Karp took off running for Marlene with guns erupting behind him and not knowing if any of them were aimed at him. Red-hot pain shot through his bad knee but he ignored it as he ran toward the flashlight beam. There was a gunshot ahead of him. Oh God, please, not Marlene, he begged as he ran. He could see a body lying on the ground, lifeless in the rain. His heart sank and tears sprang to his eyes.
“Took you long enough, lover.”
“Marlene?”
“What? You were expecting to meet another woman in the middle of Central Park? Would you prefer to untie me before or after your dirty little secret shows up?”
Karp leaned over and picked up the flashlight that was lying in the grass next to the prone body with its light still on. He shined it on the body. A man lay there with his sightless eyes staring up at the cloudy sky. A star-shaped object protruded several inches from his forehead—one of those ninja things, he thought absently—and the man was quite dead. One other odd thing, the man’s fly was open and that area of his pants was covered with blood.
Karp turned to his wife. When the light hit her face, he saw blood around her mouth.
“Don’t ask,” she said.
“Are you okay?” he said, alarmed.
“I am now.”
And at the end…
IT WAS ONE OF THOSE LOVELY INDIAN SUMMER EVENINGS IN New York City when the leaves on the trees in Central Park looked as if Jackson Pollock splashed cans of red, orange, and yellow paint across the branches, then added bold brushstrokes of plum for accent. Standing near the edge of the trees, Butch Karp squinted to see across the football field where a pack of eleven-and twelve-year-old football players huddled, wearing shoulder pads that looked as wide as they were tall.
“Maybe next year I can play, too,” said a young voice next to him.
Karp looked down and ruffled the hair on Giancarlo’s head. The spot on the side that had been shaved for the surgery had filled in nicely. The surgery had been an unqualified success in terms of removing the shotgun pellet without further damage. Then it had been a waiting game, a wait well worth the anxious moments when the bandages were removed and his son announced that he could see again.
Giancarlo’s vision still wasn’t perfect; he described it as “sharp in the middle, fuzzy around the sides, but who’s complaining.” The surgeon, Dr. Zacham, had called several days earlier from Israel and urged them to be patient. “We don’t really understand the brain all that well,” he admitted. “Perhaps his eyes and brain are still relearning how to communicate again. Perhaps with time the fuzzy areas will sharpen.”
Giancarlo’s quick recovery had allowed Marlene to return to New Mexico, the only truly disappointing result of the conclusion to the No Prosecution case. She explained that while she believed that she was on the road to mental health recovery, “this whole thing sort of interrupted the progress.”
Marlene had laughed at the pout on his face as they lay in bed the night before she left. “I won’t be gone long, lover,” she assured him. “I love New Mexico and may have to return there from time to time when I need to clear my head, and I’d love to show it to you sometime, too. You’d look great in cowboy boots and a straw bull rider’s hat, and if you’re lucky, that’s all I’ll let you wear for a few days. But I also know where my home is—this city, but most of all with you and my kids. I promise I’ll come back soon a new woman.”
“I don’t want a new woman,” he said. “I want the one I got.”
“You’re a liar,” she said kissing him, “but I appreciate the attempt at gallantry. Now quit pouting. I have to go back for a while; this whole affair left a bad taste in my mouth, if you know what I mean.”
• • •
Watching Zak come out of the huddle and line up behind the quarterback in his position as running back, Karp grimaced recalling her choice of words. It was an unnecessary reminder of the last time he was in Central Park and its aftermath.
After her abduction by Detective Robert Leary and two of his cohorts, Marlene had been held at the archdiocese offices until brought to the area behind the botanical gardens in the northeast corner of Central Park. There they met up with a man she later learned was O’Callahan who was waiting on top of the grassy knoll and told one of her kidnappers to escort her over to the treeline to his right. Her guard, a thin, acne-scarred man with “a face like a rat…long nose, beady eyes, yellow teeth,” did as told and then forced her to kneel with his gun pointed at her head.
