Reversible Error

by Robert Tanenbaum

  “Fuck!” said Marlene, loud enough to draw stares from the passersby. “OK, so what now? Where do we take it from here?”

  Guma shifted nervously. “Well, really, nowhere, kid. The regular dicks have washed their hands on it. I mean, they might do a couple of sweeps, talk to some people, but … Oh, crap!”

  Guma was staring in horror down the hallway. “Marlene, listen,” he said in a low, urgent voice, clutching her arm, “just play along with this. I’m in serious deep shit here.”

  Marlene was about to ask what was going on, when a tall handsome woman in a tailored suit, with a face that Marlene vaguely recognized, walked up to them, smiling.

  “John,” she said to Guma, “what a nice surprise!”

  Guma smiled in return. Marlene could see small trickles of sweat running down from his thick sideburns. “Hi, Sylvia,” said Guma. “I guess you know my sister, Marlene. Not socially, of course.”

  The two women nodded politely to one another and smiled at this pleasantry. Guma said, “Gee, Sylvia, you know, I been meaning to call you, but I’ve been swamped. It’s all these immigrants—Chinese, Cambodian, from Central America. The first thing they do they get a little money, they’re making it in the USA, bang!—the kid’s got to have straight teeth. I’m thinking of taking on another man, in fact.”

  “Well, at least you’re coining money. How you get away with charging what you do, I don’t know,” said Sylvia Kamas.

  “Yeah, Judge,” said Marlene, “maybe we have a grand-larceny case here.”

  They all laughed, none louder than Guma. “That’s good, Marlene,” he chortled. “Well, at least I have a friend in court.” He squeezed Judge Kamas’ arm. Then he made a show of looking at his watch and striking his forehead. “Oh, my! It’s almost two. I’d love to hang out with you ladies, but I got to fit a … a … a retainer at two-fifteen.” He kissed Marlene on the cheek, patted Sylvia’s arm again, and tore off down the hallway.

  They watched him go. Judge Kamas turned to Marlene and said, “Your brother—what a sweet man! And a cutup! I’ve never met anyone who made me laugh more. He must have been a real handful at your house.”

  “Not really,” said Marlene pleasantly. “We didn’t even know he was there.”

  Marlene finished her business with the grand jury in short order and headed directly for Guma’s office, at the trot. The door was locked and the light was off, but Marlene, pressing her ear against the frosted glass, heard the telltale rustle of paper and the creak of a chair in use by a portly body. She rapped sharply on the glass. “Guma! Open up! It’s your own sis!”

  Silence. Then, cautious steps, the snap of the lock, and Guma peering out through a narrow slit like a Maquisard on the lookout for the Gestapo. “For Chrissake, Marlene, keep it down!”

  Marlene shouldered her way past him into the office and sat down. “OK, Mad Dog, let’s have it. The whole story.”

  Guma gave her the whole story. “Honest, Marlene, it just happened. I didn’t plan it,” he concluded. “It was just one of those things.”

  “Yeah, a trip to the moon on gossamer wings. Does Butch know?”

  “Yeah, I had to tell him. To get off Petrossi.”

  “Ah, I wondered about that. So, what are you going to do about it? You can’t spend all day with your head in a bag. Maybe the witness-protection program can help—give you a whole new life in El Paso?”

  “Come on, Marlene, it’s not funny. If this gets out, I’m fucked forever.”

  Marlene thought for a long minute. Then she said, “OK, Goom, here’s the deal. I’ll cover for you, if …”

  “Anything!” Guma exclaimed, his face lighting up.

  “I want Wagner,” she said.

  Guma looked puzzled. “Wagner? Sure, but what good’s that gonna do you? You’re out of here in a week is what I hear.”

  “Not if I have a continuing case. That’s the exception. And I want this guy.”

  “Yeah, but that won’t hold up, Marlene. You can’t keep adding cases after you get the severance letter.”

  “No!” said Marlene forcefully. “It’s not an add-on. Wagner is the same case as the serial rapist I’ve had for months. It’s another element in the same case, which means I can stay until it’s finished.”

  Guma looked doubtful. “You can convince Butch of that?”

  “Ve haff our vays,” said Marlene with confidence. “And, Goom? Let me tell him. Keep this under your hat.”

