Act of Revenge (13 page)

“The don, you mean?” asked Karp. “I thought he was this icy calculator.”

“Oh, I'll give you icy calculator; shit, yes. But also the word is maybe the good ten and the three of hearts slipped under the couch while he's playing, he didn't notice it. Besides that, he's—Big Sally, I mean—he's not a nice guy.”

Roland burst out laughing. “Oh, wait, stop the presses! He's not a nice guy? Christ, Guma, he's a fucking
Mafia don
! He's supposed to be a choir boy?”

Guma ignored this and continued talking to Karp. “These guys, they're, when you get right down to it, real conservative. The family's over in the corner there; they might whack each other, they might whack a girl gets in the way, but they leave
la famiglia
alone. You understand this, Butch, Sicilians and the family. They sell whores, they use whores, they sell dope, whatever, but they don't
think
of themselves as bad guys. Okay, so there's rumors about Big Sal, always was, that he's like
bent
, from way back. Not short eyes, not a faggot, nothing like that, but there's a twist there. Big Sally would go to some lengths to see it didn't get out. With the big guys, there can't be what they call an
infamia
, they won't do business with a guy like that, and no business means . . .” He made a thumbs-down gesture, suggesting early retirement under a layer of paving material.

“So, you're thinking what?” Karp asked. “That Eddie was going to spill this whatever? That's why he was killed?”

“No, I'm not saying that, necessarily, but it was something
like
that,” said Guma reflectively. “You hear stories, too. They don't have much domestic felicity at the Bollanos, which is not that common either, the
cugines
like peace and quiet they come home from a hard day at the rackets, and the girls ain't into calling the cops they get rapped in the chops a couple times. So, that could hook up, too, someone's fucking someone, I mean for real, in a bed. But we don't know. It's like I was saying about the prairie dogs and the hawks. There's a message there for somebody, but we can't read it yet. We don't even know who's eating who. But that kind of stuff, that's where we should be looking.”

Marlene, driving back to Manhattan on autopilot, thinking about selective amnesia, thinking Jesus fucking Christ I tried to kill my mother, and about her daughter, the ticking bomb. Of course, Marlene hadn't actually connected with that hot iron, but on the other hand, the kid had access to more sophisticated weaponry. The pistol in the glove compartment was sending out malign rays. Wondering why your kids hate you is a winless game, but one with the addictive qualities of a slot machine. She turned on the stereo, cranked the volume up, punched buttons, rejected rock 'n' roll, immature mooning after love, music of youthful rebellion, yes, she really needed
more
of that just now, settled on WQXR, Haydn sweetly blaring, a symphony. She blanked her mind, a necessary technique in many professions, including hers, and let the harmonies massage her. By the time she reached the Queens Midtown Tunnel, the yammering in her head had been reduced to the usual low buzz of demonic voices conveying the usual neurotic messages, familiar as road signs: you're wasting your life, you're making your family miserable, you're going to end up dead in an alley or in prison; your kids will get shot by a maniac,
bad
mother
baaaad
mother, worthless, worthless, worthless . . .

The traffic gelled at the entrance to the tunnel, and Marlene called the dog into the front seat. “Sweety, come talk to me. I need the wisdom of the deep animal spirits.” He came up from the rear deck of the station wagon and, with a damp sigh, draped himself across the front seat, his hindquarters down on the floor and his immense, hideous head resting on Marlene's thigh, or rather upon the old towel that she had placed across her legs. She stroked him behind his velvety ears.

“Oh, tell me about memory, Sweety. How can we live with each other if we can't agree about what happened? Now that I know I'm suppressing stuff, I wonder what I suppressed with Butch, or Lucy. I realize sometimes the family walks on eggs around me, and of course Butch is the world champion of papering over, pretty rich for a professional confronter of crime, but not in the sacred hearth, oh, no, the poor bastard, and Lucy, who knows what's cooking in there? I could've done something horrible and never remembered it. It would have to be pretty bad compared to what I
can
remember. And they talk about what trauma does to kids, and I think Lucy, a year old, some maniac grabs her out of her stroller and Jim Raney blows the guy's brains all over her, four years old, her dear Mom has a little nervous breakdown over practically getting raped by her boss, drags her out of town barely functional, at seven she procures a murder weapon for a kid who kills a cop, Mom covers that up, of course, and never mention, at ten she watches Mom blow away a guy who's after one of her clients, right there on the street, and a little later a friend of hers gets murdered and stuffed in a trunk by a bent cop, and the next year she watches Tran shoot a guy dead and even helps a little, and now what? I'm upset she's a little
tense
, a little
withdrawn
? Doesn't want to make
fudge
with Mommy anymore? I should be thankful she's still in the church, but God forgive me, that irks me,
too
, like she is just doing it to piss me off, the famous religious failure, I can do it, Mom, and you can't, nonny nonny nonny, oh, Jesus, is that an unworthy thought, or what, Sweety? Christ in heaven, how does this crap get into my brain? No, she's sincere, otherwise she'd probably be a serial killer already. And why can't I, Sweety? Why doesn't the grace come to me anymore? It used to. Come on, Sweets, you must have some religious ideas. Is there a secret Church of Dog? Does Dog exist, as the dyslexic agnostics ask? No, you don't need it, because you don't know you're going to die. Or maybe you do. How the hell would we know? We can't even talk to each other and we can
talk
.”

