Reversible Error

by Robert Tanenbaum

  He took a deep breath, snapped the lock, flung the door open, and leapt in, crouching, his pistol pointing rigidly down the little corridor. It pointed straight at Amalfi, who stood there flatfooted and amazed, with a flat pint of vodka halfway to his lips, his gun in its holster. The bottle dropped and shattered, filling the landing with an appropriately medical smell.

  “Uhhh, no!” Amalfi croaked. His face sagged in terror. Fulton darted forward, spun the unresisting man around, shoved his face up against the concrete wall, and patted him down. He pulled out and placed in his own pockets Amalfi’s gun, his handcuffs, and a nasty little blackjack. As his fingers searched the small of Amalfi’s back, he stopped abruptly and cursed.

  “You’re wearing a fucking wire!” he shouted. The sound echoed like an accusation from heaven in the stone vault of the stairway. He grabbed Amalfi’s jacket and whipped him around again so that they were face-to-face.

  “Talk!” Fulton ordered. “What’s going on?”

  “Don’t kill me! I got money—”

  “I’m not going to kill you, asshole. Who’re you working for? Internal Affairs?”

  Something clicked in Amalfi’s mind then. An “aha” from some hitherto untapped reserve of insight, brought forward by fear of death. For the first time in the weeks since his life had gone in the toilet, since he had heard Fulton’s tape, since Hrcany and the shoofly had visited him, he was thinking clearly. He breathed deeply and relaxed. “Yeah,” he said. “You too?”

  “No, but close,” said Fulton. “They turned you, did they?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Who are they after? They got you and Manning already.”

  “They want who Manning … who we’re doing it for.”

  “You mean Choo Willis?”

  “Not just him. Fane.”

  “The congressman? He’s in on this?”

  “Yeah. He’s deep in. Willis works for him. He owns the Club Mecca. There’re other heavies involved but, ah, we don’t have anything definite on them yet. Manning knows the whole story, but he keeps it close.”

  Fulton uncocked his pistol and was silent for a while. He made no move to give Amalfi back his gun. “How the fuck did this all get started?” he asked.

  Amalfi shrugged. “One thing led to another. Me and Dick was chasing this skell across the roof one night. We cornered him and he shot at us and we wasted him. He had a pile of cash on him and we split it up like we always did. Dick took a little coke off him too. I never did that, but Dick always could move dope. Then we were talking about what a pain in the ass it was gonna be, shooting this shithead, and all the investigation and the fucking paperwork, and Dick said, ‘You know, if we was smart, we wouldn’t be chasing these assholes across the roof. We could ace them at our convenience and get paid a shitload of money for it.’ That was the start. Then we started doing jobs. Dick did the actual … you know, the work. I never did any of that.”

  “But you took the money.”

  Amalfi nodded. “Yeah, I took the money. Shit, man, they’re dirtballs, what the hell, right?”

  “Wrong. I don’t know what deal you cut with Internal Affairs, but I’m going to let that slide for now. Just do what they tell you. But whatever goes down, it’s got to go down fast. Tomorrow or the next day Manning is gonna find out I didn’t ace Benning and the shit’s gonna hit the fan. By the way, what did you intend to do, laying for me here?”

  Amalfi said, “They, ah, wanted me to bring you in. Put the squeeze on you. Get a wire on you too. They figured you took out Tecumseh.”

  Fulton smiled without amusement and shook his head. “Can’t trust nobody nowadays. Look, tell those assholes I’m the good guys. If they don’t believe you, tell them to go to Chief Denton. We were trying to keep the lid on this, but it’s blown now. Asses’ll be frying like bacon downtown when this gets out.”

  Fulton opened the door. Amalfi said, “Hey, how about giving me my stuff back?” He tried to meet Fulton’s contemptuous gaze and couldn’t.

  Fulton said, “I’ll toss them under your car,” and slammed the door behind him.

