Hoax

by Robert K. Tanenbaum

  As Karp spoke, Denton got out of his chair and wandered over to the window where he could look down on the crowded sidewalks. “You know, I was a young cop, just getting started and walking a beat in Little Italy when Frank Serpico started ratting on everybody he could think of,” he said. “As soon as that shit hit the newspapers, right away I noticed a difference in how the people on the street looked at me. Suddenly, anybody wearing that uniform—a uniform that I had waited all my life to wear—was on the take and dirty. I’d see these wiseguys, all mobbed up and never worked an honest job a day in their lives, and they’d be smirking at me and I could tell what they was thinking: ‘You ain’t no different than us; at least we’re proud to be crooks.’

  “I hated it, and for a long time I tried to find someone to blame for those smirks and what they’d done to my childhood dreams. First, it was Frank. You know the guy was as dirty as anyone he turned in, but his conscience starts to bother him—aided by the fact that he was popped by IA—but does he point the finger at himself and leave it at that? No, he saves his ass by pointing the finger at everybody else and makes himself the hero. But Frank wasn’t worth my time.

  “Then I blamed the people out there on the sidewalks for lumping us all together—if one cop was dirty, we were all dirty. I about quit the force in disgust; all I wanted to do was bust their heads, make them stop looking at me like I was garbage.”

  Denton’s shoulders sagged as he shook his head. “Then I guess I got older, wiser maybe, and I realized that the public had a right to look at us that way, even the good cops. We knew what was going on—the envelopes with the money in them, the free cars and suits, dinners and drinks on the house. But we ignored it. We figured that as long as we weren’t taking the money or the other graft ourselves, then we weren’t doing anything wrong. It was somebody else’s problem; all we just wanted to do was our jobs and go home to our wives and kids. No one seemed to recognize that if one bad apple spoils the bunch, then a bunch of bad apples makes the whole orchard look bad. Believe me or not, the vast majority of cops are good apples, but it was wrong to know about corruption and to do nothing.”

  “It seems to be endemic to our line of work,” Karp said. “We sense that it exists, but without evidence what can we do about it?” He was thinking that he’d let plenty of little wrongs slide by in his years with the DA. There was always someone to blame—Bloom or his efficiency experts or Keegan and his lack of interest. He and his friends had always told themselves and each other that as long as they were fighting the good fight, picking and choosing when to go to war and when to remain quiet, they were not responsible for what went on in the office as a whole.

  “So what do we do about it?” he asked the police chief but looking over at Guma. He hoped Denton would make the right move so that he wouldn’t have to nail him as well.

  Denton looked at Karp and Guma hard for a minute, then smiled. “We do our jobs. Where do you want to start?”

  Karp asked for the IA files pertaining to the case names that Newbury and his staff had recalled and written down. “And you might ask the guys if they can remember any cases over the last, oh, dozen years or so in which they recommended further investigation or even charges brought by the district attorney. Everybody’s fair game in this, okay; the police department is not going to take a rap that my office is not willing to share the blame—maybe even a lion’s share as my predecessors apparently were the ones who could have stopped it and did nothing.”

  “Consider it done,” Denton said. “But after the little incident last night, I would prefer it if Newbury looked at the files over here. We’ll set him up with his own secure room, and put a cop outside the door 24/7. You can choose the cop if you want.”

  Karp waved off the implication that he didn’t trust whomever Denton would choose. “You pick. I’ll send Newbury and his gang over.”

  Denton looked at his watch. “I think IA is debriefing Flanagan now. Let’s go.”

  “You bet,” Karp said. “I’m always interested when somebody’s trying to shoot me and puts a big hole in one of my best friends, not to mention murders a young medical student unlucky to be within shouting distance of yours truly…. Now, what can you tell me about Flanagan that I don’t already know?”

  As they walked, Denton filled him in. Flanagan, he said, was the latest of several generations who had spent their lives on the force. His father had been killed by a black drug dealer in Harlem, and was buried even as allegations that he was dirty were surfacing.

