Enemy within kac-13

by Robert K. Tanenbaum

  "Lobster for lunch," he said wonderingly when he was finished. "I don't know, Marlene. I don't think I better tell my wife about this. She might think you got designs on me."

  "Oh, your virtue's safe. A couple years ago maybe not, but I'm a reformed old lady now." Marlene sipped from her glass. "Actually, there was one little favor."

  "Oh, ho. See, women take me to two-hundred-dollar lunches at the Palm all the time just to look at my face, so, frankly, this comes as quite a shock." He laughed, which was pleasant to see. "So what can I do for you?"

  "I want to change my password."

  He looked puzzled. "Marlene, that's not worth a hot dog and a Coke. You press the change-password button when you log on and just do it."

  "Yes, but you have to know your old password before you can do that."

  "You forgot your password?"

  "Yes, this is so embarrassing. They sent a memo around the other day that everyone should change their password, and since I'm such a good girl, I did, and I used the little program that generates a random password and changed it, and then something came up, and I forgot to write it down, and when I turned my machine on this morning, it wouldn't let me."

  "Yes, that's how computers make our lives easier. Okay, no problemo-we'll go back to my joint after and fix you up."

  They did. Segovia sat at his chair in his tiny cube, and Marlene stood behind him. Segovia got into the root level of the Osborne system, found Marlene's password, decrypted it, and wrote it on a slip of paper.

  "Tape it to your monitor," he said, handing it over.

  She laughed dutifully and pulled a notebook from her bag. "I'm going to write it down right now in a safe place," she said, and did, and also wrote down the system administrator password he had tapped out several times, which she had read and memorized from over his shoulder.

  She waited until the end of the day and slipped into an unused office and logged in as a system administrator using Segovia's password. It let her into any file in the Osborne system, and she was able to bring up Sirmenkov's phone records, hundreds of neatly ranked, compressed, and encrypted WAV files with the phone numbers they represented, and the time and charges. She selected a subset of these and with a few strokes dumped them all into a Zip disc, added Sirmenkov's decrypt key, logged off, and went back to her office, where she unpacked them, decrypted them, and burned them into a rewritable compact disk. She connected a headset to the machine and brought up a conversation of some length that had occurred in the right time frame. In Russian, of course. He would be talking to Uncle Fred in Minsk, or ordering a fur hat… or doing something extremely naughty. Marlene did not speak Russian, but that, of course, was not going to be a problem.

  She pulled a CD case at random out of the rack next to her computer and saw it was Dire Straits, the Brothers in Arms album, and laughed. She put the CD she had just made into the Dire Straits jewel box, took a bottle of Hennessy out of her bottom drawer, and like a private eye should, poured herself a stiffer hooker and sat in her chair facing the wall that celebrated her sordid career and drank it slowly. In a while, she slipped the album into the CD slot on her machine and put the earphones on and poured herself another, and in time she got to the point where rock-and-roll lyrics seemed to be, more than the gospels and the prophets, a guide to proper living. She thought, after all the violence and double-talk you do the walk, you do the walk of life. When the music stopped, she went to the bathroom, fixed her face, sprayed some Binaca into her mouth, left the building, walked to her hotel, checked out, had the doorman hail her a cab, and headed for home.

  Karp went back to the office after the Jersey expedition and hung around until the building was as deserted as a courthouse ever gets, waiting for Murrow to get back or call, but neither happened. Who called instead was his wife, saying she had come home to his bed and board. A brief call, and unsatisfactory. She sounded drunk, in fact. Karp put that out of his mind, as he was by now so skilled at doing, and continued his paperwork. The homicide bureau was operating fairly well, he thought. The city was now running at a pace of around six-hundred murders a year, of which somewhat less than half were his. A few years back it had been more like twenty-two hundred a year, with three a day in Manhattan. Now the pressure for corrupting plea bargains was a lot less. People who killed people could expect to go away for a reasonably long time, which might deter them from doing it again, or from sinking into crimes the law considered worse, such as selling marijuana. But, oddly enough, he was finding, the prep on the cases before him was no better than it had been when the same staff was working three times as hard. Not as good, even, in some cases. A mystery, one he did not expect to solve.

