Forced Entry (29 page)

“I told the captain I might be able to get the old man out of there without a struggle,” Dunlap confessed.

“So what’s the problem?” Betty asked. “Why don’t you just go talk to Mike about it?”

“I can’t get past the neighbors. And, besides, he wants to see you and Moodrow. He says you’re his lawyer and Moodrow’s his bodyguard.”

“Jesus,” Moodrow said, shaking his head in wonder. “The old man’s got more balls than a buffalo.”

“The whole situation is scaring the shit out of me,” Dunlap admitted. “I’m afraid he doesn’t have any intention of giving up. Ever. I’m afraid he’ll have a heart attack when we drag him out of there. But, most of all, I’m afraid that you and Betty are gonna talk him into making some kind of last stand.”

“And what’s the captain gonna do for Mike?” Betty said quietly, catching Moodrows approving smile out of the corner of her eye. “What’s the deal, Paul?”

“We have to book him,” Dunlap began.

“Forget it,” Betty said, beginning to turn away.

“We
have
to book him. We
have
to arraign him. You know that, Betty. You’re a trial lawyer.”

“If you think I’m gonna let an eighty-year-old client sit in a holding pen at Central Booking, you’re very much mistaken. If that’s what you have in mind, you can drag Mike Birnbaum through the hall without my help.”

“Jesus,” Dunlap cried, “give us an alternative.”

“That’s no problem,” Moodrow interrupted. “No problem at all.” Both heads swiveled toward him and he giggled softly to himself before continuing. “You forgot about bedside booking and arraignment, Paulie? You should read your Patrol Guide more often.”

“That’s for prisoners who’re sick or wounded,” Dunlap replied weakly.

“After a night and a day like the ones Birnbaum just went through, being eighty is a sickness all by itself. Nobody’s gonna say shit if you take him, under police escort, to a hospital instead of the precinct. Once he’s in the hospital, you can drag in a judge and do the arraignment on the spot.”

Betty raised a hand, bringing Moodrow to a halt. “Wait a second,” she said. “I hope you’re not talking about sending my client to a locked prison ward.”

“Not necessarily,” Dunlap said. “We sometimes take wounded prisoners to the nearest hospital. Sometimes we arrest them while they’re in the hospital bed. The only requirement is that a member of the force stay with the prisoner at all times. The captain might go for that.”

“And I expect my client to be released on his own recognizance. Naturally.”

“We’d have to get to the DA’s office before we could guarantee it,” Dunlap said. He was smiling now.

“So, go do it,” Betty said. “Call everybody. We’ll go talk with Mike and see if we can reach an understanding.”

Dunlap hesitated. “You believe that what I said before was true, right? There’s no way he can get out of this. We’re gonna book him. Fingerprints, mug shots, the works.”

“Don’t threaten me, sergeant,” Betty said, her eyes riveted to Dunlap’s.

“Wait a second.” Moodrow, ever the peacemaker, stepped between them. “Paulie’s only doing his job, Betty. And I tell you the truth, we oughta be glad he was here today. Besides which, if Paul looks good in front of the captain, it’s gotta help us in the long run. You go ahead, Paulie. Go talk to the captain and then come back to us. We’ll be inside the apartment.” Smiling benignly, he watched Dunlap walk away, then turned back to Betty. “You did great,” he said. “If you ever decide to become a private eye, you definitely got a spot in my firm.”

“Don’t enjoy yourself too much, Stanley,” Betty said as they entered the building. “If they charge him with manslaughter, he’s gonna have to fight.”

Moodrow’s reply was interrupted by the cheers of the tenants packed into the hallway. The lobby, on the other hand, was packed with patrolmen who demonstrated their reluctance to let the pair through by closing ranks.

“Moodrow.”

They turned to find Captain George Serrano walking toward them. Not surprisingly, he ignored the Legal Aid attorney in favor of the ex-cop. “I just want to talk to you for a minute before you go in,” he said, as soon as he was close enough to speak confidentially. “I heard you were a cop. Thirty-five years.”

“I don’t see the point,” Moodrow replied quickly. He’d never had any love for the brass. “I’m a private investigator now and Mike is my client.”

“For Christ’s sake, man,” Serrano continued. “Let’s find a way to get him out of there. We don’t wanna bust heads. These are civilians, not criminals. Besides, I think the perp was already dead when Mike put the bullet in his back.”