The car entered the filthy, gleaming tube, and the radio was cut off, leaving Marlene with static, with the swish of traffic outside and the stentorian breathing of the dog inside.

“Meanwhile, Sweets, let's use this moment. In a couple minutes, unless there's a tanker explosion that fries us all to a crisp or a crack in the tube, which is also something to worry about—of course, in that case you would heroically save me by dragging me out in your mighty jaws—but absent that, we will emerge into bright sunlight on Third and go uptown to talk to Harry Bello and get a lecture full of good sense, and it really is an absolutely gorgeous day, gorgeous, far too good for New York, if you ask me, and we will feel good again, through the dark tunnel into God's light, like Dante. Here we go.”

And it was so, the sunlight flooded the broad canyons, Haydn came back with the final chords, and the fruity QXR voice informed us all that it had been the Ninety-fourth Symphony, called
The Surprise
, which made Marlene chuckle and bounce the dog's head on her knee, thinking, yeah, it always
is
a surprise, the good stuff amid the shit, and how pathetically grateful I am for it. The dog shuddered in delight and slobbered into God's lap.

Chapter 6

THE OFFICES OF OSBORNE GROUP, INC., were housed in a twenty-four-story building on Third in the Sixties. The building was an undistinguished crate in the usual degraded International Style (glass over steel, and on the columns and in the lobby marble facings colored like pale toast and as thick), the den of small firms in fields representative of the city's business, including especially the innumerable parasites that cling like lice to the creative spirit—agents, producers, publishers, packagers, ad agencies, tax lawyers—plus a scatter of legal and medical professionals, and on the ground floor behind glass windows a discount brokerage and a health club. It was a respectable if not prestigious building and right for a security agency that liked to think of itself as having some class.

Marlene had her own marked parking space in the underground garage, which was a nice perk, and meant, among other things, that she could shop at Bloomies and get home without schlepping packages on the bus or trying to hail a cab or taking out a second mortgage to pay for parking. Many women in New York would work for Satan to get a deal like that, and Marlene knew it and was grateful that she only had to work for Lou Osborne, who was a pretty decent guy. In fact, she only had to report to her pal and former partner, Harry Bello.

Who was in, and looking good, as he usually did these days. During his last years on the cops Harry had run into some bad luck and got into the sauce and done some dreadful things, things he couldn't live with, and been in the process of committing slow suicide. They'd called him Dead Harry then. Marlene wasn't sure whether she or God's infinite mercy had saved Harry, but saved he was, now a prosperous security executive, and good at it, and while remaining a reliable pal, not in the least willing to cut Marlene any slack. She found his paternal concern alternately chafing (she already
had
, for Christ's sake, one semi-oppressive Italian father) and comforting (he was also the smartest detective she had ever met, fearless, and loyal). The arrangement was that Marlene ran her own business how she liked and worked for Osborne under Harry's nominal supervision, straight security for organizations and the well-to-do, celebrities even, as Marlene had a rep of the kind that the golden people delighted in, a sort of violence-chic. Which she herself despised, but it paid the bills.

He was wearing an expensive-looking gray suit and a blue striped tie, and he'd gained some weight in the last year or so, which he had needed to do. Not much hair left on Harry, and he still had those dark, sunken cop eyes, but his face was now healthy, rather than damp-clay swarthy, and he no longer looked like a fresh corpse.

Marlene greeted him with a kiss, went to the little refrigerator, opened a Coke, and flopped in one of Harry's leather sling chairs.

He said, “You know, you're supposed to call in, we send you on an appointment. How did it go?”

He meant the abortion clinic. “I was my usual charming self and a credit to the firm,” said Marlene. “I don't think I made a sale. In fact, I think Ms. Hyphen-Name expected something very different. More of a sister, which I was not.”

“Well, you must've done something right, because she called this morning and signed up. Site hardening, security service, the works. They caught two of the guys there, did you hear?”

