Resolved kac-15

by Robert K. Tanenbaum

  "Well, we're not a Muslim country yet, are we?" said Karp a little testily. He felt he had been caught wrong by his kid, never a pleasant experience of fatherhood, and he was also aware that it was his embarrassment and not the boy's that was now driving his bad mood. "And what's this about no money? You both get an allowance."

  "When you remember. And it's tacky for us to have to nag for it. And it's not the same as when you earn it."

  "I thought it was for the poor."

  "We take a small administrative fee," said Giancarlo blandly.

  "Oh ho."

  "No, Dad, real charities do it, too. Lucy says. Even Mom's charity does."

  "I'm sure. By the way, where are Lucy and Zak?"

  "They went up Broadway to get some new sneakers."

  "How about you? Don't you need new ones, too?"

  "Da-ad." The long-suffering diphthong. "Obviously, if they fit Zak they'll fit me."

  "Oh, you mean… you're twins?" said Karp, and Giancarlo laughed, a glory in itself. Which did not much improve Karp's unease. Lucy had slotted into the space Marlene had occupied so smoothly that it was only in moments like this that Karp understood how little he knew about the domestic arrangements necessary to raise two boys. Marlene had done it all- shopping, school, church, feeding, doctor, dentist. Like most men of a certain stamp, Karp had restricted his parenting largely to the fun stuff: sports, excursions, roughhousing, giving valuable advice. He realized that dads were supposed to be different nowadays, to be more domestic, but… he would think about that later, maybe have a talk with Lucy. Other charges accumulated on the rap sheet he kept in his head for Marlene.

  "Well, I'm hungry," said Karp. "Why don't we see about gathering the clan and getting something to eat?"

  "Could we go to Mercerama?"

  This was perhaps Karp's least favorite place to consume calories: a large echoing chamber on Mercer Street full of video games, pinball machines, boys between eight and fourteen, guilty parents, and electronic cacophony. It served greasy pizzas and burgers. The guilty parent said, "Sure. That'll be fun."

  ***

  "You really know how to show a girl a good time, Dad," said Lucy, rolling her eyes. "Why did you agree to eat here? You hate this place."

  Karp was looking through the mob of juvenile males, trying to spot his sons. Zak was at a video game, killing pixels. A couple of younger kids were sneaking looks at his scores, which were, as usual, spectacular. And an even more interested group was observing Giancarlo, who was playing Skee-Ball.

  "How the hell does he do that?" Karp asked, rather than answer her question. "He can't see."

  "It's called blind sight," she said. "There's nothing wrong with his eyes; he just has a problem processing the image. But he can make an association between what his eyes take in and the sound of the ball, so he gets better at hitting the holes. I asked at the lab and it was explained to me in tedious detail."

  "What do they say about the prognosis?"

  "Guarded hopeful. It could get better, but it could get worse, too. Neurons tend to deteriorate if they're not used." With a sigh she added, "There's no treatment and no point in talking about it. Wait and pray is all we can do. He seems pretty happy, though, considering. How was your day? Bad, right?"

  "Oh, you know. The usual crapola. I had a run-in with Laura Rachman in which Jack decided to hang some poor schmuck to make a point. How could you tell I had a bad day?"

  "Your eyes get all pouchy and you snap at the boys more than usual. As you used to continually tell me, don't take the blame for every damn thing that goes wrong in the world."

  Karp let out a short rueful laugh. "And aren't I sorry now! How about you? How were the poor today?"

  "Always with us. But I've picked up an admirer."

  Karp felt a small chill. "Oh?"

  "Yes. Larry. Yesterday he was Joe Fellini, but today he's Larry Larsen. He even showed me a driver's license. He said he was embarrassed about giving out his real name because of having to eat at a soup kitchen. But now he trusts me. We're pals, now."

  "This is, um, not a guy like the last guy, I hope."

  "Meaning David Grale?"

  "Yeah, him."

  "No. But also the dangerous type. Or likes to think he is. He's an ex-con. Very handsome in a movie star way, square jaw, thick dark hair, lying blue eyes. He's got that terrific body-builder shape they all come out of the can with. A lot of magnetism."

  "Oy vey. When's the wedding?"

