Immoral Certainty

by Robert K. Tanenbaum

  “Thanks, Tony,” said Guma, surreptitiously wiping the accumulated sweat from his upper lip. Later, in his own car on his way back to Manhattan, he reviewed the bidding. He had told Tony he had a corroborative witness to the Ferro killing. That was a lie. They had DiBello, who could corroborate Noodles’s testimony and tie Joey Bottles to another killing, which they didn’t have a body for. But if the Bollanos and Harry believed they were nailed they would move heaven and earth to find Marlene. And they would believe it if they found the Ferros were allowing one of their people to rat. Which they would find out, if Guma had anything to do with it.

  Getting the Bollanos off on the murder rap for doing this service was easy, since without a real corroborative witness there was no case. The problem was getting the don off on the perjury charge Karp had set up. He had told Tony Bones that the don would walk. As far as the fabrication about the witness was concerned, no big thing: Tony wouldn’t mind a little lie from an old friend, and Guma could always plead a misunderstanding.

  And Tony would certainly make out handsomely from the information about the incipient fall of the Bollano family; he was probably making calls and selling the information at this moment. But if old Salvatore Bollano went to jail, his reputation as a dealer and a don in his own right would be hopelessly compromised, and this he would not forgive even an old friend. Lo squal’ incula il pe’c’. Guma knew who the shark was and who was the sardine and who would get fucked if this didn’t fly.

  Guma got off the highway at Third Avenue and swung left through the streets of South Brooklyn and into Red Hook. He found a saloon rotting in the shadow of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, went in and ordered a scotch up and a beer. This was deep Ferro country. Vinnie Red had shot his first man, the first that Guma knew of anyway, within three blocks of this place, up on President Street.

  While he waited for the booze to supply him with ideas, he wondered idly why he was risking his skin to save a woman who had never given him the time of day, except for that last conversation before she vanished. It had to do with Karp. Karp was barely human to begin with, in Guma’s opinion, but at least if he got enough nooky he was willing to make an effort. Guma thought about the Karp of the last three days being projected into the indefinite future and shuddered.

  No, he was doing the right thing. Somehow he had to extricate Big Sally from the net that Karp was tightening, which meant that, like a search and destroy mission in Vietnam, he had to shaft Karp in order to save him. He finished his drink. Yes, he thought, it could be done, although Mrs. Buonofacci would probably have bet that he had indeed stepped longer than his leg.

  Steve Lutz awoke with a start and the knowledge that there was somebody else in his bedroom, somebody who didn’t belong there, somebody silent and very large. This person sat in a straight chair by the window that gave on the street. Lutz could estimate his size from the silhouette made by the street light, and he could also see that there was something wrong with the man’s head, some subtle misshapenness that added immeasurably to the horror of the moment.

  Lutz lay frozen with fear, sweating, his heart thumping loud enough to be audible in the room. He hoped the man was a bum who had wandered in looking for a crash. But how had he penetrated the locks on the front door? He was just about to see if he could make a dash for the bedroom door when the phone rang.

  Lutz let it ring three times. When the figure at the window remained still, he grabbed it from where it lay on the floor next to his bed and held it to his ear.

  “Steve Lutz?” asked a soft voice.

  Lutz croaked an affirmative. His throat felt full of chalk.

  “You’re going to be a witness tomorrow at the trial of Felix Tighe, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah. Who is this?”

  “A friend. Listen. The police are trying to frame Felix for that murder. They invented all that evidence they found in your place.”

  “Yeah? How did they get it in there, in Felix’s bag then? And them pants with the blood is Felix’s pants—I seen them on him lots a times.”

  “They are very clever. But it is all a fabric of lies. This is why you must tell them, tomorrow, that the knives and the pants they will show you are not the knives and the pants that you saw in the apartment when the police were there.”

  “Wait a minute, who is this? What is this shit, you want me to lie to the D.A., in court? I already told them a million times it was the same stuff—they’ll break my chops.”

