Fifteen minutes later, they were standing in the shadows of a basement apartment on 11th Street and Moodrow was turning the key in the door. Inside, he displayed the small vial, packed in its own emergency syringe. “Know what this is, Jimmy?”
Jimmy looked at Moodrow uncomprehendingly. The roller coaster was spinning faster and faster. Rose’s speech to Moodrow both thrilled and stunned Tilley. He hated the idea of himself as Moodrow’s pawn, but if Rose wanted him to come back…“Just tell me, Stanley. I’m not in the mood for guessing games.”
“This here chemical is called Narcan. I got it courtesy of a nurse at St. Vincent’s. What it does…”
“I know what it does,” Tilley said. “I’ve seen it used a thousand times on junkies with an o.d. It takes the dope right out of their bodies.”
Moodrow grinned. “Whatta ya think’s gonna happen if we shoot it up into Pinky Mitchell?”
Pinky Mitchell was sound asleep in the bathroom, but his wrists were bloody from attempts to pull them through the cuffs. Tilley took him by the hair and pulled him erect. “Wake up, Pinky. We got a little surprise for you.” He ripped the shirt off Mitchell’s back, exposing scarred arms, the veins raised and leathery or invisible altogether. Two pus-filled abscesses leaked clear fluid from below his left bicep to the blood on his wrists.
“What you gonna do to me?” Pinky groaned, obviously still stoned.
“We’re gonna bring you down, motherfucker,” Tilley said, taking the vial from Moodrow and pushing it into Mitchell’s face.
Pinky’s eyes flicked from the vial in Tilley’s hand to the white packets lying on the sink. “Why you wanna put that shit up in me?” he asked. “That’s medicine, man. You ain’t no doctor. You can’t put no medicine in me.”
“That means you know what it is?”
“Sure. I overdosed about ten times. I seen it plenty, man.”
“Listen, Pinky,” Moodrow interrupted, his voice gentle. “We don’t want you. We want the man who gave you the Blue Thunder. You tell us and you just walk away.”
“Levander Greenwood, man. He gave it to me. Everybody knows he took that shit, man. On Eldridge Street. He ripped it off and I bought it to sell.”
“You bought it?” Tilley’s voice crackled with rage. “You haven’t had two cents in the last five years and you tell me you bought it? I hate fucking liars. I hate ’em.”
“Say, Pinky,” Moodrow interrupted, his voice still calm, “is the reason you won’t tell us where you got the dope because the man who gave you the dope is a policeman?” Pinky’s eyes opened wide and Moodrow continued. “Because we already know it’s a policeman, but we don’t know which one. That’s our only problem. Which one.”
They waited, the two cops, for Pinky to make a decision, but when the junkie held his silence, Moodrow and Tilley silently went to work. Moodrow held Mitchell’s right arm immobile, while Tilley searched for a vein. Being neither medic nor junkie, it took nearly five minutes before Mitchell’s blood rose into the bottom of the vial and Tilley forced the Narcan into the junkie’s bloodstream.
The effect was virtually instantaneous. Mitchell began to shiver and to scratch his face against the bathroom wall. The sweat was already pouring from his hair down into his face and over his chest. Then he threw up. Again and again and again. Finally, his head swiveled to the dope on the sink. “How do I know you’ll let me shoot up? How do I know you won’t just bust me?”
Moodrow reached into his jacket pocket and removed a syringe, still in the wrapper, a candle and a spoon. He laid all three on the sink. “We don’t want to arrest you, Pinky. I swear to God we don’t want you at all. I know you probably don’t believe me. Maybe cops have lied to you before. So why don’t we do this. You give me the name, then we’ll let you inject the heroin while we go over the details.”
Even as he considered the deal, Mitchell’s body was wracked by another cramp. When he’d pulled himself together, he turned back to Moodrow. There was no remorse on his face. The pain was overwhelming. “It’s a big, fat detective from the 7th Precinct. Kirkpatrick’s his name. A fat mick with a red face. That’s as much as I’m gonna say until I get well.”
Moodrow rocked back in his chair, then turned and looked down at the floor as if considering something utterly private. Tilley thought back to their meetings with Kirkpatrick. Neither of them had had a clue and Tilley was sure Moodrow must be seeing it as a personal betrayal.
