Material Witness

by Robert K. Tanenbaum

  “Very fancy,” said Karp, “and also he’s got you checking to see whether she’d ever been arrested.”

  “Right, and I will.”

  “No, I will. You look wasted. I noticed it when you walked in. I don’t like you running around Queens this close to delivery. And, as I recall, you were supposed to stick by the phone on this deal.”

  “I’m OK,” Marlene bristled.

  Karp patted her shoulder and looked her in the face, his expression grave. They were seated together on the red couch. “Yeah, you’re always OK,” he said. “You eat dynamite. You shoot bad guys in the head. Soon you’re gonna have a baby in a cab on Linden Boulevard in the middle of rush hour. No, don’t argue, let me finish.

  “Like I told you before, I know you’re gonna do what you’re gonna do; I accept that. But let me just appeal to your rationality. One, in re: checking out the sister’s situation, I will get more out of the Queens D.A. than you will. That’s a fact; it’s unfair and un-woman’s liberated, but there it is and you know it’s true.

  “Two, I’m going to have to travel with the team starting in two days. I may be picking up important stuff. Peter’ll be working the street, checking up on Bello or whatever. There’s no way we can coordinate things except through you, which means you have to stay put. Does that make sense?”

  A long sigh emerged from Marlene, and she slumped more comfortably into the crook of his arm. She couldn’t argue. He was right. The day had given her shooting pains up her thighs and back, and the fact that she had to urinate every five minutes or so put a serious dent in her investigative zeal.

  “Whatever you say,” she said wearily. “Christ on a crutch! Defeated by biology—who would’ve thought it? OK, no more running around until the baby comes. Knitting booties. Cooking nutritious and satisfying meals for my jockoid hubby. A full life.”

  “Sounds good to me. And you left out terrific, soul-scorching sex every single night without exception.”

  “In your dreams,” she said. “I’m surprised you have any energy running up and down the floor all night to no good purpose. By the way, John and Peggy were at Mom’s for dinner, and he said he watched the Nets game on TV and spotted you on the bench. He was so jealous he could hardly eat.”

  “Yeah, at least it was a good seat for the game.”

  “Will you ever get to really play?”

  “Oh, sure,” Karp said with a sour laugh, “if a meteorite came down through the roof and squashed the five starters, I might have a chance to play.” He shrugged. “Meanwhile, leave us not forget the point of this exercise, which was to find out who killed Marion Simmons, which is not a game.”

  The following morning, Karp dressed in his lawyer outfit for a meeting with the Queens A.D.A. in charge of the Simmons case, Jerry Thelmann. He had had no difficulty getting the appointment. The secretary had recognized his name.

  Thelmann proved to be a stocky man, perhaps half a dozen years younger and ten inches shorter than Karp, with thick, prematurely graying hair, heavy black hornrimmed glasses, and an expression that tended toward the pugnacious. He wore red suspenders.

  He greeted Karp cordially, reaching over his desk to administer a handshake perhaps a trifle too firm. Short perhaps, but no one to be fucked over, was the clear message.

  Karp announced his purpose frankly: he was on leave from the New York County D.A., but a friend, the coach of the Hustlers, had asked him to look into the murder of his star player. He described Marlene’s observations at the Simmons home and suggested that Leona Simmons might be an interesting lead.

  Thelmann nodded. “We know her. We’re on top of that already,” he said confidently.

  “She’s got a sheet?”

  Thelmann waved his hand dismissively. “Petty shit. Boosting. A couple of lightweight possession charges. Typical rich junkie.”

  “Who’d she buy from?”

  The same gesture. “Street guys, locals. Nobody who could even touch the weight Simmons was carrying.”

  “So you don’t think that she was involved in any way with her brother’s murder?”

  “I didn’t say that. We’re working the connections.”

  “I see,” said Karp. “And who’s this ‘we’? I thought that Harry Bello was handling the investigation on his own.”

  This brought a snorting laugh out of Thelmann. “Hey, give me a break, all right? Bello can barely find his car keys.”

  “There’s another investigation?”

