Force of Nature

by Stephen Solomita

  “I’m sorry it took me so long. There’s a crane down across FDR Drive…” Jim Tilley stopped dead, his head swiveling as his eyes took in the devastation. “Holy shit,” he whispered. “This guy is fucking crazy.”

  Louise Greenwood’s apartment had been torn apart with a viciousness that went far beyond the needs of a simple search. Every piece of furniture was slashed and broken. Every dish had been swept from the kitchen shelves. The covers had been ripped from the mattresses, exposing yellowed foam rubber and scattering loose springs over the carpet. Even the heavy bureaus had been smashed with such force the dowels had pulled loose and pieces of wood were strewn throughout the bedrooms.

  Moodrow was smart enough to allow the scene to have its own effect. He waited until Tilley had been through the wreckage, room by room, before he spoke. “You suppose Levander thought it was Mother’s Day?” He wasn’t smiling.

  “What?” Tilley was standing near a linen closet by the bathroom. Levander had systematically torn every towel and every sheet before tossing them into the bathtub. “You think this is funny?”

  Moodrow spread his hands apart and shrugged. “How is it different? Just because you know the people involved? Because you’re sleeping with Rose?”

  “This guy has gotta be stopped.”

  “You just figured that out, right?”

  Tilley looked at his partner and shook his head. There was no percentage trying to be reasonable with Stanley Moodrow. “What happened here? Is it any use to us?” he asked, instead.

  “I don’t know yet. Louise is at Beekman Hospital with Marlee. They’ll be home in a half hour, as soon as Marlee finishes straightening out the hospital staff. They wanna admit her overnight, to protect themselves, because concussions go bad without any warning. Like I said, Marlee’s straightening them out. When Louise brings her home, we’ll get the details. Meanwhile, I got a call from Cecil this morning. Guess what?”

  Once again, Tilley felt it rushing up at him. Felt out of control. “You gonna tell me? You cockteasing bastard?”

  “Blue Thunder’s back on the street. And I’m not a bastard. In fact, my father was a saint.”

  Tilley ignored the jibe. “Cecil say who’s got it?” The adrenaline was running so hard, he felt ready to go fifteen with Mike Tyson, fighting on the inside.

  “One of her girls bought it from a friend who got it somewhere else. Cecil’s running down the friend. She don’t think it’ll be a problem.”

  “How long?”

  By way of an answer, Moodrow took a plastic beeper from his pocket and held it up. Beepers are not part of a cop’s equipment.

  Portable two-ways are more their style. The presence of a beeper obviously meant that the first step, both to Levander and the rogue cop running him, was imminent.

  At 7:10, the door opened and Marlee Greenwood, supported by a black man and followed by Louise Greenwood, came through the door. Marlee had been badly beaten. Her face was swollen, her eyes cut and bruised. One ear and part of the left side of her head was covered with thick bandages, the kind they put over stitched-up wounds. Sitting on what was left of the sofa, Tilley wondered what her reaction would be when she walked through the door to find them. Someone, probably the beat cops on the scene, had gotten her version at the hospital, but the task force considered the Greenwoods to be Moodrow and Tilley’s problem, so they were the first detectives Louise Greenwood had seen.

  As expected, Marlee was less than thrilled to see them, but she was too weak to do more than protest. Her mother introduced the two cops to the man who accompanied them. His name was Roger Peterson and he was the pastor of the Gethsemane Baptist Church on Montgomery Street, the church where Louise Greenwood spent most of her evenings. With his help, Mrs. Greenwood laid her daughter, still wearing her bloodstained clothing, on what was left of the mattress. The doctors had given her “something for the pain” and she was moaning rhythmically, almost musically. She was asleep before her mother left the room.

  Outside, the tall black preacher took stock of the situation, shaking his head sadly. Finally, he turned to Moodrow and said, “You should have gotten him before this.” He hesitated a moment before repeating it, as if the cops hadn’t understood. “You should have gotten him before this.” Then he turned back to his parishioner. “We’ll have the auxiliary up here early tomorrow, Sister. Get the place cleaned up and some furniture in here. You sure you don’t want to stay with Christina and me tonight?” She shook her head and he took a final look around the room. “Tell me, why did he destroy the dishes? Your clothing? What did he want?”

