Reckless Endangerment

by Robert K. Tanenbaum

  After the police left, Hassan snatched up a rolling pin and hit Walid on the back with it several times, and then threw it against the wall. His wife had retreated to the apartment above the bakery, where she sat on her bed, with her younger children huddled around her, until the storm subsided. After hitting Walid, Hassan sat down and put his face in his hands. He stayed like this for some time, rocking back and forth in his misery. Walid watched him carefully. When he judged the time was right he said, “Father, I will kill her myself.”

  Hassan looked up at his son. His eyes were red-rimmed, and this, combined with the white flour on his tan face, gave him a demonic appearance.

  “Yes,” he said, his voice a croak, “you will. But how will you find the whore? In this city?”

  “There is a man,” said Walid, “of whom Ali spoke, before the Jews killed him, may God send them to hell, a man who has power and many men who follow him. I don’t know his real name, but Ali told me he was to be found at a café called the Palms. We should go there and find him, and ask.”

  “And why should this great man of yours help us, my son?”

  “For honor! This thing disgraces the Palestinians, and he is a Palestinian, a freedom fighter. If he does this, it will be spoken of, and many will support him, and besides…”

  He stopped, for his father was already shaking his head. “No, no, how can I expose my shame to a stranger? It is impossible!”

  Walid stood up and said, “Then I will do it myself.” Hassan did not have the strength to object. He sat at his kneading board silently as his son strode out.

  “Go see,” said Chouza Khalid, “who is sitting in that white van. A bakery van should be making deliveries, in and out, down the street. But this one has been sitting there for over an hour. We should see if the bakery van has a baker in it.” Two men rose from the group around the tables and slipped out.

  Khalid had been out of town for some weeks. He had been in Beirut and Tripoli, and in Newport, Virginia, supervising the unloading of some cargo, which was now safe in the basement of the Park Slope house. The trip had gone well; the equipment was ready, and of the best quality; the paperwork was prepared, passports and the various cards and tickets necessary for travel; there was plenty of money from their various dealings; and best of all, there was no inkling of any suspicion from the authorities. The bearded man in the basement was pleased.

  Since his return, Khalid had picked up the threads of his drug business, and of the other thing, for which the business was only a money source. He was sitting in the Palm, a coffee shop on Atlantic Avenue, with his back to the wall, at a table that was always kept free for him and his friends. These were a mixed group of Lebanese, Palestinian, and Syrian youths, some trained, others trainable, still others pawns to be used and discarded as the need arose. Bashar and Ahmed, the ones who had gone to see about the van, were among the trained ones, good tough boys from the south Lebanon camps.

  Khalid sipped his sweet, sludgy coffee and watched his men cross the street to the white truck. Some minutes later, they returned, with the boy pressed between them like the meat in a sandwich. They brought him to Khalid’s table and pushed him down in a chair. He was frightened and trying not to show it. Khalid questioned him, at first roughly and then, as the story emerged—the connection with the Shilkes murder, the vanished sister, the recent visit from the police—his manner changed and became more kindly, for it slowly dawned upon him that the fool represented a solution to a problem he had been considering for some time. Khalid called for coffee and pastries, and shared them with Walid. Everyone around the table seemed to relax, as the boy, having shared coffee and food, was now a guest and under the protection of their chief.

  After the coffee had been drunk, Khalid said, “Now, listen to me, Walid ibn-Hassan. Truly, God has brought us together, you in your need and me in mine. You say you wish to recover your sister, so as to wash the stain of her dishonor from the name of your family. I also desire this, for”—here he raised his finger and cast his eyes aloft—“I am aware of this disgrace already.”

  Walid goggled. “You are, effendi?”

  “Indeed. Little happens among our people that I do not know. Your sister has been kidnapped by the Zionists, may they all rot in hell, and they are keeping her in a secret place, where even now they are committing dishonorable atrocities upon her. This is their object with all our women, as you well know, which is why God will curse and destroy them, with our help.” A murmur of angry assent rippled around the tables where the Arabs sat.

