Reversible Error kac-4

by Robert K. Tanenbaum

  Fulton looked into his eyes a long minute. Then he sighed and said, "I can't tell you, Butch-believe me, I would if I could, but-"

  Karp held up his hand. "OK, OK, I understand. Let's be hypothetical, then. Let's say we got the chief of detectives and his ace lieutenant investigating a series of drug-pusher killings. The lieutenant thinks they're all connected. So what do these ace detectives do? Do they bring their evidence to the task force that the D.A. has started to investigate these selfsame killings? Do they launch a serious public investigation of these killings? They do not. They work in secret. They don't even talk about it to their close personal friend who happens also to be a D.A.

  "So this friend starts asking himself, why the secrecy? What's the answer here? The envelope, please. Ah, here it is. The one thing that would cause this kind of shutdown. What if our two detectives have concluded that the only way the killings could have been done the way they were done is if they were done by rogue cops? Something snapped somewhere and you got a couple of guys out trying to clean up the city. Clint Eastwood in real life-they're shooting dope pushers.

  "See, it's like your pattern that wasn't a pattern. You get two good honest cops like you and Denton acting in this way, and somebody who knows they're good and honest has to guess what they're doing.

  "Because, being good cops, they have this problem-crazy cops, it's bad for the force. It's one thing in the movies, but in real life it's another story: they're looking at a long, messy trial, a scandal, and so soon after the Knapp Commission? So maybe they can handle it privately. Grab the guys, a quick ticket out of town, case closed. And the victims are scumbags, nobody gives a shit about them anyway."

  Karp paused and looked searchingly at his friend. Fulton gave him a long flat stare. At length, some little flicker around the eyes showed Karp he had gotten through, a mental transmission had clunked into a different gear. Fulton nodded slowly. "Go on," he said.

  "So they're looking for wackos. The lieutenant goes underground, they start spreading stories he's dirty. Why? He wants access to the underworld. He wants to be approached. Now he's a guy who takes dirty money, he beats up people. Maybe his new mutt friends will let something drop, maybe he'll hit the jackpot, he'll get contacted by the actual guys: 'Hey, Loo, want to ace a pusher-it's fun!'"

  Fulton was growing restless. A man pounded on the locked door to the toilet. Karp understood he had less than a minute to finish.

  "Get to the point, Butch," said Fulton.

  "The point is, they're wrong. You're wrong. It's not a couple of crazies. They're connected. They're not freelancing. They're doing it for somebody, and whoever it is has a shitload of clout."

  "How do you know that?"

  "Got you interested, didn't I? It was the judge who sprung Booth that got me thinking. Why would he do that? A judge conspiring with crazy cops? Maybe, if it was a certain kind of judge, but not the Honorable Mealy Nolan. This is a lightweight: intellectual and moral. And a criminal lightweight too, which is my point. On the pad since the year one, but safe.

  "Not a sticker-out of the judicial neck, you know? Little fixes a specialty, for a consideration, but no fat envelopes. Somebody calls him, says, 'Terry, me lad, I just heard IBM is about to split and I took the liberty of picking up a hundred shares for you. And by the way…'

  "That's how it would go. But a cop walks in, says, 'Judge, we been waxing these dope dealers, cleaning up the streets for the citizens, and now we'd like you to spring the only witness so we can wax him too.' No fuckin way, boss!"

  "Who's the guy, then?" Fulton asked, going instantly, as Karp had feared, to the key weakness of the hypothesis.

  "The guy who called Nolan, you mean. This I don't know."

  Fulton seemed to let out a long breath. He shrugged and walked toward the door. This time Karp did not block him. Fulton said, "It's a nice story, Butch. Hypothetically speaking. I don't know what you plan on doing with it, though-"

  "But I know how to find out," Karp interrupted.

  "How?"

  "I'm going to ask Tecumseh. He leads us to the cop, and the cop leads us to the guy."

  Fulton grinned broadly and shook his head. "You don't give up, do you? What makes you think Booth will talk? He never talked in his damn life, except to tell a lie."

