Authors: Stephen Solomita
“Hold up a second.” The story, though familiar enough in poor neighborhoods like Corona, a black slum which lay east of the precinct house, simply didn’t fit the pattern for Jackson Heights. Even in the 60s, when the Latinos had arrived, the majority of the entering Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, and Colombians had been hardworking and determined to exercise their right to a slice of the American dream. Street crime had never become a major problem.
Porky Dunlap, processing this information, was again caught up in the anomaly. The situation stunk of outside manipulation. Then he pushed the contradictions back and returned to reality. “If you have problems with the building, you have to go to HPD. Housing Preservation and Development. Get them to send out an inspector and write up the violations. As for the prostitution—unless you saw the money change hands and you can prove the money was given in return for sex, we can’t make an arrest. Now it’s true, public indecency is a misdemeanor, but it’s still your word against this girl’s. Even if we took your complaint and brought her in, we’d have to write a Desk Appearance Ticket and release her on her own recognizance. And
you’d
have to testify in court. The worst she’d get, assuming she was found guilty and had a history of prior arrests, is a fine or a few days in jail. And she’ll know who made the complaint and her pimp’ll know, too. You might find yourself subject to personal harassment without really accomplishing a damn thing. It’s not worth it.” Satisfied with his impromptu lecture, he sat back and waited for her to respond.
“Well, what am I to do? Simply ignore it? My husband and I lived in that building for thirty years. I pay three hundred dollars a month rent. If I had to leave, there’s no place in the city I could afford. Even with all the new people, I still have a lot of friends in the building. It’s like a community.”
“You should have brought your husband with you. The more people who sign a complaint, the more likely someone’ll take action. Always keep that in mind. Numbers impress.”
“My husband passed away in 1982,” Sylvia replied evenly.
“I’m sorry.” Suddenly Porky Dunlap found himself wishing he could really help, that he could be a cop for once, but the situation, assuming she was describing it accurately, was not a problem for the NYPD. “Look, your move is to organize the tenants. A strong tenants’ association can get action from any landlord. That’s what you really need. Put enough heat on the landlord and he’ll take action against this whore and her roommate.” He noted the look of dismay on her face; she’d expected the police to solve all her problems and now she was being asked to organize a mass movement. “Look,” he said, “as Community Affairs Officer, I’ve visited tenants’ associations during rent strikes. I know a little about how they work. You don’t organize all at once. First, make a list of the tenants you’ve known for the longest time. The ones you can count on. Get them together and explain the situation. See if they agree that something has to be done. How many units in the building?”
“Eighty.”
“How many vacant?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe fifteen.”
“That leaves about sixty-five occupied. If you can organize ten people and have them knock on five doors each, you can get in touch with nearly every tenant in the building. Get up a petition and take it to the landlord asking that the prostitutes be moved out. See, I don’t think you
really
have anything to worry about. Those buildings are pretty solid, not like the tenements, and I just can’t see a landlord allowing the property to fall apart. Sometimes when a building changes hands, it takes a little while for the new management to get organized. Still, the sooner
you
get organized, the better.”
Sylvia Kaufman knew she was being dismissed and she didn’t like it, despite the sergeant’s obvious sincerity. “Isn’t there a vice squad to go after the prostitutes?”
“There is,” Dunlap admitted, “but the penalty for prostitution is so light, enforcement is a waste of time. And arresting the girls doesn’t help, because the pimp’s certain to dump new girls in the same apartment. If you really want to put heat on prostitutes, get somebody to stay in the lobby and harass the customers. If the Johns can’t be anonymous, they’ll stop coming.” Porky Dunlap stood up, clearly indicating that the interview was over. “There used to be a time when a vice cop’d go up, have a few words with the whores or the pimp and they’d be on their way. Nowadays, unless we got the warrant in our hands, the scum just laugh in our faces.”
T
HOUGH HE’D ONLY KNOWN
Stanley Moodrow (formerly Detective Sergeant Stanley Moodrow, NYPD; now retired) for a year, Detective James Tilley, NYPD, considered Moodrow to be his best friend and, in his opinion, best friends weren’t supposed to surprise each other. They were
supposed
to know each other too well for surprises. They were
supposed
to be open to each other.
