Shoot the Moon (14 page)

It’s warm inside, like being in some rich person’s living room. Russell is surrounded by the smell of new leather. His body molds into a seat so soft and deep that he imagines he’s a ball nestled in the pocket of a fine baseball glove. Everywhere around him is tan leather and grainy wood. Darkly tinted glass obscures the outside world in three directions. Boys II Men sing softly to him from what must be a dozen hidden speakers. The thought comes to him that this is what heaven must be like.

The car moves away from the curb and glides silently west.

“‘Sup, Russell?”

“‘Sup, Red.”

“You meet the dude?”

“Yup.”

“We got us a deal?” Big Red asks him.

“We got us a deal,” Russell says.

Back in his apartment, Goodman dials his mother-in-law’s number.

“I’ve got some good news,” he tells her. “I took care of the problem with Kelly’s MRI. They’re sending the results over to Dr. Saltz.”

“I’ve got some bad news,” she says. “They already did, and his office called to say he wants you to bring Kelly in tomorrow. He sounds like he wants her to see a specialist.”

Goodman feels his insides shrivel up and knot. He’s unable to speak.

“Are you there?”

“Yes,” he manages to say. “I’m here.”

He waits for her to say something, but she, too, is silent.

“What kind of specialist?” he finally asks.

“I don’t know,” she says. “I didn’t ask.”

For once, he can hardly blame her.

Big Red drops Russell off on the corner of 144th Street, and Russell all but floats the rest of the way home. In his mind, he’s already spending his money: fifteen thou from Big Red and another five from the white guy.
Twenty thousand dollars!
He imagines himself investing the money in other deals, watching his bankroll grow into a hundred thousand, two hundred-

A car door swings open just in front of him, causing him to break his stride and jump sideways out of the way. A white guy climbs out, a big white guy who’s got the Man written all over him.

“Hello, Russell,” he says.

Russell stops in his tracks, his mouth wide open. A second door of the car swings open, and before Russell can say a word, he finds himself sitting in the backseat, staring at the backs of the heads of two detectives. There’s a squeal of rubber, and they lurch forward into traffic.

Nobody says anything for about ten blocks. By then, they’re heading north on the Grand Concourse. The car is nothing like Big Red’s Bentley. It’s a beat-up Chevy. The plastic seats are torn and lumpy, and there’s all sorts of shit on the floor - newspapers, empty coffee containers, crushed soda cans. It smells like moldy bread. Every once in awhile, the two-way radio comes on. It’s full of static, and Russell has a hard time understanding the voices he hears.

He spots Yankee Stadium down the hill to the left as they pass 161st Street.

“What’s this all about?” he finally asks.

“You know fuckin’ well what it’s about,” says the driver without turning around. He’s the bigger of the two, the one who was first out of the car. He’s got black hair and a big nose, looks Italian to Russell. Every couple of blocks, he eyeballs Russell in the rearview mirror. The other guy is thinner and looks younger. He’s got reddish hair, sort of a crew cut. Probably Irish, Russell guesses.

At the very top of the Grand Concourse, they turn left and go under the elevated tracks at Jerome Avenue before coming to the beginning of Van Cortland Park. At the far side of the park, the Italian one pulls the car over and kills the engine. He turns halfway in his seat to face Russell.

“Hello, Russell,” he says again.

Russell says, “Hello.”

“I’m Detective Abbruzzo; this here is Detective Riley.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Russell says.

“Do yourself a favor, kid,” says Italian. “Don’t be a wiseass, okay?”

“Okay. Am I under arrest?” Russell asks. “Or am I free to go?” He once saw on a
Law and Order
episode that you’re supposed to ask that when you think you’re being falsely detained by the police.

“Whaddayou, a fuckin’
lawyer?”
It’s the first thing Irish has said. Russell decides it’s one of those rectangular questions, the kind you’re not really supposed to answer.

“Russell, my friend,” says Italian, “the word on the street is, you been walkin’ around with some mighty fine pure shit.”

“You must be crazy, man,” Russell says, and as soon as the words are out of his mouth, he feels the back of Italian’s hand smack him on the side of his head. So fast is the blow delivered that Russell doesn’t even have a chance to get a hand up.

“Didn’t I tell you not to be a wiseass?” Italian reminds him.