  “But we will find her and wipe out the dishonor with the edge of the blade, and when her violated body is found in the house of the Zionists, the cursed dogs, great will be the anger among our people, and even the Americans will be disgusted with the serpents they have pressed to their bodies. This I swear by God and our holy cause!”

  Another rumble—cries of “On to them!” and “Death to the Jews!” and Walid was staring at Khalid, captivated, eyes glowing, mouth slightly parted.

  “Effendi,” Walid asked hesitantly, “when … when you find her … may I be the one?”

  “Of course!” said Khalid, pounding on the table. “Who else? Are you not the brother? It is your duty. But the Zionists are clever, and it will take some time, I fear. In the meantime you must add your strength to the struggle. Are you willing to do this, upon your honor?”

  “Of course, effendi. Whatever you ask,” said Walid instantly.

  “Excellent!” Khalid looked around at the other Arabs. “I told you this was a man.” Murmurs of assent, compliments. “Now, you have a large truck. Sometimes it is necessary for us to move equipment or men from one place to another. Your bakery truck is well-known in this area, and it has a regular delivery route in other parts of the city. No one questions a bakery truck driving around in the dawn hours, and so it is perfect for our purposes. Sometimes it may be necessary to modify the inside of the truck, in order to carry out certain operations. From now on you will drive for us, or make your truck available to us at certain times. If you behave in a satisfactory way, you will be sent for training as these others have, and become a true fedai. Are you willing?”

  “Yes, effendi, with all my heart!” exclaimed Walid, the breath catching in his throat, his face aglow.

  “I knew you would,” said Khalid. Then the smile faded from his broad face, and his voice took on a grave tone. “Now, I must discuss something very serious. This is the need for secrecy. You will recall Ali al-Qabbani, peace be with him?”

  “Yes, effendi.”

  “And Ali spoke to you about me, told you that I might be found at this place, described me, even?”

  “Yes, effendi, but not your name.”

  “And now Ali is dead. Why is he dead? Because he spoke.” He paused to let the import of this sink in. Then he resumed, in the same solemn voice. “The Zionists, death to them, are everywhere in this city. Truly it is said, two can keep a secret, if one is dead. If Ali spoke to you, then trust in it, he spoke to another, and they heard, and so the Jews killed him. Therefore, you must tell no one of this meeting, or of me, or of anything we tell you to do, or of the truck. Nothing! Not even to your father may you speak of this. All our lives are in your hands. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, effendi,” Walid croaked.

  Khalid reached out and gripped Walid on the upper arm. His eyes bored into Walid’s. “Then swear it! Swear silence unto death, swear it by God, the merciful, the compassionate, and by the honor of your family!”

  Walid swore this with fervor, after which Khalid relaxed and smiled, and touched Walid caressingly on the side of his head. “Good. Now go, go with God. We will call for you when we need you.”

  Walid left, with many respectful words of thanks. Somewhat later, Ahmed looked inquiringly at his leader and asked, “Will he truly be silent, do you think?”

  Khalid laughed. “Oh, he will babble like a girl, but that is all to the good. The police have their eye on him already, and they are still cha
sing the Duhd el Dar al-Harb, and so he is ideal. I should have thought of him myself before now. It also solves the problem of the truck. We need not rent one now. No, Walid is a gift from heaven. Let him talk. He will never know anything of any value.”

  Ahmed, a precise man with a scholarly air about him, said, “Well, in point of fact, he will eventually know everything, but by then he will be in no position to talk.”

  They both laughed then, about that.

  EIGHT

  El Chivato drove around the block again, checking out the Palm coffee shop with the edge of his vision. Two men emerged as he watched, and confronted, as he saw through his rearview mirror, the driver of a white bakery van parked down the street. This only confirmed his belief that his quarry was a vigilant man. Naturally, if his task was merely to kill the person the Obregons knew as Lucky, then there would have been no problem. He would have simply gone in the front door and killed them all. But he had been hired to talk to the man, in his special way, and convince him to exculpate the brothers. For this, however, he had to be alone, and he had observed that Lucky was a man who did not love solitude.

