Bad to the Bone (17 page)

Marcy went into the bathroom. She sat on the toilet with the door open and peed loudly. Craddock took the video tape out of the VCR and walked over to the closet. He knelt down and pulled up a section of the floorboards. The space was crowded with papers, but he forced the tape inside.

“Seems to me,” Wendell said, “that there’s only one question here. Can we sell this shit the way it is?”

But Craddock ignored him, too. “Somehow I got stuck on the idea that our customers mixed PURE with something else. There was a chemical reaction and the new compound became poisonous. The literature is full of cases in which two ordinarily harmless compounds become deadly when mixed. I experimented with every substance a junkie might combine with PURE. Including all the adulterants commonly added to street heroin and street cocaine. Nothing.”

Marcy Evans came out of the bathroom and took the syringe Davis Craddock held out to her. Wendell watched her tie up her right forearm, then slide the needle into a vein on her wrist. Finished, she lay back against the pillow, her eyes closed, her legs open. “Wasn’t it amazing how fast he went?” she said. “I mean Deeny. He was alive and then he was dead. It was like there was no transition.”

“Man, that was bitchin’,” Wendell admitted. “Which is why I’m wonderin’ if we can jus’ lay this shit on the masses. Might also be the pigs’ll dig like rats to find out who’s sellin’ dope that kills.”

But the man wasn’t in no mood to listen. Standin’ there in the middle of the room with his little white dick hangin’ down.

“My problem is that my inner cadre is
too
goddamned obedient. When I first began to test the effect of PURE on humans, I told Marcy and Flo and the others not to heat the drug because it would dissolve without heating. Naturally, they obeyed and PURE’s dirty little secret remained hidden. The junkies and the crack heads, on the other hand, have no discipline whatsoever. They undoubtedly combined PURE with heroin, which has to be heated to a boil. Of course, that doesn’t explain what killed Flo. She wouldn’t have knowingly heated PURE. But Flo’s death, I suspect, will remain a mystery. An unexplained accident.”

“Flo’s still alive,” Marcy insisted.

“Really?” Craddock acknowledged his woman for the first time. “If you call that living, Marcy, you and I have different definitions of the word ‘life.’ ”

“Hey, man, I don’t wanna sound radical.” Wendell’s voice dropped down a notch. He was starting to get mad now, and he reminded himself about the money and how much he liked crazy white men and crazy women like Marcy who fucked without shame. Like whores, but for the pleasure, too. “But it’s past time we killed the hype. This is s’posed to be a business meetin’ and the only business we got is if we can sell this shit or do you gotta go back and make somethin’ else. Ah’m talkin’ about PURE. The question is can we sell it the way it is? I mean, how many junkies will it kill?”

“That’s two questions, Wendell. Two.”

T
HE SIXTEEN-FAMILY TENEMENT ON
Ludlow Street bearing the small plaque reading
HANOVER HOUSE
was as nondescript as any of its neighbors. South of Delancey, the Lower East Side loses much of its artistic pretensions. There are no punks or dancing Hare Krishnas to lend atmosphere. When the Hanoverians had moved in, the area had been populated by Latinos. Now the Chinese had come, pushing up from the Brooklyn Bridge, paying exorbitant prices for the red brick tenements. Ironically, Hanover House and its Sveirdo’ inhabitants had become the fixed point in a changing cosmos.

The man who opened the door to Moodrow wore the prescribed uniform for Hanoverian male Therapists—dark trousers, white shirt, gray sleeveless sweater, navy blazer. He consulted a clipboard, then nodded shortly.

“You’re expected,” he said. “My name is Peter Johnson. I’m Davis Craddock’s personal secretary. I’ll take you up.”

Though Hanover House consisted of three tenements joined to each other by the removal of several walls, the fact could only be seen from inside. The central building, including the first floor, where Moodrow now stood, housed the cult’s general offices as well as the offices and warehouse of Hanover Housecleaning. The building to the south was divided between therapy rooms and Davis Craddock’s private quarters. The building to the north was a general dormitory. The rank and file lived in tiny rooms on the first three floors. The Therapists, though much fewer in numbers, lived on top.

Moodrow looked wistfully at the passageway leading to the north building. He could hear the laughter and shouts of small children at play. If he could get to those kids, even if Michael Alamare wasn’t present, he could find answers to the basic questions.

