A Piece of the Action sm-5

by Stephen Solomita

  “We’ll talk as we go,” Greta insisted.

  “Can we at least take our time about it? Do we have to run?” Moodrow, at that moment, knew he’d be going into the Leibowitz apartment with Greta. He knew he’d be doing some of the talking, too. Despite everything, Greta simply wasn’t tough enough for the job. Well, he’d brought a little surprise with him. A kicker to sweeten the pot.

  “We’ll talk as we go,” Greta repeated, turning away.

  Moodrow hustled after her, following her down two flights and out into the street before she ran out of gas.

  “All right, Stanley, I’m too old to run. Tell me your scheme, already. One thing I’m sure is that you got one.”

  “Ya know, Greta, it would’ve been nice to do this inside. Where it’s dry.”

  The January thaw was definitely over. It was raining steadily and the temperature was in the high thirties. Moodrow watched the rain bounce off Greta’s slicker for a moment, then launched himself into it.

  “I spoke to the detectives who caught the Leibowitz case. I know it sounds unbelievable, but they suspect that Santo Silesi was shot deliberately. You understand what I’m saying, right? Not in self-defense, but deliberately. Now, I’m not the judge and jury here, but I have a real strong feeling that we’re not gonna convince Sarah Leibowitz to give up her kid by appealing to her conscience. We’re gonna have to offer her something, something she can understand. That something is gonna be her son’s life.”

  “You’re God, Stanley? You can give life?” Greta began to walk, staring down at her feet as she stamped through the puddles.

  “You’re gonna tell her that he knows too much, that the cops want to kill him as much as the mob. He’s only got one chance at survival and that’s to give himself up to the right man.”

  “Should I guess who that is?”

  “It’s not a joke, Greta. What I’m telling you is close to the truth. If the mob finds him first, Jake’s dead. We’ll be lucky to find the body. Now, maybe the cops haven’t actually been told to gun him down, but if he puts up any resistance the neighbors’ll think World War Three broke out. And if he runs, nobody’s gonna bother with a warning shot. They’ll kill him before he takes a step. Jake Leibowitz only has one chance at survival and that’s to surrender.”

  “Surrender for what? So you can send him to the electric chair? Maybe I didn’t have your education, but this I don’t call survival.”

  Moodrow put a hand on Greta’s shoulder, stopping her long enough to allow a milk truck to plow through an enormous puddle.

  “Thank you, Stanley.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  They crossed the street in silence, stepping onto the opposite curb before Greta spoke again.

  “What makes you think you can protect him? If so many people are trying to kill him?”

  “I can get him down to the precinct in one piece. That takes the cops out of it. Once he’s booked, I’ll go over to the DA’s office and put myself on the record. I’ll tell them I know Jake Leibowitz’s life has been threatened by members of organized crime. If I’m on the record, the city’ll have to protect him. Plus, the press is bound to get its hands on the story and that’ll put even more pressure on the city. I …”

  “Stanley, I’m against capital punishment. Did I ever tell you this?” Greta looked up at him for the first time. “It’s decades, already, I’ve been against capital punishment. Since before the Rosenbergs. As far as I’m concerned, the death penalty is legalized murder.”

  Moodrow reached out and took Greta’s hand. “I have to admit that when I first hatched this scheme I was looking forward to putting you on the spot. I thought the situation was funny. It’s not funny, now. Look, Greta, you’re about the only family I have left and I don’t want Jake Leibowitz bad enough to lose you in the process. We can’t be sure that Sarah Leibowitz knows where Jake’s holed up. Or that she’ll tell us if she does know. Let’s forget about it. Somebody’s gonna get Jake Leibowitz. It doesn’t have to be me.”

  Greta continued to stare into Moodrow’s eyes for a moment. “Is it true?” she finally whispered. “If I help you, will I be saving his life?”