  "He'll talk to me," said Karp, and even as the words formed in his mouth, the plan for making them true leapt all complete into his brain. He said, "Come and watch us play ball tomorrow. I'll set it up."

  Fulton said, "You better not tell Dugman that I'm gonna be around. I don't think he trusts me around Tecumseh anymore."

  "No, I'll fix it up so there's no contact,' said Karp. "By the way, I should call him now. You happen to know where he is?"

  "Yeah, he's got the graveyard shift tonight, at the precinct."

  "OK, I'll call you tomorrow after everything's set."

  Fulton nodded and left.

  Karp went to the pay phone and called Dugman. After some preliminary fencing, Dugman became extremely cooperative. The detective had grown increasingly nervous about his position: he was working for a lieutenant he thought was involved in the very murders that lieutenant had ordered him to investigate; he was holding a private prisoner who might be a key witness in those murders; and he sensed that there were big wheels moving somewhere behind all this, wheels that could squash a fifty-five-year-old black detective without even slowing down.

  Fearless on the streets, Dugman felt helpless before the forces of bureaucracy; he was looking for shelter and when he discovered that the D.A. was going to provide it, he was unabashedly grateful.

  After the call, Karp walked back to Marlene, who had ordered another set of drinks. "Hi, sailor," she said. "You were in there long enough for a blowjob."

  "What's a blowjob?"

  "Fifteen dollars, same as downtown," she shot back.

  Karp looked at the drinks in a meaningful way. Marlene caught the look.

  "It's a wine spritzer, Doctor," she said defensively. "I have cut down smoking and drinking as much as I am going to, and if you think I am going to become a granola fascist because I'm knocked up, you have another think coming. My mom drank a pint of wine and smoked a pack of Pall Malls every day of her six pregnancies, and we're all perfectly normal."

  "Present company included?" asked Karp.

  "Besides me, I mean," said Marlene, cracking a smile. "But really, what's going on-with Clay and all?"

  "Just office stuff. Catching up on things," said Karp evasively.

  Marlene pouted. "OK for you, buster-in that case I'm not going to tell you my secret. Oh, good, they're going to do another set."

  Fulton and his trio had come back to the tiny stage, and without preamble burst into a lively upbeat tune.

  "'Tinkle Toes,'" said Marlene. "Lester Young." They listened. After, she said, "Hey, Clay's not bad. And the sax. Not that I know much."

  "Lester Young," said Karp. "Pres."

  Marlene looked at him in amazement. "That's an impressive piece of cultural information, for you. He has an aunt who knew Colette, he drinks, he clubs, he jazzaficionados… it's a whole new Karp."

  "Oh, and what was wrong with the old Karp?"

  "Nothing, dear, nothing-you were perfect then and you're even more perfect now," breathed Marlene in her best phony Donna Reed voice. "Let's just listen to the music."

  They left at two. The magic of the evening was capped by their fortune in finding an on-duty cab in Harlem.

  "We'll never get to work tomorrow, and I don't care." Marlene yawned. "Let the wheels of justice grind to a halt."

  "Yeah," said Karp, "what's a few less asses in jail?"

  Marlene looked him full in the face. "You're such a phony baloney, Butch," she told him sternly. "The line you lay down about it all being a game-putting asses in jail. It's that number seven, isn't it? That drives you. You can't stand for anybody to get away with it. That's why you're such a fanatic."

  "Yeah, right. If you say so," Karp retorted, feeling defe
nseless and more vulnerable than he liked to feel. "You're in charge of that deep stuff." Marlene was about to answer this, but found she lacked the energy required for another bout of mutual introspection. She snuggled into Karp's chest and immediately fell asleep.

  Karp watched the traffic lights shine through the steam from the manholes, and reflected that he had not felt this good in weeks. He had managed to scoop Fulton in with a net of plausible lies, all whiter than white, revealing his own knowledge of the affair to Fulton without breaking his promise to Denton. It was unlikely that Fulton would tell Denton about this conversation; it would be close to admitting that Fulton had let Karp in on the deal. As Denton had in fact.