With a three-quarters-full moon illuminating the scene, it was easy to see that the tall man who emerged from the first of two cars to arrive a few minutes later was her husband. She’d hoped that he’d arrive with the cavalry, and her heart sank when he came alone, believing that her carelessness had doomed them both. He’s coming for me, she’d thought as he’d approached the three men on the hill, one of whom split off and walked toward the cars and the man who got out of the sedan. It’s my fault he’s going to die.
When Rat Face turned his flashlight on and pointed it on her, she knew the moment of truth was fast approaching. She racked her brain desperately to think of some distraction that might give Butch a chance to save himself. Her guard was one of those insecure cops—probably a nerd in high school—who seemed to grow balls only when they were waving a gun in someone’s face. Which gave her an idea.
“Please, I don’t want to die,” she begged. “I’ll do anything you want.”
The remark earned her a cuff from his free hand. “Shut up, bitch,” he said.
She’d persisted. “You could let me run into the woods,” she said and looked at his groin.
He’d looked quickly over his shoulder at the confrontation on the hill, then smiled. “Okay, bitch,” he said, undoing his zipper and exposing himself. “Suck this and I might let you have a head start.”
Marlene closed her eyes and bit…Karp closed his eyes and quickly shut the image out of his mind. Desperate times call for desperate measures, he reminded himself.
The mutilated guard screamed and, enraged, pointed the gun at her head, intending to shoot her. Marlene closed her eyes and waited for the bullet, surprised after she heard the shot to discover she was unharmed. Rat Face’s bullet had gone harmlessly into the ground, as he sank to his knees and then fell onto his back with a martial arts throwing star protruding from his forehead.
Then Tran had stepped quickly out of the bushes. He was the muscle Guma called on his cell phone and picked up on Grand and Crosby. When they pulled up to the curb, Tran was already waiting and jumped in the trunk of Flanagan’s police sedan that Guma was driving while Karp drove the Cadillac.
Guma later explained how after watching Karp drive past one of Flanagan’s boys inside the park, he’d pulled up and shined a flashlight in the guard’s eyes. “Flanagan?” the man had asked. A moment later he was unconscious on the ground after Tran slipped out of the open trunk and disabled him with a blow to the throat.
“I’ll find Marlene; you look after Butch,” Tran said and ran up the hill into the woods.
Tran had seen the man flash his light on Marlene’s face and knew he had only seconds to reach her before it was too late. He arrived at the moment she created her “distraction” and only just in time to throw the star even as Rat Face pulled the trigger. “Are you, okay?” he asked and then looked up. “Uh-oh, here comes the good guys, I have to go. Talk later.” He’d disappeared back in the trees, just as Butch hobbled up.
Too bad, I would have liked to have met him, Karp thought when he learned who Marlene’s rescuer had been. But he understood after Marlene later explained that given Tran’s nefarious business dealings, the bandit chief had no desire to meet him.
“He’ll probably move his people out of the restaurant supply store now,” she’d said.
“Well, if you talk to him, tell him I hope he doesn’t,” he’d replied. “It’s hard to find nice, quiet neighbors.”
Karp figured she must have had that discussion with her friend because the sto
re was still there. Every morning as he left for work, Mr. Thien Le greeted him with the same cordial “Chao buoi sang, Mr. Karp,” although it seemed there was a small glint in his eyes ever since that night.
Guma had filled him in on some of the other details. He’d stayed over by the cars as if guarding the files, hoping that the moonlight would not give away the fact that he wasn’t Flanagan until the man approaching him was within range of the 10 gauge.
“We’re ’sposed to get the files,” the man said, walking up. He’d suddenly pulled up short and reached for his gun. “You’re not Flanagan!”
The man might have beat him to the draw, Guma admitted, except that when Marlene screamed, he’d momentarily jerked his head in that direction. “Which gave me the time to raise Teresa and let him have both barrels.”
