Authors: Stephen Solomita
“I don’t think so.” Moodrow was settled in for the time being, watching and waiting. Hoping someone would come along to lead them to Najowski—a friend, a deliveryman, a business acquaintance.
“We worked a full week on a precinct homicide. Staked out like we are now. We knew who did the killing, asshole named Oray Donaldson, but we didn’t know where he was and we were watching a soup kitchen on Rector Street where he liked to go to eat. One day, my partner calls me and says his wife’s sick and he’s not coming in, which is okay by me because I can’t stand the bastard. Meanwhile, there’s nothing wrong with his old lady. He found out through one of his snitches where Donaldson was hiding out and made the arrest by himself. Now the lieutenant wants to know where I was. Was I fucking off? How come I’m not ambitious? Maybe I was appointed to the detectives too soon. And I gotta stand there and take it.”
Moodrow held up his hand. “Cool down a second, Jim. Partnerships in the job are temporary. Why don’t you ask for a new assignment?”
“Oh, I’m looking for a new assignment, all right. I’m thinking about leaving the department altogether. When you retired, I was real gung-ho about working for the community, but I don’t see how I’m gonna do it. I know for a fact that Captain Ruiz is trying to get me out of the 7th. He’s got a hatchetman, named Ocasio, who ‘deals with potential problems before they happen.’ Ruiz thinks I’m a potential problem and I think he’s right.”
“What does Rose say about this?” Moodrow, stunned, managed to ask.
“Rose’s making $45,000 working for the city. It’s enough to keep us going while I start something else.”
“And what would that be?”
Tilley’s voice suddenly dropped two octaves as he gestured toward the black woman standing in front of 1010 Grace Court. “What do you make of that?”
Moodrow didn’t know whether Tilley was referring to the woman’s strange wardrobe, a lustrous peach jacket over a torn gray housecoat, or the fact that her finger was pressing on the second of three buzzers, the one belonging to Marek Najowski. He understood the question, though. Nothing pleases a cop so much as a situation that demands an explanation.
M
ARIE PORTER DIDN’T KNOW
whether to be angry or relieved. On the one hand, she’d come all the way out to Brooklyn for nothing. Marie was one of those Manhattanites who equated a trip to the outer boroughs of New York City with a journey to the Twilight Zone; whenever she left “the city” on business, she expected to be well-rewarded. On the other hand, when repeated pushes on Marek Najowski’s buzzer brought absolutely no response, she realized that she wasn’t going to have to service the Freak and that made her happy. She wouldn’t have to cook his dinner. Or respond with downcast eyes when he called her. Or scrub an already spotless floor.
Marie took a deep breath, pulling the mild spring air into her lungs. Small clusters of sturdy tulips bloomed in tiny front yards, echoing the first rush of lacy young leaves to trees that seemed to grow out of the sidewalks. She had almost six hours before her next date. Where would she go? The Brooklyn Heights Promenade, with its spectacular view of lower Manhattan, was only a few steps away. It was a place she often sought after a session with the Freak, a place to get clean again. But this time she wanted to feel earth instead of concrete beneath her feet. The cold towers of Manhattan, even against the blue spring sky, would not feed the day’s desires.
Suddenly she had a delicious idea—a taxi to her home, a change of clothes, a drive up to Central Park. There were huge beds of tulips throughout the southern reaches of the Park, as well as trees and shrubbery from all over the world. A long walk in the park instead of sex with the Freak? A light lunch at Tavern on the Green instead of a pail of hot soapy water? The best part was that she was going to charge George Wang for every bit of it. She’d wanted to dump the Freak a month ago, but George Wang had merely raised the price and sent her back. Maybe this would convince him to cut the Freak loose, once and for all.
As she came back along the short walkway, Marie looked up at the glowing leaves on a young sugar maple and took another deep breath. She felt as if she could fly away, as if the breeze would pick her up and float her across the river to Manhattan. She might have stood there for a long time, willing herself into weightlessness, if Moodrow hadn’t come up behind her. His homely words provided the anchor that brought her back down.
“What’re you supposed to be,” he asked, “the fuckin’ earth mother?”
“Pardon me?” Her first impression was one of size. The man confronting her was enormous. It wasn’t until she raised her eyes far enough to see his face, that she put the word “cop” and the word “big” together.