Russell doesn’t say anything. His ear stings and feels hot, but he doesn’t want to rub it, doesn’t want to give these pigs the satisfaction. Instead, he tries to focus on figuring out who’s dropped a dime on him.

“Thing is,” Italian says, “it’s not you we want. Oh, we’ll lock your ass up if we gotta. But that’s not really what we want.”

“Whatta you gonna lock me up
for?”
Russell knows something about his rights, after all.

It’s Irish who answers him. “Conspiracy, criminal facilitation, criminal solicitation. How’s that for starters?”

“What’s that mean?”

“What that means is about $10,000 bail,” Italian tells him. “Mama got that kinda change?”

“No,” Russell says.

“Didn’t think so.” Italian again. “But like I said, it’s not you we want.”

Russell tries to think. He knows they’re bluffing. He’s been through the system two or three times - a couple of farebeats and a misdemeanor possession - and he knows that even a Legal Aid’ll be able to beat this one, a drug case with no drugs. Problem is, he can’t afford to take a chance on getting busted: In the time it’ll take him to get out, he’ll blow the deal with Big Red and the white guy.

“What do you want?” he asks.

“That’s easy,” Italian says. “We want the guy you got it from. You give us him, we’re finished with you.”

“What does that mean -
I give you him?”

Irish explains it to him. “You tell us his name, that’s all. His name and where he lives.”

Russell tries to remember the guy’s name, he really does. But he’s never been good at names - he has this habit of not listening when he’s introduced to somebody, so he finds it’s not so much that he forgets names; he never gets them in the first place. As to where the guy lives, he’s got no clue.

So he says, “I don’t know his name, or where he lives.”

“Whaddaya call him?” Irish asks.

“Me? I call him ‘the white guy.’“

“That narrows it down pretty good,” says Italian.

“You got a phone number?” Irish asks.

“Nope.”

“How do you get ahold of him?”

“We meet.”

“Where?”

“By the river, around Ninetieth Street.”

“Which river? The Hudson?”

“No, the other one.” Russell can’t remember what it’s called.

“When’s your next meeting?”

“Tomorrow,” Russell says. “Tomorrow night at seven.”

Irish and Italian seem to think this over for a minute. They don’t say anything, but they look at each other as if they’re having a conversation without words. Then Italian turns back to Russell.

“You make that meet, Russell. You get your ass there, if you know what’s good for you. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yessir.”

“And Russell-” He waits for a response.

“Yes?”

“Don’t fuck with us. Or you’ll find out what it’s like to get fucked with.”

“Yes, sir,” Russell says again.

“Go home now,” Italian tells him. “Or wherever you’re going.”

Which means Russell gets no ride back downtown. He has to get out right there and watch them drive off in the Chevy. Has to walk back to Jerome, find the train station, hop the turnstile, and ride home.

Fuckin’ cops. Think they own the fuckin’ world, he thinks.

Jimmy Zelb and Frank Farrelli sit in Peppy’s Bar on West Fifty-Third Street Friday evening. It’s been a long day, and another unproductive one.

“We gotta make a case next week if it kills us,” Zelb says.

Farrelli finishes draining a bottle of Corona before nodding in agreement. “Yeah,” he says. “Bugsy’s counting on us.” “Bugsy” is their nickname for their group leader, Lenny Siegel.

“Monday morning,” Zelb says, “we start making the rounds, paying visits to all our CIs.” CIs are confidential informers. “Put a little pressure on some of those lazy fucks.”

“I like that,” Farrelli agrees, trying to shake out the little piece of lime from his Corona bottle. “Let’s start with Vinnie Ippolito. He hasn’t given us squat for months now.”

“How ‘bout Alfonso Gomez? He’s usually good for something.”

“If he isn’t too strung out,” Farrelli says, working his middle finger into the bottle.

“Whaddayou, a gynecologist or something?”

“I’m just trying to get this lime here-”

“Who else we got?” Zelb asks.

“We got Addison, we got Eddie Maple, we got DeSalvo, we got-”

“What a crew of losers.”

“No shit,” Farrelli agrees, giving up on the lime. “Oh, yeah,” he remembers, “we got Dwayne Reddington.”

“Yeah,” Zelb says, drinking down the last of his J & B. “Why not? It’s about time we put some heat on Big Red.”