  Marlene had put nearly fifty hours of work into answering the motions in People v. Meissner. It all went up in smoke in less than three minutes. When the case was called, Nolan shuffled the papers before him, cleared his throat, adjusted his reading glasses, and said, “On reviewing the defense motion to dismiss, I find that the presentation of five individual cases of alleged rape to the grand jury was in fact prejudicial. The alleged rapes are separate and distinct crimes and cannot be used as evidence for predisposition to this particular homicide. Thus, the People’s attempt to demonstrate a common scheme, pattern, or design cannot be sustained. As there is insufficient other evidence to support the indictment for homicide, that indictment is dismissed. The People may make a separate submission to the grand jury in this case, if additional evidence sufficient to support an indictment of homicide can be obtained.”

  Marlene was not surprised by this judgment. Nolan had telegraphed it clearly enough by his acceptance of Polaner’s initial motion. No more would she have been surprised by the death of a relative long in decline; but, like such an awaited death, the loss hurt her deeply nonetheless. The greater pain, however, was attendant on what she now had to do: call up the women involved and tell them that their tormentor really had slipped the clutches of the law.

  She put this duty off until the end of the day. She wanted to call them at home rather than at work, a little considerate touch, and all she could offer. It was dreadful nevertheless. Screams. Crying. Accusations of incompetence. Curses.

  From Caputo there was a cold and quiet acceptance that was more chilling than any shriek. Caputo was now a defendant herself, on an aggravated assault charge brought by Meissner. It occurred to Marlene that she might be planning to finish the job. She said, “JoAnne, believe me, he’s not going to get off. Somehow, we’ll get him. We’ll go over the evidence, hit the bricks again …”

  Marlene barely believed this herself and Caputo was open in her disdain. “Sure, Marlene,” she said. “That’ll be great. Call me when it happens.” She hung up.

  There followed five minutes of blank time. Marlene tried to think of some reason for ever moving out of her chair again, and failed. She would stay there like Miss Havisham at the wedding feast, while spiders wove their webs in her hair and her clothes rotted. No, actually, she was going to get married and have a baby, preferably in that order. So she had to move. She tapped “Yellow Rose of Texas” on her teeth with the back of a Bic pen while the seconds ticked off on her little desk clock.

  When the phone rang it jerked Marlene to attention like a shocked frog. The voice on the phone was muffled and accompanied by the sounds of chatter and music, as if the man was calling from a pay phone in a noisy lounge.

  “Hey, how you doing?” it said.

  “Who is this?” she asked.

  “Who do you think?”

  Her belly trembled. “Meissner?”

  A laugh. “That would be telling,” said the man. “Let’s say I’m a friend of the court. Let’s say I’m just a guy sitting in a bar checking out the foxes.”

  “You filthy little shit—”

  “Uh-oh, you’re sounding like a sore loser, Marlene. You ought to learn to take your lumps like a man. Face it, you were outclassed, baby. You didn’t have a chance in hell of getting a conviction with that bullshit case. And do you know why?”

  Marlene resisted the impulse to slam the phone down. Something in the gloating tone made her keep listening. She had heard it often enough, from criminals more interested in impressing with their cleverness than protecting their skins. That cast of mind was the prosecutor’s best friend.

  “No, why?” she said evenly.

  “Oh, she’s interested. She thinks maybe he’ll make a damaging admission. No fucking way, babe. I’m not going to, and even if you get this on tape, there’s no way you could ID my voice in this noise. Am I right?”

  “I guess so,” s
aid Marlene. “Looks like you thought of everything.”

  “Yeah, I did. So, you want to know why you lost? I’ll tell you. It’s the system. It’s designed to catch assholes. Hey, it’s run by assholes. You know it’s true. Nobody with anything on the ball ever gets caught. You think you’ll ever touch the guys who are raking in millions—drugs, whores, stocks, real estate, contracts? No way. So, if somebody wanted to just, say, figure out the system, so he could get a little pussy the way he likes it, the system can’t touch him. It only takes about forty minutes of real thought on the part of anyone with serious brains.”

  “Nevertheless, we caught you,” she said.

  “A minor flaw in the plan. It will be corrected, never fear. And don’t bother trying to figure it out, either, you pathetic cunt. It’s far too complex for your puny mentality. I suggest you confine yourself to nigger sneak thieves—they’re just your speed.”

