Bad to the Bone (3 page)

“A hundred percent,” Betty assured him. “If Fariello was my client, I’d advise him to plead.”

Tilley grinned as he lifted his drink to his lips and carefully sipped. “Now there’s only one more thing I need to complete the file before I take it over to the district attorney’s office where I already have an appointment with an assistant DA. This isn’t a trial, by the way. This is a hearing on the evidence and if we don’t get
the
gun admitted, the perp’s lawyer will ask for a dismissal and probably get it. So, like I said, there’s only one more thing I need to complete the file and seal the mutt’s fate and that’s the original of the property clerk’s invoice, which is why I hustle on down to the property clerk’s room and ask the property clerk, Sergeant Joseph Blatt, who happens to be the
only
Jewish alcoholic in the NYPD, for the original. I even give him my receipt with all the numbers right on it.”

“And he can’t find it,” Moodrow said brightly. “Surprise, surprise.”

“Shit,” Jim shook his head. “You think they screw it up this bad in the real world?”

“How would we know?” Rose observed. “We never worked in the real world. We always worked for the city.”

Tilley, his question having been purely rhetorical, ignored her comment. “Well, Blatt doesn’t have the property clerk’s invoice. Those invoices are numbered consecutively and cross-referenced by complaint number and Blotto Blatt has numbers 55432 and 55434, but no 55433. At first he says he never filled out the form, that I’m crazy, so I remind him that I have the investigator’s flimsy in my hand and that he signed it and that if he doesn’t cooperate I’m gonna beat the fuck out of him.”

“Wrong move,” Moodrow observed neutrally. Nourished by the company of his friends and the bourbon in his bloodstream, he could afford to be philosophical. “I worked with Blotto Blatt for twenty-five years. The schmuck’s been pushed so far back in the job, he’s practically invisible. I got fifty bucks sayin’ that he offered to meet you any time, any place.”

“That’s exactly right.”

“Did he mean it?” Betty asked.

Tilley shrugged. He’d been a fighter, professional and amateur, for years. Everybody in the room knew he could tear Blotto Blatt to pieces. “Drunks mean everything they say, but the guy’s a wreck. On slow tours, he sneaks into the back of the property room and drinks until he’s unconscious. No, there was nothing I could do to the schmuck and by the time I figured it out, he was pissed off and wouldn’t help at all. I had to go through every piece of evidence stored in the property room with the lieutenant blowing fire down my neck like a goddamned dragon.”

“How could he blame you?” Rose Tilley laid a protective arm across her husband’s shoulders, despite the fact that Jim Tilley, finishing his second bloody mary, was feeling no pain whatsoever.

“All the lieutenant knows is that a big collar is going down the toilet and there’s no point in blaming Blotto Blatt, because Blatt is too blotto to give a damn. Which leaves me. I swear I went through everything in the goddamned precinct. Boxes, envelopes, bags…I saw shit from 1952. I saw bags of dope which aren’t even supposed to be kept in a precinct anymore. I found jewelry from burglaries that should have been turned back to the victims. And every inch of it was covered with this fine dusty powder. It came off the crap in clouds and I breathed it until my spit turned black. Then, after I was ninety percent finished and totally filthy, the lieutenant gets a call from the assistant district attorney, a lady named Connie Helprin, who told us hours ago that she’d searched through every scrap of paper in her case file and the original was not in her possession. Now she says she just found it. She says it was stuck to the back of the request for laboratory analysis. Blatt must’ve sent both over when the gun went to ballistics.”

“Did the lieutenant apologize?” Betty asked naively.

“The lieutenant said, ‘I knew it had to be somewhere.’ Then he went home.” Tilley broke out laughing and, after a brief hesitation, his friends joined in.

“I have to admit I’m ashamed,” Betty declared. “All these years I’ve been playing a game called ‘pound the paralegals.’ That’s what lawyers do when something goes wrong with the paperwork.”

“Businessmen play ‘smack the secretary,’ ” Rose chimed in. “In fact that’s the way the whole world runs. One monkey biting the other.”

“It’s not the same,” Tilley insisted. “A secretary could always quit and find another job.”

“So can a cop,” Rose quietly observed. Jim had been seriously considering the possibility of leaving the NYPD for more than a year.

“And do what?” Like all cops, Tilley believed that the meaning of the job and a cop’s relationship to that meaning, cannot be communicated to civilians. “So tell me, Betty,” he changed the subject. “What are we celebrating?”