Late that night, Michael Goodman sits in front of his television set, searching desperately for distraction. He spoke to his daughter earlier in the evening, and, even though she denied it, he could sense that she was in pain even as they talked. His mother-in-law got on the phone afterward and told Goodman he’s supposed to take Kelly to the doctor at eleven o’clock tomorrow morning.

He changes the channel again, settling for an old black-and-white movie with Gregory Peck. He has no idea what it is, or if he’s seen it before.

What kind of specialist could they possibly want Kelly to see? What do they think’s the matter with her? All that keeps coming back to him is brain tumor, brain tumor, brain tumor.

Again, almost instinctively, Pop-Tart jumps lightly onto his lap, circles twice before finding a place to curl up, and settles in there. Goodman strokes its back absently until it begins to purr. He marvels at how such a tiny thing can have such a loud motor.

By Saturday morning, a light freezing rain has begun to fall, and before leaving his apartment, Goodman pulls on an old orange jacket from his navy days and a rain hat Shirley once gave him. Still, he walks the twenty blocks to his mother-in-law’s building, not only to save a token but because walking in the rain is one of his secret pleasures.

As he walks, he wonders if it isn’t time for his luck to change, for something truly good to happen. Perhaps this’ll be the day he finally gets some good news, the day that someone will tell him his daughter’s going to be just fine after all.

But no one will tell him anything of the sort this day. As they sit in the doctor’s office an hour and a half later, Kelly sitting in his lap and sucking her thumb, it isn’t good news that Michael Goodman hears.

“The MRI films show what looks like a small shadow in her brain. And frankly, it shouldn’t be there,” Dr. Saltz tells him. He holds up a large film for Goodman to look at. It contains many images of what appears to be a brain. “It could be nothing much,” the doctor continues. “It could prove to be nothing more than what we call an artifact, a product of the imaging itself. But I’m concerned enough to want her to see a specialist.”

Goodman wants to ask him what else it could be, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t want Kelly to hear the answer, doesn’t even want to hear it himself.

Dr. Saltz makes a phone call. He swivels around on his chair so that his back is to them while he talks. When he swivels back, he announces that he’s made them an appointment for this afternoon. He pulls open his top desk drawer and fishes around until he finds a business card, which he hands to Goodman.

“He can see you at two o’clock,” Dr. Saltz says.

It’s only outside, outside in the rain, that Goodman is finally able to look at the card.

The only word he sees is
neurologist.
Now he knows he’s right: The shadow in his daughter’s brain is a tumor, a tumor that will kill her, slowly but surely. He feels his entire world crumbling into ruins, crashing down upon him, smothering him. He carries Kelly tightly in his arms, shielding her frail body with his jacket, grateful for the raindrops mixing freely with his own warm tears.

Russell Bradford is awakened Saturday by the sounds of his brothers fighting over which cartoons to watch on TV,
Power Rangers
or
Superheroes.
He tries to cover his ears with his pillow, but it’s a losing battle.

In the bathroom, he recalls yesterday’s ride with the detectives, remembers telling them he’s supposed to meet the white guy tonight. He thinks about calling the meeting off or changing it to a different time, but then he realizes he’s got no way to do that: He doesn’t know the guy’s name, or where he lives, or his phone number. And if Russell doesn’t show up as planned, he’ll have no way of ever getting ahold of the guy again to set up another meeting. So he’s either got to go to the meeting tonight or give up the $20,000. And there’s no way he’s going to do
that.
No fucking way.

He’ll just have to be careful, is all.

He gets dressed. It’s time to go find Big Red, tell him to get his money ready. Russell figures the best thing is to do this deal quickly before these cops get a chance to fuck it up.

Dr. Gendel turns out to be a small man without much hair, but with a pleasant manner. He’s able to coax Kelly out of Goodman’s lap and onto a chair, where he examines her, talking to her constantly, telling her what he’s about to do before he does it. Kelly is good about it, and she laughs when he tickles the bottoms of her feet.

He spends a lot of time checking her reflexes, hitting her knees with a little rubber hammer and poking her toes with safety pins. He straps a device around his forehead that looks like a little satellite dish with a hole at the center. He snaps on a light that’s part of it, then spends the next few minutes examining her eyes, particularly the right one. Then he asks Kelly questions about her headaches, about school, about her appetite.

