Shoot the Moon (27 page)

Vinnie grunts something unintelligible. There is no offer of a handshake.

Carmen stands up and reaches for Kelly’s hand. “Why don’t you and I take a walk, young lady?” she suggests.

“No problem,” Kelly says. He watches the two of them head down the steps, wondering if “No problem” is going to be his daughter’s latest in a long line of favorite expressions.

Vinnie looks at Goodman, who in turn stares at T.M. until Vinnie seems to catch on. “Give us a minute,” he says to T.M., and the bigger man shrugs before walking across the steps to the other lion. There he takes up a position facing in their direction, arms crossed and legs spread like some sort of sergeant at arms, out of earshot but still very much in sight.

Vinnie pulls out his cigarettes, mentholated ones in a green-and-white pack. He offers one to Goodman, who shakes his head no. Vinnie finds a lighter in the pocket of his sport jacket. The jacket is beige, and it looks Italian and expensive; the lighter is slim and gold-colored. He lights his cigarette and blows long streams of smoke out his nostrils. Goodman wonders if he’ll try for rings next.

“That was a nice thing, the other day,” Vincent tells him.

“So they tell me,” Goodman says. He assumes Vinnie’s referring to the sample, but he has no way of being certain, so he keeps his answer as noncommittal as he can.

“If I understand you correctly, you’ve got nineteen keys of the same stuff.”

“Sounds like you understand,” Goodman says, deciding this gangster talk is kind of fun.

“I got some people who are interested in the whole load.”

“I hope they’re wealthy people,” Goodman says, trying to do his best A1 Pacino imitation.

“They’re way beyond wealthy,” Vinnie says. “But they’re also very cautious. They want to make sure that what they’re getting is every bit as good as the first thing was.”

“That’s understandable.”

“That your kid?” Vinnie asks, looking over toward Carmen and Kelly.

Goodman nods.

“Nice-lookin’ girl,” Vinnie says. “Sure would hate to see anything bad happen to her.”

Goodman feels a chill run up his spine. He hasn’t counted on threats against his daughter. “If anything bad should happen to her,” he says slowly, “I better already be dead.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Vinnie says easily. “You would be. But then I don’t expect any problems. Do you?”

“Not me.”

“Good.” He lets his half-smoked cigarette drop, then grinds it out with the pointed toe of a boot that’s made out of snake or lizard or some other endangered species. “My people are willing to go to 2 million.”

Goodman’s figured things out in his head so many times and so many different ways that his laugh comes easily to him. The quarter-ounce sample was 2,000. An ounce should be 8,000. At thirty-five ounces to a kilo, that’s $280,000. Multiply that by nineteen, and you’re up to $5.32 million. “Go tell your people they don’t have a prayer,” he says.

“Hey,” Vinnie smiles. “The negotiations gotta begin
somewhere,
right?”

“Not if you’re here to waste my time,” Goodman says, realizing he’s shifted over to Robert De Niro.

“Why don’t you tell me what you’re lookin’ for,” Vinnie says.

“Me? I’m looking for 5 million.” He rounds it off. No use in being greedy.

“Get serious,” Vinnie laughs. “I’m authorized to go to two point five.”

“You’re not even close,” Goodman says, amazed that he’s able to keep a straight face while turning down $2.5 million. But it’s become a game to him, and he finds he’s surprisingly good at it. Maybe that has something to do with the fact that none of this seems even remotely real to him. This could just as easily be Monopoly.

“Two point seven five,” Vinnie says. “That’s my absolutely final offer.”

“Too bad,” Goodman says, starting down the steps. “And to think you probably could have had it for four-”

“Three,” says Vinnie, falling in behind him, matching him step for step.

“Why don’t you tell your people you tried your best? I’m sure they’ll understand.”

“Three two,” Vinnie pleads. “I gotta make something on this for myself.”

“Not a chance.”

“Three three?”

Goodman waits a second just for effect. He decides he’s played the game long enough, and is about to agree.

But Vinnie speaks first. “Three
five?”

“Deal,” says Michael Goodman.

Vinnie lets out a deep breath. “You drive a hard bargain,” he says.

“This isn’t exactly my first deal,” Goodman explains.

“It’s gonna take my people a few days to put their bread together,” Vinnie tells him. “I’ll call my sister when we’re ready to go. Is that all right?”

“No problem.” First Al Pacino, then Robert De Niro. Now all of a sudden, it’s Kelly Goodman he finds himself imitating.

Vinnie extends his hand, and they shake.

“Goodbye,” Goodman says.

