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 when 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.
“They had cartons of paper, Stanley,” she complained, accepting a cup of coffee (a signal, really, that they were there to work).
“Literally. The complaint follow-ups were insane. ‘May 15. Called registered informant 5D461. No result.’ What’re they after, fame and glory? What’s the point?”
“The point is not to get screwed by the department,” Moodrow said.
“Really? I thought the point was to make the paperwork so complicated, no one ever got convicted.”
“Not true,” Moodrow said. “Every cop has to account for all his time. Or her time. On patrol, you have your memo book. Which the patrol sergeant signs everyday. For a gold shield, it’s the DD-5, the complaint follow-up. If there’s no Five in the file, then what’d you do all day?”
“Don’t forget the Dailies,” Higgins said slyly. “They give a pretty good idea of what you do with your time.”
Moodrow turned red for a moment, then launched himself into the business at hand, explaining every move they’d made since their last meeting with her and Epstein. Higgins received it all calmly, asking Tilley a question or two about his adventure in the armory, then frowning when Moodrow described their subsequent treatment of Pinky Mitchell. After Moodrow finished, she thought for a few minutes while the name Paul Kirkpatrick continued to float in the air.
“Do you have a copy of your Patrol Guide?” she asked, her voice soft and protective.
Moodrow sat back in his chair, looking annoyed. “My Patrol Guide? I haven’t seen it in ten years.”
“After we met last week,” Higgins continued in the same soft voice, “I went over the statutes to see if my ass was covered. It is. Then I checked on your position. According to the Patrol Guide, you’re supposed to report corruption or allegations of corruption directly to the Action Desk at Internal Affairs. Not to me or even to Epstein. Which means that you’re already in violation of department procedure.”
“If Levander goes down,” Moodrow insisted, “it won’t matter. The papers’ll pick it up and the brass’ll go along with the hero bit. I’ve seen it a hundred times.”
“And Kirkpatrick? When does he get it? If you don’t arrest Kirkpatrick, then you can’t allow Greenwood to surrender. Have you thought about that?” As she piled up the reasons, her voice rose. “Now you’re considering murder. Nothing new about that, right?”
“You know what’ll happen if we turn Kirkpatrick over?” Moodrow changed the subject. “The headhunters will invade the precinct. Literally. They’ll go through every file. Put men on the street to observe the behavior of patrol officers at ‘known drug locations.’ Follow rookies into coffee shops to make sure they pay for their donuts. And most of all they’ll lean on Paul Kirkpatrick until he gives up names. Even if he has no names to give up. You think they’ll believe O’Neill didn’t know about it? Leonora, when those assholes come into a precinct, the first thing that stops is police work. And the first ones to get fucked are the citizens we’re supposed to protect.”
“And what about Jim Tilley?” Higgins asked. “If something goes wrong, he’ll fall with you. Do I get the pleasure of preparing an indictment against him?”
“He gets to make the decision,” Moodrow said flatly. “If he says I should give it over to I.A.D., I’ll make the phone call while you’re in the room.”
Both heads swiveled toward the young cop. He was standing at the stove, pouring hot water onto instant coffee. His face was composed, relaxed…and in no way revealed the rage boiling inside. “Is someone here suggesting that Kirkpatrick gets off without paying for his part in the murders of three cops?” That was the other side of Moodrow’s “blue wall of silence.” The part that read “cop killers must pay.”
“I thought about that,” Moodrow replied.
“And?”
“I don’t know. I don’t fucking know.” He spread his arms wearily. “But I won’t let him walk away clean. I can’t.”
“If you can’t bust him and you can’t cut him loose, what do you do? You can’t kill him. He’s a cop, not a black man with a history of extreme violence.” Tilley left the dilemma hanging and tossed the next question to Higgins. “How bad are we right now? Legally.”
“Legally, you’ve got yourself covered by keeping the district attorney’s office up to date. I’ve got a file started with appropriate dates. The biker associated Greenwood with a cop, but we can say we got the actual name of the cop from an anonymous tip and that’ll get Pinky Mitchell out of it. In my opinion, you don’t have any legal problems, because without Mitchell, you don’t have probable cause to arrest Kirkpatrick. And, of course, you don’t have probable cause for Mitchell unless you give up the snitch who gave you his name. No, Moodrow, it’s not that you’ve committed a criminal act. You’re outside the law altogether. What you’ve got is NYPD problems.”
“I agree with Moodrow,” Tilley said. “If we take Greenwood, they’ll buy all the bullshit about anonymous tips. We don’t hurt ourselves any worse by talking to Paul Kirkpatrick.”
“And what if he doesn’t roll over?” Higgins asked. “What if he wants a lawyer?”
“He’ll turn,” Moodrow said flatly and Tilley echoed the conviction. There was no doubt in either cop’s voice.
“What about you, Leonora?” Moodrow asked. “You wanna come along with us?”
Leonora shuddered. “Thanks for the invitation, but considering what you undoubtedly have in mind for Detective Kirkpatrick, I’ll settle for the role of ‘liaison.’ It’s sexier.”
Higgins cocked her head and gave Moodrow her best “dead-eye” stare, but Moodrow was up to it. His return grimace held nothing but anticipation. It was the smile of a wolf when the shepherd abandons the flock.
Then Higgins threw in the clincher. “There’s no reason why you can’t claim that you found Greenwood through an informant’s tip. Who’s to say otherwise? Kirkpatrick? You didn’t feel the tip had enough credibility to bother informing the task force. An error in judgment. So, sorry. Then let Greenwood give up Kirkpatrick and you’re out of it.”
“And if Greenwood decides not to give up Kirkpatrick? If Greenwood decides to go down with the ship?”
“Irish Allah, Stanley,” she returned. “As Allah wills.”