“Please stay close to me.”

The secretary, tall and spectral thin, turned toward the stairway and Moodrow saw the bulge of a small revolver beneath the dark jacket. It was a bit much, here in nerd heaven, but in keeping with the level of fear expressed by the ex-Hanoverians Moodrow had visited. Not that Moodrow could do anything about it. If he was still a cop, he might have demanded a permit, hoping the jerk didn’t have one. If he didn’t, he could be removed to an interrogation room at the Seventh Precinct. Would Johnson-the-Jerk trade his freedom for a small piece of information concerning a kid named Michael Alamare? Does a bear…

“This way.”

Johnson’s curt instructions jolted Moodrow out of his fantasy, and he followed the secretary to the fourth floor. The layout was typical of New York tenements. A narrow stairway led to a narrow landing punctuated by narrow wooden doors. You could paint the landing and the doors with subtle shades of beige and gray, but the economics of the design still prevailed. There was no ornamentation, no wasted space. The landing floors were concrete, the walls were stucco, the railings and stairs were steel.

Johnson stopped in front of a doorway. He knocked rapidly before pushing the door open.

“This is Mr. Moodrow,” the secretary announced. “To see Davis. Mr. Moodrow, this is Kenneth Scott.” Then he closed the door without bothering to say good-bye.

Moodrow was left standing in a small front office. A young blond man, seated behind a metal desk in the center of the room, gave Moodrow the obligatory hard stare of the trained sentry.

“You have a weapon?” he asked.

“I’m a licensed private investigator and a retired NYPD detective. I have a gun and a permit to carry it. How about you?”

“You can’t bring a weapon into the presence of Davis Craddock.”

The injunction
never
to surrender your weapon is drilled into every cop from the day he steps into the Police Academy. The only acceptable defense for the loss of a weapon is unconsciousness. “Why’s that? Someone out to kill him?”

“No one is allowed to bring a weapon into the presence of Davis Craddock.”

Kenneth Scott was much bigger than Craddock’s secretary, though still inches short of Moodrow’s six-foot six. His weapon was bigger, too, and more obvious beneath his coat. The temptation was to view the Hanoverians as harmless societal rejects. That, Moodrow realized, would be a mistake. Like being surrounded by a pack of twelve-year-olds on a subway train and seeing them as cute.

“If I was a cop, I’d be allowed to take a weapon into the presence of Davis Craddock, wouldn’t I?”

“You’re not a cop. You’re a private investigator.”

“Yeah, but you said
no one
is allowed to see Davis Craddock if they have a gun. What I’m saying is this: if you could be wrong once, why not twice? Maybe it’s okay for a private investigator to carry a gun if he has a permit. Maybe the rule only applies to illegal guns like the one you got in the shoulder holster.”

Nothing. No reaction whatsoever. Moodrow looked closely, searching the man’s eyes for signs of drug abuse, but could find neither the torpor of heroin nor the exhilaration of cocaine. Kenneth Scott seemed in perfect control, almost indifferent to any potential threat from Stanley Moodrow. Which would, of course, give Moodrow a big advantage in a confrontation.

“The rule is that nobody, except a policeman, can bring a weapon into the presence of Davis Craddock.”

Moodrow pulled a battered leather wallet from his back pocket and waved it in the man’s face. “What about
ex
-cops. See that miniature badge? See the ID card? I’m a retired NYPD detective sergeant and that’s what makes it okay for me to carry a weapon into the exalted presence of Davis Craddock.”

“I keep repeating myself.” The sentry finally showed his annoyance. “That’s a waste of time and time is all we have. Let’s make it absolutely clear: either you leave the gun with me or you turn around and go home. Do you understand?”

“What about the New York State rules for people with gun permits? What about the law that says I can’t voluntarily surrender my weapon to anyone except an agent of law enforcement? I mean, if I give you my gun and you go out and kill someone, I’m up shit’s creek. I don’t like shit’s creek. Up
or
down.”

“Look here, Mister….”

In the sequence of movements that followed, Moodrow was proudest of the way he dipped his hip. True, his move was very fast. It would have been quick, even for a much younger, much lighter man. For a fifty-five-year-old retired cop with a build like a coffin, it was impossibly fast. Much too fast, for instance, for the confident sentry who stood in front of him. The only part of Kenneth Scott that moved was his jaw. It dropped open in shock.

