Resolved kac-15

by Robert K. Tanenbaum

  "No, he paroled out."

  "And he left his book. Well, well." Raney jotted down all the titles and laboriously copied the intricate calligraphy on the spine of the Arabic volume. He left the prison feeling both frustrated and excited.

  ***

  Lucy was a block and a half away when she saw the man try to kidnap her brother Giancarlo, at the junction of Crosby and Howard streets. It was a pretty good place for a daylight snatch. The area is almost entirely industrial, with scant street-level foot traffic, and what traffic there is consists largely of Asian people who would rather not get involved with the authorities, as their immigration papers are not what they should be. A Ford van, dirt-colored and battered, had been drawn up to the curb, with its side door slung open, and a large man was trying to haul the boy into it. Giancarlo had dropped his accordion case and it had popped open, spilling the instrument on the pavement like a dead snail. Both brothers were howling, this noise accompanied by barks from Blue, the guide dog.

  Then it was all over. Lucy was just starting to run, a shout was just forming in her own throat, when she saw the kidnapper's white T-shirt turn scarlet around the big knife that Zak plunged into the small of the man's back. The man dropped his grip on Giancarlo and did a hideous little pirouette with his hand behind his back, reaching in vain for the black grip of the knife. In the next second, Giancarlo kicked the man in the groin and Blue clamped excited jaws around the back of the man's right knee. He fell like a tree onto the bed of his van, screaming something. The driver gunned the engine with a roar and a cloud of exhaust, and the van took off north on Crosby, with the man's legs dangling from the open door and, for a few yards at least, the dog hanging from a leg. The van passed Lucy too quickly for her to get the plates.

  She ran up to her brother and clamped on the hug of steel, then held him at arm's length for inspection. His shirt was torn, but he seemed all right. "My box!" he said, and she had to let him inspect the button accordion with his hands. While he was so engaged, she grabbed the other brother's arm. "Did you recognize that guy?"

  "I don't know. I recognized the driver, though. He's a Latino guy I've seen around listening to G.C. play."

  "I've spotted a guy like that, too. Big, shaved head, little beard, gold chains, Latino-looking. I thought he was following me," she said.

  "I saw that one too, I think." He looked away nervously, then at his sneakers. "Luce, you're gonna tell the 'rents about this, right?"

  "Well, duh, yeah I am. Aren't you?"

  "Hell, no! We'll be grounded for life. They'll never let us play on the street anymore. And if Dad finds out I was carrying a knife, he'll go ballistic."

  "When did you start carrying?"

  "After…" Zak gestured to his brother, lowered his voice, "you know, when he got hurt. It's a good thing I had it, right? And it's gone, too. It was a Bucklite Goliath, sixty-three bucks."

  Giancarlo was packing away his accordion, and added, "He's right, Luce. Our lives will be totally over if you tell. Also, what'll they do if they know? Call the cops, the cops'll do zero. They're not going to put a twenty-four seven on us, so what's the point? Mom'll grab us up and take us out to the island, where we'll waste away in boredom. And my career is just getting hot. A guy the other day invited me to an open mike in the East Village, and an Irish guy was here the other day and he said I was gonna be as good as Johnny Connolly. You should find out who these guys are. I mean, why did they pick me?"

  "I should find out? What am I, Wonder Woman?"

  "Yes," said the twins. "Puh-leeeeze, Lucy?"

  "Oh, shut up and don't be ridiculous!" she snapped. "Of course we have to tell them."

  ***

  "You asked me to find out why the boss was so happy," said Murrow.

  "Yes," said Karp distractedly. That had been a while ago, he recalled, before this trial had eaten up his working life. Why was it important to know that? He couldn't quite think of it. He was running through autopsy reports for perhaps the twelfth time, trying to find the one thing he really wanted to recall, the thing that would impeach Frank Nixon and Eric Gerber on the witness stand. First bullet, entry right flank, exit right back, damage done: superficial, not mortal; second bullet, upper left arm, damage done: not mortal… he looked up. "And did you?"

  "Possibly. Judge Patrick F. Toomey has retired from the federal bench."

