Shoot the Moon (36 page)

“It’s so, so
old,
” he said when he first saw it.

Mister Fuentes wakes up this Friday morning with the same headache he’s been waking up with for several weeks now. It has proved to be a very stubborn headache, the kind that doesn’t seem to go away with even extra-strength Tylenol.

Over time, Mister Fuentes has learned that his headache has a name. Its name is Michael Goodman. Mister Fuentes has had enough of his headache. He’s come all the way to the East Side of Manhattan, in New York City, to get rid of it. And as he wakes up this Friday morning, his very first thought is that today is the day he’s going to do precisely that.

Carmen and Kelly are curled up on the sofa, watching something on Channel 13 about why people sneeze. Goodman sits at the card table, staring off into space. When the phone rings, it startles him. He looks at his watch. 12:18. Even as he reaches for the phone, he knows who’s calling him.

* * *

At the sound of an incoming phone call, the plant springs to life. Abbruzzo turns down the volume on the three bugs - whatever the static problem was with bug number three has been fixed - so they can listen to the conversation directly from the wiretap.

Abbruzzo has to turn the volume down, Vinnie’s voice is so loud.

There’s a pause.

There’s a pause, and Vinnie can be heard in muffled conversation with somebody in the background at his end. Abbruzzo turns the wiretap volume switch all the way up, but they can’t make out the words. Then Vinnie’s back on the phone.

A cheer goes up in the plant as soon as they hear Goodman and Vinnie hang up.

“Quiet down!” Abbruzzo yells, but even he can’t help smiling. “Okay,” he says. “We’ve got a location.”

Goodman’s first thought after hanging up the phone is to wonder why Vinnie has suddenly been willing to take the chance of talking on Goodman’s home phone. Then he remembers:
Vinnie’
s not taking any chances - Vinnie’s a federal agent. All that stuff about needing to have one pay phone call another pay phone was just part of the act, part of the charade to help convince him that Vinnie was a typical drug dealer - cautious to the point of being paranoid. Evidently they’re now satisfied that Goodman has bought the performance, and they no longer feel the need to keep playing the pay-phone game.

His second thought is that, for a federal agent, Vinnie sure got upset when he learned that Goodman was having second thoughts about going through with the deal. Shouldn’t he have been
happy
to hear that a would-be heroin dealer was considering the wrongness of what he was about to do? And didn’t he step way over the line when he told Goodman it was too late to back out, that he’d
do something to Kelly
if that happened?

He wants to ask Carmen these questions. But when he looks over at her on the sofa with Kelly, he knows this isn’t the time to do it.

He looks at his watch. It’s 12:25. Less than eight hours left.

Big Red wakes up a little after one o’clock. He remembers right away there’s something he wants to do today, but he can’t recall just what it is. He reaches for his cigarettes and lights one, inhaling deeply, holding the smoke in his lungs as long as he can.

There’s a stirring in the bed, and Big Red recalls he’s not alone. A body alongside him groans, lifts her brown head an inch or two, opens one eye, and groans again. Then she turns away, covering her head with a pillow.

Big Red tries his best to remember. First, he tries to figure out who it is that’s in his bed. He recalls a party at an after-hours spot, a fair number of vodka and cranberry juices, and a sweet young thing sitting next to him in the Bentley awhile later. He has a vague memory of arriving home, putting on a couple of CDs, downing another vodka and cranberry juice or two, and doing some slow dancing. After that, nothing. He wonders how good this little girl was. He wonders what her
name
is, for that matter. Something with a
G,
he thinks. Georgia? Gina? Georgina?

And right about then, he remembers Goodman. Goodman, the little Caucasian guy they relieved of his pants.
That’s
what he wants to do today - go visit the guy and see if he’s got any of that pure shit of his left. ‘Cause that fuckin’ lazy sonofabitch No Neck Zelb never followed up on it, that’s for
damn
sure.

Big Red reaches for the phone and punches in the number of Hammer’s beeper. Then he lifts the covers off the lower half of the body alongside him, revealing as fine an ass as he’s seen in a
long
time. He’d like to remember more about last night but cannot. He rolls to his side, places a hand on the ass. It’s a beautiful milk-chocolate color, warm to the touch and wonderfully firm. He begins tracing a finger slowly down the line where the cheeks meet, from top to bottom. He’s about halfway when the phone rings.

He gives the ass a good slap. The head bobs up again, this time both eyes open, staring at him with some mixture of indignation, confusion, and expectation.

“Get packin’, sugar,” he says. “Big Red’s got some business to take care of today.”

“Daddy, is it time for me to get into my costume?” Kelly wants to know.

“It’s only two o’clock,” he tells her. “The party isn’t until six.”

“We’ll all start getting ready around three-thirty,” Carmen says. “That’ll give us more than enough time.”

“We can’t all go,” Kelly says.

“Why not?”

“‘Cause if Daddy drops me off, all the kids at the party will recognize him and know who I am.”

“You’ve got a point there,” Carmen admits. “Michael, I’ve got good news and bad news for you. The good news is, you don’t have to drop Kelly off at her party. The bad news is, you have to make dinner while I’m gone.”

“Deal,” he says, though he’s barely heard what she’s been telling him. He walks over to the suitcase with the yellow-and-green floral print. “Will you two excuse me for a few minutes?” he asks, lifting the suitcase. He unlocks the front door, opens it, and steps out of the apartment. Closing the door behind him, he heads down the stairs.

“Fuckin’ guy” Abbruzzo marvels. “Excuses himself when he goes to the fuckin’
bathroom.”

“Whitey gonna have hisself a little
adjustment
problem when he gets to Rikers Island,” Weems observes.

