Bad to the Bone (36 page)

Betty’s inside
.
She won’t get wet
.

The thoughts continued to rise, carrying their emotional burden, as he pulled on the same rumpled trousers he’d thrown onto the seat of a chair the night before. The white shirt he chose had spent the night underneath the pants. Oblivious, he shrugged into a tan raincoat. Was it warm out? Cold? He had no idea. He pulled a hat down over his ears, tossed a glance at the silent telephone and left.

He poured himself a second cup of coffee as soon as he got back, sipping at it quickly before hanging his wet raincoat over the tub in the bathroom. Returning to the kitchen, he opened the refrigerator door, took out the empty egg carton and threw it in the garbage. The refrigerator stunk. The whole house stunk.

He sat down at the kitchen table and opened the newspaper. He’d been reading the
Daily News
for as long as he could remember. Before the
Tribune
and the
Journal-American
and the
Mirror
went under. Before the newsprint cranked out by the ancient presses turned your fingers black. When nobody longed for cheap labor in New Jersey and lifetime job guarantees and shutting the goddamned paper down.

What was Betty doing
?
Right now
,
this very minute
.
Had she eaten
?
Where was Craddock
?

The Sunday edition of the
News
was divided into about twenty sections and fifteen of them were bullshit. Moodrow went through the paper before he started reading it, tossing out the store coupons, the advertising circulars, the special section on weddings,
Parade
Magazine, City Lights, TV Week. He glanced at the comics, then added them to the pile; he hadn’t read the comics in years, had no idea who most of the characters were. When he finally began to read, he started, as always, with the sports section. The Yankees were in fifth place and rumor had it that the manager was about to be fired. Phil Pepe’s column was all about the persistence of the Steinbrenner syndrome in the thinking of Yankee management, even after Steinbrenner’s departure.

Already bored, Moodrow continued to work backward through the paper. Tyson was in training again. Sugar Ray Leonard, still box office, was about to set up a third fight with Tommy Hearns. He, Moodrow, had once entertained boxing ambitions, had wanted to be the Heavyweight Champion of the World, the baddest of the bad. Unfortunately, he hadn’t had the talent. His body was all right—his strength, stamina and especially his chin—but quicker, lighter heavyweights would stick and move, staying away until the final bell. Then, after the decision was announced, they’d embrace him quickly before raising their hands in victory.

Moodrow recalled a fighter named George Chuvalo, a heavyweight. If every fight had been to a finish, no bells and no rounds, Chuvalo would have been champion forever. As it was, he’d managed to work himself into the national rankings where the better fighters used him for a punching bag, though nobody ever managed to put him on his back.

The hard news in the front of the paper was depressingly familiar. Crime, venal politicians, a teacher turned crack junkie, waste in the Human Resources Administration, taxi drivers taking the long way in from Kennedy Airport. How long had he been reading this bullshit? Twenty years? Thirty? Betty had seen it all, too.

Did Betty have a newspaper
?
A television
?
She loved the Sunday morning interview shows
. Meet the Press. Face the Nation.
What was she doing right now
?

Moodrow tossed the main body of the paper onto the pile of rejects. He was nothing, if not persistent. Persistence had characterized his career and his life. You did what you had to do without demanding results. He turned to the
Daily News Magazine
. The feature article on city housing ballyhooed the fact that despite a general economic downturn affecting the Northeast, middle income rents in New York had continued to rise.

Big, fucking surprise, Moodrow thought. If it wasn’t for New York City and the goddamn rents, he would have made the Sign of the Cross in Connie Alamare’s face and run like hell the first time he’d met her. She was a lunatic, just like Davis Craddock. Moodrow had once threatened to lock Craddock in a room with Connie Alamare. He could picture it. An eight-by-five prison cell with a sink and a toilet. No showers. No books. No television. Deliver food twice a day and push it through the slot. Take the cocksuckers out in bodybags.

He pushed the
Daily News
aside and looked around the room. It was dirty. The whole apartment was dirty. Betty was always after him to clean it. Well, he
would
clean it. He had nothing else to do. Might as well get out the vacuum, the mop and the dust rags. Stay busy, keep his mind off Betty and what she was doing.

