Enemy Within

by Robert K. Tanenbaum

  She was not. She was washing her hair. Marlene had a mop of heavy, thick, curly black hair, worn neck length and cleverly cut so that it would cast a shadow over the false eye. But now there were things in it. Tiny bits of skull and scalp with wispy blond hair still clinging that fell to the bathtub floor, as well as little gobbets of matter looking like pink-gray earthworms, parts of the organ in which James Coleman had recently maintained his sorry existence. She nudged one of these toward the drain hole with her toe, which immediately prompted the long-anticipated retch session. This, too, went on for longer than expected.

  Dykstra heard the water stop at least, and shortly afterward the sound of a hair dryer. Her heart swelled with relief, for she believed that deranged people do not use hair dryers. She had, however, only worked briefly for Marlene Ciampi.

  Who emerged, looking scrubbed and wholesome, except around the eyes, smelling of expensive soap and the best shampoo, and dressed in baggy khaki trousers and a black cotton sweater. She sat through a straightforward interview with a police detective, and then she was whisked away, quite passively, by Dykstra and a covey of hefty VIP-section Osborniks, down the service elevator, out the back way, and into a waiting limo. The press, of course, was in full cry, the combination of celebrity and violence being without question the most desirable of all news stories. But Marlene’s troops were skilled at penetrating and evading their wolf packs.

  Shortly after they departed the scene, in a black van with smoked windows, a cell phone rang. Dykstra answered and said, “It’s your husband.”

  Marlene stared for a few seconds at the instrument extended to her as if she were unaware of its function, then took it, listened, and said, “Yes, I’m fine. . . . Really. . . . No, I didn’t kill him. He killed himself. . . . Yes. . . . Yes. . . . No, I have to go back to the office and write up my report. . . . No, it can’t. . . . Yes, I’ll see you tonight.” All this was delivered with the affect of a recorded announcement. Dykstra and the other people in the limo cast covert glances of admiration at their leader: after something like that, to be so cool! No one said much during the rest of the trip.

  Karp put the Solette affair, and his wife’s part in it, out of his mind for the rest of the day. He was good at this putting away, from long practice, for if he had gone into uxorious conniptions every time his darling had diced with death, he would not have had enough emotional resources left to run a hot dog stand. Besides, he also knew from experience that Marlene detoxified best when left alone. She would need him eventually, but not just yet. He paged his daughter, leaving a message to call immediately, and called the twins’ school and said that he would be picking them up himself. Thus, he put into action the Karp Family Post–Traumatic Stress Coping Mechanism, a regrettably well-oiled machine, and hoped for the best.

  A knock at the door and in came Murrow, looking forlorn, a special assistant with no one special to assist. As acting bureau chief, Karp did not rate a special assistant, and Fuller, who had immediately moved into Karp’s old office, had no use for him. Technically, Murrow was an ADA, but one with little experience. He had been reassigned to criminal courts, but no one knew quite what to do with him at this point.

  “How are you getting on, Murrow?” Karp greeted him. “Working hard?”

  “They have me in the complaint room. I’m thinking of bailing out, actually.”

  “Yes, I can understand that. Being an assistant DA is harder than being a special assistant lounging on velvet cushions and reading spicy novels the day long, as was your wont.”

  “Yes, I’ll miss that,” Murrow said, smiling faintly. “And the imported chocolates. The fact is, while I enjoyed working with you, I don’t like regular ADA work . . . I don’t think it’s my cup of tea.”

  “No, but neither is it anyone else’s. I think you’re spoiled.”

  “Quite possibly. I feel sort of squishy and rotten. In any case, I thought I’d drop by to say thank you and farewell.”

  “Not so fast. Listen, if I were to get you up here temporarily, how would that be?”

  “Homicide?” Murrow looked pale.

  “Not as such. But I have various things going on where I’ll need some help. Technically ADA work, but not routine at all.”

