“No, they don’t tell me anything either,” said Karp. “I never hear the gossip.”
“Nobody tells you gossip because you can keep a secret,” said Marlene. “People come into your office and swear you to secrecy and tell you some juicy stuff, and then what do you do? You don’t tell anybody! Of course they stop telling you—you never tell them anything. You’re out of the grapevine, Butchie.”
“Luckily, I have you to inform me,” said Karp.
“Yes,” said Marlene, “I blab. I’m so deep in the grapevine I’m covered with sticky purple juice.”
“So who is it?” asked Ashakian.
Marlene threw down a healthy gulp of her drink. “I’m not gonna tell, since I’ve been sworn to secrecy. It’s Milton Freeland.”
Blank stares from both. “Freeland. From Sussex County Legal Services. Apparently a hotshot, hard-charger, good political connections.”
“I wish I was impressed,” said Karp. “I never heard of the guy. I was expecting a promotion—one of Tom’s people.”
“Go figure,” said Marlene, “and speaking of blabbing, I was just telling Paul about your doubts on Tomasian.”
Karp’s face crinkled in disbelief. He glared at her and said in a strained voice, “It’s not my case, Marlene.”
She ignored the tone and said, “Paul doesn’t care about the legal details. It’s the Armenian connection.”
“I don’t understand,” said Karp.
Ashakian was more than willing to dispel his ignorance. “That’s the whole point. The Armenian community is really bent out of shape about this. I was at a meeting the other night at the Tomasians’ house He put both hands to his plump cheeks and shook his head. “You would’ve thought the Turks were beating down the doors. Pandemonium. It was like, years of paranoia were sitting there, just waiting for something to spring it, and this was it.”
“Paranoia?”
“Yeah, about the Turks,” said Ashakian, and then seeing the incomprehension on Karp’s face, sighed, as if he had explained something far too often, and continued, “Turks and Armenians? Cowboys and Indians? Nazis and Jews? The Turks killed a million and a half Armenians between 1915 and 1920, including one of my grandparents.”
“And they’re still doing it? Killing them, I mean.” Karp considered himself something of a connoisseur of murder, both mass and individual, and he was vaguely aware of having heard something about the subject the young man had opened, but he was blank on the details. Nor could he understand what it had to do with the case at hand.
“No, they’re not. They got them all, or they ran. Some were rescued by Europeans after the first war, some went to Soviet Armenia.”
“I don’t get it, then. What’s the point of the terrorism? Or are you saying there aren’t any Armenian terrorists?”
“Oh, there are Armenian terrorists, all right,” said Ashakian grimly. “The point is that the Turks won’t admit it ever happened. There wasn’t any genocide, according to them. They won’t acknowledge it, won’t pay reparations to survivors, nothing, zip.”
‘That’s impossible,” said Karp. “It’s like those nuts that claim Auschwitz never happened. Hell, the physical evidence—”
“No, it’s not the same. Thousands of witnesses saw the Nazi camps. The camps were captured while they were still in operation. It was obvious what was going on, and the Germans kept good records. But the Turks didn’t do it that way. They drafted the young Armenian men and massacred them in their barracks. They drove the rest of the population out into the countryside and marched them to nowhere until they all died of starvation and disease. Women and children! Babies tossed into ditches!
“No photographs, of course. Shit, there were probably about twelve cameras in Turkey in 1915. No records either. The only witnesses were German civilians, and the German government didn’t do anything about it while it was going on because the Turks were their allies. After the war, all they had was oral testimony from survivors, Armenians. Suspect, obviously.”
“I can see where it could be hard to believe,” said Karp judiciously. Ashakian’s face had flushed as he warmed to the subject, and a glint of fanaticism had appeared in his eye. Karp looked at Marlene for conversational support, but she was obviously enjoying the lecture and was not averse to seeing Karp discomfited. He had endured any number of lectures on the Holocaust from childhood onward, often with a we-Jews-have-to-stick-together-or-else subtext from people looking for emotional or substantive favors. He was holocausted out, in fact, as Ashakian clearly was not.
