Piece of the Action (48 page)

It’d been amazing. Like being down at the track with a good pair of binoculars. Just spin the little knob and … Pow! Individual black hairs had jumped out at Jake Leibowitz like neatly stacked prison bars. He hadn’t minded the fact that he could barely get the scissors between his face and the mirror. Nor the fact that the scissors were so dull they refused to cut, pressing down on the hairs like a tiny curling iron.
Seeing
was enough to keep him happy.

What he’d done was sharpen the scissors against the concrete sill outside the bathroom window. It’d been a slow process, but he had nothing, but time, anyway. Besides, the work had reminded him of the old days in Leavenworth.

How many shivs had he made? Only to have them eventually confiscated? Only to make another?

“I must’a made a hundred of ’em,” he’d said out loud. “I must’a made a thousand. One for every day I done in the hole. What’s the old saying? ‘Better the man should catch me with it, than the boys should catch me without it.’ I don’t know who made that up, but he must’a been a fuckin’ genius.”

Once he’d gotten the mustache looking halfway decent, he’d gone to his teeth. Taking them one at a time. Polishing each tooth as if he was washing windows in the Leavenworth administration building. Then he’d gone to the small hairs in his nose, then to his eyebrows, then to his ears.

When the telephone rang, he was so deeply engrossed that he jumped back as if he’d been slapped. Aunt Golda’s glasses slipped off the bridge of his nose, crashing to the tile floor. He knelt quickly, ignoring the phone. Scooping up the glasses and holding them against his forehead as he anxiously peered into the mirror.

“Jeez,” he said, “that was a close one.”

But it was all right. Only a small crack up a corner of the right lens. Which was just as well, because he didn’t have his mustache perfect yet. Not quite perfect.

The phone continued to ring and Jake continued to stare at his reflection. He wasn’t in any hurry, because he already knew who it was. Anyone but his mother would’ve hung up a long time ago.

“Awright, awready,” he called, sliding the spectacles into his shirt pocket.

Mama Leibowitz had been calling every few hours. Detailing her adventure with Santo Silesi. Hadn’t she ever heard of tapped phones? If the flatfoots were listening, she’d be a candidate for the electric chair. Despite the wound in her skull. Despite being a fat old lady with a heart condition.

But he couldn’t discourage her, couldn’t get through. She talked about killing Santo Silesi the way she’d talked about her new fur coat. Bragging about it.

“Jake, you should have seen the look on his face. Like he opened the closet and out came Dracula.”

Jake strolled over to the phone and picked it up. “Yeah, ma,” he sighed.

“
Jakeleh,
I told them where you are. The coppers. I told them.”

“Jeez, ma, what’d ya do that for? I was thinkin’ about skippin’ town.”

The
real
question was why he’d hung around with her all this time. That was the biggest mistake he’d ever made. Bigger than tryin’ to get in with the guineas. Hangin’ out with a crazy woman must’ve made him crazy, too.

“They
beat
me, Jake. They burned me with cigars. They kicked me when I fell on the floor. It was terrible, Jake. I could barely walk.”

“Ya forgot the rubber hose.”

“Pardon?”

“What I’m sayin’ is ya sound pretty good for a cripple.” Not that it mattered.

Crazy people did crazy things. Look at him. What he should’ve done was go out to Los Angeles. He should’ve done what Steppy Accacio told him to do. Hell, he should’ve done what that drill sergeant told him the day he’d stepped off the bus at Fort Dix. But the past didn’t matter, either. The cops were coming and he was gonna die and that was that.

“Jake,
nu,
you should consider giving up.”

“Good advice, ma. I’ll be sure to take it.”

Jake could see his mother arriving at Sing-Sing to witness the execution. Wearing a shapeless black dress beneath her fur coat. Stopping to pose for the cameras.

“
My poor Jakeleh. He was such a good boy. Like an angel. With curls you wouldn’t believe. I still have my Jakeleh’s curls. I keep them in a locket.”

“Awright, ma, I gotta go and get ready. I don’t wanna die in my underwear.”

Jake hung up and walked into the bedroom. He rummaged through his Aunt Golda’s closet, pushing her dresses out of the way. What he wanted was his absolute best. Silk tie, silk shirt. His beautiful gray suit; his shiniest black shoes.

“Should I wear a hat?” he asked himself. A hat didn’t make any sense, because he wasn’t going anywhere. Only he didn’t really feel dressed without a hat. Of course, maybe he shouldn’t wear the suit, either. If the flatfoots shot up his good suit, he was gonna have to be buried in an off-the-rack from Macy’s.

