A Piece of the Action sm-5

by Stephen Solomita

  “Oh, man, you’re breakin’ my heart.”

  Marty Seidenfeld’s dark eyes bore into Moodrow’s without flinching. Moodrow had expected some kind of recognition. The two of them had spent nine years in the same school and even if they’d never been especially close, they’d played the same games on the same teams in the same schoolyards. It should have counted for something.

  “It might have been you or anyone you know. The victim’s name was Luis Melenguez. He was gunned down for no reason at all. He wasn’t a criminal. He wasn’t robbed. He was killed because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “Man, you already made that point.”

  “It means nothing to you?”

  “Nada, as they say in el barrio.”

  “Well, maybe you should do it for old time’s sake. Because we’ve known each other for so many years. Or maybe you should look on it as a favor, a check you can cash some time in the future. Or maybe you should do it because, if you don’t, I’m gonna shove them tubes of paint up your ass.”

  “I must admit that last reason is cool, Stanley. In fact, it’s colder than this goddamned basement. But I can think of an even better reason. One that guarantees the full employment of my considerable talents.”

  “Say it, Marty.”

  “Like, if I do your sketch, you’re gonna come up with twenty beans. You’re gonna do it because you sincerely believe an artist should be paid for his work.”

  “Twenty bucks?” Moodrow could see the new tires his car needed flying out the window.

  “That’s right, Stanley. And if I didn’t know ya from the old days, I wouldn’t do it at all.”

  Eighteen

  Pat Cohan, perched on the plastic slipcover of his living-room sofa, enclosed his “darlin’ Kathleen’s” hands in his own. He hung his head, refusing to meet his daughter’s eyes, and took a deep breath.

  “Kate,” he whispered, “I don’t know what to say.”

  “My whole life’s falling apart, Daddy. You have to say something.”

  “I’m not surprised, of course. Not surprised at all.”

  “You were expecting this?”

  Pat Cohan sighed. He ran his fingers through his mane and looked at his daughter for the first time. “There’s one thing I want you to keep in mind, Kate. Stanley Moodrow, whatever his faults, loves you with all his heart. If he didn’t love you, he wouldn’t take the trouble to lie to you the way he did. The truth, girl, the truth is that Stanley’s not long for the Department. He’s been takin’ with both hands from his first day on the job.”

  “I can’t believe it, Daddy. Not Stanley.”

  “Ah, yes. ‘Not Stanley.’ That was my first thought when Internal Affairs came to see me last week. But I’m an old cop. I’ve been around too long to let my emotions get in the way of the facts. They’ve got him dead to rights and he knows it. Stanley went into Sal’s office yesterday afternoon. He blamed me for his problems and he made all kinds of threats. This is his way of following through.”

  Kate Cohan pulled away from her father. She got to her feet and walked behind the couch.

  “If he did it, he did it for me,” she said. “Because I didn’t want to live on the Lower East Side. Because I wanted things he couldn’t afford.”

  “It’s not true, Kate. Stanley began taking the day he put on a uniform. Years before he even met you. Just little things, in the beginning. A few dollars to let the truckers park on the sidewalks. Or to let the liquor stores open up on Sundays. After a while, it got worse. That’s what happens when a cop surrenders to greed. There’s plenty of gambling in the Seventh Precinct. Bookmakers and numbers runners both. Some of these gamblers have to work the street and Stanley made sure they paid for the privilege. There’s prostitution as well. Along Third Avenue where they tore down the El. Stanley …”

  “He says you’re trying to cover up a murder, Daddy. You and Sal. There’s no truth to that? None at all?”

  Pat Cohan buried his face in his hands. When he finally raised his head and turned to his daughter, there were tears running along the broken veins on his cheeks. “As God is my witness, Kate. As God is my witness.”

  “Daddy …”

  “It’s so hard.” Pat dried his tears on a freshly pressed white handkerchief. “I’ve given my whole life to the New York Police Department. My whole life.”

  “I’m sorry, Daddy. I know you couldn’t do something like that.”

  “The other day, Kate, when you told me about … that thing between you and Stanley …” He looked up into his daughter’s eyes. “I used it to drive a wedge between the two of you, because I couldn’t bring myself to say that your fiance was a crook. I couldn’t say it out loud. I was wrong, of course. I should have been honest with you.”