  Lutz was aware of a movement by the window. The figure had risen and had taken a step toward the bed. The voice on the phone continued. “Steve, don’t be foolish. There are things involved here, great events, that you cannot understand. The order of the universe requires that Felix Tighe walk free. If you help, you will be rewarded; if you refuse … do you see the person in your room?”

  “Yeah,” said Lutz, caught between wishing there was some light on the creature’s face and being glad of the dark. “Yeah, I see him.”

  “He came into your room tonight. Locks cannot stop him. Walls cannot stop him. He is very powerful. And very skillful. Did you ever have a broken leg, or a broken finger? He could break all your fingers and your arms and your legs, with his hands. Can you imagine what that would feel like?”

  Lutz said nothing, his exiguous mental powers being entirely occupied with the suggested image. The voice on the phone told him to hand the receiver to the man in the room. The huge shape lifted the instrument to its head for an instant, then threw it to the bed, turned, and walked out of the room, making remarkably little noise for one so large. Lutz heard the outer door close. After a breathless minute, he ran to it, to lock it again, and was astounded to find it already locked.

  The worst thing for Marlene was that she had stopped being able to tell dreams from reality. There were moments when she opened her eyes and seemed to see clearly where she was. There was a concrete ceiling a few feet above her head, some chemical stink in the air, the scrape of rough canvas against her back. Her arms and legs were immobilized and there was tape across her mouth. She was naked, covered with a wool blanket. And she remembered who had put her there.

  But then that clear vision would switch off, as if someone had changed the channel on her interior Sony, and the scene would be replaced by phantasmagoria. Candles, the smell of burning wax, the smell of blood, she was floating through the air, many hands were stroking her, thick substances were being smeared on her face, on her breasts, first hot then chilled and sticky. There were chants and colored vapors. A beast with horns was standing over her. She could feel his hot breath. His tongue shot out, impossibly long, and licked her face. He had blue eyes like steel knives.

  The Bogeyman was there too. The moon-shaped face was her one constant, in the nightmare, in the stone room, hovering over hers, a gentle smile on the too-small budlike pink mouth, the hair, almost white, soft as candy-floss against her body as he lifted her, the mild eyes blinking behind thick yellow caterpillar lashes. He helped her go to the toilet, he fed her soup and juice. And she ate, knowing there were drugs in the food, but unable to formulate even the thought of resisting.

  And he talked to her. He told her long, rambling stories in a soft voice, with the inflection and vocabulary of a six-year-old. What did he talk about? Dreams. The petty injustices and triumphs of childhood, the kind of babble told to a stuffed animal in the night. And she would listen, saying nothing, because if you’re dreaming, what’s the point? It will all be explained in the dream, or else it won’t and you wake up with that curious feeling of having mislaid something important but nameless.

  Until one time, when the drugs had reached the low point of their cycle in her body, when he had removed the tape across her mouth, and had propped her up with pillows, and had held a plastic cup of apple juice to her lips, his motions so practiced, he so obviously kind and willing to oblige, an idea had penetrated at last through the fog.

  He’s done this before, she thought. This is how he did the trash-bag children. Suddenly s
he remembered Lucy Segura and from somewhere there flooded into her a fierce will to live, to not end her being in a trash bag in a green dumpster. Segura—there was something else, something Raney had said about Lucy and the Bogeyman. She twisted her mouth away from the cup. “I don’t want that any more,” she said petulantly, keeping her voice high. “I want a cheeseburger and french fries and a Coke.”

  He smiled tentatively, then shook his head firmly. “I’m not spose to. I’m spose to give you kitchen stuff, from the kitchen. Mommy said.”

  “Yes you can,” said Marlene. “You did for Lucy. You got her a cheeseburger and a Coke. It’s not fair.”

  He thought about this for a minute, chewing his lip. “OK, I guess. I could get a cheeseburger too.”

  “Yes, you could,” said Marlene, tears of relief burning in her eyes. “We could eat our cheeseburgers together and, and if you leave my mouth open I could tell you a nice story.”

  “Like on TV?”

  “Better. Why don’t you go now? I’m really hungry.”

  He rose and he seemed to fill the whole space of the alcove in which she lay. He turned to go and then suddenly whirled on her, his fists clenched and his face crumpled into a dreadful scowl. Marlene’s heart jammed itself into her gullet.

