Reversible Error kac-4

by Robert K. Tanenbaum

  Karp raised the phone again and dialed Bill Denton's private number, but put it down after the second ring. He was loath to call the chief of detectives, to tell him that the whole elaborate scheme to protect the police was blowing apart, until he had everything nailed down, and he could not do that without Fulton. On the other hand, Fulton might be in there with Denton right now, working on damage control, excluding Karp himself. Karp tried to turn those thoughts aside. Everybody was OK, nobody was screwing anybody, they'd get the bad guys in the end. Period. He decided to give it another day.

  But he had to move; he was strangling at this desk, engulfed by the paper shadows of old crimes. He got up and stalked out of his office. Three people, including his secretary, tried to get his attention in the outer office, but he rushed past them, mumbling evasions.

  His steps brought him, almost without thought, to the office of V.T. Newbury. This was a small boxlike affair, with a dusty window, tucked away in an obscure corridor of the sixth floor. Newbury was in, as he usually was. A specialist in fraud, and money laundering, and the sequestering of ill-gotten gains, he normally had little contact with the grungy realities of the Criminal Courts Bureau.

  When Karp walked in, Newbury was at his desk, half-glasses perched on his chiseled nose, running lengths of the green-and-white-striped computer printout known as elephant toilet paper through his hands, and muttering to himself.

  He looked up when he saw Karp, and flashed his perfect smile, then returned to making marks on the printout. Karp sank down in the rocking chair V.T. had provided for his visitors. Newbury had largely furnished his own office: battered wood-and-leather furniture, a worn Turkish rug on the floor, good small framed prints and watercolors on the walls, so that it looked more like the den of a not-very-successful country lawyer than the official seat of a New York assistant D.A. Karp often came here. V.T. was the only person in the building who neither wanted anything from him nor wanted to do anything to him.

  "How's the war against crime going?" Newbury inquired, continuing his notations. "Not well, by the way you look."

  "The usual shit," said Karp. "What're you doing?"

  Newbury wrote down some figures and looked up. "Actually, I'm finishing up that thing you asked me to look into."

  "What thing?"

  "Oh, terrific! I'm ruining my eyes, not to mention having to entertain Horton for the weekend, and he's forgotten all about it."

  "What are you talking about, V.T.? Who's Horton?"

  "My cousin Horton. In order to get a look at this material, I've had to let him inveigle himself into a weekend at our place in Oyster Bay. A golf ball for a brain, which means I'm going to have to spend a weekend listening to how he birdied the bogey on the fourteenth hole. He married Amelia Preston, for whom at one time I myself had a moderate sneaker. I can't see how she puts up with it, although perhaps we can polish our relationship while he's out bogeying."

  "You lost me, V.T. What does…?"

  "Fane," said V.T. "The congressman and the dope murders? Hello…?"

  "Oh, shit! Yeah. So what, did you get anything?"

  "Yes, I did, although I don't know how useful it'll be to you. First of all, do you know what a leveraged buy-out is?"

  Karp did not, and V.T. said, "It's simple in principle, complex in operation. Basically, a group of investors buy up enough of the public stock of a company to give them a controlling interest. They do that because they either think the company can be run better than current management is doing, or, more usually, they see a company that's undervalued on the market. They buy it, and then they sell it for a profit, sometimes a huge one. With me so far?

  "The leverage part comes from the way they get the money to buy the stock. Essentially, they borrow it against the assets of the firm they're buying, and pay back the loans from the sale of the firm itself. Or, what they're starting to do, is go on the bond market with high-yield unclassified offerings, but-"

  "So Fane has been doing this?" Karp interrupted.

  "In a way, in a way. You understand that when a deal like this is going down, when the stock is in play, as they say, its price can go ballistic. And of course if the buyers tender for the stock above market value, you can make a fortune. Fane has been into some very good things. As has our friend Judge Nolan. In fact, in recent months three of the very same deals: Revere Semiconductor, Grant Foods, and Adams-Lycoming."

  "That's not illegal, though, is it?"

  "Who knows? It depends where they got their information, because they must have had it from somewhere. Insider trading: that's when someone who has advance-"

  "I know what insider trading is," said Karp, thinking about Reedy and his lecture. But this thought brought another, and he said, "What about Agromont?"

