Butch Karp: Act Of Revenge Part 27

"If it lasts," she muttered and walked away.

Karp had over the three idyllic days that followed kept his vow not to call the office, and his office, exhibiting more decency than he had expected, refrained from calling him. The sole TV in the house was a small black-and-white with a rabbit-ear antenna that sucked in mainly snow, and no newspapers were delivered. Every morning Sophie and Jake drove to the small commercial strip to buy a Times so that she could check her investments (and, Karp suspected, grab some time alone with her man), but she did not bring it back to the house. They all might have been on Mustique.

Neverthless, Karp's thoughts returned at odd moments to the problem of Willie Lie and his promise to Keegan to think of something to take the heat off Ray Guma. At one of these moments he was sitting in the beach shelter playing pinochle with Jake and Sophie and Mary Ma. Lucy had just gone off to the club to collect some drinks. They had just finished a game and Sophie was totting up the score when Karp's attention was distracted by a shrill cry. Twenty yards away, two seagulls were fighting over a long bit of carrion. Neither would let go as they leaped, flapping into the air. The birds had attracted the attention of the twins, and Zak had decided that it would be fun to catch a seagull. Naturally, and fortunately, the piece of garbage broke off, and the two birds flew their separate ways, but watching the brief vignette cast Karp's mind back to the saying Willie Lie had written on the legal pad in Karp's office. He grinned and turned to Mary, who had also watched the same thing and remarked, "When snipe and clam grapple, the fisherman benefits." Her face lit up. "That's a Chinese saying," she said, and he said, "Yes, I know," and at that moment Sophie asked him to reach down for a towel that had been slung over a roof beam, and a little light turned on in Karp's mind.

"Say, Mary, how do you say 'roof beam' in Chinese?"

"Roof beam? In Mandarin it's liang. In Cantonese, leung."

"And, ah, Leung: that's a name, too. I mean, the same character is both, right?"

"Yes. Leung is a very common name, and it's the same character, but you say it differently in different parts of China, like Leong, Long, Nia, Liao, Liow . . ."

"What!" he cried.

They all looked at him. Very carefully he said, "Mary, what you're saying, Nia and Leung are the same name?"

"Yes. Sometimes names are very different in Chinese, and when two strangers meet, sometimes they draw the characters of their names on the palms of their hands, so maybe they are relatives?"

"What about Lie? Is that the same, too?"

"Oh, no, Lie is different, Lie and Lee and Louey, those are not the same at all. Lie means plum."

Jake said, "Something wrong, Butch?"

"No. Yeah, actually, I just found out something I need to tell someone about. In fact, I think I'm going to have to go back to the city."

"But you'll be back?" asked Sophie, worried.

"Yeah, soon as I can."

He went to where Marlene was lying in the sun. He told her his recent surmise and what he intended to do.

"Okay," she said, "see you later," as if he had told her he was going to run out for a carton of milk.

He looked at her. "Are you all right, Champ?"

"I'm fine. Just a little sleepy."

"You seem to be getting along better with Lucy," he said tentatively.

"We're not fighting, if that's what you mean. She has a lot of distractions and less pressure on her. It helps."

"Do you think you can talk to her? I mean about what she saw. It's the key to this whole d.a.m.n mess. If she can actually put Leung at the murder scene . . ."

She took off her sungla.s.ses and looked at him, and the exhaustion in her face and in her eye was so profound that he felt a pulse of shame. He grasped her hand, patted it, said, "Okay, forget it, I'll take care of it some way. Just rest and don't worry."

She put her sungla.s.ses on again and continued her observation of the twins.

After a moment he said, "I'm going to drive in with Ed. Debbie will stay here with you and the kids. I'll be back as soon as I can." She nodded. He kissed her on the cheek and departed.

Somewhat over an hour later, after a stop at the loft to change clothes, he was back at Centre Street, but in Clay Fulton's tiny office. Karp was not officially back from leave. It was ten degrees hotter in the city, and the air had acquired the acrid fug of summer.

"Explain this to me again, Stretch," said Clay Fulton. "Lie is Leung?"