“Do you ever see a spot in your eye?” he asks her.

“Sometimes,” she says.

“Both eyes, or just one eye?”

“Just one.”

“Which one?”

She points to her right eye.

“What color is the spot?” he asks.

“Brown.”

He gives her a pat on the head for being so good, then tells her she can put her shoes and socks back on.

He takes the MRI film that Goodman’s brought him from Dr. Saltz and clips it up against a thing that’s a box with a light in it. Again, Goodman sees the image of his daughter’s brain, repeated over and over again. He watches Dr. Gendel study whatever it is he’s looking for.

Finally, Dr. Gendel turns the light off and unclips the film. He speaks to someone on his intercom phone. Goodman tries to hear what’s being said, but he can’t make it out. It seems to have become suddenly hot in the room; Goodman has to dry the palms of his hands on his trouser legs. He’s aware of a high-pitched ringing noise in his ears, wonders how long he’s been hearing it.

A nurse comes into the room holding a yellow lollipop. She offers it to Kelly, who looks at her father for approval before accepting it.

“Why don’t you come with me so your daddy can talk with the doctor?” she asks Kelly. It takes some prodding from Goodman, but eventually Kelly lets the nurse take her by the hand.

Dr. Gendel waits until the door closes, and they’re alone. “I’m afraid there may be something going on here,” he says. “In addition to the shadow we see in the films, your daughter has a spot in her right eye. That could be indicative of pressure somewhere in the brain. One possibility is a growth of some sort. But because the MRI was done without contrast, it’s difficult to tell.”

“Contrast?”

“Yes. Contrast is when they inject a dye into the spinal fluid. It makes things stand out better in the film. Frankly, it would have been better if they’d done that.”

“This growth,” Goodman forces himself to say. “You’re talking about a tumor.”

“That’s one possibility,” Dr. Gendel acknowledges. “But by no means a certainty.”

“What do we do?”

“Well, we could start with another MRI.”

“With contrast?”

“With contrast. But even that might not tell us what we want to know. I’d like to do a lumbar puncture first, see what that shows us.” He says it matter-of-factly, like a car mechanic might say, “I’d like to check the antifreeze first.”

“What’s a lumbar puncture?” Goodman asks, fighting a tremor in his voice.

“You’ve probably heard it referred to as a spinal tap,” the doctor says. “We insert a needle at the base of the spine, draw off some fluid and analyze the cells. It’s a good diagnostic tool for letting us know what’s going on. In addition, it’ll help relieve some of the pressure in Kelly’s brain that we may be seeing here.”

“It sounds very painful.”

“We use a local anesthetic, so it’s not as bad as it sounds. Afterward, she may have a headache for a day, but it sounds like that won’t be anything new.”

The ringing noise in Goodman’s ears is louder than ever. “Is she going to be okay?” he asks. “She’s only six.” His voice breaks on the word
six.

“If it’s up to me, she will be,” Dr. Gendel says, giving him a smile that Goodman knows is meant to be warm and reassuring.

On the bus ride home, they find a seat way in the back, in a corner, and Kelly makes him continue the story.

The Ballerina Princess (Continued)

Now it came to pass that the Ballerina Princess got sick. What happened was, her head began hurting her. Now, since she was a very brave Ballerina Princess, she sometimes pretended it didn’t hurt. But her grandma could tell, because she was old enough to be able to tell that kind of stuff. And her daddy could tell, too, because he was the Keeper of the Numbers, and he was generally able to figure things out. And the brave and loyal Prince Larus could tell, because he knew absolutely everything.

So after awhile, the Ballerina Princess realized she might as well say when her head hurt her, since her three best friends knew anyway. And that made things just a tiny bit better for her, because then she didn’t have to worry so much anymore about being brave all the time. Instead, she could spend her time concentrating on being the happiest and most beautiful princess in all the land.

Back at home that afternoon, Goodman sits in front of his TV set and watches as the ground crew covers the infield of some stadium with a tarpaulin for the third time in two innings.

His daughter may be dying of a brain tumor. Sometime next week, they’re going to stick a needle in her spine to try to find out. Dr. Gendel’s fee for the procedure will be $500. That’s on top of the $250 for his office visit this afternoon. The hospital charges an additional $850, which has to be paid in advance. The unpaid MRI bill is $1,100, and he still owes Dr. Saltz $195. That’s close to $3,000 in medical bills alone, and that’s only if there are no further tests or treatments. Which, of course, there are bound to be.