  She didn’t respond for a few moments, then said softly, “I’ve got to talk to these gentlemen, Reverend. After that I need to sleep. Hopefully, by the time the ladies get here tomorrow, I’ll be ready for them. And I thank you for lending me your strength.”

  “Praise the Lord,” he said, but he got no response. Still, he took her hand and held it briefly before he left.

  Louise Greenwood closed the door on his back and, without speaking a word, Moodrow, Jim Tilley and Louise Greenwood began to clean up the apartment. They took the pieces of wood, the torn curtains and began to pile them against one wall. They arranged the pieces of broken furniture as if the apartment could be made whole again, going at it room by room. Each piece of clothing was examined and most of it discarded. Even the contents of the medicine chest had been scattered on the floor, the small glass bottles ground into powder by the heels of Levander’s shoes.

  It took the better part of two hours until the last pile of glass had been swept into a corner, until the refrigerator had been stood upright, pieces of the stove fitted together. They worked in silence, almost preoccupied, but when the apartment was finally as good as it was going to get, they had to go over it, to hear the story as if it might somehow get them closer to Greenwood. Louise began without coaxing.

  “I worked a doubleshift last night at the hospital, so when I got home from work, it was two o’clock in the afternoon. I should have been home by noon, but I was late because the A Train got stuck in the station at 86th Street. The doors stayed open. I thought it was the kids again, you know, holding them open for a joke, but then the conductor came through and told us the doors wouldn’t close and we should think about walking over to Broadway, to the 1 Train, or taking a bus, if we lived in Manhattan. Well, you have to be a fool to take a bus through midtown at that time of day, so I walked to Broadway even though I knew the train would be packed and I might have to wait before I found one I could squeeze into.

  “But, of course, I finally made it. I even managed to stop into the Baskin-Robbins on East Broadway for a pint of ice cream. I felt I deserved some kind of a treat after a long day and a longer trip home.” She stopped abruptly and looked at each of them, as if they might have some objection to her eating the ice cream. “So, as I said, it was after two o’clock when I got home. Marlee had told me that morning that she would be late and I was surprised to hear noise from the bedrooms. I suppose I knew it was

  Levander right away. Who else could it be? I recalled the buzzer that the sergeant from the housing police installed and I thought that I should press it right now, before Levander discovered that I was home. But I couldn’t do it. I said to myself, ‘Louise, if they kill your child in front of you, you won’t be able to live with it.’

  “Then he came down the hallway. ‘Levander,’ I said, ‘look at yourself.’ He was dirty and his hair was very long. It was gray and dusty and knotted. When I heard of all the things he’d been doing, I thought he’d have lots of money. I didn’t think he would look like an animal too long in its hole.

  “‘Mama,’ he said, ‘I need money. And I want my Rose and my babies.’

  “I said, ‘Levander, you know I never did keep money in this house. There’s too many robberies in the projects.’

  “He took my purse, then, and commenced to go through it. He didn’t even ask. Just snatched it off my shoulder and fished out the twenty dollars from my wallet. ‘Thi
s is it? This little shit. Why are you bitches always doin’ bad to me? You and Rose and Marlee. All talkin’ against me.’

  “I said, ‘I’m your mother, Levander. Don’t you call me a bitch in my own house.’

  “He squinted at me. As if he couldn’t quite make me out. Then he slapped me. His hand came forward, quick, like a snake after a mouse. It wasn’t a hard blow, but I fell back on the couch. It was the first time he ever hit me.

  “‘Listen, bitch.’ It wasn’t Levander’s voice anymore. It was deeper and empty somehow, like there wasn’t anybody inside. ‘I know you got money here and I know you got Rose hid someplace where I can’t find her. You and that fat cop, Moodrow. You in on it together.’ He held up the twenty dollar bill. ‘How long you think this shit gonna last? Ten minutes? I want the money and I want Rose.’