"Lie is Leung and they're both Nia, the triad-nik. I figured they were connected, maybe working together for someone else, but they're the same guy. He engineered the setup that killed those two Hong Kong triad guys in Chinatown, he set up the Catalano killing, he kidnapped my kid, he bent Detective Wu, same guy. He came to me to act as a witness to frame Joe Pigetti, and he bolted when I wouldn't give him a free ride and went to the feds. He's been sitting in one of their hotel rooms someplace, being protected by the federal government, laughing his head off."

"Okay, okay, say you're right about that-what does it buy us?"

"Well, for one thing, it explains why we can't figure out a Mob angle for the Catalano killing. There is no Mob angle. Leung did that freelance and he's fingering Pigetti for it. That fancy work about the clock in the car wasn't an alibi for Pigetti, it was an alibi for Lie, but with Lie's testimony it becomes an incrimination against Pigetti. Brilliant, when you think about it. And I would be willing to bet that he had a lot to do with getting Little Sal in the s.h.i.+t he's in, maybe slipped some new information to the wife, maybe told Sal where she was hanging out. And the result, the Bollanos are stripped of leaders.h.i.+p, ripe for the plucking."

"Jesus, Butch, by who? We got absolutely no evidence that the other Mob families are moving in on-"

"Not the Mob, Clay. The triads. Or some triad."

But Fulton was shaking his head. "Butch, they don't ever do that. They may s.h.i.+p in China white, sure, but they sell it to the locals. That's the deal."

"It was the deal," said Karp grimly. "Take a look at the streets, Clay, the faces. The city's changing. It's not the place we grew up in. I remember when cabbies were Jews and Italians. They had Brooklyn accents: T'irty-t'oid and T'oid."

"And they got turbans now. What's your point?"

"Different times, different wise guys. The old Italian Mob is dying. You compare someone like Little Sally to guys like Lansky, Luciano, Joe Adonis-it's a joke. And f.u.c.king Colombo is a joke, too, going after those mopes like he was saving the city."

"So . . . you're saying it's the yellow peril now?"

"Come on, Clay, it has nothing to do with race, it's culture and it's numbers. There are ten million Sicilians and a billion Chinese. They got a criminal culture that goes back I don't know how long, but older than the Mafia for sure. We got next to no intelligence on them, we got lousy contacts in the community, and this city is the richest target in the world. You figure it out."

Fulton held up a hand in surrender. "Okay, okay, a triad's trying to take over a New York crime family. Why kill the two triad guys, then?"

"Not from his triad."

"So?"

"Want my guess? Leung invites a couple of Hong Kong big boys from a different triad over for a meet with the goombahs, or so he says. Then they get hit and Leung goes, oh, those evil Italians, look what they did! In one shot he knocks out a couple of rivals, maybe to get him in good with his own guys, spreads the word the Mob isn't to be trusted, and he clears the way to do something maybe the Chinese community, the tong structure, the local gangs, might not otherwise be willing to support."

Fulton said skeptically, "That's a big pot of soup you made out of one bitty little ham bone. What've you got besides the names? Because if you take this to a judge, he's gonna laugh in your face."

"Good point! Faces. Set up a photo lineup, including that Vo we pulled out of Hester Street, and get someone to run it out to Long Beach and show it to Lucy. She'll pick the guy out, and then we'll have something to beat him over the head with. He'll give us Leung as the guy who set up the kidnap."

"You're pretty confident."

"Oh, h.e.l.l, this guy's not going to stand up to an A1 felony charge. He's looking at fifteen to twenty-five for the kidnapping one, plus something on the a.s.sault, and after he gets out, he goes right back to the People's Republic of Vietnam. Not a thrill, and I'll work with him and his brother on it if he gives me Leung. He'll roll, you'll see."

Karp clapped his hands. "Okay, let's hustle on this. The pictures . . . oh, and slip one of Leung in there, see if Lucy or Mary Ma will pick him out-maybe they saw him somewhere. And the Chens. I want them pulled in, the whole family, kids and all. And Mr. Yee. Get a Cantonese translator. What about Wu?"

