Corruption of Blood

by Robert Tanenbaum

  The relief was clear on Beckett’s face as she placed a file on the desk between them. “Yeah, rape and assault. I think the vic might need protection.”

  Marlene took the file and skimmed it, which included glancing at several color Polaroids of a forlorn-looking woman, young, blond, pretty, with a fat shiner on one eye, a lumpy jaw, and a cut lip. The woman’s name was Maddy Merrill, twenty-three, a dancer and model. According to her statement, the accused, Albert Buonafacci, twenty-four, a tourist from Miami, had picked her up in a bar in the East Forties, bought her a nice dinner, and taken her to some clubs in a white limo. He had seemed like a nice guy. He had driven her back to her place in Chelsea, and she had invited him in for a drink. The nice guy had rounded out a magical Manhattan evening by beating her up and raping her.

  “And the perp is where?” Marlene asked.

  “The cops picked him up at his hotel. His story is she was a pros who tried to rip him off so he slapped her a couple. I got a hundred K bail, but he paid it without a twitch and walked out.”

  “What’s the problem? Did he threaten her?”

  “No, but she says he’s connected, or so he told her. She’s nervous about testifying against a Mob guy.”

  “But he didn’t actually threaten her.”

  “Not that she said, but …” Luisa checked and gave Marlene a penetrating look. “What, you have a problem with this? The guy’s a bastard, a violent son of a bitch. And he’s, um …” She hesitated.

  “He’s Italian, right? Hence a mafioso?”

  “That’s not what I meant,” said Beckett.

  Marlene made a dismissive gesture with her hand. “Yeah, you did. It’s okay, we get it all the time, like black men are muggers and black women are welfare sluts. Welcome to the melting pot. Let me say this: I grew up around guys who are now actually with the Mob—not a lot, but some. But for every guy who’s really with, there are a dozen sleazebags that talk about how connected they are. So our boy could be one of these. Or he could be for real. Okay, say he’s for real, there’s no guarantee that he’ll carry out on a threat. A threat is business, and the dons are not hot on mixing business with pleasure, and he’d be a lot more scared of them than he is of us. Meanwhile, there’s not even a solid threat, so …”

  “No protection?”

  “Not now,” said Marlene; and observing that Beckett’s fine-boned face was solidifying like a pour of epoxy, she added, “Come on, man! We have women being actively stalked and we got no place to put them.”

  Luisa stood up and gathered up the case file. “Thanks for the lecture on the Mob,” she said bitterly. “I’ll pass it on to Ms. Merrill. I’m sure it’ll make her feel a lot better.”

  “Oh, Luisa, for crying out loud … ,” said Marlene to the back of the departing woman. The door slammed shut.

  A good day, thought Marlene: I’ve alienated my secretary and my deputy. What next?

  But next, as it turned out, was a nice lift. The DA called her directly, an event about as rare as a thank-you from a New York cabbie:

  “Marlene? Sandy Bloom. Are you busy?”

  “Umm …”

  “If you can spare a moment, I’d like you to drop by. I’m having an interesting meeting and I’d like your views.”

  It happened that Marlene could just spare a moment for the district attorney. She stopped by the ladies’ to make sure that her face and outfit bore inspection, and of course, to check that her glassie was straight in its socket. Glass eyes tend to rotate and you have to check them often, unless you want to depend on the horrified looks of your interlocutors to cue you in that something’s wrong. Marlene claimed she was used to the thing and it didn’t bother her. This was a lie: besides the hair that fell artfully over her bad right eye, she was careful in public to obscure that side of her face with various practiced gestures and postures.

  There were two other people sitting in the comfortable brown leather chairs in Bloom’s office when Marlene arrived, both of whom were vaguely familiar: a thin, spectacled man and a blocky, fair-haired woman in a denim suit. The DA was behind his desk, leaning backward in his thronelike judge’s chair. He stopped talking, warmly beckoned Marlene over to them, and made the introductions. The man was a prominent criminal justice scholar working on a project for the Vera Institute of Justice. The woman was the president of the New York State chapter of a national women’s organization. Marlene had seen both of them recently on a talk segment of the “Today” show.