Of course, Moodrow was also proud of his preparation. As he’d stuffed the wallet into his back pocket, he’d slipped his left foot forward and rotated the right side of his body backward. He’d done this
before
he’d really begun to move and he’d done it without alarming Davis Craddock’s sentry. That had gotten his back into it and when he finally committed himself, the punch hadn’t come from his arm or even from his shoulder. He’d felt the tension begin where the broad muscles of his back joined his spine, then flow through his shoulder and into his arm. It was the fist, the knuckles, that finally absorbed it, but the power came from the very first part of the movement.

Taken all together, those efforts alone would have been worthy of a pro, but there was still one more element to be tied into the move that Moodrow (already thinking of how he’d describe it to Jim Tilley) had decided to call Operation Coldcock. It came from the legs and was known to fighters like Mike Tyson and Joe Frazier, who’d perfected it. The right knee bends, the hip drops and rotates backward, the body comes
up
as well as forward. The result, as Moodrow had often observed, on a well-muscled individual like the guard who lay in front of him, was a solid chunk, like a tree hit with a sledgehammer, and an unconscious state that cannot be readily distinguished from a coma.

Moodrow disarmed the man, then took a few seconds to enjoy the fruits of his labor, staring down at the unmoving Hanoverian, before pushing open the door to Davis Craddock’s office. A huge wooden desk with ornately carved legs rested on a deep gray carpet in the center of the room. Behind it, Davis Craddock, wearing a blue cashmere sweater over a white silk shirt, reclined in an upholstered chair with a carved wooden edge. A blonde woman perched on his knee. Her mouth opened in surprise at the sight of Kenneth Scott stretched out on the floor behind Moodrow. Craddock, however, remained impassive, his hand resting lightly on the desk.

“Davis Craddock, I presume,” Moodrow said affably. “I’m Stanley Moodrow. We had an appointment.”

“You didn’t knock.”

“You don’t miss a thing, do ya?”

“Marcy, leave us alone, will you.”

The blonde left without protesting, without looking back. Craddock, his eyes riveted on Moodrow, waited until the door closed before speaking.

“What happened to Mister Scott?”

“He fell asleep.” Moodrow slowly crossed the room. He kept coming until he was leaning over the desk. Craddock had sent the woman away because he was afraid that Moodrow would humiliate him and he didn’t want any witnesses. Finding personal weaknesses and playing them out is standard procedure for cop interrogations. A newspaper lay on the desk, the bulge beneath it was obvious enough. “What’s under the paper? You got a surprise for me?”

“Mister Moodrow, I want you to leave. Right now.” Craddock’s eyes were filled with hate, but there was something else behind his rage. There was just a hint of the frustrated child about to burst into tears.

“Let’s take a look.” Moodrow lifted the newspaper and tossed it onto the carpet. The vintage World War II .45 automatic looked like it weighed a hundred pounds. “That’s a lot of gun you got there, Davis. Shoots every way, but straight. You gotta be a real good shot to hit anything with it. That what you are? A good shot? Tell you what—I’m gonna give you a chance to show off.” He stepped back a few paces, then drew the left side of his jacket aside to reveal his own .38. He noted that his heart was beating normally. He’d been in violent situations many times in the course of his career and his heart had always pounded like it was about to come through his chest. But there was no threat of violence here. Davis Craddock would shoot you in the back. Or stab you while you slept. Anything, except risk his own life. Moodrow waited, letting the seconds tick away until Craddock’s fear registered in his eyes, then stepped forward and picked up the .45. “You got an awful lot of guns here. I mean, for a psychologist. What do you need with all these guns? They part of the cure?”

Moodrow was about to put the automatic back on the desk, when a door at the back of the room opened and several male Therapists burst into the room. Their ragged breath and red faces indicated they’d come in haste. And that they’d been summoned. They stopped dead, of course, when they saw the .45 in Moodrow’s hand. There’s something about a very large gun in the hand of a very large man that scares the shit out of amateurs.

And the Hanoverian Therapists, Moodrow realized, were nothing, if not amateurs. He held the gun up for their inspection. The room was under his control, but there was no telling who’d come in next. Or which door they’d come through. Or exactly what he stood to gain from his present advantage, since he had no good idea what, except for Michael Alamare, he was looking for.