  “Jake Leibowitz has killed at least four people. Two of them were mobsters and two others were operating under mob protection. You’ve been living down here long enough to know what that means. Now add the fact that every cop on the Lower East Side has a photo of Jake Leibowitz in his pocket. They’ve all been told that he’s wanted for multiple homicides and that he’s armed and that he’s extremely dangerous. Remember what I told you about Pat Cohan? He tried to cover up the murder of Luis Melenguez and he didn’t work alone. You don’t have to be a genius to figure out that Cohan and his buddies are as anxious as the mob to see Jake Leibowitz dead and gone. Look, Greta, all I’m really asking you to do is get Sarah Leibowitz to listen to me. And all I’m gonna do is offer her a simple proposition. If she tells me where he’s hiding, I’ll do everything I can to bring him in alive. If she can talk him into surrendering, I’ll guarantee his safety.”

  “But, Stanley, the electric chair …”

  “Between the trials and the appeals, it’ll be two or three years before he has to take the last walk. You remember the old saying? Where there’s life, there’s hope? Maybe Jake’ll get lucky and draw a judge who’s against capital punishment. Maybe the governor will decide to commute his sentence. Maybe the legislature will abolish the death penalty altogether. But if he’s dead, maybe doesn’t enter into it. If he’s dead, they put him in a box, dig a grave and lower him down.”

  Greta turned and began to walk again. The rain poured off her bright yellow hat. Moodrow watched it run down her back and drop onto the sidewalk. At least she wasn’t heading for her own apartment.

  “Let me go in alone,” Greta said after a moment. “I think it would be better if I went in by myself.”

  “You sure you’re up to it?”

  “Sarah’s a very nervous woman. If she sees you and decides to pitch a fit, I won’t be able to get a word in edgewise. Me she’ll talk to, because she doesn’t know what I want.”

  “What are you gonna tell her?”

  “The danger she already knows about. Sarah’s husband was a gangster who ended up floating in the river. What I’ll say is I’ve known you since you were a pitseleh. I’ll tell her she can’t trust the cops, but she can trust you. I don’t know if she’ll go for it, but I think it’s the best approach. There’s one thing, though. You’ve got to promise me that you’ll keep your end of the bargain. What I’m doing is hard enough without also being a liar.”

  “I’m not a killer,” Moodrow returned. “I’m a cop. I hunt, but I don’t kill. On the other hand, if Jake Leibowitz decides to fight, there’s nothing I can do about it.”

  They parted company in the small lobby of Sarah Leibowitz’s tenement. Moodrow, standing by the mailboxes, watched Greta until she disappeared on the second-floor landing. He noted her straight back and firm step with satisfaction. Taking both as proof of her commitment.

  He listened to her footsteps for another moment, then, with nothing to do but wait, let his mind drift over the events of the last two days. He had, he decided, meant what he’d said about allowing Greta to walk away. If she’d accepted, he would have let the matter drop without a word. But even as he’d made the offer, he’d been sure that she wouldn’t take him up on it. Would he have been so generous if he’d thought she’d jump at the opportunity?

  Moodrow was honest enough to admit that he didn’t know the answer. There was no way he could know. But he was sure that what he’d actually done, no matter what his intentions had been, amounted to one more nail in Jake Leibowitz’s coffin. Last night, he’d told Greta that she had to help him. That it was her duty. That by insisting on his obligation, she’d obliged herself. This morning, he’d told her it was all right to wash her hands of the whole affair. Both statements had served to advance him one step closer to his goal.

  There was, he finally decided,
one truth buried in his manipulation of Greta Bloom-he didn’t want to lose her. He needed Greta in his life as much he needed Kate. Maybe more. For a time after the death of his mother, Moodrow had felt as if he was floating. As if he was a speck of dust at the mercy of the slightest breeze. Greta had been there constantly, ministering to him as she had to his mother. She’d been living proof that he wasn’t alone. There were times, he recalled, when he’d resented her visits. When he’d felt it was his duty to be alone. Greta had ignored his sharp remarks, plying him with food and long stories until he’d come back down to earth.

  “Stanley.”

  He looked up to find Greta standing at the top of the stairs. “So quick?” he asked as he climbed the steps.

  “What could I say? Sarah claims that she doesn’t know where her Jake’s hiding, but she’ll listen to you. In case he calls.”

  “You believe her?”

  Greta didn’t answer. She led Moodrow to a doorway on the fourth floor. Pushing the door open, she stepped back to let Moodrow enter the apartment.