  Karp made some calls, called in some favors, and the thing was done. Murrow went off happy to get, as he said, his toothbrush and teddy bear. Karp called Vasquez, but got the recorded message from the cell phone company. He intended to stick Murrow as second seat to Vasquez on the Marshak thing, a fairly outrageous act, but he was feeling outrageous lately, cut off by the toxic situation from his usual careful habits. It would work, though: Murrow was tenacious and bright, and maybe the case wouldn’t come to trial at all. The kid could get his feet wet without too much harm done.

  The phone rang, the private number, and he snatched it up. It was not, however, one of his family or the DA or one of a small group of close associates. It was Shelly Solotoff.

  “I hear you got fired again,” said Solotoff.

  “It was Roland who got fired, or resigned. I’m just helping Jack out here.”

  A low chuckle, not pleasant. “Poor Roland! All his bile displayed in the press. I was glad to see that Jack didn’t even make a pretense at defending him. I mean why be loyal or anything when the feminists are on your ass?” The ironic smoothness of Solotoff’s voice was tempered by crackle and the sound of traffic. A cell phone.

  “What can I do for you today, Shelly?” asked Karp, nor did he keep the distaste from his voice.

  “You’re handling the Ramsey shooting, I take it.”

  “Mimi Vasquez is, but she’s reporting to me for now. Why?”

  “Because earlier today Ralphie Paxton called me.”

  “Him being . . . ?”

  “How soon they forget! Ralphie is, or was, Desmondo Ramsey’s friend, adviser, and running buddy. Our witness. He saw the whole event. And he picked up the knife.”

  “The knife.”

  “Yeah! The knife Ramsey was going to stick into my client.”

  “Uh-huh. Where is this person now?”

  “Sitting right next to me. We’re on our way to the precinct to make a statement.”

  “We? Are you representing Mr. Paxton, too?”

  “I’m advising him. I don’t think he needs representation, as such.”

  “Really? I thought leaving the scene of a crime in which you were a participant was against the law.”

  Solotoff laughed. “Oh, well, if you decide to charge him with crap like that, maybe I’ll take him on pro bono. Sorry to deprive you guys of your great white defendant, but I assume I can tell Sybil that no charges will be filed.”

  “That would be a premature assumption at this time. Let’s talk to Mr. Paxton first and then we’ll see.”

  Solotoff did not respond to this. Shelly often did not respond to things he did not want to hear, Karp recalled. He sounded high, excited, as if he had pulled off some coup. He wanted to chat, but Karp did not want to chat with him. After he hung up, Karp rang Vasquez again and got her this time.

  “Where are you?”

  “With Raney at Midtown South. What’s up?”

  Karp explained. Vasquez said, “Crap! Well, that’s that. She seems to be off the hook if this guy holds up.”

  “Not so fast. I want you to grill old Ralphie, slow fire, lots of basting. Make sure he really saw something. If you have to, take him down to the garage, draw chalk lines. Obviously, full forensics on the knife. Get a picture of it, pass it around to his homies, see if anyone ever saw him flash it.”

  “Got it. I take it you think Ralphie showing up just now is a little too convenient?”

  “A little. Especially with Solotoff involved.”

  “He’s shady?”

  “I don’t know. He has something going on, an extra agenda.” With me, Karp thought, but didn’t say. “Oh, and another thing. We need to know about the watch.”

  A pause. “I’m sorry? What does the watch—”

&
nbsp; “Oh, come on, Vasquez! The guy is holding a Rolex worth five, six grand retail. Why is he trying to mug a woman in a parking garage? Where does a street guy get a thing like that? Even on Park Avenue they don’t throw gold Rolexes away in the trash. It doesn’t fit, and I hate it when stuff doesn’t fit. One more thing: I’m giving you Murrow as your second, assuming we go forward with Marshak.”

  “Mookie?”

  “Yes, Mookie. And, yes, he looks like a preppie dweeb, but, in fact, he’s incredibly smart, energetic, and you can abuse him to your heart’s content. He’ll bounce back like an inflatable doll.”

  Vasquez grumblingly agreed and conceded also that the watch was peculiar, but did not sound particularly anxious to throw energy into the question.