  “But, but,” he stammered, “no dolls!”

  Marlene let out her breath. “That’s fine,” she said weakly. “I have plenty of dolls.”

  CHAPTER

  15

  Groggy and stupid from lack of sleep, Karp staggered into his shower and let the scalding water beat against his head. He emerged cleaner but hardly refreshed, brushed his teeth, ate the last two Extra-Strength Excedrin in the bottle on the sink, and flung the empty, rattling, into the tin wastebasket. Two points.

  Karp had spent the night in his own apartment, a one-bedroom unit in an old building on Sixth in the Village, as he had since Marlene had disappeared. At Marlene’s loft he had arranged with neighbors to feed the cats and water the plants. He was not going to stay there, surrounded by her things and the memory of her.

  In his own place there was nothing but a bed, an antique rowing machine, a black-and-white portable TV and Karp. The rest of the space was occupied by dust bunnies and Karp’s immense misery.

  He let a guilty glance fall on the rowing machine. There did not seem any point in exercising any more. Or eating. Or sleeping. Work still had a point, but even that was going. Karp had heard of sea captains’ wives in the old days of sail who had been visited by a dire premonition of death at what later had proven to be the very moment that their spouses’ vessels had gone under. He felt that way about Marlene. There was in his head and body an empty space that had been filled with the hum of her being. He had scarcely noticed it then (more guilt!) but now it was a felt void, as when the electric power goes off in the daytime and all the little forgotten motors stop.

  He dressed in one of his three identical blue pin-striped suits. One of the trio was at the cleaners, the other on the closet floor waiting to be dropped off. For murder trials Karp always appeared in a freshly pressed suit each day.

  Karp usually walked the mile or so to the criminal courts. He liked the exercise, while the filth and disorder of the subways depressed him. Today he found he lacked the energy and doubted that the subway could drive him any lower than he now was. He took the D train and arrived in time to spend an hour and a half re-reading the case file on People v. Tighe.

  It was a good case, a classic circumstantial web, motive, means, and opportunity woven together by that colossal criminal arrogance, that sense of invulnerability without which the forces of justice would be in even worse shape than they are. He kept the knife! He wrote it down in his appointment book!

  Yes, a good case, People v. Tighe, except that to Karp, as always, it was Karp v. Tighe. It was his dirty secret. You weren’t supposed to get your personal feelings mixed up in the austere and objective majesty of the judicial process. Karp had said that himself to babies out of law school, without a blush, but to Karp, in a trial, it was all personal, every time.

  There was a knock on his door and Peter Balducci stuck his head in. Karp was struck by another pang of guilt as he remembered Marlene, and realized that he had been able to entirely forget her when immersed in the trial. But of course, Balducci was part of the trial, too, as well as being involved in the kidnapping investigation.

  “Anything new?” Karp asked.

  “Not yet, that I heard of. It could be somebody’s got something, though. Shaughnessy’s got me inside cleaning ashtrays. It’s my last week. He figures I won’t have my mind on my work. So maybe …”

  “Yeah.”

  “We’ll find her.”

  “Yeah,” said Karp again, without conviction. He picked up a sheaf of notes on yellow legal and an arrest report form. “OK, Pete, you’re finishing up today. The defense is going to have you on cross and they’re going to push on this alibi.”

  Balducci frowned. “They are? But we already showed it was bullshit! Plus, the guy ran when we tried to pinch him. We got the bloody pants, the motive, the girlfriend. You really think they’ll bring it up?”

  “Trust me. Look, any evidence can be impeached in the eyes of a jury, and anything that can’t, they can say the cops planted it. Will the jury believe it? If the defendant shows as Mr. Truth, they have a chance, which they have to take, since they got bupkes otherwise. I got five black men and two Spanish on the jury. No offense, Peter, but what’s the odds that that bunch thinks the NYPD is straight arrow? That the cops never, never picked up and railroaded the wrong guy?”

  Balducci grunted noncommittally.

