Enemy within kac-13

by Robert K. Tanenbaum

  Karp turned to Collins. "You-you have a much harder problem because you have a case that's supposedly made already. Basically, I want you to remake it."

  "Remake it," said Collins neutrally.

  "Yeah. Let's face it, Jack is going to ask for death on this one, absent any serious flaw in the case. Everybody is out for this kid's blood. The crime is tailor-made to appeal to everyone's New York violence fantasies. Black criminal kills respectable white family man in the subway for money. We are bound and determined to kill the guy who did it."

  "It's the law."

  Karp nodded impatiently. "Yeah, I know it's the law. And I know we can probably convict him. That's not the point. Unlike the chief justice of the Supreme Court, I happen to still believe that actual innocence is an exculpatory fact. I need you to convince me that Jorell Benson stabbed Moishe Fagelman to death on the M line, me, not a bunch of retirees and high school graduates who want to get home to their families."

  "I don't get it. What is it about the case that you find unconvincing?"

  "A bunch of stuff. Benson was a strong-arm mugger, a chain snatcher, a knock-down-women-and-take-their-bags artist. Why did he decide to go with a knife? And, by the way, where's the knife? Two, it's a big jump from petty mugging to hitting a diamond merchant. He had to know the guy was carrying diamonds, and what he was carrying them in. It was, you'll recall, a little leather pouch. The perp took only that. Benson is a sixth-grade dropout with a seventy-two IQ. Is it credible that he could put a hit like that together and then not know that every diamond merchant in the city would be looking for just those stones, and then come waltzing into some booth in the diamond district and try to sell them? Three, our eyewitness, Walter Deng, ID's Benson from inside his token booth as the man who supposedly ran by on his way out. I'll stick you in a token booth, and I'll run by, and I guarantee you won't be able to tell me from Joe Pesci."

  "Deng picked him out of a lineup."

  "Right, which means he picked one out of six. Sorry, but I don't feel comfortable killing Mr. Benson for rolling snake eyes. Finally"-Karp took a deep breath-"finally, Terrell, the guy has an alibi. He was home with his mother, his sister, and her two kids when the crime went down. They were watching a basketball game."

  Collins shrugged. "Relatives lie to protect their families."

  "Uh-huh, but did these? Let me ask you a question? You have any brothers or sisters?"

  "One of each. Why?"

  "I have two brothers. If one of them was accused of committing a violent murder for gain, and he came to me and said, 'Tell a lie, give me an alibi,' I wouldn't. Would you?"

  Collins thought for a moment. "Maybe I would."

  "Oh, bullshit! Perjure yourself, put everything you've worked for at risk? Because your brother wanted a little extra cash and killed someone to get it? Come on!"

  "Okay, I take your point. I'll go over the case. But the cops… Jesus, they're going to hate me for this."

  This was Roland's influence, thought Karp, his one great flaw as a prosecutor, his desire to stay palsy with the cops. "Fuck 'em, then," Karp snarled. "They're supposed to hate you. You want cops to love you, join the Police Athletic League."

  They discussed some reporting details, and then Collins rose to go. Karp made a restraining gesture. "One other thing. You know Lucius McBright, don't you?"

  Collins's face took on a suspicious cast. "Why would you think that?"

  "Because you're politically active, and ambitious, and live in his district, and attend the same church where he's a deacon."

  A nervous smile. "You've been following me around?"

  "No, your address and church affiliation are in your personnel records. I'm a trained investigator, remember?"

  Collins laughed, relieving some of the tension. "I guess. As a matter of fact, I do know him. Not well, but we've talked some. Why?"

  "I want to meet him."

  "Call his office. He's a public official."

  "I don't mean that way. I want to converse with him informally. If you could set it up, I'd consider it a personal favor."

  Collins nodded. "Sure. I'll see what I can do." He left. Toward the end of the day, he called Karp and said, "The man said, come to church this Sunday."

  "Church, huh? No problem; thanks, Terrell. He'll find me?"

  "Oh, yeah." Collins laughed. "You'll be easy to spot."

  Wayne Segovia was waiting in his car, a tan Nissan this time, parked in a bus zone on Fifth, across the street and a few dozen yards uptown from the entrance to the Daumier. Donny Walker, a muscular, young black man, was in the backseat, dressed in a brown handyman's coverall with the building name and DON embroidered in the breast. Marlene got into the passenger seat.