  "Uh-huh. Well, so long, Pat. This is what's got Jack Keegan singing bird songs? Why, did he think Toomey was a bad judge?"

  "I have no idea, but it does create a vacancy in the Southern District of New York."

  "And… what? You think Jack thinks he's got a chance?"

  "An excellent chance, I'd say. A practically preemptive chance."

  "I don't see why. It's a presidential appointment, and the president, the last I heard, unless they had another coup d'йtat, is a Republican."

  Murrow gave him a peculiar look. "You really don't understand how this works, do you?"

  Karp said, a little sharply, "Don't patronize me, Murrow- you got something to fucking say, just spit it out."

  Murrow took a deep breath. "Yes, the president is a Republican, but both U.S. senators from the state are not Republicans. In fact, they are both famously liberal Democrats. Which means, the president is not going to get what he really wants, an anti-abortion, progun, pro-death penalty fascist Republican. There's no way in hell those two senators are going to pass on that kind of candidate, and as I'm sure you know, regardless of party, U.S. senators have essentially veto power over judicial nominees from their states. So the administration is thinking, Why not go with a Democrat? But it would have to be a very special kind of Democrat. It would have to be an Irishman first of all, because it's an Irish seat on the court that's going to be vacant. Obviously, you'd also want unimpeachable legal credentials, tough on crime, and if not pro-death, then at least neutral on it, and most of all, anti-abortion. Big time. Can you think of anyone we know with all that going for him?"

  Karp could. "This is actually going to happen?"

  "I hear it's practically a done deal. The beauty part for the White House is that it manages to shove a bamboo splinter under one of Hillary's red nails. She has to explain to her liberal witch constituency why she's backing a man with that kind of record, whose wife, by the way, is cochair of New York Right to Life."

  "And if she doesn't go for it?"

  "Then she can run for re-election next time without even the small part of the Irish vote that she had last time, and without the help of the regular party. Jack's paid his party dues, he deserves it, and the old bulls'll never forgive her if she fucks him on this one. Oh, it's rare. It's nearly as good as Clarence Thomas as a fuck-you message."

  "Holy shit," said Karp.

  "Yeah." He studied his boss briefly, a bemused smile on his lips, as if standing before a museum exhibit about a lost civilization. "Tell me, no offense, but you really don't get all of this, do you?"

  "It's not that I don't get it, Murrow. It's not like it's particle physics. I don't spend any time thinking about it, is all."

  "No, I guess not. But assuming what I just said is true, you do realize that it means the DA is up for grabs. Have you given that any thought?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean that Keegan will have the gift of it. Within limits, he can pick someone to fill out the last year of his term."

  "No, it's a gubernatorial appointment and the gov is a Republican."

  "True, but Keegan could preempt that by appointing a profoundly nonpolitical acting DA during the time of his confirmation hearings, at which point the gov would not like to look like he was politicizing the office by trying to push some Republican back in there for the final year of the term. The Times wouldn't like that. And that leaves…" He paused and looked meaningfully at Karp.

  Karp pointed a finger at his own chest. "What? Me? You have to be joking."

  "It's you, boss."

  "What about 'Ku Klux Karp'?"

  Murrow waved a dismiss
ive hand. "Yes, but that's going to disappear when you win this trial, and put those two white cops away for killing a black man. You see all those pickets out in front of the courthouse? They're going to be your best friends if this goes down right. That's why Keegan hasn't said anything, and why he wanted you to take this trial. He's waiting to see how it goes."

  Karp suddenly realized why Keegan had made no objection to his taking on Gerber amp; Nixon. "And if I lose?"

  "Then the governor will be able to present you to the great and the good as Jack's first choice, an excellent lawyer, blah blah, but he has this unfortunate reputation, doesn't really seem to understand black lives are just as valuable, blah blah. The great and the good will know that he tried to be nonpolitical, and then he can go ahead and appoint someone his party owes a favor to."

  "You have this all figured out, huh?"

  "It's not particle physics," said Murrow, "and I happen to be interested. Are you?"

  "Am I what?"

  "Going to win?"

  "I might. But I'd have more of a chance if you left me alone so I could find out how I know these fuckers are lying."

