Absolute Rage (49 page)

Karp himself did not sleep for a long time. His mind, like a small animal expelled from its accustomed burrow by a flood, sought familiar shelter and found it in legal strategy. Assume the Cade boys were lost indefinitely. Could he still construct a case against Floyd? If yes, could he then involve Weames, if Floyd kept mum? But would Floyd keep mum if such a case could be constructed? As he pondered, bits of data floated into his mind. A chance remark by Harkness, some incidents from the recent past. Toward dawn, as he slipped into exhausted sleep, something like a plan had formed in his mind.

In the morning he awakened from a dream in which the events of the past two days had been a dream. The return to the horror of the reality hit him with the force of a shot to the gut, bringing nausea. Marlene was already gone. He ate a glum breakfast with Lucy and Zak and took them to the hospital, where the staff reported that the boy was stable but comatose. Marlene, to his surprise, was not there. He sat for a while watching his two sons. Zak was staring at his brother with an intensity that Karp found difficult to watch. Something was wrong with Lucy, too, a dullness of spirit that was quite unlike her. To be expected? He didn't know. Of all the people in the family, he had expected his daughter to be the most capable of dealing with tragedy. Wrong again, it seemed.

He freely admitted to himself that he could not. Shameful, but undeniable: he could deal with life or death, but not this shadowland.

“I'm going out for a while,” he said to them. “I'll check in.”

“Sure, Dad. We'll see you later. Have you heard from Mom at all?”

“No, and that's one thing I want to check on.”

Outside, breathing full breaths again, he couldn't help noticing that Marlene's helicopter was gone from its place in the parking lot.

*  *  *

Marlene stood on the lip of an enormous grassy tableland that had once been the south peak of Hogue Mountain, watching her helicopter drop in for a landing. It was a Gazelle SA 341J, an ex–British navy aircraft from the seventies, and still the fastest helicopter in the world. Two and a half hours more or less from Bridgeport to this shit-hole. Billionaires would have to find another unit to get them to the Hamptons.

It landed and Tran Do Vinh got out, crouching as everyone always did under the spinning rotors. He greeted her with the traditional cheek kisses and expressed again, as he had on the phone earlier that day, his profound regrets about what had befallen her son. He spoke to her in French. “You know, I have never before been in a helicopter, though I have seen many and shot down a good few. That hill on which your adversaries are emplaced seems a formidable position. The pilot flew quite low and we received fire, though fortunately took no hits. How can I assist you?”

He was thoughtful when she told him what she wanted done. “Marie-Hélène, I personally am at your complete disposal,” he said, “but an operation of the type you describe, an almost, one might say, military operation, will require many men, expensive weapons, logistical supplies . . .”

“I'll advance whatever you need.”

“Yes, of course, but the men . . . these are no longer soldiers fighting for a cause. And the young ones I am afraid are mere gangsters. They will not wish to endure casualties without some tangible—”

“There is gold,” she said. “A good deal of it, I'm informed. Ben Cade has been a criminal for decades, as was his father before him. They put their profits into gold because they believe that soon all paper money will become worthless.”

“Oh, gold!” He laughed. “Oh, well, that's a different story entirely. With gold all things are possible. We Asians love gold. We also fear the ephemeral nature of paper, with rather more reason than M. Cade, I think. Given gold, I should have little trouble organizing the necessary people and equipment. What I do not have and need are maps, detailed maps, including maps of all local mining operations, at least one to ten thousand in scale.”

“I can get you those. Are you familiar with computers?”

“Alas, not I myself, but I have people. They operate a pornography site, ‘Asian Teens XXX.' You will send the maps to me in this way?”

She nodded.

“And I assume this operation will require a certain settlement with these fearsome Cades, besides relieving them of their gold. Escorting them to the authorities, perhaps?”

“No. I want them killed.”

He was not quite sure he had heard her, for a strong breeze was whipping the grasses.

“Pardon?”

“Kill them,” she said more clearly. “Kill them all.”