Betty raised her glass solemnly. “After three weeks of intense cohabitation following the devastating fire in Stanley Moodrow’s apartment, Stanley Moodrow and Betty Haluka, for the sake of their loving and tender relationship, have decided to dwell apart. Stanley’s going to move out as soon as he can find a place to live.”

“Does that mean you’re officially homeless?” Rose asked.

“It’s not that funny,” Moodrow said. “Because a lot of homeless people start off with a burn-out. My building is old, like all the buildings on the Lower East Side, and rats live in the walls, like they do in most tenements. The fire marshall says one of them ate the wiring. He says they got his rat body in a plastic bag. I swear; I’m not bullshitting. His tail is curled up in a little circle. What I think I should’ve done is leave more garbage around, so the rat wouldn’t have had to eat electricity.”

“Isn’t the landlord going to fix the place up?”

“He says he’s gonna make repairs, but nothing happens.” Moodrow looked over at Rose and Betty, realizing just how much he loved these women. Rose’s face was model-perfect: small bowed mouth; dark, widely spaced eyes; jet-black hair framing soft, milky cheeks. Betty was heavier, with a strong nose and stronger jaw. Her face spoke of character, while Rose seemed every inch the spoiled princess. Of course, reality, as cops inevitably discover, rarely follows appearance. Betty had grown up in the safety of a middle-class home in Forest Hills while Rose had been severely abused for more than a decade. “I tell ya the truth, boys, I’m starting to get a little scared. I know that Betty’s right, that we’re both crazy and it’s important that we should live in different institutions, but the cost of apartments is kicking my butt. I thought I had connections, but the only cheap places (and there aren’t many of them) are in buildings that scare the crap out of
me
. The best thing I could find is a sublet in a yuppie co-op for thirteen hundred a month and…”

“This is called
kvetching
in Yiddish,” Betty interrupted, squeezing Moodrow’s hand. “Until I met Stanley, I didn’t think a Gentile could master it.”

“Damn,” Moodrow complained, “if you can’t whine to your friends, who can you whine to?”

“Are you telling me that thirteen hundred’s gonna bankrupt you?” Tilley said. “I always thought you were rich.”

“Yeah? Up till now I’ve been payin’ five bills a month, rent controlled. Now I gotta cough up thirteen. That comes out to nearly ten thousand dollars a year extra. Plus Betty’s Honda went into the tank, and I can’t get around by the subway unless I confine my life to Manhattan. You know how much they want for a new car? I’m screwin’ around with an old friend of mine who sells cars off the street, but a junker that doesn’t wanna start can make your life miserable. Also the second bedroom is a closet. It’s not big enough for the work I’m doing and I’m probably gonna have to rent an office. I thought when I got my pension, I was made for life, but everything keeps going up. Including all the crap I lost in the fire. Maybe I can live with my old furniture once the smell disappears, but I gotta replace everything else, including my wardrobe…”

“What about Social Security?” Tilley interrupted, grinning. “That should kick in any day now.”

“Stanley’s not eligible for Social Security,” Betty said.

“Stanley will
never
be eligible for Social Security,” Moodrow grunted. “And the next detective third-grade who brings it up is gonna have to have Stanley’s size thirteen pulled out of his ass.”

“You know what your problem is?” Tilley asked. “You’re too sensitive. You need a job.”

“You think I’m not working now? I’m out there every day.”

“Working for nothing is not the same as working,” Rose said. “It doesn’t drive you the same way.”

Betty nodded in agreement. “Ever since you stopped being a public cop and became a private cop, you’ve been working for friends and relatives. Being a crusader may be good for the soul, but it’s tough on the checkbook. You’re gonna have to take some paying jobs.”

“And what if the people who need my services can’t afford to pay me?”

“Balance it out. Take some
pro bono
work. I’ve been doing that all through my career.” Betty snuggled up close to her lover. It was a warm, dry April evening, a rarity in New York. The windows were open and the sounds of the Lower East Side drifted up to the two couples. One of the things Betty liked about Moodrow was the feeling of safety that went hand in hand with his presence. Nothing could hurt her—not the muggers or the rapists or dealers or the addicts. “Even a crappy lawyer can make more in private practice or in a big law office than I made at Legal Aid, but when I graduated from law school, I wanted to do something good for people. Legal Aid gave me a chance to accomplish my aim without starving.”

