Piece of the Action (36 page)

The Ford refused to start. As predicted. The engine turned over, but except for an occasional backfire through the carburetor, never came close to actually starting. Which meant his basic strategy, to cruise the Lower East Side until he found Allen Epstein, was out the window.

What he had to do was get into the precinct. He needed Jake Leibowitz’s photograph and fingerprints. There was a witness up in Hell’s Kitchen, a witness whose identification could be used to produce arrest and search warrants. Once the process got started, once a judge put his name to the paperwork, Pat Cohan would have to back off and let the system operate. Maybe after Jake Leibowitz figured it out, he’d trade Steppy Accacio for a life sentence. Maybe Accacio, just as guilty of murder as Jake Leibowitz in the eyes of the law, would turn on Patrick Cohan and Sal Patero.

And maybe if he, Moodrow, didn’t find Allen Epstein and gain access to the information he needed, Jake Leibowitz, Steppy Accacio, Pat Cohan and Sal Patero would have the pleasure of toasting Stanley Moodrow’s mug shot.

Moodrow got out of the car and began to walk south, toward Delancey Street and the Williamsburg Bridge. There was an alley beneath the bridge, just off Willet Street. It ran between two small businesses:
MYRON KOSHER: LIVE POULTRY PICK YOUR OWN
and
B&B PLUMBING: SECOND-HAND AND NEW
. Officer Joseph Gerber would be sleeping inside that alleyway. He’d be sitting on the passenger’s side of his squad car, his head slumped against the window, a pint of PM whiskey tucked under the seat. The booze wasn’t there to get him stoned. It was there to keep him functioning through roll call.

Every precinct had a Joseph Gerber (or two or three or four), a dedicated lush with a few years to go before earning a right to the magic pension. They were tolerated, as long as they stayed out of trouble. Gerber was a master of the coop. His main goal in life was to mind his own business, to avoid anything remotely related to the concept of work. He pursued this end, especially on rainy days, by hitting the bottle until he was too stewed to answer the radio.

It took Moodrow fifteen minutes to walk down to the bridge. He stopped once, to pick up several containers of hot coffee, but saw no one he knew. The rain fell steadily, puddling up in the gutters. It carried all the garbage left behind by thoughtful residents since the last rain—cigar butts, candy wrappers, orange rinds, sheets of newspaper.

Moodrow kept his eyes on the sidewalk, stepping around, over and through the muddy water as he made his way along empty sidewalks. He took out his gold shield when he entered the Willet Street alley, then quickly walked the fifty feet to Gerber’s old green and black.

“Joe. Hey, Joe.” Moodrow tapped gently on the window, hoping to wake Gerber without scaring him to death. The tapping had no effect, it being entirely overpowered by Gerber’s own snoring.

“Hey, Joe!” Moodrow shouted. “Get the fuck up!”

Gerber woke in a panic, his hand dropping to the Smith & Wesson in its holster. Moodrow pressed his badge against the window and Gerber’s panic turned to mere confusion.

“What the, what the, what the …”

“Unlock the door, Joe. I gotta talk to you.”

“Stanley? That you, boy?”

Gerber unlocked the door and slid across the front seat. Moodrow got in next to him, then rolled down the window as he caught a whiff of Gerber’s breath.

“I need a favor, Joe. I want you to get the sergeant over here.”

“How do I do that?” Gerber asked.

“With the radio. How the fuck else?”

“It ain’t workin’.” He turned up the volume and the two cops listened to the radio pop and crackle for a few seconds.

“Have some coffee, Joe. Take a good slug, then start the car and drive it fifty feet to the end of the alley. The radio’ll work just fine.”

Ignoring Moodrow’s coffee, Gerber retrieved the bottle of PM and took a quick sip. “The sergeant don’t like me, Stanley. I don’t wanna see the sergeant. Why don’t ya go down to the house and get the duty officer to hail him?”

“I’ll take care of the sergeant. You just get him on the horn.”

Gerber took a much longer pull then sighed. “All right, Stanley. But if I get in trouble, I ain’t gonna forget.” He grinned. “Not before I finish the bottle, anyway. You want a shot?”

Jake Leibowitz, cruising past Steppy Accacio’s two-story frame house, had murder on his mind. Murder and revenge, the noble motives. Not that he had any illusions. Not that he had any hope of getting out of this in one piece. Even if he managed to blast Accacio (and his partner, Joe Faci, and his nephew, Santo Silesi), he’d still have to deal with the guineas who’d set Accacio up in the first place. Not to mention the rest of Accacio’s little mob.