“Sure, Pinky, you don’t have to say no more.” Moodrow sat up, pulling himself together. His eyes were black marbles set in white granite. “And thanks. Enjoy the dope, but don’t get so stoned you can’t talk, because if you’re lying to me, I’m gonna walk out of here and this time I won’t come back for a week.”
Mitchell didn’t bother to listen. The moment his wrists and ankles were free, he stepped to the sink and knelt before it like a nun taking Holy Communion. Slowly and very carefully (his hands were still shaking), he filled the syringe with water, then squirted the water into the spoon. The dope followed, all of it, and without being asked, Moodrow lit the candle. Mitchell cooked the mixture until it began to bubble, then left the soup to cool while he removed his belt and twisted it into a tourniquet. His veins had long ago retreated to the bone and, even though he was better than Tilley, he had to probe again and again before he finally drew blood into the syringe, until he could push the load home.
The transformation was miraculous. The sickness simply vanished and he began cleaning himself as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened to him. It was a snake oil salesman’s dream; a powder that cures sickness, instantaneously and completely. That the powder causes the illness in the first place is not, of course, the salesman’s problem. Moodrow waited patiently until Mitchell was finished, then all went into the main room for a talk.
The interrogation didn’t take long. Pinky Mitchell had begun his informing career after Kirkpatrick accidentally caught him boosting shirts in Macy’s. That had been six years ago and at first their relationship had followed the normal cop-informant pattern. Then, more than a year ago, Kirkpatrick had occasionally begun to supply him with heroin for sale. The split was seventy-thirty, in Kirkpatrick’s favor. Considerably better than the dollar-a-bag profit Pinky ordinarily made on his merchandise.
Mitchell sat in a chair while he told his story. His chin lay on his chest and he seemed unconcerned, though he made no effort to hold back. When he was done, Moodrow delivered the bad news.
“You gotta go back inside now, Pinky,” he said quietly. “Back in the toilet. You’re gonna stay with us for another day or two.”
The junkie’s eyes darted around the room as he weighed the possibility of escape. As if his doped-up body had any chance of getting to that door before Jim Tilley got to him. Gently, Moodrow took his wrist and tugged him to his feet, leading him back across the room.
“This ain’t fair,” Pinky whined. “I did what you wanted, didn’t I? Please let me go.”
“I can’t take a chance you’re lying or that you might run. Here, I’ll leave this with you so you don’t get sick.” He showed Pinky the small bags he held in his hand, then pushed them into the junkie’s pocket. Inside the bathroom, he cuffed one of Mitchell’s wrists to the pipe. With his legs and the other arm free, Pinky would be able to reach the sink. And the dope.
“Before I go, there’s something I want you to think about,” Moodrow said. “You remember that Italian I mentioned before? I’m gonna have to tell him about you, so if you go back on the street, he’s gonna kill you. What do you think about that?”
Apparently, Pinky Mitchell didn’t think too much of it. He shrugged his shoulders and when he spoke his voice was slurred. He was beginning to nod. “What am I supposed to do? Go back to Ol’ Virginny?”
“Look, if you want, I can get you into a program. There’s a place in Staten Island. Detox for the first two weeks, then talk for a month. I’ll give you a name to ask for and they’ll take you right in. Six weeks from now, you can go where
ver you want. No more dope chains. That’s all I could do for you, Pinky. That’s it.”
The junkie stared at Moodrow for a long time. He was as surprised as Tilley was by Moodrow’s offer. Finally, he smiled. “It don’t matter, anyway, man. It don’t matter worth a shit.”
“Why’s that, Pinky?” Moodrow asked.
“I got the virus, man. I’m just killin’ time.”
28
MOODROW LEFT THE BUILDING at a dead trot. He cursed his way to a pharmacy across Second Avenue where he bought a bottle of rubbing alcohol. Outside, by the gutter, he poured the contents of the bottle, first over one hand and then over the other. Tilley wanted to ask him about Gretchen, if he’d used a rubber. If he’d been careful. The club scene on the Lower East Side is notoriously promiscuous. Proudly promiscuous. And riddled with part-time dopers who may or may not be above the sharing of needles. Tilley flashed back to Gretchen’s butt as she walked matter-of-factly into Moodrow’s bedroom. How could he know where she’d been? Or what she’d done? Or who she’d done it with? Then he thought of Rose and Levander and kept his mouth shut.
