A Piece of the Action

from the business end of the.45. Only, the cops on the roof were still talking. Even as he watched, one of them leveled his rifle and fired a shot. The bullet thumped into the mattress above Jake’s head.

Jake turned back to the door. The deadbolt was definitely bent, now. Once it let go, the bed slats would have to take the heat. They wouldn’t last long.

“You still in there?”

“Yeah,” Jake shouted. “Me and my aunt. She’s sittin’ right in front of the door.”

“That’s funny, your mama told me your aunt was in the hospital. She told me the apartment was empty.”

“Mama’s got a big mouth. What else did she tell ya?” Jake wasn’t exactly in the mood for conversation, but on the other hand, he didn’t want the cop pounding on the door, either. Yeah, he was gonna die-that much was obvious-but there was no sense in rushing it.

“She told me your father was a gangster.”

“Bullshit, Mama never talks about him. Never.”

“Whatta ya think, I’m making this up? Your father was a gangster. They found him floating in the river. Which is exactly what the mob’ll do to you, if they ever get their hands on you. Of course, that’s not likely to happen, considering the only way you’re gonna get out of here alive is to surrender and you’re much too tough to do anything like that.”

“It’s too late. I nailed one of the cops on the roof. From what I could see, the scumbag wasn’t movin’.”

“Look, Jake, the thing is I told your mother if you gave yourself up, I’d protect you. She wants to see you alive. That’s why she told me where you were.”

“How many cops ya got out there? Fifty? A hundred? I never got much education, but I ain’t so stupid I think a hundred cops are here to keep me alive.”

Boom!

“Hey, whatta ya doin’? I’m talkin’, ain’t I?”

“What’d I tell you, Jake? Didn’t I say I promised your mother? Now you’re making me out a liar and I don’t like it. I gave my word and I don’t welsh. Why don’t you open the door? Why don’t you toss the gun and come on out?”

Jake shook his head slowly. He looked down at Little Richard. Thinking about how he should just put the gun in his mouth and get it over with.

“What’s ya name, cop?”

“Moodrow. Detective Stanley Moodrow.”

“Stanley? What kinda pansy name is Stanley?”

“You know how it is, Jake. You don’t get to pick your name. Just like you don’t get to pick your parents. Some things in life you gotta learn to overcome.”

“Like the electric chair? How do ya overcome the hot seat?”

“With a lawyer, Jake, like everybody else. We made almost four hundred arrests for murder last year. Four hundred arrests, but how many executions? Two? Three? I can hear the social worker testifying. Giving the judge an earful about how your father corrupted you and your mother’s crazy and you never caught a break in your life.”

Suddenly, Jake got an idea. An idea that might keep him alive for a few more hours.

“A few hours ain’t a long time,” he muttered. “Unless ya lookin’ at a few minutes.”

“I can’t hear you, Jake? If you’re talking to me, I can’t hear a word you’re sayin’.”

“Ya want me to surrender, Stanley?”

“I wouldn’t complain.”

“Then get me a lawyer. Before I come out. Get me a lawyer named Irving Blumstein. He’s got an office on Broadway, near the courthouse. Ya put him out in that hall, where he can see what’s happening, and I’ll give myself up.”

Silence. Dead silence. Which was about what Jake expected. Well, let them take their time. Let ’em take all the time in the world. He wasn’t going anywhere.

When the cops on the rooftop opened fire, it sounded, as Moodrow had predicted, like WWIII had broken out. They opened up with submachine guns, shotguns and rifles. Thirty of them, firing as rapidly as possible. They concentrated their fire on the covered living-room windows, blowing the mattresses out with the first volley. Filling the room with deadly, dancing lead.

Stanley Moodrow stood, unflinching, through the two-minute volley, his eyes fixed to those of Captain John McElroy. McElroy, for his part, returned Moodrow’s stare. The two of them might have been alone in the hallway. Despite the presence of twenty crouching patrolmen, all of whom had their eyes tightly closed.

The silence, when it came, was worse than the shooting. Dead silence was the phrase that popped into Moodrow’s mind.

“Detective,” McElroy finally said. “Take the door down.”

Moodrow lowered the four-pound hammer to the floor. He dropped it gently, avoiding any sound, then picked up a sixteen-pound, long-handled sledge and drove it into the door. The crash was obscenely loud, a clear violation of the collective silence. As if a flasher had wandered into a crowd of mourners gathered around an open grave.

It wasn’t until the door gave way, suddenly flying open to smash against the inner wall, that Moodrow considered the possibility that Jake Leibowitz was alive and waiting. He dropped the sledgehammer, drew his weapon, then glanced up at McElroy.

“You got anything special in mind?” he asked.

McElroy didn’t bother to respond. He stepped into the doorway, leaving Moodrow no choice except to follow.

They found Jake Leibowitz’s body in a pool of blood and glass. He was lying face-down, the dozen wounds on his back clearly entrance wounds. The shotguns had done their job on the barricaded windows, but it was the rifles and the Thompsons that’d killed Jake Leibowitz. The single shotgun wound on his body hadn’t been fatal, although it must have been extremely painful. The pellets had ripped into the back of his head, tearing through his scalp and flipping it over his face.

Captain John McElroy stared down at Jake Leibowitz’s bloody skull for a moment, a thin smile pulling at his lips, then turned to face the young detective standing next to him.

“Looks like they started the autopsy without us,” he said.

Thirty-five

January 29

“I chickened out, Greta,” Moodrow explained. “I chickened out twice. There’s no other way to look at it. When I left you and got in that car, I was determined to arrest Jake Leibowitz by myself. I wanted to drag him into the Seventh and toss him to the captain. Jake was gonna be my trophy. Proof that I was right all along. Only, I kept thinking about what might happen if he got past me. I mean he killed four men that we know about. I couldn’t take a chance, so I called in the troops. If I’d been there alone, I think I might’ve talked him out.”

He watched Greta reach into the oven and remove two sliced bagels. She dropped them onto a plate, then licked her fingers.

“Hot,” she said without turning around.

“You should use a fork.”

“One more thing to wash.” She unwrapped a bar of Philadelphia Cream Cheese and began to spread it over the bagels.

Moodrow watched her for another moment. He’d been postponing this talk for the last five days. Knowing it had to take place, despite his preoccupation with Kate and the swirl of events following her father’s suicide.

He’d come home that night to find a note: Gone to Bayside. Back this evening. Much love. The only problem was that “this evening” had already come and gone. Between a dead Jake