Guma stood on his tiptoes and whispered in the big man’s ear. They both then laughed in a way that suggested to Karp that he’d just been made the subject of some joke. Jim looked at him and said, “Welcome to the Hip-Hop, Mr. Karp. Please come in, no cover charge for y’all tonight.”
They were all passing into the club when Jim stopped Fulton. “Sorry,” he said, nodding at the bulge of his shoulder holster. “Club rules. No firearms.”
“I’m a police officer,” Fulton growled, and started to walk past.
Jim moved and blocked his way. “I don’t care if you is the Reverend Jesse Jackson, no one goes in there with a gun.”
The scene was about to get ugly when Karp intervened. “Clay, we’re only going to be a few minutes,” he said. “Would you stay with the car?”
Fulton glared at the bouncer and shook his head. “I’m responsible for your safety.” He’d agreed to take the job when Karp asked, on two conditions: he got to handpick the detectives who would be working under him, and that he would serve as the main bodyguard/chauffeur assigned to the district attorney. He took that responsibility seriously.
“We’ll be responsible for his safety while he’s in the Hip-Hop,” Jim said as his twin brother emerged to see what the commotion at the door might be.
Fulton looked at Karp, who gave him a pleading look. The detective was about to say something that might have ignited Armageddon but then the bouncers smiled, the diamonds in their teeth gleaming in the light of the naked bulb that hung above the entrance. Jim held out his hand, his voice soft. “We’ll take good care of him, I promise.”
The detective looked disgusted but shook the offered hand. He nodded to Karp and walked back to the Lincoln, which he’d parked down the block.
Karp and company entered the nightclub and stood for a moment to let their eyes adjust to the dark. “You a regular here?” he asked Guma, who shrugged.
“I catch the occasional new act,” he said. “Long story, tell you about it some other time.”
Karp sniffed the air. “I think I’m getting high just standing here.”
“Just make like Clinton and don’t inhale.” Guma laughed. He nodded toward a far corner of the bar. “Let’s go this way.”
They skirted the dance floor, where dozens of dark bodies seemed to be engaged in what appeared to Karp as mating rituals. The party was acutely conscious that theirs were the only white faces in the bar, but while some of the looks they received were openly hostile, most seemed only curious, and a few even smiled and nodded. They were halfway to the back of the bar when a tall, good-looking, mocha-colored man ran up and took Stupenagel in his arms, planting a long kiss on her lips that she returned with equal vigor.
“Ari, baby. Where you been, Momma?” the man complained. “I been taking my vitamin E, and I think I’m up to the challenge of another booty call whenever you are.”
Stupenagel laughed, one hand caressing the smooth brown skin that appeared between his shirt, which was open to his navel. “That’s what you said last time, Rene, but then after a few short hours you left a girl hanging. But my, my, you sure are looking good; I might have even been tempted to give you a second chance, but tonight I’m with a real man. Rene, meet Gilbert Murrow.”
Murrow almost squeaked at the introduction. But he recovered enough to hold out his hand. “Pleased to meet you.”
“A real man, huh?” Rene said, looking him up and down. “Dynamite must come in small packages if you can keep this woman satisfied.”
“But I…,” Murrow stammered. “I mean, I never…”
“That’s okay, Murry honey,” Stupenagel said, linking her arm through his. “No need to brag. Now, let’s dance.” Before the poor man knew it, she’d nearly ripped him out of his loafers as she tugged him toward the mass of writhing bodies.
Murrow looked back at Karp and mouthed the word Help! But Karp, who was actually glad to have the reporter otherwise occupied, merely waved and continued on after Guma, who led him to the corner where a group of young men and women were sitting at three couches surrounding a table.
As they approached, a large Hispanic youth stood and moved in front of the others with his arms crossed. “We’re here to speak to Alejandro,” Guma said.
“Maybe he don’t want to talk to you, pendajo,” the youth replied.
“Call me a penis again and I’ll feed yours to the pigeons in Union Square,” Guma said evenly.