  "What's up, guys?"

  "I spotted him when I was taking out some junk from the service entrance," said Walker. "He cruised by up Fifty-eighth, real slow and turned onto Fifth. I stayed where I was, and then he came by again, same thing. A Honda, light blue, New York plates."

  "You're sure it was him?"

  "Absolutely. Glasses, the blond hair, no chin. He was driving real slow, so I got a good look."

  "Okay. You get his plates?"

  Walker spoke a number, and Marlene wrote it down. "I'll call this in to the cops. He's in violation, coming this close to her building. I can get him revoked. Good work, Donny."

  The man grinned. "If they snatch him up, can I drop this janitor act?"

  "You could be a doorman," said Segovia.

  "Really? Gosh, my boyhood dream. A uniform with gold on it! Marlene, tell me I'm not dreaming!"

  "The fact is, we need to get you closer to that stupid woman than a doorman," said Marlene. "I should take another run at her now that old Jimmy's started coming close. She might be more inclined to listen." Marlene smiled at Walker. "Can you be a rock musician? For Tainted Patties you just need the three chords and some attitude."

  "I'd rather hump ash cans," said Walker.

  Marlene called the complaint in to the Nineteenth Precinct, and they all waited, talking companionably. Shop talk at first, idiots I have guarded, the freakiness of celebrity and its discontents. The talk grew more personal. Segovia passed around a pack of snapshots of his family, a pretty wife and a fourteen-month-old, a rottweiler he was training. Marlene liked this. She enjoyed the company of her troops more than she did that of the Osborne executives with whom she spent most of her time. The troops were very much of a type, these men and the few women in the trade, physical creatures, impatient with routine, bright but without much academic talent, rebellious under bureaucratic controls. The part of her that had never really integrated with the dutiful and brilliant student, the dutiful and loving mom, blossomed among them.

  A pause in the conversation. Marlene checked her watch. It was taking them a damned long time to respond. Walker said, "I should go back and watch the service entrance."

  "Yeah, go. We'll wait here for the cops," Marlene agreed.

  Walker left the car and loped through the traffic, disappearing around the corner.

  "A good guy," said Segovia. "He's tickled about the stock. He wants to buy a boat when we can sell it." He shook his head. "It's amazing. I never thought I'd be hanging on the damn stock ticker. Every time I come home, Stella says, 'Hey, we hit fifty-eight and three-quarters today,' or whatever." He looked at her, grinned. "Hell, if I'm happy with twelve hundred shares, you must be out of your head."

  Marlene did not want to discuss the money, however. "You going to get a boat, too?"

  "Me? Uh-uh. Stella's got that earmarked for the college fund. How high do you think…" He stopped, stiffened, stared across the street. "Oh, shit! There he is."

  Marlene followed his gaze. Through the moving cars she could make out a short man in a red jacket and baseball hat. It was the familiar livery of a large Madison Avenue florist, and naturally the man was carrying a long white box wrapped in red ribbon. The man had the hat pulled down low, but she saw the eyeglasses and the familiar profile. Jimmy Col
eman. He was carrying his flower box in a peculiar manner, narrow end against his chest, left hand high, right hand low and hidden underneath. A thought flashed through her mind: people don't carry flower boxes that way; that's the way they carry rifles.

  Segovia popped his door. "I'm going to nail the little fucker," he said, and was out of the car and dodging across the street before Marlene could say a word of warning. Without thinking, she snatched up her bag and followed him. She had to wait for a couple of trucks to go by, and while they passed and she bounced on her toes in frustration, she heard the first shot.

  Holding up her hand, she crossed in front of a cab, made a car slam on its brakes and honk furiously. When she got clear of the roadway, she saw the doorman lying in a heap at the entrance to the Daumier with a dark stain spreading on the back of his maroon uniform coat. She ran into the lobby just in time to see Coleman shoot Wayne Segovia through the chest and disappear into the mail room.

