Reversible Error (23 page)

He was a good speaker, Karp thought. He spoke extempore, and seemed both confiding and blunt. Karp agreed with the burden of the speech, which was that crime was bad and ought to be stopped, and applauded politely with the others when it was over. The party rose. Apparently they were going to adjourn to the other room of the suite, there to indulge in yet more of the secret rituals of the rich and powerful.

Karp joined the flow, and as he did, he felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Richard Reedy. "Enjoying yourself?"

Karp smiled and answered, "Nice feed. Uplifting speech. I'm waiting for when they bring out the coffers full of gold and we all let the coins run through our fingers and cackle."

Reedy laughed out loud, threw a companionable arm around Karp's shoulder, and carried him into the next room, which was stocked with comfortable chairs and waiters circulating with more after-dinner drinks. "I want you to meet Marcus," Reedy said. "He's a good man to get to know."

Marcus Fane was talking to an elderly man in ecclesiastical costume and a portly man with a red face. Reedy signaled to him in some subtle way that Karp missed and Fane excused himself and walked over to them. He was a stocky man with a smooth medium-brown face and straight oiled hair worn in the fashion of the late Adam Clayton Powell. He grinned his famous and photogenic grin as he shook Karp's hand.

"Well, well, Mr. Karp! Rich here has told me so much about you."

"And what was that, Mr. Fane?" asked Karp blandly.

"Please, it's Marcus," said Fane. "And you're Butch. Why, he's told me you're just the man to inject a little vigor into our criminal justice system."

Karp glanced at Reedy, who winked in his merry way and smiled. Karp nodded and smiled, feeling vaguely uncomfortable.

"You have political ambitions, I hear," said Fane.

"Well…" said Karp hesitantly.

Fane took in the occupants of the room with a broad gesture. "And you've come to the right place. This is where political ambitions are fertilized, sir. With money." He winked broadly.

Karp smiled conventionally at this wisdom. Reedy said, "Maybe we can set up a meeting later in the month, Marcus. Butch, here, and a few key people. Maybe form an exploratory committee?"

"Good idea, Rich. Never too early to dig worms, ha-ha! Call my office and set it up."

Fane was edging away, obviously responding to another invisible signal emanating from one of the other groups of men that had coalesced in different parts of the room. He shook hands with Reedy and Butch again. "Excuse me," he said. "Old pols can't resist working the room. Rich, on that Agromont thing, consider it a done deal."

Fane left and Reedy said, "Well, that's that."

"What's what?"

"He likes you. You're a plausible candidate." Reedy moved over to a coffee setup and drew a cup of black coffee from a silver urn. Karp followed him.

"How does he know that? I barely opened my mouth."

Reedy carefully rubbed a bit of lemon rind around the rim of his cup and sipped. "He knows. You're tall, you have an honest face. Jewish, but not too Jewish. Your record is fine, not that anybody gives a rat's ass. A bad record can sink a candidate, but a good record's not enough to win."

"What is enough?"

"Money. What else? Half a mill should do it, for starters." He looked sharply at Karp. "You haven't got any, have you?"

"Not so you'd notice. My penny jar is pretty full, but I always forget to stop by the bank for those little paper tubes. I guess you don't have that problem."

Reedy grinned. "Don't joke about money, Butch. Money is always serious, especially among our present company."

"I'll remember that. Speaking seriously, then, what about Fane? Is he rich too?"

"Oh, I imagine he's well-off," Reedy answered casually. "He's got some nice income property uptown. Some investments too. People like to give stock tips to congressmen."

"And maybe to judges. You know a judge named Nolan?"

"I know the name. Why?"

"Just wondering. In these drug killings we've been investigating: Judge Nolan released a witness on what, for him, seemed an excess of constitutional zeal. The guy walked out and somebody tried to kill him. Then he disappeared."

"You think he's dead?"

"I wouldn't be surprised. Whoever's doing these killings is pretty slick. It might be interesting to find out if anybody's passed any lucrative information to Judge Nolan in the last week or so."

Reedy nodded. "You'd like me to look into that."

"Yeah, I would, if it's not a problem," answered Karp gratefully, while thinking, ungratefully, that whoever had done it was probably the type who inhabited meetings like this one. Or this one itself. "So, tell me, Marlene," said the guy, "what's your racket?" His name was Glenn. He was a Capricorn, he lived in Inglewood, he liked the music.