The discharge had knocked both men off their feet: the one, who turned out to be Officer Sean Calloway, wounded only a few days before in a “shootout” with notorious Bloods gang members, with a massive hole in his chest; and, Guma, who fell back into one of the cars and had the wind knocked out of him.
Yet, that didn’t mean all the good guys survived the fight. After Karp untied Marlene, she’d picked up her guard’s gun and raced back up the knoll where three bodies lay on the ground. Robert Leary was dead. Riley O’Callahan was crawling toward the cars with one hand while the other was pressed against his midsection as blood flowed between his fingers. “Please, call an ambulance,” he begged. “I think I’m dying.”
“Don’t worry,” she said, “there’s a nice warm bed waiting for you, you know”—she gestured to the ground with the gun—“down there.” He’d then pitched forward onto his face and didn’t move again.
Marlene turned to the third figure, Pancho Ramirez. He was still alive, too, though from the number of bloody holes in his sweatshirt and the bloody foam at his mouth, she knew it wasn’t for long. She’d known him through Alejandro for years and knew how devastating this would be to Garcia.
“Thank you, Pancho, for saving my husband,” she said as she began to cry.
“Didn’t do it for the man,” he said as a spasm of pain passed over his face. “I did it for my homeboys, ’Jandro and Cisco. Besides,” he added with a slight smile, “this is Inca Boyz territory, nobody shoots nobody here, unless we say it’s okay.” After suffering through another spasm, he looked at her with pleading eyes. “Please, get me a priest.”
“I’ll take it from here, Marlene,” said a voice behind her. She turned and recognized the face and figure of Father Dugan. She stood and backed away so that he could kneel in her place to hear Pancho’s confession and administer last rites.
“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” she heard Pancho say, “I banged Lydia Sanchez in her uncle’s car last night…”
A few minutes later, Dugan made the sign of a cross over the still body and stood up. He explained that Pancho was with him when Guma switched his telephone over to conference call. “It took me a moment to realize what was going on, but enough to hear the part about the botanical gardens and to know that you two needed help.” He looked down at Pancho’s body and sighed.
“Pancho insisted on coming,” he said. “They killed one of his friends and tried to kill another. There was no stopping him and I didn’t trust calling the police.”
Pancho Ramirez had only recently come back to the church, Dugan said, from the influence of his friend Alejandro. “He was trying to change,” the priest said. “Trying to break free of the gang life. I hope he’ll find peace.”
The police arrived and after sorting through what had happened with the aid of Karp, they’d arrested the guard—a rookie patrol officer—whom Tran had knocked out near the entrance, and the bodies were hauled off to the morgue. Karp had insisted that another ambulance be called for Pancho. “I don’t want him to have to ride with the trash,” he said.
Chip McIntyre had called to say that the kids were fine. Giancarlo was sleeping, as was Zak, who’d taken over the bed next to his. Lucy was dozing in the chair but woke up long enough to ask how they were—she’d already heard they were alive from Guma—and inform them that “John Jojola can fill you in on everything. Why don’t you two go decompress at home, and we’ll see you about noon tomorrow before the surgery.”
• • •
Nice to have one adult in the family who can be counted on to remain calm, Karp thought as he watched Zak line up in the back-field. His team was playing for the Manhattan Pop Warner Football League Championship, twelve-year-old division, and they were behind five points with two minutes to play. The ball was snapped and the quarterback turned around and handed off to Zak, who was stopped for no gain.
“Face mask!” Giancarlo yelled. “Open your eyes, ref! Are you blind? They grabbed his face mask.”
“Simmer down, Lombardi,” Karp said, but his mind remained on the aftermath of the shootings.
He and Marlene had done as Lucy suggested and returned to the loft to recuperate. They found Jojola waiting for them and got that side of the story.
After warning Lucy, Jojola had tied Flanagan to a chair in Guma’s apartment, then rushed outside to the taxi driven by Tran’s nephew and asked him to take him to St. Patrick’s. When they arrived, they saw two men standing near an ambulance on the east side arguing with a large filthy man. So they’d circled the building and he’d gotten out and made his way through the bushes without the men seeing him.
