Immoral Certainty

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Immoral Certainty Page 21

by Robert K. Tanenbaum


  “Jesus,” said Raney, in a stunned voice. “What was that all about?”

  “Oh, God, I’m sorry. Oh, this is awful!” Marlene cried, tears of shame springing from her eyes. Raney reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a package of tissues. Marlene dabbed at her mouth and face.

  “That’s a pretty strong reaction, Ciampi,” he said. “I been turned down before, but …”

  “Oh, shit, Raney, I wasn’t, it isn’t you. I’ve been nauseous all day. I must have picked up the flu or some food poisoning. I’m sorry, but, oh shit! I don’t know what to say—let’s forget it, huh?”

  He smiled and started the car. “We should call it the world’s shortest romance. OK, where’s this beauty parlor you’re going to?”

  Raney duly deposited her at Vittorio’s on Sixth off Fourth Street and drove off. Normally, a hairdo was a relaxing experience for Marlene. She liked being cosseted and admired and immersed in trivia and amusing gossip. Today, however, she could not shake her irritability. She was short with her favorite hairdresser, who soon gave up his attempts to engage her, and snipped away morosely in silence. While he was blow-drying, she felt sick again and had to rush to the bathroom.

  “Darling, you look wasted,” said the cutter sympathetically, when she returned. “Are you OK?”

  “Yeah, fine,” said Marlene. “Hey, what’s everybody looking at?” The cashier and several waiting patrons were clustered in the doorway, looking out to the street and talking excitedly.

  “Oh, the funniest thing. As soon as you left for the powder room, this absolutely enormous man came trundling in and grabbed up some hair off the floor. Yours, as a matter of fact, and then raced out.”

  “What did he look like?” asked Marlene, her heart thumping.

  “Oh, huge! Six-five, maybe two-ninety. Dressed in a black suit. Sort of a round head, like that guy in the Charles Addams cartoons … say, where are you going—you’re not dry yet!”

  Marlene had scooped a handful of bills from her purse and flung them at the cashier and then dashed out the door and into the street. She looked up and down Sixth and then raced around the corner and checked West Fourth, but of the big man there was no sign.

  Karp knew something was wrong the minute he walked into Marlene’s loft. It was just past nine and Karp had spent the last four hours arguing with the members of six different law enforcement agencies with whom he would have to coordinate his projected raid on the Bollano family’s secret castle. Then he had been soaked during his walk home by the rain that had started in the evening. He was not in a good mood, and he now suspected, as he looked around, that he was not about to be greeted in a way that might improve it.

  The immense room was dark except for an eerie red glow emanating from the sleeping platform end. A sour odor hung in the still, warm air. “Marlene?” he called. No answer. He dropped his briefcase, shrugged out of his dripping suit jacket, kicked off his wet shoes and climbed the ladder to the sleeping platform.

  The windows over the bed had been covered with sheets and blankets roughly tacked up. At the foot of the bed was a large stainless steel bowl, the source of the sour odor. The only light came from two small candles in red glass holders on Marlene’s vanity table. Marlene’s boudoir suite was the very one she had used during her girlhood in fifties Queens—white with flower decals. The vanity had an oval mirror and a crinoline skirt. It usually held Marlene’s large collection of Dolls of Other Lands—weird enough, Karp had always thought—but these had been displaced by the candles and an array of religious items: a small statue of Our Lady of Lourdes in luminescent white plastic, two rosaries, one black and the other amber, a pewter crucifix, and an array of scapulars, holy medals, and the colored cards bearing pictures of saints that are given to young ladies in convent schools when they have been particularly diligent.

  “Hey, Marlene, what’s up? What’s wrong—are you sick, or what?” Karp addressed these questions to a lump curled up under the bedclothes. Receiving no answer he gently tugged back the covers, revealing his own cutie lying on her side with a wad of pink Kleenex as large as a cantaloupe clutched to her tear-damp face.

  “Marlene, what’s wrong?” he demanded again, touching her face, which was cold and clammy.

  “Nothing,” she mumbled.