  Guma shrugged and held out his hand, palm up, and Marlene slapped it.

  “Done deal,” he said, “but let me tell you, the cops ain’t gonna be so easy. I don’t know who you’re gonna get to follow up on it.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Marlene. “I’ll think of something.”

  Back in her office, Marlene dialed a familiar number and was relieved to hear it answered by a familiar voice.

  “Detective Raney,” said the voice on the other end of the line.

  “Jim? It’s Marlene.”

  “The roller queen? How the hell are ya?”

  “Fine. Great. But I need your help on a thing. How would you like to be in on a hot collar?”

  A pause. “Uh, to tell the truth, Marlene, I’m still sort of on light duty. The last time you got me in on a hot collar I almost got canned. The up side was I also got the shit beat out of me by King Kong.”

  “This isn’t like that, Jim. This is light duty. It’s just going to a place, a singles bar, with me and a witness, and picking up a guy.”

  “And what guy would this be?”

  “A serial rapist. He killed his last victim. It was that slashing case in the One-seven.”

  “Yeah? And what about whoever caught it in Zone Five homicide? They too busy for a hot collar?”

  Marlene had anticipated this objection and had decided that her only recourse was the truth. Detectives were notoriously sticky about stepping into the turf of other units. Raney was assigned to Detective Zone Four on the West Side of Manhattan and would hesitate before stepping into a case originating in another zone.

  “No,” she said, “to be perfectly honest, this is something I figured out for myself. The connection between the rapes and the murder—the D.A. cops and zone homicide don’t buy it.”

  “Intuition again?”

  “No, goddammit! I got a pattern. The guy repeats himself. He picks up women in singles bars, finds out where they live, shows up at their places, and rapes them. The last one went sour and he killed her. But it’s the same guy and I can prove it. I got evidence, I got a consistent M.O. in all the cases.”

  A longer pause. “Ah, Marlene, as much as I’d like to help you out …”

  “Oh, come on, Raney! It’s no big deal. Look, we’ll keep it unofficial: just a lonely cop out on a date with a couple of classy Italian ladies.”

  “A couple? Who’s the other one?”

  “JoAnne Caputo.”

  “Does she put out?”

  “For Chrissake, Jim, she’s my rape victim. I think she can ID the bad guy.”

  “A rape victim, huh? It sounds like a real fun evening. What’s the boyfriend say about this?”

  “The boyfriend doesn’t know, not that it’s any of your business.”

  “Ah-hah. This is sort of a little fling before the wedding bells chime.”

  “Oh, shit, Raney! Be serious! I’m trying to catch a real bastard here, and I got nobody to help me. Except you. Now, please, will you do it?” Marlene felt her voice shaking. Raney heard it over the wire and changed his tone.

  “OK, sorry,” he said. “What about this mutt? He gonna put up a fight?”

  “You’ll do it?”

  “I’ll give it a shot, as long as it’s, like you say, unofficial. Besides, I’d like to see you. What about the guy?”

  “No problem, I’d say. He won’t expect it, he won’t be armed. He’s out to cruise women, not hassle cops.”

  “OK. Where and when?”

  Marlene gave him the address of Tangerines and they arrange
d to meet at eight-thirty that Friday night. “Any other questions?” she asked.

  “Yeah, do I at least get to cop a cheap feel off you on the dance floor?”

  “Sure, Raney. Just keep it professional,” said Marlene sharply, and hung up.

  TWELVE

  When Clay Fulton walked into Logan’s, people glanced up, as they usually do when a new person comes into a small dark saloon. Then they all looked purposefully away. Nobody offered to buy him a drink. Logan’s is a cop bar on Amsterdam near 145th. Everybody in the place when Fulton entered worked for the police, except the bartender, who was a retired cop, and the scattering of women, who were there to meet cops. People from the Twenty-sixth and Twenty-eighth precincts drank there, and also some from the Thirty-second, to the north. Dick Manning drank there, and was drinking there now, which was why Fulton had come.

  Manning was sitting in a booth with his partner, Sid Amalfi, joking with a tan woman wearing skintight electric-blue toreador pants and a blond wig. They fell silent when Fulton walked over to them.