  A difficult problem, and one unfamiliar to the young man. Previously, he had been told to go here, do that, and his imagination had not been greatly taxed. So he was uneasy. What made him uneasier still was the date. It was now mid-March. His mother expected him home for Easter, which this year fell on the thirtieth. El Chivato had never missed an Easter before, and if he had not been incapable of fear, the prospect of disappointing his mother would have made him afraid. Not that the old lady herself would have said or done anything, no: but the saints were the saints and God was God. Certain things were expected; it was necessary to do as one had always done, to keep the luck running, the protection strong. So it was necessary to be home by Easter.

  He drove the black Firebird past the coffee shop for the fourth time. Through the shop window El Chivato could see the big man talking to a thin kid. He slowed almost to a stop, and cars honked behind him. He cursed and accelerated. Reluctantly, he decided that he would have to see Obregon again, which meant that he had to go into the prison again, which he hated like death—or no, he would send the woman to the prison with a message, and then Obregon would call him and they would talk. El Chivato would press upon his client the necessity of his being back in Nogales by the thirtieth. He drove east on Atlantic, heading for the Manhattan Bridge.

  The peculiar maneuvers of the black Firebird were noticed by a man selling cheap appliances on the street. Observing the motions of vehicles and persons around the Palm was a more significant aspect of his work than moving toaster ovens, and somewhat later he reported it to Chouza Khalid’s man, Bashar, who stroked his short beard and considered the news.

  “Mossad, do you think?” asked the appliance vendor nervously.

  Bashar gave the man a slow, contemptuous glance. “If it was Mossad, you would not have seen them.” After he dismissed the appliance vendor, he went back to the Palm, but Chouza had already left. So, they were under some sort of crude surveillance: it has something to do with the drugs, he thought, with the Mexican thing.

  Karp replaced the telephone receiver and leaned back in his chair and devoted himself to a moment of strategic thought. It had been a short conversation, Jim Raney letting him know about the odd connection between the murder of a low-life on the Deuce and a family drama involving one of the Arab conspirators. Raney had not mentioned conveying this information to Roland Hrcany, and Karp assumed that he had not done so. Yet it was also somewhat unusual for a cop to feed this sort of preliminary information to anyone in the D.A.’s office. Karp sensed that Raney was nervous about it, about the possibility of deeper currents roiling the flow of what had at first appeared to be a straightforward case, and was seeking cover. Which was fine with Karp. He did not intend to tell the D. A. about this latest development until things had clarified. The sister would turn up eventually, and then they would see what was what.

  Today he was more concerned with the other nasty case on his plate, Morilla, which had gone to the grand jury the previous day. Frank Czermak had gotten his indictment, as expected, but of course, the grand jury had not heard the entire story. Grand juries heard only what the prosecution wanted them to hear, in this case the discovery of the fatal gun in the Obregons’ apartment, the status of the Mexican brothers as dope dealers, and the status of the victim as a narcotics undercover cop. QED, but Karp remained uneasy. Where was the heroin? Where was the money the Obregons said they had exchanged for it? Another thing: Morilla had been working one case for the better part of a year; the Obregons had only arrived in New York some forty-five days ago.

  Restless, he made a brief call and left his office, descended to the sixth floor, to the Homicide Bureau, and tapped on the door of a very small private office. As a rule, A.D.A.’s worked in cubicles until they had accumulated considerable seniority. (This was because 100 Centre Street had been constructed when New York County suffered perhaps 280 murders per year instead of well over a thousand and when the people were less concerned with the self-medicating habits of their fellow citizens, so that drug cases did not strangle the courts.) Raymond Guma, at whose door Karp now knocked, was a very senior A.D.A. indeed, a contemporary of Jack Keegan, and one of the relatively few who had chosen, without any hope of promotion, to spend their entire careers laboring in these stony fields.