  Kate sat down next to her father. “Is Stanley going to be arrested? Is he going to jail?”

  “I’m not about to let that happen. I may be the next thing to an old horse put out to pasture, but I still have some influence.” Pat Cohan’s voice was very gentle. Gentle and kind. “Stanley’s badge and gun will be taken away, of course. He’ll be suspended and a departmental hearing scheduled. If he has enough common sense to resign before the hearing, that’ll be the end of it.”

  “He’s not going to resign, Daddy. Stanley’s a fighter and you know it.”

  Pat Cohan looked away from his daughter. “I’m hoping he won’t be foolish, Kate. I’m hoping he’ll read the writing on the wall. If he doesn’t, if the evidence is put into the official record …”

  What Jake Leibowitz understood was that all his plans for the future were coming apart. Despite the fact that he’d left the pimp and his wife in a pool of blood. Despite the fact that he’d buried Abe Weinberg. Despite everything he’d done to further and protect the interests of Steppy Accacio and Joe Faci, the dagos wanted him to take a long vacation on the West Coast. Just give it all up. The dope, the hijackings, everything.

  “Whatta ya think, Izzy?” Jake asked. “Whatta ya think we should do?”

  “I don’t know what we should do, but I got a good idea of what we’re not gonna do. And that’s run off to Los Angeles. How could I go to Los Angeles? They stole the Brooklyn Dodgers, for Christ’s sake.”

  Jake managed a smile. “Ya wanna go down in a blaze of glory? It ain’t gonna be like John Wayne, Izzy. Where he rides into town and kills all the bad guys? The wops probly got twenty shooters they could send after us. We might get a couple of ’em, but sooner or later …” He put his index finger against the side of his head. “ ‘Pow! Right in the kisser!’ ”

  Izzy lit a Pall Mall and blew a stream of smoke across the room. “I got an idea, Jake. Ya think ya could listen without gettin’ all crazy?”

  “Whatta ya talkin’ about?” Jake pushed his chair far enough back to guarantee he wouldn’t get ashes on his suit.

  “I’m talkin’ about how you don’t like it when someone else gets an idea.”

  “Look, Izzy …”

  “ ’Cause this is important. You’re talkin’ about the two of us, me and you, like we was married. The wops say we gotta get outta town? I got relatives in Chicago. There’s no reason I couldn’t go out there. Alone.”

  “Whatta ya sayin?”

  “I’m sayin’ this bullshit about you’re the boss has gotta go. If I’m gonna take any chances for you, I want a fair split. Like fifty-fifty, for instance. See, what I got in mind could pull us outta this hole. The only thing is that it’s a long shot. A real long shot. I ain’t playin’ those kinda cards unless I’m a full partner.”

  “Can I hear what you got in mind before I make a decision? If it ain’t too much trouble?”

  “Actually, I gotta start with a question.”

  “That figures.”

  “How long do we have?”

  “Before what?”

  “Before we lose the dope in the projects.”

  “We got until we run outta product. Two days, maybe three.”

  “Awright, here’s ste
p number one. I want ya to look for Steppy Accacio. If ya can’t find him, then find Joe Faci. Whichever one, I want ya to get down on ya knees and kiss his ass until ya nose is so brown people take ya for Jackie Robinson. Then I want ya to start beggin’ for time. Tell him he don’t have to panic. Tell him the O’Neills are dead and there ain’t no other witnesses. Tell him we already bought our tickets to L. A. and we’re ready to leave any time things get too hot. Tell him he’s payin’ off a lieutenant in the precinct, so he’ll get plenty of warning before the shit hits the fan. Tell him anything, but get us a couple of weeks.”

  “A couple of weeks to do what?”

  “A couple of weeks to find another connection. See, the way I figure it, Accacio took our territory from somebody else. That’s how come we had to do the job on Rocco Insalaco. Whoever controlled the projects before we showed up can’t be too happy. Maybe he’s got a lotta product and no way to dump it. Maybe we could explain that his best move is to sell his product to us. Maybe he’s got enough juice to keep Accacio off our backs.”

