A Piece of the Action

stone face” and doing a splendid job of it. His goal was to scare Jake Leibowitz without actually making any threats. Like a judge making a defendant piss his pants just by clearing his throat.

“It’s good to see you again, Jake,” Joe Faci said. “Have ya been thinkin’ about what I mentioned?”

“I already bought train tickets,” Jake responded, holding them out. “Only I didn’t put no date on ’em. That’s what I come to talk about. See, I don’t have no objection to leavin’ New York if that’s what I gotta do. The whole thing’s my fault anyway. If I hadn’t of taken that asshole over to the pimp’s, none of this woulda happened. But what I’m thinkin’ is, maybe we’re jumpin’ the gun a little bit. I mean how’s it gonna come back on us? There ain’t no witnesses left. And even if the cops do have somethin’ goin’ down, ya connections’ll let ya know in plenty of time.”

“Los Angeles ain’t a death sentence,” Joe Faci interrupted. “It’s like a precaution. Go out there for a few months. Catch yaself a nice tan. If everything’s copacetic, you could come back and do what ya gotta do.”

“I hear what ya sayin’, Joe. And I’m only askin’ ya to think about it before ya make a final decision. Ya know I done a lotta time and I ain’t no spring chicken. Now that I finally got a piece of the action, it’s a bitch for me to walk away unless I know I gotta. I mean you guys’ve been great to me and Izzy. Ya gave us a chance. Ya …”

“Awright, Jake, we catch ya drift.” Joe Faci spoke without looking at his boss. “But we think it’d be better if ya took a little vacation. There’s a lotta cops in New York. Just because we know a couple who do business don’t guarantee our safety. It don’t even guarantee the cops doin’ the business won’t come around with handcuffs and a warrant. Ya can’t trust the cops. They only think about themselves.”

“How ’bout this, Joe? It’s gonna take me a couple of days to get rid of the dope I got on hand. Maybe ya could just think about it? Make a final decision when the dope’s gone.”

“We already thought …”

“Hold up a second, Joe.” Steppy Accacio finally spoke. “The truth is that I feel bad for ya, Jake. Except for that one mistake, ya been doin’ a great job for us. SpeediFreight? The projects? Everything goes like clockwork. So what I’m sayin’ is, it ain’t right that you should have to run all the way to a place like Los Angeles. A place that stole the Brooklyn Dodgers. Also, it could be that I’m actin’ too much like a little old lady. People think ya panickin’, they get ideas. Ain’t that right, Joe?”

“They don’t reward ya for lookin’ weak,” Joe Faci responded.

“That’s right.” Steppy Accacio leaned over to fill Jake’s cup. “What I think we oughta do here is play it from day to day. I’m impressed that ya bought them tickets and I believe ya when ya say ya ready to use ’em. What is it from the Lower East Side to Penn Station? Ten minutes by cab? All I’m askin’ from you is that ya should stay in touch.”

“No problem, Steppy. I ain’t the wanderin’ type.”

“Also, I’m gonna pull Sandy outta the projects. My sister’s goin’ crazy about the kid bein’ out on the street. She thinks he oughta be an executive. That ain’t a problem, is it?”

“Hey, family’s family, right? I got a mother drives me crazy.”

“So it’s settled. We take it as it comes.”

Jake stood up and offered his hand. “All I could say is thanks for givin’ me another chance. Ya won’t be sorry.”

Joe Faci waited until the door closed behind Jake Leibowitz’s back, then turned to his boss. “Whatta ya wanna do, Steppy?”

“What I wanna do, Joe, is kill ’em both. Soon.”

Sal Patero, more than annoyed to be summoned out to Bayside on a Sunday night, watched Pat Cohan’s tirade without changing expression. If the situation wasn’t so potentially devastating, he would, he decided, personally nominate Stanley Moodrow for Cop of the Year.

“My family,” Pat Cohan nearly shouted. “He attacked my family. It’s getting to the point where nothing’s sacred. Nothing.”

“You already said that. Ten fucking times. Enough already.”

“And I suppose you think attacking a man through his innocent family is just ordinary business?”

“For Christ’s sake, Pat, Kate’s his fiancee. There’s no way you were gonna get through this thing without her finding out. Be realistic.”

“That’s easy for you to say. Your family isn’t involved.”

Patero chose to ignore the comment. What he was trying to do was bring a little sanity into the conversation. He’d made a decision and he wanted to put it on the table and go home.

“The way I look at this, Pat, what we should’ve done was let Samuelson and Maguire do their jobs. Which is what I told ya from the beginning. If we’d kept our hands off, most likely Don Steppy would’ve taken care of it by himself.”

“It’s easy to say that now, Sal. But how were we supposed to know that Luis Melenguez was Stanley’s neighbor? Do you have spies for neighbors?”

“Look, it doesn’t really matter what you say. The thing of it is that I’ve had enough. I’m jumpin’ ship. You wanna get Stanley, you gotta do it yourself.”

“You’re as dirty as I am. Dirtier, from a legal point of view.”

“You can’t threaten me, Pat. Ya can’t threaten me because I don’t care. But I got a real good piece of advice for you. This homicide isn’t in the precinct anymore. You had it sent out to Organized Crime. Well, if you got friends on Organized Crime, grab that phone and tell ’em to find the man who killed Luis Melenguez. Find him before Stanley does.”

“And why should I take advice from you, a man who’s taken bribes from dozens of assorted bookmakers and pimps?”

“Wanna hear something funny, Pat? I think that without knowin’ what I was doin’, I somehow walked into a loony bin on December twenty-sixth. Just an accident, right? Could’ve happened to anybody. Meanwhile, I been wanderin’ through the place ever since. Covering up a homicide? You gotta be crazy. Which is what I was and what I’m not gonna be anymore. Take my advice, Pat. Find the killer yourself and lock him up in a cage. That’s your only hope.”

“Well, boyo, thanks for the advice. Now, being as you’re no longer involved, I can’t see as I have any more need of your company this evening. Adios, as they say in the projects.”

Pat Cohan, calm for the first time in many hours, waited for the front door of his Bayside home to close, then picked up the phone and quickly dialed out. He listened for a moment, the fingers of his free hand absently running through his silky white hair, then said, “Get me Joe Faci. Tell him, Patrick’s on the phone.”

Nineteen

January 20

“Stanley, I’m heating up my world-famous cheese blintzes. You’re maybe interested in one or two?” Greta Bloom set a mug of coffee in front of her guest, then turned back to the stove.

“I’d be more interested in ten or twelve,” Moodrow said, pouring cream into his mug. “How come you’re not making me use that white powder in my coffee?”

Greta shook her head. “From kosher you’ll never learn. I’m making blintzes. That’s dairy. With dairy you can have cream. So, how many blintzes should I put up?”

“A dozen’ll do.”

“Just like your father. Max wasn’t as big as you, but no one could fill him up, either.” She turned back to the stove, then began to giggle. “I just remembered a story about your mother and father. You wanna hear?”

“As long as you don’t forget the food.”

Greta pushed a cookie sheet dotted with cheese blintzes into the oven and closed the door. “Your mother was a very pretty girl. Even with a ring on her finger, men didn’t leave her alone. As it happened, we were working in a loft on Grand Street, sewing lace onto satin wedding gowns. This was considered skilled work by the bosses and the pay was good for that time. Anyway, there was a foreman in the loft named Kawitzski. A