Justice Denied

by Robert Tanenbaum

  Not a bad start, Karp thought as he packed up his papers. He walked up the aisle and out of the courtroom, and suddenly there was The Sister, in voluminous black, staring at him. He tried a false smile and started to say something, but she turned away and left the courtroom. He felt unaccountably chilled. For some odd reason, he felt that The Sister was not on his side.

  Harry Bello walked into the Izmir Restaurant from the kitchen, in the slack hour right after lunch, flashing his badge at the astounded and undoubtedly illegal scullions. He found Aziz Nassif, the cousin, punching away at an adding machine in a small storeroom-cum-office behind the main dining area.

  Bello showed his shield. Nassif frowned. He was a stocky, strong-looking man of thirty-odd with a thick head of hair and a brush mustache. He said, “I got the door clear and the sprinkler fixed. What you bothering me again?” He had a guttural accent, quite unlike that of the elegant Mr. Kilic at the United Nations.

  “I’m not from the building department, Mr. Nassif. I’m investigating a murder.” A little bombshell, but there was no dramatic reaction. Nassif paused and asked, “What murder?”

  “Mehmet Ersoy. Sunday, March 13, this year.”

  Nassif looked sorrowful and wagged his head. “I talked already with police. Then.”

  “You knew the victim?”

  “A customer. Very good, come here all the time. Very sad thing.”

  “Yeah. He was here on the morning he was shot, wasn’t he?”

  “Yes. Almost every day have breakfast here.” Nassif nodded vigorously to affirm this information. A young waiter came into the office on an errand. Nassif turned on him, his face contorting briefly, and snapped, “Çek arabaru!” The boy gaped and scuttled out.

  “And where were you when the shooting took place, Mr. Nassif?” Harry continued as if nothing had happened.

  “Where I was? Here. In restaurant.”

  “All morning?”

  “Yes, all. All day.” Harry stared into the man’s face, which remained blank and unrevealing.

  “While you were here with Ersoy in the restaurant, did he say anything to you? Anything that would have suggested he was in danger?”

  “No. Just hello, how are you. Like this. Is just customer.”

  “Uh-huh.” Harry gestured broadly and said, “This is a nice restaurant. You own it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Expensive. East Side, nice neighborhood. Do you mind if I ask what you paid?”

  Nassif opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, and said, “Two hundred thousand.”

  Harry registered surprise. “Whew! That’s a pile. Where’d you get the money? A loan?”

  “I save.”

  “You save. Good. Well, thanks for your help, Mr. Nassif.” He produced a card. “You think of anything else the victim said or did, give me a call.”

  Nassif took the card mutely and looked at it without apparent interest. Harry paused at the door and said, “By the way, did Mr. Ersoy ever mention to you that he was running an art-forging operation?”

  Blankness remained. A mute shrug, a shake of the head.

  “No? Okay, thanks again for your help.”

  Harry went out into the street. It was muggy late August weather. In Bed-Stuy, where he used to work, and around the less desirable addresses in Manhattan, blood would be flowing. Harry didn’t miss it much. He walked across the street and lounged in a shady doorway.

  He wore a shabby gray seersucker suit, a white shirt and black and tan tie, and heavy, rubber-soled black cop shoes. He stayed still for twenty minutes. Harry was good at staying still. Sometimes, off-duty, he would just zone out, perfectly aware of everything but feeling no need to stir, a man literally with nothing to do. In his doorway he was as invisible as a leopard in an acacia tree.

  Here he waited for an hour or so, to see what Nassif would do with the little zinger that he had just received. Nassif did nothing. No panicked race out the door, looking over his shoulder, no hurried arrival of the cousin to consult. Nassif was either innocent or cool, Harry didn’t know which.

  Karp hobbled back to his office from the courtroom, looking forward to a nice cool Coke and a lie-down. As soon as he entered the secretarial bay, however, Connie Trask informed him that he was not about to get it.

  “He wants you,” she said with that upward tilt of the eyes and head that identified the He Who Wanted.

  Karp sagged, let out a breath, dropped his fat folder on Trask’s desk, pivoted on his crutches, and went back out the door.