  “That’s a lotta ‘maybes.’ ”

  “That’s where the two weeks comes in. It looks like things are goin’ bad, we could always run. If it looks like things are cool with the cops, we could stay with Accacio. If we find ourselves a connection with some muscle, we could become independent. There’s all kinds of possibilities, but none of ’em work out unless we can buy us some time.”

  “Ya know, it’s funny, Iz. I mean what ya talkin’ about. Because I been doin’ some checkin’ on my own. Accacio ain’t such a big shot. In fact, except for the olive oil and the spaghetti, there ain’t too much difference between him and us. Wanna hear somethin’ funny? Steppy Accacio ain’t even a Sicilian. It might be the people over him wouldn’t see too much difference between a mountain guinea and a Jew.”

  Steppy Accacio sipped at his espresso and nodded thoughtfully. He was practicing what he called “my great stone face” and doing a splendid job of it. His goal was to scare Jake Leibowitz without actually making any threats. Like a judge making a defendant piss his pants just by clearing his throat.

  “It’s good to see you again, Jake,” Joe Faci said. “Have ya been thinkin’ about what I mentioned?”

  “I already bought train tickets,” Jake responded, holding them out. “Only I didn’t put no date on ’em. That’s what I come to talk about. See, I don’t have no objection to leavin’ New York if that’s what I gotta do. The whole thing’s my fault anyway. If I hadn’t of taken that asshole over to the pimp’s, none of this woulda happened. But what I’m thinkin’ is, maybe we’re jumpin’ the gun a little bit. I mean how’s it gonna come back on us? There ain’t no witnesses left. And even if the cops do have somethin’ goin’ down, ya connections’ll let ya know in plenty of time.”

  “Los Angeles ain’t a death sentence,” Joe Faci interrupted. “It’s like a precaution. Go out there for a few months. Catch yaself a nice tan. If everything’s copacetic, you could come back and do what ya gotta do.”

  “I hear what ya sayin’, Joe. And I’m only askin’ ya to think about it before ya make a final decision. Ya know I done a lotta time and I ain’t no spring chicken. Now that I finally got a piece of the action, it’s a bitch for me to walk away unless I know I gotta. I mean you guys’ve been great to me and Izzy. Ya gave us a chance. Ya …”

  “Awright, Jake, we catch ya drift.” Joe Faci spoke without looking at his boss. “But we think it’d be better if ya took a little vacation. There’s a lotta cops in New York. Just because we know a couple who do business don’t guarantee our safety. It don’t even guarantee the cops doin’ the business won’t come around with handcuffs and a warrant. Ya can’t trust the cops. They only think about themselves.”

  “How ’bout this, Joe? It’s gonna take me a couple of days to get rid of the dope I got on hand. Maybe ya could just think about it? Make a final decision when the dope’s gone.”

  “We already thought …”

  “Hold up a second, Joe.” Steppy Accacio finally spoke. “The truth is that I feel bad for ya, Jake. Except for that one mistake, ya been doin’ a great job for us. SpeediFreight? The projects? Everything goes like clockwork. So what I’m sayin’ is, it ain’t right that you should have to run all the way to a place like Los Angeles. A place that stole the Brooklyn Dodgers. Also, it could be that I’m actin’ too much like a little old lady. People think ya panickin’, they get ideas. Ain’t that right, Joe?”

  “They don’t reward ya for lookin’ weak,” Joe Faci responded.

  “That’s right.” Steppy Accacio leaned over to fill Jake’s cup. “What I think we oughta do here is play it from day to day. I’m impressed that ya bought them tickets and I believe ya when ya say ya ready to use ’em. What is it from the Lower East Side to Penn Station? Ten minutes by cab? All I’m askin’ from you is that ya should stay in touch.”

  “No problem, Steppy. I ain’t the wanderin’ type.”

  “Also, I’m gonna pull Sandy outta the projects. My sister’s goin’ crazy about the kid bein’ out on the street. She thinks he oughta be an executive. That ain’t a problem, is it?”

  “Hey, family’s family, right? I got a mother drives me crazy.”

  “So it’s settled. We take it as it comes.”

  Jake stood up and offered his hand. “All I could say is thanks for givin’ me another chance. Ya won’t be sorry.”

  Joe Faci waited until the door closed behind Jake Leibowitz’s back, then turned to his boss. “Whatta ya wanna do, Steppy?”

