Shoot the Moon (39 page)

Zelb knows none of these things, of course. All he knows, as he puts his suitcase down on the sidewalk and out of his mind (so that he can stare open-mouthed and undistracted at the Breasts), is that he’s
in love.

Frank Farrelli, who by this time should be well into the role of Vinnie the drug buyer, can’t help noticing Zelb’s sudden change in focus. He swivels his body and follows his partner’s gaze in an attempt to see just what it is that’s suddenly captured Zelb’s attention.

And Farrelli sees what Zelb sees: the Breasts. And, more or less, he does what Zelb is doing: He stares. (Though to be fair to Farrelli, it should be pointed out that in the days and weeks to follow, he would steadfastly insist that he knew all along that the majorette was in fact a major, that the breasts were only real in the virtual sense, and that he was staring at them purely out of a sense of detached curiosity. As for the momentary lapse in concentration on the job at hand, however, neither agent would have much to offer in defense of his performance.)

Goodman, too, hears the crowd break into a roar, and the sudden turning of heads en masse tells him that the first paraders have come into view as they work their way up Sixth Avenue. He strains forward to see, but there are so many bodies in front of him that his view is completely blocked: All he can see are the backs of other watchers.

And a suitcase identical to his.

There can be no doubt about it - the same size, the same shape, the same yellow-and-green floral print.

Then, just as quickly as the suitcase had come into view, it’s suddenly obscured, and he can see only the backs of the two men standing closest to the spot where he saw it. But even from behind them, he can tell that one of them is slender, while the other is broad-shouldered and thick-necked.

Vinnie and T.M.

Michael Goodman has always been a careful person, slow to react, cautious in the extreme. He’s an old-fashioned accountant, wary of calculators - one who trusts his own ability to add a column of numbers better than that of some Japanese- or Mexican-made gadget whose battery might or might not be dependable. He likes to start at the top and add up the numbers, see what he gets. Then he adds them up again, this time starting from the bottom. (That way, he can’t make the same careless mistake twice, such as 29 + 6 = 33.) If he ends up with the same answer, he still might want to do it a third time, particularly if it’s essential that he get it right. And after that, if there’s a calculator that happens to be handy, it never hurts to double-check the answer, just to be on the safe side.

But something in Goodman tells him that there’s no time for all of that now, that spotting the suitcase at the very moment that the beginning of the parade is coming up the avenue is a good omen of sorts, and that it might be a mistake to hesitate. So before he can analyze the situation too closely, he forces himself to start off again, making a straight line for the two men, suitcase approaching suitcase.

Lenny Siegel, as the leader of Group Two, is supposed to be directing the DEA agents from the radio in his Cadillac, close to where the deal’s supposed to go down. But Siegel finds himself stuck in the same gridlock traffic that’s earlier forced Zelb, Farrelli, and the rest of the field agents to abandon their cars on Fourteenth Street.

“This is fucked up,” Siegel now tells his driver. “What street is this?”

“Twenty-third, sir,” replies Luis Sandoval. At twenty-two, Sandoval is the youngest agent in the group, and the newest, with less than two months on the job. Fresh out of John Jay College, he’s yet to make an undercover buy, be present at an arrest, or take part in a seizure. He doesn’t drink, smoke, curse, or seem to understand the occasional need to testify creatively in court. As a result, there are still serious doubts about Sandoval’s potential to fit into the law-enforcement community. Siegel has appointed him his personal driver for the time being, since none of the other agents want to be burdened with such an untested agent as a partner.

“This is really fucked up,” Siegel says, looking at the wall of traffic ahead of them. “Make a U-ey, Louie, and we’ll head uptown, get ourselves out of this fuckin’ mess.”

“Yessir,” says Sandoval.

Goodman comes up on Vinnie and T.M. from the rear, and can tell that they’re totally absorbed in the parade. He sets his suitcase down a few feet behind theirs. For a moment, he wonders if he might actually be able to slide theirs out from between them. It’s a maneuver he’s seen his daughter make when playing Pickup Sticks - gently pulling one stick free without disturbing those on either side of it. But he sees that T.M. has his leg pressed against the suitcase and decides he better look around for another move.