  “The thing of it is, the guy was dirty,” Denton said. “The guys in Narcotics knew it; in fact, the brainiac was shaking down some of their own undercover people. He probably would have been busted before too much longer—even cops on the take don’t like cops who sell out for drug money. But then the guy was dead, and there was no point in hurting his family. As you know, we don’t like airing our laundry in public.”

  “And the son?”

  Denton scratched his head and said, “Now that’s the strange thing in all of this. I’ve always pegged him as a straight arrow; a real Boy Scout to the point of being anal about it. He’s requested transfers in the past because he didn’t want to work with partners who cussed or liked to check out the pornography shops when they were still active in Times Square. He goes to church religiously, pun intended, a Catholic somewhere to the right of the pope on the political spectrum. His first wife left him a while back, and he was pretty bitter about it, boozing a lot, including on the job.

  “But he’s also been decorated for bravery three times, twice in shootouts with armed felons. As you know, he and his partner ran into the WTC towers and started hauling people out, until the last time when he made it back but his partner didn’t. To be honest, whatever he may or may not be getting out of this, I would bet my gold shield that it ain’t money. He lives in the same small house in Inwood that he grew up in, drives an old Ford with bald tires, doesn’t seem to go anywhere on his vacations, doesn’t go out drinking or whoring like some of the guys. Just does his job, then goes home to his second wife, Lena, a real nice gal if nothing to write home to Mom in the looks category, if you catch my drift.

  “He does have a pretty short fuse. I remember that in his younger days especially, there were a lot of complaints about guys he arrested coming in pretty beat up. The rest I think you know.”

  • • •

  An hour later, when the red light on his private line lit up, Karp was waiting. “Thought you’d call sooner,” he said without waiting to hear the voice. “When do I get the next test?”

  “After giving them back test number two?” the caller said angrily.

  “My bad,” Karp admitted. “But if you know so much about what’s going on over here, then you know we’re not giving up on those. The files we lost let us know where to look. But I concede that it also lets the big fish off the hook unless you have more.”

  “We do,” the caller said. “But one last time, I’m warning you that what you’ll be seeing in the next twenty-four hours or so will rock this city in a way that even 9/11 couldn’t. At least there, we never lost our faith, but I fear that will not be the case when you pass the third test.”

  “So you’re assuming I will be willing to accept the challenge.”

  “Yes,” the caller said. “You do not strike me as one of those cold and timid souls who knows neither victory nor defeat.”

  Karp listened carefully. It sounded to him as though the caller was weeping. “Father Mike?” he said.

  The line was quiet and for a moment he thought the caller had hung up, but then he answered. “Yeah, Butch…”

  “Next time, just drop by and we’ll talk like friends.”

  “If there is a next time.”

  30

  KARP STOPPED BY THE HOSPITAL ON THE WAY HOME TO CHECK on Fulton. As soon as he got off the elevator, he could hear the detective arguing with someone down the hall.

  “I’m fine,” he was lecturing a young man dressed in surgical s
crubs. “I got a little hole in my leg. You patched it up, now I’m good to go.” He saw Karp poke his head in and added, “Tell him, Butch.”

  “He says he’s good to go,” Karp informed the doctor, who was unimpressed.

  “The bullet that caused that ‘little hole’ missed severing a major artery by two millimeters,” the doctor said. “There was still significant damage to the muscles of the leg, as well as loss of blood. He’s not going anywhere for a week, maybe more if I need to go back in there and clean things up; it may have chipped the bone but it was tough to see on the X-rays because of the bleeding.”

  “Missed, missed . . that’s the operative word,” Fulton said. “I’ll promise to take it easy.”

  “No,” said the doctor. “If I have to put you in a full body cast to keep you in that bed, I will. And if I hear any more about it, I’ll make sure that cast covers your mouth.”

  “Butch, come on man, I hate hospitals,” Fulton complained. He sniffed the air. “They smell bad. Like dead people.”