  “I was just telling Paul and Beth about you, Marlene,” said the DA, gesturing expansively toward her. “This woman has revolutionized the prosecution of sex crimes in Manhattan.”

  Marlene bobbed her head at the fatuous remark, and the two celebrities beamed at her.

  Paul said, “We were just talking about the possibility of identifying potentially violent sex offenders. We have some data that show violent sex offenders often have a history of misdemeanor arrests—public nuisance, exposure, sexual battery—before they become violent, and we were exploring the possibility of a program to track these people from their first appearance in the criminal courts.”

  They all looked at Marlene, the revolutionary, for a brilliant response. Though feeling short on brilliance today, Marlene understood her new role as the DA’s pet smart girl. She paused for a moment to order her thoughts, and then said, “Well, that’s an interesting idea, but just because some violent sex offenders started small and went on to bigger things doesn’t mean all of them, or even the worst of them, did. Ted Bundy was clean as a whistle. So was John Wayne Gacy. The main problem we’ve had is that not potential but actual rapists walk on misdemeanor charges because we can’t nail them for a rape, or because we haven’t felt like going to trial. They plead to misdemeanor sexual abuse, or 130.20, sexual misconduct, which is a class A misdemeanor. They might get off with time served or serve at the most sixty days.”

  The woman said, “Yes, but if we had some way of tracking them, we could either get them into some kind of enforced treatment program, or, I don’t know, warn people about them.”

  Marlene nodded impatiently. “Yes, we could, if the law were changed, but the problem is we have no basis for assuming that these guys are any sicker than the average mugger, or that therapy would do any good. As far as tracking them, yeah …” She paused. An interesting notion had just popped into her head. “If the same people, the same staff of prosecutors, dealt with misdemeanor sex crimes in the criminal courts bureaus as well as the felonies, maybe then we’d get some perspective, maybe then we wouldn’t let these guys walk when they’ve already raped or abused some people. I mean, it wouldn’t be just another case on the calendar: like”—Marlene here imitated the monotone of a court officer calling out cases—“burglary, plead to trespass, bang, next case; dope dealing, plead to possession, bang, next case; rape, plead to sexual abuse two, bang, next case. It’d be more like, well, homicide. Something that stood out.”

  The two visitors were interested in this prospect, of course, and they discussed at some length how it might work. During this interchange, Marlene cast an eye on the district attorney, and got a knowing and appreciative look. What the visitors didn’t quite understand was that the proposed unit that they were discussing, that would deal with sex cases in the criminal courts bureau as well as more serious offenses, would naturally be Marlene’s unit, which would require perhaps a tripling of her staff. But the DA understood it very well.

  The meeting wound down, with the usual promises to keep in touch. As the two rape fans were leaving, Bloom motioned Marlene to stay behind. He said, “That was very good, Marlene. With you around, I got my ass covered on sex.” He grinned charmingly, showing the neat white perfect teeth of the wealthy, and patted her arm. “And real tricky too,” he continued. “You know, you set me up a little there.”

  She felt her face heat. “I didn’t mean—,” she began, but Bloom interrupted with a gesture.

  “No, I understand. And I tend to agree with you. But what we’re
talking about here is a fairly massive reorganization of staff. The criminal courts bureau chief is going to be involved, and maybe the bench too. I’m going to have to stroke a lot of guys’ balls on this one.”

  “You mean you’re interested in doing it? Actually?”

  “Well, we need to talk some more,” said Bloom expansively. “But it could be done. It would put you in the big leagues around here, that’s for sure.” He tossed a sincere look into her eyes. “But you’re a big-league player, aren’t you?”

  “Uh-huh,” she said, putting some wattage behind her return smile.

  “Yes. Well, here’s the thing. I’m tied up for the rest of the afternoon, and then I have a five-thirty with some of the governor’s people, but … how about coming by my place around, say sevenish, with a preliminary plan. I’ll have a light supper prepared and we can talk about this idea of yours. Nail down the bodies and the numbers. Then you can draft something up over the weekend, a proposal, with all the figures estimated, and so on, and we can start passing it around on Monday.”