As if reading his mind, Ashakian turned to the familiar theme. “Look, imagine World War Two had lasted, say, another three years. It could’ve, easy. The Nazis would’ve been able to kill all the Jews they had. Then they tear down the death camps and pave them over, build parks or housing on top, get rid of all the shoes, the hair, and whatnot. They burn the records. Then, after the war, if anybody asks, they say, ‘Jews? What Jews? They left. They’re in Russia, China, who knows? Have another beer. Witnesses? It’s hearsay, exaggeration. Besides, how can you trust Jewish testimony? It’s self-interested. They were on top and we kicked them out, and now they’re whining about a massacre.’ That’s exactly what happened in Turkey. You know what the Turks say? ‘Trust a snake before a Jew, and a Jew before a Greek, but never trust an Armenian.’”
The three of them were silent for a long moment, thinking about this. Then Karp said, “Okay, back to the present. What’s the tie-in with the Tomasian case?”
“The tie-in is somebody whacked Ersoy and they’re framing Aram for it. Aram is an Armenian nationalist. Who has a hard-on for Armenian nationalists?” He laughed bitterly. “Who the hell even knows what an Armenian nationalist is?”
“You like the Turks for it? You think Ersoy’s own guys did it and set up the frame?”
“Who else?”
“Another Armenian nationalist,” suggested Karp mildly. “Or anybody who knew what you just told me.”
“That’s bullshit!” Ashakian cried, loud enough to draw stares from other drinkers. Then he remembered to whom he was speaking: one of the more powerful figures of the New York criminal bar and, not incidentally, a man twice his size. He flushed and mumbled something apologetic and added, “It couldn’t happen. I mean, Armenians are a very close-knit community.”
“So are the Italians,” said Karp with a dirty look at Marlene. “They don’t have much problem whacking each other.”
She stuck out her tongue at him briefly and said, “Don’t change the subject, dear. The question is, what are you going to do about it?”
“I told you, Marlene, it’s not my case, and I don’t want to talk about it.” As he said this, he bore in his mind, as a griping burden, the knowledge about Mehmet Ersoy’s safety-deposit box, grudgingly related by Hrcany the day before. The presence of the money meant that the odds against the murder being a simple terrorist act had gone way up. There were documents in the box as well, which were now up at Columbia being translated from Turkish. Karp was not inclined to reveal these discoveries as gossip at a party.
Ashakian looked disappointed. Karp could see the respect dying in his eyes. Why did these young lawyers expect you to pursue justice? After a few minutes more of bland conversation, Ashakian made an excuse and left Karp and Marlene together at the bar.
“That wasn’t very smart, Marlene.”
She finished her wine cooler and signaled the bartender for a refill. “No, it wasn’t,” she replied, “but I’m off duty. I don’t have to be smart. He’s a nice kid and he’s worried. I thought it would perk him up to talk to you about it, since you also don’t like the Armenian for it. I was wrong: sue me!”
Karp gave Marlene a long, appraising look. Her heavy, straight brows were lowering, and her exquisite jawline had assumed a cleaver-like sharpness. She’d obviously had a few and was moving inexorably toward righteous belligerence. It was not beyond her to go into a screaming scene in front of the entire New York County criminal justice establishme
nt. Karp decided to forestall this possibility with a judicious retreat. He groaned and flexed his bad knee.
“Listen, I’m wiped out. I need to split.”
“But the party’s just getting going,” protested Marlene.
“Me, not us. You stay, have a good time. You need a break anyway. I’m going to schmooze for two minutes with Pagano and then head for home. I’ll relieve Belinda, be a daddy for a couple of hours.”
Marlene didn’t bother to protest; in fact, she beamed and laid a serious kiss on Karp, in front of judges and everybody, a kiss that was as good as Demerol for his aching body.
He rolled off unsteadily through the throng, and found Tom Pagano sitting at a drink-laden table, surrounded by well-wishers and cronies from Legal Aid. Pagano smiled broadly as Karp approached and waved him over. “Butch Karp! Here he is, guys, the Prince of Darkness. Sit down, have a drink!” The happy hubbub seemed to diminish slightly as Karp slid gratefully into a chair. Somebody put a full bottle of Schlitz into his hand.