  Karp looked at the doctor, who shook his head and said, “We’ll get him an air freshener, but he stays.”

  “Looks like I’m outranked,” Karp told his friend, patting him on his injured leg to remind him that bullets hurt, even on pain killers. “We’ll try to avoid letting the bad guys take over the city while you’re relaxing here. In the meantime, try not to drive the doctors and nurses crazy or they may decide to shoot you in the other leg.”

  “Now Butch, don’t you leave me here with these ghouls,” Fulton begged. “Butch. BUTCH!”

  As Chip McIntyre drove him home, Karp laughed at the memory of the detective’s plaintive pleadings that had followed him all the way back to the elevator. He was still chuckling when he opened the door to his loft and was greeted by a petite, sultry woman who jumped into his arms, wrapped her legs around his waist, and planted a long, slow, wet kiss on his mouth.

  “Geez, you guys, get a room,” Zak said with a big smile on his face, which mirrored that of his brother and sister, who were standing behind him.

  “Close your eyes if you can’t handle a little unadulterated lust,” Marlene told her son and kissed her husband again. “Welcome home, baby.”

  “Welcome home yourself, gorgeous,” he replied conscious of the urgency with which his wife was pressing her hips into his.

  Suddenly the sound of the refrigerator door slammed shut which brought Karp out of his blissful fantasy of what might happen next. He counted heads again and decided that unless Gog had been especially trained in the past twenty-four hours, someone else was in the house.

  Someone else in the form of a short, thick man with long black hair and bronze skin, wearing blue jeans with a big silver belt buckle the size of a salad plate and cowboy boots, walked out of the kitchen.

  Marlene smiled mischievously. “Butch, I’d like you to meet the chief of police of the Taos Pueblo, John Jojola. John, this is my husband, Roger ‘But Everybody Calls Him Butch’ Karp, the district attorney of New York City.”

  “He’s a real Indian!” Zak shouted. “You should see his knife…it’s huge!”

  Jojola stepped forward and extended his hand. “Pleased to meet you,” he said. “Marlene’s told me a lot about you.”

  “All good I hope,” Karp heard himself say with a false half-laugh that he recognized had its roots in jealousy. Now who had she dragged home. “You’re a long way from your jurisdiction, chief,” he said, then immediately wondered if he’d made a politically incorrect faux pas calling him chief; the man was an Indian.

  “People keep telling me that,” Jojola said, “about out of my jurisdiction.” But it was Marlene who finished the sentence. “We’ll talk about it later,” she said giving her husband their secret “young ears are listening” high sign.

  “She means, ‘When the boys are asleep,’ ” Giancarlo interpreted for everyone.

  “Aw crap,” Zak swore, “we always get left out of the loop.”

  Karp grabbed his eldest son and despite the lingering pain in his knee, hoisted him over his head. “I swear your mouth,” he laughed. His mood shifted, however, when a hard dark object fell from Zak’s pant leg and clattered to the floor. It was another switchblade.

  “Damn it, Zak…,” Karp began.

  “I was just showing it to Mr. Jojola,” the boy protested.

  “You’re not supposed to even own a switchblade,” Karp sighed. “Are you ever going to get that through your head?”

  Tears welled in Zak’s eyes. “No, I guess not,” he said wiggling out of his father’s arms. “I’ll just always be a big fuckup.” He ran off to his room as his father called after him.

  “Let him go, Butch,” Marlene said. “He’s humiliated and not going to listen right now.”

  Karp looked at his wife. “I guess I’m the big fuckup,” he said. “I just can’t seem to get through to him that this isn’t the Balkans. He doesn’t need to be constantly armed and dangerous…”

  “No, just New York City,” Marlene said, “which at various times in its history has been the murder capital of the world.”

  Karp sensed the old tension between the two of them starting to build like a snowstorm in late December. With the little man in his groin starting to panic, he decided to de-escalate before the Big Chill. “Sorry about that,” he said to Jojola.