“Police officer,” Jim Tilley said, stepping around Moodrow to display his gold shield.
As a black woman from the vast ghettos of northern Manhattan, Marie Porter’s initial reaction to Moodrow and Tilley was automatic. She felt a blind street impulse to run. Then she reminded herself that she wasn’t committing a crime by walking through a white Brooklyn community (how could she, with her coconspirator nowhere to be found?). Even if Brooklyn Heights
was
a certified landmark neighborhood. Her second panic (once she’d cleared herself of prostitution) centered around drugs and drug paraphernalia. After years of low-level addiction, the fear of arrest and involuntary drug withdrawal was very real, even if there was no probable cause for a search and she’d eventually be released. Except that Marie Porter was no longer using illegal drugs and hadn’t used them for more than a year.
Suddenly, she was very angry. And not with the two cops who stood in front of her. The cops weren’t after her; they were after the Freak and somehow she was involved. A wave of hatred, as physical as nausea, swept through her body, twisting her mouth into a tight frown.
“My name’s Tilley and this is Moodrow,” the smaller man said. “We’d like to ask you a few questions.”
She hesitated for a moment, then nodded. There was nothing she could do about it, anyway, and she followed them back to the old Buick without a protest.
“You’re here to see Marek Najowski, right?” Tilley said.
Marie, unable to fabricate a plausible lie, nodded once.
“And what was your business with Mr. Najowski?”
The question, from the same cop, was expected, and Marie answered without pausing. “I’m the maid.”
“The maid?” Moodrow’s voice was filled with contempt. “That’s fucking pitiful.” He pointed to her shoes, a pair of two-hundred-dollar Karl Lagerfeld boots from Saks. She’d drooled over them for months before buying them, waiting so long to see them on sale, she’d become afraid they’d be discontinued before she got her hands on them. “I suppose those’re some kinda scrub boots?”
“Just because I’m a maid, it doesn’t mean I don’t like nice things.” Her shoes, of course, along with the peach jacket, would have been removed the minute she entered Najowski’s apartment.
“You’re a hooker,” the big cop said flatly. “Not that we give a shit. We’re after Najowski and we want your cooperation. Excuse me, one way or another, we’re gonna
get
your cooperation. What’s Marek to you, anyway? Why would you wanna protect a trick?”
“I haven’t done anything wrong,” Marie protested.
Moodrow pointed to the healed punctures on the backs of her hands. “You’re also a junkie,” he announced. “You got tracks.”
“I
was
a junkie,” she admitted. “I’m clean now.” The big cop, she realized, was being deliberately antagonistic. His voice was filled with suspicion, as if she was Marek’s business partner instead of his sexual partner. Not that she cared if he made her for a whore. She
was
a whore. “Why do you want Marek?” she asked with genuine curiosity.
“I thought
we
were asking the fucking questions,” Moodrow said to his partner. “I thought we were the cops. Jim, you better help me out here. I’m gettin’confused.”
“Be cool, Stanley,” Tilley said, stepping in front of his partner. “I think the lady wants to help us. That right?”
“Sure,” Marie said agreeably.
“What’s your name?”
“Marie Porter.” She might as well admit it. All her identification, including her credit cards, were in her real name. It’d been
that
long since she’d been on the street.
“Well, Marie, your pal Marek’s been a very bad boy,” Moodrow said. “He made a fire and this little old lady got killed by the smoke. He had another little old lady raped. And an old man got beat up and a sixteen-year-old kid got killed. Things like that. I mean he might be good in the sack. Or maybe he’s very generous. But he’s also a killer. In fact, he even tried to kill me. That’s why you’re gonna help us out.”
Marie felt the anger rush back into her body as she recalled the Freak’s hands on her flesh. The humiliations he demanded flashed through her consciousness like a series of rapid-fire slides from a projector. “I knew he was sick,” she admitted. “I tried to get out of seeing him, but my pimp…” Marie could, feel the cops’ interest, not unlike the sexual organs of her male customers, rising.
“What do you want to know about Marek?” she asked. “I mean I wasn’t exactly
close
to him.”
“We’re interested in some property he owned. He had a partner from Hell’s Kitchen.”