The youth’s eyes hardened but he backed down when a voice behind him said, “Chill, Panch. They’re just here to talk, ain’t that right, Mr. DA?”
Karp nodded to the speaker. “If you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
Alejandro shrugged and invited him to take a seat across from him. “Aren’t you going to read me my rights. Or maybe now you believe I didn’t kill nobody?”
“That hasn’t been determined,” Karp replied. “And if you want me to read you your rights, I will. But I thought we might make this an informal chat. Nothing on the record.”
“Shoot, homes. Or I guess maybe that was a poor choice of words. Go ahead and ask your questions.”
“I wanted to ask you about certain files that recently came into my possession…or I guess I should say, were returned to my office.”
“And what files might these be?” Garcia asked innocently.
“Oh, I thought maybe you might have seen today’s story in the Village Voice that mentioned information we’ve received regarding allegations of police misconduct,” Karp said.
Garcia laughed. “The Village Voice. Shoot, that rag’s for white yuppies and artsy types, not homeboys from Spanish Harlem. But don’t matter. I don’t know nothin’ ’bout no files. But say I did, and say there was worse to come…much worse…the real question here, Mr. DA, is whether you have the cojones to do the right thing.”
Karp glared at Garcia. This isn’t getting me anywhere. “You can take this to the bank; I’ve spent my career trying to do the right thing, fighting bad guys who’d make you and your friends look like Mary Poppins.”
Pancho leaped to his feet. He was several inches shorter but heavier…and younger, Karp thought as he weighed his options if things got physical.
“Fuck this, bro,” Pancho said over his shoulder to Alejandro. “The only people you can trust are your homies, the 106th Street Inca Boyz.” His vitriol was accompanied by nods and words of encouragement from the young men and women sitting on the couches.
Karp wondered if the meeting was going to degenerate into a bad Ice Cube gang movie. But then Garcia spoke up again. “Panch, sit the fuck down.” He then addressed Karp. “Excuse my friend. He’s sort of like a junkyard dog. He’ll die for you, but he’s hard to take anywhere there’s polite company.” Pancho looked hurt until Garcia added. “But I love this dog as my brother.”
Karp nodded. “Loyalty is an admirable trait,” he said. “My sons are loyal to you, too. I’m hoping that loyalty hasn’t been misplaced. But I’ve been told that I’m about to be tested and that pass or fail, a lot of people might get hurt. I’d rather not be blindsided if that’s the case—given enough time, maybe I can mitigate the damage. So I was just hoping maybe you could give me a heads-up.”
Garcia looked at him, and for the first time Karp saw the kid’s self-confidence waver. The moment passed when another young Hispanic walked up to the table accompanied by Father Dugan.
Bouncing out of his seat with a glad shout, Garcia embraced the other young man. After a minute, he turned his friend around to face Karp.
“Francisco, this is Roger Karp, the district attorney of New York City. He’s a big fan of rap music.”
Francisco Apodaca held out his hand, which Karp shook, and then asked, “So are you another rapper?”
Apodaca laughed. “Me? No way. I can’t put three words together in front of an audience without stuttering. And to be perfectly honest, I prefer Vivaldi to Fifty-Cent, though I make an exception for my friend Alejandro.”
Garcia int
erjected himself into the conversation like a proud father. “Francisco is a first year premed student at Syracuse. He’s going to grow up to be a famous brain surgeon or maybe a gynecologist, hey, dog?”
Francisco blushed. “Well, I’ve got a long ways to go just to get into medical school,” he said. “But I have high hopes.”
“Good luck,” Karp said. “That’s a long road, but sounds like you’re on it and moving ahead.” Nice kid, he thought, a good reminder to you that the same neighborhoods that breed gangsters have kids like this who deserve their shot.
Karp turned back to Garcia and told him that when he was ready to talk to get in touch.
Partway back to the door, Guma nudged Karp and nodded toward the dance floor, where Murrow was gyrating like a contestant on Soul Train. Stupenagel was dancing next to him with an amused smile on her face as her partner threw a little moon walking into what might have been the Funky Chicken and followed it up with break dancing.