Although the lawyers who faced one another every day in the criminal courts pretended to a genial collegiality out of court, it was an inescapable fact that the adversarial system was well named. Winning and losing was part of the game, but Karp won a little too often; in fact, in over ten years he had never lost in a homicide trial. Among the public defenders sitting around the table there was not one whom Karp had not trounced in court.
No, there was at least one. Karp felt eyes on him, and he turned to confront the intense gaze of a stranger. Who extended his hand across the table and said, “I’m Milt Freeland.”
Karp took the proffered hand. “Tom’s replacement, right? Glad to meet you.”
“You have good sources of information: it’s not even official yet. Of course, no one could replace Tom,” said Freeland in a tone that implied that not only could Tom Pagano be replaced, but that it was about time. Freeland was in his late thirties, a thin, small man with a large nose, black horn-rims, and an aureole of reddish hair around a balding dome. He was wearing a too-tight baby-shit-colored three-piece suit and a dark red tie with little gold justice scales embroidered on it.
Karp said flatly, “No, no one could.”
Pagano was looking down the table at the two men. He shouted out, “Hey, Freeland, that’s the guy to beat.”
“I intend to,” said Freeland quietly. Karp nodded politely at this and stood up. He tapped on a glass with a swizzle stick and raised his beer.
“I’d like to propose a toast. To Tom Pagano, a great lawyer and a great guy—a man who could defend scumbags year in and year out without ever becoming a scumbag himself—well, hardly ever—the guy who, next to Francis Garrahy, taught me more about trial work than anyone else, and doesn’t he regret it! Best of luck, Tom!”
Tom Pagano laughed, the table applauded, and after a few minutes spent in the usual raillery, Karp was able to slip away.
Marlene felt a touch on her upper arm and turned to look into a pair of familiar swimming-pool-colored eyes.
“Raney! What are you doing here?”
“A little security detail. Lots of important people wandering around drunk.”
“Yeah, it would be a tragedy if anything happened,” said Marlene. “Somebody tossed a bomb in here, it’d set criminal justice back four days. Well, it’s been months! You’re looking spiffy. That’s quite a suit.”
Jim Raney was a detective with the NYPD, with whom Marlene had a history going back several years. The suit—a double-breasted number in a very pale tan—did look good on his slim figure. He grinned and pirouetted. “You like it? I got a deal.”
“From whom? Roscoe’s Fashions for the Heavily Armed?”
“I wore it for you, Marlene,” he said, rolling his eyes and batting his eyelashes, and placing a warm hand on her knee. He had them to bat, thought Marlene. Raney had never made a secret of his attraction to her, but hers to him was something she preferred not to think about. Those wild Irish boys! Their milky skin, their big blues, their golden hair, their crazy-making attitude toward women! Which was why, although ever on the cusp of falling for Peter Pan, Marlene had married Captain Hook.
She laughed and patted the erring hand. “Wanna dance, Raney?”
There was a three-piece combo playing tunes derived from the youth of Tom Pagano and his contemporaries. Later, when drunkenness was more general, they would play Italian kitsch—“Way, Marie!”, “Hey, Comparé,” “Come-onna-my-house”—and wizened judges would sway to the music and shout the words, whether they were Italian or not.
Raney and Marlene danced to “Dancing in the Dark.” He was a good dancer, and she liked to dance more than she usually got to, married to Karp. He held her tightly, and his right hand slipped lower than its official position at her waist.
“So what’s new, Raney? Any hot cases?”
“I passed the sergeants’ exam.”
“You did? Good for you. Does that mean a transfer?”
“Yeah, they got me slated to move into the Nine next month. They want me to finish up on this airport task force first.”
“How’s that going?”
“Umm, not all that great. The usual wise-guy horseshit. A couple of guys that’ve been boosting stuff from air freight for years got themselves whacked outside a bar on Ninth Avenue. We got the guy, or anyway, a guy who’ll go down for it. Besides that, domestics and drug shit. The usual. How about yourself? They still raping them pretty good?”
The hand was now gently cupping her right buttock. She did not object, because she had just thought of something she wanted from Raney, whore that she was.
“Jim, there’s something I’m interested in—in the Nine.”