  “Good luck,” she whispered.

  Sarah Leibowitz, wrapped in a cheap fur coat, was sitting on an upholstered chair in the living room. The glare she tossed in Moodrow’s direction convinced him to stick to a line he’d already decided to pursue. What he saw in her eyes was pure hate. It wasn’t the first time he’d come across that reaction, but the intensity was something else again. By comparison, Carmine Stettecase’s glare was caressing.

  Moodrow drew his lips into a thin smile, but his eyes remained cold. He walked across the room, watching his shadow advance before him, until he was right on top of her.

  “I’m not gonna fuck around,” he said, “because I ain’t got the time for it. No, I’m gonna make it real simple. Take a look at this.”

  He reached beneath his overcoat and took a glossy photograph from his jacket pocket. Unfolding it carefully, he dropped it into Sarah Leibowitz’s lap. It was a forensic shot, taken at the crime scene, of Luis Melenguez’s body. Melenguez was lying on his side with his back to the camera. His jawbone had been shot away and several glistening white teeth were clearly visible in the pool of blood surrounding the body.

  “This is what’s gonna happen to Jake if he doesn’t give himself up. Ya wanna know what’s gonna happen to you. You’re gonna hear a knock on the door one day. There’s gonna be a cop out there, a detective, like me. He’s gonna take you down to the morgue to identify the body of your son. Jake’s gonna look just like the body in this photograph. Except for one thing. The photo’s in black and white. Jake’s gonna be in living color. Or should I say dying color.”

  He retrieved the photo and carefully refolded it before shoving it back into his pocket. He could feel Greta behind him, feel her eyes boring into his back.

  “I heard your husband was a floater. How many days was he in the river? Two? Three? A week? It’s funny, you see a stiff after a couple of days in the river, you think it can’t get any uglier. Then you see one after it’s been down for a month. Who’d they get to identify your husband’s body, Mrs. Leibowitz? They get you? They pull back the sheet for you? You wanna go through that again?”

  “You bastard.”

  Despite the words, Moodrow could see the defiance seep out of Sarah Leibowitz’s eyes. She looked frightened now, like a trapped animal.

  “I won’t argue the point,” he said. “You say I’m a bastard, I’m a bastard. A bastard who’s willing to save your kid when everybody else on the Lower East Side wants him dead. Look, why don’t you get on the phone and give Jake a call? I’ll go wherever he is, pick him up and get him into the station house before guys like Dominick Favara and Carmine Stettecase know what’s happening.”

  “You think I’m a schmuck? You think I don’t know they’ll kill him in the jail?”

  “I’ll see that he’s protected.”

  “Now you’re the commissioner?”

  “Jake’s still in town, isn’t he?” Moodrow abruptly changed the subject. “If he’d already skipped town, you wouldn’t be talking to me at all.”

  “I’m not saying I know where he is.”

  Moodrow turned to face Greta. Ignoring the outrage in her eyes, he shook his head and shrugged. “I don’t know why I bothered coming here,” he said. “It’s better this way. Dying in the street is too good for the prick. I hope the mob gets him and I hope they take their time. Let’s go.”

  “Wait.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Tell me how you’ll protect my Jake.”

  Moodrow repeated the offer he’d made to Greta Bloom a few minutes earlier. “It’s the best chance he’s got. It’s the only chance he’s got.”

  “I couldn’t call him. He’d just run out into the street. My Jake, he’s stubborn like a rock.”

  Moodrow slowly turned around. Sarah Leibowitz was staring up at him. Her eyes held neither fear nor hate. They were as cold as glass.

  “Jake buy you that coat?” he asked.

  “What’s it to you?”

  “Where is he, Mrs. Leibowitz?”

  “He’s in the project on Madison Street.”

  “Which one? The La Guardia Houses?”

  “No, the Vladeck. Building A, apartment 678. It’s where my sister used to live before she went into the hospital. I been holding onto it in case she got better.”

  Moodrow repressed a smile. The Vladeck Houses were a block from Henry Street.

  “You did the smart thing, Mrs. Leibowitz,” he intoned piously. “You won’t regret it.”