Still, he had no way of getting inside the cathedral and was wondering what to do next when his attention was caught by movement in the bushes near him. At first he thought it was a coyote, but then he realized where he was—the island of Manhattan. The German shepherd went on its way as he chuckled.
A few yards farther he’d found a set of tracks made by a very large man who walked with a limp. They led to a small door in an alcove on the side of the building, but when he tried the handle, it was locked. So he backtracked and discovered two more sets of tracks; one made by a man he did not recognize and another set he did. Lucy. They led to a dark hole that he thought at first might lead to the coyote’s den beneath the cathedral, but then heard Lucy’s scream come from the hole, followed by the sounds of a fight. As quickly as he could, he wiggled through the hole and emerged just as Lucy asked Grale not to kill Lichner.
He recounted his own fight with the giant, shrugging at its brevity. “He was a coward used to attacking children and defenseless people, not fighting men,” he said. “Grale would have taken him, except for Lucy’s plea for mercy. But I am just as happy that I don’t have to extradite him and have him foul the air of my home again.”
Lucy had picked up a woozy Zak when she looked around at the shadows in the cathedral and said in a frightened voice, “We have to go.”
“I thought she was worried about Flanagan’s men,” he told the couple. “But then I looked and saw that there were shadows moving within the shadows.”
“They want David,” she’d told him. “And don’t want us to see them. We have to go. It isn’t safe.”
Jojola knelt and felt for Grale’s vital signs. They were weak but he was still alive. “We can’t leave him,” he said.
“We have no choice,” she said. “They are coming. He’ll live or die according to what they can do for him. We need to get my brother out of here.”
The mention of the boy moved Jojola to leave. They fled through the hole in the wall and were surprised to find that there was no one standing near the ambulance anymore.
“Lucy and Zak thought it best to return to the hospital and pretend nothing happened until they heard from you,” he said. Chip McIntyre showed up with some of his men right after we got there so I felt comfortable leaving them.”
Jojola had then gone over to Guma’s to check on the prisoner. “Flanagan volunteered that he made several tape recordings that will be of interest to you,” he said. “They’re in a safe under the kitchen floor.”
“Volunteered?” Karp asked.
“Yes,”
Jojola said. “He seems to have an unnatural fear of knives, and when I brought mine out and laid it on the table, he decided to tell me about the tapes. After that I called McIntyre, who sent a couple of his boys to pick up Flanagan and take him to the hospital, where I believe he is being kept in secret and under guard.”
“Thank you, John, for everything,” Marlene said.
“That’s what friends are for,” he said with a shrug. “All in all, New York has been an interesting place to visit, but I think I prefer my peaceful pueblo.”
• • •
In the morning, Marlene got up early and headed straight for the hospital. But Karp had gone into the office to put out fires and get the ball rolling on what had to happen next. He’d listened to an early newscast on the television about reports of gunfire and the police having cordoned off an area of Central Park behind the botanical gardens. But there was no comment from the police, except to refer all calls to the district attorney’s office—something he’d worked out with a stunned Chief Denton at 5:00 AM. He was grateful that no one had made a connection to another small item in the newscast that a priest involved in setting up St. Patrick’s for morning Mass had discovered two large pools of blood on the steps leading to the altar. Church officials were blaming vandals “or perhaps a Satanic cult.” He noticed that neither Archbishop Fey “nor his spokesman, Father Riley O’Callahan, could be reached for comment.”
All morning the telephone had rung nonstop, most of it requests for information from the press. So he was grateful when Mrs. Boccino announced the arrival of Murrow, who unfortunately was accompanied by Stupenagel. He took a deep breath when she walked in, expecting to get an earful for cutting her out of the action. But she was amazingly calm.
“I should be mad as hell,” she said, “and will expect a full, and exclusive, report.” She winked at Murrow, who blushed and looked quickly at something interesting on the ceiling. “But this time, I’ll forgive you because it was your idea to have Gilbert take me out to dinner.”
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