Numb returned, and so she felt pretty good when she burst into her loft with Patel burdened like a brown burro under her purchases, confronting her startled family, reeling slightly, glittering with crystal, dabbed with grease, stinko.
Karp looked at her and thought, who are you, and what have you done with my wife?
11
The choir members at Zion Baptist were dressed in blood-red robes with white collars, and they were singing "I'm Glad Salvation Is Free." Karp sat in a rear pew, not sharing the gladness at all, about as moved by the music and fervor as one of the square pillars that held up the vault of the roof. Karp had a tin ear and no faith in anything but the law and, on good days, love. For most of his life he had placed religious leaders in the same class as people who sold damp lots in Florida over the phone. This opinion had been modified somewhat by his daughter, whom he loved dearly, and who was devout and no fool, so there might be something in it after all, although not for him personally. His daughter said that there was a God gene-some people had it and others did not. His wife, according to his daughter, did not, although she went to church regularly. Or had.
Karp had not had much to do with his wife since she got rich. Marlene had always had, he supposed, a few loose toys in the attic, and at times in their twenty-year relationship she'd done things that had made him angry, such as risking her life and risking the lives of the kids; shooting people; skirting the law; breaking the law; grabbing the law, throwing it to the ground, and stomping all over it while laughing… but these had all been Marlenesque excesses, arising from the woman's peculiar sense of justice. He could understand it, even where he did not approve. This business with the money though…
He checked his watch discreetly. McBright had probably wanted to make a point by dragging him through this, but, if so, Karp had gotten it in the first half hour. He looked around at the flock. Everyone was beautifully dressed, the men in suits, the women in bright dresses that seemed to include more than the usual amount of cloth, the children brightly decorated like Easter eggs. Capes and shawls were fashionable here, and nearly every woman was wearing a hat. The only people not so attired were a small group of European and Japanese tourists crammed into one section of the balcony, observing the primitive but fascinating religious rites of the Americans. Time passed; now a soloist, backed by organ and choir, was well into "Take My Hand, Precious Lord." Karp sighed and shifted in his seat and looked at his watch again. It was still the old, beat-up gold Hamilton he had worn since law school. The Rolex Oyster with diamonds she had bought him-the kind of thing only a dope dealer or his father would wear-remained in the drawer. Lucy didn't wear hers either, and Karp rather suspected she had hocked it to fund some charitable enterprise.
The choir stopped singing, and the pastor rose to stand behind the podium. Many clergymen in New York bear the title of reverend, of course, but when people said "the Reverend" in a certain tone, they meant this particular one. He was massive, cocoa-colored, broad of brow, heavy of jaw, bristly of mustache, and wavy of hair, and he had a great, deep, growling voice. His theme this morning was youth, African-American youth in particular. These youth were in trouble: babies having babies, drugs, gangs, gangster music, no jobs, no religion. Why had this situation come about? The Reverend didn't say outright. He cast broad hints, though. There were forces that did not want African-American people to advance, and these forces were in cowardly fashion targeting black children. But, he declared ringingly, we can fight racism. (Cries of approval.) We can fight prejudice. (Again.) But when the forces of so-called law and order, the representatives of privilege, start murdering our young men with impunity, that's different. (Angry shouts of agreement.) And he went on to describe one version of the death of Desmondo Ramsey, in which Ramsey had innocently approached a wealthy white woman, and she had shot him down just like those Alabama sheriffs used to, and the authorities were just going to give her a pass on it. Is that right? (No, no!) He touched on Benson, railroaded for a crime he didn't commit because they had a rich Jew killed and they needed a black boy to throw to the wolves. (Angry cries.) Then there were these homeless getting killed in their sleep-all black men or Hispanic men. The police said there was no racial angle. No racial angle? Stand on your head, anyone who believes that. (Laughter, calls of "Tell it!" and "Right on!")
Then, somewhat to Karp's surprise, the Reverend took up the tale of Cisco Lomax. Cisco, he said, was a local child. His mother was right here today. Cisco was not an angel. He had a record. White men had poisoned him with their dope. He had stolen and been punished for it. But he had a woman and children he was caring for, unlike so many others. He was getting his life turned around. And he was shot down like a dog on the highway, by a white cop who didn't even get a slap on the wrist. Is that justice? They said he tried to run down the cop with his car, and they had to shoot him. They had to shoot him ten times, ten times! In the back!
