THE MELEDY SODA WORKS built in 1924 and long abandoned, still sits on top of a small hill overlooking Countess Moore High School in Staten Island. A perennial eyesore in a middle-class residential community, the local economic planning board has, on several occasions, resolved to have it demolished, but has yet to come up with the money. It lies, appropriately enough, on Meledy Road, which runs one short block between Merrill and Richmond Avenues, and its second floor still offers a clear view of the Rockport-Central Housing Development, fifteen dwellings arranged in a neat rectangle on four streets—Hillman Avenue, Morgan Lane, Leggett Place and Jardine Avenue. The single-story ranch homes are only three years old and still retain the raw look of newly landscaped developments. The maples are small, and their trunks, wrapped with burlap, and the azaleas, though carefully trimmed, have yet to grow to the level of the windows. A thief would see these streets as threatening, as offering no cover, no place to hide, but what is danger to the thief is opportunity to the assassin.
Nevertheless, on the night Effie Bloom drove the van past Countess Moore High School, the residents slept peacefully, prepared to wait out the years necessary for the neighborhood to mature. There was no one awake to observe her passage along the deserted street, no one to notice her park beside the empty factory. She turned to Johnny Katanos squatting in the back. “Good hunting,” she whispered, receiving a thin smile in return as he slipped through the rear doors, backpack in place. He move confidently in the darkness, going straight through the yard to a door in the southeast corner of the building. Bending back the already vandalized sheet-metal covering, he stepped quickly inside.
Most of the Meledy Soda Works consisted of a single, huge space, nearly three stories high, which held the machinery: enormous brass cookers and bottles by the thousands flowing along conveyor belts, that made the plant run. The machinery had long since been sold for salvage and the only clue remaining to the original use of the building was the broken glass covering the floor. Johnny moved through it without making a sound, pushing the glass ahead of him with the tip of his shoe. He felt the glass gave him an advantage because he would now be able to hear intruders from a long way off, while he, himself, would be absolutely silent. He kept one hand on the eastern wall as he slowly made his way north, pausing every few seconds to listen, straining for any presence beside his own. Within fifteen steps, he heard voices coming from the stairway and he flattened himself against the wall an instant before a match flared through an open doorway.
“Hey, baby, you wanna smoke?” The voice was heavy, a slurred, junkie croak.
“No, man, I’m cool.”
“What you mean, you cool? How you cool? You crazy?”
A snore, loud and choking with a sudden hitch at the end.
“Shit, this honky sleepin’ already. Hey, Jockamo, you sleepin’, man?” A pause, punctuated by increasingly loud snoring. “We gon’ take that mother off, man. Jus’ like I say. He easy. Gon’ be just like fallin’ asleep. Damn, I bet we get four, five thousand… You listenin’? I say thousands. And it just be sittin’ there waitin’. You got the piece, baby, so it be up to you.”
Johnny’s instructions had been clear and precise and, along with all the rest of the cell, he had agreed to them at the final planning session. He was to abort the operation in the face of unforeseen developments. Muzzafer had lectured at length on the danger of improvisation. “The changing of a plan,” he’d explained, “always sets forth a new series of causes and effects which are necessarily unpredictable. The true revolutionary is able to postpone an action, because he or she understands that victory is inevitable and personal satisfaction is counter-productive. Ultimately, success depends on our ability to act as a unit in all phases of an operation. You Americans all want to be cowboys, standing at ten paces with your six-guns blazing, but you must realize that you face a mechanical beast, a computerized gunslinger, and if you cannot match his efficiency, he will destroy you merely to be able to add you to the ‘solved’ file of his IBM.”
It took Johnny all of ten seconds to reject Muzzafer’s reasoning. Even as he heard the voices, he felt the sudden rush of blood to his face and throat. Slowly, ears straining, he lowered the pack to the floor, pulling a long, black hunting knife from a sheath strapped to his ankle. He had known many junkies on the Lower East Side. They shot up, spoke for a few moments, then fell into a trancelike sleep. These two were like fat, cage-raised guinea pigs suddenly tossed into a crate with a hungry python and, from this point of view, Johnny Katanos’ legitimate prey—an unexpected bonus for an assassin without politics.
Johnny moved slowly, silently, guided by the soft junkie breathing, until he was kneeling over the first man. He paused, waiting for the full rush of desire, then shot his hand forward, incredibly fast, closing off the mouth and nose. He experienced just a single pang of regret—it was too dark to look in the man’s eyes. Then he pushed the knife into the soft throat below his hand, through the veins and tendons, taking the rush of hot blood as his reward.
“Whass happenin’, man?”
Johnny’s leg snapped out, almost without his will, straight to the source of the words, striking the man across the mouth and driving his head back into the wall with such force the hapless junkie never felt Johnny’s weight pressed against his chest or the point of the knife as it thrust upward through the jaw tendons under his right ear, piercing almost to the center of the brain. Johnny twisted the knife back and forth, pushing against the junkie’s hip. It was close, so very close, and the night had only just begun.