“Well, I don’t know about any Legal Aid for retired cops, but it looks like I’m gonna take a paying job. I got a call this afternoon from a woman named Connie Alamare. You know the Hanoverians, Jim?”

“Down on Ludlow Street, by Canal, right? The cult.”

“Yeah, that’s them.” Moodrow picked absently at a tray of provolone cheese and chunks of Genoa salami rolled in pickled peppers. “What do you hear about them?”

Tilley laughed shortly. “From a police point of view, they couldn’t be better. I don’t know how many cults we have down here. At least a dozen. Most of them are religious, like the Hare Krishnas or the Transcendental Church of Jesus. I think the Hanoverians are based on some kind of psychology, but I couldn’t swear to it. We don’t hear much about them down in the Seven.”

“That’s because they don’t recruit on the street. Most of the members are middle class. They come to the Hanoverians for therapy and get sucked in. At least that’s what Connie Alamare claims. She says her daughter, Florence, moved into the commune ten years ago, then cut off relations with the family except for an occasional postcard. Connie Alamare kept trying to reach her daughter, but there was nothing until about three years ago. Florence sent Connie a snapshot of a son Connie didn’t know about. The kid was about two, and Connie started hoping for a reconciliation. Then the daughter disappeared altogether until six weeks ago when she was found in a lot in the Bronx. She apparently suffered some kind of a stroke and doesn’t communicate. Now Connie wants to find out what happened. She says she blames this cult for her daughter’s condition and she wants revenge and custody of her grandson. She also says she doesn’t care what it costs.”

“Stanley, you dog,” Betty cried, “you didn’t tell me about this.”

“I was savin’ it for a surprise.”

“I know who the Hanoverians are,” Rose said. “I remember an article in the
Voice
about the Hanoverians. They were involved in a custody battle and I think there were accusations about threats of violence.”

“I’m surprised to hear that,” Jim said, “because they have a reputation for being clean. There’s more drugs in some of the communes down here than on the street, but the Hanoverians are supposed to be above that.”

Moodrow broke in with a smile. “Isn’t it interesting that I spent thirty-five years working in this precinct, Rose has been living here for more than a decade, Jim’s currently a detective in the Seven, but none of us knows a goddamned thing about a commune with at least two hundred people in it? Now I have another surprise. Ten minutes after I hang up on Connie Alamare, I get a call from Franklyn Goobe.”

“The chief of detectives?” Tilley whistled his appreciation. Goobe’s nickname, in the job, was ‘Silk of All Silks.’ He was the ultimate unapproachable, as far removed from the main ranks of detectives as General Eisenhower from G.I. Joe.

“Yeah,” Moodrow responded nonchalantly. “That’s the way he is now, but I knew Goobe when he was coming up in the job. We never got along. I coulda lived on his monthly bill for hair spray. I think he would’ve liked to bust me back to patrol, but he was a practical man, like all politicians. He knew I was good and he liked to use me when he had business in the Seven, so he settled for making my life miserable in little ways. Anybody want another drink?”

Moodrow, holding his empty glass aloft, started to get up, but Rose pressed him back into the sofa. “Stay put,” she ordered, “and finish the story.”

“Well, apparently the cops did some kind of investigation into Florence Alamare’s physical condition without turning anything up. The suits are claiming natural causes. A seizure or something like that, but the old lady won’t let it rest. She’s got a lot of money and she used her lawyer to climb through the ranks until she found the ultimate buck-stopper, Franklyn Goobe. Then she started calling him every day, busting his chops, until he couldn’t take it anymore. That’s what he said. He called up to congratulate me on my new client and to give me the name of some hairbag in the Four One who’s supposed to help me ‘coordinate’ the investigation.”

Nobody said anything for a minute, then Jim Tilley spoke for all of them. “Stanley, are you sure you wanna get involved in this?”

“What am I gonna do? I gotta eat, right? I gotta pay the rent. And the insurance on the car. And all the rest of it. What I’m saying is for the kind of money she’s willing to pay, I at least have to go talk to her.”

from
The Autobiography of Davis Craddock

I
REMEMBER THE DAY
of my liberation—a rainy November afternoon—as if it were yesterday. I was late and wet and Marilyn was telling me, for the umpteenth time, about the uselessness of guilt.