  Fulton was now no longer entirely outside the cover of the law, nor was he pursuing the phantom of a mentally deranged-police-officer cabal. He was ready to listen, and if he rolled, Denton would roll too. The kid had dribbled through the zone, he had paint underfoot, and tomorrow he would take his one and only possible shot.

  ELEVEN

  Karp and Hrcany, dressed in sweats and sneakers, and carrying duffel bags laden with softball equipment, walked out of the Criminal Courts Building and toward Hrcany's car, which he had stashed in the special judges-only parking on the Leonard Street side. It was five-fifteen on a Friday, and every judge in the world had been safe at home for hours.

  They drove north toward Central Park and its tracts of softball fields. The D.A.'s team was playing their traditional rivals, a team from the Legal Aid Society, called the Bleeding Hearts. The D.A.'s team was called the Bullets, from the slang term for a year in the slams.

  Karp seemed nervous and distracted. He kept looking out the window, checking both sides of the street, as if searching for an address. Hrcany said something, which Karp missed.

  "I said, we should wrap up Petrossi next week," Hrcany repeated.

  "Good, that's great," said Karp absently. Then he tapped Hrcany's arm and asked him to pull over.

  "We got beer already," said Hrcany.

  "No, I got to stop in at that travel agency. I'll just be a minute."

  Karp returned holding a ticket folder.

  "Where're you going?" Hrcany asked.

  "Nowhere. This is something else." He stuffed the ticket in his sweatshirt pocket and said, "So-Petrossi. We gonna win?"

  "You have to ask? It's a lock. By the way, any progress on this drug-lord business?"

  Karp stiffened, but kept his voice casual. "Not much, I guess. Schick handles the day-to-day. Why?"

  Hrcany looked sharply at his companion for a second, then turned his attention back to the rush-hour traffic. "Oh, I've been hearing stuff."

  "Who from?"

  "Oh, around the hallways. Cops bullshitting. You know. Word is they're looking at a cop for the shooter."

  Karp looked at him sharply.

  "Yeah, I figured you'd be interested. Number one on the charts is your buddy Fulton."

  Karp looked away. Hrcany continued. "So what do you think? You know the guy. Could he be bent?"

  "Anybody could be bent, Roland. But it's a big jump between 'could-be' and bringing a case."

  "But you have your doubts."

  "Yeah, I've got to say I do. He's been acting funny. He's been hanging with some dirty people. And he was seen running from the scene of an attempted murder of a witness in the case."

  Hrcany said, "It's a funny business. Considering the scumbags he's knocking off, maybe they should give him a medal. Some of the cops I talk to think that."

  "How about you, Roland? You think that too?"

  Hrcany paused significantly before answering. "There are days… but let's face it- what we're doing isn't having much of an effect. A little police terror might calm things down."

  "Just like Hungary, huh?"

  Hrcany flushed, and snapped angrily, "That's not the fucking same thing at all!"

  "No, I guess not, from our point of view. Maybe they feel different up in Harlem. In any case, there's enough people on the lookout so that if it is Fulton, they'll eventually nail him. A real shame too-he probably cracked up from the strain. It'll be a hell of case to try, though."

  "Yeah. Are you sure that kid Schick is up to it?"

  "He'll learn," answered Karp dismissively. "Meanwhile, I'm more concerned if he can pull the ball to right field."

  As it turned out, Peter Schick did pull the ball for a single and a nice double, scoring once. But the Bullets lost the game, 10-7, to a team that had as members a surprising number of Dominican hotshots, purported paralegals, but, to the disgruntled Bullets, patently clients and other semipro ringers.

  Karp went one for four and missed an easy out at first base. He was not playing with anything near his usual concentration, and the reason for the lapse was sitting in a dusty tan sedan parked up on the grass verge of the access road. When the game was over, Karp slipped away from the noisy crowd of players clustered around the beer cooler and walked over to the car.

  "Thanks," said Karp to Dugman, who was sitting in the car's front seat. "I'll bring him right back."

  Dugman said, "Go with the man, Tecumseh."