“Oh?” It was not an encouraging noise.
“Yeah, a Jane Doe, took a header off a building in Alphabet City. Camano’s handling it as a suicide, a pross. I think it could be a murder, maybe a weirdo.”
Raney’s manner changed instantly from genial to chill. “What does the M.E. say?”
“Undetermined pending further investigation. But the woman was raped. She had teeth marks all over her.”
Raney shrugged and relaxed slightly the intensity of his clutch. The music changed to “Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White,” but he didn’t feel like a chacha. He said, “It takes all kinds, Marlene. Why don’t we just wait for the further investigation?”
“Ah, shit, Raney! You know there won’t be further investigation. Not if they got it pegged as a suicide. Not if there isn’t a family making waves. All I’m asking is, just give it a shot. Just look into it.” She smiled fetchingly and tweaked his tie. “Come on. For little me?”
Raney grinned at her. “Marlene, darling. You know I love you, but … let me say that if you were offering me a lot more than a cheap feel on the dance floor, a lot more, the absolute last thing I am gonna do is to stick my nose in another cop’s investigation, especially in a precinct where I’m not even in there yet, and where I’m gonna have to move into a command slot. No way, baby.”
“Oh, crap, you’re just like my husband,” she cried. “Okay, just forget it. I want another drink.”
When Marlene arrived home two hours later, she was at that stage of drunkenness when the jolly effects of inebriation have begun to thin out, and the brain and body are about to take their revenge for having been flooded with a deadly poison. At this point one can drink more until oblivion arrives, staving off the reckoning until the morrow, or stop drinking and tough it out. Marlene had chosen the latter course, not wanting to render herself comatose in the midst of a pack of drunken lawyers, or in proximity to (the quite sober) Detective Raney.
Raney got her home in his beat-up Ghia. His behavior was beyond reproach, limited to a peck on the cheek at parting and a comradely pat on the thigh.
She could hear the wails from the first floor. Little Lucy was having one of her evenings. Entering the loft, she found Karp stumping to and fro like Captain Ahab, looking gray, holding the red-faced, squalling infant and patting h
er back despairingly.
Marlene threw down her coat and snatched her daughter. “I fed her,” said Karp. “I changed her. I fed her again. She wouldn’t calm down.”
Marlene sat in the bentwood rocker. “Did you sing and rock?”
“Of course,” said Karp indignantly. “It didn’t work. She’s been crying for hours. She’s not sick, is she?”
“No. What did you sing?”
“I don’t know—what does it matter? Rock-a-bye baby, nursery rhymes, the usual.”
“That’s the problem,” said Marlene and began to rock and sing:
Chistu voli pani,
Chistu dici: ’Un cci nn’e,
Chistu dici: Va ’rrobba,
Chistu dici: ’Un sacciu la via,
Chistu dici: Vicchiazzu, vicchiazzu,
camina cu mia!
Ten minutes of this and the child was out cold. Marlene put her in her crib and returned to the kitchen, where she ate four aspirin and a glass of tomato juice. Then she collapsed on the red couch next to Karp.
“Thank God,” he said. “I was going nuts. How did you do that?”
“Oh, sometimes a girl needs her momma. And sometimes her Sicilian genes need a special treatment.”
“That song? What does it mean?”
“Um, something like: I’m hungry, I want bread. There isn’t any. Then go and steal some. I don’t know how. Come with me, old man, and I’ll show you.”
“Very nice, Marlene. When she starts muscling the other kindergarten kids for milk money, we’ll know why. I’m writing to Mr. Rogers about this.”
“Please, my head is coming apart. Speaking of crime future, I think I’m going to put Harry Bello on this Avenue A thing when he comes over.”
“The jumper? I thought the M.E. didn’t rule on that.”
“Not on the homicide, no, but the rape part—I don’t like it. It has all the marks of a particularly nasty sex crime—the bites, the sexual bruising. It looks like the kind of thing where if he’s done it before, he’ll do it again. And once, just once, I’d like to nail a serial weirdo before he gets going on the series. I’m telling you about it now because just in case we come up with evidence that it’s a homicide, and we find a guy, I don’t want it to get lost.”
Justice Denied Page 8