Resolved (37 page)

“Did I interrupt something?”

“No,” said Karp, struggling to stand. There was something wrong with the message center that normally controlled his legs.

“No, we were just finishing up,” said Stupenagel. “It was one of the greatest experiences of my life. I feel like a real woman now.”

“Oh, shut the fuck up, Stupe!” said Karp, finally upright.

“I could leave,” said Murrow. “Just let me find an outlet for this and I'll be gone.”

“Take her with you,” said Karp as he picked up his chair.

“No, I want more, more, more,” said Stupenagel. “You promised!”

“Gosh, boss, this is just like those lawyer TV shows, where they're always grabbing each other after court. I'll just plug this in—here—and you can have your privacy back.”

“Oh, for crying out loud, Murrow, we're not doing anything. This woman is a maniac.”

“You have the right to remain silent,” Murrow intoned, as Stupenagel laughed like a maniac.

“Turn it on high,” said Stupenagel to Murrow as he plugged the thing in. “I want to be covered with greasy sweat. I want my blood to boil.”

The two men looked at her, then exchanged a look. “Perhaps a moderate setting,” said Murrow, “just to chase the chill. And now that I've done that, why don't I go check with the state people on when this show is going to get going.”

He made to leave, but Karp was up so fast that his chair vibrated on its central springs.

“I'll go,” he said, almost bodychecking the smaller man on his way out. “I have to go to the…”

He was out the door. Murrow shut it and addressed the reporter. “Well, if you don't mind, I think I'll go back to my desk. I have a few things I need to catch up with and—”

“Oh, fuck that, Murrow! Sit your tiny little ass down and have some more wine. It's Friday, for Christ's sake. You have nothing that won't wait.” She poured two glasses full of champagne. He was interested to see that, drunk as she was, she did not spill a drop. He took a glass and sat on the couch. She perched on the edge of Karp's desk. She raised her glass. “Dead friends.”

They drank. “Have you even got any dead friends, Murrow?”

“A kid from my soccer team in middle school drowned in a boating accident.”

Her snorting laugh. “Oh, perfect! That's so American, which is why I spend as little time as I can in my homeland. Let me show you something.” She rummaged in her big sack of a purse, removing files, notebooks, a large jar of French Imodium tablets, an Urdu-English Dictionary with no cover, a ball of soiled tissue, a cell phone, and a thick greasy nylon passport wallet. She opened the wallet and plucked out a creased photograph.

“This was taken in the bar of the Summerland Hotel in Beirut in 1982,” she said. “That gorgeous creature in the middle is me, if you can believe it. The other five people in it were all killed on the job.” She pointed a finger at one grinning face after another. “Beirut, a bomb, about a week after the picture. This one, a sniper in Sarajevo, this one disappeared in Chechnya. Peru, kidnapped. Guatemala, shot at a roadblock. What do you think of that, Murrow?”

“I think it's sad. I think you need some new friends.”

“Nobody wants to be my friend anymore. No, that's not true. I don't want to be their friend anymore. Do you know why? Because they all get killed.”

“You need friends in safer professions.”

“That's a good idea, Murrow. You could be my friend. We could get married. I could get a job on the style section. Or I could marry Karp. Tell me the truth, do you think there's any possibility that he'd dump Ciampi and go for it?”

“He seemed pretty devoted.”

“Devoted. That's a great word you don't hear much anymore, except in obits. ‘Devoted wife of Abraham Schnitski.' I could write obits, that might be a good way to conclude my career in journalism. Does he ever talk about her?”

“Marlene? No, he tends to keep the private life separate.”

“But come on…they've been married years. I can't believe he doesn't play around a little. All these cute little lawyerettes tripping around the office, a good-looking alpha-male man, the aphrodisiac of power. Off the record, Murrow.”

“Honestly, I really couldn't say.”

“Oh, please, Murrow. I'll let you feel me up.”

“Really, I don't know anything that would be worth
that
.”

“Oh, fuck you. But seriously…never? No chewing face in the supply closet with what's-her-name, the little Irish?”

“No. Strange as it seems, he takes his marriage vows seriously. Many people do, you know. It's a point of honor.”

“Good Christ! Honor? I've slipped into a time warp. As long as it's not just
me
that turns him off. I mean, you don't think it's me, do you? I'm losing it, maybe? Oh, God, my entire life ethos has been based on the idea that men are dogs: show them a damp pussy and they have all the discrimination of a cheap windup toy. Honor is not a concept I have seen much associated with the sex act. What is this, a trend? I hope not. The New Victorians. I could do a feature, if I wrote that kind of shit. How about you, Murrow? Do you keep your honor bright?”

“My honor is my loyalty,” said Murrow.

She laughed. “Just as the Nazi SS used to say. And you knew that, didn't you? A man with an historical imagination; it makes me all shivery. If only you weren't such a little Murrow. Have some more champagne.” She poured, her hand steady as a cliff. “Murrow, could I ask you something?”

“That's all you've been doing.”

“No, really. I have to whisper it.”

“Oh, go ahead.” He felt her hot breath on his ear.

“Do you see that sprinkler head sticking out of the ceiling?”

Murrow looked up. The ceiling was very high, a characteristic feature of office buildings erected before the age of air-conditioning. The brass sprinkler nozzle stuck up from a dropped pipe that ran the length of the room. “What about it?”

She whispered.

“You might,” he said, “but wouldn't you regret it later?”

“I never have before,” she said. “It's sort of my trademark.” She reached both hands up under her skirt.

