Material Witness

by Robert K. Tanenbaum

  “You tell him about the Celtics and Boston Garden?”

  “Hey, I’m worn out talking to the guy,” Nadleman replied. “Like I said, he’s a businessman.”

  They finished their sandwiches and Nadleman called for the check. Karp sensed that he did not want to talk any more about the shortcomings of his team. It was unusual in any case for a coach to have been as frank as Nadleman had been already.

  Still working on a decade-long sports-talk deficit, Karp said, “That Dr. J is a hell of a ball player anyway.”

  “Yeah, pure class,” Nadleman agreed. “But let me tell you: Marion Simmons definitely came out of the same box. You ever see him play?”

  “Not really.”

  “You missed something special. He could fly. He could penetrate. OK, lots of guys nowadays can do that. But he had something else. He had a sense of the game in his head, like I’ve never seen in a young kid. He was everywhere he had to be. He was getting ten, eleven assists a game the week before he died. You ever hear of a forward doing that?”

  “There’s Bradley. And Elgin Baylor.”

  “That’s right. Classic players. But they’re six-five and Marion was six-eleven. Personally, there was no limit to where he could have gone. Remember, this was just his second year in the pros. But the point is, from what we were talking about, the whole team just came together around him. He made stuff happen. What you saw out there tonight—that was a wheel without an axle.”

  “Yeah, I can understand,” said Karp, and then he asked, “Anything new on the investigation?”

  “What investigation?” Nadleman said bitterly. “Everybody’s too busy whining about another brilliant athlete lost to drugs. The cop in charge has got his head up his ass and nobody’ll listen to me.”

  “You sound like you still don’t think Simmons was a doper,” Karp ventured.

  “No fucking way, like I told you on the phone. The kid wouldn’t even take pain pills. I’m not saying my guys never touch the stuff—shit, this is New York and they got plenty of money. I’m not their fucking nanny. The way I figure it, if they show up and play good, the rest is up to them. But not Marion.”

  “How can you be so sure?” Karp asked.

  “Hey, I’m around them, I keep my eyes and ears open. I’ve heard stuff go down, locker room stuff,” Nadleman said darkly.

  Karp caught something in the coach’s voice that decided him against pressing the point. “And Chaney?” he asked instead. “He must be in pretty good with the city. How come he’s not pressing the investigation?”

  Nadleman glanced at Karp quickly and then away, hiding something in his eyes. “Yeah, well, Howard has already written off his investment there. No point in stirring up more trouble. He tends to be, ah, focused on getting his stadium built.”

  Nadleman threw some money on the table and walked out to the parking lot. “I heard you didn’t have much of a day yourself,” he remarked as he opened the car door.

  Karp got in and Nadleman took the driver’s seat and cranked the engine. Karp said, “Yeah, well, it happens. Some days the bear eats you.”

  “You’re sure you did the right thing?”

  “Yeah.” And after a pause, “I don’t know.” Laugh. “I’ll let you know in a week.”

  Nadleman pulled the car out of the restaurant lot. “I’ll drop you off.”

  “You’re sure? I’m in the city.”

  Nadleman looked at him oddly. “This is the city.”

  “No, Bernie, we’re in Queens. In New York ‘the city’ is Manhattan. When you’re in L.A., ‘the city’ means New York.”

  Nadleman the Californian chuckled and headed the car west on Queens Boulevard.

  “So,” said Karp as they drove toward the Queensboro Bridge, “if it wasn’t dope, why was he killed? Any ideas?”

  “Beats the hell out of me,” Nadleman replied. “The kid didn’t have an enemy in the world, far as I know. And why did whoever killed him want to make it look like a dope-business hit?”

  “That’s easy. So we would have the kind of situation you’ve got now. Simmons was carrying heavy weight of prime uncut coke in his car. Heavy weight means serious dealers, which means professional shooters. The cops figure whoever did it is back in Palermo or Colombia by now. Why bother putting a big investigation together? On the other hand …”

  “What?”