“Wait a minute, she
hired
us? I thought she was going to throw me out of there.”

Harry indicated amusement by crinkling his eyes and twitching the left side of his mouth up a quarter of an inch.

“What's so funny?” Marlene was a skilled reader of Harry's minimalist emotional field.

“You never can tell the effect you're having on people. Back on the Job, I used to bang away at some witness, trying to get cooperation, and it was no, no, I didn't see nothing, I wasn't there, and a couple days later you get a call, they want to sing. Meanwhile, who's Vivian?”

Marlene had to laugh. “That was cute. Where did you find out about old Vivian?”

“Woman's been calling here every couple hours,” said Harry. “Won't give her full name, asks for you, no, nobody else can help her. The girl up front figured it might be something we should know about, so she told me. So?”

“She's from the shelter. No, don't roll your eyes at me, Harry! Showed up in a blanket and a pair of panties, been abused. Vivian Fein, she calls herself, maiden name, and she didn't strike me as someone who normally goes by the maiden name. She tried to hire me to investigate the suicide of her father. Gerald Fein.” Marlene waited for Harry to make the connection.

“Not
Jumping
Jerry? You got Jumping Jerry's daughter in that shelter?”

“Yep. She was serious about it, too. Had a diamond the size of a golf ball she was going to give me as a retainer.”

Harry didn't appear to hear this. “Jesus, that takes me back. Jumping Jerry. It was what? Nineteen sixty, right? Right, yeah, because it was my last year in the city before I transferred out to Brooklyn.”

“You were in on the investigation?”

“Nah, I was in Auto at the time. But there
was
an investigation. Fein was mobbed up—you knew that?”

“I recall something of that nature.”

“Yeah, what they call a Mafia lawyer. So the thought was that he might've had some help going off. But nothing turned up, and we had to let it go down as a legit suicide. Arnie Mulhausen had the investigation.”

“You remember this? I'm impressed, Harry.”

Bello smiled deprecatingly. “It's a habit. But I tell you, it's not that impressive because stuff is starting to slip. I'm trying to think of Mulhausen's partner and I can't. Stocky guy, Irish, thin red hair. Donovan? Donohue? Something like that, and he had a nickname, B something . . . Billy-club? No. Anyway, Mulhausen passed while I was still working out of Bed-Stuy, so what's-his-name would be the guy to see. Dolan? I'll think of it.”

“Guy to see? What, you
want
me to do this?”

“Why not?” replied Bello easily. “She's got means. We're running a business here, Marlene. It's got to be a long project, lots of billable hours at the top rate, and we got participation on a sliding scale based on our billables. She wants you, we know that, so go for it.”

Marlene hugged herself, wriggled in her chair, and in a breathy voice cooed, “Oooh, Harry, when you talk that business talk, it just makes me feel shivery all over.”

“Don't get wise, Marlene, like you couldn't use the money,” Harry grumbled. “Besides, her money, it's a public service. Donnelley? I should sing that damn song with all the Irish names in it.”

“What?” said Marlene. Harry occasionally reverted to a gnomic form of communication that assumed that the person he was talking to was making the same mental leaps he was. Marlene could often follow him, but not now. “What's this about her money?”

“Just that prick of a husband. It'd be nice to put it to him. On the other hand, he's not going to be happy she split on him. I hope your pal's ready for action there, got her six-gun oiled.”

“Harry, what the hell are you talking about? You know who Vivian Fein's husband is?”

Harry snapped his fingers. “Doherty! John Doherty. They called him Black Jack. I knew there was a B in there somewhere.”

“That's Vivian's
husband
?”

Harry looked at her as if she were speaking Welsh and replied in an elaborately patient tone. “No, Marlene, that's the guy on the investigation, with Mulhausen. Who you should see. The husband is Bollano. Jerry's daughter married Little Sal Bollano about two years after Fein hit the sidewalk. It was the wedding of the year for the wise guys.”

Marlene could hear it through the elevator as it approached the fifth floor, the incredible volume produced by a pair of four-year-olds in full wail, and her heart shriveled inside her. As she had so many times before, she resisted the desire to head directly for the bedroom and bury herself beneath the covers, and went like a good momma bear toward the source of the noise. In the playroom she found Posie mopping vomit and her husband, still in his suit, a red-faced twin on each knee, his lapel decorated with little yellow flecks.

“I think it's coming out both ends,” said Karp, which Marlene could smell for herself. The screams increased in volume when the boys spotted their mother, source of all comfort, and they reached for her like infant cuckoos.

“What did you give them?” Marlene snapped at Posie. Toddler dietetics had never been one of the girl's strong points.