  “I told him that I didn’t know where Rose was hiding. Which I don’t, even though she calls me nearly everyday. I have never even asked for her phone number, because I guess I had a fear that this situation might come up. Levander sat down on the green chair and took a glass pipe and a small vial filled with little, white pebbles from the pocket of his coat. That’s what they call crack. He was wearing a coat, even though it was very hot and he was sweating. First he filled the pipe, then he lit it with some kind of a lighter that sort of sprayed the flame into the pipe. After that he didn’t look so frightened. He put the drugs away and took out a knife and began to slice the fabric on my couch. Not crazy, but making sure he got everything and sticking his hand inside. He said, ‘I know you got it here, somewhere, Mama, and I’m gonna find it. Yessir, I am gonna find it.’

  “He went all around the living room, until he came to the buzzer on the wall. ‘What’s this? Where does this go?’ I kept to myself. What could I say? Levander just grinned, like he had known about it all along. ‘You shoulda pressed it when you had the chance, Mama. Marlee would have pressed it.’ Then he pulled it out of the wall and went on with his search.

  “It was seven o’clock when Marlee got home. I didn’t hear the key in the lock even though I’d been listening, trying to find a way to warn her. Instead, she surprised both of us. The door opened and there she was, staring at what was left of our living room.

  “Marlee was always quick. She turned and tried to run, but Levander was on her before she got to the stairs. He dragged her back into the apartment, beating her with his fists. I guess I should have screamed. Or one of us should have screamed and then our neighbors might have called the police, but I didn’t do it and she didn’t do it and I still don’t know why. Maybe I was afraid that he’d kill her if I screamed. Or somebody would come and kill him.

  “He kept Marlee next to him the whole time he was in the apartment. He wouldn’t stop hitting her, wouldn’t stop tearing our home apart. I said, ‘It was your home too, Levander. You grew up in here. You are destroying everything in your own life.’

  “He stopped for a minute then and he smoked his pipe again. Marlee was lying on the floor and she was crying. We were both crying. Levander said, ‘I don’t have no home, Mama. Not no more. Not ever again. The pig is gonna kill me soon and I don’t mind. I don’t mind about gettin’ killed. I took out my share of pigs and they can’t kill me more than once.’ He threw back his head and began to laugh. ‘Looks like I got over, Mama. I got over on all them pigs. They can’t kill me no more than one time.’ Then he smoked his pipe again, which seemed to calm him down and he went on searching.

  “‘Where’s Rose, Mama?’ When there was nothing left to destroy, he dragged Marlee into the living room, then let her fall to the floor. I had been expecting this question all along, but I had not come up with an answer that would satisfy Levander. I said, ‘Levander, I don’t know where Rose is hiding. She’s afraid that you’ll hurt the children and I don’t believe she’ll come out of hiding until…’

  “I didn’t have the courage to finish my thought, but Levander knew what I was going to say. ‘Till I’m dead. That what you gonna say, Mama?’ He grinned at me. That little smile he had when he was a baby and up to some mischief. Then he drew back his leg and kicked Marlee. He kicked her hard again and again. ‘Maybe I take this bitch with me, Mama. How you feel about that? Huh? Then you got nobody.’

  “I begged him, Sergeant. I cried and I begged him not to hurt her anymore. Marlee is all I have. She is my family and I could see in his eyes that he would take her away from me and I felt my heart turning cold. That turning hurt more than if it was me he was beating. When love goes out of you, there is nothing left but pain. I said, ‘Levander, I can get you some money. I can get you five hundred dollars, but you got to stop hurting Marlee. Please, Levander, you can’t hurt her anymore.’

  “‘What you talkin’ about, Mama? Ain’t no money here.’

  “‘I got a savings account and one of those cards that let you in the bank even when it’s closed. I could go there and get the money.’

  “He looked at me for a long time, then he took out his pipe and smoked it again. ‘You know I’ll kill Marlee if you don’t come back alone.’

  “‘I know that. I know you will.’

  “Somehow I got to the bank and returned without giving away what was in my heart, even though I met neighbors and had to greet them and talk about the projects and the heat. Considering what I was carrying, it seemed nearly impossible, but no one noticed anything wrong. People don’t seem to see things they don’t want to see and I got back to Marlee in about fifteen minutes.

