Shoot the Moon

Chapter Twenty-Five - The Steel Pill

There's a little restaurant that serves a decent breakfast on St. Mark's Place. I went in early and ate, taking my time, looking at The Times. When I was finished I paid and the guy let me out the back door. I went through a gate in the fence right into the "garden" of Hinchman's apartment on Ninth Street.

The "garden" was a small square of cracked concrete, strewn with rubbish. Hinchman had set out a rusty lawn chair in case he ever felt outdoorsy. I knocked and as arranged he opened the door and handed me the padded envelope.

"I made the copies," he said and closed the door. Hinchman's small talk. I went back through the restaurant and left by the front entrance at 11:45.

At twelve noon the long black car pulled up to the corner in front of St. Marks-in-the-Bowery. The back door opened. I walked over to the car and handed Cruz the envelope.

"This is everything?"

"It's everything Mickey gave me," I said.

"Good," he said, "We'll see. If there's no harm done, you may be okay. How's that?"

"I said I'd deliver the stuff Mickey gave me. I handled my end."

"That's right. And if you delivered, my friend, you have no worries. We'll see. Now. What about my dog?"

"Mickey doesn't know about any dog."

"He's lying. I tell you what. You bring me my dog, I forget your name. How's that?"

"I'll see what I can do."

"That's right."

The door closed with a thump, like a bale of money landing on Second Avenue, and the limo rolled away.

*****

I called the vet at Animal Medical Center. I kept picturing George Clooney from ER on the other end of the line, even though I had seen Dr. Bill and his big red face. Hollywood has stolen my imagination. Soon it won't be real life at all, just reruns.

"Your dog Fred has a growth," he said.

"It's not my dog. What kind of growth?"

"A tumor. I don't think it's cancerous, but it's killing him just the same. It seems to be cutting off blood flow to his heart. He might die. We ought to take it out."

"Fine." The dog was an aggravation but I couldn't let him die. Besides Cruz might really be grateful. "How is he otherwise?"

"His general health is poor."

"Will he survive? That's all I want to know."

"I think so."

"How long will he last if we wait?"

"I can't say for sure. Maybe a month, maybe a day. You should see how he's breathing."

"All right. When?"

"I can do it today."

"Save that dog."

That afternoon, I waited for an hour before the vet came out of surgery. He smiled at me uncertainly. I followed him into a faded white room furnished with stainless steel tables. Fred was on one of them. His motionless body tripping the leaden hammer of my own heart.

"Is he...?" I said, repeating the line of a thousand melodramas.

"His liver has seen better days. He's pretty beat-up. But, considering what he's been through, he's in fair shape." He looked at me and narrowed his eyes with loathing. "Have you been making this dog fight?"

"He's not my dog, I keep telling you."

He nodded but I could see he couldn't buy it. It was all just too preposterous to be swallowed whole.

"Well... Anyway. The tumor wasn't malignant. Just a large fibrous growth that had formed around..." He produced an oddly shaped dish and held it up to my eyes. "Formed around this. Whatever it is."

Inside the dish was a small object an inch long that looked like a big steel vitamin capsule.

"What's that," I said.

"You don't know? We saw it on the x-ray before I operated. I thought it was a bullet. With your dog, I've gotten used to assuming the worst."

I didn't bother to disclaim Fred yet again. "It's not a bullet. Can I touch it?"

"It was in your dog."

I picked the thing out of the tray. It was smooth except for a hairline seam around the middle. I pulled. The pill was greasy and my fingers couldn't grip it. I asked for a towel and wiped it clean. Then I twisted and the thing unscrewed. Inside was a tightly rolled scrap of paper. I flattened it on the table near Fred's nose. Like hieroglyphics, symbols, numbers and letters were typed on the paper in ten neat rows.

"What is it?" asked the vet.

I folded the paper carefully and put it in my pocket.

"The secret of the pyramids," I said.

*****

I was saying,"... Even if I could get the vet to put the capsule back into the dog, which I doubt he would, I can't return him. Cruz will see the dog's been operated on. A guy this paranoid won't trust that we didn't have a look."

Hinchman was entering the numbers on the paper into his computer. He punched the last key and pressed the return with a flourish. We watched the screen for a full minute. The red light indicating that the computer was doing a task burned steadily but the screen remained blank.

"Primitive, man," Hinchman said, "Like burying your money in a sock or something. Why didn't he just rent a safe deposit box?"

"Probably doesn't think much of banks."

"A boy and his dog," said Hinchman, reading my mind.

"He thought he could trust his dog. But Mickey knows better. Nobody can trust a dope fiend."

Suddenly the words READY - PRESS ANY KEY TO BEGIN appeared on the monitor.

"There we go! Now let's see if we can read this sucker." Hinchman punched a key and data - in Spanish and English - began to scroll on the monitor. "Cool!" shouted Hinchman. He leaned into the machine and began tapping the keys finding out how to navigate in the system. I tapped him on the shoulder. He murmured something and never took his eyes from the glowing screen. I moved around in front to catch Hinchman's eye and saw the shape of Mickey Dolan's money laundering empire shining on the lenses of his glasses. I asked if he could copy it all to another hard drive.

"Why not?" he said. "Call you later." Hinchman leaned closer to the screen moving his fingers over the keyboard like a blind man reading Braille.

*****

When I stepped inside the door to 77 Central Park West, the doorman gave me a sloppily wrapped brown paper package.

I listened to the package all the way up in the elevator. It didn't seem to be a bomb. Finally I ripped the tape off. It was a thank you note from Mickey Dolan, scrawled in his own illegible hand.

FOR ALL THE TROUBLE AND FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH.

THANKS AND GOODBYE,

YOUR FRIEND, MICKEY

The note was folded around twenty-five thousand dollars. Mickey got a bargain.