Reversible Error (22 page)

Manning was sitting in a booth with his partner, Sid Amalfi, joking with a tan woman wearing skintight electric-blue toreador pants and a blond wig. They fell silent when Fulton walked over to them.

"Hello, Dick, Sid," he said. "Can I buy someone a beer?"

"Not today, Fulton," said Manning, scowling.

Fulton ignored this and slid into the booth next to Amalfi. "You know, that's a shame, because I think we have some business to discuss."

"We got nothing to talk about with you, Fulton," said Amalfi.

"Who's your friend, Sid?" the woman asked.

"He ain't no friend of mine," snapped Amalfi.

Manning stared hard at Fulton, who responded with a wide shit-eating grin. Manning turned to the woman. "Say, Doris? We got some business to discuss here. See you later."

The woman sniffed and made off for a more congenial corner. Manning said, "What the fuck are you doing, Fulton?"

Fulton said, "What, I can't have a drink with my brother officers? Especially since we're in the same line of work."

"What're you talking about?"

"Your moonlighting job. I just had a little chat with a friend of yours-Tecumseh Booth."

"I don't know any Booth," said Manning.

"Yeah. Yeah, you do," said Fulton. He took a tape cassette out of his jacket pocket and placed it on the table. "I got it all here. The Clarry hit. Springing him from jail. Choo Willis and the other hits. Club Mecca. It's quite a story. Sort of old Tecumseh's last will and testament, as a matter of fact."

Amalfi's face had gone dead white. "For Chrissake, shut the fuck up, Fulton! You can't talk about it here-"

"Shut up, Sid!" Manning snarled. Then, to Fulton, "You want to show us some evidence, let's go someplace where we can take a look at it, discuss things-"

"Cut the horseshit, Manning," said Fulton, raising his voice. "What I want is in. You guys got a gold mine working, I got a key to the door, and I want my piece."

Heads turned in the bar. Manning held up his hands placatingly. "OK, OK! Look, no problem-but let's go where we can talk."

They went to Manning's car, a loaded white Trans Am. "This is pretty nice, Manning," said Fulton when the doors were closed. "I might get me one of these, or maybe a Benz."

"I like American cars," said Manning. He started the engine, gunned a couple of times, and peeled off up Amsterdam. "You can't beat the pickup."

"That's a point," agreed Fulton. He pulled the cassette out of his pocket. He said, "By the way, in case you're thinking what you might be thinking, this ain't the only one of these, you know. You guys better pray I stay in good shape, if you catch my drift."

From the back seat Amalfi said, "How do we know you ain't just blowing smoke?"

"Listen," said Fulton. He slid the tape into the cassette player and they listened for a while to the voice of Tecumseh Booth.

Manning ejected the tape. He pulled the car over and parked on a side street. "That's enough," he said. "How did you get him to talk?"

"I shot him in the knee. Then I said the next one I'd blow his pecker off. He came around pretty quick."

Manning chuckled. "You're quite a fuckin' piece of work, Fulton. I never would of figured you for a stunt like that. It goes to show you, you never can tell. So where is Tecumseh now?"

"Well, I didn't lie to him. I put the next one in his ear. He won't be making any more tapes."

Manning and Amalfi both laughed. "You got rid of him OK?" asked Manning. "They can't connect you?"

"No problem. I picked him up from where my guys had him stashed and I told them he ran. He's in a trunk in a crusher yard out in the Meadows. So, am I in?"

"I guess you are. How about your boys?"

"No, I don't want nobody else in this. Keep it simple. And keep the cash." Fulton put an expression of avid greed on his face. "And about that-what does our end come to?"

"We get fifty large a hit," said Manning.

Fulton whistled. "Very nice. But I guess the price gonna go up. Now you got an extra mouth to feed, I mean. I don't want to put my partners out any."

Manning smiled. "No. No problem. You got no idea how much cash is floating around in the coke business. It's like fucking Monopoly money. Makes smack look like kids selling lemonade. But I got to talk to my man about it."

"Who is…?" asked Fulton.

Manning waved a cautionary finger. "Uh-uh. You in, but you ain't that in, man. I'll talk to the man tonight and get back with you tomorrow."

Fulton frowned and thought for a moment. "OK, that's cool," he said. He got out of the car. "See you around, partners," he said, and sauntered away.