"You mean what do I do? I work for the D.A." Marlene watched his face carefully. No rush of sweat to the brow, no wild rolling of the eyes. Instead, mock wariness: "Uh-oh. I better watch my step around you. What are you, a paralegal?"

"Um, in a manner of speaking. How about yourself?"

"I'm in TV," he said. "In production at ABC."

"That's impressive," said Marlene, remembering her cards. "Do you mingle with the stars much?" Keep him talking. Keep him interested. The guy had moved around so that he stood between Marlene and the doorway. She tried to crane her neck unobtrusively, so as to keep the door in view, while at the same time darting glances at the fern wall to see if she could spot Jo Anne.

"Looking for someone?" the guy asked.

"Huh? Oh, no, not really."

"You keep looking at the door," he said.

"Oh, well, I was supposed to meet a girlfriend here later."

"Not a boyfriend?"

"Isn't that why I'm here?" replied Marlene as coquettishly as she could manage. Smile. Lean. Show some tit.

Encouraged, the guy moved closer. She could smell his cologne and the leather of his jacket.

"So. Wanna do something?" He touched his nose meaningfully.

"Um, like what?"

He laughed. "You know, blow. Do a coupla lines in the can. Get in the mood."

Marlene did not lead a sheltered life, but she had never been offered cocaine socially by a stranger before. She hadn't expected the guy to do it, and it threw her out of character. She shook her head spontaneously and vigorously in refusal.

This was apparently not the response expected of Tangerines bimbos. The guy's glib smile faded and he shrugged.

"So. Wanna dance?" he asked.

"No," she said. On the floor she would never be able to watch the door for Raney. Then, seeing his smile vanish completely, she added, "I, uh, hurt my foot playing racquetball. I'm practically crippled."

Smile again. "Hey, I play too. Where do you go?"

"Um, you know, all around."

"Like where? Tenth Street? Midtown Courts?"

"Yeah, those. And, um, you know, the Y." The guy looked at her peculiarly, his expression losing any enthusiasm. He thinks I'm lying. He thinks I'm trying to dump him. This wasn't working. She had to get JoAnne. "Look," she said, "I got to run to the ladies'. Why don't you order me another drink for us. I'll be right back. Don't go away now!" She tried to inject a flirtatious note into her voice. He nodded and she went off, remembering to drag a foot behind her, like Quasimodo.

The rest rooms at Tangerines were located off a long narrow hallway that led from the corner where the main room met the aisle of the bar. Marlene entered it, turned to make sure she wasn't being followed, and then went back into the crush of the meat market.

It was even more crowded now, at the peak of the Friday-night follies, and loud with fevered chatter. Despairing of finding JoAnne in time, she elbowed her way through to the bar and stood up tiptoe on the rail, hoping to spot the preposterous wig. To her vast surprise, she found herself staring down at a familiar head of strawberry-blond curls. It was Jim Raney, dressed for disco in a chino suit and an open-necked blue shirt.

"Raney," she shouted. "Dammit, where have you been!"

He looked up at her in amazement. "Where was I? Where were you? I've been here nearly an hour."

"Never mind that-I've got him," she said. "Follow me!"

She grabbed his sleeve and led him back into the main room. The band was, inevitably, doing "Saturday Night Fever" and showing they could play it loud. Marlene's eyes went to the wall where she had left the guy. The two glasses they had used remained on the little shelf; the man himself was gone.

Marlene clenched her fists and uttered a screech of frustration. Raney asked, "What's up? Where is he?"

"Where is he? He's fucking flown, Raney, that's where he is."

"Could he be in the John?"

"No, impossible! He would have had to get past me there, and he didn't. Shit! He must have skipped. There's a way out around the front."

Raney followed her quickly through the crowded cabaret, stepped around the ferns, over the velvet rope, and out into the street. "There he is!" Marlene shouted. Raney looked in the direction of her pointing finger. A man with a leather jacket stood on the curb, trying to flag down a cab.