  He worked swiftly, efficiently, peppering the files with notes, most of them pointed, merciless, finding inconsistencies, omissions, unwarranted assumptions. He was surprised that he could still do this, on autopilot almost. He could still penetrate through the fog of semiliterate police reports, technical gibberish, precedents, motions, testimony, lies and veracities, to a place where the truth lay plain. Or rather its predicate; the jury would, if the prosecutor didn't mess up, transubstantiate this tangled mess into truth, or legal truth at least, not necessarily the same thing.

  Karp became aware that it had grown dark outside. It was 7:38 by his watch. He began stuffing files into the worn cardboard envelope he used as a briefcase, then stopped. Why bother? He was tired. The thought of lying in bed next to Marlene and working on cases, as they had on so many nights, she beside him reading a magazine, or a novel, companionable… no, he wasn't ready for that yet. Leave the office in the office. Yet it was hard, he found, surprisingly hard, to leave the place naked of legal impedimenta. Nothing to hide behind. He laughed at himself. Workaholic, not just a figure of speech, a joke. He actually felt lightheaded in the elevator; withdrawal symptoms.

  The evening air was mild, damp, smelling of concrete and buses. The courthouse district was nearly deserted at this time of day, except of the homeless, moving into the vacated public spaces, the broad plazas, the architectural nooks, even here a few streets from the center of police presence. He heard a bottle smashed, a yell, and walked on, north on Centre, past the new high jail, with the Best Health Deli and the Nha Hang Pho noodle restaurant conveniently built into its street-level floor (message: we're part of the economy, too), and across Canal, where the air changed, becoming warmer and spiced with the indefinable melange of Chinatown. Here it was not deserted, not at all; the crowds were still out shopping, looking for action; in the many lofts above, the indentured needlewomen of Fujian were just getting their second wind, moving into double-digit hours. As Karp jaywalked and reached the north side of the broad thoroughfare, the crowd parted for a young oriental woman in pigtails and a padded jacket and loose trousers, calling, "Kissamee, kissamee," as she shoved a heavy canvas cart full of cut cloth. The crowd tittered knowingly; yet another just off the boat, excuse me her only phrase of English, and mispronounced.

  Karp crossed Lafayette onto Howard and left the crowd behind. Crosby Street was dark and nearly deserted as he approached the entrance to the loft. A man was leaning against a dark sedan, and as Karp passed, the man said, "Hey, Karp!"

  Karp turned and was not entirely surprised to be looking into the belligerent face of Brendan Cooley.

  "You know who I am?"

  "Yeah, you're Brendan Cooley." Karp extended his hand.

  Cooley ignored it. "I want you to lay off my family. That's out of line. You got something to say to me, you come see me."

  "Your ex-wife wanted to see me. I went out to her home with her cousin, Ray Guma."

  "That's bullshit, and you know it. And I'm gonna have a little talk with Uncle Ray, too. The pair of you were out pumping her."

  "And what were we pumping her about, Detective?"

  "The fuck I know! You got some bug in your head that I'm dirty or something. You're going around talking to people, making these suggestions… I don't know where you get this shit… I'm the bum slasher? W
hy not the Boston Strangler? Maybe you think I got Jimmy Hoffa, too."

  "You know what it's about, Detective," said Karp softly, but Cooley didn't seem to hear him.

  "I don't understand, what is it? My dog pissed on your car?"

  "Lomax."

  "Lomax? Lomax? I went through a fucking grand jury on Lomax. Your fucking grand jury, as a matter of fact. I was cleared. It was a good shooting, end of story. So what is this shit about the slasher? Why am I singled out for special persecution, huh? Answer me that!"

  Karp looked at the detective. He was dressed in plain clothes, anticrime clothes, a flannel shirt (to hide the pistol) over a faded red T-shirt, blue jeans, and tan leather work boots. He looked like a typical New York artisan, which was the point. He was angry, with what seemed like righteous anger, which Karp thought was as well thought-out and authentic as his construction-guy costume.

  "I live just up there," said Karp, pointing. "You could come in and we could talk about it."

