Palmisano rises out of her chair. A bit of dark hair falls out of the mousse's grip and dangles fetchingly on her forehead. There are blotches of dark red on her cheeks. "Oh, give me a break!" she cries. "What I really want to know is how someone like you sinks into becoming a slimeball shyster. What's the secret, Marlene? You figure we'll all roll over and play dead because of hubby up on the eighth floor? 'Doing me a favor?' What kind of moron do you think I am?"
"I don't know what kind of moron you are," says Marlene, fixing Palmisano with her eye. Palmisano suddenly realizes that Marlene has only one eye, and recalls vague stories of how she lost it. She also recalls other stories about this woman. She wonders if she has gone too far. Marlene continues, "But you need to remember, before you impugn my character, that I was killing sexual predators with my own hands- these hands- while you were still in high school. I invented this office; I hired your boss. The idea that I would for some putative career advantage take on the case of someone I knew to be a child rapist is absurd, and would be seen as absurd by anyone who knows me."
"Please leave my office!"
Marlene gets to her feet.
"You need to ask around, Terry. There are still plenty of people in the system who'll tell you you're way out of line. Meanwhile, take another look at that evidence."
"Out!" Pointing to the door.
"As for me," Marlene says, pausing in the doorway, "my only curiosity is whether you are a witting or unwitting abettor of this conspiracy. And I intend to find out which."
Good exit line, she thinks, and then feels the lash of shame. She hates bullying like that, and descending to the level of made-for-TV movie tough-girl dialogue. She wishes that just once her life would shift of itself from the groove of grand opera to something closer to normality: Gee, thanks for pointing that out, Marlene, you saved us from a massive error. Briefly she considers going to Laura Rachman and putting the squeeze in there, but decides she doesn't have the heart for another confrontation. And it would be one, if she recalled Laura rightly. She pauses in a lobby cul-de-sac, takes a seat on a pile of cardboard case file crates, unlimbers the cell phone.
***
Daniel insisted on putting Lucy on the train at South Station, over her objections. Secretly, though, she was glad of it, since it showed he was, beneath the chromium surface of his intellect, a soppy romantic just like her. He helped her up the stairs as if she were wearing a brocade hobble skirt and not a pair of baggy shorts.
"If you dare to run along the platform crying my name and waving a handkerchief like you did last time, I'll never speak to you again."
He ignored this. "That's strange," he said, gawking, "it's all in Technicolor. I was expecting black and white. And there should be big whooshes of steam."
"You're such a dodo," she said, leaning into him, putting her face into the hollow of his neck. "If we were married, we would never have to do this. I'm feeling such a pang, now. This is really painful, you know?"
"Okay, let's do it."
"Seriously."
"Yeah, I'll ride into Manhattan with you and the conductor can marry us, like the captain of a ship. We can have our honeymoon in Providence."
"That's right, mock my little-girl dreams, grind them under your booted heel. Someday, when you're married to the phony blonde goddess of your perfervid imaginings and I'm buried in an obscure convent grave, you'll think back on this moment, and I hope you feel really, really bad."
The conductor made the usual announcement.
After they stopped kissing, she said, "Oh, this is awful. You're awful."
He stepped down to the platform. "Sell the emeralds in Mombasa," he called out. "Trust no one! I love you!"
The train pulled out. He ran down the platform after it waving a red bandanna, shouting, "Lucy, Lucy, don't leave me!"
She got some looks in the car, indulgent ones from an old lady, interested ones from a couple of teenage boys. That was something she'd noticed, when you didn't have someone interested in you, no one was interested in you, but when someone was, a lot of guys were. Maybe it was pheromones. She rummaged in her bag and brought out a falling-apart Everyman Catullus, and read dirty poetry in Latin all the way into the city.
***
"Ah, Jimmy, let it ring," said Nora Raney. "Let the bloody machine pick it up."
