Act of Revenge (6 page)

“Why?” snapped Anselmo. “Because of the sacred code of
omerta
? They don't do that shit anymore, Guma. They sing just like anyone else when you push them.”

Guma looked up at the ceiling as if he thought the answer to this question might be inscribed there, and when he responded it was in the sort of voice a kindergarten teacher might use to explain that D came after C. “Actually, Frank, I wasn't thinking of any high-tone Mafia stuff like that. I was thinking about Marco. You know what they call Marco Moletti on the street? No, don't look in the file, Frank, I'll tell you. If they sort of like him, they call him Slo Mo. If they're annoyed at him, like if the pizza they sent him out for is cold, they call him Marky Moron. He's a gofer, Frank. He's also real honest, because he's too dumb to steal and he knows it, which is why the guys sometimes leave stuff with him, cash, like your bag of money, or hot property. He's got his niche, you could say, and he's happy in it. But to put it mildly, Frank, he ain't a player. So anyone who thinks that Marky knows fuck-all about what goes on in the Bollanos is stupid. You want to squeeze something, squeeze the hubcap on Eddie Catalano's Lincoln, you'll get more out of it. And anybody who thinks that Marky Moron would get tagged to whack a
capo regime
is . . . words fail me.
Felony
stupid? Besides all that, in my opinion, you're doing great.”

Anselmo shot to his feet and flung his papers to the floor. “Ah, come on, Butch, what the
hell
!”

“Sit down, Frank,” said Karp. “Guma?”

“I apologize, Frank,” said Guma instantly, in monotone.

“All right, now that we've all had our fun,” said Karp, “let me remind you why we're here. Eddie Catalano was killed the day before he was scheduled to appear pursuant to a subpoena before a federal grand jury investigating Mob involvement in local businesses. This has greatly vexed our colleague on the other side of the square. The U.S. attorney believes that Mr. Catalano was slain to prevent his testimony—”

“Horseshit,” said Guma.

“We're aware of your opinion on that subject, Guma,” Karp snapped, “but would you put a goddamn cork in it just for now? Thank you. And since the U.S. attorney has been kept from his goal of, as he so elegantly puts it, ‘breaking the Mob in New York,' he has devoted his time and talent to breaking our boss's balls instead. Why is Jack Keegan not pursuing this obvious gangland slaying with more alacrity and success? Why have we not seen the Mafia scumbags dragged into court? How come his crusade is stopped in its tracks? Is it that maybe Jack Keegan's not up to the job? And so forth, as you know. Now, in order to get Tommy Colombo off our ass, we need to show movement on this goddamn murder. Either we have to have a plausible defendant behind bars, or, failing that, we have to find out why the scumbag got killed. Roland, what are the cops doing besides sniffing around this Moletti character?”

Hrcany rolled his massive shoulders in a shrug. Not as massive as they used to be, Karp observed, but still meaty. The eighteen-inch collar of his shirt was loose on his neck.

“Well, Butch,” he said, “you know how it is—they fall in love with a perp, it's forever, unless they dig up something new. I got enough for an arrest warrant and an indictment. When he's in the can, who knows? A pal of his could drop a dime—Marky didn't do it, I heard it was X. Or he could talk in jail. Maybe he knows from nothing, like Guma said, but still, he's around those guys. Even waiters pick up stuff. And then one of the regular jailhouse snitches could grab it. I don't know—”

“Roland, cut the horseshit,” said Karp. “Don't give me warrants and indictments. We wanted to, you know damn well we could arrest and indict the cardinal archbishop for this one. What I'm interested in is, do you believe that this putz is a legitimate suspect? Did he fucking
do the crime
?”

Hrcany looked down for a moment as if gathering himself and then met Karp's gaze. “Since you ask, I don't and he didn't. Guma's right. He's a retard.”

“Then forget him!” Karp ordered, and then, to nearly everyone's surprise, he turned to Guma. “Ray, what really happened?” he asked, almost casually. Frank Anselmo's smile became noticeably more false.

“Oh, they brought in somebody,” Guma answered confidently, as if giving the correct time. “Probably a pair of guys. They picked him up in the girlfriend's lobby, hustled him out to his car, tossed him in the trunk, and drove to the scene of in two cars. Then they stuck him in the driver's seat and did him so it would look like he got popped by a buddy in the backseat. All these guys watched
The Godfather
fifty times, so they know how it's supposed to go down. The clock's a nice touch, and it ties it to somebody who might need an alibi.”

“Like Pigetti?” asked Karp.

“Oh, either Joey was involved, or somebody wanted to make it look like Joey was involved. If he did do it, though, the important thing is, did he clear it through the don? My guess is no, he didn't. It's hard to think why Big Sally would want to take out Eddie Cat.” He looked at Anselmo. “See, Little Sal doesn't
have
any friends to speak of. Eddie was Little Sal's baby-sitter. This is well-known. Used to be Charlie Tuna, then Eddie got the job when Charlie went upstate. Little Sal needs a lot of watching. He gets testy when he doesn't get his way, and it interferes with business. So this is perfect for the don. He got one of his
capos
tight with his kid, the heir, keeping him in line, but also the kid is watching Eddie, of course. Neither of them can make a move against him without the other knowing. And he's got his other
capo
right there in his pocket, Pigetti. Anyway, whoever did it, Pigetti, Little Sal, the don, or some combination thereof, it's a sure bet it's a family thing, got nothing to do with the federal grand jury. Eddie Cat would go to jail if he had to, but not into a witness program, which anyone who knew the guy would tell you in a second.”

