LEONORA HIGGINS WAS THE first to arrive. An old friend of both Moodrow and Tilley, she hugged each in turn, then held Moodrow at arm’s length. “Damn, Stanley,” she said, “you’re even more rumpled than when you were a cop.”
Moodrow smiled for the first time that day. “And what about you?” He pointed to her outfit. “You got no business draggin’ that Vogue bullshit down to this neighborhood.”
Leonora, an Assistant District Attorney who ordinarily dressed in tailored navy business suits, performed an obliging twirl. “It’s the new me,” she declared. “What do ya think?”
She was wearing a white cotton tank top over cotton pants that rose almost to her breasts and a white duster that hung to her ankles. The effect was made even more startling by her dark brown skin and a coarsely woven tribal scarf in the brightest shades of red, orange, and blue.
“You look uptown,” Moodrow said flatly. “You always dressed a little uptown, but now you’re doing the penthouse.”
Leonora, frowning, poured herself a cup of coffee and took a seat at the kitchen table. “Screw you, Stanley. I knew you when you were nuts.” She added milk and sugar to the coffee and stirred it slowly. “They’re talking District Attorney for me, Stanley. Serious people. I’m on my way to a dinner party after we get finished here. With the kind of people who make District Attorneys.”
“Congratulations. With a little luck, you may get to prosecute me someday.” Moodrow turned away. His contempt for administrators came as no surprise to either Higgins or Tilley. “The only thing you could do with a fucked-up system,” he continued, “is once in a while stuff something decent through the cracks. Most everything you do as a cop just feeds the bullshit politicians. It doesn’t do shit about crime and it doesn’t make the people any safer. But when you get to be a Commissioner or a District Attorney all the cracks disappear. Then you’re just a slave to the same vultures who’ve been eating this city for two hundred years.”
Higgins smiled. Moodrow’s reaction was expected, but it stung, nevertheless. Curious…the names of the people pushing her to make a run could be found on the pages of New York’s newspapers almost everyday. Why should she look to this old dinosaur for approval?
“Do you know about the fire and what’s going on in Jackson Heights?” Tilley asked diplomatically.
Leonora shook her head and Moodrow went through the history of the Jackson Arms, from the change of ownership to the smoky fire that had killed Sylvia Kaufman. When he’d finished, she took his hand and apologized for her flippant mood.
“Forget about it,” Moodrow said. “Tell me what you make of the murder.”
“Are you talking about the woman who died in the fire?” she asked.
“Of course.”
“What makes you think it was murder?”
“It was murder.” Moodrow, obviously annoyed at this second challenge to his instincts, was sharp, but not sharp enough to intimidate his old friend.
“Don’t bullshit me, Stanley,” she replied evenly. “If any cop had the nerve to bring this to my office looking for warrants, I’d laugh him all the way back to the precinct.”
“Look, Leonora,” Moodrow insisted, “don’t worry about the proof. I didn’t call you here because I want some kind of a warrant. I wanna find out who owns three buildings on a quiet block in Jackson Heights. Now I plan to speak personally to the management company and the lawyer who’s representing the landlord, but I have grave doubts the prick from the management is gonna tell me anything and talking to lawyers is like howling at the moon. In other words, I’m gonna make the effort, but most likely I’m just wasting time. On the other hand, I also know that landlords have to register with HPD. That’s the city, right? Housing Preservation and Development? And I also think there’s some new state agency that registers base rents for apartments. I was hoping you might be able to tap into these departments. See what’s in the files.”
