IT WAS NEARLY MIDNIGHT when Moodrow finally stepped out of a cab in front of his Fourth Street apartment building. His head began to swivel even before he shut the door. The action was pure reflex, like a pigeon checking the sky for the silhouette of a hawk before leaving the refuge of a shaded branch. Moodrow’s gaze jumped from shadow to shadow, resting momentarily on the few pedestrians, evaluating potential threats before moving on. He remained where he was, one foot in the gutter, one on the curb, until he’d achieved what he’d often described to Jim Tilley as “the illusion of safety.” Then he walked quickly forward.
The rain had stopped an hour earlier, leaving an eerie stillness and a soft, blurry mist in its wake. Amber street lamps threw pale, self-contained spheres of light that seemed to absorb passing cars, only to spit them out on the far side. In the distance, lighted windows glowed dimly, as if suspended in the empty air.
The net effect, beautiful and threatening at the same time, like the haunted forest in a fairy tale, was lost on Stanley Moodrow. His attention, divided between his conversation with Buster Levy, the phone calls he had to make before he got to bed, and the key in his hand, couldn’t be commanded by atmosphere. He needed something stronger and he got it as he thrust his key into the lock.
The first shot, muffled by the heavy mist, could have come from anywhere. It might have been a backfiring truck on an adjoining block, or an M80 firecracker tossed off a roof. But the second, third, fourth, and fifth left no room for doubt. Moodrow dropped to the pavement, dug for his .38, tried and failed to locate the shooter. Meanwhile, the shots continued, adding quickly to ten, then twenty, before he stopped counting. They came one after another, a relentless fusillade softened by the fog, reflected by the brick and stone of the city, seeming an irreducible part of the city itself.
When the last echo died (only to be replaced in his ears by the rapid-fire drumming of his own heart) Moodrow sat up and took inventory. There were no bodies on the street, no cries for help. There’d been no ricochets, either, nothing to indicate that he’d been the target. Nothing to indicate there’d been any target. He knew the gangbangers, as feral as wolves howling at the moon, like to go up on the roofs to empty their AK47s, their Tech 9s, their Uzis. Perhaps it had been no more than that.
Moodrow’s judgment was confirmed ten minutes later when the authorities failed to show up. If someone had been hit, the cops and paramedics would have come racing to the scene, their revolving roof lights slashing through the fog. As it was, the gloom had simply resettled on the heads and shoulders of the few passing civilians, the hoods and roofs of the cars moving down Fourth Street.
As he turned away, a dozen confused thoughts and images ran through his consciousness. He envisioned the Lower East Side of fifty years ago, filled the streets with the rowdy companions of his youth. The rough-and-ready kids of 1945, including Stanley Moodrow, had been ready to fight at the drop of a hat. The more daring, like Carmine Stettecase, had carried switchblades and zip guns. They’d seen themselves as tough guys, worthy of their idols—John Wayne, Humphrey Bogart, and James Cagney—but, compared to the children of the Nineties, they’d been closer to Fay Wray in the hands of King Kong.
By the time he entered his apartment, Moodrow had already thrown off the incident. It was after midnight and he was very tired. There’d been a time when he could go for two or three days, when the occasional fifteen-minute nap was enough. That time was long passed and he knew it. He knew he’d need a decent night’s sleep if he was going to find Jilly Sappone.
He went to the phone, picked it off the desk, dialed a familiar number, then sat on a high-backed wooden chair. After a moment or two, he was patched through the Seven’s switchboard to Lieutenant Quentin McWhirter, the precinct whip, a man he knew well enough to address by his first name.
“Quentin, it’s Stanley Moodrow.”
“If you’re lookin’ for your buddy, you could forget about it. He’s out and I don’t expect him back until the end of his tour. A pair of mutts got into an NYU dormitory room, raped the four girls living there. It’s gonna be an all-nighter.”
“I thought you had Jim doing homicides?”
“A uniform on the scene reported that one of the girls ain’t gonna make it.” McWhirter cleared his throat. “Look, Moodrow, I got a drive-by on Orchard Street and no suits to cover it, so if you’ll pardon me, I’ll write Tilley a note and have him call you when he gets in.”
