Depraved Indifference (21 page)

Marlene came into his office around five, sat down on his side chair, and lit a Marlboro.

“So what's up, babe? Feeling better? You sounded real bad last night.” Karp said this to his blotter as he shuffled papers.

“Oh, I guess. How about yourself?”

“Doing good. Can't complain.” Shuffle, shuffle.

“Uh-huh. Not according to V.T. He says you're freaking out. He says Guma says so, too.”

Karp looked up and stared at her. Her eye was cool, with that drift of pain beneath that always broke his heart. “That's a lot of crap, Marlene, and you know it,” he said angrily.

“Do I? I think you're acting peculiar, too. Secretive. Not that you shouldn't have secrets, but this … whatever, is screwing up the gang. You're—I don't know—snapping at people, giving funny looks.”

“Look who's talking. Freaking out? Secretive? Check yourself out, kid. You want to know the truth? I'm fine. I'm eating, I'm playing a little ball. I'm doing my job—”

“Butch—”

“—which right now is nailing the guys who put Terry Doyle away, which I intend to do, despite—”

“Butch, wait a—”

“—
despite
the goddamn DA and the FBI and Hanlon and Denton and the police department and the fucking Powerhouse—”

Marlene got to her feet and stuck her face in his. “Butch, stop! What are you talking about? Denton? The
Powerhouse
? What?”

“What am I talking about? It's a secret. How do you like that?”

“Butch, this is Marlene. We're on the same side. We spill our guts—”

“OK, let's spill our guts. You start. Tell me about NGH 615.”

“What?”

“The tag on the blue Ford last night. The old dude with the crew cut?”

“I don't believe this. You're having me
watched
?”

“No, I'm not ‘having you watched.' I was worried about you, sentimental asshole that I am. I went by your place to see if I could cheer you up, you're too beat to go out, right? Hey, I don't control your life, but when I go by, and I see you sneaking out with—”

“Sneaking? Sneaking! I was on the fucking job, you jerk! Renko Span is an
informant
, for chrissakes. When I said I was whipped and I couldn't see you, I meant I didn't have the energy for a goddamn crazy insensitive conversation like the one we're having right now.”

“What kind of informant?” he demanded suspiciously.

“I met with this bomb expert, G.F.S. Taylor, about the device itself, the trigger. OK, we talked, we got friendly. Karp, he's seventy, for God's sake, and he let on as how one, he fought in Yugoslavia during the war, and two, he's still palsy with a couple of Yugoslav emigrés in the city who might have known something about Karavitch back in Croatia. Renko Span is one of them.”

“And what does this have to do with the case?”

“With the case? Not much, maybe. It might tell us a lot about who's so interested in making sure that there isn't a case, and why.”

“Save yourself some trouble. I already found that out,” he said glumly. “The ‘who' anyway. Here, you might as well have a look at this. Since we're spilling our guts.”

Karp dug out his wallet and removed the diagram, wrinkled and softened like an old map. He spread it out on the desk, and Marlene stood behind him, resting her hand lightly on his shoulder, under the circumstances a gesture of the deepest intimacy. Karp tried not to think about that or about how Marlene's wiry body radiated heat like a coke oven.

“What is it? You reorganizing the office?”

“No, it's a picture of who's screwing who and who's trying to bag this case. I still can't believe it, but I can't draw any other conclusions from the evidence. What I don't understand is why.” Karp quickly described what he had learned about the source of the legal defense funds and what he thought this implied.

Marlene whistled softly over her lower lip. “Oh, ho. That's interesting. I always wondered what they did with the collection cash. Very interesting. Where does the FBI come in?”

“I'm not entirely sure. It may sound strange to say it like this, but maybe Bloom saw this as an opportunity to put it to me. He set me up to run the case, he's got me established as the push behind trying these people. Maybe somebody in the Feds owes him a favor. The case gets screwed up, dismissed, and Karp carries the can. Bloom can even say, ‘I told you so.'”

“Could be, could be,” she said. She lit another cigarette and started pacing the small room, her head down in thought, her hands on her hips. “It seems a little tortuous, even for Sandy Bloom. Maybe not for Wharton, though. And the cops … ?”