“Oh, they’ll
adjust
him pretty good out there,” Abbruzzo says. “Specially the brothas.”

“Sheeet.” Weems laughs. “Give him two days of good black lovin’, he’ll be beggin’ for more. Kinda like the white dude who gets tossed into a cell with this big brother been locked up for ten years, been doin’ nothin’ but weight training? The brother introduces himself. ‘You gots two choices,’ he tells Whitey. ‘You can be the husband, or you can be the wife.’ Whitey thinks a minute, finally says, ‘I’ll be the husband.’ ‘Okay,’ says the brother, ‘come on over here now and suck your wife’s dick!’”

The room dissolves into laughter.

In the basement, Goodman sets the suitcase down and sits on it in front of his storage locker, facing the black duffel bag. Inside the bag, he knows, is either eternal wealth or eternal prison. He thinks of a “Peanuts” comic strip he once saw: Snoopy’s composing a love letter. “And I shall be yours forever,” he writes.
“Forever
being a relative term, that is.”

Eternal wealth
or
eternal prison
being relative terms, Goodman thinks now. But not too far from being completely accurate.

Goodman realizes that there
is
one component of his dilemma that’s been eliminated. Before, he had to contend with the fact that, by selling the heroin, he was going to be responsible for its getting out onto the street and into the hands of addicts - kids, some of them. Now, he knows that’s not going to happen. Since Vinnie turns out to be a DEA agent, once Goodman sells him the drugs, they’re kept
off
the street. Then again, so is Goodman.

He only wishes he could think of some way to have it both ways. But he knows that’s asking the impossible. He reaches for the lock and starts dialing the combination.

By 2:20, he’s back upstairs. With the suitcase.

Sheridan calls in to the plant a little after 2:30.

“This is MOUSE,” he says over the radio. “Standing by for instructions.”

“Where are you, MOUSE?” Abbruzzo asks.

“I’m at the garage, on Delancey Street. I been checking out the equipment on board. This thing is
great!”

“You break anything, and I’ll have you back in uniform by morning,” Abbruzzo warns him.

“What?”

“
Don’t break anything!”

“Say again? Hello? Testing, testing-”

Just what I need, Abbruzzo thinks, a fuckin’
comedian.
He looks around for his Maalox.

By three o’clock, Kelly’s insistent that it’s time for her to put on her costume. “And you’ve got to put one on, too,” she tells Carmen. “Otherwise, they might see you someday with my Daddy and figure out who I am.”

Carmen has a little trouble with the likelihood of that particular scenario, but she’s a good sport about it. While Kelly starts changing, Carmen makes a quick run to a stationery store on Eighty-Ninth Street, where they’re selling inexpensive masks. She narrows it down to two but can’t decide which she likes better. Seeing they’re each $3.95, she ends up buying them both - that way, Kelly can decide for her.

Heading back to the apartment, Carmen remembers Goodman’s suggestion that she call in. She stops at a pay phone, punches in the number for her office.

“Group Two.” It’s the secretary’s voice.

“Hi, Emilia, it’s Cruz. Is No Neck around?”

“No, but they’re on the air. Want me to raise them?”

“How about the boss?”

“Lenny? He’s here.”

“Let me speak to him.”

“Hold on.”

After a moment, she hears Lenny Siegel’s voice. “Cruz?”

“Hi, boss.”

“Where are you?”

“At a pay phone, Ninetieth and Lexington.”

“What’s going on?” he asks her. “You don’t write. You don’t call.”

“Everything’s fine,” she tells him. “I just don’t get out much, that’s all.”

“He doesn’t suspect anything?”

“This guy doesn’t suspect he’s
alive,
” she assures Siegel. “He’s truly dumber than a stick.”

“He’s got the goods?”

“Sure seems that way.”

“Is he armed?” Siegel asks.

“You kidding or what? This guy’s a pussycat.”

“You been stroking his fur, huh?”

“What’s
that
supposed to mean?”

“You know - did you ‘consensual-relation’ him, like we said you could?”

Carmen controls herself, knowing this is no time to lose her cool. “You’ll have to read my report,” she says.

“Don’t be putting stuff like that in your report,” he tells her. “We’ve cut a few corners in this one already, you know.”

Tell
me about it, she wants to say. Instead, she settles for, “Gotta run.”

Sheridan radios the plant back a little while later.

“Had you worried, huh, Ray?”

“Had me
pissed,”
Abbruzzo snaps, forgetting for a moment he’s on the air.

“Sorry about that, chief.”

“The deal’s going to go down at the corner of Sixth Avenue and Tenth Street,” Abbruzzo says. “It’s not supposed to happen till eight, but I want you set up there ahead a time. So stay by your radio, okay?”

“Ten-four.”

Two of the plainclothes cops come back into the plant.

“Wha’d she do?” Abbruzzo asks them.

“She went into a card store,” one of the officers says. “Bought somethin’ smallish. Stopped at a phone on the way back, made a call.”

“You get any overheards?”

“I walked by her one time,” the other officer says. “I think she was saying, ‘I got the runs.’ Then she hung up.”

“That’s it? You do a
walk-by,
and all you hear her say is she’s got the
runs?”

“Sorry. She looked like she was sorta checking for a tail,” the officer says. “I didn’t wanna spook her.”

“Watch your language there, boy,” says Harry Weems.

By the time Carmen gets back to the apartment, Kelly’s all witched up in her black hat, cape, and boots. Carmen finds the leftover black satin and cuts herself a piece long enough for a cape. She stands in front of the bathroom mirror, trying to drape it different ways. She couldn’t believe it when she first discovered that Goodman had no full-length mirror anywhere in his apartment. A
guy
thing, evidently; certainly no
woman
could ever live like that.