  "I know where you fucking live, man. And there's nothing to talk about, except you telling me you're gonna leave me alone, me and my family, especially my family."

  Cooley took a step closer to Karp and waved a finger in his face, like a gun. The thought briefly crossed Karp's mind that if Cooley had really done what Karp thought he had, then the policeman was crazy and might kill him right here, in front of his home. Then he dismissed that thought. Cooley's anger did not look like crazy anger, but the controlled kind, a standard policeman's tool, and then another, perhaps more disturbing, thought arose: What if Karp was wrong? No one had anything but nice to say about Brendan Cooley, so where did Karp get off playing Javert to his Jean Valjean?

  "Okay, Detective Cooley," Karp said in as mollifying a tone as he could manage, "I will never disturb your family again. I'm sorry my visit to Connie upset you so much."

  Cooley glared at him, but still the set of his jaw relaxed slightly, and his face showed confusion, then a hint of suspicion. "You fucking better not. And what about the rest of this horseshit?"

  "Lomax? Well, that's a different story, isn't it? I know you knew Lomax, and I know why you went after him that night. I know about Firmo and the stolen watches, and how Lomax screwed up your operation. I know you pursued him and shot him to death, shot him from your car, and finished him off with a shot through the passenger-side window. It was an assassination, Detective."

  Cooley stared at him. His face lost its angry red and went the color of white jade under the sodium lights. "It was self-defense," he said, and choked. "It was self-defense. I was cleared, for chrissake!"

  "Yes, and I'm going to unclear you."

  "You can't prove shit!"

  "Yes, I know. I'm working on that."

  Karp walked away and went up the five flights instead of taking the elevator because he wanted some exercise to burn the adrenaline out of his system before, as he expected, getting another jolt from whatever Marlene was cooking up.

  Cooking up indeed-a sweetish odor with a burnt undertone filled the loft; he headed for the kitchen, where he found his sons roasting sweet peppers over the gas stove. The mighty Vulcan was turned up all the way, and six-inch blue flames shot close to the intent, small faces.

  "Hi, Dad," chirped Giancarlo, "we're charring peppers."

  "I burned my hand," said Zak, exhibiting a tiny blister.

  "Uh-huh, that's nice," said Karp distractedly, turning the flames down. "Where's Mom?"

  "In the bedroom," said Zak. "Lucy's coming home, too. Mom said."

  "Isn't that great, Dad?" exclaimed Zak's brother. "We're all home together!"

  In the bedroom Karp found his wife lying prone on the bed amid a litter of unpacking-gaping bags, scattered hangers, open closets and drawers-with a folded, wet washcloth across her eyes. And the smell of brandy, sweet and dense.

  "Have they burned the house down yet?" she asked weakly.

  "Not yet. How are you feeling?"

  "Horrible, like I had a rusty railroad spike through my temples. And please don't look at me like that. I can't stand it."

  "How do you know how I'm looking at you? You have a compress over your eyes."

  "It doesn't matter. I know you're looking at me with disapproval tinged with horror."

  Karp did, in fact, have a look of this sort on his face, and he felt ashamed. He sat down on the side of the bed and took her hand. "What're we going to do, babe? You can't do this to yourself."

  "I know, I know," she groaned. "I thought I could be a working drunk, but the body won't take it. Wrong genes. I'm starting to feel sick all the time; I want a drink right now, but I know if I do, I'll upchuck. I'm a failure as a wife, as a mother, as a security guard, as a millionaire, and now as an alcoholic."

  "Marlene, I believe that is the single stupidest thing you ever said, and that's a tough league."

  "Yes, but you have to say that."

  "This is ridiculous, Marlene. You're not a failure, you're a success. I love you, your kids love you, your staff loves you, you have to fight the clients off, you're rich as God… tell me, what is the problem?"

  "None of that is true. My daughter hates me."

  "Oh, horseshit! She worships you. I hear she's coming home."

  "Yes. According to Tran, she finished a whole term's work in three weeks, all the papers, and she's prepped to retake her exams. They'll be here later tonight."