It was Raney's Regular Day Off, the baby was asleep for once, and Raney was in bed with his lovely wife. He was not quite in media res, but there was heavy breathing and athletic writhing going on. A few years ago, Raney had done an uncharacteristic good Irish son act and taken his mother back to County Clare, the family home place. There was a tedious little Great Famine museum there in Crusheen, which the old lady had dragged Raney off to one fine morning, and there she was, in a green museum guide uniform, Nora Muldoon. And wasn't it love at first sight? Yes, it was. Although the book on Irish redheads was unfortunately true, and there were blazing fights enough, Raney was happy as a king. Especially in the rack; Raney had been around the block a time or two, but he had not been prepared for the passion that a twenty-six-year-old convent-bred Irish country maiden could generate when at last she got her hands on a lawfully wedded husband.
So he cursed the interruption, but lieutenants of police do not let the phone ring, and policemen's wives must live with that. He reached across his wife's marvelous cream-and-pink breasts to the bedside instrument and read the caller ID numbers in the tiny window. Cursing again, he placed the receiver next to his ear. He thought he might caress one of the breasts while he talked but she batted him off with a flurry of blows, and moved as far away from him on the bed as she could.
"This better be good, Ciampi," he growled.
"Why, did I interrupt something? Is that strenuous breathing I detect? What, Raney, a nooner? You dirty dog!"
"I was mowing the lawn. What d'you have?"
"Well, the funeral home they gave was a fugazy. The next of kin is real on paper, although whether he's really a cousin or just someone screwing around with us remains to be seen. Anyway, the idea that it was a scam of some kind remains in play. How do you want to handle it?"
"Could you check out the cousin? I want it nailed that it's a scam before I go in to the bosses, because if he really did go out of a maximum house live in a coffin- holy shit, heads are gonna roll right up to Albany. But I'll look like a horse's ass if it turns out it's a clerical error or some garbage like that."
"No problem, Raney. I'll get right on it. Now could you do me one?"
"Anything you want, babe."
"Owen McKenzie, a third grade at the Five- you know him?"
"To look at. He came on the squad in my last year there. Why?"
"He's the arresting on a case I'm interested in. What's he like?"
"Middle of the pack. Not bad, not a superstar, either."
"Not a Jim Raney."
"Not. Why're you interested in his case."
"It's a statutory rape case. I'm defending the guy."
"Oh, fuck, Marlene! You know I can't screw around with a made case."
"Hello? What happened to 'anything, babe'? Besides, I'm not asking you to screw with it. Just call McKenzie and tell him there's a possibility that it's a frame, that the evidence is planted, and that he should talk to me. The story is we're interested in stopping what could be a major embarrassment for the department and to him personally. Plus the possibility of a collar on a corruption case that'd be a lot more juicy than one more pissy little statutory rape clearance."
A pause. "This is legit, Marlene? I mean, I'm a family man now, it's not like the wild west old days. I got to worry pension, health insurance… I mean, you're not presuming on our old friendship to, you know, win a case?"
"Jesus fucking Christ! You, too? What happened, it was on the TV I suddenly became a scumbag ambulance chaser? Look, you want the whole story? I ran into an old pal from the neighborhood, he definitely did not do the crime, he's totally wrong for it, the forensics are a little too good to be true, and the victi
m is a choir girl who just happens to hang out in a major meat market for the over-thirty set. The whole thing is yelling 'frame, frame.' And, in the extremely improbable event that I'm wrong, I will plead my client to the top count, and no harm done, plus I will kiss your ass in Macy's window."
Raney had to laugh. He agreed to call the detective and hung up. His wife was not laughing. She had the sheet pulled up to her neck, her arms akimbo and a blue glare in her eye.
"Sorry, that was business," he said, and reached, but she slapped his hand away.
"Business, was it? The famous Marlene, was it?"
Raney fell back on his pillow and laced his hands behind his head, gritting his teeth at the ceiling. "Yes, it was. She's helping me out."