He, Tilley, had kept his part of the bargain, becoming more and more predictable as he settled down to life with his new bride, Rose Carillo, and her two children, Lee, now eight, and Jeanette, six. Moodrow, on the other hand, continued to surprise, without putting space between himself and the much younger Jim Tilley.
For instance, Tilley had predicted to Rose, who’d known Moodrow longer than he, that retirement would be the end of Stanley Moodrow. “Moodrow’s the ultimate loner,” he’d explained. “Know how many friends he’s got in the Department? One and a half. Captain Epstein is the one and I’m the half. And maybe Epstein only because he kept himself between Moodrow and the sharks at Internal Affairs. And maybe me only because I sat next to him for a few months before he passed in his papers.”
Moodrow’s first surprise had been a new career which had begun within weeks of his retirement. It had happened so suddenly that Tilley (though Moodrow continued to deny it) suspected Moodrow had begun to set it up even before he walked away from the job. And it wasn’t simply the transformation from cop to private investigator that amazed Jim Tilley. Too many ex-cops take up careers in private security of some kind for
that
part of it to come as a surprise. It was the exalted level on which Moodrow had made his appearance that had had Tilley explaining the wild inaccuracy of his prediction to an unsympathetic Rose, who’d always thought of Stanley Moodrow as the ultimate role model in the survivor sweepstakes.
For Stanley Moodrow had not become one of those sleazy half-criminals who maintained closet-sized offices near Times Square. Moodrow didn’t follow errant husbands, looking for a photograph explicit enough to cancel potential alimony awards; he worked exclusively for New York’s finest criminal lawyers—investigating alibis, searching out witnesses, probing for skeletons in the prosecution’s closet. As an ex-cop, he had the right to carry a gun and to have his application for a private investigator’s license processed by the NYPD in less than a week. After thirty-five years in the job (and to the great delight of his employers), he also had access to working cops and, sometimes, to the confidential reports the prosecution keeps away from the defense by declaring them irrelevant and, therefore, not subject to the legal process of discovery.
Thus Stanley Moodrow, much to his
own
surprise, was an instant success; the demand for his services rising day by day. And, as if that wasn’t enough, two weeks after beginning his new occupation, Moodrow realized that his assignments would almost always involve the same shoe-leather methods he’d used as a cop, a similarity for which he was infinitely grateful. Like most cops, Moodrow equated retirement with oblivion and his new career, as he’d explained to Jim Tilley on more than one occasion, was unexpected enough to be rated as miraculous. Which is why he had again surprised his former partner…by rejecting it.
“All right,” Moodrow had explained, “I admit humans are supposed to be happy when they get a miracle. I’m not a complete fucking idiot. I’m
supposed
to be happy.”
And he would have been. Except for one tiny, yet inescapable, detail: virtually all of his work involved efforts to free guilty men. As his whole life had been devoted to putting the guilty behind bars, this small fact had worked its way into his heart, attaching itself, like a tapeworm, to his conscience.
“Yeah, I understand the system,” he’d protested to Tilley and Rose over a fiery dinner at one of the Indian restaurants that lined 6th Street between First and Second avenues. “It’s a war between the defense and the prosecution, and the defense lawyer’s
obliged
to get the client off the hook. I heard all that shit about the founding fathers not trusting the government and maybe they were right, but I’m not a lawyer and I’m not obliged to keep some shyster’s scummy client—pardon me: scummy
rich
client—out of jail. I admit they pay me good, but I retired on a three-quarters pension. With the overtime on the last year, it’s enough so I don’t have to worry I’m gonna finish up sleeping in doorways. Which means if I keep doing this, it’s because I want to. It bothers me.”
The end had come when he’d been asked to dredge up a few individuals willing to provide an alibi for a Wall Street executive named Evan Rhenquist, a brutal rapist who openly bragged of his crimes during meetings with his lawyer, George Feingold. Feingold, who specialized in pulling “not guilty” verdicts from juries like magicians pull rabbits from hats, had found Rhenquist’s braggadocio quite amusing, but Moodrow’s first instinct had been to bury his massive fists in the defendants smug face. The thought of Evan Rhenquist going back out on the streets through his efforts left Moodrow utterly disgusted.