But, no, the suit didn’t matter, either. There was no way he was gonna be buried like a
goy.
Jews didn’t have wakes with the relatives coming to the coffin for a last look. Mama Leibowitz would jam his carcass into a pine box and dump him as soon as possible. Assuming the rabbi gave permission for a Jewish burial.

“What it is,” he said, shrugging into his silk shirt, “is if I wear a hat, they’ll say I was gettin’ ready to run. They’ll say I was a punk.”

Finished dressing, Jake went back into the living room and made himself a barricade by turning a heavy oak table on its edge, then jamming it tight against the sofa. He wasn’t worried about surprise. There was only one way into the apartment (or out of it, for that matter) and it was protected by a steel-covered fire door. What the cops would do is try to flush him out with tear gas. And they’d do it from the roof of the next building, because they couldn’t reach him from the ground. And they’d have to stand up to make the toss. They’d have to become
targets.

“I wonder how many cops I could take out?” Jake mused as he drew the shades. “Five? Ten?”

Why not? Wasn’t he the mug who knocked off Steppy Accacio and Joe Faci?

Nobody would’ve believed that, either. Nobody would’ve believed a lotta things about Jake Leibowitz. Until they crossed him.

“If I was a wop,” he said, “they woulda known about me a long time ago.”

Moodrow stayed with Greta Bloom until they reached the front door of Sarah Leibowitz’s apartment building. What he wanted to do was break into a dead run. To flag down the first cab he saw, rip the driver out and mash the pedal through the floorboards. The worst part was that he knew he could get away with it. Greta hadn’t said a word, hadn’t even turned to look at him.

“Tell me something, Greta,” he finally said, holding himself in place with the sheer force of his will. “How do you think the horses felt?”

“What horses? What are you talking about?”

“The horses, Greta. The ones you say my mother jammed in the ass with a hatpin. How do you think the horses felt?”

She stared at him for a moment, her eyes narrowing, then dropped her gaze. “It was necessary,” she admitted. “But I felt sorry for the horses. The cops were animals because they wanted to be animals. But the horses …”

“Now, I’m gonna tell you something so you’ll understand. Right now, while we’re out here talking, Sarah Leibowitz is calling her son.”

“So maybe you should have acted like a
mensch
instead of a Nazi.”

“I wasn’t gonna sweet-talk her out of Jake’s address and you know it. She was wearing a goddamned fur coat. In the house. What do ya wanna bet it came from her son? And that she knew where he got the money to buy it? Look, Greta, I have to go. Just think about the horses, all right?”

Moodrow stepped out into the street and waved down a passing cruiser. He had no room, now, for Greta. Or for anybody else except Jake Leibowitz.

“Hey, Stanley, whatta ya say?”

The cop driving the car was named Fred Stone. A boxing enthusiast, he and Moodrow had sparred in the department gym on several occasions.

“What’s doin’, Freddy. You still droppin’ the left?” Moodrow crouched slightly, making eye contact with the cop riding shotgun. “Butch, how’s it goin’?” Butch Buccarelli was neither friend nor foe. A ten-year veteran, he’d already passed the sergeant’s exam and was just killing time while he waited for his appointment.

“Tell me somethin’, Moodrow,” Buccarelli said evenly, “you a bad guy or a good guy these days? I can’t keep track. You change costumes faster than Superman.”

Moodrow smiled agreeably. “I haven’t checked in with the captain this morning, but I think I’m a good guy. Look, I got a line on Jake Leibowitz. You boys interested? I could use some backup.”

Buccarelli’s eyes widened. “This a serious tip? Or a bullshit guess?”

Moodrow answered by getting into the back of the cruiser. “It’s decent,” he answered, closing the door. “Head for the Vladeck Houses. Building A.”

The problem was that he had no right to order these men around. If a detective needed help, he was expected to go through the sergeant. The line blurred in emergency situations, but the exact degree of cooperation varied with the mood of the patrolman. Moodrow was counting on a cop’s natural desire to be there for a big arrest. Jake Leibowitz was a star and the cops who took him down would bathe in his light.

“You want me to call it in?” Buccarelli asked. “Because what I’m thinking is the captain’ll wanna be present. I’m thinkin’ he’s gonna be
mucho
pissed if he doesn’t get an invite to this particular party.”