Amalfi got out of the back seat and dropped down next to Manning. His face was flushed and angry. "What the fuck, Dick! You really gonna let that shithead in on this?"

"Cool down, Sid," said Manning. "He ain't gonna do nothing without us, and I need time to figure. That tape is bad news."

"Yeah, but we could grab him and make him tell where the other copies are. Like he made Tecumseh."

"We could," agreed Manning. "But I'm also thinking he could come in handy another way too."

"Like what?"

"Like I'm starting to like Lieutenant Fulton for these killings we're investigating," said Manning.

After a moment, a smile grew on Amalfi's face. "Yeah," he said, "now that you mention it, so do I."

Dressed in the trousers and shirt of a rented tuxedo, Karp bent and twisted before the cheval mirror near Marlene's bed, attempting for the fifth time to get the bow tie right.

From her position on the bed Marlene gave him irritating advice. "No, you still didn't hold the fat end with your thumb. And don't fling it down like a three-year-old and glare at me like that! If you can't tie a bow tie, why didn't you get one of those clip-on thingees?"

"Because," Karp replied, retrieving the offending item, "only nerds wear clip-ons. And if you're so smart, why don't you tie the goddamn thing?"

"All right, I will," said Marlene, bouncing off the bed. She stood in front of Karp, dressed only in a ragged Let-It-Bleed T-shirt and blue satin underpants, and tied a perfect bow in five seconds flat.

"How did you do that?" asked Karp, amazed.

"I have three brothers, all as ham-handed as you, and not nerds. What are you doing?"

Karp had wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close, running his hands under the elastic and clasping a haunch in each one.

"I really know how to tie a bow tie," he said into her ear. "It was just a ruse to get you close so I could do this."

"What a liar, and if you keep doing that I'll never let you out of here, and you'll be late, and all the bigwigs will spot the stains on your pants and make fun of you."

"Let them," said Karp. "I'm not proud."

After considerable kissing and fooling around, Karp said, "I have to go before I come, so to speak."

Marlene said, "I knew it! Get a girl to the absolute squish point, and run off. I guess your career comes first. Dear. Not-quite-wifey will have to rub it off against glossies of Bruce Springsteen while you cavort with the great."

Karp laughed. "Yeah, right-the career. Reedy invited me to this political wingding. The old farts have to check out the new kid, make sure I don't have horns."

"How noble of you to suffer for your little family! Why don't you admit you're ambitious? You'd love to be D.A."

Karp stood up, adjusted his clothing and smoothed his hair in the mirror, then put on his dinner jacket.

"I'd love it, sure," he said, "but whether I buy it depends on the price tag."

"Is there a price tag?"

"Sure. Just like in Macy's. I just haven't been told what it is yet. How do I look?"

"Like a young fart," replied Marlene grumpily. "No, actually you look gorgeous. Have a good time."

He leaned over and kissed her lightly. "Don't wait up."

"I won't," said Marlene, feeling guilty. She heard the hollow slam of the downstairs door and checked the bedside clock radio for the time. Six-thirty. Still hours to kill. She went down the ladder from the sleeping loft, turned on the TV, watched the beginning of a movie, lost track of the plot, switched it off, made an omelet and toast, ate desultorily, fed most of it to the cat, paced the length of the loft, the butterflies growing more huge in her gut. She went down to the gym end of the loft, laced on a pair of light gloves, and slapped the speed bag around until her arms were limp. Seven-thirty.

She peeled off her sweat-sodden clothing, folded back the cover of her bathing tank, and plunged in. She waited for the warm water to relax her, gave up, emerged, dried and powdered herself.

She dressed and made up carefully in the style she thought of as classy-but-available: lots of eye makeup, false lashes, and crimson lipstick. She brushed her heavy black hair, then combed it across the bad side of her face, Veronica Lake style to obscure her glass eye. She put on a long black skirt with buttons up the front, the bottom six undone, and a Chinese raw-silk shirt in red over bare skin-the top three buttons undone.

She checked herself in the mirror: a dark, smallish, pretty woman showing definite nipples. She looked like all the victims. She grabbed her bag and left. Tangerines was housed in a narrow tan building on Madison in the Sixties. Its name was drawn in neon of the appropriate color in the curtained window. Raney was not there when Marlene arrived, and neither was JoAnne Caputo. She paced outside for ten minutes, spurning half a dozen pickup attempts. Finally she turned with a curse and went inside.