“I didn’t actually hit him,” Moodrow explained on the night he began what was to become a monumental drinking binge, “because I was working for Feingold. I couldn’t take the man’s money and then fuck up the man’s client, but I told Rhenquist that I wouldn’t piss in his mouth if his heart was on fire (which didn’t bother him worth a shit) and walked out. Now I don’t know what to do. The only thing I have going for me is an offer to head up the security in a pharmaceutical warehouse. I got the contact from a friend of Captain Epstein.”
“So what’s wrong with that?” Tilley asked.
“It’s in the middle of New Jersey. I’d have to move. To fuckin’ New Jersey. It’s a fate worse than life.”
Moodrow shrugged his massive shoulders, then rose from the chair. It was the first time Tilley had ever seen him worried, ever seen him pace the floor. Even in the middle of the most intense investigation, Moodrow had inevitably been calm when he’d discussed a case. Now Tilley, watching his former partner closely, had the sinking feeling that his prophecy regarding Moodrow’s retirement was about to come true. Moodrow’s broad, almost featureless (almost ageless) face was beginning to show signs of real wear. Like the ex-cop could see his future and he didn’t like it worth a damn.
The weeks that followed had done nothing to diminish Tilley’s fears, even though Rose assured him that Moodrow would eventually pull out of it. Moodrow drank hard and long, drank until he fell into bed at night. Tilley knew his partner wasn’t afraid of death, that Moodrow was a fatalist who thought that life was only a series of postponements. Sex was a postponement; money, too; they could sometimes push away the depression that often lies at the core of the cop’s attempt to square his sense of justice with the reality of the inner city. But the most effective postponement was the job itself. Many cops marry it, including Moodrow, only to find themselves widowers in middle age. Then, with no family and few friends, they have to face the consequences of their deal. Moodrow faced them by launching himself into a bar-by-bar tour of the 7th Precinct (just as he used to when looking for a suspect) and Tilley became afraid that Moodrow would substitute a bullet for the bottle, choosing the most final of all cop consolations.
Then, one Thursday night, Tilley received a phone call from an obviously sober Moodrow asking that he and a new girlfriend, a lawyer named Betty Haluka, be invited to dinner on Saturday. After a brief consultation with Rose, Tilley eagerly agreed, but Tilley’s questions, inspired by intense cop curiosity, went unanswered. Moodrow was on the run; he was feeling great; he’d speak to them on Saturday night.
Tilley decided not to wait. With Rose, the kids and Moodrow’s date around, there was no way he was going to get any straight answers. He wouldn’t even be able to ask the questions. Thus his presence in Moodrow’s apartment on Saturday afternoon while Moodrow prepared for his date.
“Whatta ya think of this suit?” Moodrow asked, taking it out of the plastic garment bag and holding it up to the light. “It’s only a couple of months old. Cost me two hundred at one of the showrooms on 7th Avenue. I know the owner pretty well. Did him a favor once.”
Tilley eyed the plain, brown wool suit Moodrow offered for his inspection, concluding that it had so little to distinguish it, it might have been any age younger than shiny and any price lower than expensive. “I think it’s the real you, Stanley.”
“Do the ‘real me’ a favor and don’t be a smartass,” Moodrow replied evenly. “I wanna make a good impression. She’s a fucking
lawyer
.”
“Does that mean she specializes in litigation involving intercourse?” Tilley, who expected no answer and got none from the imperturbable Stanley Moodrow, still paused for effect. “Don’t be a prick. Tell me how you met her.” Tilley sipped at his Budweiser speculatively. “You know everything about Rose and me, probably including our love life. I gotta know how you met this broad.”
“You know what Rose would do, if she heard you say ‘broad’?” Moodrow asked innocently. “She’d serve Lower East Side prairie oysters tonight.” He paused long enough to giggle at his own humor. “Betty wouldn’t take shit from anyone, either. That’s what I like about her.”
“You want me to beg, or what, ya fuck?” Tilley asked, tossing a pillow at his ex-partner. “Tell me how you met the woman. The last time I saw you, you were puking on your shoes in the Killarney Harp. Now you’re glowing like a goddamn Hare Krishna health freak.”
“Actually, Betty called
me
. She’s a Legal Aid lawyer.”