Piece of the Action (13 page)

Moodrow stepped back to allow Mitkowski and O’Brien to get to the door. He sat down as soon as they were gone.

“Cheer up, Stanley,” Patero said. “You’re gonna get your picture in the papers today.”

“What am I gonna do, kill somebody?”

“What you’re gonna do,” Patero said, “is bust the Playtex Burglar. I already called the reporters. They’ll get the cameras down here whenever I give the word.”

More questions to which Moodrow knew the answers. But this time he couldn’t keep his mouth shut.

“How is it
my
bust? Mitkowski was the one who nailed him.”

“It’s your bust, because I say it’s your bust.” Patero’s voice was sharper. He couldn’t understand why Moodrow didn’t just play the game. It was a gift, this arrest, and as far as Patero was concerned, Moodrow should be grateful.

“I hear what you’re sayin’, Sal, but what I’m seeing is that these guys hate my guts. I’m supposed to be out there developing my own pack of rats. A detective’s only as good as his information. That’s what everybody says.”

“I thought we reached an understanding the other day.” Patero lit a cigarette and sucked in a cloud of smoke. He held it for a second, then let it drift out through both nostrils. “I’m tryin’ to cut down, but it only makes the ones I
do
smoke taste better.” He took another drag before returning to Moodrow.

“First of all, it doesn’t matter what Mitkowski and O’Brien think of you. They’re nice guys and halfway decent detectives, but they’re not going anywhere and they’re not gonna complain. Second, them and everybody else in the squad would give their right arms to be where you are now. Third, what you’re gonna learn, startin’ today, is how to do something more important than beggin’ some slimeball for a name. You’re gonna become the Seventh’s liaison with the DA’s office. You’re gonna be the one who makes sure that all the evidence and all the paperwork is in order before a case goes to trial. Take my word for it, Stanley. You won’t believe what kind of assholes you’re gonna be dealin’ with. We had a detective, first grade, name of Galowitz who once sent a thirty-eight over to the lab without doing any paperwork at all. Just dropped it off on his way home. Naturally, it turns out the thirty-eight was used in a robbery in which a homicide occurred. Before we can arrest the scumbag who owns the gun, he shows up with a lawyer. The judge threw out the thirty-eight at a preliminary hearing and the perpetrator never went to trial. I’ve been asking the captain to give me a full-time assistant for the last two years. Just when I gave up hope, you dropped into my lap.”

Victor Zayas didn’t make any fuss when Sal Patero and Stanley Moodrow showed up in Ratner’s kitchen. He didn’t even glance at the badge Patero flashed.

“What do you want?”

“We want ya to come over to the precinct and model a pair of panties for us,” Patero hissed. “Black silk panties. Trimmed with lace.”

Zayas’s face dropped through the floor. Scared shitless was the way Moodrow read it. When Patero put on the cuffs, Zayas began to tremble, a small, skinny kid made almost ghostly by his fear.

They marched him back to the 7th, letting the neighborhood get a good look at him. The idea, as Patero had explained it, was to break him down, then give him a way out. Most of the process would take place in a basement interrogation room, but it didn’t hurt to begin at the beginning. Zayas was now in the hands of the police. They could hold him for seventy-two hours without charging him. More than enough time to do what had to be done. Moodrow didn’t think the kid would last through the morning.

“All right, punk, welcome to your new home.” Patero pushed open the door to a small room and shoved Zayas inside. The only piece of furniture in the room was an armless wooden chair. The chair was bolted to the floor. “If ya want room service, I’m afraid ya gotta yell. We ain’t got around to installing telephones. Not that it matters. The filet mignon is shit here anyway.” He shoved Zayas into the chair, then cuffed his wrists and ankles to the chair’s legs. “Comfy?”

“What are you gonna do?” Zayas asked.

“We just wanna see what kind of panties you’re wearing,” Moodrow said. He noted Patero’s approving grin, then loosened Zayas’s belt and yanked his corduroys down. “Boxers.” He shook his head in disgust.

“Why are you doing this?”

“You tell us,” Patero said.

“I want a lawyer. I’m entitled to a lawyer.”

“He talks pretty good for a spic. Don’t he, Stanley?”

“My grandfather came here in nineteen oh-three. I know my rights. I want a lawyer.”

“All right, already.” Patero raised his hand defensively. “Don’t get hot. We’ll go out and find you a lawyer. You wait here.”

Patero led Moodrow into a small anteroom. He closed the door, then turned out the overhead lights. Zayas was clearly visible through a glass panel, though what Zayas saw, when he looked at the glass, was himself, handcuffed to a chair.

