Shoot the Moon (12 page)

“I guess not,” Russell admits. But he says it looking down at his feet.

“Hey, man, I want you to feel
good
about this,” Big Red says. “Tell you what, make it 15 percent. That’s
fifteen grand.
Sound better?”

Russell looks up. It’s his turn to smile. Truth is, he was ready to do the deal for the 10 percent. But by the simple trick of looking unsure, he’s managed to outbargain Big Red, and he feels good about that.

Were he older and smarter, of course, Russell Bradford would realize that it was all too easy, that a man like Big Red doesn’t just throw away $5,000 in order to make somebody else feel better. But Russell is young and not too smart, and he misses this nuance completely.

Big Red extends his hand. Russell reaches out with his own, and they meet in a three-stage inner-city handshake that seals the deal as surely as any notary’s stamp ever could.

It’s only later, walking home, that Russell has a chance to realize that maybe he hasn’t bargained too well after all, that when it comes down to it, even 15 percent isn’t really much of a partnership. Aren’t partnerships supposed to be fifty-fifty?

But then again, $15,000 is an awful lot of money.

Before leaving for work, Michael Goodman phones his mother-in-law. As much as he wants to find out how Kelly’s doing, he’s put off the call because he knows it will expose him to attack on money issues. But for once, she surprises him.

“I’m really worried about her,” she tells him instead. “When I ask her, she tells me her head doesn’t hurt her. But then, when she doesn’t think I’m looking, I’ll catch her with this grimace on her face, like she’s really in pain.”

The thought of his daughter grimacing in pain is almost too much for Goodman to bear.

“Are you working yet?” she asks him.

“Yes, I am,” he tells her. “It’s only part-time. But I’ve got something in the fire that could be big.”

“I hope so,” is all she says.

“Can I talk to her?”

“Hold on.”

A minute goes by; then he hears his daughter’s voice. It sounds frail to him.

“Hi, Daddy.”

“Hi, angel. How you doing?”

“I’m fine,” she says.

He doesn’t want to ask her about the headaches, afraid the very question might bring one on.

“When are you coming to get me?” she asks. “I don’t like staying with Grandma.”

“Soon,” he says, “as soon as I can. And I’ll see you very soon. Maybe tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay. Daddy?”

“Yes, angel?”

“Larus has a headache.”

“Oh?”

“Yup. And it hurts him very, very much.”

He feels a lump in his throat and doesn’t dare speak. Is this what kids do, pass their maladies on to their stuffed animals? He hurriedly tells her again that he’ll try to see her tomorrow, then gets off the phone just before the tears come. He prays to his God that he might have his daughter’s pain, tenfold, if only she could be spared it.

Then he gets ready to leave for his new job.

Ray Abbruzzo rides in an unmarked Plymouth with three other members of the backup team to 136th Street and Gerard Avenue. There, they wait for the first radio transmission from the undercover officer. Ray checks his watch. After seven years on the Job, he unconsciously reads it in military time, the way one who’s become fluent in a second language begins to think in it. It’s 1222 hours, 12:22 p.m. in civilian time.

There’s a short burst of static on the receiver, followed by the voice of a black male. “Okay, I’m about to leave my vehicle and head into a Hundred and thirty-fifth. Do you read me?”

Ray grabs the microphone. “Four by four,” he says into it.

“Ten-four,” the voice comes back.

“Ten-four,” Ray echoes.

The day’s buy-and-bust operation has begun.

Goodman takes the subway to 161st Street. He’s determined to stay away from the area where he first ran into Russell. He walks the half a dozen blocks to 155th Street rapidly this time, paying careful attention to his surroundings. He arrives ten minutes early, and by one o’clock, he’s already at the desk Manny’s semi-cleared for him.

It turns out that his predecessor, the pregnant and gum-cracking Marlene, has called in sick on what was supposed to be her final day and Goodman’s orientation. So Goodman begins to review the ledgers and checkbooks and tax forms that Marlene’s kept in some fashion previously unknown in the history of bookkeeping.

But, he reminds himself, it is a job.

Robbie McCray spots Tito in the middle of the block on 138th Street.

“Red said to see you,” he tells him.

“See me about what?” Tito is missing most of his front teeth. He’s one of the scariest-looking guys Robbie’s ever seen.

“‘Bout workin’.”