  After the customary maddening wait in an antechamber, Karp was ushered into the D.A.’s throne room. Bloom was sitting in his special raised chair at the end of the conference table. Next to him sat Conrad Wharton. Karp’s heart sank; this was going to be a crappy administrative matter, something that could have been handled with a phone call. It served to confirm his suspicion that Wharton liked to see him dashing around the building crippled.

  Therefore he was surprised when Bloom, after the usual false pleasantries, asked, “How’s the Weiner trial going?”

  “It just started. Openings and a couple of official witnesses.”

  “But he’ll go down for it, for murder two, this guy, uh …”

  “Russell. Yeah, he’ll go for it.”

  “Yes. It’s an important case. Lots of press on this one. The ‘seven-dollar killer’ they’re calling it. It’d be a disaster if he walked out of there. You’re sure?”

  Karp wondered what this was all about. The D.A. seemed nervous. Wharton had on his usual unreadable plastic-doll smile and a fixed stare. Karp answered, “Well, no jury trial is ever a lock. But we have a good case. And the guy did it.”

  “And you always win murder cases,” said Bloom. “Well, good. I’m happy to hear it. Good work.”

  This statement amazed Karp more than if the district attorney had leaped up on the table and done the dance of the seven veils. He tried to recall the last time Bloom had complimented him, and came up blank. He nodded and murmured an acknowledgment.

  “Well, is that it? Anything else?” said the D.A. breezily. Wharton still hadn’t said anything. Karp wrinkled his brow, confused. It was their meeting.

  Bloom rose to his feet and so did Wharton. Karp heaved himself out of his own chair. Bloom walked him cordially to the door of the conference room, another first.

  “Lucky break on that Tomasian thing, huh?” Bloom said casually. “That’ll nail it down.”

  He meant the jailhouse snitch. Karp was noncommittal. “If it’s legit,” he said. “I haven’t really followed the details since I’ve started this trial. I could get Roland to give you a ring and fill you in.”

  “No, that’s okay,” said the D.A. quickly. “I’m sure it’s in good hands.”

  Karp left, puzzled, as if he had just finished a conversation in a foreign tongue in which he was not quite fluent. I missed something, he thought. What was Wharton doing there? What was Bloom afraid of?

  It was by now past five, and Centre Street was moving into its evening routine. Karp had a list of things to do, prepared by Trask, which, of course, he had not done, having been stuck in court all day. At the top of the list: call Ray G.

  He called, figuring only an even chance of finding Guma in. Guma kept odd hours. Long divorced, he maintained a Queens high-rise apartment that he rarely visited, preferring to crash in the Manhattan apartments of one or another of his many girlfriends. If he didn’t have a court appearance, he was likely to take off early and go to the track or a ball game, or hang out in a bar. On the other hand, when a case struck his interest, he might be found working at midnight.

  He was in. Karp asked what was up, and Guma said, “I’ll come by.”

  “It’s this Joey Castles thing,” said Guma when he had settled himself in one of Karp’s chairs, “I can’t figure it anymore.” Karp was stretched out on his cot with his casted leg elevated. Guma did appear more than usually disheveled. His enormous tie knot was pulled down to the third button, and his thinning, gr
easy curls were awry and flying, witness to many runnings of fingers through them. He had a heavy five o’clock shadow.

  “What’s the problem?”

  “What it is, is they, Joey and Little Sally, they keep talking Turk this, Turk that. So, like I told Marlene the other day—she told you, right?—uh-huh, I figured Minzone was in deep on it. That was the theory. So I think to myself, let’s see what old Turk is up to. Raney checked it out for me.

  “Turns out, for the last three weeks Minzone’s been in Madison Park hospital, getting carved. The Big C. I was fuckin’ amazed—the guy was an ox, you know?”

  “Maybe there’s justice after all.”

  Guma looked pained. “Hey, Minzone whacked some people in his time, but cancer … besides, he’s about my age. I mean, have a heart.”

  “All those guinea stinkers caught up with him. So, if it’s not Minzone, who’s the Turk?”

  “Damned if I know. An out-of-town thing? The point is, they’re getting anxious. Little Sally is. Joey is telling him not to worry, that the whole thing’ll be wrapped up by Thursday next week, Friday the latest. Eddie Scoli is gonna move the stuff, he says—”

  “Scoli the fence? Where’d he come from?”