“You’re gonna be the
good
cop, Stanley,” Patero said. “After Mitkowski and O’Brien get through with him. You know what to do?”

“I’ve seen it done, but I’ve never done it.”

“Yeah, well, ordinarily I wouldn’t expect ya to bring it off. I’d let ya watch a few more times, before ya tried it yourself. But this Zayas is a punk. We pulled his jacket this morning and he came up clean. Just wait until the boys soften him up, then go in and hold his hand.” Patero took a sheet of paper out of his inside jacket pocket and tossed it over to Moodrow. “Here’s a list of burglaries we’d like him to cop out on. Addresses and dates.”

Moodrow scanned the list quickly. “These go back more than two years. I thought the Playtex Burglar’s only been working for the last six months?”

“First rule of law enforcement, Stanley,” Patero grinned. “The system runs on success. Ya gotta clear a certain percentage of the crimes committed in your command. It’s a competition. One precinct against another. Second rule of law enforcement: everybody cheats. When I first got appointed to the detectives, I was stationed up in the Two twenty-second. In the east Bronx. The captain there had a motto: ‘If it ain’t dead, it ain’t a felony.’ We had the lowest felony rate in the city for six years running.”

“Some of these burglaries were big,” Moodrow insisted. “This one on Division Street netted thousands of dollars in furs. You put that on the kid, he’s gonna go upstate for a long time.”

Patero advanced until his face was six inches from Moodrow’s chest. He looked ridiculous—like a chicken confronting a turkey—but he was much too angry to notice. “What’re you supposed to be? Sir
fucking
Galahad? Why don’t ya just give me your gold shield? Take it out right now and hand it over. I’ll get the captain to put ya back directing traffic for kids comin’ outta school. That way you’ll sleep good at night.”

The door opened before Moodrow could respond. O’Brien, carrying a paper bag, entered the room, followed by Mitkowski. If either of them noticed anything wrong, they didn’t show it.

“Home run,” O’Brien announced, emptying the bag onto a metal table. “Panties, slips, bras, nylons, garter belts. This one’s my favorite.” He held up a blue silk peignoir.

“He livin’ with a broad?” Patero asked.

“Negative, Sal. No dresses, coats, shoes.”

“Cosmetics?”

“A ton of it. Perfume, too.”

Patero stepped away from Moodrow. He was smiling again. “Might as well get to it.”

“I had a great idea on the way over,” Mitkowski said. “Ain’t that right, Pete.”

“Great idea,” O’Brien admitted.

Mitkowski took off his jacket, tie and shirt, then slipped into the peignoir. “Whatta ya think?” Mitkowski was small enough to button the peignoir, but his chest, covered with wiry black hair, somehow ruined the effect.

O’Brien took a scarred nightstick off the top of a filing cabinet and began to twirl it. In his expert hands, it spun like a yo-yo. “Just in case the punk ain’t impressed with Mack’s charms.”

Patero flipped on the intercom as soon as O’Brien and Mitkowski were in the room with Zayas. “I’m gonna take off, now. I got some paperwork in my office needs takin’ care of. You stay here. Do whatever you gotta do. One thing, though. You fuck it up, I’m takin’ it back to Pat Cohan. I’m gonna tell him I can’t work with you. I’m gonna say, ‘You asked me to teach Stanley about the Department, but Stanley don’t wanna learn. Whatta ya gonna do about it?’ ”

He left without waiting for an answer and Moodrow turned his attention to the interrogation room. The cops in the 7th called this room the Canary Cage, because so many suspects, caught within its walls, had been induced to sing whatever song the cops wanted to hear. Victor Zayas, however, was almost certainly a punk with no one larger than himself to give up. Which meant there was only one way out of the Canary Cage for the Playtex Burglar—his signature at the end of a confession.

Moodrow watched Mitkowski strut across the room, swinging his hips as he went. “And thith design,” he said, “is
bound
to get hith attention.
All
hith attention.” He sashayed over to Zayas and sat on the small man’s lap. “Whatta think, Victor? Do I look the part? Or would ya like to show us how ya do it for ya boyfriend?”

“I want a lawyer,” Zayas announced. “I know my rights.”

O’Brien stepped forward, grabbed Zayas’s nose between his thumb and forefinger, then twisted sharply. “I don’t wanna hear that shit. Not from no faggot like you.”