Here Karp, who had been allowing the sermon to glide past him until now, snapped to attention. As the Reverend ran through the changes on this bit of fact, in the skillful, ironic manner for which he was known, with the congregation following him heartily with the traditional responses, Karp had little trouble figuring out who had leaked it, for it had to be a leak. As far as he knew, only a limited number of people knew the location and number of Lomax's wounds. The autopsy details had, significantly, not been presented to the grand jury. Interesting, and almost as interesting, come to think of it, was that depiction of the Ramsey-Marshak confrontation, and the detail about the watch. An even smaller number of people knew about the watch. Karp found that since he had become a leaker himself, he was much more interested in fellow leakers, and in whether they were malign scumbags like Fuller or good guys doing bad things out of necessity, like him. He hoped.
The Reverend finished his sermon with a roaring peroration, during which no one in the cavernous place could have entertained any doubts that African-Americans were in a bad way; that the white power structure liked it like that; that they were virtually lynching black kids again; that we were not going to sit down for stuff like that; and that with the help of Jesus, the eternal judge, we would see justice done in the end.
There was more music after that. Karp expressed the body language of boredom and got a number of not-terribly-Christian looks from his neighbors. When the service concluded, he lounged by a pillar and let the crowds flow past him. Someone touched his elbow. He turned and found he was looking into the face of Lucius McBright. They shook hands. McBright had a powerful grip, powerful enough that he did not have to show it off. Karp recalled that the man had been, of all things, a boxer in his youth, and a Golden Gloves contender, or maybe an actual champion, he couldn't recall which.
"You have a car?" McBright asked.
"No, I came by cab."
"Up to Harlem? Lucky man. Come on, we can go in my car, we'll get us some breakfast."
Karp followed him out of the church, McBright stopping to chat with the Reverend at the doorway. He introduced Karp, who got a formal nod and no offer to shake hands. McBright was about Karp's age and had put on some pounds since his light-heavyweight days, but he was still an impressive-looking man, five inches shorter than Karp but broader across the shoulders. He wore round, rimless glasses and a short, natural haircut and had on a beautifully tailored, navy, pin-striped, double-breasted suit. His color was coffee with two creams, and his eyes were a surprising shade of hazel.
McBright drove a silver Chrysler Concord Lxi. They got in and drove up St. Nicholas. A sunny day, blue sky, little fleecy clouds showing above the apartment houses, God's golden Sunday light over battered Harlem.
"Like the sermon?"
"I thought it was inspiring," said Karp. "The Reverend is a great public speaker."
"I'll tell him you said so. It'll make his day."
"And besides the inspiration, I was also impressed by the information. He revealed a number of things that are not generally known."
"The Reverend has a lot
of friends," said McBright in a tone that closed the discussion, and he shifted the conversation to Collins, whom they both agreed was a fine young man, and then to basketball, and they talked about the teams in the Final Four for the rest of the drive.
At 145th Street they parked and walked a short distance to a large restaurant. Called Suellen's, it was clearly the place to go after church for Harlem's gratin. Karp spotted a congressman, a university chancellor, and a major narcotics dealer, although not at the same table. McBright was obviously well known in the place, and they were seated immediately, but it took them a while to get to their seats, as McBright stopped along the way to chat with the occupants of several tables. Karp was the invisible man here, which was rather the point, he thought. He didn't feel as uncomfortable as McBright probably thought he was feeling, having spent many hours of his youthful athletic career in milieus in which he was the only, or nearly the only, whitey.
They sat; a venerable waiter brought coffee and a basket of sweet rolls. McBright pointed to these. "Don't start on them. They sold those on the street, fools forget all about crack cocaine." He took one. Karp did, too, and they were indeed marvelous, as was the coffee.
McBright sat back, chewing, and made a gesture with his hand. "Your meeting, boss."
Karp had the feeling of setting out on one of those rope bridges in action movies. This meeting seemed like the worst idea he had ever had, and it had a lot of competition in that league. But thinking this made him laugh, and he admitted it to McBright. "Yeah, well, this seemed like a great idea when I thought it up, but now…? The thing is, Jack Keegan doesn't know I'm doing this, and if he did, he would fire me, without hesitation. He would regard it as a betrayal."
"Isn't it? Maybe you think I'm going to win, and you're currying favor."
"Obviously, you don't really think that, and Collins doesn't think that, or neither of you would have participated in this meeting. But if we're going to probe each other's sincerity, we might as well just eat sweet rolls and talk basketball." A little eye-wrestling here, ending with a wry grin from McBright. Karp continued, "I read that speech you gave at the Urban League. I thought it was a good speech. I thought you were right on principle and wrong on the DA. We don't have a racial bias that I've been able to see. It's not part of the culture."
"Yes, well, we disagree on that. Was that your point?"
"No, my point is that injecting the race question into a DA campaign is the wrong thing to do. Even if it helps you win, it's still the wrong thing to do because you will win upon a basis that will make it difficult or impossible to run the office. The power of a DA is just different from the power of a mayor or a governor. You introduce ethnic politics into it, you're going to call for an equal but opposite response from Jack, and there are plenty of people happy to encourage him to do that. And then you have something real ugly. I don't want to see that."