  “In a way. The Simmons murder is, uh, associated with a complex and highly sensitive multi-borough narcotics investigation.”

  “Conducted by … ?”

  “Conducted by a task force under the direct supervision of Mr. D’Amalia.” Having mentioned the sacred name of his boss, the Queens D.A., Thelmann took a deep breath and looked uncomfortably around his office, his eyes falling on a variety of interesting objects before returning to Karp.

  He continued, “Look, Mr. Karp, don’t think I’m trying to be uncooperative, but this is locked up tighter than Murphy’s asshole. It’s my own white butt if it gets out. I mean, I respect your rep and all, but …” He gave a helpless shrug.

  Karp said, “I understand.”

  Encouraged, Thelmann went on, “And look: I appreciate what you’re trying to do for Nadleman, but this is really at a delicate stage. I’m not saying you would necessarily screw it up …”

  “But you want me to lay off?”

  Thelmann smiled in relief. “It’d be the smart move. Look, I’d like to talk with you more, but I got a lunch at noon.”

  Karp rose. “Yeah. Hey, I appreciate it. It’s a lot clearer now.”

  “A pleasure,” said Thelmann and gave Karp another manly shake.

  In times past, Karp might have been fuming at this point, for there was nothing that irritated him more than seeming a fool in areas where he considered himself a master. But he had relaxed enough to enjoy the role of clown: a fuck-up at the New York D.A., the goat on the team, and now a bumbling amateur about to mess up someone else’s carefully constructed case. The beauty part was that it would keep Marlene on ice indefinitely. He couldn’t wait to tell her.

  As he emerged from the Criminal Courts Building, he spotted a line of blocky off-white vehicles purveying food to the lunchtime masses. The day was clear, and mild for late fall, with high veil-like clouds and chunks of unfamiliar blue sky sitting above the bare trees of Forest Hills. Karp headed for a cancer wagon and purchased a sausage, onion and green pepper hero with a bottle of Yoo-Hoo to wash it down. He found a sunny bench and sat down to eat and watch the crowds. Not one of them, he thought with real pleasure, represented a case he was responsible for, not one of them wanted a deal.

  One of the crowd was, however, a familiar face. Jerry Thelmann was hurrying down the steps of the courthouse like Bojangles, glancing up and down the boulevard as if trying to spot a friend. He waited on the pavement not twenty feet from where Karp sat. A minute or so later, a big limo, a Lincoln, oozed silently up to the curb in front of him, and he got in. The license plate on the car read “B-BALL 1.”

  Karp’s sandwich stopped abruptly halfway to his mouth. His stomach flipped, and not from the toxic qualities of his meal, for the man in the backseat of the Lincoln, with whom Jerry Thelmann was engaged in excited conversation, was Howard Chaney.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The third time she saw the Chevrolet, she knew it was following her. Francine Del Fazio had continued with her regular activities, except, naturally, hanging out in bars and going with men, and had spent considerable time in the driver’s seat, watching her mirrors. An anonymous blue sedan, but it always had the same two guys in it, and they were that kind of guy.

  She had been driving east on Northern Boulevard, en route to do a little Christmas shopping at Mays in Great Neck Plaza, when she spotted them. The car behind her had passed, leaving them exposed. Francine accepted this discovery without much apprehension. If they knew who she was and they hadn’t killed her yet, they
probably weren’t going to. No, they wanted her to know they were watching her, in case she decided to be a jerk and go to the cops. Francine was not a jerk, so she really had nothing to worry about. Nor did she see any reason to change her plans. She took the exit for the shopping mall, parked, and went off to spend her hard-earned money.

  “So the question,” Karp finished, “is what do we do now? Do we believe Thelmann? If we believe Thelmann, do I tell Bernie? What if we pull back and nothing happens?”

  “I could ask around the cops,” offered Peter Balducci.

  “Yeah, so could I, Peter,” said Karp. “Plus I know people in the Feds, but the problem there is that if it’s this tight, if they’re so worried about leaks that they stuck that poor bastard out there with a phony investigation, then there’s no reason they’re gonna talk to either of us.”