“A natural. That's why they call it the Powerhouse. The connection between the Archdiocese of New York and the police department is well-known. Couple of words in somebody's ear, the message gets around. Besides,—”

“Besides what?” Marlene had stopped pacing and was looking at him sharply.

“Well, you know: cops, Irish, Church. There's a connection.” He shrugged.

“Oh, yeah. Father Feeney gets all the micks together and says, ‘Me bhoys, the Holy Faather needs this case put in the tank, so as ye've a hope o' heaven go out an' corrupt th' evidence—”

“Come on, Marlene—”

“No, you come on. I can't believe this. It's—it's like those posters those nuthouse fundamentalists put up— the pope is taking over the world. Beware, America!”

“Marlene, it's not like that …”

“No? What's it like? Frank Marino's a Catholic. You think he's bent? Jack Doheny? Luke D'Amato? For that matter, the kid herself. I'm a mackerel snapper, too, Butch. You want to see the ruler marks on my hand from the nuns?”

“That's not the same and you know it!” Karp shouted. “Now cool down. I just meant that since the year one the NYPD has been run by the Irish establishment, and the Church in New York is run by the same guys, the same families in a lot of cases. I got the Arch paying for a bunch of cop killers, I got cops bent all over the place, I got witnesses being intimidated or disappearing when only the cops know who they are. You can see the train of thought, can't you?”

“I can, and it sucks. Karp, that's like saying if the check for Roberts came from Hadassah you'd suspect all the Jewish cops and judges and ADAs, including present company.”

“Maybe I would,” Karp said, a little lamely. A lot of the starch was going out of his beautiful, scary pattern.

“Horseshit, darling, absolute horse doody! Now look. There
is
a conspiracy. But we have absolutely no evidence that everybody that's interested in queering this case is working in the same conspiracy. And so we have to be guided by one of my favorite prosecutorial aphorisms: let the case grow out of the evidence; never squeeze the evidence to fit your idea of the case. You know who taught me that?”

“No, who?”

“Butch Karp, back in the days when his brain was still working. Baby, listen to me. First of all, pull the team together again. It's too much for one person, even you. Let's work the angles independently. Sure there's a church angle. Go ahead and see where it leads. I'll follow up on the bomb and the Yugoslavs. Let Guma and the cops work the street, the neighborhood where these guys hung out and made their scene. V.T.'ll handle the Feds.”

“What about Hadassah?”

She laughed. “Let Roland do that. And the cops— which reminds me, have you told Denton about this?”

“Are you kidding? He's got to be in on this. Come on, Marlene, an Irishman gets to be a superchief, he's not plugged in at the Arch?”

“God, Butch, sometimes you amaze me. I realize all these Christian denominations might be a little confusing to a nice Jewish boy from Brooklyn, but still …”

“Marlene, what are you talking about?”

“Bill Denton. Irish, sure. But he's C. of D. because he's probably one of the ten smartest cops they ever had on the job and because after Knapp, when they were looking for brass that wasn't tarnished, somebody recalled that Bill Denton had never accepted as much as a cup of coffee, so he got the post. I mean, he still has to be somewhat discreet: he wears a green tie on St. Patrick's day and all, but Bill's people're from Belfast. He's a black Protestant. Come on, Butch, don't punch the goddamn wall, you'll hurt your hand.”

11

“H
OW DO YOU
feel now?” Marlene asked tenderly. It was nearly midnight. Karp's head was nestled in the crook of her shoulder, and they were both lying against the warm, damp sides of Keystone Plate-E-Z while perfumed water lapped at their skin. “Uh-hum,” said Karp, master of words. He was busy making little waves by moving his chin. Each time the trough of the wave passed Marlene's breast, the nipple would glint in the reddish glow. Karp found this unutterably amusing. Marlene had arranged the glow by flinging an article of underwear over one of her photographer's lamps during the evening's steamy prelims.

“No, really. How's your hand?”

Karp raised his huge mitt above the guttering surface of the water. “Looks OK. A little swelled up maybe.”

“You nut. It really drives you crazy when you're not perfect, doesn't it?”