  “The investigation is a little too light. One cop, and apparently a rummy. The Queens D.A. doesn’t want to know about it. I made a couple of calls. It smells wrong.” Karp stared out the window at the grimy industrial blackness of Long Island City. “Tell me, how bad do you want to find out what really happened?”

  “Real bad,” said Nadleman vehemently. “It’s not right, a talent like that, a decent kid like that just … wasted. I get dreams about it.” He looked inquisitively at Karp. “You’re not just asking.”

  “No. I’d like to look into it. It can’t hurt, and it might do some good.”

  “But you’re out of the business …”

  “True, but I have a lot of connections. I can still work the system. And the fact that I’m not active with the Manhattan D.A. may not be all bad.”

  “So you’ll really do it? Find out what happened to Marion?” Nadleman’s horse face lit up like a lantern as they crossed the bridge. In his excitement he let the car swerve momentarily out of lane.

  “Yeah, I will,” said Karp. “There’s a little catch, though.”

  “Whatever you need …”

  “OK, I want to be on the team.”

  Nadleman stared at him, and this time the car really swerved, enough to draw an ensemble of angry horns. “You’re not serious.”

  “I’m dead serious. If Simmons wasn’t killed for dope dealing, then it was something else in his life. This wasn’t an anonymous street mugging. Somebody set him up.”

  Nadleman absorbed this as he negotiated the left onto Second Avenue. “But why … ?”

  “There was a secret. He knew something. He had an enemy. He was going to do something that someone wanted to stop. Whatever—the team knows. There aren’t any secrets on a team, as you know.”

  “Except from the coach.”

  “Right. Which is why I have to be on it.”

  Nadleman gave him a long look at a stoplight. “Be honest, Butch,” he said. “Do you really think you’re a plausible professional ball player? How old are you?”

  “I’m exactly the same age as Bill Bradley, who is still playing for the Knicks. I’m six years younger than Bob Cousy was when he played his last game.”

  Nadleman raised a dubious eyebrow. “Um, yeah, but that’s pretty fancy company. And besides, Bradley isn’t starting anymore.”

  “Did I say ‘start’? Look, you got plenty of talent on the team if you use it right. You need a twelfth man, and I could do it. And as far as company goes, check out your Sports Illustrated, February 1963, the college All-American team picture. I’m the guy between Bradley and Cazzie Russell.”

  “That was a long time ago, Butch. And you got a bad knee.”

  “My knee is fine. I’m not going to be mixing it up under the boards in the playoffs. I said twelfth man.”

  “It’s still the pros, Butch. It’s not the same game as college in the sixties.”

  “It’s the same game for the player, Bernie. And with all respect, from what I saw tonight, I can play on your team.”

  Back and forth this way, inconclusively, until Nadleman dropped Karp off on Crosby Street. In overtime, Karp managed to extract from the coach a promise to talk to Howard Chaney about it.

  “You have seven thousand messages,” said Marlene as Karp entered. “The tape is all used up.”

  “Screw the messages.”

  “You should talk to the guys in the bureau. Guma, V.T. and Hrcany all called. They’re worried about you.”

  “They’re worried about their own asses is more like it,” said Karp unfairly, kicking off his sneakers and climbing up the ladder to the sleeping loft.


  “That’s stupid and you know it; they’re your friends. Besides, Bloom will be begging you to come back before long. I was listening to a talk show on the radio. Everybody thinks there’s some kind of big cover-up going down and you got sacrificed.”

  Karp grunted noncommittally. “Who won?” Marlene asked.

  “Sixers, 118-98. Bernie has some serious problems with that team.”

  “So what was so important about this shitty team that you had to run off to see them play on this particular night of all nights?”

  “Well, as a matter of fact, Bernie asked me to look into the Simmons murder.”

  Marlene sat up with a jerk and stared at him. “And … ?”

  “And I said I would, if he’d take me on the team as a player.”

  “A good idea,” said Marlene after a significant pause. “And as soon as I drop this kid I’m going to start getting on some flyweight cards. I think this Espadas guy is overrated and I could be a contender.”