  “Don’t tell me ‘nothing’! You’re crying under the covers, the windows are covered up like Great Expectations, and this religious stuff—what, the Pope is coming to lunch?” Karp spoke lightly, but he was fighting against his worst and most secret fear: that Marlene’s porch light had finally flickered out, that she had gone from merely nutty, to nuts.

  She sat up suddenly and clutched at him like a drowning child. “I just got scared being alone,” she said into his shirt.

  Since Marlene had always seemed to him utterly fearless, Karp couldn’t help laughing. “You? Scared of what, for chrissake?”

  “No, really, Butch! Look at this!” She rummaged under the blankets and pulled out a damp 5 by 7 photograph, which she handed to Karp. It was not a very good photograph, being pale and grainy, with a blurred cross in one corner that showed it had been taken through a small-paned window, but it was clear enough to preserve the identity of its subject, which was Marlene. She had been shot wearing her plaid flannel bathrobe and sitting in this very bed.

  Karp glanced up at the covered windows, and Marlene followed his glance. “Yeah, right,” she said. “He took it through that window at night, from the roof of the building across the street.”

  “Where did you get it?”

  “I found it down on the street. It was wired under the drainpipe on the corner.”

  “Wired … ?”

  “Yeah, the water washes away the image, and the person gets sick and dies. It’s witchcraft.”

  Karp snorted. “What’re you talking, witchcraft?”

  “It’s true. God, Butch, I feel better now that you’re here! I was paralyzed.” She stood up and got a cigarette and then sat down next to him on the bed. She was still in the clothes she had worn to the office that day. “This afternoon a guy came into Vittorio’s and picked up a swatch of my hair, a guy, by the way, who matches the description we got of Lucy Segura’s boyfriend. The bogeyman.”

  “Did you see him?”

  “No, but the people in the place did. It’s the guy, Butch.”

  Karp took a long breath. “Ah, Marlene … aren’t you getting a little carried away here … ?”

  “I’m being hexed,” she said bluntly.

  “You’re kidding!” said Karp, with a smile he didn’t feel.

  “Do I look like I’m kidding? It’s working, too. Look, I haven’t been sick a day since I had chicken pox when I was ten. Now I feel like death warmed over. I’ve been vomiting continuously since I got up this morning.”

  “So you’re sick—it’s the flu, or maybe food poisoning. Have you seen a doc?”

  “I went to Larry downstairs. He doesn’t think it’s the flu. And how could it be food poisoning? I already puked up everything I’ve eaten for the last two weeks. Then he asked if I was maybe pregnant.” She let out a short rough laugh.

  “Are you?” Karp asked casually.

  “Of course not, dopey! I’m late, but I’m always a little screwed up that way. Also I got a loop in, as you know very well.”

  “Yeah, but … look, Marlene, Larry downstairs is a nice guy, but he’s not a doctor.”

  “He’s a nurse.”

  “My point—you need to see a real doctor.”

  “And what if nothing’s wrong with me—physically?”

  Karp sighed and said gravely, “If nothing’s wrong physically, then I think you should, you know … see somebody.”

  “Somebody? You mean a shrink? You think I’m crazy?”

  “No, I think you’re upset. I think you’re still obsessing about this damn day-care center and the trash-bag killings, for reasons I can’t understand. And it’s sent you off on a toot, and now it’s affecting your body. Witchcraft! For c
rying out loud, Marlene … !”

  “What about that photo? I made that up?”

  “A crazy, a peeper. We’ll get shades.” Marlene sagged back against the pillows at the head of the bed. “OK, you got all the answers, as usual. Thank you, Dr. Karp, for the diagnosis. I knew I could count on your warm support….”

  “Don’t be like that, babe. I’m really worried about you. I want to help …”

  Her one eye, reddened with weeping, regarded him balefully. “You want to help? Then bring me that fucking bowl. I got to puke again.”

  CHAPTER

  12

  “V.T.,” said Marlene, “did you ever dig up anything on Irma Dean?” She had found Newbury in his office, where she had gone right after finishing her court work for the day. It was the day after the stolen hair, the day after the dripping photograph.

  Newbury looked up curiously. “Yes I did, but I thought you weren’t interested any more. Say, Champ, are you OK?”