Vinnie winks and says something that sounds like “Chow.” Goodman’s heard people say that before, though he can’t for the life of him figure out why they say it. As he heads down the steps to rejoin Kelly and Carmen, he succumbs to his nervous habit of checking his watch. It’s exactly 2:15. One thing about dealing with white guys is they show up on time.

Detectives Weems and Sheridan show up at the library steps on time, too; and Weems, at least, is anything but white. But
their
on time is 1420 hours, which is 2:20 in civilian time and a full five minutes after Goodman and Vinnie conclude their business. Because Goodman, Carmen, and Kelly dawdle a bit at the bottom of the steps before crossing Fifth Avenue and walking east toward Madison, Weems and Sheridan actually miss them by less than half a minute. But miss them they do, and - in surveillance - almost doesn’t count; a miss is a miss.

Nonetheless, Weems and Sheridan now take up separate observation positions on the steps, trying their best to blend in with the crowd. This isn’t all that easy for them to do. For one thing, they’re both over 200 pounds. That and their bellies, the direct and prodigious results of too many jelly doughnuts, buttered rolls, and slices of pizza. Finally, the fact that one of them’s black and one of them’s white would be a sure tip-off to any interested party that they’re some sort of law enforcement.

But there
is
no interested party to be tipped off. Weems and Sheridan will do their observing for the next hour and a half, or until it occurs to Sheridan to call the plant and find out what’s going on. Or, more precisely, why
nothing
is going on.

Abbruzzo stands by the window of the plant, watching the door of Goodman’s building through binoculars. He takes another look at his watch. It’s almost 3:45.

“I don’t get it,” he says. “Guy’s supposed to make a three o’clock meet a half hour away. Shoulda left his crib two-fifteen, two-thirty, two-forty at the latest. Here it is, quarter of
four,
for Chrissakes, and he hasn’t budged.”

“And he didn’t call to say he’s running late, or he’s not going to show,” Riley says, playing with the strap of the camera. “And nobody’s called
him
to say, ‘Where the fuck are you?’“

“I don’t get it,” Abbruzzo says again, lowering his binoculars, but continuing to watch the door across the way.

But then, all at once, he does get it. He gets it not because he figures out some subtle point he’s been overlooking, nor because he decides to approach it from a different direction, nor even because of some brilliant insight that suddenly comes to him. He gets it because, as he watches, into his vision come Michael Goodman, his daughter, and his “paramour.” But instead of coming
out
of the building like they’re supposed to be doing, they’re going
into
it.

“
Cocksucker!”
he roars just as the phone rings.

He picks it up and barks,
“What?”
into it.

“Ray?”

“Yeah?”

“Ray, it’s me, Sheridan. You okay?”

“No, I’m not okay.”

Sheridan seems to take that in stride. “Harry and I have been out here freezing our asses off for an hour and a half,” he says. “This guy gonna show or what?”

“No,” Abbruzzo says. “He’s not going to show. Come on back.” He puts the phone down before turning to Riley. “This guy is one clever piece of work,” he says.

“I been trying to tell you that all along,” Riley reminds him.

As soon as he gets upstairs, the clever piece of work collapses onto his sofa with Kelly and Carmen. Pop-Tart jumps up to join them, ready to eat or play, whatever their order of preference may be. But the three of them are exhausted from their long walk back uptown. Climbing the five flights of stairs was the final cruncher.

“Boy, we’re going to sleep tonight!” Carmen observes.

“Not me,” Kelly moans. “I’m going to
die
tonight!”

Michael Goodman feels his heart stop beating for an instant. He says nothing, but he catches Carmen looking at him, and he knows without her saying a word that the color has drained completely from his face.

“I’m going to get this guy,” Abbruzzo announces. He and Riley have been joined in the plant by Weems and Sheridan. “First thing Monday morning, we’re gonna pay another visit to Maggie-O.” “Maggie-O” is their nickname for Maggie Kennedy. Cops, like wiseguys and athletes, are among the top 2 percent of the world when it comes to creating nicknames.

“What for?” Sheridan asks. “Another search warrant?”

“Nope,” Abbruzzo says. “We’re going to get us another eavesdropping order. Only this time, we’re going to pull off a little black-bag job, plant us a
bug
in there.”

Because Kelly gets to pick the menu, they dine on grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup, a combination that particularly pleases Pop-Tart, who eats himself into semiconsciousness and then collapses for the night with Kelly. For Goodman and Carmen, it means their first opportunity to speak about the meeting with Vinnie.

“So how did it go?” she asks, drying dishes.

“Okay, I guess. First, he threatened my daughter, then we
hondled.”