  “Nobody thinks I’m serious when I say I want to play basketball,” said Karp. “Why is this? I’m a good basketball player.”

  “I thought you had to be young to play professional,” said Marlene and regretted it instantly as unkind.

  Karp didn’t seem fazed. “It’s more important to be smart. Anyway, there it is. If Chaney goes for it, I’m going to do it: my life’s ambition, suppressed all these years.”

  “God, you are serious! Can I be a cheerleader? That’s my life’s ambition. Leaping around, assuming I will ever be able to leap around again, waving a what-d’you-call-it.…”

  “A pom-pom.”

  “… a pom-pom, in a tiny white skirt, maddening the crowd with glimpses of plump crescents of creamy buttock.”

  “I like it,” said Karp, running his hand under the blanket and fingering the referenced flesh. “We’ll make a great team in pro athletics.”

  “Speaking of which, what about the murder? You’re going to need some help there too.”

  Karp gave her a look. “Yes, and your end is gestating our baby. That’ll be a big help.”

  “That’s the fucking chauviest thing you’ve ever said, and if that’s the way you really feel you can take your hand out of my crotch.”

  “I don’t really feel that way, I swear,” answered Karp quickly.

  “Seriously, Butch, I’m going bonkers waiting around for the blessed event. If there was a baby to take care of, it’d be different, but as it is …” She brightened with an idea.

  “Look, I could at least make calls, set up appointments—you won’t have any support, especially if you’re spending most of your time running around in your shorts throwing push-ups.”

  “Lay-ups,” said Karp automatically, but he was thinking. Marlene was right. He needed at least somebody to take messages and make calls. The kind of people who were usually helpful in murder investigations were not usually the answering-machine type of caller. Besides, it would keep Marlene at home.

  “OK, you got it,” he said. “An upwardly mobile secretarial position with the world’s only detecting point guard.”

  “Every girl’s dream,” said Marlene, sliding into a fetchingly supine secretarial position. Before she lost herself in sexual heat (especially lubricious when you didn’t know if it would be the last for some time, with the baby and all), her mind flicked past some intriguing thoughts.

  A remarkable chain of events had turned her life upside down. Instead of stretching into a career-centered, bland infinity of petty cases and small administrative advances, it had suddenly become almost picaresque. She found herself having an entirely unplanned baby, married to a semi-famous man who had just walked away from his career, and was now attempting to simultaneously become a professional athlete and solve a major homicide mystery. Which she intended to dive into, with no damn nonsense about taking messages.

  What next?

  “So what’s Butch doing these days?” asked Peter Balducci.

  “Playing basketball. And trying to pull my pants off every minute.”

  Balducci snorted around a mouthful of food, coughed and wiped his mouth, laughing.

  “It’s not funny,” sniffed Marlene, “and ‘why’ is the question since I’m such a whale—”

  “C’mon, you’re a knockout.”

  “You’re a liar. God, this is terrific! I haven’t had cappelletti in years. He never takes me anywhere.”

  The two of them were seated in the cool, oil-redolent basement of Paoletti’s on Grand, a short block from the loft, Marlene scarfing down antipasto and little gobbets of pork and spinach wrapped in pasta, Balducci grinding through a huge plate of ravioli alla genovese. A neighborhood place, nothing fancy, frequented by Little Italy locals, the more respectable strata of SoHo artists, police officers, and a discreet group of mobsters.

  Balducci, a detective in the first year of his retirement, remembered the place from when NYPD headquarters was in the baroque palace down the street on Centre. He was a stocky man in his late fifties with a pleasantly battered face the color of weathered grocery bags, thinning slicked-back dark hair and a liquid glance deep-set in brown pouches. Marlene had saved his life once by shooting the man who had just shot him, and he had appointed himself her uncle. They tried to have lunch every few months.

  “So besides your sex life, everything OK? What is this with basketball?”

  “Oh, he talked the coach of the Hustlers into letting him play a little on the team, if he would look into what happened to Marion Simmons.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “Yeah, that’s what everybody says,” said Marlene, “but there it is. The man is a stone jock. Anyway, he hasn’t had a heart attack, yet.”