"Helping you out. It sounds like you're helping her out. And putting your career at risk in the bargain. Anything, babe?"
"Nora, there is nothing going on between Marlene Ciampi and me."
"But there used to be."
"There never was."
"But you wished it, didn't you?"
"Yes. I had a lustful attraction for her, okay? That never went anywhere. I've told you this a million times."
"Have her over, then."
"What?"
"I want to set eyes on the woman across me own table, with you sitting right there. And God help you, James Raney, if you're not telling the truth, because I'll know. And here's Meghan wailing now, and so you've missed your chance at me milk white body, and serves you right!"
***
Felix was attending a council of war. The little shithead actually called it that, a council of war, when he told Felix he had to be there. It was held in the dining room of the Queens house. Rashid sat at the head of the dining room table, with an easel and a chalk-board behind him, flanked by Carlos and Felнpe (or whatever their real names were), and the other seats at the table and some folding chairs arranged in a couple of rows were all filled with young men that Felix didn't know. There were fourteen people including him, and none of them was speaking English. They were drinking mint tea, which Felix thought was wacked on a scorching August day; he wanted a beer himself, but Rashid had said no beer, so he had got himself a liter bottle of Mountain Dew. Felix had no idea that Rashid was running so extensive an operation.
After about twenty minutes of this yakking, Rashid rapped sharply on the table with his teaspoon. Somewhat to Felix's surprise, he spoke in English. He explained that since they all spoke different dialects of Arabic, and some did not speak Arabic at all- here a number of men glanced at Felix- he would speak in English, their one common tongue.
In English he spoke and it went on for some time. Rashid hit all the points in the fanatics' handbook: oppressed peoples, revolutionary vanguard, imperialistic lackeys, Zionist murderers, world Jewish conspiracy, lie of the Holocaust, bourgeois materialism, spiritual growth through violence, striking a blow in the Zionist-imperialist center, history is with us, my brothers. At the end there was applause, rather more polite than fervent. Felix wondered why there wasn't more God talk. The Muslims in jail were always on you about Allah this and Allah that and the Koran, but not these guys, or anyway, not Rashid. Maybe a different kind of Arab, not that he gave a shit himself.
Rashid was now at the chalkboard talking about the great blow, and here Felix's interest perked up. He had been wanting to know what all that high explosive was for and here it was: a plan to simultaneously truck bomb the four tunnels leading into Manhattan. Rashid assigned the various terrorists to different teams. One man in each team would drive the truck, another would drive a motorcycle, on which the driver and he could make their escape. Felix noted with interest that these were not the suicide type of Arab. Another team member would be responsible for driving the car to which the bombers would transfer after ditching the motorcycle. The two fake-Spanish guys, Carlos and Felнpe, would be responsible for assembling the bombs, which would be packed into septic tank pumper trucks. Two young men, one thin and one fat, Omar and Fuad, were introduced as technical support for the two fake Spaniards, although to Felix they looked more like a pair of goofy high school kids than hardened terrorists. Rashid explained that a small septic tank service firm had been acquired for that purpose. There was laughter at this, the stupid Americans.
Rashid sketched maps and indicated the location of safe houses, provided timetables, delineated phases one, two, and three, and provided all the minutiae of a carefully designed plan. Felix was impressed in spite of himself, and felt the first inkling of what it would be like to be part of something larger than Felix. To be the master of an organization was something he had never considered, but now as he saw Rashid swell like a frog or a strutting pigeon, he could imagine himself in the role. As master, of course, and not as the flunky he was just now. As Rashid droned on, Felix entertained himself with fantasies of taking over Rashid's organization, or better yet, starting his own terrorist band. It could work. Explosives were easy to get, he knew how to make bombs now, and getting a couple or three guys together wouldn't be a problem, for drivers and bomb planters and gofers. None of this political shit, except maybe as a cover. Blame it on the Muslims or the niggers, that would work, but basically you'd go into a city, make a couple of spectacular demolitions, and then do extortion.