Then he was all business again, seeming to throw off his ecstasy like a topcoat. He dragged the bodies under the stairwell, feeling his way through the darkness, and began to climb toward the second floor, pausing every few seconds, listening, tasting the damp odors of dust and mildew. He stopped at the head of a long hallway—fifteen steps to an office door on the left, sliding forward, gliding through the broken glass. A deep calm washed over him, relaxing the bunched muscles in his shoulders, a sense of the deepest and most profound purpose. As a street kid, equally afraid of the institution and the alternative foster home, survival gave his life its only meaning. Now there was more to it.
The office door opened silently and to eyes accustomed to the absolute darkness of the inner plant, the room seemed full of light. One north-facing window had had several cinder blocks knocked out by vandals and the faint glow of the city made a small pool of light in the far corner of the room. Johnny dropped the backpack, opening it quickly to pull out the pieces of his weapon. He began to assemble them immediately, his movements smooth and rapid due to hours of practice, though he paused again and again, always listening, and he did not look through the window, not even to glance at the street below, until he was finished and the first bullet chambered. Only then, at 3:30, did he begin to sight-in on the small home at 18 Jardine Avenue, residence of the neighborhood’s only celebrity.
Gerald Gutterman, three-term congressman and presently a judge in New York City’s civil court was not primarily known for his contribution to American politics, though he felt that he’d given his whole life to the service of his country and his people. An ardent Zionist since his college days at New York University in the fifties, he’d begun raising funds for Israel right after graduation and, declared his enemies in New York’s more liberal circles, he’d used his years in the House only to further the cause of the Jewish homeland. His name graced the letterheads of almost every Zionist organization and when he wasn’t selling Israeli Bonds or haranguing congressmen, he was organizing Jewish teens for summer work in the various agricultural and manufacturing communes called kibbutzim. He was a tireless worker, always full of energy. By 4 AM, he would be out of his bed and into the shower. By five o’clock, he would leave his home, already absorbed in the coming day’s activities and completely unaware of Johnny Katanos, rifle propped on a bipod, silencer secured, night-scope in place.
In some ways, for Johnny, the waiting, the anticipation was the best part of the operation. The moment of action would be gone almost before it occurred and he would be forced to occupy himself with disassembling his rifle and making good his escape. Now, eyes locked on the small, darkened home 250 yards away, he could afford the luxury of fantasy. He saw the congressman stepping out on the small porch, worked and reworked the scene until he could see every detail of face and clothing; saw his wife follow, clutching a robe against the early morning cold. She smiles at her husband, puts her arms around his neck, fingers linked, and pecks him playfully on the lips. They pull back slightly and just for a moment, Gerald Gutterman conjures an image from her girlhood. He sees a flash of copper hair, a firm breast, nipple almost piercing the palm of his hand, and then he is dead and the smile falls from the face of the old woman as the side of his head erupts, spraying her with bone and blood. Johnny Katanos rehearsed this moment again and again, changing the expression on her face: consternation, anguish, fear, especially fear, followed by a flash of recognition. He had her turn, somehow knowing his location, and their eyes lock, hers soft, gray, and his as black as the olives of Greece. Slowly, almost hypnotically, he slips another round into the chamber and takes careful aim.
At 4:15, a light went on at the rear of the house, in the bedroom, and then, a moment later, a smaller light in the bathroom. Once again, Johnny brought his attention to the doorway at 18 Jardine Avenue. He was using a Steyr-Mannlicher SSG, a .30-caliber rifle capable of placing a three-inch grouping in a small paper target at a distance of 500 yards, even with a sound suppressor attached. Finished with a Litton nightscope, a device able to amplify available light 40,000 times, it could, at 250 yards, in the hands of a professional, punch a hole in a mosquito’s ass by the light of a single star.
But Johnny was not a professional marksman. He was a good shot, even a gifted amateur, but the Steyr-Mannlicher, the assassin’s ‘green-gun,’ was too much weapon for him, and when his opportunity came, he missed his spot by half a foot. Gerald Gutterman came through his front door alone. He received no good-bye kiss from his wife who, in fact, had her own bedroom and was sleeping soundly, courtesy of the prior evening’s dose of chloral hydrate. As it turned out, the only witness to the opening round of Muzzafer’s war, was Peter DiLuria, a twelve-year-old newsboy out on his daily rounds. He was pedaling along Jardine Avenue, trying to pluck a Daily News from his canvas bag, when Johnny Katanos squeezed off his first and only shot. The bullet, six inches below its intended target on the side of his head, struck the judge just beneath his right collar bone, moved like a billiard shot from his ribs to his spine and then up through the trachea and into his brain, where it exploded with enough force to send his eyes sailing into the wet grass. There they lay, like two emeralds, waiting for Morris, the Guttermans’ cat, who would find and eat them within the hour, a totally unexpected treasure.