The noise is overwhelming. The first marchers are passing right by them, led by some guy dressed up like a majorette, wearing these huge rubber tits. Behind him are a couple of people wearing Newt Gingrich and Bob Dole masks, waving to the crowd. Two others are dressed up as huge ears, suspending a tiny likeness of Ross Perot between them. Next comes a huge smoke-breathing dragon, held aloft by a dozen people in black costumes. A full calypso band can be seen - and heard - coming up the avenue.

There’s so much noise - music, shouting, cheering, laughing, and applauding - that Goodman finally has to tap Vinnie and T.M. on their shoulders to get their attention. They spin around in tandem. For a fleeting instant, Goodman imagines he reads disappointment on their faces, or even sexual rejection. But he’s sure he must be mistaken - it’s only a
parade
they’ve been watching, after all.

“Hi, fellas,” he says.

“Hi,” they respond in unison, looking a bit out of their element. The greeting “Hi” is apparently not real big in either drug parlance or DEA agent machismo.

“How’s the parade?” Goodman asks them.

“Good,” Vinnie answers, his eyes now darting back and forth between Goodman’s suitcase and their own. “How do you want to do this?”

Goodman starts to answer, but his voice is completely drowned out by a giant roar of laughter from the crowd. Passing them is a huge float, featuring an outrageously attired couple engaged in mock fornication on a purple velvet four-poster. The breasts of the “woman” are every bit as bare as those of the majorette before her, and every bit as awesome. Above the display is a giant reproduction of the Nike logo - apparently corporate sponsorship has extended yet another tentacle into American life - and the slogan just do it.

“Let’s just do it,” Goodman says. And with that, he reaches for their suitcase with his left hand, yanks it off the sidewalk, and gives them a crisp salute with his right.

Dumbly, Vinnie and T.M. return the salute. T.M. takes a step toward Goodman’s suitcase, grasps the handle, and picks it up. He smiles slightly, apparently reassured by the discovery that it’s even heavier than the one he’s been lugging.

“Let’s do this again sometime,” Goodman says. As he backs away, he stumbles over something. Looking down, he sees it’s a big orange cone, one of those high-visibility rubber markers they use. He picks it up and looks for a place to toss it, but every inch of the sidewalk seems to be already occupied by a body. He shrugs and turns into the crowd.

To Zelb and Farrelli, the switch has happened faster than their wildest dreams. They’d counted on the fact that Goodman, as an accountant, would surely want to crack open their suitcase to assure himself that the money looked right. That would’ve given them time to do the same with his, to make certain the drugs are there, before signaling the backup team to move in. But Goodman’s sudden departure has thrown them off.

On top of that, not having been able to bring their car to the set has forced Zelb and Farrelli to abandon their original signal, which had, of course, been the traditional opening-of-the-trunk move. They’d hastily switched to an exchange of high fives, a gesture considered obvious enough to be easily spotted by the backup team.

Finally, with the gridlock caused by the parade, the backup team - once close to twenty strong, complete with vehicles and radios - has been reduced to two men on foot. And at this very moment, those two men are doing their best to follow Michael Goodman and the suitcase full of the government’s money, while at the same time watching Zelb and Farrelli for signs of anything approaching a high five.

Desperately, Zelb drops to his knees right there in the middle of the sidewalk as Farrelli does his best to keep the crowd from trampling them. Zelb needs to check to make sure that the drugs are there before they can give the signal for the backup team to move in. Otherwise, it may turn out that the seller has engaged in what’s termed a “dry run” - a delivery of something other than narcotics, just to see if the police are going to swoop down at the moment of the transfer. (Zelb knows of one case in which a wary seller delivered ten pounds of sanitary napkins to test whether things were safe for the actual sale.)

Zelb opens one latch, then the other. Then, holding his breath, he snaps the lid open and peers inside. What he sees is nineteen large plastic bags, each packed full with a grayish-white powder.

He breathes. He slams the lid shut, fastens the latches, and jumps to his feet. “Bingo!” he shouts to Farrelli, who has to lip-read his answer, because the crowd has broken into a roar once again. Then the two give each other a series of high fives that are, at least by white male standards, more or less identifiable.