  “So the thing is, we got to show him as Mr. Lie when they try it. He’s a crook, right? We know it, but we got to show it, is the game.”

  Balducci nodded, and Karp laid out the line of questioning he thought the defense would bring up in the cross-examination and what he would pursue on the redirect. “He’s going to attack your credibility, but he’s got to do it backhanded, understand? Because the fact is that you’re telling the truth. Especially about the fake alibi.”

  “That girl, Mimi.”

  “Yeah. Tighe told you and Freddie Kirsch he was with a girl named Mimi Vasquez in Larry’s Bar at the time of the murder.”

  “Then he changed his story.”

  “Right. Because you found Vasquez and she said she’d never been near the place with him on the night. Klopper’s game will be to confuse the identity of Mimi Vasquez with another girl that Tighe pulled out of a hat when you braced him on the lie—what was it?—Joseline?”

  “Yeah. But why don’t you just call her up there, Mimi, and get her to tell them he was blowing smoke?”

  “Can’t do it. It’s his alibi. I can’t do anything with the alibi or her unless he brings it up, which he knows, which is why he’s going to hint at it, play with it, but never really bring it out. All he’s doing is building a reasonable doubt, which is all he needs. I’ll object like crazy and hope that Montana backs me up on it. By the way, just checking: Did you ever find this Denise in the appointment book?”

  “Nope. And he won’t talk about it either. Funny, the guy talked like blue blazes about every other piece of ass he got. Is it important?”

  “Not really. Just funny. A missing piece.”

  Balducci nodded. He got up to leave and then stopped. “Oh, did I tell you? Speaking of ladies—the mutt’s wife showed up.”

  “Who, Tighe’s? I didn’t know he was married.”

  “Yeah, and made in heaven too. He kept her tied to the bed and whipped her with a coat hanger. Had a shotgun rigged to blow away anybody trying to rescue her. You want her name and address?”

  “Not really. I can’t call her, and with a story like that I doubt they’ll use her as a character witness.”

  Balducci rolled his eyes and walked out. Karp ran down the list of his other witnesses. Balducci had almost finished his direct testimony the previous day. He had been good in describing the pursuit and
near escape of Tighe—the guy was a desperado, right?—and having him there would help carry the memory for another day.

  Then the cross and the redirect. If Klopper tried to tease with the alibi, he would refute it like crazy, and then whip over to the forensic technician, a solid guy named Dugan, who had lifted the thumbprint from the scene, and then the fingerprint tech, Cibera, also convincing. Juries loved fingerprints. And although Klopper would do his best to cloud that evidence, he would fail, because fingerprints were sacred. They were on TV cop shows. A good close for the day.

  How can I be dicking around with this shit?, Karp asked himself as he gathered up his papers. Marlene may be dead or being tortured by some maniac. I’m dying, but I’m still up for this trial, he thought as he took the elevator up to the twelfth floor. As he took his place at the prosecution table, however, these thoughts faded, his stomach muscles tautened, his palms got wet, and he began to breathe consciously, big deep breaths, as he had done at those points in a tight game when he knew his coach was going to send him in.

  The jury filed in and the clerk called their names. The judge came in, all rose. Judge Thomas Montana, a diminutive and swarthy man with shoe-button eyes and wearing thick, paper-white sideburns under a thatch of black hair, sat down. All sat. Peter Balducci took the witness stand and the trial resumed.

  For an unconcerned spectator in search of entertainment, a criminal trial is ordinarily a good place to avoid. The law radiates tedium the way a ballet does grace or an orchestra harmony. Despite this, the courtroom was packed, a fact attributable to the semi-sensational nature of the case (EX ROCK STAR KNIFED!), to the inclement weather, and to Karp himself. There was a small, ever-changing claque of trial connoisseurs (mostly young A.D.A.s) in the back of the room, who drifted in during their spare time and spent half an hour watching, as it were, Arcaro up on Native Dancer.

  Karp rose and asked Balducci about the torn piece of matchbook he had found in the bag in Felix Tighe’s room, establishing that the “Mimi” whose name was written there was in fact Mimi Vasquez, the non-alibi lady, and no one else.