“So this whole thing is a fucking farce?”

“You know the job as well as I do,” Serrano insisted. “We’re
going
to make an arrest today. Hell, you’re lucky the perp wasn’t black. If he was black, I’d have to shoot my way through the door.”

“I’m glad you told me that,” Moodrow replied, already walking away. “I’m glad to hear you’re doing me a favor.”

Moodrow plucked Jorge Rivera and Andre Almeyda from the assembled tenants before entering Birnbaum’s apartment, advising the others to keep their cool. “Don’t say anything to make the cops mad. Nothing. Remember, they’re not the enemy.”

Inside, they found Mike and Paul Reilly calmly playing gin rummy, the gun on the table between them. “Did we get a little bit even?” Mike demanded of Betty. His face was still swollen, the bruises faintly visible.

“You got stupid is what you got,” Betty returned evenly.

“For killing a
gonif
? Killing a
gonif
is a
mitzvah
, in case you hadn’t heard.”

“You wanna talk about it in front of witnesses?” Betty said firmly. “I work for Legal Aid, so I usually don’t get to pick my clients, but when I do get the chance, I try to stay away from stupid ones. From this minute, you don’t talk to
anyone
about the shooting, but me. I swear, Mike, if you wanna act like a
schnorrer
and go brag to all your neighbors what a big hero you are, I’ll dump you and you’ll have to go out and
pay
someone to represent you.”

Mike flinched at Betty’s assault and when he spoke, his voice was much softer. “How much time have I got before they arrest me?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Hours, probably.”

“Do you think you could fix it so I get busted before my daughter gets here? She’s on her way from New Jersey.”

Betty and Moodrow broke out laughing, while the three tenants just looked confused.

“That’s great,” Mike said, “but if you knew my daughter, you wouldn’t think this was comedy.”

Betty, still chuckling, drew Mike off into the kitchen where she could listen privately to his rendition of the events leading to the demise of Talker Purdy. Moodrow stayed in the living room with the three tenants. He began by explaining the deal they were trying to work out regarding Mike’s arrest, a deal which seemed perfectly satisfactory to the trio, as long as Mike went along with it. Despite their defiant stance, they were all subscribers to the American dream, and fighting cops didn’t come naturally to any of them. Not even Andre Almeyda, who’d once been arrested by Castro’s police and held as a subversive for the better part of a week. As soon as Moodrow made it clear that Mike would not have to be locked up with
them
, each breathed a private sigh of relief.

“But the big thing, from your point of view,” Moodrow continued, “is that there’s cameras coming and you have to decide who’s gonna represent the tenants. This is a big opportunity for you to put your case out where people can see it. The bureaucrats and the cops hate publicity. Publicity brings phone calls from angry politicians who demand action. But you gotta be prepared when you talk to the reporters. You have to know exactly what you want to say and you have to say it without slandering the landlord or the cops. Also, whoever you pick is gonna be the media’s permanent contact, so you have to get it right the first time.”

“And how should we do this?” Andre Almeyda asked.

“First, decide who’s going to represent you, then we’ll go over what to say.”

“A moment,
por favor
,” Jorge Rivera said. “But I think we should have the others here. Jimmy Yo and Muhammad Assiz and Mrs. Bonnastello.” He turned to Andre Almeyda. “And perhaps your wife, Andre.”

Rivera projected the perfect image. Naturally dignified, his large, round face, topped by jet-black hair, was nearly always composed. He smiled as rarely as he frowned. His accent, not so strong as to impede communication, would remind viewers that he was an immigrant, a hard-working man preyed upon by forces beyond his control while stronger forces (the cops, mainly, but also the landlord and the courts) stood by indifferently. Jorge was the perfect helpless victim and that’s the way the association decided to play it. Rather than blame specific individuals, they would plead helplessness and demand police action.

Mike Birnbaum’s affairs went equally well. After two hours of phone calls, George Serrano, Precinct Commander, managed to get permission to have Birnbaum—accompanied by two patrol sergeants, but
without
handcuffs—admitted to Physician’s Hospital, a few blocks away. One of the sergeants would take him through the booking procedure, photograph and fingerprint him. A judge would arrive by evening to handle the arraignment, after which he would be allowed to return home. If, as Serrano believed, Talker Purdy had completed his transformation from moron to corpse as soon as Mike’s second shot had penetrated the back of his skull, all the charges, with the exception of the gun possession, would be dismissed. And no judge in his right mind would endanger his career by sentencing an eighty-year-old Jew to hard time—probation on the gun charge was politically mandatory.