No, his chances of survival were about the same as those of a lobster on display in a seafood restaurant. Unless, of course, he got out. Unless he ran.

Right now, he
couldn’t
run. It wasn’t in him to lose everything while Accacio came up smelling like a rose. Besides, where could he go? Boston? Chicago? Los Angeles? The wops were everywhere. Sooner or later they’d catch up to him and that would be all she wrote. He did have one idea, though. It had come to him as he sat in traffic outside the Lincoln Tunnel. Maybe there was one place a Jew could go where he wouldn’t be outgunned. Maybe he could even take his mother with him. Maybe he could go to Israel and help kill Arabs when the next war came.

But running, if it came to that, was way in the future. The present was how to get inside Accacio’s house without being spotted. How even to get
close,
considering it was winter and there were no leaves on the trees and bushes to give him cover. Montclair, New Jersey, wasn’t the Lower East Side. This was the kind of neighborhood where citizens reported prowlers and the bulls actually came out to check.

The rain would help, the rain and the fog. They’d help even more if he waited till dark. But he wasn’t going to do that because there wasn’t any place to wait. And besides, people were already looking for him, maybe
lots
of people.

Jake parked the car half a block away from Accacio’s and opened the door. “Time to go to work, Jakey,” he said aloud. “None down and three to go.”

His black cashmere overcoat was soaked before he took a dozen steps. Not that it mattered, because soon he wouldn’t need an overcoat. There was only two places in Jake Leibowitz’s future, Israel or hell. As far as he knew, there wasn’t any cold weather in either one of ’em. Still, as soon as he got within sight of Accacio’s house, he stepped beneath a huge pine tree and tried to brush the water off. When he looked up, he saw a woman standing on the front porch. She opened the mailbox, pulled out a few letters, then saw him standing there.

“Shit,” Jake said, “I ain’t even gonna get
one
of the bastards.” His hand was already sliding toward the butt of Abe Weinberg’s .45, when the woman put a finger to her lips.

“Shhhhh,” she said, beckoning him with a finger.

Jake peered through the mist, trying to make out the woman’s features. “Goddamned eyes,” he muttered.

Now the woman was using her whole hand to beckon him forward. And she was looking over her shoulder, signaling to someone in the house. Or making sure there was nobody watching her.

Jake was tempted to run for it. Jump in the Packard and get his ass back to the Lower East Side before he got it shot off. But then the woman did something completely amazing. She stepped off the porch and walked straight at him. That was when he recognized her, though he couldn’t remember her name. She was Steppy Accacio’s wife.

“Shhhhh,” she whispered. “You no make-a no noise.”

Jake tried to meet her eyes, but she wasn’t looking up. She was looking down at the .45 he held in his right hand.

“Are ya crazy?” Jake asked. “Comin’ out here like this. Whatta ya want?”

“Uppa-stairs,” she answered. “Antonio. Uppa-stairs. He sleeps.”

“Who the fuck is Antonio?”

“Steppy, Steppy. Uppa-stairs.” She closed her eyes and rested her head on her shoulder for a moment. “Sleepa. He sleepa.” Then she grabbed the lapel of Jake’s cashmere overcoat and half-dragged him across the lawn and into the house.

“There.” She pointed to the staircase before walking into the kitchen and closing the door behind her.

Jake didn’t waste any time. What was the point? He was
inside
the house which is exactly where he wanted to be. If Steppy Accacio had been waiting for him, he’d be dead already.

His grip tightened on the butt of Abe’s .45 as he quietly made his way up the stairs. Five closed doors, two on either side and one at the end of the hallway, led to the various bedrooms and to the toilet. Jake didn’t have to guess which one belonged to Steppy Accacio. Accacio’s loud snoring left no doubt. Jake, his shoes squishing with each step, walked down to the second door on the left. He put his ear to the wooden panel and listened for a moment. Somebody was sleeping in there, all right. Or
something.
Jake wasn’t absolutely sure it was a human being. It sounded more like a bear.

Jake looked down at Abe Weinberg’s .45. What had Abe called it? Little Richard? Yeah, Little Richard. Abe was dead. The wops had made
him
kill Abe. Izzy was dead, too. Lying in some Jersey swamp. And what had they done, Izzy and Abe, except follow orders? Maybe they
had
made that one mistake, but they’d done a damn good job of the rest of it. So why didn’t any of that matter?

“Because we’re Jews,” Jake muttered, pushing the door open. “And nobody gives a shit about us.”