The only problem is that at that moment, a marcher dressed up as a giant Barney the Dinosaur has begun to throw candy into the crowd. Not anything wonderful - chocolate Kisses, M&M’s, Neco Wafers, and the like - but more than enough to cause people who’ve been standing around in the cold for an hour and a half to react. And the way they react, naturally, is to raise their hands high as they attempt to catch the treats in midair.

This activity by the crowd lasts just long enough (and is just similar enough to the high fives of Zelb and Farrelli) to confuse the two backup agents, who are forced to hesitate a moment longer before closing in on Goodman and his suitcase. The last they see of him is his suitcase and his bright orange jacket, framed against the entrance of a large apartment building on the corner.

“That’s it!” one of them shouts. “That’s the high five, the signal!”

Joined by Zelb and Farrelli moments later, they will still be arguing over whether Goodman went into the building or somehow disappeared into the crowd.

“Calm down,” Zelb tells them. “We’ve got a backup system.” He reaches into his pocket and produces an object that looks like an electronic garage-door opener but is actually the locator unit of a powerful state-of-the-art homing device. He presses the On button. Immediately, a red light begins to flash every two seconds or so, accompanied by a beeping sound.

“He’s still nearby,” Zelb announces, “probably inside the building. This little gadget’ll tell us as soon as he makes a move.”

“You mean as soon as the
money
makes a move,” Farrelli corrects him.

“Same difference.”

“It’s a switch! It’s a switch!”

The voice is that of Lee Waters, coming over the radio to Ray Abbruzzo at the plant.

“Who’s with you?” Abbruzzo asks.

“Just me and Gleason.”

“Can you see the MOUSE?”

“No,” Waters says. “They drove off.”

“
Drove off?”
Abbruzzo can’t believe his ears. “MOUSE! Come in, MOUSE!” he shouts over and over again.

Finally, he hears Daniel Riley’s voice and a timid “MOUSE here.”

“Are you still there?” Abbruzzo asks.

“Not exactly,” comes the reply.

“
Can you tell me where the fuck you are, then?”
Abbruzzo screams into the microphone.

“Uh, not exactly.”

“What is this, some Hertz commercial?
What’s going on out there?”

The answer that finally comes sounds small and far away, and almost like a question of its own. “We’re being towed away?”

Abbruzzo grabs the neck of the microphone as if to throttle it. Twice, he starts to say something; twice, he stops. Finally, he releases the microphone, reaches for his Maalox tablets, and downs whatever’s left of them, wrapper and all.

“What should we do, Ray?”

Abbruzzo suddenly remembers he’s got Waters and Gleason standing by, waiting for orders.

“How many of them are there?” he asks.

“Hard to tell,” Waters says. “Looks like three or four of them, and the suitcase.”

“Think you two can take them?” Abbruzzo asks.

“Shit, yeah.”

“Go for it.”

Zelb, Farrelli, and one of the other DEA agents are still in front of the apartment building, playing with the locator device. The fourth agent is stationed at the service entrance of the building, a couple of doors down.

“From the way it’s giving out a constant signal,” Zelb explains, “he’s gotta be inside. Otherwise, we’d be losing him.”

“I don’t know,” Farrelli says. “It feels like we’ve already lost him.”

“Have a little faith in technology,” Zelb tells him, his eyes on the flashing red light.

“
Freeze, motherfuckers!”

Zelb looks up and sees two crazy guys pointing toy handguns at them from combat positions. “Go march in the fuckin’ parade,” he tells them. “Cancha see we’re busy here?”

“I said,
freeze!
”

Zelb takes a closer look. Maybe the guns don’t look so much like toys after all.

Lee Waters keeps his gun trained on the guy with the big neck, the one closest to the suitcase. On Waters’s left, George Gleason has both hands on his own gun, pointed in pretty much the same direction.

What Waters is thinking is that this is a career-defining moment for him. With the rest of the troops nowhere to be found, he and his partner have saved the day. They’ve brought down three perps with a suitcase full of pure heroin. This will mean a commendation at the very least, perhaps a
promotion.
Possibly even an appearance on the eleven o’clock news. He can’t wait to see his face on TV as he stands flanked by the mayor and the police commissioner, drugs displayed in front of them, answering Gabe Pressman’s questions in a steady, self-assured voice.