Moodrow hung up, walked into the kitchen, took a beer out of the refrigerator, then trudged back to the phone. Two calls to go, two calls before he slept. He dialed Ginny Gadd’s office number, was amazed to hear her answer on the second ring.
“It’s Moodrow. I thought you’d be gone by now.”
“I sacked out for an hour; I feel fine. How’d it go with Buster Levy?”
“The prick kept me sitting in his living room for two hours, but he gave me what I wanted.”
“Why’d he do that, Moodrow?” Gadd jammed the phone between her right shoulder and her ear, fiddled with the paperwork on her desk. Having decided what she wanted from Stanley Moodrow, it was now a matter of convincing him that their interests were mutual. “Why’d he talk to you at all?”
“He did it because Carmine told him to.” Moodrow’s expression soured. He didn’t care to be cross-examined, but he didn’t see any way out of it, either. “And don’t ask me about Carmine. Believe me, Gadd, you don’t wanna know how I convinced Carmine.”
“All right, Moodrow,” Gadd said after a pause, “have it your way. Do I take it Jilly Sappone lifted some credit cards when he hit Levy’s business?”
“Yeah, four. I don’t know squat about computers. Is that a lot to check out?”
“What it is, Moodrow, under both New York State and federal law, is a felony. Four felonies, actually. One for each card.”
“You serious?” Moodrow held the phone away from his head, told himself not to lose his temper. If she was going to back out, she would have done it while he was in her office.
“Absolutely. You have to have a legitimate interest—or represent somebody with a legitimate interest—in the financial affairs of an individual before you’re legally entitled to credit-card transactions.” Gadd stopped, allowed herself a gleeful grin, the one her last boyfriend had termed goofy. She could feel Moodrow’s discomfort, feel it ooze through the phone she held to her ear. “On the other hand,” she finally continued, “you could pass the numbers on to the cops or the feds, let them get the records.”
“First of all, there are no cops to give it to.” Moodrow again reminded himself to hold his temper in check. “The assault on Ann Kalkadonis and the robbery at Buster Levy’s business were turned over to a single cop. His name is Jim Tilley. As for Carol Pierce and her boyfriend, there’s no real proof that Jilly Sappone was involved.”
“So Tilley’s working all by himself?”
“All by himself while clearing every other case on his desk. Jim’s a good friend of mine and he’ll get every scrap of information that comes my way. He’s also a good detective, but he can’t move fast enough to save the kid. As for the feds … well, I’d rather cut off my dick than go to the feds.”
“Nicely put.”
“Thank you, Gadd.” He hesitated briefly, decided to change the subject. “Lemme ask you this, did you have any luck with the list of names I gave you?”
“Out of the ten, I ran down four who live close enough. Two in Jersey, one in Connecticut, one on Long Island. Two of the others are in jail, two are dead, and two I couldn’t locate.”
“Good enough. Lemme get a pencil and a piece of paper.” He put down the phone, took a spiral notebook and a Bic out of his pocket, laid them on his desk, then watched the second hand circle his wall clock twice before retrieving the phone. “Okay, I’m ready. Fire away.”
The dinosaur being a lot sharper than she expected, it was Ginny Gadd’s turn to hesitate. If she gave him the information, he could simply walk away from her. On the other hand, if she had the credit-card numbers, their roles would reverse in a New York minute.
“What about the credit cards?”
Moodrow registered the sharpened tone. He allowed himself a smile before responding. “I can’t ask you to commit a crime. No matter what kind of risks I’m willing to take.”
“Look, Moodrow, it’s not like you could actually get caught. Or like anybody in law enforcement gives a damn. Didn’t you tell me you had experience in this business?” She ran on before he could respond. “There’s a lot of illegal information out there and it’s all for sale. The problems kick in when you try to use the information, but in this case the target isn’t likely to complain. After all, it’s not like we’re cops.”
Moodrow scratched his head, smiled ruefully. “No, it’s not like that,” he said. “Not like we were cops.”
“So, you wanna give me the card numbers?”