Zayas tried to pull away, but there was no place to go. The act was meant to remind him of his helplessness and O’Brien continued to drive the message home until Zayas cried out in pain. Then, seemingly satisfied, O’Brien strolled over to the far corner and picked a dusty telephone book off the floor.

“Did that bad, bad polithman hurt you, Vickie?” Mitkowski crooned.

“I want a lawyer.” Zayas was near to tears. “I’m entitled to a lawyer.”

“Oh Vickie, Vickie, Vickie.” Mitkowski was having the time of his life. When the boys in the squad room heard about this one, they’d buy his drinks for the next month. “Why are you rejecting me, Vickie? You know how thenthitive I am. Is it because I’m a fucking faggot? That doesn’t make me a bad perthon. I could thuck every cock in Manhattan and still be a good perthon. I mean it’s what’s in your
heart
that counth. Ithn’t it?”

This time Zayas kept his mouth shut. He sat in the chair, his eyes closed, clearly determined to ride out the storm. Of course, Zayas wasn’t the first suspect ever to demand a lawyer. Suspects
were
entitled to speak with a lawyer before questioning, assuming they knew their rights and requested one.

Interrogating officers usually divided knowledgeable suspects into two categories: hardened ex-cons and well-informed citizens. Most of the ex-cons would take a beating and laugh in the cop’s face. Having been through the game before, they knew that a beating only lasts for a few days, but prison goes on for years and years. Well-informed citizens, on the other hand, tended to see their right to a lawyer as an abstraction and the pain of a beating as very, very concrete.

“All right,” Mitkowski said, getting up. “I know when I’m not wanted.” He took off the peignoir, draped it over Zayas’s shoulders, then buttoned it under his throat. “Here, it looks better on you, anyway. Pete, gimme the phone book.”

O’Brien, standing behind Zayas, passed the phone book over to Mitkowski. “You gonna make a call, Mack?”

“Yeah, I’m gonna call Victor’s conscience.” He took the phone book and carefully dusted it off. “Wouldn’t wanna get ya perm all dirty, would we, Victor?” He paused, but Zayas didn’t answer. “What we’re gonna do now is for your own good. Because what I noticed here is that ya got
very
bad posture and how could ya be a model if ya posture’s bad? So what we’re gonna do is put the phone book on the top of ya head. Your job is to keep it there, keep ya neck and head straight. Believe me, this is great trainin’, Vickie. Course, ya
could
move and let the book fall down, but if ya do, I’m gonna take out my cock and make you suck it.” Mitkowski’s voice suddenly hardened. “You understand me, faggot? You understand what I’m tellin’ ya? Don’t try me, ’cause I never bluff.”

“I want …”

Mitkowski slapped Zayas’s face, a quick, sharp blow that would have knocked Zayas down if he hadn’t been handcuffed to the chair.

“No more bullshit about a lawyer. Not one fuckin’ word. Whatta ya think, we’re playin’ around here?”

“All right,” Zayas muttered.

“That’s better.” Mitkowski laid the phone book on Zayas’s head, balancing it carefully. “Very good, Vickie. See how ya holdin’ ya shoulders? And how ya neck forms a straight line? Just hold it for another minute and I’ll give you a nice reward.”

The reward turned out to be O’Brien using the nightstick like an axe, bringing it in a long smooth arc, from behind his knees to straight over his head to the top of the Manhattan phone book. The crack was sharp enough to make Mitkowski wince. Zayas, on the other hand, did nothing for a moment. Then he screamed, a long howl so elemental it was neither male nor female. It filled the room, as solid as the walls and the floor, a single note, a song of sorrow as much as pain, freezing the two detectives until it finally died out. Until Zayas, head bent, tears streaming down his cheeks, began to sob uncontrollably.

“Look what ya did,” Mitkowski said calmly. “Ya moved ya noggin and the phone book fell on the floor.” He picked it up, then grabbed Zayas’s face and lifted his head. “Now what I’m gonna do is put this phone book on ya head again. I know ya first instinct is gonna be to shake it off. Hey, it’s only natural. But ya should think about
this.
If there ain’t no phone book up there, then there ain’t nothin’ between ya faggoty skull and Pete’s nightstick. See what I mean?”

Mitkowski didn’t wait for an answer. He balanced the phone book on top of Zayas’s trembling head, then stepped back and nodded to O’Brien who once again brought the club through its arc. This time Zayas didn’t scream. He slumped forward, his eyes fluttering, nearly unconscious.

Zayas would have remained that way for a long time, preferring the blank dizziness to the reality awaiting him, but the sight of Stanley Moodrow crashing through the door overrode any common sense he might have had.