“Nothing, Marlene, honest! They just had their regular lunch and they started acting cranky around four and then Zak had the shits and I cleaned him up and then they
both
started puking just before Butch got home.”

“Pick one,” said Karp.

They had done this before. Marlene grabbed Zik and snapped out orders to Posie.

“There's a container of chicken barley soup in the freezer. Zap it for ten minutes!”

“I threw up, Mommy,” Giancarlo wailed.

“I threw up,
too
, Mommy,” said his brother. “We're sick as
dogs
.”

As if cued, in pranced the mastiff, who began licking up delicious bits of yellow matter off the floor. Screams, shouted orders, startled giggles from the twins; the dog slunk off, but the cycle of hysteria was broken, which, thought Marlene, was just one more reason to have a shambling monster in the household.

The couple repaired to the bathroom, where the twin boys got stripped and cleaned and Karp held each one in turn screaming while their mother poured Kaopectate down their throats.

“What do you think?” asked Karp as he shoved Zak's arms into pajamas. “Not too hot, are they?”

She felt both their foreheads: warm, but not blazing. Diagnosis, stomach virus. After which, Mommy and Daddy pumping chirpy cheerfulness out like water from a spigot, which improved the boys' moods a good deal, then a bowl of healthful broth, a powerful dose of baby aspirin ground into applesauce for both of them, and a long lounge for Daddy and the twins in Zak's bed, reading one of Richard Scarry's compendiums, and, three times, the preschooler's answer to Phenobarbital,
Good-night Moon.
After the delicate little snores sounded, Daddy carried Giancarlo over to his own bed, tucked him in, and staggered down to the kitchen, where he found Mommy with a tumbler half full of red wine attempting to resume the character of Marlene.

“They are down,” he said.

“Well, aren't you a light unto the Gentiles,” she said, grabbing him and planting a kiss on the side of his head as he walked by to the refrigerator. She joined him and cut herself a chunk of Asiago cheese and a quarter loaf of yesterday's Italian bread, oiled and garlicked it, and ate the rest of the soup out of the Tupperware 6.

She watched Karp manufacture a roast beef on rye with his own hands, even, Marlene was amazed to see, slicing a tomato to go into it without damage to any vital organ.

“Sorry about your suit, by the way.”

“Oh, no problem. It's designed to shed vomit. I'm a lawyer, you know.”

“And besides that, how was your day?”

He told her then about the Catalano case, and its political ramifications, and Ray Guma's theory that it was something to do with the family, and Marlene listened, and did not tell him she suspected that at least part of the crime family's problem was sitting in room 37 at the East Village Women's Shelter. Indeed, it was common for Marlene to conceal things from her husband, although Karp was perfectly open with her about everything the law allowed. This imbalance was all right with Karp; he had no interest in learning all that his wife was up to.

“By the way,” Karp continued, “I had a talk with Mimi Vasquez, the ADA who's handling the Asia Mall shootings. They've come up with some interesting stuff. The vics flew in that morning from L.A. on the red-eye. They got in the night before from Hong Kong. No known contacts in the city, so they're figuring someone followed them here to whack them. They're checking airport arrivals now, but it looks like—”

Marlene dropped her soup spoon and interrupted, “Wait a second—where's Lucy?”

“She's in her room, isn't she?” said Karp. The twins crisis had prevented either of them from thinking about the family's usual problem child.

“Is she?” Marlene got up and went down to Lucy's room, whose door was, as usual, locked. She knocked. “Lucy? Are you okay?” A grumble assured her that the girl was inside. “Come out and have something to eat.”

“I'm not hungry.”

“Are you sick?” No response. “Open the door, please, Lucy.” More muttering, not all of it in a Christian tongue, stomping feet, the click of the lock. Marlene entered to see her daughter, dressed only in the Chung-King T-shirt and underpants, heading back toward her bed, where she jumped under the Italian flag duvet and turned to the wall.

Marlene sat on the bed and pressed the back of her hand against Lucy's cheek.

“You're not hot,” said Marlene, her heart twisting as her daughter seemed to cringe away from her touch.

“Have you eaten anything?”

“I
said
, I'm not hungry.”

“If you have anorexia, I'm going to kill you,” said Marlene, trying to lighten it up.

“I
don't
have anorexia, Mother,” said Lucy to the wall, mumble, mumble.

“What was that?” asked Marlene, comprehending very well what it was.

“Nothing, Mother. I just want to sleep, okay?”

“At eight o'clock? Lucy, did something happen today? Are you upset about something? Lucy . . . ?”

Lucy burrowed deeper under the covers and pulled a pillow up over her head. Marlene started to feel like a weasel digging a baby bunny out of a hole. She patted the mute lump and left.