There were around two hundred people in the place, most of them members of a youngish crowd who lacked the fame and money to go to the big see-and-be-seen places and who considered themselves too sophisticated for the ignominy of standing behind the velvet rope with fat people from the burbs, gaping at the gilded folk. There was a long bar along one wall, separated from the main room by a low planter and trelliswork, packed with climbing philodendrons, ferns, and aspidistras in pots.

The aisle thus formed was jammed with standees holding drinks-the meat market itself. On the other side of the greenery was the cabaret, a room of twenty or so tables, each lit by little orange globes, a tiny stage, and a dance floor not much larger in front of it. The stage was occupied by a trio and a singer, doing sixties stuff and some contemporary music, with a bias toward the romantic. Couples clutched one another and rocked gently on the dance floor. Contact dancing was back at Tangerines.

Marlene checked out the cabaret briefly, went back to the bar, muscled her way through the crowd, and scored a tonic and lime. She felt a tap on her shoulder and turned.

For a moment she failed to recognize her. JoAnne Caputo was decked out in a platinum wig and violet lipstick and wearing what looked like an army-surplus tent in mustard brown.

"JoAnne!" Marlene exclaimed. "You look… different."

Caputo's expression was vacant and disturbed at the same time, as if she had just awakened from a nightmare. There was a knotted and ferocious look around her eyes. "I look like shit," she said tonelessly, "but I don't want him to recognize me. Is the cop here?"

"Not yet, but he'll show up. Have you spotted anybody who looks right?"

"No, but I just got here. What do you want me to do?"

Think fast, Marlene, Marlene thought. She hadn't counted on the place being so crowded or on the lines of sight being so constrained. Catching someone in this crowd was a job for half a dozen men.

"OK, here's the plan," she said at last. "You stay in the bar and sort of drift back and forth through the crowd. That's where it's most likely he'll be. If you spot him… um, stick your head through those plants over there and signal. I'll be in the main room over by the far wall. I got to watch for Jim. For the cop."

JoAnne nodded agreement, and took a deep swig of her drink, which Marlene doubted was nonalcoholic. As she left, she saw JoAnne signaling strenuously to the barman for a refill. That's all I need, she thought: an identification by a drunk witness. It was starting to look like not such a great idea.

The far wall of the main room supported a narrow padded shelf running almost its entire length, against which standees could lean and rest their drinks. Marlene leaned and took in the room. To her right were the dance floor and bandstand of the cabaret and to her left was the street wall with its curtained window, glowing pale orange. The barrier of plants stopped just short of this wall, and the passageway thus formed was guarded by a velvet rope. She could just make out the door to the outside around the end of the fernery.

"Come here often?" asked a voice to her left.

She turned to it. He was medium tall, of medium build, wearing a leather jacket over a black T-shirt and black jeans. His dark hair was collar-length and swept back over his ears. His eyes were dark and his features were even, except for his nose, which was long and marked by a lumpy ridge down its center. She looked down at the floor. He wore woven loafers with no socks.

The man smiled winningly. Marlene felt herself smiling back. She said, "Not really. This is my first time," trying to keep the tension out of her voice as she realized that it was the guy. Karp sat in his unfamiliar dinner clothes with two dozen similarly dressed men, all with real bow ties, in a suite of a small, expensive mid-town hotel, listening to Congressman Marcus Fane finish his speech. He sipped his coffee, but passed on the little snifter of brandy set before him. It had been quite a meal: Scottish smoked salmon to start, a cream soup with oysters and crab, an enormous slab of prime rib, decorated with potatoes and mushrooms carved into fanciful shapes, a salad made of some unknown sour greens and yellow flowers, and baked Alaska for dessert.

Karp had never had baked Alaska, nor had he ever dined with a group such as this, one of the little bands of prosperous men who called the shots in the cities of America. He looked down the table at the smooth attentive faces, some of them famous, others obscure, but all radiating confidence and power. They represented the City's largest banks, the big real-estate holdings, a few of the megacorporations that were still headquartered in New York, the insurance industry, the stock market, the state, the newspapers and the TV networks, the archdiocese, the Jewish community, the unions, and the two political parties. Fane represented the downtrodden masses and the federal government.