  "Yeah, right. No, Dad, this is an old guy, over forty probably."

  "Oh, that's a relief. Because most guys give up thinking about sex when they're thirty-nine or so."

  "I meant, it's not that kind of thing, not a kid-crush thing like I had with Grale… what's wrong?"

  "Nothing."

  "Yes, there is. You just sucked all the air out of this booth."

  What was wrong. Karp had just processed the observation that well over three quarters of the adults in the place were middle-aged professional men like himself, casually dressed, with stunned expressions and false smiles. Were they all like him, currying favor with their kids by taking them to this hideous place, feeding them empty calories, supplying game tokens? Was he in divorced dad hell?

  He became aware of his daughter looking at him peculiarly, waiting for him to speak. He dismissed the idea of sliding by with a polite fiction about just being tired. The girl had a bullshit detector equal to his own. He thought to himself: But I'm not divorced. I'm at home and my kids are home, too. What was it, then?

  "I don't know, hon," he said. "This place gets on my nerves. It symbolizes… I don't know, barbarism: noise, hypnotic lights, children practicing reckless driving and killing. And it just made me think, when you mentioned Grale, like, Oh God, my daughter has a close relationship with a serial killer, and her nanny was a Vietcong assassin, and my wife arranged to have a couple of dozen people killed and got away with it, and she's hiding from me and her family, and one of my sons is blind and the other one is deep into violence and hardly ever talks… it's a little too much, you know? I didn't want this. And somehow, despite what you say, I feel it's my fault."

  "Because you're the dad."

  "Right. I'm the dad."

  "Mom says the same thing. It's all her fault, too. Honestly, I get so tired of the two of you."

  "Then who's to blame?"

  "Oh, God give me strength! Nobody's to blame. This family's been immersed in crime and violence since day one. The pair of you are crusaders against the dark forces, and a good thing, too. You run the DA and Mom is an unindicted felon, but what the hell, to each their own. And it can't help spilling over. If you were doctors in a plague city, you'd bring disease home, if you were shrinks you'd bring craziness home, if you were Martha Stewart you'd bring stupid table decorations home. It's our fate. Do you see any of us whining for things to be different? Or blaming? Look at Giancarlo. He's a great little artist, he loses his sight through no fault of his own, and what does he do? He picks up music. Six months after inheriting Nono's old accordion, he's playing practically like a pro. Zak is perfectly happy as long as he's got his brother to protect from all enemies foreign and domestic. If the marines took recruits at eleven he'd be in paradise. I'm fine as a lab rat and little sister of the poor, it suits me to a T."

  A trace of bitterness here, but Karp chose to let it by. "And your mother?"

  "Oh, her. Well she's a special case. She's got it into her head that she's poison, that she's some kind of curse on the family. But she's really a very religious person who's pissed off at God because He won't be bullied like she bullies everyone else. She knows she has to repent and forgive and be forgiven, but she'd rather drink and be a noble hermit. It's pride, is all. It's the deadliest sin."

  "I thought the problem was she wasn't really religious. I thought you thought her stuff with the Church was all for show."

  Lucy rolled her eyes. "Dad, please! Where do you think I get it from? Not from you." She saw his face fall and was instant
ly sorry. "Oh, I didn't mean it like that. You're religious, too, only you don't know it."

  "How do you figure that?"

  "Because you love the truth," said Lucy, as if stating the obvious. "It's the basis of all real religion. Don't you think you're closer to God than some Vatican cardinal all rotten with lies and cover-ups and evasions?"

  "Oh, good, you mean I might avoid the eternal fires? To be honest, as long as you brought it up, I always hoped that they'd put me in a somewhat cooler corner because of you being a saint."

  "Did you really think that?" She laughed, an act that transformed her face. Light seemed to shoot from her eyes. "Good Lord, I'm not anything like a saint. I just have a religious gift, which isn't at all the same thing. There's only one saint in the family." Here she turned in her seat and looked through the crowd to where Giancarlo was blindly tossing a skeeball. It made a short, graceful arc and landed in the smallest hole, right in the center.

  ***

  Somewhat to Felix's surprise, Rashid was not particularly disturbed about the miss on Judge Horowitz. More important, he had not discovered the missing bomb.