  “Hello, Dick, Sid,” he said. “Can I buy someone a beer?”

  “Not today, Fulton,” said Manning, scowling.

  Fulton ignored this and slid into the booth next to Amalfi. “You know, that’s a shame, because I think we have some business to discuss.”

  “We got nothing to talk about with you, Fulton,” said Amalfi.

  “Who’s your friend, Sid?” the woman asked.

  “He ain’t no friend of mine,” snapped Amalfi.

  Manning stared hard at Fulton, who responded with a wide shit-eating grin. Manning turned to the woman. “Say, Doris? We got some business to discuss here. See you later.”

  The woman sniffed and made off for a more congenial corner. Manning said, “What the fuck are you doing, Fulton?”

  Fulton said, “What, I can’t have a drink with my brother officers? Especially since we’re in the same line of work.”

  “What’re you talking about?”

  “Your moonlighting job. I just had a little chat with a friend of yours—Tecumseh Booth.”

  “I don’t know any Booth,” said Manning.

  “Yeah. Yeah, you do,” said Fulton. He took a tape cassette out of his jacket pocket and placed it on the table. “I got it all here. The Clarry hit. Springing him from jail. Choo Willis and the other hits. Club Mecca. It’s quite a story. Sort of old Tecumseh’s last will and testament, as a matter of fact.”

  Amalfi’s face had gone dead white. “For Chrissake, shut the fuck up, Fulton! You can’t talk about it here—”

  “Shut up, Sid!” Manning snarled. Then, to Fulton, “You want to show us some evidence, let’s go someplace where we can take a look at it, discuss things—”

  “Cut the horseshit, Manning,” said Fulton, raising his voice. “What I want is in. You guys got a gold mine working, I got a key to the door, and I want my piece.”

  Heads turned in the bar. Manning held up his hands placatingly. “OK, OK! Look, no problem—but let’s go where we can talk.”

  They went to Manning’s car, a loaded white Trans Am. “This is pretty nice, Manning,” said Fulton when the doors were closed. “I might get me one of these, or maybe a Benz.”

  “I like American cars,” said Manning. He started the engine, gunned a couple of times, and peeled off up Amsterdam. “You can’t beat the pickup.”

  “That’s a point,” agreed Fulton. He pulled the cassette out of his pocket. He said, “By the way, in case you’re thinking what you might be thinking, this ain’t the only one of these, you know. You guys better pray I stay in good shape, if you catch my drift.”

  From the back seat Amalfi said, “How do we know you ain’t just blowing smoke?”

  “Listen,” said Fulton. He slid the tape into the cassette player and they listened for a while to the voice of Tecumseh Booth.

  Manning ejected the tape. He pulled the car over and parked on a side street. “That’s enough,” he said. “How did you get him to talk?”

  “I shot him in the knee. Then I said the next one I’d blow his pecker off. He came around pretty quick.”

  Manning chuckled. “You’re quite a fuckin’ piece of work, Fulton. I never would of figured you for a stunt like that. It goes to show you, you never can tell. So where is Tecumseh now?”

  “Well, I didn’t lie to him. I put the next one in his ear. He won’t be making any more tapes.”

  Manning and Amalfi both laughed. “You got rid of him OK?” asked Manning. “They can’t connect you?”

  “No problem. I picked him up from where my guys had him stashed and I told them he ran. He’s in a trunk in a crusher yard out in the Meadows. So, am I in?”

  “I guess you are. How about your boys?”

  “No, I don’t want nobody else in this. Keep it simple. And keep the cash.” Fulton put an expression of avid greed on his face. “And about that—what does our end come to?”

  “We get fifty large a hit,” said Manning.

  Fulton whistled. “Very nice. But I guess the price gonna go up. Now you got an extra mouth to feed, I mean. I don’t want to put my partners out any.”

  Manning smiled. “No. No problem. You got no idea how much cash is floating around in the coke business. It’s like fucking Monopoly money. Makes smack look like kids selling lemonade. But I got to talk to my man about it.”

  “Who is … ?” asked Fulton.

  Manning waved a cautionary finger. “Uh-uh. You in, but you ain’t that in, man. I’ll talk to the man tonight and get back with you tomorrow.”