The actual operation went smoothly. The tenants in the hallway left as soon as the deal was explained to them and the sergeants led the diminutive Mike Birnbaum into a wall of exploding flashbulbs and screaming reporters. Birnbaum remembered his instructions from Betty (“If you say one word to the reporters, I swear I’ll testify at your incompetency hearing. I’ll see that you’re sent to New Jersey with your daughter”). He kept a dignified silence, walking, eyes front, directly to the ambulance waiting outside the building and, with the help of the two sergeants, climbed inside.

A few minutes later, Moodrow escorted Jorge Rivera (who introduced himself to reporters as
George
Rivera) to a prearranged interview with a CBS reporter, then listened attentively while Rivera presented the tenants’ case by enumerating the various attacks on their way of life: the fire, the drugs, the muggings, the prostitutes. The message intended for viewers was simple: if it can happen to us, it can happen to you.

Moodrow hadn’t been at a crime scene involving reporters for a long time, and he was engrossed in the manic lunacy, when Paul Dunlap tapped him on the shoulder.

“I gotta talk to you a minute,” he said. “Let’s go where it’s quieter.” Without further comment, he led Moodrow outside and across the street. “First,” he said, “I wanna say that I hope you didn’t take no offense over what happened this morning.”

“No offense,” Moodrow replied. “I haven’t been out so long I don’t remember the line: ‘You take the man’s money, you do the man’s job.’ ”

“Good. I’m glad to hear that, because it looks as if the captain is gonna keep the case open. We finally got the report on the vials and the needles from the print man.” Dunlap noted Moodrow’s double take, enjoying it thoroughly. It pleased him no end to see Moodrow caught off guard for a change. “At least we know it was arson,” Dunlap said as he took the forensics report from his jacket pocket, consulting it to maintain accuracy as he went along. Like most cops, he felt most comfortable when he was dealing with quantities. “Okay, twelve syringes were recovered at the scene. Two were burnt. Four had multiple prints and smudges. Six were wiped clean. There were twenty-one crack vials recovered. Eight had multiples and thirteen were clean. Same with the dope envelopes and rest of the paraphernalia. A few multiples, but most of it wiped.”

“Good,” Moodrow said, his mind already wandering in search of a theory. “The arsonist made a mistake. He should have worn gloves when he gathered up the decoy paraphernalia, but he didn’t and he had to wipe the material down.”

“But you were wrong,” Dunlap said gleefully, “about the mattress belonging to the old superintendent. There must have been junkies down there before the arsonist.”

“What does it matter?” Moodrow replied evenly. “The arsonist was clever. He took advantage of existing conditions to set up his smokescreen. If he’d been a little more careful, Serrano would’ve closed out the case and I would’ve lost you—which wouldn’t have stopped me, anyway. But he fucked it up. He made one mistake…”

“What if he made more than one mistake?” Dunlap asked, chuckling.

“C’mon, Paulie, don’t bust my balls.” Moodrow, who’d lost the routine right to use the enormous resources of the NYPD, wasn’t crazy about Dunlap’s teasing. Nevertheless, as he and Betty had been busting Dunlap’s (and, by extension, the NYPD’s) balls all morning, he could understand the justice in it. “Awright,” Dunlap grinned. “I told you there were thirteen clean vials. That wasn’t true. There were only twelve clean vials. One of the clean ones had a single print, an itty, bitty pinky print, very sharp and clear, right below the cap.”

T
HE ABSOLUTELY BEST THING
about whores, according to Marek Najowski, was the indisputable fact that they didn’t desire their customers. For instance, Marie, the black whore scrubbing his kitchen, actually hated him; he could feel the hatred rolling off her, as real as the sweat that rolled between her breasts while he fucked her. Whenever he had the time, he made her work until she was drenched with sweat. Until, hoping to get it over with, she surrendered her body eagerly. She was allowed to leave after he came. That was part of their deal and Marek, knowing how much she wanted to hear the door close behind her (how much she wanted to be free of
him
) liked to begin caressing her, to kneel beside her while she worked and run his fingers over the backs of her legs for a few moments, then return to his chair without explanation. Probably, she didn’t know how excited he was. Either that or she was too professional to rush him.