  ***

  Lucy parked the boys in the loft and made them swear that they would not budge from the place until an adult returned.

  "Are you gonna tell?" asked G.C.

  "I will definitely tell if you're not here when I get back."

  "Where are you going?" he asked.

  "Out," she said, and left. As she headed uptown on the baking train, she writhed in a moral quandary more uncomfortable than the damp heat. Clearly the thing to do was tell the parents, call the cops, kidnapping was serious, not something to fool around with. On the other hand, G.C. was right. Confronted by an actual threat rather than her own guilt-driven paranoia, Marlene would instantly snatch both of them back to the far reaches of Long Island, would register them in school out there, and keep them in paranoid security behind razor wire, protected by a herd of mastiffs, and that would be the effective end of the Karp family. Better to identify and neutralize the threat first. It did not occur to her that she was doing here what her mother had taught her, nor did she doubt for a moment that she was equal to a gang of kidnapping thugs of whatever size and resources. She had resources of her own; another thing learned at her mother's knee.

  An hour later, Lucy was giving out candy bars and cigarettes in a dim underground vault lit by candles stuck in bottles and jars. It was a disused railway tunnel, bored into the rock of the Hudson shore to service a Lackawanna Railroad pier that was never built. It was difficult to access, dry, cool, and extensive, and had both official and unofficial connections to the remainder of New York's many-thousand miles of tunnels. For these reasons, it was popular with that segment of the homeless who wanted even less to do with the authorities than the more sociably inclined destitute. New York City has a substantial population living almost entirely underground- no one knows how many, but estimates run to several thousands. The "regular" homeless called them the mole people.

  Lucy was now walking through their largest settlement. As in the city's sunnier precincts, a certain proportion of the population was evil, and several of these regarded Lucy with bad intent as she moved past, but they knew that if they tried anything with her they would immediately be torn into tiny little pieces, in as painful a manner as possible. Lucy had been coming here since age fourteen dispensing small gifts and her particular brand of hard-headed goodness. For her the place was as safe as church.

  Deeper into the tunnel, the railway engineers had carved bays out of the living rock and lined them with brickwork, intending them to hold the sidings of the notional railway. These were now the sites of separate communities, and the most populous of them, which Lucy now entered, was known as Spare Parts. The ruler of this troll kingdom was also called Spare Parts for the place was named for him. She found him on his throne, a sprung couch set up on railway ties, lit from below by a Coleman lantern's hard glare. The effect was stunning, like a pagan idol on an altar, although this god could and did come down from on high to reward and punish. Spare Parts the man had a cleft palate and a harelip, one brown eye and one pale silver eye, and only one ear (the other being a scrap of greasy cartilage), all stuck on a head the size and approximate shape of a half-deflated basketball. Other than that, Spare Parts was only slightly smaller than Shaq O'Neill. Lucy climbed up and sat beside him, an unusual privilege.

  "Hello, Jacob," she said. "I brought you a Dove Bar. I hope it's not too melted." She removed it from its insulated bag and handed it over. The big man took it in his filthy paw and, raising it high, let the whole thing slide into his maw. Lucy politely looked away and tried not to pay attention to the wet noises. Spare Parts did not like people watching him eat.

  "Ank 'ou, 'ucy," said Spare Parts, when the sounds had ceased. "I 'ove 'ove 'ars."

  "You're very welcome, Jacob," she replied. They conversed briefly about the underground world, mainly about deaths and sicknesses and recoveries, together with tips and hints, about who could use what kind of help, and how to manage things so that the needy would accept what they needed. It was strangely restful, like something from a fairy story. As usual, Lucy found that she could understand him fairly well, her skillful brain supplying the dentals and palatals that the man could not pronounce. She imagined that he didn't speak to anyone as much as he spoke to her. After an interval of silence, she said, "Have you seen Grale?"

  "E's a'oun'."

  "Is he still, you know, down with the rats?"

  "Not nany 'ats 'eft now."

  Not many rats left. David Grale was a religious maniac and a serial killer. The people he killed were feral humans who lived in an ancient and unrecorded tunnel. It was rumored in the upper tunnels that they lived on human flesh. For sure they lived on rats. Grale considered it his ministry to cut their throats.