*  *  *

Lenny Polanski arrived on Marlene's helicopter the following day with two others, an oriental man and a striking blond woman, all three wearing Hawaiian shirts and sunglasses. The great surgeon seemed like a cross between a retired middleweight prizefighter and a stand-up comedian. He was blocky, tanned, foulmouthed, crop-haired, and athletic in stride and gesture. Karp loathed him on sight. In the dingy waiting room (Dr. Small having hovered and having been curtly dismissed), Polanski introduced to the Karp family Dr. Chao, who will be passing gas at this party, and Ms. Vava Voom, the world's hottest scrub nurse, who will be cooling my brow, so to speak.

Polanski focused on Lucy. “You're that kid, Morrie's superstar with the languages. Say something in Lithuanian.”

“Do you speak Lithuanian?” asked Lucy.

“I don't know, I never tried, ha, ha, ha!”

“If you don't make my brother better, you ape,” said Lucy, smiling, “I will have you killed in a particularly unpleasant fashion,” in Lithuanian.

Ms. Voom held out her hand to Marlene, who shook it. “I'm Anne Rasmussen. He's a horse's ass, but he really is the best brain surgeon in the country. We can't take him anywhere.” Lenny cracked up at this.

Karp was not amused. “You know, maybe this isn't a good idea. I mean, this is a child's life we're talking about and I don't appreciate it being treated as a joke.”

“Hey, listen, dad,” said the doctor, “do I come into your courtroom or whatever and tell you how to act? Ever since I saw M*A*S*H, I wanted to be the pros from Dover—you know that scene? Where the two docs barge in wearing Hawaiian shirts, cure the congressman's kid, and leave? No? Hey, check it out, a great scene! So the first thing you folks have got to do is lighten up. I know you're worried. I'd be, too, if I was in the shit-bag hospital. But I took a look at the kid's snaps—”

“Giancarlo,” said Marlene.

“Right, Giancarlo, his snaps, and it's a no-brainer, so to speak, ha ha. I mean, first of all it's a pellet, obviously at longish range, not the usual shot to the head from a pistol at point-blank, so there's less damage generally. We have minimal penetration, not much bleeding, there's no major circulatory damage—”

“Why is he still in a coma, then?” asked Marlene.

“Brain swelling. What do you want? He got shot in the head, okay? A couple of days being knocked out is absolutely normal here. Okay, we go in, we take out the pellet, we repair the good stuff, we snip the bad stuff, we sew him up. These guys here could have done it if they weren't such patzers. Kid's going to be fine, you'll see.” Polanski beamed, and it was hard for the Karps not to share his bravado.

“What about impairment?” Karp asked.

Polanski made an elaborate shrug. “That I can't tell you. I've seen people lose a chunk of brain the size of a Big Mac and live a perfectly normal life, and other people just get a tap on the skull and they never move again.” He pointed upward. “That's not my department. Your kid's going to get the best surgical care available, but what happens after that, with the brain . . . if you believe in God, he's in charge of that part, not me.”

At that, Lucy burst into tears and fled the room.

“Hey, what'd I say?” asked Dr. Polanski in dismay.

*  *  *

Everyone was being extremely nice to Karp. He had not had so many strangers so solicitous toward him since his senior year in high school, when the basketball coaches had come around. He went back to the Burroughs Building two days after the New York team had operated and departed. Giancarlo was as well as could be expected. He looked like he was sleeping peacefully. His color was good, his breathing regular. But he would not awake.

The Burroughs Building had been transformed in Karp's absence, for Captain Hendricks and Cheryl Oggert had lent most of it to the FBI, who had over a hundred agents on the scene now, under the command of a bullnecked person named Ron Morrisey. Morrisey treated Karp like an invalid, or someone with a contagious disease, leprosy, for example. He was not invited to the big-time strategy meetings Morrisey held with the state boys.

Still, Karp tried to show at the office in between bouts of watching at Giancarlo's bedside. Once there, he mostly sat at his desk with his feet up and tapped on his teeth with a pencil. Sometimes he tapped on the desk with two pencils. The plan he had come up with, he now saw, was absurd. It was based on George Floyd having a credible fear that he was going to be convicted of murder, and Karp had to admit that inculcating such a fear would require not just a paper confession, but the prospect of an actual live Cade sitting on the witness stand, pointing a skinny white finger at the defendant. Which Cade he did not have. Which Cade was sitting up on Burnt Peak, thumbing its nose, or noses, at the legions of troopers and agents below. Karp had tried to find out whether Morrisey was planning an assault, and if so, whether he had some way of extracting Karp's two confessors, but Karp did not, it seemed, have a need to know these plans. Cheryl Oggert was not helpful, either. The governor would not apply pressure here; the governor was starting to distance himself from the whole mess.