  Newbury cocked his head and regarded Karp narrowly. "Agromont. Well, well. You have been doing your homework." He tossed the printout onto the desk. "You don't need old V.T. anymore, if you're that well-connected."

  "All I know is the name. I was at a party when Fane told Reedy that Agromont was a done deal."

  "That's also very interesting. OK, the story is this. Agromont is a medium-size conglomerate. They're in food, machine tools, cosmetics, and at the time they also owned a good deal of New York real estate, mostly on the West Side. They had the old American Line pier. In any case, someone made a run on the stock last year-bid it up like crazy-but the company fought them off. Sold off some assets at fire-sale prices. A lot of people were left holding the bag."

  "How so?" asked Karp.

  "Well, if you've tied up a lot of capital in a big block of stock and you fail to get control of the company, then you can't realize your profits. Some people made a bundle by riding the play and getting out before the showdown. But the main people were left holding a big chunk of overvalued stock. Which has sunk since.

  "So they can either take their loss or try again. And Cousin Horton is very much convinced that they are going to try again. Someone has been nibbling at their stock. Little bites from a dozen different buyers: not enough to put it in play, but more than it usually moves. That could have been the origin of your cryptic comment from Fane. Telling a friend that the stock was shortly to go into play and that he should get in long on it."

  "So is Fane buying?"

  "He's starting to, it appears. But most of his purchases will probably be through someone else. Would you like me to look into it?"

  "No, what do I care what stocks he buys? I'm not the SEC. But…" Karp rocked and looked out V.T.'s window at the little park behind the courts building and the low tenements of Chinatown beyond it.

  "Yes?" asked V.T.

  "But what I'd really like to know is, could someone use this kind of stock manipulation to launder money, maybe dirty money?"

  V.T. thought for a moment, sounding the tuneless hum he favored when in deep contemplation of chicanery. He said, "Well, what I'd do is, I'd take the dirty money in cash to an offshore bank in the islands, a bank I controlled. Then I'd lend the money to people who were in a position to rig the market, and who needed liquidity to do it, and were willing to trade information on deals at a very early stage. Having got that information, I would use whatever honest dollars I had to make a killing."

  "Very neat, V.T.," said Karp, who could barely balance his checkbook, with sincere admiration. "Would it really work?"

  "I don't see why not. Our fictive man is insulated from the dirty money entirely. The offshore bank made the loan. It's not required to tell anyone where its capital came from, which is the true charm of the islands. There'd be a dummy holding the passbook for the actual account, which, of course, would never be tapped directly. And the profits on the market are honest gain, the result of sophisticated analysis of trends guided by vast experience-or so my cousin is always telling me. Our man pays taxes on it too-he's no mobster.

  "So he's as safe as the Morgan Bank. And, of course, since he's not paying a premium for the money, he can buy a lot more stock than his competitors in a bidding co
ntest. The people he was backing would be murderous traders.

  "The only possible hitch is if someone traces a cash deposit back to him-unlikely-or if whoever gives him his info rats him out as an inside trader to the feds or the Stock Exchange-slightly more likely."

  "Uh-huh," said Karp. "Does Fane control an offshore bank?"

  "Doesn't everyone? But, if so, it's improbable that the connection is direct. Let me check it out, though." He made a note in his diary with a silver pencil. "Anything else?"

  "No, thanks a lot, V.T., this is great," said Karp. He stood up and made to leave, then paused. "Oh, yeah-who was it that tried to buy Agromont?" he asked.

  "The main player was a slightly greasy and very wealthy little arb named Sergo. He also bought their West Side property and the pier." He saw the change in Karp's expression and asked, "A friend of yours?"

  Karp said glumly, "We've met," waved good-bye, and stalked out. The implications of what he had learned from V.T. were still whirling around his brain when he entered his office again, to find Roland Hrcany waiting with an odd smile on his face. He was sitting at Karp's conference table and he had a cassette recorder placed in front of him.

  Karp gestured at the recorder and said, "Is it time for our dance lesson? What're you up to, Roland?"