“If I do that, I’ll have nothing. No names, no addresses.” He stood up and started to walk away. When the phone dropped to the floor, he stopped short. “Shit, you still there? I knocked the phone off the desk.”
“I’m still here.” She kept her tone sharp, but felt no insult whatever. “Why don’t we stop playing games? I was a cop long enough to know the rule: nothing for nothing. Give me the card numbers and tomorrow I’ll tell you if they were used. Favor for favor. Just like the good old days.”
Moodrow took a moment to think it over. He could always take the names Ann Kalkadonis had given him and hire another computer expert to run down the addresses. But that didn’t help him with the credit-card numbers.
“You wouldn’t consider billing me at the regular rate? Maybe if I paid cash?”
“Sorry, pal, your money’s no good here.”
Moodrow read off the card numbers, made an appointment for the following morning at nine, then hung up. He was pretty certain she was going to ask to go along with him, to become a partner. What else did he have to offer? And the truth was that he could use her, as long as she was willing to commit a few more felonies along the way.
He got up, crossed to the window at the far side of the room, and started out. The gloom failed to hide the expected flash of a propane lighter on the rooftop across the street, though it successfully hid the faces of the huddled crack junkies who gathered there nightly. Not that they cared one way or the other about anonymity. The entire building, though officially unoccupied and actually owned by the city, was given over to the sale of one drug or another. The cops, at the behest of the Fourth Street Block Association, had been through a dozen times, making nearly a hundred arrests, but the trade continued, the sellers and buyers seemingly as uniform and interchangeable as lightbulbs.
All right, enough with the local color, Moodrow told himself. Do what you have to do.
The words failed to move him, though fatigue continued to wash through his body. The call he had to make, the last detail of a day filled with details, was to Betty in California. In the course of their conversation, she was going to ask him how the investigation was progressing and he was going to lie and he didn’t want to lie. No, what he wanted, at that moment, was to have her close to him, to take her in his arms and into his bed, to wake up in the morning and listen to the soft hiss of her breath against the pillow.
The ringing phone jerked him away from his small fantasy. The mountain, he thought, coming to Muhammad. He picked up the receiver on the second ring, muttered, “Hello.”
“Stanley, I thought you were going to call me.”
“I just got in.” The first lie of the evening. “How’s Marilyn doing?”
He listened to the sharply indrawn breath, knew she was holding back tears. “Marilyn’s broken, Stanley. Her body is gone, smashed. The doctor tried to prepare me, but it didn’t help. I wanted to run out of the room, out of the hospital. I can’t believe she’s still alive.” Another quick breath. “We’re just waiting, now. Waiting and hoping.”
Hoping Marilyn would die. Moodrow heard the words without Betty saying them.
“Is she conscious?”
“Her eyes were open; I think she was there, but she can’t talk. Not with the tubes. And she can’t move, either. Not enough to let me know for sure.”
Bad things happen to good people. The cliché popped into his mind, though he managed to keep himself from actually saying it. “What about Artie?” Artie was Marilyn’s husband.
“Artie’s out of it.” Her voice was edged with anger. “He spent his whole life making money. Everything else was up to Marilyn. Now he acts like an infant who needs his diaper changed. I didn’t come out here to take care of him, Stanley, but that’s apparently what he expects.”
“It sounds like he’s lost.” Moodrow tried to imagine life without Betty, how he’d feel if she was suddenly gone. Lost didn’t begin to describe it. “They’ve been together a long time.”
“Does that mean I should make his bed for him?”
“Not unless you slept in it.”
A momentary silence followed by a deep chuckle. “Only you, Stanley.” She sighed, then rushed on. “It’s much worse than Artie led me to believe. I thought I was coming to help Marilyn, but it’s actually a death watch. The doctor told me her liver’s barely functioning. They’re not sure about her brain, how badly damaged it is.”
“Look, I’ll fly out there if you need me.” The second lie. Moodrow couldn’t have been pulled off the case with a crowbar and he knew it.
“Did you find the girl?” Betty’s surprise at the offer was evident, exactly as Moodrow had expected.
“No, but there’s a lot of other people looking.”
“Stay where you are, Stanley.” She sounded weary now, weary and resigned. “Stay where you are and do what you have to do.”