The alcohol evaporated readily in the heat and Moodrow’s hands were dry even before he stopped rubbing them together.
“Remind me to throw that cup away,” he said. “As soon as we get back. And buy rubber gloves, too.”
“You can’t get AIDS from saliva,” Tilley reminded him.
“Then remind me to shove it up your ass where you can get AIDS.” He wiped his face, then stared at his hands for a moment. “I don’t like this shit, Jimmy. I don’t like when little things you can’t see get inside you and kill you. It’s not a right way to die. I mean that syringe is as deadly as my .38. How can that be? What about the blood on his hands? How do I know I didn’t touch it?”
Finally, Tilley couldn’t resist. “What about Gretchen? No risk there?”
“Are you kidding?” He stared at his partner in disbelief. “Okay, so it took me thirty-five years to learn how to do it right. I still cover my tongue with Saran Wrap. I don’t wanna die like that.” He turned and walked to the corner, to the wire trash can, and threw the bottle and cap into it. Tilley followed slowly, as befits a smartass put in his place.
“It’s done now,” Tilley said. “But if you want, I’ll clean up the apartment after we come back for Pinky.”
The relief on Moodrow’s face was almost comical, like he was a puppy about to lick his mama’s nose. Not that Tilley wanted Moodrow’s saliva on his flesh—you can’t be too careful. He thought of Rose, of her legs pulled back against her chest, of running his tongue along the inside of her thigh. Then he saw her in a hospital bed, heard her shallow breathing.
“You’re right,” Moodrow said, his voice a little steadier. “Look, I’m gonna call Higgins. I think we should get her in on this.”
“I thought you didn’t want anybody there?”
Moodrow smiled suddenly, his eyes turning inward for a second, then declared, “Don’t worry about Higgins. She’s as safe as me. I’m not saying we should take her along, but you don’t have to worry that she’ll snitch. Plus she’ll advise us how to cover our asses. There’s a big potential to fuck it up here, Jimmy. In ways that could end your career, at the least.”
The pay phone on 10th and 2nd was being used by a short dumpy woman in a white polka dot dress that spread out across her rump like a tablecloth on a picnic table. Behind her, a Spanish guy sporting tattooed forearms was already muttering about the wait. There was a second phone there, but someone had torn the receiver off.
There was no chance that Moodrow would hang around until the phone was free, but it was too hot to be trotting off to the next one, only to find the same problem. He gave the stores a quick look, then led Tilley to Ben’s Hardware, about a third of the way down the block. It was only 7:30 and the Manhattan traffic was just starting to build, but inside the store, a tiny old man with a yarmulke pinned to the fringe of hair above his ears fussed with his merchandise. The fixtures in the store were ancient. Old barrels filled with odd boiler parts, bits of pipe, assorted valves, nails, stove bolts, cotter pins ran along the south wall. Tools and electrical supplies—plugs, wire, extension cords, fuses, switches—lay in boxes along the north wall. In the back, sheets of glass were stacked against each other, ready to be cut to the size of whatever window the junkies had broken this time. Ben’s Hardware was one of the last of a dying breed in New York. Sooner or later, Ben’s lease would run out and he would retire in the face of an astronomical rent increase. The new owners, if they stayed in the same business, would replace the barrels with small appliances, the cans of white paint with textured wallpaper.
“Good morning, Sergeant,” the old man said politely. “How are you today?”
“I’m fine,” Moodrow responded. “I wanna introduce you to my new partner, Detective Tilley. Jimmy, this is Ben Karpman. When I was a kid, my father used to send me here for nails and light-bulbs. Ben, you think I could use your phone?”
“Certainly, Sergeant. It would be my pleasure. And while you’re in the back, there’s seltzer in the ice box next to the telephone, for an egg cream. Also, sweet sodas. Help yourself. You too, Detective Tilley. Please, take whatever you want. Cool yourself.”
Moodrow settled for the telephone, only to find out that Higgins was on her way to the Criminal Courts building on Centre Street, to file a motion in a homicide case. She offered to meet them there, in Part 16, but Moodrow declined. “See us later,” he said. “Around noon. At my apartment.” He listened for a few seconds, then added. “One o’clock? I guess it’ll wait till then. It’ll have to.”