Marie tried to recall the exact details of a conversation she’d listened to while confined to Najowski’s spare bedroom. Najowski’s partner had been a dinner guest and they’d spoken of their plans for some building in Queens. “I don’t remember exactly,” she said carefully. “Some tricks like to talk. You know what I mean, right? After you take care of them, they go on and on. I don’t usually pay much attention, but I do recall a building in Queens that he was trying to get people out of. He was checking leases and moving dealers, cocaine dealers, I think, into the vacant apartments. He was real proud of himself, but I got the impression that the violence was coming from his partner.”
“Do you have any idea where Marek is now?” This time, the young cop’s voice was actually friendly, encouraging her to go on.
“Maybe,” Marie said. “Back in my apartment. I might have another address for him in my trick book.”
“Where’s your apartment?”
“In Manhattan. On East 95th Street, near York.”
She could feel the cops’ hesitation and she was afraid they’d either turn her down or send her home with instructions to call them with the information. But then, without words, they seemed to come to an understanding.
“You drive her home,” the young cop said. “If there’s anything to it, come back and pick me up. I’ll maintain the stakeout.”
As they drove back across the Brooklyn Bridge and up the Drive, the big cop recited the various crimes committed in the name of money at the Jackson Arms. He went through them chronologically, detailing the exact nature of each assault. “I was hoping to find some kind of a witness, so I brought some proof with me. I brought some pictures to show.”
The photos, taken routinely by the Crime Scene Unit, were so gruesome as to appear staged: Sylvia Kaufman, her face twisted in agony as she fought for oxygen; Inez Almeyda with the left side of her face blown out by three separate exit wounds. There were others, and Marie, to Moodrow’s surprise, studied them intently, her breath sharp and shallow as she absorbed what she was seeing.
“He did this for money, right?”
“That’s right. There was nothing personal to it. He never met any of them.” Moodrow grinned. “And the truth is that he’s probably gonna get away with it. The partner you met is dead and the only one who can tie Najowski in is his lawyer, who may not know a fucking thing about what went on.”
Marie, though quite aware of Moodrow’s intentions, allowed herself to share in the cop’s righteousness. She walked him past the doorman, who made the cop for a trick and threw her a broad wink, even though it’d been more than a year since she’d brought a client back to her apartment.
“What the fuck is that?” Moodrow said as they rode up in the elevator. “This guy must come from fucking Romania that he shouldn’t know I’m not a John. The guy is a complete asshole.”
“Actually, he’s from Bulgaria, and the only thing he’s aware of is the little envelope I pass him every month.”
They were walking down the hall toward a one-bedroom apartment that cost Marie $1800 a month. Despite the adjective “luxury,” which seems to describe every apartment on the Upper East Side, the rooms were not luxurious. Small cubicles devoid of architectural flair, they did nothing more than hold Marie’s furniture. Even the view from the picture window in the living room, though they were more than two hundred feet in the air, revealed only the anonymous windows of another building less than thirty feet away.
Marie picked up her address book, the one she used for her business, thumbed through it, then slammed it down. “I don’t have the address,” she announced. “I remember, I went upstate somewhere about a year ago. To some small town. I’d never find it again in a million years.”
“I hope you’re not jerking me off,” the big cop said. “I’m not in the mood for it today.”
“I want to get him as much as you do,” she announced. The words had come to her automatically, but her sincerity was apparent, to her and to the cop.
“You sure you don’t have it somewhere else?” he asked.
She hesitated momentarily. “I could call my pimp,” she said softly. “He saves everything and he probably still has the address. The only thing is, you have to promise not to hassle him.” She looked up into Moodrow’s eyes, trying to read him. “Because if I lost George Wang, I’d be out on the street.”
The big cop, to her amazement, began to giggle. “
George Wang
?” he said. “Are you bullshitting me or what?”
Marie put a hand on his arm. “Wang’s been my pimp for so long that I forgot how weird it sounds to someone who doesn’t know him.”
She walked into her bedroom, a riot of brightly colored fabric spiced with the faint scent of jasmine, then laughed at Moodrow, who hesitated in the doorway. It was clearly a place of seduction.
“You got messages,” Moodrow said as she tugged his arm. “On your machine. Maybe one of them’s from Najowski.”