McBright was looking at him incredulously, a bemused smile on his lips. "You're advising me on my campaign?"
"I'm giving you my take on what's going to happen."
McBright laughed. "I can't believe this. Nobody is that naive."
"Actually, I am. I'm a total loss when it comes to politics. I'm always doing the wrong thing. When I was a kid just starting out in the DA, we had Phil Garrahy in there, and when I knew him, he was old and sick, and he was undecided on whether he wanted to run again. Keegan was homicide chief then, and he thought he had a lock on the job, if Garrahy declined, and I took it upon myself to convince Mr. Garrahy that he should run, and he did, and won, and he died seven months later, and the governor appointed a complete asshole into the job. That was my first foray into electoral politics, and this is my second. Just so you know I have a track record."
A chuckle this time. McBright seemed genuinely amused. "Okay, I take your point. I'll consider it."
The waiter hovered. McBright asked, "You want to order?" and Karp said, "I'm fine with coffee and rolls. I'm not a breakfast guy."
"I am." McBright ordered steak and eggs with grits, then the waiter glided off. "So, was that it?"
"No. I also wanted to say that we have three major cases with racial overtones, Benson, Lomax, and Marshak. In my opinion, all three of them are flawed."
"I rest my case."
"No, because I am on them, and I will fix them. Now, I am not going to insult your intelligence by claiming that if the three gentlemen of color in question had been solid citizens, they would be in just as much trouble, or dead. They were not solid, they all had some kind of sheet on them, plus Ramsey was homeless, and cops are lazy. Show them something that quacks and waddles and they'll say it's a duck, never mind if it's the right duck. If you want to get into an argument about why black kids get introduced into the criminal justice system at about nine times the rate that white kids do, then fine, but leave the DA out of it. That's not the first, or even the fifth, place you should look, and the proof of it is me sitting right here."
"And you're a big racist."
"That's right, I'm a big racist. Everyone else in the office is way to the left of me."
"Since they got rid of Hrcany, anyway."
"Roland wasn't much of a racist, if by racist you mean someone who does bad things to people because they're the wrong color. I never saw him do that, and I worked with him for nearly twenty years. I'll give you that he had a mouth on him, and when he had something nasty to say, which was often, he touched on all the characteristics of the target, including the unmentionable ones. I talked to him about it a million times, but it didn't penetrate. But you could also say that the Reverend Jackson was a racist because he once said that when he heard footsteps behind him at night and he turned around and he saw it was a white guy, he felt a rush of relief."
"And was ashamed of it, don't forget that part. Well, we could chat about race relations and who's the biggest bigot all day, but why don't we just turn to the last page? Why should I believe you? I mean you are from the enemy camp."
Karp sighed in frustration. "Oh, for crying out loud, McBright! I know, and you must know that I know, that young Collins has been leaking you everything that's been going on in the DA since day one, and you've been leaking tidbits to the Reverend for amplification. You have to know I'm telling the truth, unless Collins is making stuff up, and I kind of doubt that. As far as loyalty goes, I'm not a camp guy. Ask Collins. I'm loyal to Jack in the sense that I'm not about to betray any confidences or weaknesses of his to you or anyone else, but my primary, no my only, loyalty is to the office and what it's supposed to stand for, my idea of it. Let's say I'm loyal to the better angels of Jack Keegan's nature, and not to other kinds."
McBright shook his head. "You're a piece of work, Karp. Don't put any of that shit on your job application."
"I don't need the work, man," said Karp sourly. "I have a rich wife."
Who at that moment was emerging from a nasty dream, in which haughty, black-clad store clerks wearing maroon lip-gloss insisted on removing her daughter's clothing in the main aisle of Calvin Klein, explaining that she was not creditworthy and refusing to look at any of Marlene's own credit cards. It's all right, Mom, said the dream daughter, you can't pay for this with money.
Marlene sat bolt upright in bed, her stomach churning, and shook her head violently. Which was a mistake. Something in her head had come loose and was bouncing around in there, causing terminal damage, or so it felt.
That's it, she thought, absolutely no more drinking. Hard liquor, a known poison, what could I have been thinking? No more. Wine only from now on. She got out of bed, did the bathroom, shuffled into the kitchen in her gorgeous robe, now a little rumpled and stained, for she spent a good deal more time in it than she had in any previous robe. The great mass of the Sunday Times lay strewn on the big kitchen table. Observing it, she concluded, after a small pause, that it was Sunday and she had missed church. Since the house was empty, she further concluded that her daughter had dressed and fed the boys and led them off to St. Pat's, thus demonstrating
yet again her moral superiority over her mom. They must have walked.
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