“I guess. That business about Denton really got to me. I mean, all my instincts told me he was straight, and then I get involved, possessed, by this conspiracy theory, and I start accusing him of throwing the game. In my mind only, thank God. I'd have to leave town if I had told anybody about this. Meanwhile, I got to call him first thing tomorrow, and tell him about the check from the Archdiocese. Maybe it'll help him get a lead on who's running the game for the cops. Better late than never. Shit, the whole thing makes me nauseous.” He shook himself in irritation.

Marlene hugged him and kissed him lightly on the head. “Let it go, Butchie. Nobody likes to think they're a little bit of a bigot, especially not us educated liberal types. It wouldn't have mattered if you hadn't gotten scared by this case and played it so close. Jesus! Goom would have blown that crap to smithereens in a New York minute. That's why you have compadres, right? Keep your sweet ass straight, right? But it got you in a weak spot. A little Jewish paranoia. God knows, you've got every right to be paranoid. They
are
out to get you.” She twirled his wet hair in her fingers and sighed. “Everybody has a weak spot. You have to compensate …”

“Yeah? What's yours, Marlene?”

“Mine? Why, it's you, of course,” she replied without an instant's thought.

“It was Pretty Boy Floyd,” said Denton, his voice over the phone tight with anger.

“The outlaw, Oklahoma knew him well,” Karp said.

“What?”

“Nothing. A song. What do you mean, Bill? Who's Pretty Boy Floyd?”

“Bob Floyd, our Deputy Police Commissioner for Public Affairs.”

“Oh, him.” Karp knew him by reputation and from countless TV interviews, a beautifully dressed man with almost movie-star looks and a deep, resonant voice that could express nonsense believably. “The PR guy. An empty suit, I thought.”

“Yeah, but ambitious as the devil and a pillar of the Church. I knew it was him the minute you told me about the check this morning.”

“How come you're so sure? Did you brace him on it?”

“No point. He'd deny it, and I haven't got the clout or the solid evidence to roll a D.P.C. No, I talked to your friend Fred Spicer. It seems Pretty Boy called Fred in for a little chat right after the hijackers got booked. Suggested that the powers that be would not mind one bit if these guys got dismissed. Suggested that an up-and-coming lieutenant might find the path to captain smoothed out when the time came.

“This is subtle, you understand—it happens all the time, and Floyd is the guy from whence it comes, especially when the source of the pull is our friends in the Powerhouse. In a situation like when Vice hits one of those faggot bars in SoHo or under the West Side Drive and they find out the guy in the pink dress is none other than Father Flanagan, Floyd says a few words in the precinct captain's ear and the papers get lost. Or maybe the captain calls Floyd, tells him he already lost the papers, picks up a few brownie points.”

“So Spicer thought it was business as usual? But, shit, Bill, this is murder, and a cop …”

“I said he was subtle. The hint was also put in that it was a fuck-up at Rodman Neck. Doheny was drunk, Doyle and the boys were playing grab-ass with a live charge. Bingo.”

“He believed that?”

“Why not? People tend to believe what's convenient, especially if they hear it from authority. He's helping the Church, his job, and his career. As far as he knows, there's no crime, or not much of one. It's not like he's walking some child rape monster. You think he's going to ask questions? Spicer?”

“Yeah. A certain tendency toward the lazy. So how did you play it when you got the story?”

“Very soft. He assumed I was in on it, and I didn't bother to correct him. I suggested that you were in on it, too.”

“You did? Why the hell … oh, yeah, right.”

“Right. I figure Spicer and whoever he's got working with him are concentrating on screwing up the evidence you've got. Scaring off witnesses. Trying to grab the evidence at the range. They try anything else, it might be a good idea if they didn't bother much about whether you knew about it or not.”

“Good thought. Um, it just occurred to me. Has Floyd got anyone else working for him? Besides Spicer.”

“That I don't know, but it's a good bet. Spicer assured me that neither he nor any of his gang were involved in torching that store in Grand Central. I believe him; it's not his kind of thing. The Feds, now—”

“Yeah. The problem is, it's going to be hard filtering the evidence. Some cop walks in here with a manuscript called ‘How I Wasted Terry Doyle' in Karavitch's handwriting, I'm going to break out in a cold sweat.”