  After she was off the line, Karp diddled around for an hour or so, then called for a car, drove to St. Joseph’s, picked up the twins, and came back to the office. There they were made much of by secretaries and staff, given copy paper and colored markers, and diverted much government property to private use in contravention of the laws of New York. It was a rare treat for both of them; Zak hung around the cops, who were always passing through, eyeing their gear and striking up remarkable firearms conversations; Giancarlo drew pictures of rockets, ray guns, and aliens. Lucy called back on the page, and he told her to come by the office, which she did shortly thereafter.

  “How’s Mom?” she asked.

  “She says she’s okay. We’ll see. Let’s be extraspecial kind tonight, okay?”

  “I thought she wasn’t carrying guns anymore.”

  “It wasn’t her gun, and she apparently saved the life of one of her people and also her client. It must have been a tough choice.” He looked her over, suppressing like a good dad his desire that she look more like the schoolgirls he saw on the street instead of like a postwar refugee.

  “You look tired,” he said solicitously. “Where’ve you been?”

  “At the church, with Father Mike. Daddy . . . ?”

  “Mn?”

  “Did you ever have two really good friends that both like you, but who didn’t like each other?”

  “I’ve had that experience.”

  “What do you do? It’s horrible!”

  “You can’t do anything, honey. Keep ’em apart and hope for the best. These are friends at school?”

  “No, it’s Mike. He thinks David is, I don’t know, strange or something. He really kind of flared up about it, which is not like him . . . I mean about other people. He flames me all the time.”

  “Well, he is strange,” said Karp, and got one of the famous Ciampi-women black looks. “I meant most people don’t live like St. Francis and go off to dangerous places to help refugees or whatever. What do you think Mike was getting at? That the guy was a phony?”

  “No, not really. I think Mike screwed up himself, with the Church, I mean, so he’s always on the lookout for people who think they know more than the Church does about religion.”

  “Really? He seems to be fairly liberal with your mom’s antics.”

  “Oh, Mom’s just a common criminal. It’s okay to be charitable to those.” She fell silent, thinking: Mike Dugan thinks I lust after David is what it is, and that I’m going to get myself in trouble. And I do lust after him, but it’s stupid schoolgirl lust, and I’m in no great danger from it; pathetic, really. Still, Mike should know that, so . . . what if it’s something else? Something he knows, or senses? He’s so damn smart, Father Mike, I can’t believe he’s behaving like some Irish parish priest like we joke about, but for real. So what could it be? And as she mused in this way, she recalled the odd things she had noticed about Grale and ignored or excused. That remark about why God lets them live. About the slasher being an instrument of mercy. Those scary blank moments when he suddenly wasn’t there. She felt a chill and shuddered. Her father noticed and asked what was wrong, and she said nothing, but it wasn’t nothing.

  The phone rang. Giancarlo struck like a snake and snatched it up. “Mr. Karp’s office,” he said; then, handing over the instrument, “It’s for you, Daddy.”

  “I should hope so,” said Karp. It was Vasquez.

  “Was that a secretary?”

  “My kid. What’s up?”

  “I did Paxton. If he’s making it up, he’s real good. I took him through it half a dozen times, from every angle I could think of. Raney did him, too. Basically, he says they were cooping in the garage. They have like a route in that area, they dive in trash cans for high-end magazines, and also they pick over things that people leave out on the streets. There’s a little blind corner in that garage they use to stash stuff.”

  “There’s no guard?”

  “Hey, it’s the low-end economy. They slip the poor guy a tax-free twenty and no questions asked. They’re merchants. Anyway, they were there, checking over their finds, and Ramsey spots a woman walking by, going over to a Lexus. He was high, Paxton says, wine, and he’d smoked some dust. And he says, ‘Look at that rich white bitch. We should take her off.’”

  “Sorry, Ramsey or Paxton says this?”

  “Ramsey does. And he pulls out his knife and accosts the woman, Marshak as it turns out, and she pulls a gun. Paxton didn’t see the gun, but he hears the shot and sees Ramsey go down. Marshak gets in the car and books. He goes over to Ramsey, and he sees he’s gone. She got him right through the pump, by the way, according to the autopsy, one shot right on the money. He grabs up the knife and takes off. That’s his story.”