"Oh, he's finished, the f.u.c.ker. We checked his bank account. Nothing unusual there, but it turns out that over the past four months Wu's bought teller's checks for amounts ranging from four grand to nine grand, a total of fifty-eight K. Lucky at the track? I don't think so. We're still looking for other accounts. We got a phone tap, too. He called a number in the Bronx twice, the Marston Motel, which turns out to be where they're keeping Lie. Pretty sloppy for a conspirator, I mean, Jesus, kids in diapers know to use a pay phone you're gonna talk dirty."

"Uh-uh, Clay," said Karp, shaking his head, "why should these guys be careful? They're invisible. They're like the Mob was before Appalachin. Triad? What's a triad, mommy? That's why that little s.h.i.+t left that paper right there on my pad. It never occurred to him that anyone would care, or understand if they did care. Okay, let's get IAD to snap Wu up and sweat him on that phone call and the money. We got to move like lightning on all this, Clay, or all these jokers are going to get together and concoct a story." He stood and so did Fulton. He grasped the detective on the shoulder. "Go," he said. "Make it happen."

Karp sat down at Fulton's desk and waited, resisting the urge to use the phone to check on his minions. Having delegated all his routine tasks for a week, he had nothing to do. He doodled. He crumpled up the doodled pages and tossed them across the room into a wastebasket propped up on a bookcase. Swish. Swish. Bored, irritated with himself for being bored, he stalked out, descended the staircase, bought a coffee and a greasy cruller from the snack bar on the first floor, walked out to the park to eat it. The homeless cruised by, and he distributed modest alms. He saw the woman coming toward him across the gra.s.s, waving a sheaf of soiled papers, and he pretended not to see her, and escaped back into the building.

The call from Fulton came in ten minutes later. Lucy had made the ID of Vo Hoa Dung, aka Needlenose. Neither she nor Mary Ma had identified Lie-Leung. Needlenose had been braced in the Tombs and, as expected, had given up Lie-Leung as the author of the kidnap. Good.

"You want me to pick him up now?" Fulton asked.

"No, wait on that. I need to get Jack up to speed. But get a team ready to move on my call."

Karp went next door and found Keegan's office full of Fraud people, including V. T. Newbury. He smiled and waved Karp over.

"Isn't this great? Today's the day the green eyeshades have their picnic. Some of these guys haven't been out in the sunlight since 1956."

"What's the occasion?"

"Difficult to explain to a layperson such as yourself, Butch, but it involves naked puts and several bent officials of the New York Stock Exchange, plus one of our fine congresspersons. It's political as h.e.l.l, and we're going in there to brief Jack."

"Mazeltov. Can I sneak in there for five before you get going?"

"We've been waiting eighteen months," said V.T. "Be my guest."

"Thanks," said Karp, and paused. "Oh, by the way, any progress on the Chinese puzzle?"

"Not really, I'm sad to say. But I did have one thought. The Chinese approach to banking, as to fire drills and handball, is sometimes strange. It's similar to what European banking was like in the fourteenth century. For example, suppose the Medici bank wished to tranfer ten thousand gold florins to Frankfurt-"

"V.T., could we bring it right up to present? I'm on a tight schedule."

V.T. pouted but complied. "The Sesame Street version, okay: it seems Chinese merchants often have a sideline in money holding and transfer. You give them cash, they give you a ticket. Show that ticket in Hong Kong or Canton, say the magic words, and you get your money back, without any pesky questions from governments about currency transfer."

"So that could be how our boy Leung got operating funds into New York?"

"I'd say it was the only way, unless he portered in cash."

"Thanks, V.T., we'll check it out."

"Wait a minute, who's Leung? I was talking about Lie, alias Nia."

"They're all the same guy," said Karp, and went through the door.

Keegan was riffling papers when Karp entered. He looked up and said, "You got some color in your face. I thought you were taking a week."

"I am, but this couldn't wait," he said, and gave Keegan the Sesame Street version of the truth about Willie Lie.

"Interesting," said Keegan, and twirled his Bering. "What're you going to do?"