“Relax, Butch. What I got is a
tip.
It’s not like I spoke to Jake on the phone and traced back the number. What you oughta think about is what the captain’s gonna say if the whole precinct turns out for a false alarm.” Moodrow leaned back in the seat. “Of course, if you just wanna drop me off and go back on patrol, I promise I won’t hold a grudge.”

They drove the rest of the way in silence. Heavy rain continued to fall, pooling up on the East River Drive, forcing traffic to standstill. Fred Stone flipped on the roof light and worked his way onto the shoulder of the road. They weren’t going far, but the ride seemed endless to Moodrow. By the time they pulled up in front of the Vladeck Houses, he was half-convinced that Jake Leibowitz had packed his bags and gone.

“Who’s supervising in the field today?” he asked.

“Epstein.”

“All right, Butch. Get on the horn. Leibowitz is up in 678. I want the building surrounded. And tell Epstein to bring the tear gas. All the apartments have steel-covered fire doors and if I can’t talk him out, we’re gonna have a hell of a time getting inside.”

“Wait a second, Moodrow. Ten minutes ago, you told me to stay off the radio. Now you want the National Guard down here. What you’re doin’ is makin’ me look like an asshole.”

Moodrow put his hand on Butch Buccarelli’s shoulder and squeezed hard. “Tell ya what, Butch,” he said. “You wanna sit on your hands, it’s okay by me. But if Leibowitz goes out the side door while you’re jerkin’ off in the cruiser, you could forget about those sergeant’s stripes. Something else, too. A forty-five, like the one Leibowitz packs, can punch holes right through the side of this car. What’re you carrying? A six-shot thirty-eight? Do yourself a favor, Butch. Call it in to the sergeant. Let Epstein make the decisions.” He released Buccarelli’s shoulder and turned to Fred Stone. “You wanna come up with me, Freddy? You wanna play cops and robbers?”

“Just call me Dick Tracy.”

Fred Stone was twenty-three years old and looked seventeen. He had a heartbreaker smile and bedroom eyes to match. Both, Moodrow knew, masked a reckless attitude.

“Freddy,” Moodrow put his arm around the young patrolman’s shoulder as they walked away from the cruiser, “I’m gonna put you at the head of the stairs. Your first job is to keep citizens off the sixth floor. Your second job is to keep Jake Leibowitz
on
the sixth floor. I don’t care what happens to me. I don’t care if I’m shot or if I disappear or if I scream for help. You don’t leave your post until the sergeant relieves you.
Capish
?”

“Yeah, sure. But what about you, Stanley? You gonna play Superman? You gonna crash through the door?”

“We’re talking about a steel-covered fire door, remember? It’d take me five minutes to get through it with a sledgehammer. No, Freddy, what I’m gonna try to do is talk him out. I’m gonna give him a chance.”

But what, Moodrow thought as they began to climb the stairs, am I gonna do if nobody answers my knock on the door? How will I know whether or not he’s in there? Do I kick the door down and walk into an ambush? Or do I wait for Epstein and let someone else do it?

Jake Leibowitz looked at the two mattresses covering the living-room windows and shook his head. What he needed was a hammer and nails, but a quick search of the apartment had failed to turn up so much as a screwdriver. The way he had them propped up on tables, the mattresses would most likely turn back a canister of tear gas. But if the cops opened up with shotguns … “The old bitch lived poor,” Jake said to himself. “She didn’t have nothin’.” And that was putting it mildly. If he had a china cabinet or a couple of bookcases or a triple dresser, he could wedge those mattresses in good. But, no, his Aunt Golda never had two nickels to rub together. That’s why she was in Bellevue Hospital instead of Mount Sinai. That’s why she was lying in her own shit instead of on starched white sheets.

“Well, whatta ya gonna do?” Jake asked. “Whatta ya gonna do?” He strolled down the short hallway to the bathroom and stepped inside. The single opaque window was shoulder height, exactly the way he wanted it. Jake raised the window a few inches, then drew Little Richard from his belt and aimed him at the neighboring rooftop forty feet away. The foot-high ledge wouldn’t offer much protection unless you were lying right against it. Which was also the way he wanted it.

Jake took a moment to imagine the rooftop covered with fat New York City cops. He imagined shooting them down. Bing! Bing! Bing! Like ducks in a shooting gallery. By the time the flatfoots zeroed in on
his
location, there’d be enough bodies to make it worthwhile. And that’s what it was all about. Because once Jake Leibowitz set Little Richard to singing his song, there was no turning back. Cop killers weren’t taken alive. That’s one of the reasons they became neighborhood legends.