  "It's a little surprise," said Hrcany. "See if you can recognize the lyrics." He pressed the play button and the conversation between Amalfi and Fulton on the fire stairs at Roosevelt Hospital filled the room, their speech hollow and echoing, like the voices of ghosts on old radio shows.

  When it was done, Karp asked, "That's definitely top-forty, Roland. You mind telling me where you got it?"

  "I got with IAD and wired Amalfi," said Hrcany.

  Karp looked out the window and rubbed his face. "Why did you do that, Roland?" he asked in a tired voice.

  "I got a tip from an informant that Amalfi and Fulton were both involved in these drug-lord hits," said Hrcany.

  "And you didn't tell me about it."

  "No," said Hrcany, beginning to feel uneasy. Karp was taking this altogether too calmly. "I thought, you know, you and Fulton…"

  "Uh-huh. You thought that I was protecting Clay," said Karp. "That I was, ah, conspiring to cover up a bunch of homicides to protect a friend. No, it's OK," he added when Hrcany protested, "as a matter of fact I guess I was involved in something not too far from that. Good investigative zeal, Roland. I guess you were relieved to find that Clay was working undercover too. You've kept this pretty close, I guess?"

  Hrcany nodded. "Just Waldbaum of IAD knows about it." He paused. "And the D.A."

  Karp spun around and faced Hrcany, his eyes shooting sparks.

  "You told Bloom! Why the fuck did you tell Bloom?"

  "Shit, Butch! What was I supposed to do? I thought you were in the bag with Fulton. You said yourself, there's all kinds of serious players involved in this, and…" His eyes widened in horror. "You think the D.A. is…?"

  "Great!" said Karp. "The penny drops. As a matter of fact, I don't think Mr. Bloom is working for a bunch of killers. But some of his friends might be, and Sanford Bloom never kept a secret for more than ten minutes in his whole life. He's a mouth on legs."

  Karp rose and paced nervously back and forth. "Roland, didn't you think? Clay's out there exposed… Christ! When was this? When did you tell Bloom?"

  "At the staff meeting-yesterday morning, about ten."

  Karp sat down again and blew out his breath through puffed cheeks. "Then it's too late," he said. "I can't find him anywhere. They've got him."

  He sat there for a while, looking out the window, unable to think of any constructive activity. He barely heard Hrcany's embarrassed leave-taking. After some indeterminate time he was roused by a tapping on his door. It was Doug Brenner, his driver. Karp remembered that he had made an appointment to meet Brenner and Marlene outside the building fifteen minutes ago, to run up to the Twenty-eighth Precinct for the sting on Meissner. He made some noises of acknowledgment, put on his jacket, and allowed Brenner to lead him away.

  In the car Brenner said, "We'll never make it up to Harlem in time."

  "Yes, we will," replied Marlene. "Use the siren."

  Which they did, and did arrive at ten past noon, not too far off the appointed moment. Marlene secreted herself in an interrogation room while the two men went to the homicide squad room, to find Alan Meissner being one of the boys with the King Cole Trio.

  Karp smiled all around. Maus finished a cop anecdote and everyone laughed. Then Karp said, "Well, we've invited Mr. Meissner here to help us out again. Art, you want to review this case?"

  Dugman stood up and began, in a professorial tone quite removed from his usual cynical profanity, to outline a serial murder case. The case was wholly fictitious, having been adapted from a B movie Maus had seen on late TV recently, and cheerfully embellished by the detectives of the Two-eight.

  When he had finished, Karp said, "Look, Alan, guys, this is going to take at least an hour-why don't we have lunch? We can order in sandwiches and drinks from that good deli on Amsterdam, my treat."

  General agreement: Karp wrote the orders down on a slip of paper-pastrami on rye, corned beef, Cokes, Dr. Brown's. The detectives made themselves appear busy, thumbing through, stacking, and arranging piles of folders. Lanny Maus turned on a small cassette tape recorder, coughed into its microphone, said, "Testing, testing," and sang two bars of "She's So Fine" in a good falsetto. Laughter. He tossed the mike aside, but did not turn off the recorder.

  Karp put an apologetic expression on his face and offered the lunch-order slip to Meissner, saying, "Would you mind calling these in, Alan? It'd save some time. The number's up on the wall by that phone."