Higgins grinned (as did Tilley) with admiration. “You always were a practical son of a bitch,” she observed. “Even after Rita, you did all the logical things. Sure, it wouldn’t be any trouble at all for me to pull the files. I could do HPD tomorrow and probably get to DHCR within a couple of days. The Department of Housing and Community Renewal. That’s the state agency that watches the city agency that watches the landlords get rich.” She burst out laughing. “This isn’t really funny, but it shows how hard it is to stop the decay. There was a building I was involved with on Pitt Street, right here on the Lower East Side. A landlord named Furman bought it for $300,000, and two weeks later the back wall started to collapse. The landlord wouldn’t make repairs, so the tenants took it to Housing Court, whereupon the judge ordered an inspection. The inspector told the court the wall could go at any minute, so the judge issued a vacate order that made every tenant homeless. Still, the tenants didn’t give up. They went back into Housing Court to force the landlord to repair the building. The Housing Judge ruled for the tenants (despite the landlord’s claim that it would cost more than he paid for the building to put it back in shape), but the landlord appealed to the Appellate Court, a process that ate up about nine months, during which the empty building continued to fall apart. Finally, two weeks before the Appellate Court affirmed the lower court ruling, there were six separate fires and the roof collapsed. Now it’s an empty lot waiting for gentrification.”
Betty Haluka arrived next, along with Sergeant Paul Dunlap. She’d lost both her parents years before; Sylvia Kaufman was all that remained of her childhood. Instinctively, she allowed herself to be wrapped in Stanley Moodrow’s arms for a moment, then pulled away. His arms were enormous; they enclosed her completely and she was afraid that if she stayed in them for more than a moment, she would never have the courage to come out. When she pulled away, though, she was dry-eyed.
“Are you sure you want to go ahead with this?” Moodrow asked.
“More than anything,” she replied. “There’s really nothing else for me to do.”
Moodrow, his face neutral, introduced Dunlap to Tilley and Higgins. Leonora smiled briefly on learning that Betty worked for Legal Aid. As an Assistant DA, most of the lawyers she faced in court worked for Legal Aid. To some extent, no matter how civilized the contest, the participants in an adversary proceeding are bound to look at each other as competitors. “Where do you work?” she asked.
“I’ve been working with the Prisoners’ Rights Project for the last six months. We’re trying to do something about Rikers Island.”
Rikers Island, which lies right next to LaGuardia Airport in Queens, contains seven separate jails, and houses more than 18,000 prisoners. A federal judge named Morris Lasker had called it one of the most violent jails in America and various reform groups had been trying to change it for years.
“That’s probably why I haven’t run into you,” Leonora returned. “I’ve been doing a lot of work in Manhattan recently.”
Moodrow, who recognized the natural antagonism, but knew it wouldn’t interfere with his plans (there was no chance he’d let it interfere), turned his attention to Paul Dunlap. Dunlap was an NYPD sergeant, while he, Moodrow, was a retired cop with a private investigator’s license. There was no reason to suppose that Dunlap would submit to Moodrow’s authority, but Moodrow had already decided to dump him in favor of Jim Tilley if he refused.
“Did you go to the captain?” Moodrow asked. Shaking Dunlap’s hand, he was surprised to find it nearly as big as his own.
“Yeah,” Dunlap returned, careful to keep his voice matter-of-fact even though he was bursting with excitement. It was like being let out of prison. “The captain wants to treat it like a homicide. At least until the fire marshal says otherwise. It seems the pastor over at St. Ann’s has been calling him three times a day about the troubles in the Jackson Arms.”
It had been Moodrow’s idea, but Dunlap had carried it through. Though he had little experience with crime, Dunlap knew every priest, reverend, and rabbi in the One One Five. St. Ann’s pastor, Father John Casserino, though by no means a drunk or anything close to it, had a certain fondness for Scotch whiskey and the company of Community Affairs Officer Paul Dunlap, who regaled him with fabricated stories of rapes and robberies and murders. So it was no trouble for Father John, who’d been listening to complaints about the Jackson Arms from a number of parishioners, to put a bug in Precinct Commander George Serrano’s ear about the same time Porky Dunlap wandered into Serrano’s office, humbly requesting that he be allowed to follow up on the suspicious fire on 37th Avenue. Since “follow up,” in Serrano’s estimation, meant no more than waiting for the fire marshal’s report, the Precinct Commander had readily agreed.
“You wanna play cops and robbers, Dunlap?” Serrano had burst out laughing.