  Levander was smoking his pipe when I came in. He took the money from me, counted it and said, ‘I know that pig cop’s got my Rose and my kids. You tell the pig, if I don’t get my old lady, I’m gonna take him instead. You hear?’

  “‘Yes, I hear.’

  “Then he got up and walked to the door, but instead of opening it, he stood there for a long time with his back to me. I thought he was going to become violent again, but when he finally turned to me, he was crying hard. ‘Goodbye, Mama,’ he said. ‘Goodbye, Mama.’”

  22

  WHEN MOODROW AND TILLEY left the Greenwoods’ wrecked apartment, they were no closer to Levander Greenwood than when they’d entered. In spite of his evident madness—an insanity which had put an old woman face to face with her own death—he’d not revealed a hint of his present whereabouts. His condition, though, was both a revelation and a new source of fear to Moodrow and Tilley. Crack junkies deteriorate quickly, much more quickly than, for instance, heroin addicts, who often maintain their habits for decades. This is because the most powerful and immediate effect of cocaine in any form—powder, freebase or rock—is to make the user want more. It’s the simplest and most honest way for the layman to understand the drug: as soon as you do a line, you want another.

  In the days when Tilley was a white hope, he’d attended a number of parties where the coke was laid out on a huge mirror, an ounce or more, and there were always a group of people who sat around the mirror all night. Just staring into the pile until someone offered the straw. No matter how much they did, no matter how pure the cocaine, they wanted more and more and more and more.

  It’s worse with crack. Smoking rock cocaine increases this effect, this desire for more and more and more by a factor of ten. No joke, here. Not even exaggeration. Some people can do cocaine and walk away from it. That was Tilley’s own experience. He did it once or twice, but he was lucky enough to come along after the first wave of cocaine use had destroyed some of the best fighters in the world. He knew what it could do, even that first time when he shared a gram with several close friends. Their plan was to save a small piece for the following day’s trip to the beach, but at two in the morning, when they did the last lines, Tilley knew there would be no trip to the beach. What he didn’t know was that about an hour later, lying naked on the bed, he would suddenly panic. That he’d be shaken by an awful fear that he believed could only be satisfied by cocaine.

  That was the first time and the panic passed in about fifteen minutes. For terminal crack ju
nkies like Levander Greenwood, the panic would last for days and would do more than shake his bones. Levander could easily pass through delusions (if not outright hallucinations) as complex and realistic as those of a paranoid schizophrenic. In the years since Tilley had quit the boxing business, he had three old ring buddies come to him with coke habits, begging him to help them get into treatment programs. They’d been using the drug for days at a time. Literally. One hit after another until exhaustion allowed them enough freedom for a few hours’ sleep. Tilley couldn’t get them into programs. The waiting lists held hundreds of names. Instead, he talked them through the first couple of days, only to see them fall back into the drug. What they experienced, as their bodies threw off the coke, can only be described as terror.

  Both Moodrow and Tilley’s thoughts revolved around Levander and his mental and physical condition as they came down the stairs. Marlee and Louise Greenwood were already behind them; the hunt lay in front. What they didn’t anticipate was the fat cop huffing up the stairs to meet them. It was Sergeant Handelsman, the desk sergeant from PSU headquarters in building F, the man Tilley had met the first time they visited the Vladek Houses.

  “Moodrow,” he called, stopping and waiting for the two cops to reach him. “I thought you might still be up here. You better come out quick. Levander got another one, by the laundry room.

  He must have been waiting.” He stopped to catch his breath. “It’s Rose Carillo.”

  Curiously, Tilley and Moodrow had the same initial reaction, though for different reasons. They stopped in their tracks and tried to collect the rapid fire thoughts exploding in their brains.

  “Is she dead?” Tilley finally asked. His voice was barely a whisper. For an instant, he flashed back to his mother describing his fireman father’s death in an arsonist’s fire in the Bronx. He could clearly see the tears pouring down her face as she explained what a hero Daddy had been.