  Fulton frowned and thought for a moment. “OK, that’s cool,” he said. He got out of the car. “See you around, partners,” he said, and sauntered away.

  Amalfi got out of the back seat and dropped down next to Manning. His face was flushed and angry. “What the fuck, Dick! You really gonna let that shithead in on this?”

  “Cool down, Sid,” said Manning. “He ain’t gonna do nothing without us, and I need time to figure. That tape is bad news.”

  “Yeah, but we could grab him and make him tell where the other copies are. Like he made Tecumseh.”

  “We could,” agreed Manning. “But I’m also thinking he could come in handy another way too.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like I’m starting to like Lieutenant Fulton for these killings we’re investigating,” said Manning.

  After a moment, a smile grew on Amalfi’s face. “Yeah,” he said, “now that you mention it, so do I.”

  Dressed in the trousers and shirt of a rented tuxedo, Karp bent and twisted before the cheval mirror near Marlene’s bed, attempting for the fifth time to get the bow tie right.

  From her position on the bed Marlene gave him irritating advice. “No, you still didn’t hold the fat end with your thumb. And don’t fling it down like a three-year-old and glare at me like that! If you can’t tie a bow tie, why didn’t you get one of those clip-on thingees?”

  “Because,” Karp replied, retrieving the offending item, “only nerds wear clip-ons. And if you’re so smart, why don’t you tie the goddamn thing?”

  “All right, I will,” said Marlene, bouncing off the bed. She stood in front of Karp, dressed only in a ragged Let-It-Bleed T-shirt and blue satin underpants, and tied a perfect bow in five seconds flat.

  “How did you do that?” asked Karp, amazed.

  “I have three brothers, all as ham-handed as you, and not nerds. What are you doing?”

  Karp had wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close, running his hands under the elastic and clasping a haunch in each one.

  “I really know how to tie a bow tie,” he said into her ear. “It was just a ruse to get you close so I could do this.”

  “What a liar, and if you keep doing that I’ll never let you out of here, and you’ll be late, and all the bigwigs will spot the stains on your pants and make fun of you.”

  “Let them,” said Karp. “I’m not proud.”

  After considerable kissing and fooling
around, Karp said, “I have to go before I come, so to speak.”

  Marlene said, “I knew it! Get a girl to the absolute squish point, and run off. I guess your career comes first. Dear. Not-quite-wifey will have to rub it off against glossies of Bruce Springsteen while you cavort with the great.”

  Karp laughed. “Yeah, right—the career. Reedy invited me to this political wingding. The old farts have to check out the new kid, make sure I don’t have horns.”

  “How noble of you to suffer for your little family! Why don’t you admit you’re ambitious? You’d love to be D.A.”

  Karp stood up, adjusted his clothing and smoothed his hair in the mirror, then put on his dinner jacket.

  “I’d love it, sure,” he said, “but whether I buy it depends on the price tag.”

  “Is there a price tag?”

  “Sure. Just like in Macy’s. I just haven’t been told what it is yet. How do I look?”

  “Like a young fart,” replied Marlene grumpily. “No, actually you look gorgeous. Have a good time.”

  He leaned over and kissed her lightly. “Don’t wait up.”

  “I won’t,” said Marlene, feeling guilty.

  She heard the hollow slam of the downstairs door and checked the bedside clock radio for the time. Six-thirty. Still hours to kill. She went down the ladder from the sleeping loft, turned on the TV, watched the beginning of a movie, lost track of the plot, switched it off, made an omelet and toast, ate desultorily, fed most of it to the cat, paced the length of the loft, the butterflies growing more huge in her gut. She went down to the gym end of the loft, laced on a pair of light gloves, and slapped the speed bag around until her arms were limp. Seven-thirty.

  She peeled off her sweat-sodden clothing, folded back the cover of her bathing tank, and plunged in. She waited for the warm water to relax her, gave up, emerged, dried and powdered herself.

  She dressed and made up carefully in the style she thought of as classy-but-available: lots of eye makeup, false lashes, and crimson lipstick. She brushed her heavy black hair, then combed it across the bad side of her face, Veronica Lake style to obscure her glass eye. She put on a long black skirt with buttons up the front, the bottom six undone, and a Chinese raw-silk shirt in red over bare skin—the top three buttons undone.