Karp caught his special assistant’s attention and motioned toward the exit. Murrow joined them there, his clothes drenched in sweat.
“You hurt anything, Murrow?” Karp asked.
“Now, Butch,” Stupenagel chided, “just because you’ve grown into an old fogey doesn’t mean your staff has to join you in the Retirement Home for Cranky Curmudgeons. Murry was just showing these jokers how to impress a woman. Any man who can move like that…well, let’s just say, I’m not the only girl in here with the hots for the Bow-Tied Bandit of Love.”
Murrow smiled stupidly at Stupenagel until he looked over and saw his boss grinning. “I’m feeling just fine,” he said, composing himself. “If you’ve concluded your business, I’m ready to blow this joint.”
• • •
Karp and his entourage got to the door first and walked down the steps to the sidewalk, where they gathered to wait for the car.
“Y’all come back now, y’hear,” the bouncer, Jim, said with a grin.
“We will,” Murrow said and waved just as Garcia and his group appeared at the door. “Great tunes!”
Karp shook his head and laughed as he turned to look down the block. He saw Fulton get out of the Lincoln and start to move around the car to open the doors on the passenger side. But Karp’s attention was drawn to a big black Toyota Land Cruiser beyond Fulton. The car was moving slowly down the street toward them. Then he noticed the back window on the driver’s side of the SUV opening.
Suddenly, the car sped up and the barrel of a submachine gun protruded from the open window. Still, he felt frozen in place and would have remained standing there, except that he was struck hard from behind and knocked to the cement by something heavy that landed on top of him. He had no time to react to the assault before he was aware of the staccato sound of the submachine gun, and the angry whine of bullets ricocheting off the sidewalk and the building behind him.
There were screams and curses, the roar of the Land Cruiser speeding past, and then the popping of a handgun from the street. He turned his head and saw Fulton running down the middle of the street after the SUV, firing his gun. Then there was return fire from the vehicle directed at the detective, who ran several more steps, staggered, and fell to the ground.
As luck would have it, an unmarked police car had apparently been sitting in the alley across the street from the nightclub. It came roaring out now, a red bubble light on its roof, and took off in pursuit of the assassin’s car.
Karp felt the weight that had been lying on his back remove itself and he sat up. Guma, who’d seen the SUV and realized what it meant, had knocked him to the ground and covered him with his own body. His old friend was now standing above him, offering a hand up. He took the hand and stood, wincing at the pain in his bum knee that had been wrenched in the fall.
Then he became aware of a voice yelling a name. “Francisco! Francisco! Talk to me, homes!” He looked toward the stairway leading into the club. At the bottom, Alejandro Garcia was cradling the head of his friend Francisco Apodaca as a dark wet spot blossomed on the latter’s shirt.
Garcia looked up and screamed, “Somebody call an ambulance, please!”
“Already done, Alejandro,” Jim called down from the doorway with a cell phone to his ear. “Help’s on the way, man.”
Karp looked back to the street, where Fulton was sitting up holding his leg. He expected the detective to stand, but when he didn’t, he hobbled over to him as fast as the red-hot ingots in his knee would allow, followed by Guma.
Fulton had lowered his pants and taken his belt off which he was trying to fasten around his upper thigh, above the bloody wound just above his knee. “God damn…God damn…God damn,” the detective hissed through clenched teeth. He stopped cursing when Karp limped up. “You can have my resignation in the morning for not seeing that motherfucker coming, but in the meantime would you mind helping me cinch up this tourniquet good and tight. I’m feeling a little peaked…. God damn.”
Karp leaned down and pulled the belt as tight as he could, alarmed by the amount of blood that had already pumped out of the hole and glad to see that the tourniquet cut it to a trickle. “Wasn’t your fault,” he said. “No one could have seen that coming. Probably somebody out to get Garcia for the ML Rex shooting. We were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, including that poor boy over there.”
Fulton shook his head and spit out the words through the pain. “They were after you, boss,” he said. “I was looking back for you and saw Guma’s face when he realized what was going down. I turned in time to see the motherfucker in the backseat draw a bead on you before he pulled the trigger. If he was after Garcia, he wouldn’t have waited, not given him a chance to duck.”