  Marlene knelt beside Segovia, who was gasping and expelling bits of bloody froth. She yanked off his tie, popped open his shirt. In the right side of his hairless, tan chest was a red-black hole just southeast of the nipple. Hideous, bloody foam was drooling from it, and every labored breath produced a raw plumbing noise. Osborne had insisted that everyone who worked in the field take a serious first-aid course every year, and so Marlene knew immediately that this was a sucking chest wound and that she had to get something to patch it or Wayne would die of anoxia in a few minutes. Something airtight, waterproof… She upended her bag and studied the jingling heap that fell out onto the floor. Lipsticks, compact, wallet, date-minder, cell phone, pack of tissues with one remaining, a folded sheaf of twenties. She shoved the twenties inside the tissue package, held it to the wound, hard. The sucking noise diminished. She yanked off Wayne's tie, ran it under his body, and bound the expensive dressing into place. Then she called 911 again and demanded an ambulance for two or more, reported the shots fired, and briefly described an incipient hostage situation. Nine one one wanted to chat some more, but she cut them off.

  "Hang in there, Wayne," she said. "The cops and the ambos'll be here real soon. I'm going after him."

  She rose. He grunted something, waved weakly at his left chest.

  "Oh, right," she said, and removed Segovia's pistol, a serviceable Beretta nine, from its shoulder rig. Then she headed for the elevator.

  When she got to seventeen, the small lobby was empty, but the door to 1702 hung ominously open. Inside the door was the hapless Pete, lying in a blood pool of unlikely extent, a surprised expression on his dead face. The flower box, with its red ribbon, lay discarded beside the body. Coleman certainly didn't need it anymore.

  Marlene ran directly to the hallway that led to Kelsie Solette's bedroom. Another body lay on its side, half out of one of the bedroom doors, a woman, blonde, spiked hair. Marlene's heart froze. She knelt. No, not the client, someone else, a girlfriend of the band's, a groupie. Marlene checked the bedroom. A man lay half-sitting against the bed, his head lolling, his T-shirt black with blood.

  Marlene moved on, holding the pistol in front of her. She had not touched a weapon in over two years, except for the firing practice Osborne demanded. She had stopped carrying. She had sworn an oath that she never would again. She nudged the door to the master bedroom open with her foot. There was the bed, and she could hear the frightened yips of Kelsie's dog, but muffled as through a door. The room was L-shaped, she recalled; a little corridor led to a dressing table and, beyond that, to the private bathroom.

  She paused at the corner of the L and looked around it cautiously. He was sitting there, at the little dressing table, with his rifle across his knees, talking in what sounded like a reasonable voice to the closed bathroom door. Marlene examined the weapon. Some kind of cheap military-surplus job, a Mauser bolt-action with a box magazine, the stock and barrel cut down to about eighteen inches, and wrapped roughly with silver duct tape. A deadly piece of shit, she thought, like its owner.

  Who was toying with the cosmetics spread in messy array across the table. As he talked, he occasionally lifted an item to his face and sniffed. He was in paradise, along with his beloved, surrounded by her intimate life and her scents. "Kelsie, I love you. Don't you understand that? I'm the only one in the world who really loves you." From behind the door, nothing but yapping.

  Marlene said, "Jimmy, put the gun down on the floor."

  He turned his head. She saw that his glasses were fixed with Scotch tape at the temples. He licked his lips.

  "Jimmy, real slow now, grab it by the barrel with your left hand and lay it on the floor. Come on, it's over now."

  She could see it working in his eyes before it happened. He stood, whirled, fired a shot through the bathroom door, and Marlene shot him neatly through the right shoulder. He staggered, went down on one knee, still clutching the weapon. He rested the sawn-off butt on the floor. Marlene heard the bolt work, heard the tinkle of the spent round. She rushed forward. His back was toward her, but she could see what he was doing.

  "Jimmy, please put it down, please-" she cried, stepping closer, bracing herself to kick the stock of the rifle.

  Coleman called out, "I love you, Kelsie!" He had the muzzle under his chin, and when he pulled the trigger, it blew his blood and brains all over Marlene.

  Lucy Karp handed the priest, Mike Dugan, a Phillips screwdriver. An associate pastor at Old St. Patrick's on Mulberry Street, he was lying on his back with his hands deep in the entrails of a beat-up Champion UH-100 commercial dishwasher someone had donated to the parish kitchen. St. Pat's was Lucy's regular church, although she had not been by as often in recent months and had switched her volunteer work entirely to Holy Redeemer. A pang of guilt here. Father Dugan had been her main man in the religion area ever since her first communion, and she did not want him to feel abandoned. Or so she imagined. In truth, she was feeling abandoned herself.

