A Piece of the Action

Personally, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with making love. In fact, I think there’s something wrong with not making love. But fornication is nothing compared to murder. Nothing. Go talk to your father. Tell him everything I’ve told you. See what he says.”

There was nothing more to be said, but Moodrow couldn’t bring himself to hang up the phone. “Listen, Kate,” he continued after a moment, “I know how much this is hurting you. I know how much you love your father. But there’s no escape, now, for either one of us. What you have to do is look at it straight up and make a decision. There’s lots more I could tell you. About me and Sal Patero collecting payoffs from every pimp and bookie in the Seventh Precinct. About me not wanting to be anything more than an ordinary detective. About a neighbor of mine named Luis Melenguez who’s being shipped back to Puerto Rico in a box. You go talk to your father. Then, if you’re still interested, I’ll go through it blow by blow.”

As he hung up the phone, Moodrow was only vaguely aware of what Kate’s loss (assuming he did lose her) would mean to him. He saw it as an obligation, a debt to be paid sometime in the future. Would it be crushing? He didn’t know. All he knew was that it wasn’t crushing at the moment. At the moment, what he wanted to do was get to work.

He walked into the bedroom, found his jacket, shrugged into it, then went back to the living room for his overcoat. As he opened the door and stepped into the hallway, he felt absolutely certain that whatever happened, even if Kate walked away, even if they took his badge and gun, he could deal with it. Maybe he was the proverbial fool, rushing in where angels feared to tread, but if that was the case, he’d rather be a fool than an angel, anyway.

It was cold outside, bitterly cold, but the small shops along Orchard Street were doing a brisk business. Feltly Hats, Sidney Undergarments, Blue Chip Handkerchiefs, Jack Zabusky’s Housewares. Many of the shops were down in basements, others up a half-flight. Merchandise was piled outside in cardboard boxes and housewives struggled to control their bored children as they pawed through the goods. One shop, the one Moodrow was looking for, bore the legend Seidenfeld Shoes in red letters. Below, in deference to a new breed of customer, a hand-painted addition announced Zapatos.

The interior of Seidenfeld’s was so crowded with piled shoeboxes that Moodrow could barely move through the aisles. The younger students at St. Bridget’s were going to make their First Holy Communion on the following Sunday, and the girls needed white patent-leather shoes to go with their frilly white dresses.

“Hey, Moe, where ya hidin’?”

A completely bald head emerged from behind the cash register. “Ah, Stanley, so how’s by you? I heard you became a big-shot detective. Congratulations.”

“Thanks, Moe. I’m looking for Marty.”

“My son, the beatnik?”

Moodrow grinned. He and Marty Seidenfeld had met in grammar school, attending the same classes with the same teachers through junior high. Then Marty had gone off to the High School of Music and Art while Moodrow remained on the Lower East Side. On Sundays, to make a little extra money, Marty often worked the shoppers, doing charcoal sketches (caricatures when he could get away with it) for a dollar apiece.

“I need him to do me a favor, Moe. Is he around?”

“He’s in the basement. Most likely smoking marijuana.”

“Are you kidding?”

“Do I look like Milton Berle? You can see the customers for yourself. An hour ago, the beatnik went to bring up fresh stock. Wait, he’ll come back walking like a drunk.”

“Maybe you should call him up. If he’s doing what you say, I don’t wanna see it.”

“You shouldn’t take offense, Stanley, but I can’t leave now. I’m the only one here. If I leave, the merchandise will follow me out of the store. Besides, a night in jail would do him some good. Maybe they’ll give him a haircut.”

Moodrow walked out of the shop and down a flight of steps into a cold, musty basement.

“Hey, Marty, you down here?” Much to Moodrow’s relief, there was no smell of marijuana in the basement.

“Over here.”

Moodrow made his way to the back of the room where he found Marty Seidenfeld squatting in a tiny cleared space. Surrounded by shoeboxes, Seidenfeld was mixing oil paints on a small palette. The colors, applied directly from small tubes, must have been brilliant, but in the dim light cast by a single bulb they seemed as dull as a newspaper photograph to Moodrow.

“Stanley Moodrow,” Marty called. “Like, what’s happening, man? What brings the po-lease to Seidenfeld’s glorious emporium?”

“How can you paint in this light, Marty? How can you even see in this light?”

“I paint in the dark to paint the darkness,” Seidenfield replied. He shook out his shoulder-length black hair, ran his fingers through a beard that would have been the envy of an Hasidic rabbi.

“I need a favor, Marty. Not a battle. For old time’s sake.”

The beat generation’s presence on the Lower East Side had been the subject of endless newspaper and magazine articles. Most condemned the movement for its open advocacy of free love and its covert advocacy of experimentation with drugs. A few journalists tried to be understanding, but the beats themselves couldn’t have cared less. They turned up their collective noses at all authority. Especially cops.

“Check it out, baby, the man comes in the name of the past. He invokes the glory years of St. Stephen’s.”

“C’mon, Marty, don’t bust my chops. I need you to do a sketch.”

“Of what?”

“Of someone I saw a few days ago.”

“Like, you got a photograph I can use for a model?”

“If I had a picture, what would I need you for?”

“An attitude. The man comes with a chip on his shoulder.”

“We’re talking about murder here. You understand, Marty? We’re talking about a poor slob who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Oh, man, you’re breakin’ my heart.”

Marty Seidenfeld’s dark eyes bore into Moodrow’s without flinching. Moodrow had expected some kind of recognition. The two of them had spent nine years in the same school and even if they’d never been especially close, they’d played the same games on the same teams in the same schoolyards. It should have counted for something.

“It might have been you or anyone you know. The victim’s name was Luis Melenguez. He was gunned down for no reason at all. He wasn’t a criminal. He wasn’t robbed. He was killed because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Man, you already made that point.”

“It means nothing to you?”

“Nada, as they say in el barrio.”

“Well, maybe you should do it for old time’s sake. Because we’ve known each other for so many years. Or maybe you should look on it as a favor, a check you can cash some time in the future. Or maybe you should do it because, if you don’t, I’m gonna shove them tubes of paint up your ass.”

“I must admit that last reason is cool, Stanley. In fact, it’s colder than this goddamned basement. But I can think of an even better reason. One that guarantees the full employment of my considerable talents.”

“Say it, Marty.”

“Like, if I do your sketch, you’re gonna come up with twenty beans. You’re gonna do it because you sincerely believe an artist should be paid for his work.”

“Twenty bucks?” Moodrow could see the new tires his car needed flying out the window.

“That’s right, Stanley. And if I didn’t know ya from the old days, I wouldn’t do it at all.”

Eighteen