Steppy Accacio was sprawled on the bed. His red silk pajamas contrasted sharply with the starched white sheets. A black mask covered his eyes, making him look like a chubby Lone Ranger.

The mask, Jake decided, had to go. He wanted Steppy Accacio to see what was coming and who it was coming from. He walked over to the bed and slapped Accacio’s face with all his strength.

“Ahhhhhh.” Accacio’s head came off the pillow in a hurry. He ripped at the mask, cursing at the top of his lungs, then froze when he saw Jake Leibowitz and the .45 he held in his hand.

“Whatta ya say, Steppy? Surprised to see me?”

“Don’t do it, Jake. Don’t shoot me.”

“Is that what Izzy said?”

“Izzy? I don’t know any Izzy. Whatta ya …”

Jake smashed his fist into Accacio’s face. It felt so good, he did it again. Then he stepped back to watch the blood flow from Accacio’s broken nose down over his mouth and chin.

“It ain’t right, what you done, Steppy. I mean after we took care of the pimp and his old lady, that should’a been the end of it. What’d ya think, the bulls’d take me and I’d turn canary? Ya promised us a little time and then ya went out and killed Izzy. It ain’t right.”

“Ya should’ve gone to Los Angeles,” Accacio mumbled. He licked at the blood on his lips, then shuddered.

“Why didn’t
you
go to Los Angeles? Why couldn’t ya leave me and Izzy to deal with the cops? See this gun? It’s got a name. Little Richard. That’s what Abe Weinberg called it. Now Abe’s dead. And for what? For killin’ a spic?”

“You
kept
the gun?” Accacio’s amazement overrode his fear. “You kept a murder weapon?”

“Why shouldn’t I keep it? Didn’t Joe Faci tell me everything was fixed up? Huh? Didn’t he?”

“We thought it was handled, Jake. I swear.”

“Thought? Ya pretend ya such a big shot. ‘Don’t worry about nothin’, Jake. We got it covered.’ Next thing I know the cops are sniffin’ around and I gotta go to Los Angeles. Well, I ain’t ya fuckin’ dog, Steppy. I ain’t
nobody’s
dog.”

“Look, Jake, I got money …”

“Here? Ya got it right here in the house?”

“No.”

Jake pulled the trigger without thinking. The slug caught Steppy Accacio in the right shoulder, spinning him into the headboard. It glanced off bone and tore down the soft tissue in his arm, ripping arteries and veins before exiting just behind the elbow. The blood spread across the sheets, soaking them before either man could speak.

“Ya killed me,” Steppy Accacio finally said, trying to lift his shredded arm. “Look what ya done. Ya killed me. I got killed by a Jew.”

I
T WAS EIGHT O’CLOCK WHEN
Moodrow finally decided to give it up. What was the sense of pretending to be patient? Who did he expect to fool? He was the only one there and he definitely wasn’t fooling himself. If he had a rope, he’d be skipping it. If he had a heavy bag, he’d be hitting it. The truth was that he’d never been this jumpy in his life. Not even before his first fight, when Uncle Pavlov had to hold him on the stool while the introductions were being made.

Despite his earlier decision to stay away, Moodrow was back inside his own apartment. He was waiting for Allen Epstein to arrive with the package on Jake Leibowitz and his impatience was only partially due to the desire for combat and the fear of arrest. He wanted Jake Leibowitz, no question about it. From that narrow point of view, he’d be a lot better off going to Pearse O’Malley with Leibowitz’s photo in hand. But that didn’t mean he could ignore the fact that O’Malley was in danger. If Sal Patero had been telling the truth (and Moodrow had no doubt that he was), there were at least four bodies tied to the shooting of Luis Melenguez. One more wouldn’t matter. Not to the killers.

Moodrow finally decided to wait until eight-thirty. If Epstein didn’t show by eight-thirty, he’d go up to Hell’s Kitchen and warn O’Malley, even if that meant losing him as a witness. This decision firmly made, Moodrow pulled a chair up to the window and sat down to watch for Epstein’s patrol car. It was a Tuesday evening and despite the dry streets and warm temperatures, the block was nearly empty. The few pedestrians strode purposefully, heads down, arms pumping. The press liked to call New York “The City That Never Sleeps,” but that description didn’t really apply to working-class neighborhoods where the kids had to be fed, the garbage put out, the dog walked … all before
The Perry Como Show.
Or
Gunsmoke.
Or
The $64,000 Question.

Still, there’d be action on Third Avenue. The hookers would be coming out now that the shops and businesses had closed for the night. Customers were already drifting south from their uptown hotels. The flesh trade worked all night, every night.