  He hung up. Marlene lit a cigarette and watched the smoke rise in a corkscrew spire. After a while her hand stopped trembling and the smoke rose straight through the close air of the little office. Something had happened during the conversation; something had changed in her mind, although she could not say exactly what it was. Remarkably, she felt better, even chipper. The defeat now stung less because she realized that it was only temporary. In some deep way he was vulnerable, or she could make him so. He wasn’t as smart as he thought he was; if he were, he wouldn’t have called her. She would have him, after all, somehow, and in a way no error could reverse. She grabbed her bag and went out, looking for Karp.

  FIFTEEN

  “I can’t believe it!” Karp exclaimed when Marlene told him.

  “Believe it,” said Marlene, picking listlessly at her almond chicken. They were eating Chinese out of white cardboard boxes in Karp’s office. The building was largely deserted at this hour, except for the arraignment courts and the operation of the complaint room on the fourth floor.

  “Nolan was bound and determined to let him go, the fucker. I guess your bigwig friends wouldn’t do anything about that.”

  Karp shrugged. “Who the fuck knows? I’m playing out of my league there, to be real honest. I mean, what could I say? Call Reedy and tell him to roll his tame judge? I don’t even know that Reedy has a squeeze on Nolan.”

  “What did he say? Reedy, I mean.”

  “I told him that I thought Nolan was throwing the case because he had a hard-on for me because I had set the hounds on him because of the Booth thing. And I asked him what he thought.”

  “And?”

  Karp smiled. “Well, it’s sort of funny. He kind of hemmed and hawed and said that Nolan was a guy a lot a people gave stock tips to. Reedy knew for a fact that Nolan had picked up some stock on a deal that Reedy had made a pile on, but he wasn’t sure who exactly had passed the tip along. He said Fane made a habit of doing that, passing stuff to pols and judges. So that could be it. Nothing we could prove, though.”

  “And this Reedy is Mr. Clean?”

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” said Karp. He ate some beef with oyster sauce and added, “But I can’t help liking the guy. He’s at least out-front that he’s a sharpster. He’s funny. And, I don’t know, he’s nice to me, at least. You know, weeks go by and nobody bureau chief and above gives me the time of day unless I wrench it out of them. Not to mention fucking Bloom and his gang. It gets old, you know?”

  “Poor Butchie,” said Marlene half-mockingly.

  “Yeah, poor Butchie. You think I shouldn’t hang out with him either, don’t you?”

  “Hey, I didn’t say a word …”

  “Yeah, but you gave me that look. Same as Guma. Karp’s going white-shoe, the fucking sky is falling. Face it—what do you think I have to look forward to if I keep butting heads with the D.A.? Sooner or later he’ll get me, and then where’ll I be? Not to mention our little bundle of joy. Yeah, I admit it, sue me! It’d be damn nice to have a little clout for a change.”

  “Nothing wrong with being ambitious, Butch,” said Marlene quietly. “I’m not sure me or the baby has much to do with it, though. And as you said yourself, it’s not exactly your league.”

  “Yeah?” Karp snapped. “Well, maybe it’s time for a transfer. Is there any more fried rice?”

  They ate in silence for a few minutes, and then Marlene spoke, pointedly changing the subject. “The worst thing about it is, Meissner’s still out there. He’s gonna start again too. He as much as said so.”

  Karp put down his carton. “He said so? When?”

  “Oh, yeah, I didn’t tell you. He called me after the hearing. He didn’t actually say it was him, but it was him.”

  “What did he actually say?”

  “Oh, the usual shit about how you can get away with anything if you’re a superior type—”

  “No, I mean exactly. What were his words?”

  She looked at him. He was staring at her intently, his jaw tight. “You’re thinking the same thing I thought,” she said. “It’s an angle.”

  “Yeah, it is. So what did he say?”

  Marlene thought for a moment, recreating the brief conversation in her mind. Like most experienced trial lawyers, she had a good memory for what people said. She gave him an almost verbatim playback of the call and then said, “That’s it. Not much there out front, but, like I said, there was something there. More the tone than anything else. This guy thinks his shit don’t stink.”

  Karp said, “I agree he could hang himself if we can get him the rope. But that’s the problem, isn’t it?”

