Stephen Solomita - A Piece of the Action

This time Zayas kept his mouth shut. He sat in the chair, his eyes closed, clearly determined to ride out the storm. Of course, Zayas wasn’t the first suspect ever to demand a lawyer. Suspects were entitled to speak with a lawyer before questioning, assuming they knew their rights and requested one.

Interrogating officers usually divided knowledgeable suspects into two categories: hardened ex-cons and well-informed citizens. Most of the ex-cons would take a beating and laugh in the cop’s face. Having been through the game before, they knew that a beating only lasts for a few days, but prison goes on for years and years. Well-informed citizens, on the other hand, tended to see their right to a lawyer as an abstraction and the pain of a beating as very, very concrete.

“All right,” Mitkowski said, getting up. “I know when I’m not wanted.” He took off the peignoir, draped it over Zayas’s shoulders, then buttoned it under his throat. “Here, it looks better on you, anyway. Pete, gimme the phone book.”

O’Brien, standing behind Zayas, passed the phone book over to Mitkowski. “You gonna make a call, Mack?”

“Yeah, I’m gonna call Victor’s conscience.” He took the phone book and carefully dusted it off. “Wouldn’t wanna get ya perm all dirty, would we, Victor?” He paused, but Zayas didn’t answer. “What we’re gonna do now is for your own good. Because what I noticed here is that ya got very bad posture and how could ya be a model if ya posture’s bad? So what we’re gonna do is put the phone book on the top of ya head. Your job is to keep it there, keep ya neck and head straight. Believe me, this is great trainin’, Vickie. Course, ya could move and let the book fall down, but if ya do, I’m gonna take out my cock and make you suck it.” Mitkowski’s voice suddenly hardened. “You understand me, faggot? You understand what I’m tellin’ ya? Don’t try me, ’cause I never bluff.”

“I want …”

Mitkowski slapped Zayas’s face, a quick, sharp blow that would have knocked Zayas down if he hadn’t been handcuffed to the chair.

“No more bullshit about a lawyer. Not one fuckin’ word. Whatta ya think, we’re playin’ around here?”

“All right,” Zayas muttered.

“That’s better.” Mitkowski laid the phone book on Zayas’s head, balancing it carefully. “Very good, Vickie. See how ya holdin’ ya shoulders? And how ya neck forms a straight line? Just hold it for another minute and I’ll give you a nice reward.”

The reward turned out to be O’Brien using the nightstick like an axe, bringing it in a long smooth arc, from behind his knees to straight over his head to the top of the Manhattan phone book. The crack was sharp enough to make Mitkowski wince. Zayas, on the other hand, did nothing for a moment. Then he screamed, a long howl so elemental it was neither male nor female. It filled the room, as solid as the walls and the floor, a single note, a song of sorrow as much as pain, freezing the two detectives until it finally died out. Until Zayas, head bent, tears streaming down his cheeks, began to sob uncontrollably.

“Look what ya did,” Mitkowski said calmly. “Ya moved ya noggin and the phone book fell on the floor.” He picked it up, then grabbed Zayas’s face and lifted his head. “Now what I’m gonna do is put this phone book on ya head again. I know ya first instinct is gonna be to shake it off. Hey, it’s only natural. But ya should think about this. If there ain’t no phone book up there, then there ain’t nothin’ between ya faggoty skull and Pete’s nightstick. See what I mean?”

Mitkowski didn’t wait for an answer. He balanced the phone book on top of Zayas’s trembling head, then stepped back and nodded to O’Brien who once again brought the club through its arc. This time Zayas didn’t scream. He slumped forward, his eyes fluttering, nearly unconscious.

Zayas would have remained that way for a long time, preferring the blank dizziness to the reality awaiting him, but the sight of Stanley Moodrow crashing through the door overrode any common sense he might have had.

“What the fuck is goin’ on here?” Moodrow demanded.

“Jeez.” Even Mitkowski, who’d been expecting Moodrow’s entrance, was impressed. Like most of the cops in the 7th Precinct, he’d witnessed the Liam O’Grady fight.

“I asked you a question,” Moodrow repeated.

“Drop dead, Stanley,” O’Brien said. “We’re just doin’ our jobs.”

Moodrow strode across the floor and grabbed O’Brien’s lapel, yanking him in close. “What you are is a fucking animal, Pete. And what I am is an animal trainer. I want you out of here. You and that asshole dwarf you call a partner.”

“Take it easy. Take it easy.” O’Brien instinctively pushed back Moodrow’s chest. It was like pushing against a concrete pillar. “Jeez,” he said, echoing his partner’s sentiments.

“Look here, Stanley,” Mitkowski muttered, “this asshole belongs to us. You try to play the big hero, we’re gonna go to the lieutenant.”

Moodrow released O’Brien and turned to Mitkowski. “Go anywhere you want, Mack. As long as it’s out of here. And give me a key for those cuffs. Whatta ya think ya got here, public enemy number one?”

Mitkowski fished a key out of his pocket and threw it at Moodrow. “We’ll be back,” he announced.

“Don’t slam the door on your way out.”

Of course, they did slam the door. O’Brien slammed it as hard as he could and Moodrow had to wait for the crash to die down. When it was quiet in the room, he knelt beside Zayas and removed the handcuffs on the little man’s wrists and ankles.

“That feel better, Victor?” Moodrow asked.

Zayas nodded. “Thank you,” he whispered.

“What they did was wrong.” Moodrow went back into the anteroom and picked up a small table and a chair. He carried them back into the interrogation room and set them in front of Zayas. “How do you take your coffee, Victor? Milk and sugar? Light and sweet?”

Zayas stared at Moodrow, uncomprehending.

“Your coffee, Victor. How do you like it?”

“Black.”

“I’ll be right back.”

Moodrow reappeared a minute later with a steaming mug in his hands. He placed it in front of Zayas before sitting down. Carefully, almost reluctantly, he took out his ballpoint and his notebook. “You smoke, Victor?” he asked.

Stanley Moodrow sat at his kitchen table, an untouched bowl of Hormel chili (customized with strips of Kraft’s Sliced American) in front of him. He was trying to read the Daily News, the same edition he’d been reading before Kathleen’s call, but the stories seemed trivial, absurd. Albert Anastasia, the ultimate high-profile gangster, was in the headlines again. The reputed head of Murder, Inc., Anastasia had been gunned down in a barber’s chair the previous October. Ever since, publicity-seeking DAs and congressional committees had been dragging in one mobster after another for what they called ‘questioning.’ Now it was Meyer Lansky’s turn, Lansky and Sam Trafficante who were, according to the story, in Havana trying to buy the country of Cuba from its dictator, Fulgencio Batista.

Despite his best efforts, Moodrow kept asking himself the same question: what did Albert Anastasia and Meyer Lansky and the DA, Frank Hogan, have to do with what had happened in the Canary Cage? As Patero had predicted, the reporters had come to photograph Moodrow leading a handcuffed Playtex Burglar out of the 7th Precinct and into a waiting van. Would the story they printed have anything to do with what had gone on in that basement room? Would they, for instance, reflect Patero’s anger? Because he, Moodrow, had never taken Patero’s list out of his pocket. He’d simply written down whatever Zayas had said and had the kid sign on the bottom line.