It took him three hours to complete the job and while his apartment wasn’t exactly spotless when he finished, it was as clean as it was going to get. The area rug in the living room, a cheap Belgian import, was fifteen years old and the scarred maple furniture had never been polished.

What Betty gave you was a real life
.
A life in the world
.
What you gave
h
er was death
.
You let her go into Hanover House
,
because you were afraid that she’d call you names
.
You should have phoned Craddock
,
in Betty’s presence
,
and told him the truth about his new client
.
She would have had to stay home
,
like it or not
.
Michael Alamare or not
.
But you were afraid she’d call you names
.

It was nearly two o’clock when Moodrow finally stuffed the vacuum cleaner back into the closet. Hungry, as always, he made himself a ham sandwich, opened a can of beer and sat down in front of the television. Somehow, the cable revolution had missed him and the images on the screen, no matter which way he turned the rabbit ears, carried definite ghosts. But he’d been watching it that way for years and he didn’t mind seeing two baseballs hurled by two pitchers at two batters. What he minded was baseball in general.

He flicked the selector from channel to channel. Baseball, golf, swimming, golf, baseball. An old movie on channel five.
Sesame Street
on PBS.

Betty is the only thing in your life besides the idiot flat footgame you’ve been playing for the last thirty-five years
.
What is she doing now
?
Right now
?
Why did all this have to begin on a weekend
?
How am I going to sit still for the next day and a half
?

The recriminations continued to flow, along with his fear. The problem was that he had no answers, not even bad ones. He shouldn’t have allowed her to go into Hanover House. It was as simple as that.

By four o’clock, he knew he had to get out. If he didn’t expend the energy physically, his mind would spin out of control. He didn’t need that. He needed clarity. The endgame would be harrowing enough, even if he managed to remain calm.

He was on the street before he noticed that it had stopped raining. New York City, usually protected by prevailing offshore winds, was covered by a rare, dense fog. Not that the streets were empty. The sun had already dropped behind the taller buildings, but people had come out as soon as the rain stopped. They were gathered on the stoops of the tenements, sipping at cans of beer or soda, passing the Sunday afternoon in the manner of poor people everywhere.

Driven by apprehension, Moodrow walked briskly. This was
his
neighborhood. He’d grown up in it, protected it, loved it deeply. He was recognized and greeted from time to time, but he merely grunted a reply and kept on moving. He went north, up Avenue B and away from Hanover House. The dealers on 2nd and 3rd streets were out in force, trying to make up for the business lost in the rain. Sunday afternoon business was usually brisk as the weekend junkies made their last purchases before resigning themselves to the work week. The dealers saw Moodrow coming, of course, and the pack took a collective breath as he passed by, then resumed their activities. Many of them knew Moodrow, though nobody had the balls to actually greet him. Being streetwise, they also knew he was retired.

Moodrow paused in front of a fenced lot that had been transformed into an impromptu sculpture garden. The art scene on the Lower East Side, though not as well known (or as rich) as that in Soho, had been around since the 1950s. Most of the sculptures had been constructed by welding pieces of heavy steel together. Many were decorated with the detritus of civilization—old sneakers, plastic jugs, varnished newspaper, empty bottles. It was repulsive and beautiful at the same time, an ambiguity emphasized by the heavy fog. Betty had come here often. She knew a few of the artists personally.

He moved on, walking all the way to 14th Street without stopping. On the far side of the street, the red brick buildings of Stuyvesant Town rose 120 feet into the air. Moodrow noted the security booths set up to guard the roads leading into the complex. Stuyvesant Town, owned by Metropolitan Life, was middle-income, mostly white, and a long step up from the tenements of the Lower East Side.

It never changes
.
Just like you never change
.
Without Betty
,
you don’t have a life
.
Why didn’t you stop her
?
You don’t even have a plan to get her out
.