  “We could watch him. And then, if he moves on another woman …”

  She stopped because Karp was shaking his head vigorously. “No, that’s what’s been wrong with our thinking on this case. It’s all based on common plan, pattern, or design. That’s dead. Even if we caught him with a girl, and the panty hose and the whole deal there, we’d have nothing. A first-offense sexual assault. I want him for the knife job. The Wagner.”

  Marlene bristled. “You think I don’t? And what do you mean ‘wrong’? The pattern is our whole case. That’s how we caught him, for Chrissake.”

  “That’s how you caught him, sure, but that’s not how you’re gonna get him,” said Karp. “You have to tie him … no, you have to get him to tie himself to the murder. And the only way to do that is …” He paused for several minutes, his eyes unfocused, his long index finger moving from side to side like a metronome, working out the play. At last he looked at her and said, “Shit, this could work!”

  “What?”

  He told her. She wrinkled her fine brow. “You think so? That he’ll go for it?”

  “It’s worth a shot. I’d have to convince him that I’m as dumb as he thinks we are. Give me a couple of days to set it up, and we’ll find out.”

  Later that evening, Karp called Fulton at home.

  “I got a little problem you could help me with,” Karp began.

  “I got a problem too, Butch,” Fulton replied. “I was just gonna call you. Amalfi tried to arrest me today. Did you know he was turned? Somebody’s got him on a wire.”

  “Shit, no!” Karp said. “I don’t know anything about that. Who was it?”

  “Internal Affairs, the dirt-bags. But that’s not the worst of it. You know how we were thinking that these shitheads were looking to set me up and lay all the killings on me? Well, it went down today. Manning sent me and Amalfi over to a hospital to kill Nicky Benning. I went in and faked it and then I figured Amalfi would be laying to take me out. I got the jump on him and I found this goddamn wire.”

  “Have you told the chief yet?” Karp asked.

  “No, I wanted to talk to you first, see if you’d heard anything.”

  “Shit, that’s a laugh! I’m the last to know and the first to get fucked,” said Karp. “Look, the main thing is, this deal you had cooked up with Denton is out the window. We got to go to him together and rethink the strategy here. For starters, we got to at least sit down with whoever is running Amalfi. Our main job now
is to nail down the case against Manning and Amalfi and pressure them to drop a dime on whoever is running this game. My thinking is, if it’s presented as a massive high-level corruption thing, it’ll take some of the sting out of cops being involved. That should bring Denton around to handling it like a real case.”

  “Yeah,” said Fulton, “but I already know who’s running it. Amalfi told me. It’s Fane. And parties unknown.”

  “Oh, that’s perfect! That’s great! Bloom puts together a drug task force and half the people on it are in the dope business. Look, Clay, you have to get off the street. Things are gonna get crazy, starting tomorrow.”

  “Uh-uh,” said Fulton, “we got nothing on Fane, except for Amalfi’s say-so, which isn’t worth shit. You’re talking about a U.S. congressman here. We need a smoking gun.”

  “Clay, let me worry about constructing the fucking case, OK?” said Karp. “We got other ways of getting Fane. Meanwhile, when Manning finds out Benning’s still breathing, he’s gonna come after you.”

  Fulton chuckled. “Yeah, I thought of that. I had Benning moved to another hospital. I’ll tell Manning he was gone when I got there.”

  “Fine, but what makes you so sure Amalfi is gonna be such a sweetheart? How do you know Manning doesn’t know about the wire and you already?”

  “Amalfi’s shitting in his pants, Butch. He’s got IAD on his ass, he’s looking over his shoulder all the time. He won’t do dick. Believe me, it’s not gonna be a problem. Speaking of which, you said you had a problem.”

  It took Karp a few seconds to remember why he had called. “Oh, yeah. The reason I called, I need to borrow a murderer.”

  Fulton’s rich laugh came over the line. “You came to the right place.”

  “What is this, some kind of joke?” said Alan Meissner, his voice angry across the phone line.

  “It’s no joke, Mr. Meissner,” said Karp calmly. He had called Meissner shortly after he had finished his call with Fulton. Marlene was in bed and Karp was stretched out on the couch in the living area, relaxed and radiating sincerity into the mouthpiece.