Raney walked toward the man. "Hey, buddy," he called, "could I see you a minute?" The guy looked over his shoulder, saw Raney, saw Marlene. His eyes widened as he recognized her. He backed away. Raney took his leather shield holder out of his jacket pocket and flipped it at the guy. "Police," he said, and the guy ran.

Marlene was after him like a dog on a rabbit, across Madison. Raney cursed and followed, but the light on the cross street had changed and he found himself trapped briefly between the lanes of honking traffic.

Marlene was running without thought, concentrating only on the flapping crow shape of the leather jacket as it flickered, caught in one streetlamp after another.

She chased the guy north on the west side of Madison, about ten yards separating them. The foot traffic on Madison was sparse, mostly couples working the bars and panhandlers. They flicked by, barely noticing the chase. Marlene was wearing low heels, a disadvantage, but her quarry was wearing loose slip-ons, which kept flapping off his feet as he ran. Every twenty paces or so he would have to make a little skip to jam them back on, and Marlene would close the distance. Then his longer legs would tell and he would stretch it out again.

Marlene could hear his breathing become louder and more ragged. She was in better shape, she thought: raping probably wasn't all that aerobic. He wouldn't last another three blocks. With relief she heard Raney coming up behind her. The guy suddenly veered left up a side street. When Marlene turned the corner, the guy had slowed to an odd stumbling trot. He had his right hand jammed into the pocket of his jeans. He was struggling to get something out of his pocket. Marlene thought: Knife! Jesus, he brought his knife.

She couldn't stop. She was almost on him. She heard Raney shout, "Hold it, hold…!" The hand came out of the pocket and something shiny flew from it and skittered on the street.

He tried to accelerate again, but Marlene was on him, her fingernails digging deep into the leather of his jacket. He jerked his body violently and nearly pulled her off her feet. One of her shoes went flying. She felt several nails crack off. He swung an arm around, grabbed the front of her shirt, and heaved her around to face him. The shirt tore down the back and her grip on the jacket was broken.

She could see his face now, the sweat-slicked hair, the features red and contorted with rage and fear. He set his feet and aimed a backhanded right at her face.

Marlene crouched and ducked, but his knuckles still slammed against the side of her skull, reddening her vision. He hauled at the shirt, to set her up for another blow, but Marlene came with it, bringing her hard little right fist up from nearly pavement level, putting the full 110 pounds behind it, sinking it up to the wristbone in his crotch.

He let go of the shirt with a shrill cry and bent double. Then Raney was there in a long flying leap, whipping his big Browning pistol down on the guy's head with a sound that echoed from the buildings like a gong.

The guy crumpled without a sound. Marlene collapsed and sat on the pavement, sucking air, clutching the tatters of her shirt to her naked breasts. She felt the sweat drying on her back.

Raney checked the guy's pulse, cuffed his hands behind his back, and knelt down beside Marlene.

"You OK?" he asked.

"Yeah. Fine."

"Light duty, huh?"

"OK, OK, OK," she gasped. "It was a screwup. I didn't think it would go down like this."

"Yeah, well, it happens. By the way, that was quite a shot to the nuts. Characteristic, if I may say so."

"Thanks, Raney," said Marlene sourly. "Hey, can I borrow your jacket? My tits are hanging out here." Raney shrugged it off and she slipped into it, grateful for its warmth as well as the protection it afforded from the gapers in the small crowd that had gathered around them.

Raney stood up and helped Marlene to her feet. She recovered her shoe and leaned against him to put it on. She was still wobbly and dizzy with adrenaline and fatigue. Raney said, "Look, we got to call this in." He pulled a card out of his wallet. "There's a booth on Madison and 66th. Call this number. Ask to talk to Detective Franklin. When you get him, explain the situation and tell him we need a blue-and-white and a bus."

"A bus?"

"Yeah, you know, an ambulance. Hey, are you sure you're OK?"

"Uh-huh. Just a little shook."

"OK, then meet me at the two-oh and we'll book him. What's the charge, do you think?"

Marlene sighed. "Better make it possession for now."

"Possession? What're you talking about? I thought this was the Wagner killer."

"It is. I think. But my witness never got a look at him and I don't know him from Adam. He just fit what we were looking for, in general. Meanwhile, he offered me coke in the place there, and he tossed a vial during the chase. You should find it in the street. It's enough to hang on to him with until I can get JoAnne there and ID him."