He walked west along 14th Street to Avenue A, then turned south. By the time he reached Houston Street, a half block from his apartment, he was almost running. He crossed Houston, dodging the light traffic, and continued down Essex Street, past Delancey with its busy shops, past Broome and Grand streets. At Hester Street, once the heart of the Jewish Lower East Side, he turned west again, his pace gradually slowing. At the corner of Ludlow and Hester, he stopped altogether.

It was six o’clock, nearly dark, though the sun wouldn’t set for another hour, and the harsh realities of tenement life, sooty stone, broken stoops and doors, abandoned buildings, had been softened by the dense fog. Families were home, enjoying the last bit of their weekend, and the lighted windows glowed invitingly in the fog. Except for the three buildings in the center of the block. Hanover House was entirely dark and clearly deserted.

Moodrow stood on the corner for more than half an hour. He felt Hanover House beckoning to him like a prostitute in a whorehouse window. An invitation, obviously, but to what? Old telephone bills with itemized long-distance records stuffed into a forgotten file cabinet? A checkbook left in a desk drawer? Craddock and his minions had abandoned Hanover House in record time. Had they cleaned it out? It didn’t seem possible.

He crossed to the east side of Ludlow Street and began to walk north, toward Grand Street, checking Hanover House as he went. There was no sign of a burglar alarm, no sign of any security. Craddock only needed a few weeks. Maybe the commune’s abrupt closing had been an act of desperation. Maybe it hadn’t been planned out. Maybe Craddock was stitching it together a piece at a time.

Moodrow paused in front of the main entrance to Hanover House, then, with no real expectations, walked to the door, turned the knob and, much to his surprise, pushed it open.

W
HEN DAVIS CRADDOCK SHOWED
up early Sunday morning, PURE in hand and Blossom following two steps behind, Betty Haluka was not surprised to find her hatred for him undiminished. What surprised her was that she was no longer angry. Her anger had been replaced with a sense of purpose. And she no longer blamed herself for her imprisonment. She’d been right all along. Michael Alamare, five years old and desperate for affection, had slept in her arms. Her fears for his safety had been entirely justified. A child in danger? An innocent five-year-old, his mother nearly dead and his father insane? Abused beyond reason? She decided that one way or another, Davis Craddock was going to pay. If she couldn’t find a way to escape, she could certainly get close enough to hurt him. To, for instance, push a nail file into his left eyeball.

She looked closely at Craddock. He was dressed in a sweat-stained T-shirt and black trousers. There was no place to conceal a weapon—even his pockets were flat. Could his belief in his own personal power be so great that he couldn’t entertain the possibility that his slaves might decide to rebel? Perhaps he believed that PURE, his wonder drug, would enslave anyone who tried it, that addiction was entirely physical. But, whatever his motivation, he’d come into the room without Kenneth Scott and without a weapon.

“Let me apologize for Mr. Scott’s behavior last night,” Craddock said. “He was unnecessarily rough and I want you to know that I had a long talk with him. He’s promised to behave more civilly in the future.”

“Is that why you promised him that he could personally ‘purge the garden’?”

Craddock sighed, shaking his head. “Kenneth is a very enthusiastic individual when properly motivated. A bit unpredictable, it’s true, but I see it as a trade-off. I also see it as a challenge. Can I control him? Will he rip your head off one day when I’m not around? It’s an interesting situation when you think about it. Now, please, it’s time for your medication. Doctor knows best, right?”

Betty took the syringe from Craddock, took it eagerly, as if she’d been longing for it all night. In fact, she had no real desire for it, just as she’d never felt any real desire for alcohol. An occasional drink was a social necessity, but the few times she’d gotten drunk had left her with nothing more than a headache, an upset stomach and a desire to never repeat the experience. PURE was pleasurable, but Stanley had been right. She wasn’t an addict. It was that simple.

“Well, well.” Craddock’s grin was both triumphant and condescending. “Are we beginning to appreciate the benefits of PURE? You know what, Betty? The next time I come up, I may have to ask you to do something to earn your fix. What do you think? Is she ready?”

Blossom, busy with Craddock’s son, didn’t answer.