He remembers he has another meeting scheduled with Russell for seven o’clock. If only Kelly can be okay, he promises himself, I’ll throw the drugs away. I’ll find some other way to raise the money.

But the truth is, he has no other way. He isn’t covered by Medicaid. It could take weeks or months to apply, and Dr. Gendel has made it pretty clear that Kelly doesn’t
have
weeks. Even then, Goodman might not qualify for assistance. And even if he did, it would mean taking Kelly to some city hospital and putting her in the hands of some intern or resident he knows nothing about.

As these thoughts go through his mind, Michael Goodman knows he’s not going to throw the drugs away. He knows he’s going to have to go and meet Russell tonight.

Watching the rain Saturday afternoon, Jimmy Zelb knows that if he hangs around the house, sooner or later his wife is going to get on him about cleaning up the basement. So he calls his partner and asks him if he wants to work.

“Isn’t it Saturday?” Frank Farrelli asks him.

“Yeah, yeah, it’s Saturday,” Zelb says. “But if I don’t get outa the house, it’s also gonna be divorce day.”

“So pick me up,” Farrelli tells him.

An hour later, they’re heading south on the Major Deegan Expressway, windshield wipers slapping softly.

“Let’s go see Vinnie first,” Farrelli suggests.

“He’s allaway downtown,” Zelb says. “How ‘bout we stop off and see Big Red first?”

“Good idea,” Farrelli agrees.

They exit the Deegan at 138th Street and circle back up to 140th. As expected, they spot Big Red as soon as they pull into the block.

“Fucker doesn’t even take rain dates off,” Farrelli says.

“Guess wet money’s as good as dry,” Zelb observes. He’s reminded of his days before the DEA, when he was a vice cop in Toledo. Back then, “wet money” was what they snatched when they’d arrested prostitutes and done body-cavity searches. He smiles at his unintended pun.

Zelb pulls the car to the curb alongside Big Red. Farrelli jumps out and grabs him, spins him around, and forces him down onto the hood of the car, where he handcuffs him behind his back before throwing him bodily into the backseat of the car. They drive off.

As soon as they’re out of the area, Farrelli unlocks the handcuffs and removes them.

“Good thing I recognized you, man,” Big Red says to Farrelli, whom he towers over, even sitting alongside him. “I mighta squashed you oth-awise.”

“Thanks for sparing me,” Farrelli says.

Zelb continues driving. “What’s going on?” he asks.

“Nothin’, man,” Big Red says.

“Not the answer we wanna hear,” Zelb tells him.

“What can I tell you?” Big Red complains.

Zelb hits the brakes. Both Big Red and Farrelli slide forward against the back of the front seat. Zelb grabs Big Red by the throat.

“You better tell me
something,
mister,” he tells him. “I got a boss who wants cases. You’re gonna get off your fat butt and give us something, or your license is
history.”

Big Red pulls loose. “Easy, No Neck, easy,” he says. “Matterafact, I’m workin’ on somethin’ for you right now. Should know in a week or so.”

“Fuck a week or so!” Zelb roars. “We’re coming back to see you
Monday.
And if you don’t have something by then, my partner’s not gonna take the cuffs off you. Got that?”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“Don’t see,” Zelb says. “Just
do.”

It’s still raining lightly as Goodman makes his way to the park for his seven o’clock meeting with Russell. He’s halfway there when the thought suddenly occurs to him that maybe he’s supposed to be bringing the drugs with him, so the deal can be done on the spot.

He toys with the idea of going back and getting them, but then he remembers his father’s superstition. Besides, he decides, if Russell shows up with his buyer, Goodman can always go get the drugs and be back in fifteen minutes.

Once more, he stands by the river, waiting for Russell. This time, there’s no uniformed police officer patrolling the area. The rain seems to have kept just about everyone away. The only people in sight are an old black woman looking for cans in the trash containers and two white guys fishing a block or so to the south. He shudders at the thought of eating anything caught in these waters. And the guys don’t look that desperate, either: One’s a big bruiser with a baseball cap; the other’s thinner, hatless, with short red hair.