  Dugan slid out from behind the monster and grinned at her. An odd bird, this one. He was a Jesuit, had been on the staff of the vicar-general in Rome, and then had fallen, badly, no one knew why, ending up as a second fiddle in a pokey New York parish. Brilliant and mysterious, which is why the mother doted on him, and the daughter, too. He had a broad, lumpy Irish face, a shock of black hair, and blue eyes of the kind called penetrating, although they only penetrated on rare occasions. Mostly they skipped over the surface of life with an amused and kindly look, as now.

  "I think we got it, kid," he said, standing, stretching, groaning theatrically. "Be a priest, Michael, me dear mother said to me, be a priest and you won't be breaking yer back like yer father and grandfather before ye. And look at me now!"

  "Oh, the shame of it, Faather," replied Lucy, falling in with the shtick. "And all for a dishwasher."

  "Yes. In the old days, the Church didn't need dishwashers. We had nuns!"

  "So ye did, and they were happy to do it, the good sisters. Oh, the holy Church is in a sorry way, Faather."

  The priest put his finger to his cheek and applied an impish expression. "Well, we have to see if the blessed thing works, and to do that we need some soiled dishes, do we not? And how do we soil dishes? Why, by eating off them, that's how."

  "Ah, Faather, 'twas not for nothing that you read Aquinas for years and years."

  The priest walked over to the refrigerator and peered in. "Ah, Mrs. Camillo has left one of her famous chocolate cakes, the lovely woman!"

  "Isn't that for the poor, Faather?"

  "The poor ye have always with you," said the priest with a dark look. "And we have milk, too."

  "Would you be wantin' yer wee drop now, Faather? I wouldn't mind."

  "I'll wee drop you on your head, girl. Get us some plates and glasses."

  They ate at the table, cake set out on plates, with glasses of milk.

  "Ah, this is the fat life, isn't it?" said Dugan, smacking his lips. "Free cake, and no man to say us nay. Sometimes I sympathize with old Luther. We're corrupt to the bone."

&nb
sp; The cake was too rich for Lucy's taste, but she ate every crumb, to be companionable. They loaded the dirty stuff into the Champion and threw the switch. The machine gurgled and whirred into life, and Dugan cheered, hugging Lucy.

  "Well, now, hasn't this been the grandest day since the cardinal archbishop slipped on a dog turd getting out of his limousine?" Dugan turned to her and looked into her face. The penetration flicked on. "And where have you been hiding yourself, Lucy? We've missed you."

  "Oh, going to and fro on the earth," she said lightly. "Mostly around Holy Redeemer, the soup kitchen. Doing some stuff with the homeless."

  "Well, good for you." A pause. He smiled. "That's where David Grale works out of, isn't it?"

  She swallowed and willed the blush to stay off her cheeks. "I guess. I mean, yes, it is."

  Dugan stared at the vibrating dishwasher. "An interesting young man. I understand he's been in some bad places."

  "Yes."

  "Very romantic, those bad places."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Oh, just that it can become something of a habit. I knew young priests like that in Salvador."

  "You were in Salvador? During the war?"

  "Yes, I was," he said in a tone that did not encourage curiosity. "Tell me, does he talk about his experiences?"

  "No, not really. I mean stuff comes out. I mean we were talking about the mole people, in the tunnels, and someone said they, like, eat human flesh, and he told me about seeing people doing that in Sudan. But he doesn't, like, discourse on it."

  Dugan closed his eyes briefly and sighed. "No, he wouldn't. Does he go down in the tunnels?"

  "Sometimes, I think. We're looking for someone we know, who might be in trouble."

  "This has to do with the poor creature who's murdering the homeless?"

  "Yes, the slasher."

  "You think this friend of yours might be the slasher." It wasn't a question.

  "I don't think so, but the cops are looking for him on it." She dropped her eyes. The penetration intensified.

  "And you're simply dying to go down the tunnels with David, aren't you, amid the putative cannibals, to search out a mass murderer and bring him back to God?"