Butch Karp: Act Of Revenge Part 23

"Yeah, right, it's a coincidence. Just like it's a coincidence that two big triad guys got whacked the same week as Eddie Cat, at which murder our little girl might well have been a witness, and then a Chinese gangster with triad connections comes in and asks to see me personally, and shortly thereafter, another no-name Chinese gangster, Leung, starts hiring people to threaten Lucy and find out what she knows, among other things, to demonstrate to dear old dad how easily his daughter could be s.n.a.t.c.hed. That's mystery number three. Too many mysteries in a limited area, Champ. I have this sense that somebody is sitting out there pulling the strings, some . . . some intelligence, moving around little plastic soldiers." Angrily he flicked the actual soldier with his index finger. It flew across the room, ricocheted off the refrigerator, and landed, clanging, in a steel mixing bowl awaiting rinsing on the drainboard of the sink.

"Two points," muttered Karp.

"Yes, and an example of the role of the random in our lives."

"What, you think all of that is just coincidence?"

"I don't know," she said. "The killings could be connected. Lie and Leung could be working for the same outfit. But I do know that the joker in your deck is Vivian. Why did she split just then after years of marriage to the sc.u.mbag? And in a way guaranteed to send Little Sal off the rails and get him into deep trouble?"

"I like that she was boffing Eddie Cat, and when he got it, she figured she was next and ran."

"No way," said Marlene. "Scarpi was right; it had been that, they would've used the knife, and made her watch. No, it was something from the deep past reached up and bit her on the a.s.s. That's why this Jumping Jerry investigation is happening." And she told him what she had learned that day from Doherty and Abe Lapidus.

"That's interesting about Judge Paine being such a bad boy back in the old days," said Karp. "He's really cleaned up his act, if true. I've never heard a whisper about him being bent. The opposite, in fact. He's h.e.l.l on the defendant, especially Mob defendants."

"People change," said Marlene. "Maybe. By the way, I went by Sophie's after I finished with Abe. I think I caught her and her enamorata in a compromising position. She was wearing a lavender wrapper with an actual feathered collar and silk mules."

"This is Jake?"

"Yeah. He stayed in the bedroom, probably in black silk pj's and a scarlet quilted monogrammed robe with ta.s.sels. Me and Sophie chatted briefly. I didn't want to take her away from a hot time, especially, G.o.d forbid, you can never tell if it might be her last one. And Abe was right, she didn't know any of the legal details, but she filled me in pretty good on the family and friends. A very fifties story. The king and the queen in paradise, with the perfect little girl, and of course they had the usual Jewish princess and rich daddy relations.h.i.+p, and also we got the best friend-"

"Kusher, the gonif."

"Yeah, but before he achieved gonif-hood. A swell guy, sort of the third wheel around Jerry and the lovely Ceil, his bride. Ceil's a little soft in the upper stories, according to Sophie, but very decorative, played a lot of guts canasta. Bernie's the jokester, the boys play practical jokes on each other, gag gifts, costumes, while they make a nice living defending the Mob."

"Was Bernie schtupping the wife, do you think?"

"G.o.d, I didn't think to ask! And I thought I was the one with the dirty mind."

"A possibility, anyway," said Karp. "It's always the best friend. A guy dies, suicide or foul play, you look at that the first day. And the man did vanish."

"Well, they were discreet as h.e.l.l if so, because I haven't heard a whisper. Anyhow, into this paradise comes the serpent Panofsky. Jerry's being his usual amenable self, and Panofsky brought some family money into the firm, which never hurts, and the kid washes out as a trial guy and he becomes the fixer, et cetera, which we knew already, and also, get this, he conceives a pa.s.sion for, guess who?"

"The lovely and talented Vivian?"

"Right, and naturally it's a joke," said Marlene. "She's a dewy sixteen, and a stunner, he's pus.h.i.+ng thirty, and he looks like an armpit, as we know, a young armpit maybe, but still, and according to Sophie, he's hanging around her, weekends at the beach, it's embarra.s.sing, he won't let up. Finally she tells him to take a hike in no uncertain terms. He still doesn't get the picture, so Jerry has a talk with him, nice but firm. Then he lets up. This is in August, say, and that fall, that's when the jury-tampering scandal breaks."

"You're saying Panofsky framed Jerry because . . . what, he was spurned by the beauteous Vivian?"

"Hey, far be it from me to cast aspersions at a distinguished jurist, but it does have a certain poetic resonance, a Jacobean flavor, The White Devil or The Spanish Tragedy. I can just see the ugly little f.u.c.k licking his lips and rubbing his hands together as he takes his revenge." Marlene rolled her eye horribly, licked her lips, and wrung her hands to demonstrate.