  Yes, things had definitely turned up, Marlene thought with pleasure as she rode down on the elevator. She wouldn’t, of course, tell anyone about this coup until it was a done deal. After that … she basked prospectively in the praise to come. She could get Marva a promotion, as a real bureau secretary, and there’d be something in the pot for Luisa too. People looked up as she strode humming happily down the hall to her office.

  She had just settled herself when the phone rang.

  “Hi, it’s me.”

  “Butch?”

  “Yes, your husband. You sound surprised.”

  “Um, yeah, you usually call later, at home. Is anything wrong?”

  “Not a thing. I’m just about to leave for National. I’ll get the four-thirty shuttle and I should be home by six, six-thirty. I figured we’d have dinner out.”

  “Um, dinner out?”

  He caught her tone. “Yeah, like real people. You know, nothing fancy—in the neighborhood, the three of us. We can go to Bobo’s, or Villa Cella, they don’t mind kids.”

  “I’m sorry, I can’t,” Marlene blurted out. “I have, um, a meeting.”

  A pause on the line. “You have a meeting? At seven p.m.? What kind of meeting?”

  “A meeting, Butch. It’s work. I’m a DA. Not everybody in the business keeps office hours. Remember?”

  “Uh-huh, and I remember that one of the nice things about being a bureau chief was that you didn’t have to hustle around after hours. Who’s the meeting with?”

  “With the person I’m going to meet,” snapped Marlene. “What, I’m under suspicion, Counselor? I’m getting grilled, as we used to say?”

  “Hey, I’m sorry I asked,” said Karp quickly. “So, calm down.”

  “I’m calm.”

  “Calm down, and I’ll see you tonight, okay? I’ll hang out with the kid and I’ll … ah … see you when I see you, all right?”

  “Yeah, and I’m sorry I bit at you,” said Marlene. “I’ll try to get away early. No kidding, I really do miss you.”

  “Me too,” said Karp, huskily, not quite succeeding in keeping the worry out of his voice.

  Marlene hung up the phone feeling vaguely remorseful, but not remorseful enough to call Karp back and tell him the truth. She would present him with the fait accompli: a huge new sex crimes bureau, a tamed and amenable Bloom. Marlene was not, of course, consciously devising a way to get one up on Karp. She would have denied it, if charged, and copped to a lesser: that she was entitled to her own life, her own career, that she was just doing what everyone did to get ahead, that Karp had nothing to do with it. She even believed this at times, and despised the creeping edge of guilt she now felt as she worked at the preliminary plans for her expansion.

  A knock at her door, and without a pause a thin man walked into the office. He was wearing a shabby brown jacket over gray slacks and his face was putty-colored and heavily lined, with eyes like damp, dark stones. He was a hard fifty-five years old.

  “Hello, Harry,” said Marlene. “I was just going to call you.”

  Harry Bello was a cop who worked for Marlene. He had been a star at Brooklyn homicide for nearly twenty years before his descent into drunkenness. Marlene thought he was, when sober, as now, the best detective she had ever met. He was also Lucy Karp’s godfather.

  “Tonight’s okay,” said Bello.

  That was another thing about Harry Bello, and it took some getting used to. Harry not only didn’t waste words, sometimes he eliminated both sides of whole conversations. Marlene would have said something about having a late meeting and asking whether it would not be too much trouble for Harry to pick up Lucy at day care and to watch her while she was out. How Harry knew that Marlene was about to call him to ask just that favor, and not something else, was a mystery. Another one was how a man with eyes that dead could light up and be such a sweet godfather to her daughter.

  “Thanks,” she said. At least one problem was taken care of. She looked up at him expectantly; Harry did not drop by for small talk; barely for large talk. “What’s happening?” she asked.

  “Mrs. Morgan caved.”

  “She did?” Marlene shouted, springing to her feet and clapping her hands together like a little girl. “Oh, Harry, when? What happened?”

  “I told her Morgan wanted to pin it on her son, kid’s eighteen. Messing with the little girls. So … she gave him up.”

  “What? When did Morgan try to pin it on the son?”

  A slight tilting of the lips; Bello’s working smile. “After I suggested it to him,” he said.

  Marlene shook her head in admiration. “Harry, you’re a piece of work.”