  Balducci said, “I never followed basketball. Baseball and football. What about this murder—they don’t have cops working Queens homicides anymore?”

  “Not on this one, apparently. The word is Simmons was dealing serious weight and he got hit for it. The cops figure it was a pro job and aren’t bothering to look very hard.”

  Balducci’s face clouded. “What, if it’s a pro job it doesn’t count anymore? We give discounts?”

  Marlene shrugged. “C’mon, Peter, you know how it is. Besides, there’s no juice in the case. The team and the press just wish it would dry up and blow away. It’s bad for the image of the sport, as they say. So, the cops got some rummy handling the case all by himself, and the coach is the only guy in town that seems interested in finding out what happened. And now Butch.”

  “Some rummy, you said?” asked Balducci reflectively.

  “Yeah, guy named … I can’t remember—Italian—Bellone, Bella … ?

  “Not Harry Bello?”

  “Yeah, that’s the guy. Do you know him?”

  “You could say that. We been neighbors for the last fifteen years. Talk about a damn tragedy!” Balducci shook his head sorrowfully.

  “What happened?”

  “Everything. First his wife, Doris, a real sweet lady, got cancer. Harry started drinking. I mean more than cops usually drink. OK, one day him and his partner, Jim Sturdevant, had to go into this shithole building in Bed-Stuy to talk to a witness and they walk into a burglary. A couple of kids ripping off an apartment. Right away, no warning—bang! Jim takes one through the head. Lights out.

  “Harry goes crazy, tracks down one of the kids and aces him on the spot. A big cloud over the whole thing—did the kid pull a gun on Harry? Was it the same gun that killed Jim, or did Harry use a drop gun? Was Harry in the bag at the time?

  “Anyway, a serious mess. Harry stuck to his story and they never found the other kid, so who knows, right? So they finish the investigation, and Harry winds up transferred out of Bed-Stuy to the farm, the one-oh-five out in Queens, and right after that Doris goes. Harry climbs into the bottle and stays there.”

  Marlene nodded sympathetically. It was a familiar story, although usually it was divorce, not death, that broke the cop. “Was he good?” she asked.

  “Huh!” Bal
ducci snorted. “Top of the line, the best. If Harry was still in gear, you would’ve had the damn killer on a plate last Tuesday.”

  Marlene considered this for a moment and said, “What do you think, Pete, does he have any stuff left at all?”

  Balducci waggled his hand like an airplane caught in a wind shear. “Who knows? He’s a sad case.”

  “We could find out.”

  Balducci gave her a sharp look. “What is this ‘we’? I’m here having lunch.”

  “You’re finished.”

  “I want coffee and something,” said Balducci defensively.

  “OK, but then will you at least call him?”

  “Marlene, what’re you talking here, huh? I’m retired and you’re pregnant.”

  “Peter, if I was retired and you were pregnant, I’d make the call at least.”

  He grinned and chuckled, shaking his head. “You’re a pisser, you know that?”

  She stood up. “More than I would like, as a matter of fact. I got to go to the ladies’. Make the call, Peter.”

  Harry Bello had the day off, as he did most days. He worked nights a lot. He was always available to fill in a swing or graveyard shift for another man, a man who might want to spend some special time with the family. Harry didn’t care when he worked.

  Nobody had been by the house for over a year. After Balducci called, Harry made a halfhearted effort to clear up the worst of the mess. He got the bottles and the glasses and the frozen dinner trays with their plastic forks stuck in ancient grease, and shoved them into the trash. He thought vaguely of running a vacuum and a dust rag around the living room, but he hadn’t gone in there since they took Doris away, after the wake. The sunporch was clean enough. Not that he cared. The doorbell rang.

  The smell was the first thing that hit Marlene, coming in from the crisp air of the street: an undertone of spilled beer and scotch and over it something sharper, the ketone stink that an abused liver blows off through the sweat glands: Eau de Drunk.