A Piece of the Action

Stanley, ’cause Mister Leibowitz ain’t gonna be around much longer. Steppy’s cuttin’ his losses.”

Twenty-four

It was raining hard by the time Carmine Stettecase dropped Moodrow off by his car on the Lower East Side. The battered Ford looked like a poor relation next to Carmine’s blue Cadillac, and Carmine didn’t waste any time making the obvious comparison.

“That ya car, Stanley?” he asked. “That what ya drivin’? Christ, you’d be smarter takin’ the subway.”

Moodrow turned up the collar of his trenchcoat and tugged on the brim of his hat. “Maybe you should stick around, Carmine. In case I need a push. My Ford doesn’t like to start in the rain.”

“That’s a joke, right? Me pushin’ that piece of shit with my Fleetwood?” Carmine shut down the windshield wipers and a curtain of rain swept across the glass. “Lemme ask ya somethin’, Stanley. And don’t get all hot, ’cause I ain’t bustin’ balls. I really wanna know. I wanna know how ya could live like this when ya could do so much better? Why do ya give a shit about Jake Leibowitz? Or that spic, Melenguez? Dominick and me, we’re goin’ up in the world. We ain’t stupid, like that mountain guinea, Accacio. We ain’t gonna leave bodies on the street. You could play along with us or not play along with us. Nothin’s gonna change. No matter what ya do, the neighborhood’s gonna stay the same sewer it always was.”

Moodrow opened the door without replying. He stepped out into the rain, Carmine’s voice following him all the way. “Ya wanna be a hero, Stanley? That what it is? Protectin’ the weak and the poor? You’re a dope, Stanley. You was always a dope.”

But Moodrow was past replying. His mind, having already shifted gears, was busy sifting information, casting about for a course of action. Moodrow had been surprised to hear that Leibowitz was a neighborhood kid, but then Favara had filled in the details and it had all made sense. Leibowitz had spent twelve years in a federal prison. He’d left the Lower East Side just about the time Moodrow had become aware of the streets and the animals who inhabited them. Jake was back, now. And Stanley Moodrow was all grown up. Stanley Moodrow had become the cop who was going to put Jake Leibowitz in the electric chair.

The Ford refused to start. As predicted. The engine turned over, but except for an occasional backfire through the carburetor, never came close to actually starting. Which meant his basic strategy, to cruise the Lower East Side until he found Allen Epstein, was out the window.

What he had to do was get into the precinct. He needed Jake Leibowitz’s photograph and fingerprints. There was a witness up in Hell’s Kitchen, a witness whose identification could be used to produce arrest and search warrants. Once the process got started, once a judge put his name to the paperwork, Pat Cohan would have to back off and let the system operate. Maybe after Jake Leibowitz figured it out, he’d trade Steppy Accacio for a life sentence. Maybe Accacio, just as guilty of murder as Jake Leibowitz in the eyes of the law, would turn on Patrick Cohan and Sal Patero.

And maybe if he, Moodrow, didn’t find Allen Epstein and gain access to the information he needed, Jake Leibowitz, Steppy Accacio, Pat Cohan and Sal Patero would have the pleasure of toasting Stanley Moodrow’s mug shot.

Moodrow got out of the car and began to walk south, toward Delancey Street and the Williamsburg Bridge. There was an alley beneath the bridge, just off Willet Street. It ran between two small businesses: MYRON KOSHER: LIVE POULTRY PICK YOUR OWN and B amp;B PLUMBING: SECOND-HAND AND NEW. Officer Joseph Gerber would be sleeping inside that alleyway. He’d be sitting on the passenger’s side of his squad car, his head slumped against the window, a pint of PM whiskey tucked under the seat. The booze wasn’t there to get him stoned. It was there to keep him functioning through roll call.

Every precinct had a Joseph Gerber (or two or three or four), a dedicated lush with a few years to go before earning a right to the magic pension. They were tolerated, as long as they stayed out of trouble. Gerber was a master of the coop. His main goal in life was to mind his own business, to avoid anything remotely related to the concept of work. He pursued this end, especially on rainy days, by hitting the bottle until he was too stewed to answer the radio.

It took Moodrow fifteen minutes to walk down to the bridge. He stopped once, to pick up several containers of hot coffee, but saw no one he knew. The rain fell steadily, puddling up in the gutters. It carried all the garbage left behind by thoughtful residents since the last rain-cigar butts, candy wrappers, orange rinds, sheets of newspaper.

Moodrow kept his eyes on the sidewalk, stepping around, over and through the muddy water as he made his way along empty sidewalks. He took out his gold shield when he entered the Willet Street alley, then quickly walked the fifty feet to Gerber’s old green and black.

“Joe. Hey, Joe.” Moodrow tapped gently on the window, hoping to wake Gerber without scaring him to death. The tapping had no effect, it being entirely overpowered by Gerber’s own snoring.

“Hey, Joe!” Moodrow shouted. “Get the fuck up!”

Gerber woke in a panic, his hand dropping to the Smith amp; Wesson in its holster. Moodrow pressed his badge against the window and Gerber’s panic turned to mere confusion.

“What the, what the, what the …”

“Unlock the door, Joe. I gotta talk to you.”

“Stanley? That you, boy?”

Gerber unlocked the door and slid across the front seat. Moodrow got in next to him, then rolled down the window as he caught a whiff of Gerber’s breath.

“I need a favor, Joe. I want you to get the sergeant over here.”

“How do I do that?” Gerber asked.

“With the radio. How the fuck else?”

“It ain’t workin’.” He turned up the volume and the two cops listened to the radio pop and crackle for a few seconds.

“Have some coffee, Joe. Take a good slug, then start the car and drive it fifty feet to the end of the alley. The radio’ll work just fine.”

Ignoring Moodrow’s coffee, Gerber retrieved the bottle of PM and took a quick sip. “The sergeant don’t like me, Stanley. I don’t wanna see the sergeant. Why don’t ya go down to the house and get the duty officer to hail him?”

“I’ll take care of the sergeant. You just get him on the horn.”

Gerber took a much longer pull then sighed. “All right, Stanley. But if I get in trouble, I ain’t gonna forget.” He grinned. “Not before I finish the bottle, anyway. You want a shot?”

Jake Leibowitz, cruising past Steppy Accacio’s two-story frame house, had murder on his mind. Murder and revenge, the noble motives. Not that he had any illusions. Not that he had any hope of getting out of this in one piece. Even if he managed to blast Accacio (and his partner, Joe Faci, and his nephew, Santo Silesi), he’d still have to deal with the guineas who’d set Accacio up in the first place. Not to mention the rest of Accacio’s little mob.

No, his chances of survival were about the same as those of a lobster on display in a seafood restaurant. Unless, of course, he got out. Unless he ran.

Right now, he couldn’t run. It wasn’t in him to lose everything while Accacio came up smelling like a rose. Besides, where could he go? Boston? Chicago? Los Angeles? The wops were everywhere. Sooner or later they’d catch up to him and that would be all she wrote. He did have one idea, though. It had come to him as he sat in traffic outside the Lincoln Tunnel. Maybe there was one place a Jew could go where he wouldn’t be outgunned. Maybe he could even take his mother with him. Maybe he could go to Israel and help kill Arabs when the next war came.

But running, if it came to that, was way in the future. The present was how to get inside Accacio’s house without being spotted. How even to get close, considering it was winter and there were no leaves on the trees and bushes to give him cover. Montclair, New Jersey, wasn’t the Lower East Side. This was the kind of neighborhood where citizens reported prowlers and the bulls actually came out to check.

The rain would help, the rain and the fog. They’d help even more if he waited till dark. But he wasn’t going to