That was another thing that interested him. The scale of Rashid's operation meant he had to have a ton of money from somewhere. He was keeping all these guys in couscous or whatever, he seemed to have bought a whole business to use as a base, and another one as a source of septic tanker trucks. He bought houses and cars and fake IDs without strain. Obviously money was the key, because without it, you'd have to steal vehicles and rent, and that was what would get you caught. It could not be in cash, as he had previously thought. There had to be accounts, wire transfers in and out. He would have to find a way of getting his hands on some of that money.
Rashid was asking for questions; there were surprisingly few, considering the complexity of the plan. Felix wondered whether all these guys had worked together before. He raised his hand. Rashid acknowledged him with an imperious gesture.
"Yeah, Rashid, I noticed you didn't give me an assignment. I'm not on this thing?"
"No, Felix, I want you to continue what you have been doing," said Rashid, "also, if you would stay after the others have left, I have some special instructions."
It took an hour or so for the place to empty, the men departing alone or in twos at intervals, so as not to draw attention. They spoke to one another in Arabic as they awaited their turns to leave, and ignored Felix. Finally, when only Rashid and the two fake Spaniards remained, Rashid turned to Felix and said, "The chief wants this Karp business taken care of, and also the information from the girl. I was under the impression that this was nearly in your hands."
Again Felix felt that odd repugnance associated with the thought of approaching Lucy Karp. "Hey, she clams up. She doesn't want to talk about your guy. I misjudged the situation. I don't think the soft shit is going to work with her. Sorry. I think we need to pick her up and work her over." His words hardly sounded convincing to his own ears, and it was all he could do to keep the humble, remorseful expression on his face.
What the terrorist said next was therefore something of a relief. "It does not matter. There is no need to deal with the girl directly. She has a brother, two brothers, and one of them is blind. They are often out of their house. The blind one plays music on the street." Then something in Arabic to the other two, who responded with laughter. "It should not be hard to pick one or both of them up. Then the sister will of course provide us with any information we want."
"You want me to pick up the kid?"
"No, someone else will take care of that. I want you to deliver another device. The wife must be eliminated first. She has a truck."
Felix smiled and thought about the bomb he had already made for Marlene Ciampi, killer of his brother. Oh, good, that saves me a bomb. He began to consider who would get it.
"What about Karp?" he as
ked.
"He'll be taken care of in due time. We have a plan for everything, as you saw just now. First you will make this one delivery and then we will see."
"Yeah, but it'd be good if I was a little more into the planning end, so I could get an idea of how everything fits together. I mean, why are we still planting these little bombs when you've got this big blast coming?"
Rashid responded with an icy glare, and, "You know, Felix, you are still on what we can call probation because of your recent betrayal. You will therefore be told only what you need to know. Don't get above yourself is my advice."
Felix made himself grin engagingly and nod. "Sure, whatever you say, Rashid."
"Excellent. I will give you the device shortly. And now, if you will excuse us…"
It was a dismissal. Felix left the room and as he did so, a notional lightbulb lit above his head as he realized how he was going to get the money out of Rashid. A smile bloomed on his face.
And on Rashid's. He turned to his two companions. "Well? What do you think. Is he hooked?"
They nodded and smiled and agreed that he truly was.
12
There was something wrong with the air conditioning in Part 34. The temperature outside the grimy windows was moving toward eighty, and inside the packed courtroom the ambiance was approaching that of the midsummer subway at rush hour. They brought in two large fans at Judge Higbee's order, so that it was like standing in front of the kitchen exhaust of a deli, without the greasy smell.
Karp didn't mind the heat particularly, although he noticed that Roland Hrcany was a little more red-faced than usual. He actually felt sorriest for the jury, who were fanning themselves with their instructional pamphlets: "Your Jury Duty, An American Privilege." The defendants didn't seem to be sweating at all. Perhaps they had rolled in Arrid.
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