  "Actually, now that I think of it," Rashid said that evening, "it has a greater effect if he is killed while being guarded. First we demonstrate that we blow up a car right in front of the courthouse. They are thinking, Is this random, is this against the policeman who was killed? Or against the judge? They don't know, they are in confusion. Then we strike again."

  "You mean I strike again. You're sitting here, right?"

  Rashid gave him one of his hard looks. Felix had to suppress the insolent grin that clawed at his mouth. "We are together, all together. Teamwork. Do you think it is easy making bombs? It's dangerous, highly dangerous tasks. One mistake…" He lifted both hands in the air and made a throaty noise. "Anyhow, we wait a day or two, until their guard is a little down. We are in no rush. Tell me about the girl."

  Felix shrugged. "Hey, we're making friends. I figure the way she looks, nobody ever gave her the time of day. But… you know, if I'm really going to get close to her, like close close, I need a place."

  "A place?"

  "Yeah. Where am I supposed to take her? The fucking park? I got to get her in the rack, get her wanting it so bad that she'll do anything I want. You want her to talk about this guy Tran? That's what it's gonna take. I need an apartment in the city, not a shithole either, and more money, too."

  Rashid stared at him. Felix met the stare. The Arab smiled. "Well, you are the expert. This can be arranged. I will see to it. Anything else?"

  "Yeah, I need a kid, a little girl. Eight or nine."

  A look of distaste crossed Rashid's face. "For what purpose?"

  "It's my hook into her. I told her I had a little girl and I can't get together with her because of my bad record. She wants to help. She keeps asking where she is, who's watching her. I promised her next time I'd bring some pictures."

  Rashid nodded. "This can be arranged, too. Also, you will be happy to learn, we have provided you with a car."

  "Yeah? What kind?"

  "It doesn't matter what kind- a car that goes is all. You will need it to transport devices here and there around the city."

  "When is this happening?"

  "Soon. Timing is everything in this kind of campaign. We desire the maximum of fear, and this is obtained through timing- terror, terror, then a pause, enough to bring life back to normal, and then terror again. The confidence of the people in the authorities must be gradually destroyed, until they will do anything to obtain safety. This is his doctrine."

  "You mean ibn whatever- behind bars?"

  "Yes. My leader. He is a very great man."

  "Then what's he doing in the slammer?"

  "He was betrayed," replied Rashid with heat. "By a source that could not have been predicted. But he will be free. Or I will bring this city down around their ears."

  ***

  Jim Raney sat with all the other detective lieutenants and captains in the five boroughs of New York, in a large auditorium on one of the higher floors of One Police Plaza, the headquarters of the NYPD, and listened to the man from the FBI talk. He took notes, as did all his peers, because they were under the eye of practically the whole of the department brass and wished to look engaged. They already knew most of what the FBI man had to say, having received a thick wad of paper earlier that morning. It was the third week of what the media were calling the Summer of the Bomb.

  Raney had not been professionally affected by the bombings, which had hit only in Manhattan so far. Crime was down in the city these past years, especially in north Queens, and his squad, although reasonably busy, was not stressed. His major concern at present was the murders of Mary and Sharon Chalfonte, and his mind kept drifting back to it as the FBI man spoke on about the person they were calling the Manbomber, after the location of all but one of his attacks. Raney knew that the bureaucratic purpose of this meeting was to prepare the detective squad leaders for a diminution of their troops. A major task force was being formed, ran the grapevine's message, and everyone was going to have to kick in. Raney had every spare man-hour devoted to the Chalfonte case, and that would suffer if he lost guys. He was thinking about who to send to the Manbomber task force when they asked. Or maybe they would just pick them, which meant he would lose his best people.

  The FBI man was describing the Unsub now, the "unknown subject" in their queer parlance. A white male, over forty, it seemed, strongly built. This was conjecture, based on the report of witnesses who had survived the explosion that destroyed a Madison Avenue bus. Apparently, the Unsub had boarded the bus at Thirty-fourth Street just before rush hour, shoved a time bomb under his seat, and exited at Fortieth Street. The bus had been crowded, and, of course, all the people who had sat next to him were dead, but an exhaustive canvass of everyone who had been at the Fortieth Street stop at around the right time, together with interviews of the survivors of the bus blast, had produced the sketch now projected on the screen in front of the detectives: a white everyman with a thickish neck, a ball cap, and sunglasses, essentially useless for identification but all they had.