  “Hey, no problem, I shouldn’t have been showing him my knife,” he said, pointing to a long, wicked-looking hunting knife lying on the kitchen table.

  “Not your fault,” Karp replied. “I think all boys are genetically predisposed to gravitate toward knives and guns and anything else dangerous. This one seems a little more inclined in that direction than most.”

  “Hey, tell me about it,” Jojola replied. “I got a kid just a little older and let’s just say he’s been more than a handful.”

  Lucy got them through the awkward moment by announcing that she was preparing dinner and that it would be served momentarily. “Spaghetti with meat sauce à la Ciampi,” she said. “I could tell by the stacks of empty boxes of Kids Cuisine Macaroni and Hungry Man Salisbury Steaks on the counter when we came in that a real meal hasn’t been cooked here since the night we crossed under the Hudson.”

  “We ate out sometimes,” Karp offered hopefully. “Whenever we felt like having a salad.”

  “And pizza, Chinese food, burgers, and, judging from the wrappers that made it home, a steady diet of candy.”

  Karp took the opportunity to excuse himself and head back to the twins’ room, where he found Zak facedown on his bed. “Can we talk?” he asked.

  “Go afray,” was the muffled reply.

  “What?”

  Zak turned his tear-streaked face to him. “I said, Go Away!”

  “Can’t do it,” Karp said. “When I asked if we could talk, what I really meant is we need to talk and because I’m the dad and I outweigh you by a hundred and fifty pounds and could mash you into a bloody pulp just by sitting on you, it gives me the right to revoke your right to remain silent.”

  “Nice talk from a so-called officer of the law,” his son snipped, but only with great effort that made the sides of his mouth quiver was he able to keep a smile from his face.

  “Hey,” Karp said gently, “I’m sorry for humiliating you out there. If I had a problem, I should have respected you enough to talk about it privately.”

  Zak nodded his head. “Damn straight.”

  “However,” his dad continued in a more serious tone to ensure that a budding self-righteousness did not distract his son from the message, “this felonious possession of a weapon is getting to be a real problem. I understand you want to protect your brother—and God knows you’ve been through a lot these past years—but it can’t continue. I want you to promise me you’ll stop carrying.”

  Zak looked at him long enough for his father to see his brain working on various schemes to get out of this one and then finally gave up. “I promise,” he said.

  Karp hugged and squeezed his son, t
hen kissed his head, feeling lousy about the pain he caused. “No fingers or toes crossed? Now let’s go have dinner.”

  • • •

  The rest of the evening went much better with the aid of a thick, musty Chianti and good company. Karp found himself regretting his initial jealous reaction to Jojola. He’d watched his wife interacting with the man, and while it was evident there was great affection there, it reminded him more of a close brother and sister relationship than anything else. More than that, he sensed a moral certainty about the man that left no doubt that his intentions were honorable in all phases of his life. He also seemed to have a calming affect on Marlene, and Karp hoped that it would be permanent.

  To the twins’ great disappointment, they were sent off to bed before the adults got into anything exciting, although the air was charged with it, making the hair on the back of their arms stand up like just before a lightning strike. Marlene accompanied the complaining boys back to their room and first kissed Zak, who had gone on strike and almost refused to kiss her back for spoiling the fun, good-night. She then sat on Giancarlo’s bed stroking his cheek. “So your dad tells me that there’s this fancy-schmancy surgeon who thinks he can make the blind see,” she said.

  “Yep, I want to do it this Friday,” he said.

  “You know it’s dangerous, and there’s no guarantee it will work.” She felt the tears starting to slip out onto her cheeks and for once was glad he could not see.

  He sensed them anyway. “Don’t cry, Mom. I’ll be okay. Heck, I could be hit by a truck crossing Broadway tomorrow because I messed up at the traffic light that I couldn’t see. But it’s more than that. I used to feel sorry for people who are blind from birth because they’d never seen the world, but now I think maybe it’s better not to know what you’re missing. I want to see what I miss again.”