  "Well, great," said Karp without much enthusiasm. "But I still don't understand why she'll work for him and not for us."

  "Yeah, it puzzled the hell out of Lyndon Johnson, too." She lifted the washcloth to expose her real eye. "Look, Butchie: this is not forever, okay? I sort of see the light at the end of the tunnel, speaking of LBJ. I got to do some things, and then I think it'll be all right. It'll be different, but all right."

  "I don't understand."

  "My company is corrupt. I have to get out of it, and I'm trying to figure out how."

  "You want to give me the details?"

  "Not right now. It's not a DA thing anyway; maybe SEC, but I'm not interested in whistle-blowing, just getting out." She paused and studied his face. "You look terrible! What have you been doing to yourself?"

  "Oh, just fucking up right and left," said Karp bitterly. "We're a pair. Look, Marlene-I need your help."

  "My… help? As in wifely support or something professional?" She sat up in the bed and removed the compress.

  He took a deep breath. "I can't believe I'm saying this. Basically, I'm in a position where I can't use the official investigation apparatus. I need to find out stuff neither my own organization nor the police want found out. I could go public with it, get the feds or the state involved, but for a lot of reasons I don't want to do that. So I need the resources of a private army."

  "This is the Marshak thing, right?"

  "Yeah, and the Lomax shooting." And he gave her a quick briefing on the two cases. And as he talked, he felt a lightness flow into him, into his body and his head. It was almost like being a little drunk himself. Marlene was leaning forward now, shooting questions at him, intelligent questions. Her face had on it an expression he had not seen in some time. It was very much like real life again; not euphoria exactly, but a lessening of the dysphoria he had become used to, like the impact of daylight on a prisoner long in the dungeons.

  "I see the problem," said Marlene. "You need to find Canman before the cops do, one, and you need to find some way of turning this Ralphie character. You're sure he's lying about what went down in the garage?"

  "I'm not sure of anything, but it's a good bet. I need him watched, though. I need to get inside his head."

  "Will Clay help with that end?"

  "I think so. I think he'll help with Cooley if I can drop the whole package into his hands. He just won't conspire with me, not on this one."

  "Some pal!" She studied his face. "Poor Butch! You hate this kind of shit, don't you?"

  "I despise it. I'm like Giancarlo. I love it when things are regular. But you, of course, a
re a different kettle of fish."

  "I am. Unfortunately, things being how they are at Osborne, I can't use my troops there. It'll have to be amateur hour, with a little apparat, as Oleg would say, running things. Let's see, who do we know who has a large body of tough guys with no discernible morals on call…?"

  "Not him," said Karp.

  Marlene shrugged. "Okay, but then I'll have to think about it for a little while." She leaned back on the pillow. "In the interim, I haven't had a big messy kiss from my husband since 1987, so it feels."

  "But from others, many?"

  "Don't be legalistic," she said, holding out her arms, and he fell into them with relief. She tasted of brandy, like an expensive, warm dessert.

  Then from the direction of the kitchen came a shrill cry, a crash, a howl. They were off the bed in an instant, colliding in the doorway, Marlene scooting ahead, her thoughts full of little boys flaming like torches and the presagement of real, rather than neurotic, unbearable guilt.

  "Sweetie ate my pepper," Giancarlo wailed. Zak, the semisadist, was giggling. The mastiff was pawing at his mouth and making horrible groaning sounds. The two skilled investigators had little trouble reconstructing the events: the pepper, roasted a shade too long, had dropped off its fork, and the dog, trained from puppyhood to respond to the plop of dropped food, had raced over and sucked up an object with the core temperature of a thermite bomb.

  Thereafter was peace restored, comfort tendered, cruelty chastised, the weeping hound treated with ice cubes and kisses, dinner whipped together and served, the boys cossetted into their beds by Mom for an unusually long time, it seemed, but not begrudged by Mom at all. Marlene came back to find Karp sitting on the costly couch idly thumbing through the television guide. The immense, expensive television was dark. She sat on his lap and kissed him. He noted the taste change-sausages, peppers, coffee. Not as exotic, but more delicious, haimish, his favorite flavor.