  Meissner was glad to help. He sat on the edge of the desk and dialed the number penciled on the wall. The phone rang twice and was picked up. A man's voice said, "Hello." Meissner thought it sounded vaguely familiar. Meissner said, "Is this the Amsterdam Deli?" The voice said, "Hello, can I help you?"

  Meissner slammed the phone down with a bang. The detectives and Karp looked over at him mildly. His face was turning bright red.

  "Something wrong, Alan?" asked Karp.

  "You fucking son-of-a-bitch!" Meissner yelled. "You tried to trick me."

  "I'm sorry?" said Karp. "What's the matter, don't they have any pastrami?"

  "That wasn't the delicatessen, you phony bastard! That was him on the phone, the boyfriend. You set me up, you fucker!"

  "Boyfriend? What boyfriend, Alan?" asked Karp.

  "You know goddamn good and well what boyfriend!" screamed Meissner. He was standing less than a foot from Karp now, and little flecks of foam were jumping from his mouth onto Karp's suit coat. Karp flicked them off with his handkerchief and said, "Yes, I know what boyfriend, Alan, but I wonder how you know. Did you recognize his voice on the phone? From when he called, just before you murdered Ellen Wagner?"

  Meissner uttered a strangled cry and leapt for Karp's throat. Karp batted his hands away, and in an instant Jeffers, moving faster than anything that large had a right to move, had Meissner locked in a chokehold with his feet dangling six inches off the floor.

  Meissner was struggling wildly, kicking out at everything within reach, like a four-year-old in a tantrum. Jeffers grunted as a heel connected with his shin; he tightened his grip. Dugman moved in, and Karp saw that he had a leather sap in his hands.

  "No, don't hurt him," Karp yelled. Dugman grimaced, but put the sap away and brought out cuffs. Working together, the three cops were finally able to get Meissner cuffed and forced down into a chair.

  "He feisty, all right," said Jeffers, adjusting his rumpled suit. "Raping all them women must be good training."

  Meissner stared up at Karp, his face flushed with exertion and contorted with impotent rage. "You can't do this," he shouted. "This is entrapment."

  "No it's not, Alan," said Karp calmly. "It's called a spontaneous expression showing consciousness of guilt. You need to check your law book
s again. Art?"

  Dugman formally rearrested Meissner for the Wagner homicide and read him his rights. Meissner did not take his eyes off Karp's face; the force of his silent hatred at last made Karp uncomfortable and he turned away, to see Marlene come running in.

  Marlene looked at Meissner, waved gaily, and called out, "Hi, smarty-pants. Gotcha!"

  At this, Meissner began shouting vile obscenities and threats. He continued to do so as two uniformed officers dragged him down to the precinct cells.

  "My, he was upset," said Marlene. "And he seemed like such a calm, sophisticated type on the phone. Intelligent too. So, my hero, have we really got him?"

  "Yeah, I have a good feeling about it," said Karp. "It's a solid consciousness-of-guilt case now. He just ran on spontaneously, which will be obvious from the tape we made. It's going to be real hard for anyone to defend against, and it'll stand up legally too. If I was his lawyer, I'd advise a cop-out."

  "Which we won't accept," said Marlene firmly.

  "Uh-uh. We hang tough on the top count. You earned it. Who're you calling?"

  Marlene said, "JoAnne Caputo. And the others. They could use a laugh."

  While Marlene made her calls, Karp sought out Art Dugman in his tiny cell of an office. Neat, was his first impression, and reminiscent of a former age. Awards on the wall, pictures of PAL teams, photographs of young black patrolmen in the fifties, unsmiling and austere. Pride of place on the wall went to a framed exhibit of four deformed bullets: neatly typed legends beneath them set out the circumstances in which they had been, on separate occasions, shot into and yanked out of the body of Art Dugman.

  On the uncluttered desk stood a dozen or so photographs of family members, most of which showed children in graduation gowns representing successive levels of education. Karp had not thought of Dugman as a family man: he seemed rather to have been exuded from the streets, living entirely on the underlife of Harlem, like some beneficent parasite.

  After an interlude of stiff conversation about the Meissner case, about the job, and about sports, Karp turned to the subject of his visit, asking, with no great emphasis, whether Clay Fulton's whereabouts were known.