"Mimi Vasquez is getting a warrant signed for Lie's, or Leung's, arrest as we speak. But before we grab him, I'm going across the street and give Colombo a heads-up on it. Give him a shot at doing the right thing and save him some embarra.s.sment."

"You're hoping he'll be so grateful he'll lay off Guma?"

"That too, but the main thing is to reestablish some f.u.c.king civility between us and the feds. If we don't get our acts together on this Chinese mob business, this city's going to look like Macao in a couple of years. I think clear evidence that a triad is moving in on a Mafia family should catch Tommy's eye, don't you?"

"Maybe. But I think you should remember that when the words 'grat.i.tude' and 'civility' are spoken, Tommy has to look them up in a dictionary. What's your plan if he laughs in your face?"

"Oh, in that case I intend to drive the little f.u.c.k into the ground like a tent peg. He'll have to wear a Reagan mask on his face for a year."

Keegan laughed, a big, slow, hearty sound. "Ah, Butch, you're the last true gentleman in the business, you know that? It's your glory and your shame. Now, go and conquer, and send those d.a.m.ned pencil necks in here."

The first thing the U.S. attorney said when Karp entered his office ten minutes later, even before asking him to take a chair, was "I hope to h.e.l.l you're here to apologize."

"No," said Karp, "actually, I-"

"G.o.dd.a.m.n it! Do you think I'm going to let you get away with that kind of irresponsible calumny on a national news show?" Colombo went on like this for some minutes, his face red with a mist of forceful saliva forming in front of it as he ranted. Karp imagined it must have been an alarming display were you one of the man's subordinates. Karp waited calmly for Colombo to pause for breath, and interjected, "I'm here to save you from making a serious mistake. If you don't want to hear it . . ."

"What mistake?"

Again Karp told the Lie-Leung-Nia story, with the theory about a triad taking over the Bollanos. At the end, Colombo did actually laugh in his face. It was a whinnying, unpleasant sound, quite unlike Keegan's.

"You have to be joking. You expect me to abandon my key witness against the Bollanos because of this . . . farrago of supposition and bartered testimony?"

"He's not a witness, Tom, he's a partic.i.p.ant. No, he's the mastermind behind the whole thing. He did Catalano on his own, and he's trying to frame Pigetti for it. He did the Sings, too, which is why he tried to kidnap my daughter. He's playing us. I was hoping you'd want to cooperate, but in any case, I'm having an arrest warrant prepared and I intend to charge him at least with the kidnap and a.s.sault. I have no doubt that once we're focused on this, we'll be able to generate a good case for the three murders as well."

Colombo laughed again. "Oh, great, the evil oriental genius strikes. Hey, I appreciate you're worrying about your daughter, maybe you ought to talk to her about who she's hanging out with, but this is a pile of horses.h.i.+t. A Chinese gangster uses a couple of aliases and then a little girl picks out a picture, and some lowlife Viet picks out a picture, and that's your case? What I should do here is start asking some serious questions about why the D.A.'s office is so concerned about shying away from pounding the Bollanos that you'd concoct this fairy tale."

Karp waited until his temper subsided and then asked, "Are you being deliberately obtuse, or do you really not grasp this? I'll say it again: a Chinese triad is taking over a New York crime family, and you're helping them do it."

Colombo's smile vanished into his face like a bit of toilet paper sucked down a drain.

"If that's it, Butch, I got a meeting," he said.

"Go ahead, get him," said Karp into the phone. More waiting after that, a half hour, an hour. The phone rang, the private direct line. Karp s.n.a.t.c.hed it up.

"Well?"

"Sorry, Stretch, we came up empty," said Fulton.

"Oh, s.h.i.+t! Colombo, that son of a b.i.t.c.h, moved

him? Jesus, I'll f.u.c.king arrest him for obstruction of-"

"Hold on there, son. The marshals watching him were as surprised as we were. He wasn't moved. He took off, out a bathroom window. He got a call, maybe a half hour before. They listened in, of course, but it was in Chinese, and real brief. Then he goes in to the can, and that's the last they saw him."

"I can't believe this!"