Karp shook his head and gave his wife a c.o.c.keyed look. "And . . . after twenty-odd years, what? What happened to make her break out? And come to that, how do we go from spurning Panofsky to accepting a nasty psychopath, the young Bollano?"

"Oh, well, that was after Jerry's jump," said Marlene. "The girl is desperate, miserable, vulnerable, the mom is a dim bulb, and, you have to say, the mope at least is a handsome devil. Maybe he said, yeah, honey, some mobster aced your old man and by G.o.d we're going to find him and whack him out, and maybe he did, or he said he did. And then she finds out just recently he really didn't, he was blowing smoke to get her in the sack."

Karp laughed. "Makes a great movie, Champ, but . . ." He rubbed his thumb and index finger together. "Where's the beef?"

"Yeah, right," she agreed with a sigh. "But I still got people to talk to, n.o.bile the gofer and maybe I can dig up this bag lady, get her story. I called Paine's office for an appointment and got one for tomorrow."

"Oh, I'd love to be a fly on the wall for that," said Karp.

"Yeah, especially the part where I trade s.e.xual favors for the straight p.o.o.p. Euuugh!" She shuddered elaborately. "Meanwhile"-she consulted her watch-"want to watch some TV? That's all I have energy for right now."

"In a bit. Let me just go spend some time with Lucy."

He walked down the hall, feeling a bit of a sneak, because when she kissed him at the table, his daughter had whispered a request for him to do just that, later, in her room.

He knocked, got a "come in," and found his daughter in bed, reading The Loom of Language. She put the book down, and his heart sagged at how peaked she looked, like an abandoned nestling.

"What's up, kid?" he asked as he turned her desk chair around and sat.

"If I tell you stuff, like crime stuff, can I, like, stop telling you when I want, or do I have to tell the whole thing?"

"I a.s.sume this is not just hypothetical."

"No, it's real."

Karp waited a beat or two, nodded, and said, "Okay. Here's the deal. If you give me information about a crime or criminal activity, then I'm obliged to take official cognizance of it. I mean if you say, 'Dad, I saw Joe shoot Jim,' then I have to go after Joe and I have to name you as a witness. I got no choice here. The cops get called, they interrogate you, they interrogate Joe . . ."

He stopped because Lucy was shaking her head. "No, I mean, I just want to give you some information about a suspect. Like I saw a guy on a wanted poster and then I spotted him on the street. Do I have to say how I got it or if other stuff happened? I mean, I want to tell you, it's, like, the right thing, because it could stop a bad crime and people I know could get into trouble, but do you have to, like, bug me to tell you every little thingee about it, I mean, how I know and stuff?"

She was suffering, he could see it, and he wanted to enfold her in protective arms and make all this go away, and he thought about what Marlene had said in the hospital room that day, about who Lucy really was. A hug from daddy would not, in fact, make it all better.

"Lucy," he said, "let's keep it real simple. You just tell me what you want to tell me, and I won't bug you for any more. But I will take the actions I think are necessary, both as a member of the D.A.'s office and as a father, for your safety. Sorry, but that's the best I can do."

"We found the Vo brothers," said Lucy in a rush, as if the phrase were a bolus of poison she had to heave out or die.

"Where?"

"Two-oh-three Hester Street, off Lafayette, second floor in the front."

"Okay, good girl! You wait here, I'll be right back." Karp went to the hall phone and dialed a familiar number. Experienced in such instant mobilizations of force, Clay Fulton asked few questions as Karp filled him in.

"You want me to bring the Five in on this?" was one of them.

Karp thought of Phil Wu. He had been hard on Wu, and he figured it would be a decent gesture to let the guy in on a good collar. Clay Fulton was way past needing credit for big arrests. He said, "Yeah, Phil Wu's the man there. And make sure they have a Vietnamese interpreter along. I don't want these guys getting shot because of a mistake. Call me when you get it done, whenever. I'll be here."

After discussing a few more details, they hung up, and Karp went back to Lucy's room. This time he sat next to her on the bed and pulled her close. He noticed that she had washed her hair, a good sign, and, putting his face close to the herbal-scented dark curls, he said, "All right, that was the D.A. part. This is the Daddy part. Is there anything else you want to talk about?" No answer; he felt her head shake against his chest.

"I'm worried about you, Luce," he said. "We're a family. There shouldn't be any secrets in a family."

"Hah!"

"What, you think there are secrets?"

She pulled away and looked up at him, meeting his eyes, which he thought was a good sign. She said, "Are you kidding? You're running the D.A. and my mother is a part-time felon, so what do you think? And I'm probably a felon, too."

"You're not a felon, honey," said Karp, startled as this sentence left his mouth, for it was not one that he had ever imagined saying to a child of his.