  Harry said, “That protection argument. The guy’s definitely connected.”

  Marlene switched gears. “Argument? Oh, yeah, Luisa’s wise guy. He is?”

  “He’s Tony Bones’s oldest kid.”

  “No kidding? Did he threaten her?”

  A shrug.

  “So do you agree with Luisa, or what? Protection?”

  Another shrug. “I’ll look into it. When’ll you be home?”

  “Ten or so, probably, but Butch should be home way before that. Thanks, Harry.”

  He nodded and was gone.

  Marlene had a final visitor, around five-thirty. She was deep in the most difficult task of public administration, figuring out how many people are required to do something that nobody has ever done before. Thick bound printouts of court records spread out across her desk, personnel manuals gaped open on chairs, and Marlene was punching a desk calculator with enthusiasm, one pencil clenched in her teeth and another, forgotten, stuck in her hair, when Raymond Guma walked in after a perfunctory tap on the glassed door.

  She looked up, not pleased, and removed the pencil from her mouth, saying, “Not now, Goom.”

  “This’ll just take a second,” said Guma. He was a stocky man in his late forties with a monkey face, large spreading ears, and a greasy mop of black ringlets that had just started to recede back from a low forehead. The shadow of his beard was more than Nixonian, giving him a seedy appearance that was reinforced by the big tie knot pulled down to the third button and the bagginess of the trousers. He looked at the cluttered desk. “What’re you doing, your taxes?”

  “Just some admin shit,” said Marlene snappishly.

  He stood staring, in no hurry to leave.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Oooh, who’s got the rag on today? I heard about your little display this afternoon. Maybe you’re suffering from lack of nooky too.”

  “Fuck you, Guma! Is that what you came in here for, to bust my hump?”

  Guma rested a pudgy thigh on the edge of her desk. “No, it’s business. Guy charged with rape and assault, name of Buonafacci?”

  “Tony Bones’s kid.”

  Guma’s eyebrows lifted. “You know already?”

  “Yeah, Guma, even though we’re a bunch of dumb cunts around here, we occasionally
get the message. What about him?”

  “Tony called me. He wants to know can anything be done.”

  “Done? What is this, Guma? Since when are you running errands for the cugines?”

  Guma pulled his chin in sharply, spread his hands, and frowned. “Hey! What’re you talking ‘errands.’ One, the guy’s a friend, the father, it’s a courtesy, find out what’s happening to his kid. What’s the difference he’s a don? Two, Tony could do us a lot of favors on open cases. It’d be nice having him owing us a big one. Three, he’s willing to make it right with the girl.”

  Now, of course, this sort of thing happens all the time in DA’s offices. Criminals know more about crime than anyone else, and in most of the major crimes that do get solved, critical information comes from the bad guys, for which reason the law likes to cultivate favors among them. On any normal day, Marlene might have been receptive to Guma’s proposal, but this was not a normal day, nor was Marlene her normal self. Her deputy already suspected her of favoritism toward her supposed tribe, she had dissembled with her husband, she was about to go to dinner with a man she disliked in order to advance her career: she felt, in short, sufficiently corrupt without doing a big one for Tony Bones.

  So she said, “Forget it, Guma. The woman’s marked up, she made a complaint, we have a good rape case. He wants to plead to the top count, rape one, I might drop the assault and I’ll see about putting in a word with the judge, but that’s it.”

  Guma slapped the side of his head with the heel of his hand. “Jesus! Marlene? Earth calling Ciampi? The girl is a ‘model’; she’s a ‘dancer.’ What does that tell you?”

  “I don’t care if she’s got a sheet for soliciting, Guma. This sweetheart beat her and raped the shit out of her and he’s going for it.”

  Guma’s color was rising and his voice became louder.

  “Marlene, what the fuck you mean ‘he’s going for it’? The kid’s gonna waltz in there with Di Bennedetti or Schoenstein, or some other distinguished criminal member of the criminal bar, tell his sad story of misguided youth and a thieving whore, and walk out of there with a suspended sentence and probation for sexual mis and assault three. The girl’ll get nothing and you all are gonna have wasted your fuckin’ time preparing a bullshit case.”