Stephen Solomita - A Piece of the Action

“And Stanley had nothing to do with your retirement?”

Pat Cohan took a deep breath. It was ‘do or die’ time. “Kathleen, do you know when the first St. Patrick’s Day parade was held in New York City?”

“What has that got to do with anything?”

“Please, darlin’, indulge your father on the day of his retirement. If you don’t know, give us a guess.”

“All right, March seventeenth, 1892, that’s my guess.”

“You’re off by a hundred and thirty years.” He noted her surprise with satisfaction. “The first St. Patty’s Day parade was held in 1762. Think about it, Kate. There were enough Irishmen in New York before the Revolutionary War to hold a parade. Do you know how they got here? They were indentured servants. They were brought here to serve the Brits and the Dutch. To wait on ’em like good Irish slaves. Well, we kept on coming, even though we didn’t get anywhere. We came to work the railroads and the coal mines and the factories. We dug the tunnels, built the roads and the bridges. Our reward was to be treated like dogs for a hundred years. Have I ever spoken of the Five Points? Or the Fourth Ward? There were years when the cops didn’t enter the Five Points at all. Whatever happened in the Five Points-murder, rape, robbery-the residents were on their own. Now, add cholera, flu, smallpox and the like …”

“You’ve made this speech before, Daddy. Many, many times. I don’t get the point. What has this got to do with Stanley?”

Pat Cohan drained his cup. “We were talking about my retirement, were we not, darlin’?” He waited until she acknowledged his point with a resigned shrug. “It took us a long time to fight our way out, but we finally did it. We took over New York, made it our own. You wait and see, Kate. One day soon we’ll have ourselves a president. Only, by the time it happens our day in New York will be over. That’s happening as we speak. Robert Wagner will be the last Irish mayor.” He stopped for a moment, dropping his eyes to the tabletop. What he wanted was a stiff drink, but the timing was all wrong. “I’m a fossil, girl. It’s not my Department anymore. The Jews and the Italians run the city now. That’s why they brought in the Puerto Ricans. That’s why they give them welfare and build projects. The Puerto Ricans would vote for a communist if he promised to increase the dole.”

He was rambling now, and he knew it. It was time to cap his argument. Make that final point and hope for the best. He raised his eyes to meet his daughter’s. “You were right, in a way, Kate. It is about Stanley Moodrow. There was a time in my life when I couldn’t have made the mistake I made when I allowed him to court you. I was his rabbi, Kate. Do you know what that means?”

“Does it have something to do with the Department?”

“It has everything to do with the Department. A rabbi is a protector, a guardian angel, a mentor. Without a rabbi, there’s no way to rise up in the job. And that’s the point. In my Department, a man didn’t turn on his rabbi. He didn’t bite the hand that fed him. But it’s not my Department anymore. No, it’s gone over and it’s time for me to go over with it. What I decided to do was count my blessings. I’ve my health and enough money so I won’t be puttin’ out my hand in my old age.” He let his voice drop to a hoarse whisper. “I also have you, Kate. And the grandchildren you’ll one day give me.”

Pat Cohan wanted to examine his daughter’s face the way he’d once, long ago, examined the faces of suspects in basement interrogation rooms. But he couldn’t do that. It was a time for weakness, not strength. Besides, he wasn’t the interrogator, here; he was the suspect. So what he did was let his eyes drop to his folded hands, a sad old man facing the loss of his power.

He stayed that way for a full minute before raising his eyes. When he did he found his daughter, hands on hips, staring down at him. “What happened to Sal Patero, Daddy? Why hasn’t Sal been around? He used to be here every other day.”

“That wop is exactly what I’ve been talking about. Guineas like him don’t belong in the Department. Not my Department.” It was out before he could put a brake on his mouth. He’d had no more control over what he’d said, than over the twin scarlet roses blossoming on his cheeks.

“Are you ever going to tell me what’s going on, Daddy?” She was turning away from him, walking back into the foyer. “How long do you expect me to be the family pet? How long do you want me to be Lassie? Every time I talk to Stanley, he tells me to grow up. He doesn’t tell me about his side of the story. He tells me to grow up.”

Pat Cohan stared at the bottom of his empty cup, then looked back at his daughter. “Are you calling me a liar, Kate?” This time the whisper wasn’t forced. His momentary anger had fled as suddenly as it had come. What he felt was close to terror.

“No, Daddy, not a liar. But I can’t take your word for it, either. I have to go find out for myself.”

It was nearly eleven o’clock, and Moodrow, walking up Allen Street toward his apartment, was trying to connect the events of the day. He was going to have to put the day into some kind of order if he hoped to find Jake Leibowitz. That was a given. It was funny, in a way. Initially, he’d been worried that somebody would get to Jake before he did. Now, he was afraid that Leibowitz had left the city altogether, that he might never be taken.

After four hours of cooling their heels in the hallway, he and Epstein, accompanied by Paul Maguire, had finally gotten into the Leibowitz apartment. Their search had taken almost two hours as they looked under beds, behind cabinets, inside the toilet tank. As they unrolled pairs of socks, fumbled in Jake’s silk underpants, pulled out empty drawers and flipped them over.

In the end, Moodrow had found what he was looking for in a closet not ten feet from where he’d entered the apartment. A forest of hats rested on two shelves. Beneath them, a black cashmere overcoat hung on a wooden hangar. A spatter of dark spots was just barely visible on the hem of the overcoat.

Moodrow was sure it was blood, the blood of Al O’Neill or Betty O’Neill or both. They’d been killed with knives, butchered, and there was no way Jake Leibowitz could have kept himself entirely clean. There’d be traces of blood in the car, too. Assuming they found it.

Allen Epstein had been dubious, but Paul Maguire had put his years of experience on the line.

“It’s blood, all right,” he’d said. “I’d bet my pension on it.”

“He couldn’t be that stupid,” Epstein had said.

“Maybe he didn’t see it. The coat’s black, for Christ’s sake. Besides, if it wasn’t for stupid, we wouldn’t catch any of them. Stupid is what we count on.” Maguire had carefully folded the coat before easing it into a paper bag. His movements were respectful, almost reverent, as if he was handling priestly vestments or folding the flag at sundown. “Congratulations, Stanley. Jake Leibowitz’s fat is now officially fried.”

Epstein had continued to be skeptical, even when they’d found more dark stains on the seam of the right arm, even when they’d found spatters on the brim of a black fedora. He’d refused to surrender his disbelief until they were standing in one of the M.E.’s labs and a white-coated technician officially pronounced the stains to be bloodstains.

“We still don’t know the blood came from Al or Betty O’Neill,” he’d insisted.

By that time Moodrow had grown tired of it. Epstein, sergeant or not, was a patrolman, not a detective. He couldn’t (or wouldn’t) understand. There were times when you knew where it was going, when you could feel the energy racing through the wires and you either raced along with it or got left behind. Permanently.