  “And how did Paxton come to contact Solotoff? A sudden spasm of civic responsibility?”

  “No, Solotoff had the various homeless hangouts and shelters plastered with handbills. If you know anything about this crime, come see me: reward, five grand for useful information.”

  “That’s a nice reward. A reward like that can powerfully stimulate the imagination. Did you suggest to him that he was making up the whole thing to get the cash?”

  “Of course, and I outlined to him the penalties for perjury and assured him that if we did find him perjurious, we would go after him to the full extent, et cetera, but he sticks to his story. Ramsey attacked with a knife, was slain in self-defense.”

  “What’s the knife look like?”

  “Oh, the knife is good, too. Solotoff brought it in in a plastic bag. Cheapo six-inch hunting knife, a Taiwan product. It’s got prints on it. Obviously, forensics has it while we speak, but a good assumption would be that some of the prints are Ramsey’s. It doesn’t look that great for the good guys, boss.”

  “No.” He paused. “And the watch?”

  “Zilch on the watch. He never saw the watch, never knew Ramsey had it. He affected surprise and outrage when I told him that Ramsey had died with a gold Rolex in hand. He was pissed off because they were supposed to split everything down the middle. Ramsey was holding out on him. He says.”

  “Yeah. So he wants us to believe that a street merchant with no recent record of violence, and with a six-thousand-dollar watch in his pocket, which he doesn’t tell his partner about, and which we have no idea where he got it, all of a sudden decides to mug this woman and gets killed with a knife in his hand, after which his partner takes the murder weapon and keeps it safe until prompted to come forward by a reward.”

  “The mugging is explained by the dope. The knife being taken is explained by panic.”

  “Oh, please!”

  He heard her sigh over the line. “Hey, what can I tell you? That’s his story. Raney thinks it’s bullshit, too. So . . . what do you want me to do now?”

  “Not sure. Need to think about this some more, but I can’t right now.”

  He replaced the phone. Lucy looked inquiringly at him. “You were talking about Desmondo and Ralphie, Desmondo’s murder and all, weren’t you?”

  “Yeah. Ralphie came in and told his story. He said Ramsey was doped up and attacked Ms. Marshak with a knife, and she shot him.”

  “Do you believe him? Ralphie?”

  “I don’t think so, but he’s st
icking pretty hard to the story. What do you think? You knew both of them, didn’t you?”

  “I guess. I thought I did. But you never know about people. I always thought Des was pretty straight-up. He drank wine and smoked a little, but he wasn’t a dealer.”

  “My guy says Ralphie says Ramsey was dusted when he went after this woman.”

  Lucy shook her head. “No way. Des didn’t do hard drugs that I ever saw or heard about. Ralphie might’ve. Ralphie was sort of a slimeball, and the two of them were, you know, the way a kind of straight-up guy will let a slimer hang out with him because he’s sort of half-sorry for them and also because it like makes him feel good to have a follower? That was them.”

  The twins came in then, ravenous and sugar-stoked, having consumed all the candy in the secretary’s little disk, and demanded junk food for their supper. Karp obliged, being an old junk-food glutton himself. Lucy feigned enthusiastic agreement, although, like her mother, she found American fast food faintly nauseating. Unteenlike, she found herself unexpectedly solicitous of her family’s grosser tastes, peace being at a premium this particular evening. Karp accepted this pose unawares, and Lucy reflected upon the ease with which we can fool people who love us.

  They went to the McDonald’s on Canal. Lucy nibbled one of their waxy salads while the men pigged out on meat and cheese. She amused them by translating the Chinese characters for the food. A hamburger was han wu mei guo, or “harmonious American thing”; a sandwich was san ming zhi, or “three bright managing,” a good name, Lucy pointed out, because not only did it sound right, but it adverted to the brilliance of the food’s design, enabling the eater to handle two breads and a filling at once.