  "If you see him, tell him I'd like to talk with him again, okay?"

  "Ih I shee 'im I'll 'ell 'im," said Spare Parts, after a pause. Spare Parts didn't care for David Grale. Compared to David Grale, Spare Parts was the borough president of Manhattan.

  ***

  "What's wrong with the boys?" Karp asked. Marlene was driving the truck east on the Belt Parkway, heading for Raney's house in Woodmere. The radio was tuned to an oldies station, the Isley Brothers telling the listener to keep holding on, keep holding on…

  "I don't know," she answered. "They do seem a little subdued."

  "Subdued? The pair of them look like the after picture in a Prozac ad. Usually they're up to meet new people they can embarrass us in front of. Whatever it is, Lucy's in on it. She barely met my eye when I came in," said Karp.

  "What can I say, our children are master criminals. I belief in Old Vienna, ve haf called zis eine ab-reaktion. In order to define zemselfs ze kinder must go srough a period in vich zey reject zhe parental walues."

  "Thank you, Doctor. Although, given the differences between your walues and mine, it's surprising that they knew what to react against. Or that they didn't become saints."

  "Actually, if you noticed, they did become saints, at least Lucy and G.C. did," said Marlene.

  "Yes," said Karp. "Are you going to claim credit for the assist on that one?"

  "No comment. And how was your day, dearest?"

  "Not bad. Murrow thinks I'm going to be the next DA." he explained the theory about Keegan, the federal judgeship, politics, and the trial. Marlene nodded, as if he were telling her something she already knew.

  "Yeah, that makes sense," she said. "It was just a matter of time before Jack got his slot. He's been wangling for it for years; it's practically a courthouse joke. And who else are they going to get besides you? Congratulations, sweetie."

  "Not so fast. There are a lot of qualified people," said Karp, to which she snorted, "Oh, please!" and then, musingly, "I wonder if it'll change you. Nothing else has."

  "Well, I haven't got it yet," he said, choosing to ignore the last remark. "According to Murrow, I have to win this
trial to be eligible."

  "I guess," said Marlene, as if this was obvious to small children. "How did it go today?"

  He shrugged and rubbed his face. The feeling of being on the edge of some trial-winning revelation had not dissipated after leaving the courtroom. It still tugged at his mind, making him uneasy with domestic relations. Even the song on the radio seemed to be a part of the puzzle- keep holding on, to what? Soon it would be the birds in the trees and the drops of water on the windows that held high significance, and the slope down to madness.

  "Hello? Ground control to Major Tom…"

  Karp shook his head, as if to dislodge an insect. "What? Sorry, I was thinking." The radio turned to a discussion of California dreaming.

  "About what?"

  "I don't know. The trial. Anyway, Roland had Gerber up there all day. I could see that it was killing him to do it, but they must have insisted."

  "How was he?"

  "He looked pretty good. Roland spent most of his time getting out their story about the victim trying to sell them heroin, but…" He pointed. "You need to get off on Twenty-seven east, on your right here."

  "I see it," she said. "Well, they can't be too morose. Giancarlo is playing his accordion back there."

  Karp twisted around and peered through the rear window of the pickup, but the matching window of the camper back was dirty and he could only make out shadows. He could hear the tweedle of the accordion, though. It sounded fairly morose to him, but he didn't know anything about music.

  The Raney home in Woodmere was a postwar brick bungalow, immaculately kept, on a pleasant street of similar ones. Marlene pulled the truck into the driveway, and they all got out, trooped around to the front, and Zak pushed the bell. The door flung open.

  "Now here you are and very welcome all of yez, but Raney's not home and there's no dinner at all."

  "You're Irish!" said Giancarlo.

  This was even more obvious to those of the Karps with intact vision. Nora Raney had bright red hair done up in a once neat but now dissolving bun, pale freckled skin, grape green eyes, a snub nose, and not much in the lip department. She stood in the doorway, dressed in pale blue surgical scrubs, with a whining red-haired toddler, a miniature of the mom, on her hip.