The phone back in its place, Moodrow helped himself to a couple of Orange Crush sodas, thanked Ben Karpman and led Tilley out of the store. Without discussing it, they understood that the precinct house (which Moodrow called “the station house”) was their next stop. While Tilley drove down Second Avenue toward Delancey, Moodrow kept up a running stream of commentary. At first, he confined his talk to tactics. They could probably locate Kirkpatrick by checking his paper trail. His address would be on his 10-Card, his working status on the Duty Roster. Even his love life would be captured on the “vulva file,” an informal (and voluntary) list of addresses where detectives can be located in an emergency.
No, Paul Kirkpatrick would not be hard to find. The problem would be to isolate him, to talk to him alone. That might take time and there was no way to predict when Levander would go off again. Of course, they could have taken Pinky Mitchell straight to Internal Affairs and let them fry Kirkpatrick until he gave up Levander Greenwood. Internal Affairs would be glad to accept responsibility for the butchering of the 7th. It would be no problem if Moodrow wanted to sidestep the issue.
But there was no real chance of that. Tilley was convinced that Moodrow would shoot them both before he’d go to the headhunted. He was committed to the “blue wall of silence” in a way that post-Vietnam recruits will never understand. He would sacrifice his children before he’d betray another cop. Of course, not having any children, there was no way Tilley could be sure that he, Tilley, wouldn’t make a suitable substitute and he considered this flash of insight while Moodrow shifted the talk to his memories of a young Irish cop who’d followed him onto the job.
“Kirkpatrick wasn’t a bad cop. Just mean, which was all right in 1958, when you could bang heads together until somebody said, “I did it,” and the confession would stand up. Kirkpatrick’s problem was he couldn’t handle the Knapp Commission and the bullshit paperwork that came in afterwards. The brass got so crazy about image, they dreamed they could protect the department with paper. Mountains of fucking paper. Until half of every tour was triplicate forms or waiting around for some assistant D.A. to check the forms or drinking coffee in the Police Room at the courts while the lawyers jerked each other off.
“Kirkpatrick never got behind it. He made detective early, but, after Knapp, he became a hairbag overnight. Just do the least and take it on home. I was sure he’d retire wh
en he finished his twenty, but his wife got sick about fifteen years ago. She went senile when she was only forty years old and he sunk down even lower. The job is like family after a while, especially to an Irish who didn’t make any kids. There’s no way he could leave without being thrown out. I got fifty bucks says Kirkpatrick ain’t been laid in five years. And that he kicks ass on every piece of shit he brings into the house. And another fifty that his partner helps him. And a thousand says he’s got medical bills piled to the fucking ceiling.”
“You think he’s in it with O’Neill?” The question had been rattling around, waiting for a place to surface.
“Maybe. But Mitchell told us he never saw anyone but Kirkpatrick. If Mitchell became Kirkpatrick’s snitch because Kirkpatrick just happened onto him in Macy’s, there’s a good chance O’Neill’s clear. By the way, O’Neill’s a bigshot in the Holy Name Society. Novenas. First Fridays. Communion Breakfasts. You know about that, right?”
“Yeah, I know.” As a rookie, he’d been heavily recruited by the Emerald Society, an association of Irish-American cops, and by the Holy Name Society. He’d joined the first, declined the latter.
“It doesn’t mean he couldn’t be turned, but I have a feeling that O’Neill confines his felonies to assaulting dark-skinned criminals. Probably figures they deserve it anyway. But O’Neill is not our problem. And neither is Kirkpatrick. Levander Greenwood is the game. Kirkpatrick’s only the map. If we can get him alone and keep him away from the lawyers and talk real, real sweet.”
Higgins didn’t arrive until nearly two, waking Moodrow and Tilley who’d jumped for the covers and their last chance at a few hours sleep as soon as they’d come into Moodrow’s apartment. Higgins had been delayed by the arrest of a middle-level coke dealer with a penchant for violence and a string of dead bodies trailing back to his arrival in Miami. A marielito, a Cuban criminal released by Castro and carried across the Atlantic by a yachtsmen-smuggler eager for the bucks and the contacts, he had been recruited into the life before he’d reached the two mile limit. His arrest was quite a feather in the department’s cap. It guaranteed a thirty second clip on the eleven o’clock news and a page three headline, with photo, in the tabloids. Higgins had stayed to make sure there was no fuckup at the arraignment and that the chain of evidence was intact.
Force of Nature Page 26