"How would you know?" she snapped, and then sagged against him again, cuddling into his arms. In a weary voice, too weary, Karp thought, for the voice of a child, she said, "I don't want to be a freak anymore. And don't say 'you're not a freak,' because I am. It's a scientific fact. And I'm tired of all this . . . shooting and kidnapping and hospitals. I want things to be regular, like a regular family. And I love Tran, but he thinks he's still in the war, and we have to play soldiers all the time, and I used to like it, it was fun and exciting, but now . . . what's that called when soldiers go crazy from fighting too long?"

"You mean combat fatigue?"

"Yeah. I don't want this anymore. Sometimes, you know, like when you daydream? I dream that I have this room, with just my things in it, and attached to it is a big library with all the dictionaries and grammars in the world, and language tapes, and that's all, just a big white room, and it's on an island, with n.o.body else on it. And people could come by boat, or something, but they couldn't get on except if I wanted them to. And I could stay there and not be bothered by all this stuff. Crazy, huh?"

"Not really," said Karp. "Could we have cable? And bagels?"

She giggled. "Oh, right, we need one of those machines they have on Star Trek, a replicator, that gets you anything you need."

"Good idea, and we would need some hoops, full-court on parquet, like the Boston Garden . . ." He stopped because the girl's face had fallen. "What? No parquet? Okay, a half court, on planks. We're only going to play horse and one-on-one, anyway. Lucy, what is it?"

She shrugged. "I'm sleepy," she said. "I need to say my prayers now."

"Okay, Luce. But . . . I don't know how, but I'm going to fix this for you. This is wrong. You're a kid, you shouldn't be going through this now." He kissed her forehead.

She gave him a bleak, heartbreaking little smile, and he went out the door. Before he shut it, he looked back and saw her cross herself and kneel by the bed, her head down on her clenched hands, resting on the bed, her body stiff with concentration. He could see the k.n.o.bs of her spine through the thin cloth of her T-s.h.i.+rt, but he could not hear her murmurings, which, after the usual preliminaries, were, "Dear Lord, bless and keep my family and friends, and bless Tran, and take the violence and hate from his heart, he is really a good man, and help me to love my mother, and to be nice to her, and help her to love me, not just worry about me, which isn't the same, make her understand that, please, and don't let my father worry too much about me, it drives me crazy, and let Janice like me again the way she used to, and protect her and the Chens from the triad, and let them catch the guys who did it, and no more killing, please, and let them not hurt Cowboy, because I think he's really not a bad gangster, and give me spiritual strength, dear Jesus, and help me control my temper, and also, if it be Your will, please, please, could I have some b.r.e.a.s.t.s? Amen."

Always an uncomfortable moment for Karp, watching his child wors.h.i.+p a G.o.d he didn't believe existed and in so alien a fas.h.i.+on. He sent into the agnostic void a hopeless quasi-prayer of his own that whatever she was praying for might be delivered, after which he gently closed the door and walked down the hall to the living room, where he found his wife sprawled on the red velvet couch, sipping coffee and watching television. She lifted her legs, he sat down, and she dropped her calves across his lap, having converted Karp over the years into a pretty good foot ma.s.sager. But only a desultory rub did she get tonight.

Marlene muted the volume of the show, a sitcom of no particular distinction except as an evening anodyne, and asked, "How is she?"

"Depressed. Exhausted. Marlene, we have to do something about this kid. I don't care what you say about her special qualities, she needs to be moved out from under this load she's carrying."

"What do you have in mind?"

"Get her out of town, for starters, until this thing blows over. Hey, it's the summer. She could visit John or Anna or Patsy, hang out with the cousins. We could send her to camp, or . . . I don't know, a summer program, anything to get her out of here, and get her mind off what went down in that G.o.dd.a.m.n stockroom."

Marlene considered this for some moments. "You're concerned she could be in danger?"

"Jesus, Marlene! Of course I'm concerned. Aren't you?"

"To an extent," she replied with unnatural calm. "So, what is it, you have visions of Chinese hit squads bursting in and spraying bullets at her?"

"Yeah, that's a possibility," he admitted, "and that's why-"

"And so you think the best place to put her is on my brother's or my sisters' suburban lawn with a gang of cousins? What, to absorb some of the bullets?"

"Don't be stupid, Marlene! I only meant that-"

"And you think that if someone wanted to get her, they wouldn't know how to find out where my relatives lived?"

"We could make arrangements to have her watched."

"By who? Rent-a-cops? Butch, I'm in the business! Please do me the courtesy of acknowledging that I know what I'm doing here."

"So what do we have now? The great and powerful Tran? That's it?"

She shook her head, irritated. "Butch, where do you think Tran is, right now, this minute?"

"I have no idea."