Tito looks him over. “You worked before?”

“Sure,” Robbie lies.

Tito looks like he doesn’t believe him. But then he says, “Okay, you be on lookout. You cross over an’ stan’ right there.” He points to the opposite corner. “You see
any
one looks like he could be the Man, you holler ‘Five-O!’ You hear?”

Robbie nods. After all these years, the only legacy left by an otherwise-forgotten TV series shot on an island paradise half a world away is the phrase used when the police come into the block.

Tito’s not finished explaining. “I don’ care if they in uniform or plainclothes, inna car or on foot,” he says. “You jus holler good an’ loud.”

Robbie nods again.

“So get goin’.”

Robbie crosses the street. He finds a hydrant to lean against, so it’ll look like he’s just hanging out. He looks to his left, then to his right. He sees nobody who looks like the Man. This is going to be one muthafuckin’ boring job, he tells himself.

But just as it is for Michael Goodman, this is Robbie McCray’s first day at work in quite awhile, and after a few minutes, he, too, settles in.

Russell Bradford was on his way home to sniff some more of the heroin in the baggie, but now he changes his mind. He knows if he’s going to be a successful businessman, it’s important he keep a clear head. Besides which, he’s seen the contempt that Big Red holds Robbie in for being an addict.

And Russell, even though he’s not the brightest person on the planet, knows this much about himself: If he goes home now, he’ll be the only one there. His mother’ll be at work, the other kids off at school. He decides to go to the hospital and visit his grandmother. That’ll keep him out of trouble for a while, and at the same time, it’ll be nice for Nana, who he guesses doesn’t get much company. On top of that, Big Red knew about her, and it’s possible he also knows that Russell hasn’t been to visit her yet.

By 1510, Detective Ray Abbruzzo and the other members of the backup team have completed three waves of arrests, and have a total of seven suspects in the back of an unmarked van off the corner of 134th Street. Three down means one to go, and that means it’s finally Ray’s turn at bat. Whoever they grab on this one will become his collars.

As before, they wait in the unmarked Plymouth. Ray holds the microphone in one hand. The undercover has already radioed that he was heading into a block - this time it’s 138th Street - to try to make one last buy.

They don’t have to wait long.

“Chico here,” comes the voice.

“Go,” Ray says.

“Just bought a couple vials in the middle of the block, downtown side. Two black males: J. D. Gap is an ugly-looking dude with no front teeth, green shirt; J. D. Stud is a light-skinned guy, jeans and a T-shirt, gold stud in his nose.”

“Ten-four,” Ray says. The driver of the car guns the engine, and they head for 138th Street. Ignoring a red light at the corner, they make the three-block trip in less than a minute, their tires squealing as they pull into 138th. Ray’s out of the car even before it comes to a full stop. He grabs a black man wearing a green jacket. Behind him, one of the other officers handcuffs a short, lighter-skinned man with a gold stud in the side of his nose.

“I’m clean, man,” insists the one in the green shirt. “You got nothin’ on me. This is po-leece harassment!” Each time he opens his mouth to complain, he reveals that he’s missing several of his front teeth.

“Wanna make it a triple, Ray?” The voice is that of Ray’s partner, Daniel Riley. He’s got a skinny black kid by the shoulder. “Soon as we pulled into the block, he starts yellin’, pointin’ at us. Gotta be a lookout.”

Ray looks at the kid. He can’t be sixteen. He’s wearing a faded orange jacket with syracuse on it in black letters. Had the undercover noticed him and included him in the buy transmission, no doubt he would have named him J. D. Syracuse.

“Hook him up,” says Ray Abbruzzo.

As soon as he walks into the hospital room, Russell Bradford is struck by how old his grandmother looks. She’s in a ward that has twelve beds; only two of them are empty. She’s attached to all sorts of tubes and wires and things, but she recognizes Russell right away.

“Hello, Russell,” she says. Only when she says it, she says it out of the corner of her mouth, like the other side of it doesn’t work anymore.

“Hello, Nana.”

“Don’t worry,” she says. “I feel better than I look.”

“You look fine,” he says. The truth is, she looks half-dead to Russell. But she lets him get away with what they both know is a lie.

“What have you been up to?” she asks.

“Nothin’ much. Tryin’ to find a job.”

“Any prospects?”