On Thursday (and it was hard to believe that only three days had passed since the raid), Karp and Marlene and the town's notables attended the funeral of Sheriff J. J. Swett. A surprising number of nonnotable townspeople also showed for the event. Several people, including Lester Weames and the mayor, stood up and lied about Swett's character and achievement. Karp noted substantial negative murmurings among the crowd during Weames's presentation, which made him feel a little better. Ernie Poole, who was there and drunk, seemed to sum up the general feeling when he said in a loud enough voice, “He was a corrupt old bastard, but he did the right thing in the end, God rest his soul.”

After the funeral, the Karps went back to the hospital. Marlene took over the watch from Lucy. Zak, who had hardly eaten a bite in three days, refused to leave his brother's bedside. Karp obtained a chocolate milk shake and threatened to send the boy to a distant state if he did not consume it.

After an almost silent meal with Lucy (What's wrong? Nothing.), Karp went back to his office in the Burroughs Building. Needing to pretend to himself that he was doing something productive, he called Raymond Guma in New York.

“You're still alive?”

“Yeah, barely,” said Guma. “I'm smoking dope now.”

“How is it?”

“Eh. I don't get what the kids see in it, to tell you the truth. It helps me eat, though. I get it off this Jamaican from that place on Third. Jerked Chicken, we deliver. What's happening in Podunk?”

Karp told him. Guma said, “Jesus, Butch, that's awful. Terrible! Poor little kid! The bastards escaped, huh?”

“For now. Look, Goom, failing something better, I got a little idea you might be able to help me with.”

“Anything.”

After Karp had finished the exposition, Guma said, “Well, this end maybe I could help with. It could work. We'd have to get the locals involved, probably not a problem, you being you and me being me.”

“What about Eddie Bent?”

“Eh, maybe a little sticky there, but Eddie owes me some big ones over the years. Your big problem is gonna be convincing Lester that what's-his-face is going to roll on him, which is going to be hard to do at this point. Absent the hillbillies.”

“I know. I'm working on that. But could you set things up in the City, just in case?”

“Will do, buddy,” said Guma, “unless I die first. Or unless I come down off this high and decide it's horseshit. I'll let you know.”

*  *  *

That night Karp awakened at three-forty. He looked at the little vial on Marlene's bedstand and contemplated, for the first time in his life, taking a downer. He rejected the idea. He got out of bed, slipped the lodge's terry-cloth robe on, and began to pace the room.

Click.

He stopped, startled. Something had struck the sliding glass doors.

Clack.

Someone throwing pebbles against the glass. He slipped behind the curtains and looked out. Beyond the little concrete apron and its plastic chairs a sloping lawn dropped to a line of bushes. In front of the bushes stood a slim figure, glowing like marble in the light of a gibbous moon. Karp slid the door aside and stepped out on the apron. The figure made a beckoning motion, silently. Karp felt a chill; it was like something out of a fairy tale. A scatter of rubber zori lay at his feet, his family's, one large, two medium, two small. An extra pair of zori? Image of giving away little clothes. No, don't think about that now. He slipped into the largest ones and headed toward the figure.

As he came closer, he saw it was a boy, an incredibly pale, wheat-haired boy, dressed in bib overalls and a white T-shirt.

“You're Darryl,” Karp said. “You talked to my wife one time.”

“Uhn-huh. You foller me, now. He wants to say sompin' to you.”

Karp followed the boy down a dark pebbled path through the bushes, to a picnic area: a lawn, some tables and grills, a duck pond. Seated at one of the tables was an old man.

Karp sat down. The boy stood behind the old man.

“I'm Amos Jonson,” said the man.

“I guessed you were. You spoke to my wife.”