"Well, I'm not sure either, but"-here she lifted her eyes upward-"I would guess that he's slung in a hammock on our roof with a Kalashnikov across his chest. Anybody tried to come through that door, a.s.suming they got through the cordon of tough little Viets he's had posted around this block since the kidnapping, he'd be down through that skylight in about three seconds and turn whoever it was into shreds. You think the Valley Stream P.D. out by my sister's would mount an operation like that for Lucy?"

Karp raised his own eyes to the ceiling. "He does this every night? When does he sleep?"

"I'm not sure that Tran does sleep. In any case, does that make you feel any better?" Karp stared blankly at the screen, letting the silent images bounce meaninglessly off his eyeb.a.l.l.s. The sitcom was over, the commercials were selling bright goods.

"It's not just that, Marlene. This whole situation, the Chinatown stuff, the genius stuff, it's, I don't know, eroding her." He let out a bitter laugh. "Aside from getting p.i.s.sed at you, I honestly don't know what the h.e.l.l to do."

"Yeah, well, I realize the agenda here is if only Marlene had been a normal mom, like both of our moms, if only we lived in a regular suburban house, and she went to a regular suburban school-we've been over this a million times, Butch. It's fruitless. If, if . . . if your grandmother had wheels, she could haul cement. There's no way out except through it, playing the cards as dealt. What you need to spend your energy on is lighting a fire under the cops to get these b.a.s.t.a.r.ds."

"Good advice, Marlene. I'll tell you what, why don't you let me be in charge of legal affairs in this family? You seem to have your hands full with the illegal kind." Marlene huffed, but Karp had s.h.i.+fted the focus of his attention.

He grabbed for the remote, pushed the mute. A commercial for the news program scheduled for the next slot was on the screen.

". . . startling revelations suggesting Mafia infiltration at the highest levels of the New York district attorney's office," said the announcer, and on the screen was Ray Guma, winking slyly and saying, "The fix is in."

"All this and the latest weather and sports. Stay tuned," said the announcer.

Karp said, "Ah, s.h.i.+t! The stupid f.u.c.kers leaked the film."

They watched as the news came on and the screen showed the artfully edited tape, thirty seconds of Guma saying those unwise sentences to Gino Scarpi, ending with that wink and "the fix is in." After that there was an interview with Norton Peabody in the lobby of the Federal Building. Mr. P. was terribly upset that someone had leaked this piece of evidence, and an investigation was under way to find the culprit. Was there a federal investigation under way of the D.A.'s office? He was not at liberty to reveal whether or not there was. Would the federal grand jury take up the issue? The grand jury was authorized to explore all aspects of Mafia penetration of society, and the D.A.'s office was not excluded. Mr. Guma had received a subpoena and would be appearing before the grand jury in short order. The minute being up, the news switched to the doings in Lebanon, leaving Karp shrieking curses at the screen, and then the phone rang. Karp went out of the room to the kitchen and stood over the answering machine, glaring at it and snarling. It was a reporter. He left a message. Another ring. Another reporter.

Reporter. Reporter. TV reporter, could we schedule an interview for seven tomorrow? Another reporter. Then, "Butch! Jack Keegan. Pick up if you're there."

Karp picked up. "Are you having fun yet?"

"G.o.dd.a.m.n it, I actually was until this G.o.dd.a.m.n tape got on the TV."

"Did they show it in West Virginia?"

"No, Mary just called and gave me the good news. Jesus, Butch, I'm here with every D.A. in the country, and it's out on network TV that I got a Mafia mole in my office. I'm gonna have to play golf tomorrow with a bag on my head. You saw it?"

"Yeah, Peabody showed it to me this afternoon. He's subpoenaed Guma based on the tape." He paused, while Keegan said nothing. "You know it's horses.h.i.+t, don't you?"

"Oh, Christ, of course it's horses.h.i.+t," said Keegan, "but that's not the point. It looks bad politically. I know you don't think that's important, but believe me it is. We could put the whole five families in jail and what people would remember is that f.u.c.king tape. Did he really wink and say 'the fix is in'?"

"I'm afraid so. What're you going to do?"

"h.e.l.l, I feel like leaving right now. Four hours by car to D.C. and I could be on the first shuttle tomorrow morning."

"Don't do that, Jack. It gives the f.u.c.kers more credibility than they deserve. Stay out of town and let me handle it. I'll do a press conference tomorrow morning and come out snarling. It should take the wind out of their sails a little, and if it doesn't work you can repudiate me, whatever."

He was glad to hear Keegan's laugh over the line. "Oh, I will, my lad, never fear. Meanwhile that sounds like a start. I'll work the phones tomorrow, I got some pals at Justice, and I'll call my tame reporters in the city. Counterattack is good. I thought you didn't do politics."

"I can do it," said Karp. "I just hate it."

He hung up shortly thereafter, and the phone immediately rang again. Karp cursed and listened, but it was not the press again. It was Fulton.