The AMERICAN RED ARMY announces the execution of the Zionist-Imperialist dog, Gerald Gutterman, for crimes against the peoples of the world. The AMERICAN RED ARMY demands an end to the fascist United States Government’s support of the Zionist state. The AMERICAN RED ARMY demands an end to the genocide practiced against the helpless peoples of El Salvador and Nicaragua. The AMERICAN RED ARMY demands that the Imperialist-Fascist United States Military remove its mercenaries from European soil and end its support of the illegal government in South Africa. The AMERICAN RED ARMY will never cease its activities until its demands are met. The VICTORY OF THE PEOPLE IS INEVITABLE.
Some days, as any worker knows, are better than others. There are, of course, no good ones, but, occasionally, one might, at least, pass quickly. A few, however, are so terrible, so degrading to the heart and spirit, that they require 50 milligrams of Valium and a pint of Jack Daniels just to get even. For Rita Melengic, Friday, March 23, fit neatly into the last category. Awakened at 9:15 AM by a desperate manager, she’d dragged herself out of bed, faced the reality of the bathroom mirror and gotten herself to the job by 11, despite having worked until two on the previous night. Her first hour passed uneventfully, but then, at 12:30, an effusive patron swung his arms into her path, knocking a tray of Budweiser drafts into her lap. Twenty minutes in a surprisingly (for once) clean lady’s room, had served to dry the black, polyester pants all the barmaids wore, but her heavy cotton panties remained damp, exuding a faint odor of sour beer. Then, with the entry of six Ukrainian construction workers, freed from their day’s toil by a sudden downpour, the pinching had begun. After an hour of pleading, Rita had had enough and simply refused to go near their table. However, in the spirit of good clean fun, one young man, his face smeared with soot, had taken a chair at an empty table, pretending to be angry with his comrades. When Rita passed by, carrying a tray laden with corned beef and brisket sandwiches, he turned quickly and with surprising strength, attempted to ram his left thumb into her rectum. All concerned thought this turn of events hilarious, until an incensed Rita smashed the offender with a Heinz ketchup bottle, opening a five-inch cut above his right eye and driving him, senseless, to the floor. His friends, even as they considered their revenge, found themselves surrounded by four off-duty cops who, while not exactly unsympathetic, knew of Rita and her relationship with Moodrow and could easily guess what the sergeant’s reaction might be if they allowed five Ukrainians to kick his old lady’s ass. The Ukrainians, recent immigrants from the Soviet police state, never even bothered to question the justice of the situation. They simply retrieved their fallen comrade and made a hasty exit.
Nevertheless, the bar’s manager, Ramon Iglesia, had been less than understanding, declaring that pinches and pokes are part and parcel of a bardmaid’s existence and, while not exactly to be encouraged, need not be met with first-degree assault, especially when the customers are still able to drink. Rita hadn’t furthered her cause by calling Mr. Iglesia a “subhuman piece of shit” and, in fact, had, not for the first time, been fired on the spot. Her disposition was unimproved by the cold spring drizzle or the thought of Stanley Moodrow, who was waiting for her at home.
Thus she pounded up First Avenue, not even bothering to dodge the inevitable winos. She simply shouldered them aside, all the while imagining Moodrow, still in his underwear, waiting for dinner, or, better still, with the parts of his .38 Special spread across the kitchen table, a can of Schaefer in his hand. The image infuriated her and by the time she got to her doorway, she was ready to step on a butterfly, so it was not surprising that, upon finding a fully dressed Moodrow, pen in hand, writing doggedly, she responded, her curiosity excited in spite of everything, by shouting. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
Moodrow turned to her, deadpan. “I’m writing a letter.”
“A letter? Who could you write a letter to?”
“Ann Landers.”
“Ann Landers.” Almost a smile, “Are you kidding me? I’m not in the mood, Stanley.”
Moodrow stared serenely into her eyes, face so straight it drooped. “I’m serious. I write Ann every month. I used to write to Dear Abby, but I had to quit her. Too conservative.”
Rita hesitated momentarily, finally deciding that Moodrow was putting her on. Once again her voice rose. “Why would you write a letter to Ann Landers?”
He smiled for the first time, showing small, closely set teeth. “Listen, I got problems, too. You think I’m just a big, meathead cop, but lemme tell you something, Rita, this is America and in America anybody can write to anybody they want. Anybody.”
Resigned, Rita sat down on the other side of the table. “OK, I give up. Read the damn thing.”
“Dear Ann. I am a married man who has been married for nearly twenty-three years and the Lord knows how I do love my wife and my marriage is as good as they get. But lately something terrible has happened because my wife stated that she is no longer happy with our sex life. What with six kids she says she has gotten so big that she can’t feel a goddamn thing. Well you can imagine my surprise, as I have always enjoyed having sex with my wife, especially when she asked me would I consider doing it in her rear end because that way she could feel something again. Now I don’t know what to do and I have made all sorts of excuses because to tell the truth many years ago I made a solemn vow to my dick. I said ‘Dick, as long as there is pussy in this world I will never give you a shitty deal.’ As you know a vow is an immortal thing and not something a man can just take back because his wife bends over, so I would appreciate your advice as soon as possible. I love my wife very much but am TORN TO PIECES.”