 

During her long drive in, Marlene had rehearsed her speech. She thought that if they could just keep quiet and let her say it, and played along, they could all get through this pretty well. In addition to the crazy stuff, there was a lot of what Marlene still thought of as divine-intervention love in the Karp family. And it was also helpful that all its members were essentially decent people. Except for her. And she wasn't quite sure about Zak, although he was still young.

In the event the thing went off well enough. She sat stiffly in a chair in her kitchen (her former kitchen?) and spoke to the three children, who stood before her in a group. A speech from the throne. She said, “Babies, I'm barely hanging on here, and if you ask me any questions about what I'm doing, or why I'm not here, or when I'm coming back I will die. I'm not going to make up happy stories about it. It's bad and I can't disguise it. I've been a terrible liar, I thought I was being smart, that I was trying for…oh, forget that, I don't want to justify what I did. But now all we have is the truth.”

She paused, forcing herself to look at their faces, Lucy's patient, Zak's closed and hurt, Giancarlo intently listening, his eyes invisible behind his dark glasses, leaning slightly against his brother. She wished for a cigarette, a prop.

“The truth is that this is a big day for the man I love most in the world and if I have anything to do about it, it's going to be a good day. We are, I am, going to pack all the family garbage into plastic bags for one day and just concentrate on making it right for your father. Can we just do that?”

Giancarlo said, “But if we do that and we're all happy and like that, like we used to be, you'll start crying and you'll have to think about why you're not here with us.”

“Yes, but you know, sweetheart, I think I can just suck it in enough so that won't happen. I think for once I can just be here now. It's supposed to be the route to true happiness anyway.”

A brief silence and then Lucy said, “That's good, Mom. Did I tell you Dan's here?”

“No. That's great. He's lurking while we have our family conference.”

“Yes, and I'm going to go back there and ease him into the flow.” She kissed Marlene on the cheek and walked off.

“They're kissing all the time,” said Zak. “They never stop.”

 

Karp reeled into the eighth floor men's room and leaned on a sink. His face felt as though someone was holding a velvet throw cushion gently but firmly down on it. His lips and tongue seemed the size of hamburger rolls. The floor rolled slowly under his feet, which seemed farther away than they ordinarily were.

I'm drunk, he thought. Drunk as a skunk. Or a lord. He sort of enjoyed the rolling-floor feeling, but not the velvet-cushion one. Despite knowing he was drunk, he felt fine, not in the least impaired, or rather not so impaired that a little extra care would not put him right. The Inner Karp, however, informed the drunk that this feeling was exactly what led people to climb into motor vehicles and drive them at full speed down the wrong side of the freeway, under the impression that they were fully in control of the situation.

The Inner Karp also took this opportunity to inquire why Karp was doing this, getting drunk just before such an important and prestigious occasion. Karp strove for an answer; he was interested, too. A phrase floated up from memory: You're wound up so tight that one day you're going to crack and when that happens, look out! His wife's voice. First or second wife? Hard to tell; they had both expatiated on the theme. Can't believe I married a man who doesn't drink. That was definitely Marlene. Days of wine and roses? The drunk drawing the partner down the drain of self-destruction. Not really. Marlene was what she called a maintenance drunk. Come to that, Jack Keegan was pretty nearly in the same class, along with half the cops and judges in New York. And a binge every twenty years was not exactly a ticket to Betty Ford. But why now?

You couldn't discount Stupenagel's presence, the woman did drive him crazy, her challenging routine, daring him to match her drinking, as if that were some kind of achievement. And also not wanting to look like a wuss in front of Murrow. And why had Murrow brought that cognac? To celebrate, obviously, and it had gotten out of hand.

Or had it? Karp splashed some water on his face and dried it on a rough paper towel. Karp did not let things get out of hand, not consciously anyway, and only where his wife was concerned. Marlene was perpetually out of hand. So…he
wanted
to get drunk? The room swam, the white walls wavered like the reflection in a swimming pool. Karp fought off a wave of nausea. No, there was a purpose here, the need for some greater access to the reptilian brain. Down there must lie the answer to…what? What was the question? Why he felt this way. He had won, triumphed over everything, it had been a great year and the next would be even better. Why then did he feel like everyone knew a secret that he didn't know? He gets to be prom queen but it's all a big practical joke, a pig date on a metropolitan scale.

A toilet flushed, a stall door swung open, and out walked a man named Kevin Battle. Chief Inspector Battle was the chief of staff of the police commissioner's office and one of the major foundation stones of the Blue Wall. He had survived half a dozen PCs and confidently expected to be PC himself someday soon. He startled a little when he saw Karp. Karp was not his favorite person this year, so his smile was even more full and false than it usually was.

“Butch Karp! Man of the hour!” Solid slap on shoulder. “How're you doin' fella?”

“Fine, Chief. You're with the DA and his…?” Karp couldn't actually say “cronies” so he hung the end of the sentence on silence. Battle did not seem to notice.

“Oh, yeah, just sitting around telling lies. You ought to come by and tell some yourself. We were wondering where you'd got to?”

“I'm talking to a reporter. Telling lies myself.”

Hearty laugh. The guy was good, Karp thought. He hates my guts and if I didn't actually know that, I would think he was being genuinely friendly. Karp had the same sort of feeling he had when he heard a great musician play or saw a great athlete perform: I will never be able to do that no matter how hard I try. That effortless phoniness. He wondered, not for the first time, whether this defect was a deadly disadvantage in his chosen walk of life.

Battle said, “You want to be careful around the jackals, fella. They'll eat you alive.” He washed his hands, dried them, inspected his heavily decorated uniform in the mirror, brushed off a bit of lint. He paused at the door, his sharp blue eyes narrowing slightly as he gave Karp an appraising look.

“You all right? You look a little pale.”

“I'm fine, Chief.” Forming the words with extra care.