  Karp and Balducci were sitting in the loft, at the round oak table in the dining area. Marlene was sitting disconsolately in a shabby bentwood rocker, literally knitting a bootie and attempting to ignore the discussion, as agreed.

  After a moment Karp said, “Thelmann was pretty convincing. If I hadn’t spotted him with Chaney, this whole thing would be history. What the hell were they talking about?”

  Balducci smiled and said, “How about basketball? Thelmann is a Hustlers fan—he won first prize with the lucky soda can, an hour in a limo with Chaney discussing team strategy.”

  “Yeah, and the second prize is two hours,” said Karp. “No, it’s crazy. It had to be something to do with the murder. But why Chaney? Bernie says he’s a loudmouth, one, and two, he was trying to forget the murder. The last person a tight-ass like Jerry would talk to. Unless …”

  “What?”

  “Unless Chaney is involved in the investigation. As a witness, say. Or an informant.”

  Balducci considered this. “It would help if we knew where Simmons was the night he got killed. We know he was shot someplace else besides that car. But … shit, we’re back to the same place; if you buy Thelmann, we can’t risk doing squat.”

  Silence, and the maddening click of knitting needles. Then Marlene cursed vividly and threw her bootie across the room.

  “Something wrong, dear?” asked Karp mildly.

  “Yes, my knitting is not going well,” said Marlene icily.

  Karp rose and picked up the bootie, a gnarled pink lump the size and consistency of a softball, and placed it back on her lap.

  “I couldn’t help noticing you haven’t mentioned Bello,” she said. “Before we give up, we should talk to him, find out if he had any luck.”

  “Marlene, he’s a lush. A stooge,” said Karp.

  “He’s a genius,” Marlene shot back.

  “Peter,” he said wearily, “talk to her.”

  Balducci rubbed his hand over his bald spot. He seemed embarrassed. “Well, kid, the thing of it is, he’s been hitting the sauce pretty hard. I found him sleeping it off in his car on a couple of these mornings. I don’t think he’s doing much police work.”

  Marlene set her jaw in an expression Karp knew well. “I still say we don’t bail out until we talk to him. We’re just taking Thelmann’s word for it. Did you actually see Leona’s sheet?”

  “No, but—”

  “See? Something’s fucked up. They’re shining you on. I want to talk to Harry.”

  Karp nodded sharply and he rapped his knuckles on the table.

  “OK! Fine! Get Bello up here and talk all you want, assuming he can climb the stairs. I’ll be gone with the team until next Thursday: Boston, Cleveland, Indianapolis, Chicago, and we finish with the Hawks in Atlanta on Thursday night. I’ll see what I can find out from the players about Simmons’s last night and anything else that seems connected. But let’s agree that if we don’t get something really convincing by then, we’re closing the store.”

  He glared at both Marlene and Balducci until they each nodded solemnly in agreement.

  “Follow her, Joey,” said Carmine when the woman had left her car.

  “I whack her in the garage?” asked Joey.

  “No, Joey, you just follow her and find out what she’s doing in there, if she meets anybody, whatever,” explained Carmine patiently. “And, Joey—keep away from her, like I told you,” he added.

  Joey grunted noncommittally and strode off in pursuit of the woman. Carmine cursed forcefully in Italian for half a minute, then lit a large cigar and tried to relax. In one ear and out the other, that kid. He explained, he argued—the only thing he hadn’t tried was the last resort, fear, and Carmine wasn’t even sure that would work: the asshole was too dumb to be afraid.

  Carmine himself was not exactly afraid, although he retained a bad feeling about this entire operation. They had hit two people to protect it, with the prospect of more. Not that Carmine minded killing, but every hit increased the possibility that the operation would be compromised, an operation that depended for its very success on utter secrecy. That was why he couldn’t hire any local talent, why he was stuck with this scemo, why he couldn’t put together an adequate watch on the woman.

  He couldn’t just whack her, not before he had determined whether she had told anyone what she had seen in the interim between the shooting of Marion Simmons and the present. It had taken him a week to find her, even after learning her name. The city was full of Del Fazios. She could have told her husband or some other man or her priest or … there was no point in thinking about it. They would have to pick her up and ask her. Joey could do that part; he liked that part, and it suited his talents.