“It’s not that, Captain. It’s just that I know some of the people there…”
“Say no more, Dunlap. It’s your case. I spoke to the fire marshal about an hour ago and he’ll be at the scene tomorrow morning. Adios, and don’t miss no speeches.”
The final member of Moodrow’s task force arrived ten minutes later. Short, immensely barrel-chested, his dark hair glistening, Jorge Rivera nodded shyly to the others. As a tenant of the Jackson Arms, he had as much right to be there as any of the others, but, as usual in the presence of native-born Americans, he found himself tongue-tied.
“George,” Moodrow said, automatically Anglicizing Rivera’s first name, “lemme introduce you to my friends.” After the handshakes and the smiles, he continued, addressing the whole group. “I spoke to George Rivera yesterday and he’s agreed to act as our contact with the other tenants. I picked him because he does volunteer work, which is to say that he’s an active man. As opposed to most people who only exercise their mouths. Now I know it’s too soon after the fire and I’m supposed to wait until people recover, but I don’t think we have the time. Not that I’m saying I know what’s going on, because I don’t, but I’m sure that there’s no random happenings here. Somebody’s got a long-term plan and that somebody has a big headstart on us. If we wait even a few days, the fire marshal is gonna bury his report, along with every bit of evidence from the fire scene. This is also true for the evictions that went out last week. They’ll be moving into court while we cry into our hankies. I don’t like to put it so hard, but that’s what I think is happening.”
It was Betty’s place to affirm or deny Moodrow’s speech, and she affirmed it without a second thought. “My role here, as I see it,” she began, her voice strong, her eyes fixed on Moodrow, “is to try to slow down the deterioration within the building. As soon as we can get together a tenants’ petition, I’ll start an HP action in Tenant-Landlord Court. The judge will order an inspection and, when the report comes back, follow up with whatever repairs are needed. That’ll get us started. Hopefully, with Mr. Rivera…”
“Jorge,” Rivera broke in, pronouncing it Hor-hay, with the accent on the first syllable. “Please.”
“If Jorge can give me some help, I’ll interview any tenant who’s received an eviction notice. I’ve been temporarily transferred to Legal Aid’s Tenant-Landlord division, small as it is, and I’ll be able to stay there indefinitely. Plus, I’ll have the use of a paralegal who’s familiar with the field. I spoke to him yesterday, right after Stanley called me. His name is Innocencio Kavecchi. He told me that we can start an action in Supreme Court instead of Housing Court. It’s possible, though unlikely, the judge will issue an injunction ordering the landlord to stop harassing the tenants if the eviction notices—they’re called dispossess notices, actually; eviction notices come after the judge makes a decision—are completely without foundation. Either way, it’ll serve to let all interested parties know that we intend to fight.”
“I already have this with the evictions,” Jorge Rivera announced. “I have been collectin’ a list of tenants with eviction notices and makin’ copies. I was gonna take them down to the Council on Housing, where they said they might be able to help us with a lawyer, but if you’re gonna do this, it’s even better. I know all these tenants personally now, and I ask respectfully to please don’ make no mistakes. These are my friends.” He handed a manila envelope to Betty Haluka. “Most of the evictions say the tenants haven’t been payin’ no rents. The tenants say they mail the checks, but the checks don’ get cashed. Anyway, it’s only one or two months. Nobody gets thrown out in New York for not payin’ one or two months’ rent, but some people are scared, anyway.”
“Let me read these over tonight,” Betty said, accepting the envelope. “We’ll do interviews over the next few days.”
Leonora Higgins followed with a quick rundown of the two agencies involved in regulating New York real estate. “I should be able to get you a profile of the landlord within a few days. It’s all on computer now. And there’s one other possibility I hadn’t thought of before. The building is almost certainly owned by a corporation. I can’t say I’m up on corporate law, but every corporation doing business in New York has to file tax returns and I think the original charter, which would be on file with the Department of State in Albany, lists the president and the treasurer. They might not be stockholders, but they’d be a good place to start if you wanted to find the stockholders.”