  “Everybody keeps asking me that. No, I’m not. I’m sick, and I’m scared.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I’ll tell you later. What did you find on Dean?”

  Newbury went to his file drawer and pulled out a slim folder. He gave it to Marlene, who was curled up in his side chair like a wounded bird. She tried to read through the sheets of notes and printouts in the folder, but found it impossible to concentrate.

  “What’s the story here, V.T.? Briefly, I mean,” she asked.

  “Deposits in two accounts, monthly. She’s taking in ten to twelve K a month, in cash, besides the monthly check for $12,550 she gets from the St. Michael’s Foundation. The expenses for running the school are paid out of that—see, that’s out of the Citibank account itemized on the next sheet. This other account picks up her monthly check from St. Michael’s she gets as director—for $1518—as well as the cash deposits, always in small amounts. What’s the source, is the question. There’s nothing in the St. Michael’s financial statement that reflects those deposits. I mean, it’s a charity. The parents don’t pay anything, or at least not much.

  “She owns the building the school is in outright, and she’s got a mortgage on the adjoining one. The third building, the one on West End Avenue, is income property, but it still doesn’t add up to—”

  “Wait a minute, she owns a third building?”

  “Yeah, it backs on the day-care center, with the front on West End. Is it important?”

  “Could be. My head is screwed on wrong today. Look, V.T., can I take this and study it some?”

  “It’s yours. I have a copy. So, tell me, what’s wrong? Early menopause?”

  “I only wish. Listen, V.T., if I ask you a question, promise not to laugh, all right?”

  “Promise, unless you tell me you’re having a sex change operation.”

  “No, seriously. Umm, do you, ah, believe in witchcraft?”

  V.T. did not laugh. On the contrary, he seemed to observe Marlene with new interest. After a moment, he said, “That depends on what you mean. I think quite a lot of what we could call witchcraft gets practiced today, and not just in places like Haiti. In New York, too, not to mention Miami and New Orleans. Immigrants from the Caribbean and South America and the Orient bring occult practices from home, for one thing. New York probably has as many practicing witches, brujos, curanderos and so on as it does obstetricians.

  “Then there are the mainstream weirdos, usually middle-class kids who got off on acid and never came down—all these little shops selling tarot cards and theosophy books.”

  “I don’t mean that,” said Marlene. “I mean summoning the devil, and black masses, and cursing people.”

  “Oh, that,” said V.T., leaning back in his chair and staring up at the ceiling. “Charles Manson and beyond. Yeah, we got that too. People who want to get kicks and don’t care who gets hurt usually can come up with a justifying structure. But what you’re really asking me is, does it work? Does the devil really come? You’re asking is the supernatural real?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Then I’d have to ask you what you mean by ‘real.’ We know that symbols have real power. People die for symbolic reasons all the time. We know that people will give their wills over to other people and do things they would never do otherwise, so that it seems like magic. Hitler, and on a tiny scale, Manson, are examples. We know that psychological states have physical consequences, everything from hives to hysterical paralysis to voodoo death. And we know that people see and hear what they want to or what they think they ought to see and hear. Probably most of what passes for the supernatural comes from that kind of psychological stuff.

  “For the rest … as a skeptic who doesn’t understand how a color TV works, I reserve judgment. Somebody once said that magic is science that we haven’t formulated laws for yet…. I’m sorry, I’m not being helpful, am I?” He had observed her sinking lower and lower into herself as he talked.

  “No. I wanted you to say that it was all bullshit,” Marlene answered, her voice barely audible. “I can’t believe I’m saying this to anybody, but I think I’m being hexed, and I think it’s working.” Marlene related the story of the big man in black at Vittorio’s, and the connection with the trash-bag killings, and her current malaise. V.T. considered this for a long moment, and then said, “But you said you started to feel bad yesterday morning, before the big guy got the hair.”

  “Yeah, but who knows what else they got? Do I track every Kleenex I toss? How do I know how long they’ve been doing this? Why are you shaking your head?”

