A Piece of the Action

“Well, we’re not doin’ it today, right or wrong,” Abe finally said. “All we’re lookin’ for is a place to dump a stiff that ain’t even a stiff yet. So what I can’t figure out is why you’re makin’ such a big deal outta nothin’.”

This time it was Jake who didn’t bother to answer. They were driving through a huge swamp west of Secaucus. It should have been beautiful, at least from inside the car. The cold winter winds had driven away most of the pollution and the sun was shining in the brown and gold tips of the cattails and reeds lining the roadway. It also shone brightly on mounds of garbage left by illegal dumpers, many of them commercial haulers.

Jake turned on an unmarked side road and began to criss-cross the swamp. He made lefts and rights at random, but he never got close to being lost. Abe, on the other hand, stared at the unfamiliar landscape as if he’d been transported to the moon on a Russian sputnik.

“You got a map, Jake?” he asked. “So we could find our way outta here.” Though he didn’t say it, the idea of being in the swamps late at night scared him a lot more than bumpin’ off some guinea.

“In my head is where I got my map, Abe. I never get lost.”

“The world’s first Jewish Indian.”

“Yeah,” Jake laughed, “call me Tonto. Tonto Leibowitz.”

A much-relieved Abe Weinberg joined in his pal’s laughter. “Yeah, yeah. Pathfinder Leibowitz.”

“Wait, this looks like a good spot.” Jake stopped the car. “In fact, it looks perfect.”

The road was so narrow, one car would have had to put two wheels on the shoulder to let another car pass. The reeds were higher than the car and the piles of garbage were higher than the reeds. A track leading into the swamp disappeared fifteen feet from the edge of the road.

“All right,” Jake announced, “you wanna be an actor? You wanna be Marlon Brando? You wanna be Elvis Presley? Now’s your big chance. We’re gonna do this exactly like next week. I’m gonna be you and you’re gonna be this guy who’s gettin’ what he’s got comin’ to him.”

“Ya don’t think we could reverse the parts, do ya? I kinda like bein’ the hero.”

“You tryin’ ta tell me Elvis wouldn’t end up in a swamp at the end of one of his movies? That’s too bad, ’cause the way he sings, it’d be a mitzvah.”

They were both laughing, now.

“Hey, remember Marlon Brando at the end of Viva Zapata?” Abe asked. “When they dump him in the street? The people couldn’t even recognize him. That’s how many times he got shot. If Marlon could do it, I could do it. An actor’s gotta have range.”

“Great.” Jake opened the door and stepped out of the car. Abe followed a moment later. “I’m gonna talk it through while we’re goin’. First, this is the gun we’re gonna use.” Jake held up a.22 caliber revolver. “We don’t need no forty-five goin’ off like a howitzer. From up close, a twenty-two is just as deadly and you’re gonna be right on top of him. But remember, we wanna do this guy in the swamp. That means you can’t shoot him before we get here unless you absolutely gotta. So, what you’re gonna do is keep your finger off the trigger. Like this.”

Jake held the.22 up again. He took his index finger off the trigger and laid it underneath the cylinder.

“What if he tries to run?”

“How’s he gonna run when he’s handcuffed inside a locked car? Ya getting me pissed off again, Abe.”

“Ya can’t learn if ya don’t ask questions.”

“Ya can’t learn if ya don’t ask questions,” Jake mimicked. “What do I got here, a goddamned schoolteacher? What ya should be thinkin’ is that ya can’t learn if ya don’t shut ya mouth and listen.” He waited for the message to sink in before he continued. “When we get here, I jump out of the car first. I come around to your side and cover this guy in case he decides to run. Then you unlock the door and get him movin’. Now, we’re both gonna go up the path here, but you’re gonna be the one who’s right behind him. Don’t get too close. If ya get too close, he could turn and kick the rod outta ya hand. But, also, don’t get too far away. If he jumps into them bushes, we’ll never find him. Remember, it’s gonna be dark. I don’t wanna use a flashlight unless it’s so black we’re gonna fall over each other. What you gotta do is stay arm’s length plus two steps away. Let’s try it.”

Jake walked over to Abe with his left arm outstretched. He stopped when his fingers were touching Abe’s chest. “Now, take two steps back. Perfect. Memorize this distance. Ya don’t let him get no closer and ya don’t let him get no further away. Ya got that?”

“Yeah, but one thing. When we’re marchin’ him up the path, do I still keep my finger off the trigger?”

Jake looked up at the clean, blue sky. “How come it’s always me, Lord?”

“What’d I say, now?”

“Abe, this is where we’re gonna do it. Ya don’t think he’s gonna know that? Ya don’t think he’s gonna know this is his last chance? Once he gets outta the car, you gotta be ready. Don’t be a schmuck.”

“All right, all right. I get the point.”

“Good, now let’s walk in there and see what it looks like.”

What it looked like was perfect. The narrow track wound among the cattails for a hundred yards, then ended abruptly in a small clearing. There was a pond on one side of the clearing (which would have been a great place to dump a stiff except that it was frozen like a rock) and a solid wall of reeds on the other. All you had to do was dump the body ten or fifteen yards off the clearing and by the time the rats got through with it, it’d be nothing but bones.

“Okay,” Jake said, “we’re here. Whatta ya do next?”

“I make him kneel with his head away from me so he can’t see it comin’.”

“Do it.”

“C’mon, Jake. I’ll ruin my pants.”

“I’ll buy you another pair.”

Abe knelt down and stared into the reeds. “Is that all right? Do I pass, teacher?”

“I gotta give it to ya,” Jake admitted, firing three shots into the back of his buddy’s head. “You ain’t as stupid as ya look.”

Five

January 5

Stanley Moodrow sat in the kitchen of his Avenue B apartment, thumbing his way through a copy of the Daily News while he waited for the coffee to boil. Moodrow had been reading the Daily News at the kitchen table for a long time. He couldn’t remember exactly when he’d begun to take an interest in the news of the day, but he could clearly recall his father passing him the comic section at a time when he’d been too young to do more than look at the pictures. And he could remember his mother picking up the paper, too. After his father went off to work. That’s when she got her breakfast.

The way Moodrow saw it, his family had gone through a lot of ups and downs when he was a kid, but there’d always been two fixed pillars in their lives. Heirlooms to be handed down from generation to generation. One was the Daily News and the other was a baseball team called the Brooklyn Dodgers. He was reading the Daily News, but the Dodgers were out of his life. Permanently and forever.

What did the sportswriters call Walter O’Malley? The most hated man in New York? And it was true-even Yankee fans hated O’Malley. For Dodger fans, the feeling was almost pathological. Moodrow could easily imagine putting a bullet into Walter O’Malley’s fat carcass. All those years waiting for a World Series? His father hadn’t lived to see it. His mother, either.

Moodrow got up to check the glass bulb on top of the percolator. The bubbling liquid wasn’t really coffee yet, but it wasn’t all that far away. He left it to boil and took a box of Cheerios out of the cupboard. Moodrow wasn’t crazy about cereal, but the soreness in his ribs had eased considerably and he didn’t want to upset the applecart by