“Perfect,” Moodrow declared when Leonora had finished. “I’m glad everybody took the time to come down here. I thought we needed to get started right away, but it’s too soon to meet out in Queens. Better to let the people get over the…Better let them get over what happened.” He surprised himself by not being able to say the word “death,” but refused to spend any time thinking about it. Dunlap was next and Moodrow had to find some way to let the sergeant know that he was working under Stanley Moodrow without driving him away. Of course, if Moodrow had known that Porky Dunlap was so eager to be a cop he’d willingly serve under the deadest hairbag juicer, in or out of the job, he might have been a little more confident. Nevertheless, finesse not being one of Moodrow’s greater accomplishments, he launched into his own plan.
“Sergeant Dunlap and me are gonna investigate the arson. It’s too much coincidence that it happened to start right under the apartment of the leader of the tenants’ association and that the way it went off there was no damage, except smoke, to any part of the building. We’re gonna make sure nobody buries this fire, because it’s too hard to prove arson one way or the other. That’s tomorrow, right, Paul?”
Dunlap, caught off guard, could do no better than affirm Moodrow. “Yeah, the marshals gonna be on the scene tomorrow morning.”
“Whatta ya say we join him? Look over his shoulder.”
Dunlap shrugged. “No problem,” he said.
“Once we finish up with the fire marshal,” Moodrow continued smoothly, “we’ll talk to Precision Management and at least get the name of the lawyer representing the landlord. We can also press Rosenkrantz for an exact schedule of repairs. Not that he’s gonna do anything, but the sooner we expose him for a liar, the sooner the other tenants’ll come to the association.” Moodrow turned his attention to Jorge Rivera. “In the end, it don’t matter what we do here, if the tenants don’t hold together. It’s your home, Jorge. You gotta stand up and fight or you won’t be able to live there six months from now.”
Much to Moodrow’s relief, Dunlap had made no protest at Moodrow’s assertion of his own authority and Moodrow was ready to dismiss the group, when someone knocked firmly on the door. Moodrow, who was anxious to be alone with Betty, called out for his visitor to enter. The short, thin young man who pushed the door open was a stranger to everybody.
“Hi,” the man called out, his active features seeming to go in all directions at the same time. “My name’s Innocencio Kavecchi. Forget the ‘Innocencio.’ Call me, Ino. Eeeee-no. I’m third generation, right, but my father had this weird sense of humor. Is this the place where I can find Betty Haluka?”
“I’m Betty Haluka,” Betty said. “You’re the paralegal, right?”
“That’s me,” Kavecchi said. “Eight years with Legal Aid. Talk about your basic death-in-life, right? The whole time with the housing division. There’s nine parts in Manhattan Tenant-Landlord Court and I know every judge in every part. I can walk over to HPD and talk personally to every clerk on the floor. You need a printout on violations for a building, but the landlord should never know, so you don’t wanna write up an order? Ten bucks during business hours. Twenty at night. I tell ya, boys and girls, when it comes to housing, I’m an effing freak.”
“What about evictions?” Jorge Rivera interrupted. As a man who coveted his own dignity, he was offended by the paralegal’s strident voice and sharp mannerisms. “Can you do somethin’ for evictions?”
“Actual evictions? That gets hard.”
“He means dispossess notices,” Betty broke in.
“I got it.” Kavecchi turned back to Rivera. “Legit dispossess or b.s.?”
“The second,” Jorge replied.
“For b.s. evictions, we go into Supreme Court and say, ‘Your honor, my clients will suffer irreparable harm if not given immediate injunctive relief.’ Then the judge says, ‘Get yer ass outta my courtroom and back to Tenant-Landlord Court before I report you to the Ethics Committee of the New York State Bar Association for terminal stupidity.’ Then you go to the Tenant-Landlord Court and, if you got all your tenants organized, you consolidate the cases and only have to go into court once. That’s for a baseless dispossess. For a legitimate dispossess, we use time. There’s eight judges hearing landlord complaints and there’s thousands of complaints. Ya think ya just hop in and outta there? I mean in Tenant-Landlord Court you could stretch time as thin as the security in a welfare hotel. Ten months to a year before the landlord can get a tenant off his property.”