“
Hondled?”

“Bargained,” he translates. “He offered a million, I asked for five.”

“And?”

“We more or less split the difference. I figured that’s how these things are supposed to work.”

“
Three million dollars?”

“Three and a half, actually.” He tries to sound nonchalant about it, but the truth is that he’s delighted with her disbelief and accepts it as a testament to his negotiating prowess.

“When is this supposed to happen?” she asks. “And
how?”

“He’s going to call us. Says his people are going to need a few days to get ready.”

“And
you,
Michael?” She looks at him hard. “Are you sure
you’re
ready to do this?”

“I’m ready,” he says. “As long as I don’t think about it too much.”

“You understand,” she says, “I really could go back to work for a while. She doesn’t define “work,” but it’s clear to him she’s not talking about waiting tables.

“No way,” he says.

“Look at it this way,” she says. “I get busted, it’s a night in jail.
You
get busted, it’s a
lifetime.”

“My daughter’s not going to die because I can’t pay her medical bills, and you’re not going to go back to -
to work.
I’m not sure of much in this world, but I’m sure of those two things.”

He glances in her direction, hoping for some show of appreciation at this manifesto of gallantry he’s just served up. What he sees instead is a look that falls somewhere between serious concern and total panic. Though neither of them says another word, it’s clear to both of them that Michael Goodman is hopelessly overmatched in a game so far out of his league that it might be laughable if only it weren’t so deadly serious.

Sunday afternoon finds Goodman with his navy buddies again, Krulewich, Lehigh Valley, and the Whale. Again there’s a Giants game on, but it’s a home game that started at one o’clock, and by the time Goodman arrives, it’s almost over. One look at the score tells him it’s going to be another long season for his team:

They try to play a card game called Oh, Hell, which they used to play on shipboard, but nobody can quite remember the rules. The Whale wants to play poker (“not for money or nothin’ - maybe just quarters”), but there are no takers. In the end, they fall back on hearts again.

As always, Goodman plays cautiously. But he’s modified his game plan just a bit. In addition to stripping his own hand of hearts, he keeps a wary eye out to make sure no one else - particularly Lehigh - is going to shoot the moon. He decides it’s a good policy to win at least one heart trick, or at least save a high heart or two, as insurance against such a possibility. The strategy seems to pay off, and after four hands, he’s in second place, just four points behind Lehigh.

Lehigh deals the final hand, and Goodman sorts his cards.

He recognizes instantly that it’s a hand with which he could shoot the moon if everything were to fall right. But he’s never tried it - in fact, he’s only seen Lehigh do it once, and it worked for him purely because everyone else got caught napping.

He leads his two of clubs. Everyone else follows suit, meaning that no hearts get played on the trick. The Whale, who’s won the trick with the queen, continues clubs, leading the five. Krulewich follows with the seven, Lehigh with the ten. Goodman sees he’s reached the moment of truth: With no clubs left, he’s free to play any card in his hand. He can dump the queen of spades right now and stick Lehigh (whose ten of clubs is going to win the trick) with thirteen points. Or he can throw a low spade or diamond, immediately tipping his hand that he’s going to shoot the moon.

He studies his hand, knowing that even his hesitation is likely to give him away.

“What did he play?” Krulewich asks, unable to see if Goodman’s thrown a card onto the table.

“Nothin’, you bat,” says the Whale.

“Man’s thinkin’ about a moon shot,” Lehigh says. It hasn’t taken him long to catch on.

Goodman chickens out and decides to play it safe. He throws the queen of spades. Lehigh picks it up and shifts to diamonds, leading the three.

It turns out that Goodman is able to dump only two of the six hearts in his hand. He ends up with ten points - his remaining four hearts, as well as six others that his opponents play on tricks that Goodman is forced to win.

He replays the hand in his head over and over again on the way home, kicking himself for not having gone for it. He’d been dealt a hand with real and obvious possibilities. The cards had been staring him in the face, daring him to take a chance. All it would have taken was the nerve. And yet, when the opportunity had presented itself, Goodman had shied away from it and had chosen instead to play it safe, as always. And playing it safe had cost him the game, had kept him in the losing column.

Michael Goodman is resigned to the fact that in this life there are those who take risks, and there are those who play it safe. He understands that he’ll always be a card-carrying charter member of the Safe Group. He guesses it’s a good thing to know himself, to understand his limitations, to appreciate that he simply doesn’t have whatever it takes - that sense of abandon, that
recklessness
that’s required to risk everything on the all- or-nothing long shot: to take a chance, to shoot the moon.