  Tecumseh Booth got out of the back seat and stood blinking on the grass. "What is this?" he said, looking back at Dugman as if the cop were his own momma.

  "Man just want to talk with you, man," said the detective. "Don't worry, we gonna stay right here."

  Karp walked Booth along the verge until they came to a pedestrian path, at which they turned and walked north for a distance in the direction of Sheep Meadow. Karp sat down on a bench placed before a pile of glacial boulders and motioned Booth to sit as well.

  "I hear you had a narrow escape," said Karp conversationally.

  "Who are you?" demanded Booth.

  "My name's Karp. I'm with the D.A."

  "I don't need to talk to no D.A. I got a case-dismissed."

  "OK, suit yourself." Karp leaned back and breathed deeply. The air was cool and scented with mown grass and orange rind.

  "Sure is a nice day," Karp observed. "You should enjoy it. It's probably going to be your last." He turned and looked Booth full in the face. Booth wore his usual stubborn passive mask, but there was something twitchy around the eyes. Being shot at, with the prospect of more shooting to come, will do that.

  "See, the problem we got here is, you're no good to me anymore as a witness," Karp resumed. "You got off, as you point out, and you won't testify against whoever got Clarry, because you're a stand-up guy. I need a cooperative witness.

  "Now, what do you get for being a stand-up guy? You saw what happened. They tried to kill you. And they're going to keep on trying."

  There was no reaction. Booth continued to stare mutely at him. This wasn't working.

  "The penny hasn't dropped yet," said Karp, more urgently. "You're still thinking this is just another job-you drive for some guys knocking over a liquor store, and the cops catch you and you keep your mouth shut. That's natural. We understand that. But you're in a whole different game now. There's big guys involved, very big guys-cops too. Look, you see those ants down there?"

  Karp moved his foot to indicate a swarm of the insects mining some strewn Cracker Jack. "They've got a code too. They stick together. Maybe there's another kind of ant tries to move in on their turf, they gang up on them. Who knows, maybe they make deals. Maybe there are stand-up ants and rat ants. Whatever. But what you're into is this!"

  Karp brought his sneaker down sharply, with a savage twist, crushing the ants and their food into a damp smear. A couple of the surviving ants went scurrying off in different directions. Booth was watching the demonstration with interest.

  "The ones running are the smart ants, Tecumseh," Karp said softly. "They know when they're licked and they get small real fast. OK, I don't want to waste your last day on earth, so I'm going to make it short. One of two things is going to happen right here and now.

  "One is, I'm going to ask you what you know about these killings and you're going to keep quiet and I'm going to get up and w
alk back to that car and we're going to drive away. That's it-sayonara, Tecumseh.

  "You figure the odds. Think you can get out of town on your own? Think you can get out of the park? Want to bet we're not being watched right now?"

  Booth was not able to suppress an involuntary searching movement of his head. The trees and bushes rustled and crackled in a way that suddenly seemed menacing. It was not like the warm security of a police station or an interrogation room. Booth felt hideously exposed. His breath came shorter and Karp pressed on.

  "On the other hand, you could talk, and I'd give you this."

  Karp took an airline-ticket folder out of the belly pocket of his sweatshirt and handed it to Booth.

  Booth looked at it as if it were a crossword puzzle in Amharic. "What's this about?" he asked.

  "It's an open ticket to L.A. in a fake name," said Karp. "You answer a few questions, and then we both go back to the car and the detectives drive you to La Guardia. They'll give you some cash and kiss you good-bye. You're on the next flight to L.A. with two hundred dollars in your pocket. A new life. Or maybe I should say the only life you're likely to have."

  Booth took the ticket out of the folder and read it slowly, paging through the counterfoils, as if it were a letter from an old friend, full of sage advice. Booth tried to think it through, to figure the angles, but he was unused to thought. Other people made the plans. He just drove and kept his mouth shut. Hesitantly, and in a near-whisper, he said, "I just tell you? No court? I don't sign no papers?"

  "Just me, and right now. And you're gone."

  Booth released a long, soft sigh, like the last breath of an old, sick man. "Yeah, what the fuck," he said. "Whatever you want."