  Hearing the expected growl, Karp entered. Guma was a squat, disheveled man with a deeply scored monkey face not unlike that of the former Yankee backstop Mr. Berra. His office resembled one of those sad apartments into which the police must break when the neighbors complain of the smell, there to find the rooms and halls filled with junk and papers dating back to 1923. Some of the pages sticking out from the piles on Guma’s desk were absolutely yellow with age. Around these piles wafted the mixed scents of scotch whiskey, aftershave lotion, cigars, and abandoned hopes.

  Karp liked Guma, and had from the first. He would not have recommended him for promotion into any slot requiring responsibility over others, but he appreciated the man as a living museum of the hairy, nasty old days at the New York D.A. Guma was an enthusiastic sexist, a mild racist, not entirely incorrupt where he thought it served the greater good, and had never, as far as it could be determined, forgotten any detail of the thousands of cases with which he had been involved. He was also the resident guru on the Mob.

  After brief pleasantries and a judicious discussion of the Yankees’ prospects (not good, and not likely to improve, with that son of a bitch running the team) Karp said, “Morilla. I’m concerned.”

  Guma protruded his lower lip a full inch. “You’re concerned? Maybe you should share your concern with Czermak. It’s his case. Or maybe with our distinguished bureau chief. I could get a secretary to direct you to his office.”

  “I intend to,” said Karp, “at the appropriate moment. This is not the appropriate moment. This is the moment when I go around to all my old pals, especially those whose ass I have covered and saved God only knows how many times, and pick up on the real stuff that nobody wants to tell the D.A.” Karp smiled sharkishly and waited.

  “Oh, that moment,” said Guma. He grinned, showing a set of bone white false teeth, leaned back in his ancient wooden swivel chair, and placed his thumbs behind the armholes of his unbuttoned suit vest. The lip protruded again and then snapped back as he spoke. “Do you know Carrozza in Narcotics?”

  “To talk to. What about him?” Karp spent as little time as he decently could in the Narcotics Bureau. It ran itself, like an abattoir, and he did not care for the smell.

  “Mexican brown heroin. There’s all of a sudden a shit-load of it uptown, but mostly in Brooklyn. According to Carrozza it started showing up around about the time Morilla got hit.”

  “And … ?”

  “There’s not supposed to be Mexican brown heroin in New York. In L.A., yeah, but here we get it white from Turkey and the Golden Triangle through Europe. Everyone in the business is a
little pissed off. There’s all kinds of murmuring among the skells.”

  “What are they saying?”

  “Well, the word around is that it all comes from a new kid on the block, not the cugines, not the uptown Zulus, not Jamakes.”

  “Mexicans?”

  Guma shrugged, a slow and elaborate gesture. “It could be that’s what the late Detective M. was trying to find out. Whether he did or not … you know how these undercover Narco guys are. They don’t make contact for weeks, they live the role, they fucking become scumbag dealers. …” His voice trailed off. Karp indeed knew, and also knew about how easy it was for people in this kind of work to drift by imperceptible stages over the line between pretense and actuality. How far Morilla had gone down that road was something else they did not know. Karp thought in silence about all the other things. Why Obregon had killed Morilla, for one. The Obregons were not the new kids, being actually behind bars during the recent distribution of Mexican brown, and Morilla hadn’t been investigating the brothers as far as anyone knew. And where was the dope? The Obregons had possessed serious weight of neither dope nor cash at the time of arrest. Who ever heard of drug lords traveling a couple of thousand miles to a strange city without either dope or cash? As he mused, he tugged idly at the top of a sealed evidence bag sitting in a box at his feet, the detritus of some case. He held up the clear plastic envelope. In it were several tiny vials with colored plastic tops, containing what looked like rock salt.

  “What’s this?” he asked.

  “Crack cocaine,” said Guma. “Somebody finally figured out how to make coke cheap. They smoke it in pipes.” He indicated the bag. “Guy got shot over that. New kind of dope, new turf. It’s funny, the homicide rate peaked in seventy-seven, and it’s been dropping for a couple of years. Now, with this stuff, and if we start getting Mexican smack in here competing, it’s going to be blood alley up in Zululand. That shotgun job in Brooklyn? Just a taster.”