Read Online Bad to the Bone by Stephen Solomita - Free Book Online
Authors: Stephen Solomita
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arm. All clean, by the way. No infections which means she wasn’t sharing needles. Contrary to popular belief, not all dope addicts are poor.”
“If she was that much of a junkie and that rich, how come she only showed traces of heroin? It doesn’t make sense. She should have been stoned.”
Moodrow grinned. “There’s a lot of things that don’t make sense. That’s why they call it a mystery. That’s why I was hired. If it made sense, they wouldn’t need me to straighten it out.”
They ran up Allen Street to Houston, then turned west. They were heading for the west side, to DeLuca’s cheese shop and Manganero’s Grocery, both left over from the day when Italian immigrants, looking for work on the Hudson River docks, had flooded into Hell’s Kitchen. DeLuca’s would supply the creamy ricotta for Betty’s cheese cake and the sharp crumbly provolone she’d throw into the antipasto. Manganero’s would supply prosciutto, cappicola, stuffed cherry peppers, a garlicky salami and freshly made pasta.
“What if she’d taken the overdose a couple of days before she was found?” Betty, one foot out of the car, turned back to Moodrow. “Maybe in someone else’s apartment. If they hoped she’d come around, they might have waited, then decided to dump the body. She would have metabolized most of the heroin by then, so she’d only show traces.”
Moodrow giggled his appreciation. “I spent most of my career hating lawyers. That’s because they’re smarter than me, and they think like cops. I spoke to the uniforms at the Four One, in the Bronx, the ones that found her. She was tossed in the middle of a vacant lot. Just left on top of the garbage. There’s two people living in cardboard shacks at the back of the lot. Two old-time juicers. They’re the ones who found her, and they swear she had to have been dropped off that night. The point I’m making is that I think whoever dropped her there meant for her to die in that lot, so it doesn’t seem likely they’d keep her in an apartment for two days, then bring her out alive. Also, I asked the doctor who first examined her if she had any fresh punctures. He said she did. In fact, they tested the tissue around it for traces of poison. The doctor said the puncture was still open when she came in. It had to’ve been made within twenty-four hours.”
Moodrow waited until Betty disappeared into Manganero’s before descending on the nearest hotdog wagon. Hell’s Kitchen, below 42nd Street, had escaped the wave of gentrification sweeping across Manhattan’s poorer neighborhoods. By day, workers streamed into the small warehouses, filling the coffee shops and delis. At night, the crack dealers huddled in doorways near the Lincoln Tunnel exit ramps, feeding the shoppers streaming in from New Jersey to get stoned. It was New York without tourists and Moodrow, smiling to himself, absorbed it the way other retirees soak up the Florida sun.
When Betty finally appeared on the opposite side of Ninth Avenue, weighed down with two huge sacks of groceries, Moodrow calmly opened the Mercury’s enormous trunk and waited for her to thread her way through the traffic. Dodging traffic is a necessary survival strategy for New Yorkers, and Betty was a master, even remembering to look out for crazed bicycle messengers.
“I got it,” she said, dumping the groceries into the trunk. “Flo Alamare had a stroke. Just like the doctors say. But whoever she was with couldn’t know that. They just assumed she overdosed and dumped her in the lot.”
“It’s possible,” Moodrow admitted, “but I don’t like it. Only street junkies dump people in lots. And they don’t do it if the person is still alive.”
“I take it there’s no chance she got a hotshot? That she was deliberately poisoned.”
“Hotshots are mostly rat poison or bug poison. That would mean stomach cramps, diarrhea, vomiting. There was nothing like that.”
Moodrow cut west to Tenth Avenue, then headed
“If she was that much of a junkie and that rich, how come she only showed traces of heroin? It doesn’t make sense. She should have been stoned.”
Moodrow grinned. “There’s a lot of things that don’t make sense. That’s why they call it a mystery. That’s why I was hired. If it made sense, they wouldn’t need me to straighten it out.”
They ran up Allen Street to Houston, then turned west. They were heading for the west side, to DeLuca’s cheese shop and Manganero’s Grocery, both left over from the day when Italian immigrants, looking for work on the Hudson River docks, had flooded into Hell’s Kitchen. DeLuca’s would supply the creamy ricotta for Betty’s cheese cake and the sharp crumbly provolone she’d throw into the antipasto. Manganero’s would supply prosciutto, cappicola, stuffed cherry peppers, a garlicky salami and freshly made pasta.
“What if she’d taken the overdose a couple of days before she was found?” Betty, one foot out of the car, turned back to Moodrow. “Maybe in someone else’s apartment. If they hoped she’d come around, they might have waited, then decided to dump the body. She would have metabolized most of the heroin by then, so she’d only show traces.”
Moodrow giggled his appreciation. “I spent most of my career hating lawyers. That’s because they’re smarter than me, and they think like cops. I spoke to the uniforms at the Four One, in the Bronx, the ones that found her. She was tossed in the middle of a vacant lot. Just left on top of the garbage. There’s two people living in cardboard shacks at the back of the lot. Two old-time juicers. They’re the ones who found her, and they swear she had to have been dropped off that night. The point I’m making is that I think whoever dropped her there meant for her to die in that lot, so it doesn’t seem likely they’d keep her in an apartment for two days, then bring her out alive. Also, I asked the doctor who first examined her if she had any fresh punctures. He said she did. In fact, they tested the tissue around it for traces of poison. The doctor said the puncture was still open when she came in. It had to’ve been made within twenty-four hours.”
Moodrow waited until Betty disappeared into Manganero’s before descending on the nearest hotdog wagon. Hell’s Kitchen, below 42nd Street, had escaped the wave of gentrification sweeping across Manhattan’s poorer neighborhoods. By day, workers streamed into the small warehouses, filling the coffee shops and delis. At night, the crack dealers huddled in doorways near the Lincoln Tunnel exit ramps, feeding the shoppers streaming in from New Jersey to get stoned. It was New York without tourists and Moodrow, smiling to himself, absorbed it the way other retirees soak up the Florida sun.
When Betty finally appeared on the opposite side of Ninth Avenue, weighed down with two huge sacks of groceries, Moodrow calmly opened the Mercury’s enormous trunk and waited for her to thread her way through the traffic. Dodging traffic is a necessary survival strategy for New Yorkers, and Betty was a master, even remembering to look out for crazed bicycle messengers.
“I got it,” she said, dumping the groceries into the trunk. “Flo Alamare had a stroke. Just like the doctors say. But whoever she was with couldn’t know that. They just assumed she overdosed and dumped her in the lot.”
“It’s possible,” Moodrow admitted, “but I don’t like it. Only street junkies dump people in lots. And they don’t do it if the person is still alive.”
“I take it there’s no chance she got a hotshot? That she was deliberately poisoned.”
“Hotshots are mostly rat poison or bug poison. That would mean stomach cramps, diarrhea, vomiting. There was nothing like that.”
Moodrow cut west to Tenth Avenue, then headed
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