Stephen Solomita - A Piece of the Action

“If you take off the socks, we’ll have to evacuate the premises.” Greta, smiling, pinched her nose.

“Look at it as a genteel version of the third degree. You give me what I want, I’ll wash ’em.”

“ Nu, so what is it you want? I don’t mean to kvetch, but I’m an old lady and I need my sleep. It’s ten o’clock, already.”

They were interrupted by Kate returning with a mug of coffee for Moodrow and a cup of tea for Greta. “Am I allowed to stay for this?”

“Allowed?” Moodrow snorted. “We’re not discussing the country’s nuclear secrets here.” He waited for Kate to sit down, before continuing. “Tell me something, Greta,” he said mildly. “Do you know Sarah Leibowitz?”

“ Oy ,” Greta moaned, “so this is what you want.” She leaned back and folded her arms across her chest. “You’re a bully is what you are. I’m glad your mother isn’t here for this.”

“Cut the crap, Greta.”

“Stanley,” Kate broke in, “is that necessary?

“As a matter of fact, it is necessary. I’m tired and my feet hurt. I don’t wanna be playing Ring-Around-The-Rosie until it’s time to get up tomorrow morning.”

“Stanley,” Greta said, fingering a lace doily spread over the arm of the couch, “do you know your mother made this? She was a wonderful seamstress. She could make anything.”

“Cut the crap, Greta. Do you know Sarah Leibowitz? A simple answer will do here. Yes or no?”

“I see her on the street, I recognize her. I see her in the shul, I nod hello. Is this knowing? Does this make us landsleit ?”

“You belong to the same temple?”

“Yes.”

“And when you nod to her, she nods back?”

“I’m not saying no.”

“That’s ‘knowing,’ Greta. It’s enough for what I have in mind.” Moodrow sipped at his coffee, turning away from Greta to wink at Kate. “You having fun?” he asked.

“I think I will be,” Kate responded. “As soon as I figure out what’s going on.”

Moodrow turned back to Greta without commenting. “Did you know the rabbi went to see the police?” he asked.

“I heard. At the market someone mentioned this.”

“The cops were going to hold her for the gun. They were going to charge her with a violation of the Sullivan Act and hold her as a material witness. The rabbi had a talk with the captain and now she’s sitting in her own apartment. She won’t talk to anybody. Won’t even deny that she knows where her son is. As soon as a cop gets within ten feet of her, she starts screaming. Or she throws things. Or she grabs her head and moans in pain.”

“It’s not an act, Stanley. She’s a very nervous woman.”

“Greta, does she clean her house in the morning? Make her bed? Take a shower? Does she cook? Go to the market?” He paused for an answer, but Greta merely shrugged, her eyes widening. “I don’t know why, Greta, but I’m convinced that if she can do all those things, she can answer a few questions.”

Kate shifted her chair closer to Moodrow and Greta. They were staring at each other so intently, Kate felt like she was watching a movie. “I don’t see what this has to do with anything? She’s nervous. She’s not nervous. What difference does it make?”

“He wants I should be a stool pigeon is the point,” Greta huffed. “It’s against my principles.”

“What do you mean, ‘a stool pigeon’? Do you know where Jake Leibowitz is hiding?”

“He wants me to convince my friend to inform on her own son. He should bite his tongue.”

“Your friend ?” Moodrow said. His face was blank, his small features immobile in his huge skull. “Sarah Leibowitz is your friend?”

“She’s not a friend friend,” Greta protested. “Stanley, please, I’m begging you. All my life I fought against the cops. I’m telling you we had battles with the police. Informing was the worst crime you could commit. It was worse than murder. I’m an old lady. I can’t change.”

Moodrow leaned back in the chair and managed a quick smile. “Greta, you run into Rosaura Pastoral lately?”

“This is not right.”

“Does she still talk about her ex-boarder? She ever mention Luis Melenguez?” He leaned forward, slapping his palms on his knees. “Maybe now that Melenguez’s widow has gone back to Puerto Rico, you don’t give a shit anymore.”

“This is not right.”

“But why should you care? Sarah Leibowitz is Jewish. She belongs to your shul. Luis Melenguez was just another Puerto Rican immigrant. You have to have loyalties, right? You have to make choices. Isn’t that what you told me when you sent me after Jake Leibowitz?”

Greta Bloom sighed. “What you are, Stanley, is a bully. A common neighborhood bully.”

“Not a bully, Greta. A cop. Did you think I was going to pull Melenguez’s killer out of a hat? If that’s what you thought, you should have thought twice, because it turns out that you’re the hat. Ain’t life grand?”

January 24

Stanley Moodrow sat at his kitchen table, the Daily News in one hand, a cup of coffee in the other, and listened to the sound of water running in the shower. He hadn’t heard that sound in a long time, not unless he was standing in the tub. He could remember a time when he and his parents had made do with a clawfoot bathtub, remember the weekend his father had decided to add a vertical pipe, a showerhead and a support for a plastic curtain. Max Moodrow had begun the job in a grouchy mood. He’d felt that, considering who actually owned the property, improvements were the landlord’s responsibility. Unfortunately, when he’d brought it up while paying his rent, Ed Boyer had laughed in his face.

“You would maybe like to pay more rent, Max? Perhaps you will vote for a politician to repeal rent control?”

Max Moodrow had spent the whole day (a Sunday, his one day off) assembling a Rube Goldberg contraption of his own design. At the very end, he’d turned on the water with a great flourish only to discover that the valve designed to switch the flow of water from the tub to the showerhead wasn’t working. No matter how hard he twisted the tiny lever, water continued to pour into the bathtub.

By the time he’d given up, it was after six and there was no chance of finding an open hardware store in New York City. Not even on the Lower East Side where Jewish merchants (who closed on Saturday for Shabbes ) dared the politicians and the police to enforce the Blue Laws.

Initially, Max Moodrow’s profane howls of frustration had filled the air in their apartment. But not for long. Accompanied by his son (“Stanley, from these things you learn how to be a man, not a bum.”), he’d marched down the block to Igor Melenkov’s apartment and confronted the shopowner in his own home. Melenkov had sold him the defective valve and Melenkov had to replace it. No, he couldn’t come by the store tomorrow morning. He had to work tomorrow. And the next day and the next and the next. If he didn’t get the shower going tonight, it’d have to wait the entire week.

Melenkov had shrugged into his coat and marched back to inspect Max Moodrow’s plumbing.

“You are an idiot, Moodrow. Walve is upside-down. Please in future to stick with hammer and nails. Plumbing is for plumbers. Now, give me wrench and pour for me a wodka.”

Stanley Moodrow recalled watching Malenkov unscrew the various fittings. Malenkov had crooked a finger into the freed valve, extracted a wad of soaked paper, then re-fitted the valve with the handle reversed.

The whole process had seemed magical to five-year-old Stanley Moodrow and it was years before he figured it out. He’d watched Malenkov through childhood eyes, absorbing the information without trying to understand it. The valve must have worked either way. All reversing did was move the handle from one side to the other. Malenkov had either left something inside the valve or failed to warn Max about something left by the manufacturer. His father hadn’t done anything wrong.