  “Yeah, see? It’s like that. Look, go back to the beginning. Joey ran the operation lifting stuff from the airports. The Viacchenzas went into business for themselves. Joey didn’t like that, so, we figure, he had the Viacchenzas whacked. We got Jimmy Cavetti for it.

  “Little Sally is real pissed at Joey, but Joey sets up a deal on the side that’ll take some of the pressure off him. Sweeten the pot for the Bollanos. That’s what all this Turk talk is about. Only we don’t know what the deal is. Drugs? A big diamond deal? We don’t know.”

  “If Eddie Scoli’s involved, it could be diamonds,” Karp mused.

  “Yeah, right, but, again, who’s the Turk? I hit the records. I talked to Safe and Loft. In town, outa town, I can’t find any big-time heavy theft guy with that street name.”

  Karp said, “You know, this may sound crazy, but there’s a possibility that they’re talking about an actual citizen of Turkey. That’s why I was curious in the first place when I heard that tape in your office. I got Turks out the ears on this other thing, the U.N. hit.”

  He was silent for a moment, reflecting, running isolated events and discoveries from the past four months through his mind. A pattern, unlikely at first and then increasingly plausible, came into focus, like a photographic image rising out of blankness in a tray of developer. He snapped his fingers and pointed one of them at Guma. “Look, here’s what we need to do. You, me, Roland, Harry Bello, Raney, Marlene, and, um, V.T. need to sit down and talk. I think we’re stepping on each other’s jocks here. Let’s set it up for tomorrow, right after court. And meanwhile, why don’t you have a chat with Jimmy Cavetti?”

  “Jimmy? Why? He won’t say shit.”

  “I don’t mean about the murder,” Karp replied. “Just ask him exactly what it was that the Viacchenzas ripped off.”

  Guma left, and ten minutes later Marlene came in, bearing a large, flat box.

  She said, “You awda a pizza?”

  “Yes,” said Karp. “If that’s the one with pepperoni and mushrooms and a hot girl to squirm on my lap and bite my neck and give me the kinda kisses that I’d die for.”

  Marlene glanced at the ticket taped to the box. “Yeah, check: pepperoni, mushrooms, squirm, bite, kiss. What you want, the pizza foist or afta?”

  “Afta,” said Karp. She sat on his lap and delivered. “Watch your hands, I don’t want to get all runny and gasping,” she said, gasping.

  “Why the hell not?” Karp breathed into the hollow of her neck.

  “Because,” she said, straightening, “I’m a mom. I have to function. I have to tear myself from your embrace, gulp down a cooling pizza, race home, have an Alka-Seltzer, and get the baby fed and ready for bed, not to mention talking to her so she remembers that I’m her mom and not somebody who tears her away from the nice day-care lady.”

  Karp looked at his watch. “Speaking of the kid, where is she? I thought day-care closed up at six.”

  “Harry’s got her. He’s been picking her up the last couple days.”

  “Good for Harry,” said Karp. “He doesn’t mind?”

  “He adores it. It makes him feel temporarily human. And Lucy loves him. It’s the most perfect deal in the City.”

  “Well, she’s for sure the world’s safest baby,” said Karp, opening the pizza box. Marlene brought two cans of soda out of her bag, and they ate.

  “Anything new on the loft?” Karp asked as Marlene lit up one of her rationed cigarettes.

  “Oh, just that we are going to be thrown out on our asses for sure now. Stuart says Lepkowitz has raised the ante. Now it’s a quarter mil. And considering the hit from the surgery and the five grand you blew with Roland—well, hi ho! I could sell my white body on the mean streets …”

  “Who gave you the nickel?”

  “What?”

  “You know, Morris’s business is on the rocks, so he sends his wife out to trick, and she comes back in the morning with fifty dollars and five cents, and he says, ‘Who gave you—?’”

  “Oh, yeah, ‘Everybody!’ Honestly, it’s not a joking matter, Butchie. We could be under the bridges this time next year.”

  “Well, first of all, I haven’t blown my five large yet. The case isn’t over.”

  “No? I thought Roland had a snitch who dropped one on little Tomasian.”

  “Yeah, I thought it was kind of peculiar they got a snitch this late in the game and off a guy like Tomasian.”