  A map of Manhattan next appeared on the screen, marked with the location of the six Manhattan bombs: the courthouse parking lot; Baxter Street; the midtown bus; a subway car at Eighty-Sixth Street; a bakery truck on Greenwich Avenue in the Village; and a movie theater on Lexington and Thirty-Fifth. There did not seem to be a pattern in the targets, the timing of the explosions, or their location. The terror was as random as the weather, its author of no discernable political or religious persuasion.

  They had done a psychological profile of him, too. A loner, they thought, not political, a grudge against society, a careful worker, probably college-educated, an American, may have been institutionalized at some point, either between jobs or a nightshift worker. They didn't think this series of bombing was the work of a foreign terrorist cell. Next, the FBI man talked about the Horowitz connection. Judge Horowitz's car had been blown up in the courthouse parking lot, killing an officer. Nine days later, the judge had been killed by a large bomb placed underneath a truck on Baxter Street and detonated by radio control as he drove by it in his brand new Lincoln. Theory: Horowitz was the target, and the other explosions were distractions. The judge's cases had been examined all the way back to his service in municipal court. Any convict he had ever sent to jail and was presently at large had been interviewed. His personal life had been minutely examined. The only halfway interesting suspect was Feisal ibn-Salemeh, presently incarcerated at Auburn, whom Horowitz had sentenced. But ibn-Salemeh seemed to have no contacts outside the prison. An exemplary prisoner, according to the prison, and a useful source of information about terror far from Manhattan. For a number of reasons, the American intelligence community did not wish to put the screws to Mr. ibn-Salemeh, and so the word came down from the highest levels that he was not to be unduly disturbed.

  Another chart flashed on the screen. This displayed the names of the fifty-thr
ee people who had died in the six explosions, with lines showing how they were connected. There were a lot of lines, unfortunately; there always were. Raney stared at the reproduction of the slide provided with his handout. If six degrees of separation connected any two inhabitants of the planet, it was likely that fifty-six out of the city's nearly eight million would be connected in some way. It didn't necessarily mean much, although it had to be checked out. For example, two partners in a jewelry business had been killed in two separate blasts; a man killed in the bakery truck, Hassan Daoud, had once appeared as a witness before Judge Horowitz in a case involving that same ibn-Salemeh. Raney remembered that one- he had been the detective on the case. A minor drug dealer, Jongo S. Wallace, had also been killed in the bakery truck explosion, just walking by on the street. He had also once appeared as a prosecution witness before Horowitz.

  The bus and the movie theater had yielded a total of sixteen victims with some connection to the criminal justice system. Raney scanned the names. A couple seemed familiar. Steve Lutz, for one, a lowlife and a part-time snitch. Raney recalled Lutz, a minor character in the drama of the late Felix Tighe, a reluctant prosecution witness. That got him thinking about Mary Chalfonte again. The case was cooling already. All they had was a few white cotton fibers and some could-be-anybody descriptions. Chalfonte seemed clean, no girlfriends they could find, no money troubles, the man seemed both devoted and destroyed by what had happened. So a wandering serial killer had caught up with Mary; she who'd escaped the clutches of one maniac had, through the mysterious workings of chance, been picked by another. Like the people killed in the bombings, bad luck was the only real connection.

  The FBI man finished and was replaced by a colleague, who had diagrams of bombs to show. Apparently Manbomber was something of a genius in this line. The devices were all powered by RDX, a military explosive, mixed with plasticizing wax at nine to one, a combination known as Composition A3 that was normally used in artillery shells. Where did it come from was the question. The obvious place to get it was scavenging from military stores, but small quantities could be manufactured in a kitchen, if you knew what you were doing or were very lucky. This guy knew what he was doing. The FBI man guessed that the stuff had been homemade. Acetone peroxide had been used as a booster. This was a dangerous and unstable substance much favored by terrorists the world over. The bombs had been detonated by standard blasting caps, triggered by either timers, radio receivers, or trembler switches. They thought that the devices used had been carefully homemade from parts recovered from junk appliances, and hence untraceable.