  “What I wanna do, Joe, is kill ’em both. Soon.”

  Sal Patero, more than annoyed to be summoned out to Bayside on a Sunday night, watched Pat Cohan’s tirade without changing expression. If the situation wasn’t so potentially devastating, he would, he decided, personally nominate Stanley Moodrow for Cop of the Year.

  “My family,” Pat Cohan nearly shouted. “He attacked my family. It’s getting to the point where nothing’s sacred. Nothing.”

  “You already said that. Ten fucking times. Enough already.”

  “And I suppose you think attacking a man through his innocent family is just ordinary business?”

  “For Christ’s sake, Pat, Kate’s his fiancee. There’s no way you were gonna get through this thing without her finding out. Be realistic.”

  “That’s easy for you to say. Your family isn’t involved.”

  Patero chose to ignore the comment. What he was trying to do was bring a little sanity into the conversation. He’d made a decision and he wanted to put it on the table and go home.

  “The way I look at this, Pat, what we should’ve done was let Samuelson and Maguire do their jobs. Which is what I told ya from the beginning. If we’d kept our hands off, most likely Don Steppy would’ve taken care of it by himself.”

  “It’s easy to say that now, Sal. But how were we supposed to know that Luis Melenguez was Stanley’s neighbor? Do you have spies for neighbors?”

  “Look, it doesn’t really matter what you say. The thing of it is that I’ve had enough. I’m jumpin’ ship. You wanna get Stanley, you gotta do it yourself.”

  “You’re as dirty as I am. Dirtier, from a legal point of view.”

  “You can’t threaten me, Pat. Ya can’t threaten me because I don’t care. But I got a real good piece of advice for you. This homicide isn’t in the precinct anymore. You had it sent out to Organized Crime. Well, if you got friends on Organized Crime, grab that phone and tell ’em to find the man who killed Luis Melenguez. Find him before Stanley does.”

  “And why should I take advice from you, a man who’s taken bribes from dozens of assorted bookmakers and pimps?”

  “Wanna hear something funny, Pat? I think that without knowin’ what I was doin’, I somehow walked into a loony bin on December twenty-sixth. Just an accident, right? Could’ve happened to anybody. Meanwhile, I been wanderin’ through the place ever since. Covering up a homicide? You gotta be crazy. Which is what I was and what I’m not gonna be any
more. Take my advice, Pat. Find the killer yourself and lock him up in a cage. That’s your only hope.”

  “Well, boyo, thanks for the advice. Now, being as you’re no longer involved, I can’t see as I have any more need of your company this evening. Adios, as they say in the projects.”

  Pat Cohan, calm for the first time in many hours, waited for the front door of his Bayside home to close, then picked up the phone and quickly dialed out. He listened for a moment, the fingers of his free hand absently running through his silky white hair, then said, “Get me Joe Faci. Tell him, Patrick’s on the phone.”

  Nineteen

  January 20

  “Stanley, I’m heating up my world-famous cheese blintzes. You’re maybe interested in one or two?” Greta Bloom set a mug of coffee in front of her guest, then turned back to the stove.

  “I’d be more interested in ten or twelve,” Moodrow said, pouring cream into his mug. “How come you’re not making me use that white powder in my coffee?”

  Greta shook her head. “From kosher you’ll never learn. I’m making blintzes. That’s dairy. With dairy you can have cream. So, how many blintzes should I put up?”

  “A dozen’ll do.”

  “Just like your father. Max wasn’t as big as you, but no one could fill him up, either.” She turned back to the stove, then began to giggle. “I just remembered a story about your mother and father. You wanna hear?”

  “As long as you don’t forget the food.”

  Greta pushed a cookie sheet dotted with cheese blintzes into the oven and closed the door. “Your mother was a very pretty girl. Even with a ring on her finger, men didn’t leave her alone. As it happened, we were working in a loft on Grand Street, sewing lace onto satin wedding gowns. This was considered skilled work by the bosses and the pay was good for that time. Anyway, there was a foreman in the loft named Kawitzski. A brute, Stanley, and always making remarks to the girls about coming into the storeroom. He went crazy for your mother. Every minute he was standing by her machine.”