Free Shoot the Moon by Joseph T. Klempner

only blacks, Puerto Ricans, and airport commuters like himself.
    The train seems to take forever as it winds its way past Ozone Park, Rockaway Boulevard, East New York, and Bedford-Stuyvesant, and then on to Flatbush and downtown Brooklyn, before plunging under the East River and into subterranean Manhattan. Goodman clutches both his duffels in his lap, one on top of the other, the smaller reaching almost to his chin.
    At the Broadway/Nassau Street stop, he changes for the Lexington Avenue line, struggling down the connecting corridor under the weight of his bags. He rides the express to Eighty-sixth, where he exits, leaving himself a six-block walk home. He could change once again and take the local to Ninety-sixth, but the four-block walk back would be uphill and more than his back can take.
    It’s after five by the time he lets himself into his walk-up studio apartment on Ninety-Second Street between Lexington and Third. He leaves his bags on the floor, bolts the door, and collapses onto his sofa. He is sweaty, exhausted, and in pain. But he’s home.
    “We took him home, boss,” the one called Hot Rod says into the pay phone on the corner.
    “Good,” comes the reply. “Was he carrying a lot of stuff with him?”
    “Yeah, a shitload. Want us to go in an’ get it? We could get in an’ do this guy easy.”
    There is a pause, then Hot Rod hears, “No, don’t do nothin’.”
    It isn’t simple caution that has prompted the answer, and it certainly isn’t morality. It comes down to a lack of trust, trust being an exceedingly rare commodity in the world of Antonio Rodriguez and Sixto Quinones. Pedro Aguilar, the man on the other end of the phone, has no doubt that Rodriguez and Quinones could break into the apartment in a minute, get the stuff, and do the guy without blinking. The problem is that there’s too much product involved to trust them to bring it in. They could skim it, whack it, or even go south with the whole load. No, better to wait, see what Mister Fuentes wants to do about it.
    It is only this lack of trust that now keeps Michael Goodman alive upstairs, sprawled out on his sofa, snoring lightly.
    Goodman awakes to darkness, and it takes him a moment or two to figure out that he’s back in his own apartment in New York.
    He peels his clothes off as he heads to the shower, tripping and stumbling over the larger of two duffel bags he now remembers about.
    He lets the shower send its needles of water over his body for what seems like a long time. Maybe he should forget about those duffel bags, he thinks, dump the narcotics into some garbage can before they get him into trouble. No amount of money could possibly be worth risking ending up in jail. Not even 40,000.
    He towels off, puts his glasses back on, and stares at his reflection in the mirror of the medicine cabinet. His skin is pale; you’d never know he just got back from Florida. His hair never looks thinner than when it’s wet. He’s taken to fluffing it dry not because curly hair has finally become stylish, but because he looks less bald that way. Somebody once asked him for his autograph before mumbling, “You’re not Billy Crystal, are you?” and walking away.
    He dials his mother-in-law’s number. She answers “Hello” in her scratchy voice.
    “Hi,” he says. “It’s me. Michael.”
    “Where are you?”
    “I’m home,” he says. “I’m back.”
    “Good. Maybe you can take her for the test tomorrow. I’m exhausted.”
    “Sure,” he says. “How’s she doing?”
    “So-so.” This is pretty good, Goodman knows. In mother-in-law, so-so means good to excellent, while terrible could suggest anything from a mild cold to a bad hangnail. Dying is where you first begin to get worried.
    “What kind of test?” he asks.
    “I don’t know, an MRS, or something like that.”
    “What time should I pick her up?”
    “I gotta leave at eight-thirty.”
    “Okay,” he says. “I’ll be there. Can I talk to her for a minute