The detective nodded to where Garcia was still holding his friend while Father Dugan knelt at his side. “Whoever that is, he caught the tail end of the burst meant for you.”
As the sirens of the approaching ambulances split the night, Karp nodded and limped back to the stairway. Every step felt as if someone was pounding nails into the joint, but the pain he was feeling was nothing compared to Garcia’s as he cried over the limp body of his friend as Dugan administered last rites.
• • •
When the ambulances arrived a few moments later, Guma waved one down for Fulton, while the other sped to the curb nearest the front of the nightclub. The paramedics inserted themselves between Garcia and Francisco, whom they scooped up and placed in their vehicle, and roared off. The ambulance bearing Fulton left soon after.
Several police cars had arrived in the meantime with the officers going about the business of securing the crime scene and taking witness statements. The sergeant on the scene recognized Karp and walked up. “I just heard on the scanner that some of our guys got those scumbags who did this holed up in an abandoned warehouse over near the docks off Christopher Street.”
“What was the unmarked doing across the street?” Guma asked as he walked up.
“No idea,” the cop said. “Sleeping, for all I know. All we got on the scanner was a report of an officer down and that the district attorney may have been hit, too. Glad to see you’re all right, sir.”
Karp thanked the officer and turned aside to talk to Guma. “How’d they know it was me?”
Guma stared at the street a moment before answering. “I guess they could have made you in the streetlight. You’re not exactly easy to miss, and Fulton is a legend in the department; everybody knows him. They could have seen him, a tall white guy, and put two and two together.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” Karp acknowledged. “It just seems weird with it all happening so fast. Hey, by the way, thanks for saving my life.”
“You owe me,” Guma agreed with a grin. “You don’t grow up in my old neighborhood without smelling a hit in the air before it happens. The moment I saw the car I knew we had to get to the ground.”
Karp looked around. “Where’s Murrow?” Then he saw his special assistant sitting on the curb at the corner with Stupenagel kneeling in front o
f him, dabbing at a cut above his eyes that was bleeding pretty badly.
“You okay, Murrow?” Karp asked as he walked up.
“Are you kidding? Look at all this blood,” Stupenagel said. “He deserves a Purple Heart or the Medal of Honor or something. Yours truly would have been Swiss cheese except that at the last moment, this brave man pushed me behind that Dumpster back there and those bastards shot him.”
Murrow gently pushed her hand away. “I wasn’t really shot,” he said. “I was running for my life when I tripped over my own feet, pushed her behind the Dumpster, and hit my head on the side. So I’m afraid I was nether brave nor was my wound the result of enemy fire. I don’t qualify for the Purple Heart or Medal of Honor.”
“Hush, sweetie,” Stupenagel commanded as she resumed patting at his wound. “You’re so modest. It was an act of bravery above and beyond the call of duty and you did it to save little old me. You deserve a medal…or maybe something better.”
Feeling suddenly nauseous, Karp looked back to where Dugan had his arm around Garcia, whose shoulders shook with his sobs. The priest looked up as he walked over to offer his condolences.
“It’s always the way,” Dugan said sadly. “We lose the best of them. Francisco was so important to his community. Not just because he promised to return after medical school and work in Spanish Harlem, but as proof to the younger kids that if you work hard, you can beat the circumstances of your birth. But now he’s gone.”
Karp patted Garcia on the shoulder. “I know it doesn’t bring him back, but they have the guys cornered who did this. At least there will be justice for Francisco.”
Garcia shook his hand off. “You still don’t get it do you?” he said angrily. “Whoever the cops have cornered, they’re working for somebody who will never pay for what they did to Francisco. Somebody who is not going to stop at anything to get what he wants or to keep himself safe, including putting out a hit on the district attorney. You do know it was you they were after, don’t you?”
“So I’ve been told,” Karp replied. “But perhaps that should convince you that maybe the time has come to stop playing games and giving tests. School’s out, it’s welcome to the real world.”
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