  “Because it won’t wash, Marlene. Maybe you’ve uncovered a band of demon worshippers, and maybe they’re out to get you. I’ll believe that. And you got sick. I believe that. But that doesn’t mean there’s a connection, that the forces of darkness are working you over. I don’t think your head is going to start turning backwards and shit is going to start flying around. And your demon worshippers are going to turn out to be a version of the old scam—some sordid combination of kicks and money. Remember those deposits in Dean’s account?

  “Listen to your Uncle V. The first thing you should do is see a doctor. If there’s nothing wrong with you physically, then go see a shrink. Or a priest. But I totally reject the notion that Lucifer is dropping in on Riverside Drive and giving Irma Dean the power to bind and loose.”

  “How can you be so sure? I mean I believe you, and all, but …”

  V.T. laughed. “Because this is New York, Champ. The devil doesn’t need any help.”

  Marlene left without saying anything about what she thought was happening to her. It was really too stupid. She called Raney and gave him a sketch of what V.T. had discovered. He was short with her and seemed uninterested. So, that was that. Grimly, she went back to her chores. It was better than going home.

  Freddie Kirsch sighed and threw down his pencil. Perfection was hard. He looked at the typed sheets of the three hours of Q and A he had done on Felix Tighe. He thought it was the best one he had ever done, but still…. The problem was that Tighe was such an incredible liar. All mutts lied, of course, but Tighe was so plausible, so charming. And shameless. When caught in a lie, he just smiled and admitted his lie, “but now he was telling the truth.” The Q and A was a mass of contradictions, backtracks, misdirection, explanations.

  The alibi, for example. Felix had told him that he was with a girl at the time of the murder. What girl? He couldn’t remember her name. He had written it down on a matchbook. Balducci had produced the matchbook with “Mimi” on it. Felix had brightened up like a lantern, like Balducci had saved his life.

  So they found Mimi. Yes, she had been with him, but not, it turned out, on the night in question. Oh, no, Felix had meant another girl, Josie, Jackie, or something. And then there was the waitress at the place he was at—Larry’s. She would recognize him. Should he take a statement from the waitress? Or forget it? The pages swam and he rubbed his eyes. He looked at his watch. Seven-fifteen. His wife would be pissed off and ge
t on him again about why couldn’t he get a job with decent hours?

  Why not indeed? He was working on it. Meanwhile, People v. Tighe would have to wait until tomorrow. He stood up and switched off his desk lamp. The funny thing about it, when he thought of Tighe, he couldn’t help sort of liking him. The guy was amusing, anyway, which was more than could be said for the surly toughs that featured in most of his cases.

  He put on his jacket and stacked his Q and A transcript neatly. He had a strong case, anyway. He should be able to get a tough plea with no trouble.

  Felix Tighe’s new lawyer was a barrel-shaped little man who favored rumpled glen plaid suits and bow ties. He wore his thin dark hair stretched across his scalp like electrical cable, but his eyebrows, ears, and nose were luxuriantly supplied with the growth that had deserted the more conventional locations. His complexion was coarse and sallow. He had a little stump nose like a parakeet’s beak and—his only remarkable feature—large, luminous eyes, which could blaze out or withdraw into dark, hooded sockets according to his purpose. Despite his unprepossessing appearance, he had a reputation as a bon vivant and ladies’ man and as one of the dozen or so best criminal lawyers in Manhattan. His name was Henry Klopper and Felix was terrified of him.

  They had met the day after his arrest, when Felix was still recovering from the pounding administered by Patrolman Olson. His head still throbbed and he was dulled out from the analgesics they had given him. He had sought yet more dullness, but his charm had drawn a blank; Bellevue locked-ward nurses are very hard charmees and stingy with dope.

  Thus he had been in no cordial mood when the small man strode briskly into the curtained enclosure around his bed, sat down in a straight chair, and pulled a yellow legal pad from a worn briefcase.

  “Who the fuck are you?” Felix snarled.

  The man took a pair of gold-rimmed glasses from his breast pocket and hooked them on before answering. “I’m Henry Klopper. Your mother has retained me as your attorney.”

  “Yeah? Well, when am I getting out of here?”

 

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