“What about complaints against the landlord?” Dunlap asked. “How much time does the landlord get?”
“Same thing for both sides, right? Fair is fair. If you could stretch out your problems, why shouldn’t the landlord be able to stretch out his? And don’t forget, you got eight judges hearing landlord complaints in Manhattan every day. There’s only one judge hearing tenant complaints. But it’s the same in every court. If all you need is time, you could make it go on practically forever.”
Betty was sitting at the foot of the bed, her back to Moodrow. She was dressed for bed in a gray T-shirt and a pair of white gym shorts with a thin red stripe running along each hip. Moodrow, who knew she was thinking about her Aunt Sylvia, watched her sturdy, muscular body carefully, noting both the wide back and the slumped shoulders.
“Are you ever afraid to die?” Betty asked without turning around. Her voice was softer than usual, but there was curiosity there, too.
“I don’t think so,” Moodrow answered quickly. “I know it’s hard to be sure about something like that, but I think I’m more scared of other people dying.”
“But you’ve been in situations where you might die?” she persisted. “Where you had to arrest someone who turned out to be armed, for instance.”
“Actually, the fires are the worst. Where you have to go inside and try to warn the people. I’m not that good about fires. I don’t know what could happen, and most of the time I didn’t have any backup.”
“Were you afraid in the fires?”
“Definitely. But even fires weren’t the worst. No, the most I was ever scared was in a fight I had with an EDP on a roof. That’s ‘Emotionally Disturbed Person’ for you civilians. The guy thought I was a devil. He called me ‘Moloch.’ Kept screaming, ‘We die together, Moloch.’ ”
Betty, turning for the first time, stared directly into her lover’s eyes. “You thought he might push you over the edge of the building.”
“Yeah. He was chargin’ me and I was dodging out of the way. It was late at night and we were in the shadow of a much bigger building, so it was very dark. I was wearing my winter blues, still on patrol, and I couldn’t move very well.”
“Did you think…”
“All I could think about is how much I wanted to shoot the fucker. But the EDP didn’t have a gun, so I couldn’t use deadly force. Never mind about the mutt wants to cross-block me into the next universe. That’s only my judgment and my judgment don’t count. If I shot that bastard and claimed self-defense, I’d have to prove it in a courtroom and, guaranteed, I’d be off the force no matter how the trial came out.”
“So what did you do?” Betty asked after a moments silence. She was turned all the way round, sitting cross-legged at the end of the bed. “You must have been terrified by the thought of going over the edge of that roof.”
“I didn’t do nothin’,” Moodrow declared innocently. “The mutt had a heart attack. Right in the middle of the fight, he grabbed his chest and went belly-up on the tarpaper. Started flopping around like a fish on the beach. Crazy, huh? Turned out he’d found three gallons of turpentine in an abandoned basement and been soaking it up for almost a week. Musta gone to his head.”
“Are you making this up, Stanley?” Betty had cross-examined hundreds of cops in the course of her, career. She could smell perjury like a beagle scenting a fox. “I know you’re making this up.”
“Yeah,” Moodrow grinned. “It didn’t really happen like that. Actually, I shot the fucker right away, then planted a knife on him.”
“Now you’re lying about that, too.” She took a swipe at his leg, but caught the sheet instead, pulling it off his body. She stared at him for a moment, impressed with his bulk. He really didn’t have any fat on his body and it seemed immoral, to Betty, that a human being that big should go through life without a weight problem. She ran a finger over his calf, curling it over the tips of his toes. “Will you make love to me?” she finally asked.
“It’s not my strong point,” Moodrow replied, “but if ya let me wear the tiger-stripe panties, I’ll do my best.”