  “You thinks it’s a ringer?”

  “Got to be. And no, it wasn’t Roland who set it up. It could’ve been the skell himself, heard some shit on the jailhouse telegraph, figured to cut a deal. I don’t know.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “Same same. Find the real guy.” He told her about what he had learned from Guma and about the brainstormer he had organized for the next day.

  “I’ll be there,” said Marlene, “and another thing—tomorrow’s Friday, and I am not going to spend another weekend by myself.”

  Karp mimed desolation and clunked his cast against the desk.

  She said, “And fuck your cast too! I will find a way; count on it!”

  After Marlene left, Karp saw that she had “forgotten” an almost full pack of Marlboros on his desk. That was part of the reduced-smoking campaign. She left packs of cigarettes behind her wherever she stopped, like the spoor of a deer. Without thinking, he scooped the pack up.

  To his mild surprise, Hosie Russell was waiting for him when he arrived at the staff locker room for his shower. Karp had thought that after their last interview, Russell would avoid him, but there he was, glowering, hesitant, yet exhibiting an expectant attitude. What did he expect? Karp wondered.

  “You bring any cigarettes?” he asked.

  Karp handed him the Marlboros. Russell broke off the filter on one, lit it, and sucked greedily. Karp stripped, took his one-legged stance under the shower, and emerged hopping from the steam, wrapped in a towel. He always tried to keep his cast dry in the shower, but since this was virtually impossible, it had started to become spongy on the outside and to unravel around the toes. The bright messages written on it by his co-workers had run, becoming indecipherable, if decorative, swirls of color.

  “So,” he said when he was seated on the bench, “what’s happening, Hosie? They treating you okay? How’d you like your day in court?”

  Russell said, “That lawyer’s fucked up big-time, man.”

  “Freeland? Why? I thought he did pretty good.”

  “I don’t mean how he did. I mean how he is. Treat me like a dog. A dog fool.”

  “Well, you know, you have the right to ask for another attorney. I mean, it’s your case, not his.”

  “Wouldn’t do no fuckin’ good. Jew lawyers all the same. Fuck ’em all!”

  “Suit yourself,
” said Karp, beginning the difficult process of working the leg of his sweatpants over the lumpy cast.

  Russell said, “You want some help with that?”

  “Sure, if you don’t mind.”

  Russell helped Karp dress. Karp thanked him. Russell sat across the locker room aisle on a bench and smoked. The mumble of the imprisoned and the burble of water pipes blended distantly, a background to their silence.

  Then, out of nowhere, Russell began to talk, disjointedly, in spasms, interrupted by long pauses and the snap of matches as he chain-smoked.

  It was a complaint. He had never had a break. He was the second youngest of seven children, and the only survivor. The others had died, in wars, in jails, of suicide and murder. He had been brought to New York by his parents at the age of four with his younger siblings and raised in Harlem, the glittering Harlem of the thirties and forties.

  Hosie had not participated in the glitter. Someone had dropped a load of bricks on his father. The family had sunk to the lowest echelon of poverty. They were “nigger poor.” He had “scuffled.” He had dropped out of school in the fifth grade and run numbers. He had tried to become a pimp and failed. His first theft was recalled, a purse-snatching. He had been grabbed and pounded by the cops and done juvie time.

  He hung out on the street, doing casual labor, getting fired a lot, sometimes for petty theft, sometimes for drinking. He drank heavily. He got hooked on heroin.

  He became a small-time burglar. No rough stuff, he added; he had never carried a gun.

  He had fathered children with several women, all of whom had betrayed him, abandoned him. A daughter had turned whore. A son had been shot to death in a dope deal. Another daughter had cast him out.

  He was as incompetent at crime as at everything else. He had spent twenty-two years of his forty-odd years behind bars. He had missed the Korean War in prison on a six-year robbery stretch.

  Karp listened quietly, noting that the criminal justice system had had at least one effect on Hosie Russell. It had given him an alternate language to describe his life. His speech was peppered with sociologist’s jargon. He said, “I’m a recurrent alcoholic.” He said, “I got low self-esteem.” The tale had a rehearsed quality, as if he had told it any number of times before, to parole boards, to social workers. He had probably told it to the sister of the woman he had murdered.