  Thirty-four

  When the phone rang, Jake Leibowitz was having the time of his life. He was in the bathroom, trimming his mustache, a mustache he could actually see for a change. One of the first things he’d done upon arriving at his Aunt Golda’s apartment was rummage through the drawers and closets. He’d done it more out of habit than anything else (after all, what in the world could he possibly find that’d help him out of this pickle), discovering an ancient pair of wire-rimmed spectacles in a night table drawer. The glasses were so thick, Jake’d had to put his face right up against the mirror in order to see anything, but, still, once he’d done that, his mustache had leaped into sharp focus.

  It’d been amazing. Like being down at the track with a good pair of binoculars. Just spin the little knob and … Pow! Individual black hairs had jumped out at Jake Leibowitz like neatly stacked prison bars. He hadn’t minded the fact that he could barely get the scissors between his face and the mirror. Nor the fact that the scissors were so dull they refused to cut, pressing down on the hairs like a tiny curling iron. Seeing was enough to keep him happy.

  What he’d done was sharpen the scissors against the concrete sill outside the bathroom window. It’d been a slow process, but he had nothing, but time, anyway. Besides, the work had reminded him of the old days in Leavenworth.

  How many shivs had he made? Only to have them eventually confiscated? Only to make another?

  “I must’a made a hundred of ’em,” he’d said out loud. “I must’a made a thousand. One for every day I done in the hole. What’s the old saying? ‘Better the man should catch me with it, than the boys should catch me without it.’ I don’t know who made that up, but he must’a been a fuckin’ genius.”

  Once he’d gotten the mustache looking halfway decent, he’d gone to his teeth. Taking them one at a time. Polishing each tooth as if he was washing windows in the Leavenworth administration building. Then he’d gone to the small hairs in his nose, then to his eyebrows, then to his ears.

  When the telephone rang, he was so deeply engrossed that he jumped back as if he’d been slapped. Aunt Golda’s glasses slipped off the bridge of his nose, crashing to the tile floor. He knelt quickly, ignoring the phone. Scooping up the glasses and holding them against his forehead as he anxiously peered into the mirror.

  “Jeez,” he said, “that was a close one.”

  But it was all right. Only a small crack up a corner of the right lens. Which was just as well, because he
didn’t have his mustache perfect yet. Not quite perfect.

  The phone continued to ring and Jake continued to stare at his reflection. He wasn’t in any hurry, because he already knew who it was. Anyone but his mother would’ve hung up a long time ago.

  “Awright, awready,” he called, sliding the spectacles into his shirt pocket.

  Mama Leibowitz had been calling every few hours. Detailing her adventure with Santo Silesi. Hadn’t she ever heard of tapped phones? If the flatfoots were listening, she’d be a candidate for the electric chair. Despite the wound in her skull. Despite being a fat old lady with a heart condition.

  But he couldn’t discourage her, couldn’t get through. She talked about killing Santo Silesi the way she’d talked about her new fur coat. Bragging about it.

  “Jake, you should have seen the look on his face. Like he opened the closet and out came Dracula.”

  Jake strolled over to the phone and picked it up. “Yeah, ma,” he sighed.

  “Jakeleh, I told them where you are. The coppers. I told them.”

  “Jeez, ma, what’d ya do that for? I was thinkin’ about skippin’ town.”

  The real question was why he’d hung around with her all this time. That was the biggest mistake he’d ever made. Bigger than tryin’ to get in with the guineas. Hangin’ out with a crazy woman must’ve made him crazy, too.

  “They beat me, Jake. They burned me with cigars. They kicked me when I fell on the floor. It was terrible, Jake. I could barely walk.”

  “Ya forgot the rubber hose.”

  “Pardon?”

  “What I’m sayin’ is ya sound pretty good for a cripple.” Not that it mattered.

  Crazy people did crazy things. Look at him. What he should’ve done was go out to Los Angeles. He should’ve done what Steppy Accacio told him to do. Hell, he should’ve done what that drill sergeant told him the day he’d stepped off the bus at Fort Dix. But the past didn’t matter, either. The cops were coming and he was gonna die and that was that.