He thinks of Big Red and his finder’s fee. “Yeah,” he says. “I got one good prospec’ I’m workin’ on.”

“Good,” she smiles. “I just know you’re going to surprise us one of these days, make us real proud.”

“I’m gonna do my best.”

Nana closes her eyes, and for a moment Russell thinks she may have died. But then she opens them.

“Don’t worry,” she says. “I jes get tired.” It seems everyone can read Russell’s thoughts these days.

“That’s okay,” Russell says. “I gotta go, anyway.” He bends over to give her a kiss. It’s hard to find a place for his lips, there are so many tubes and wires.

“I love you, Nana,” he says.

“I love you, too, baby.”

He will not see her again.

Manny tells Goodman to knock off around a quarter to five.

“So how’d Marlene leave the books?” he asks.

Goodman wants to be both honest and diplomatic. For all he knows, Manny could be Marlene’s father, or the father of the child Marlene’s expecting, or even both. He settles for, “Let’s just say she had her own interesting style of doing things.”

“Yeah.” Manny laughs heartily. “That’s Marlene awright -
intresting.”
Which doesn’t exactly settle the issue for Goodman, but he leaves it alone.

Manny takes a huge wad of money from his back pocket and starts peeling off twenties, licking his thumb between each extraction. He hands five of them to Goodman.

“See you Monday,” he says.

“See you Monday,” says Goodman.

Back at the Four-O, Ray Abbruzzo takes part in the post-buy meeting. This is the gathering at which the undercovers and backup team members coordinate their accounts, so that when they go to fill out reports and make notes in their memo books, all of their times, locations, and descriptions will be consistent. Each buy gets rounded off to the nearest five minutes (such as 1310 hours); each arrest happens precisely five minutes later (1315); and each drive-by identification by the undercover five minutes after that (1320). Each hand-to-hand transaction is done with the right hand, and all money and drugs are recovered from the right pocket. As little as possible is left to memory.

After the post-buy, Abbruzzo begins processing his prisoners. This consists of getting pedigree information from each of them in turn: full name, address, date of birth, employment (if any), and a host of other similar questions.

Because he’s a detective, rather than a police officer, Ray takes a few minutes after each interview to pitch a deal to each prisoner: If any of them want to cooperate with him by giving him information on other dealers, he’ll make a recommendation to the DA that they be ROR’d - released on their own recognizance - when they get to court, rather than having the judge set a high bail that’s likely to keep them in jail.

J. D. Gap, the guy in the green shirt who’s missing his front teeth, tells Ray to go fuck himself. J. D. Stud, he of the gold nose stud, would love to help out, but he explains that he’s innocent and therefore doesn’t know anybody who sells drugs.

But when it comes to the third prisoner, the young kid with the Syracuse jacket, it’s a slightly different story. He’s already told Abbruzzo it’s his first arrest, and it’s the detective’s experience that “cherries” are often likely to turn: It seems the fear of jail is at its very worst the first time you’re looking at it. Once you’ve done a little time and survived, the second time’s not so scary. Beyond that, the kid seems to have a nasty habit, and already he’s showing telltale signs of hurting - he’s beginning to sweat, and he’s starting to double over like he’s got stomach cramps. Not that he’s actually in withdrawal yet - he’s only two hours off the street - but you can tell that the mere
thought
of it is getting to him.

“You’re lookin’ at state time here, kid,” Ray tells him. “Mandatory one to three.” It’s not exactly true, but it’ll do for now.

“How much I gotta do for you?” the kid asks.

“Coupla things,” Ray tells him. “Or one good thing.”

“How good’s it gotta be?”

“Real good. Gotta be weight.”

The kid seems to think for a minute. Then he says, “I might know a guy who’s got some pure shit.”

“Pure, as in
pure?”

“Pure, as in
dynamite.
” The kid smiles. It’s the first time Ray’s seen him smile.

“Now you’re talking.” Ray can’t remember the kid’s name, has to look at the arrest report in front of him. “Now you’re talking, Robbie.”

* * *

Goodman’s trip home from the Bronx is uneventful: no muggings on the way to the subway, no encounters with the Russells of the world. He stops at the supermarket that’s on the corner of Ninety-sixth and picks up a few things. He’d been almost out of food, and the $100 in his pocket represents the first money he’s made in almost four weeks.