguez would result in the two of them walking down the aisle. In fact, no matter how Moodrow examined the situation, it seemed that tracking down Melenguez’s killer would have the opposite effect. Especially if Pat Cohan was trying to cover it up.

  What he needed to do was think it out. The only problem was that he couldn’t manage to concentrate on anything more complex than the Daily News. His eyes scanned the paper while his brain spun like a raindrop in a tornado.

  A Brooklyn judge named Leibowitz had ordered a special grand jury to investigate the practice of giving high school diplomas to kids who couldn’t read above the fifth-grade level. This was the same judge who’d charged the grand jury to investigate “the tide of terror and lawlessness” in Brooklyn schools, then later approved the grand jury’s recommendation that cops be stationed in every high school.

  Moodrow started to lay the paper down when another headline caught his eye. Housing Board Bias Probe Is Voted by Wagner Group. The charge, “racial and religious discrimination” in the projects, was nothing new. When the first of the projects had gone up before WWII, they’d been used to service individual neighborhoods. On the Lower East Side, for instance, the Italians had gotten the Governor Smith Houses while the Jews had gotten the Jacob Riis Houses. The policy had seemed reasonable at the time, an attempt to keep neighborhoods and traditions intact. The only problem was that five hundred thousand impoverished Puerto Ricans had migrated to New York in the ten years following the war. More than a million blacks had come as well, fleeing southern poverty and Jim Crow legislation. The city had responded by constructing tens of thousands of low-income apartments, but no matter how fast projects went up, there were far more applicants than apartments. Waiting lists were created, lists based on ethnic, racial and neighborhood considerations. Now, the chickens were coming home to roost.

  Moodrow discarded the Daily News and went to refill his coffee cup. It was funny, in a way. New York City, at least according to the newspapers and television, was a filthy, dangerous place. The schools, for instance, were so violent that Judge Leibowitz wanted cops stationed in every high school in Brooklyn. So why did Melenguez and half a million of his countrymen leave their homes to come here? And why did they stay? The Republicans blamed it on easy access to the welfare system, but there hadn’t been any welfare at the turn of the century when the Jews and the Italians arrived. Nor when the Irish and the Germans had come before them.

  The answer, when Moodrow hit on it, was obvious enough. They were coming to occupy the same tenements that he intended to flee. If the Lower East Side was so horrible that a girl like Kathleen Cohan couldn’t be expected to live there, Luis Melenguez didn’t stay because he loved the Big Apple. He stayed because what he’d left behind was worse. Which was exactly why Moodrow’s own parents had come and stayed.

  “Fuck them,” Moodrow said aloud. Fuck who? he thought.

  Another idea popped into his mind before he could even consider the question: Luis Melenguez has a right to revenge. Because that’s what the cops really did. Ordinary citizens weren’t allowed to get even. If they tried it, they were subject to arrest. Punishment? Retribution? Justice? There was only one safe way for Joe Citizen to go and that was to the cops, the courts and the prisons.

  But I could still make it right, he thought. If I go to Pat and apologize, if I promise to love, honor and obey …

  Stanley Moodrow giggled, the sound spilling from his lips unbidden. The truth was that Pat Cohan was determined to break him. If he got the chance. The situation was funny, because he and Cohan were going to have to do a little dance while they slugged it out. They were going to dance a minuet around “darlin’ Kathleen,” neither sure of her reaction when she found out what was really happening.

  And Kathleen Cohan wasn’t the only issue. Moodrow’s career, his very job was at stake. Detectives, third grade, didn’t challenge inspectors. Pat Cohan had a reputation as a man who always got even, no matter how long it took. Moodrow had threatened to break the Inspector’s bones. He’d questioned Pat Cohan’s physical courage, the ultimate slight to every cop’s self-image. Inspector Pat Cohan wouldn’t react to the insult by meeting Stanley Moodrow in some back alley. He’d either wait for Stanley Moodrow to make a mistake, to drop his guard, or he’d try to set him up.

  “He thinks he’s got all the ammunition,” Moodrow said aloud. And that was obvious, too. Cohan’s arrangement with Patero was basically unprovable. Especially considering that he, Moodrow, had a personal interest. Any charge he leveled at Cohan would be extremely suspect. Cohan, on the other hand, could use Patero (and God only knew who else) as an instrument of revenge.

  What you are, Stanley, he thought, is a schmuck. You’re supposed to lead with your left, not with your chin.

  He should never have challenged Cohan directly. He should have retreated, begged for mercy, promised to reform. He should have played for time while he gathered ammunition of his own.

  And that was assuming there was anything out there to gather. Because it was just possible that Pat Cohan hadn’t been lying about Luis Melenguez. In fact, it was more than possible that Cohan was simply repeating what Sal Patero had t
old him. Cohan’s office was down on Centre Street, not in the 7th Precinct, and Cohan’s job was purely administrative. He played no direct part in the investigation of criminal complaints.

  Still without any clear line of action, Moodrow went to the phone, called the 7th Precinct, and told the duty sergeant that he wouldn’t be coming to work.

  “A personal matter,” he explained before hanging up. One good thing about his job as Patero’s assistant: no cop below the rank of captain had the guts to challenge him.

  He went back to his bedroom and looked out the window. It was eight-thirty and the streets were alive with workers trudging through the remains of yesterday’s snowstorm. Moodrow noted the coats buttoned to the throat, the caps pulled down low to cover the ears. Well, he could deal with the cold. He laid out a set of long johns and two pair of heavy wool socks, then began to dress.

  The doorbell rang while he was buttoning his shirt. For a fleeting moment, he managed to conjure up a picture of Kate Cohan standing on the other side. Then he returned to reality.

  “Hello, Greta,” he said, as he swung the door inward.

  “Stanley, how are you this morning?”

  “I’ve been better. C’mon in.” The truth was that he had no way to keep her out and he knew it. “You want coffee?”

  “Please.”

  He poured out the coffee, then waited for her to speak first. He didn’t have to wait long.

  “So what did you find out?”

  “About what?” If he couldn’t actually discourage her, he could at least break her chops.

  “About Luis Melenguez, of course. His wife went home yesterday.”

  “I’m sorry about the other day, Greta. I didn’t want to hurt Mrs. Melenguez, but I was only repeating what I was told.”