  It took Harry Bello five days to find out where Leona Simmons got her dope. It would have taken only a day or so, but he had been sick a lot lately, a couple of blackouts, and once, in the night, dozing fitfully on the sunporch, he had seen Doris come through the door and sit in her old chair. Which wouldn’t have been so bad, but then he had to go and pick a fight with her, on account of her leaving him, and the more she explained that it was the cancer and it wasn’t her fault, the more he shouted and said she was getting back at him because of what happened at the place on Lewis Avenue. After a while he was really screaming, and lights were going on all over the neighborhood and people were yelling.

  Bello had shut up then. He didn’t want to explain to other cops about Doris.

  The next day he had driven to Leona’s house and parked down the street and spent a pleasant morning in the car listening to the radio, and popping the engine and heater every once in a while when it got too chilly. About eleven-thirty, Leona came out, entered her little yellow Datsun and drove off.

  He thought she would go south to Jamaica or St. Albans, where the drug markets were thicker on the ground, but instead she turned west on Jamaica Boulevard and then onto Fulton toward Bed-Stuy. Bello felt a pang of dread. He had not been in this area since the thing on Lewis Avenue, and he was always careful to skirt the neighborhood on the rare occasions when business forced him into Brooklyn.

  It hadn’t changed. Street after street of brownstones and short tan apartment houses, some of the best housing stock in the city slummed out. Gaps where burning had cut the losses of some landlord, leaving lots occupied by shanties and fire barrels surrounded by ragged black men. Broad commercial streets, slowly dying, every third storefront empty and the rest more like demi-fortresses than stores: the liquor stores with their windows filled with concrete blocks, the dry cleaners barred with iron gratings, the small convenience stores manned by fearful Asians who kept one hand under the counter.

  But nearly every block held a tiny record store, blasting music out to the street, and a couple of nail-and-hair parlors: life went on. Fulton Street was full of people and traffic. Bello ignored the sights that had once been his daily study and concentrated on the yellow car, his fingers gripping white on the steering wheel. It turned right on Ralph Avenue and pulled up double-parked in front of a high-stooped brownstone. Leona Simmons got out and pushed her way through the black-coated, rag-headed players who adorned its steps, and entered the building.


  She was in there ten minutes. When she emerged, Bello let her drive away. It was getting late to go back to the office, and besides, he had nothing to do there anyway. And after the cruise through Bed-Stuy, he badly needed a drink. He went back to his house in Queens, had a big scoop of J&B and called a couple of old friends in the 79th Precinct. They were surprised to hear from him, but they told him what he wanted to know, what he had already suspected from the look of the men surrounding that brownstone on Ralph. Then he called Marlene Ciampi.

  “John Doone,” he said without preamble when Marlene picked up the phone.

  “What?” she said, and then after her brain stumbled into gear and she realized who was talking to her and what the name meant, she said, “Great, Harry—way to go! So what’s this guy’s story?”

  “Jamaican. Runs what they call a posse. A dope gang. Major handler citywide. Got a rep.”

  “What kind of rep is that?”

  “They say he’s a jointer.”

  “I never heard that one,” she said. “What’s it mean?”

  “A Jamaican specialty. They get pissed at you, they take you apart joint by joint. The good ones keep you alive until the last one, your neck. Then they throw the parts in a trash bag and leave it in a can. They get real pissed, they might throw in your wife and kids too.”

  “Harry, this is for real?”

  She could almost feel the shrug over the line. “Bags of parts turn up. Sometimes not all the same person in them. And never the head.”

  “What do they do with the head?”

  “You’d have to ask them about that. It explains the other day. And it buries the case.”

  Marlene was getting used to this jumping from track to track. Bello was talking about their visit to the Simmons home. If Leona was involved with a guy like John Doone, she and her mother had every reason to be frightened and to resist questioning by the police. And if admitting her son’s drug involvement would take that pressure off and maybe keep her daughter from getting hurt, then it all made sense.