“So who did the deed, Guma? You probably already have a name for us.” Anselmo spoke sarcastically, but Guma took the question on, knitting his brows as if trying to think of an actual name.

“Not a Sicilian, Frank. No Sicilian would hit a made guy and a
capo
in his own family without an order from his don, and if he was from another family, not unless he wanted to start a major war, which we got no evidence at all is what's involved here. So who? Well, if Murder Incorporated was still in business, this is the kind of stuff they used to contract out to the Jewish fellas, but I don't think Jews are into whacking anymore.”

“Only whacking off,” said Karp. “You're suggesting that Pigetti would reach out to one of our fine non-Sicilian ethnic groups?”

“I am,” said Guma. “As far as which one . . .” He shrugged. “It's a whachamacallit . . . an embarrassment of riches out there.”

The meeting broke up soon afterward. Guma and Hrcany vanished into the hallway, and Anselmo walked through the door that led to the D.A.'s office. Karp finished cleaning up his notes. When he went a few minutes later into Keegan's office, he observed Anselmo talking vigorously at the D.A., in undertones, and the D.A. not liking what he was hearing, shaking his noble head. When Anselmo ran down and left, Keegan hooked a finger, and Karp followed him to the other end of the office, where Keegan sat down in his chair with a snarling kind of sigh.

“What did Frank want?”

“Oh, he was pissed off about Ray, needless to relate. Christ, the pair of them are like a couple of brats. No, Frank, you can't be in charge of Guma, for the ninetieth time. And of course Roland set the whole thing up, just to show Frank who's got the biggest dick. Jesus!”

“You could put Guma in charge of Frank,” Karp suggested.

Keegan goggled at him until he saw Karp was joking, and then he barked out a laugh and grinned. “Oh, yeah! That'd be rare, our own junior Mafioso in charge of Rackets. Tell me, did Guma really once stash a material witness with an out-of-town wise guy?”

“I've heard that story, too,” said Karp in a noncommittal tone. “You got a minute for this?”

Keegan had, and Karp epitomized what had just happened in a little under two.

“So you're telling me we got bullshit.”

“What can I say? Police baffled, as the headlines used to say.”

“Well, that can't be,” said Keegan, putting away all smiles. “No chance that this Marky guy was involved?” He sounded wistful.

Karp said, “It doesn't even pass the laugh test.”

For an instant Karp was afraid that Keegan was going to reverse him on arresting the fool, but the man's better angels chimed in and he merely cursed under his breath and said, “This isn't your everyday public service Mob hit. Tommy is running for whatever the fuck he's running for on fighting the big bad Mob, showing that although he's an Italian-American gentleman he's not
that
kind of Italian-American gentleman, and if he's got to run all over me to do it, that's fine with him. This is not one we can afford to lose.” A steely glare, before which Karp did not in the least flinch, and then he added, the grin returning, “Say, ‘Yes, boss,' so I know you understand you have complete charge of this shit pile.”

“Yes, boss,” said the good soldier.

Chapter 3

MARLENE CIAMPI WAS WEARING A RED T-shirt with white Chinese calligraphy on it, similar to the one her daughter owned. Unlike her daughter (as far as she knew) she was also wearing a pistol, a slim Italian 9mm semi-auto, in a nylon belt holster, and a blue cotton blazer to conceal it. This T-shirt had been a gift from Lucy on Marlene's last birthday, back when she and her daughter were still friends. The child had ordered the shirt from a copy shop on Lafayette Street, where they would turn any design you wanted into a shirt, and the calligraphy was in Lucy's own hand. It supposedly read, “What is the most important duty? The duty to one's parents. What is the most important thing to guard? One's own character.” Below this was the colophon (Meng Ke) of the author, Mencius, and that of the calligrapher (Kap Lòuhsì), the kid herself.

Marlene stared at the pay phone in whose demi-booth she stood and let the events of the previous two days rankle in her mind. The Lucy business. The Chen business, now tangled together. She thought of calling home and talking directly to Lucy. She had two potential conversations in mind: one a cold interrogation, using all her considerable investigatory skills to determine what her daughter was doing between 3:45
p.m
., when she had spoken with her at Columbia-Presby, and 6:10
p.m
. when, according to her husband's report, the little wretch had sashayed into the loft, or, alternatively, one that included some magical combination of frankness, wisdom, and empathy that would turn Lucy into the agreeable little girl she once was, and give to that vexed segment of Marlene's motherhood a fresh start.

She sighed, after a few dithering moments, then cursed, and turned her attention to the corner of 23rd Street and Tenth Avenue. The fire engines had left, and the crime scene unit cops were loading equipment into their van. The yellow tape that surrounded the brick storefront was by now bedraggled, drooping to the ground in places, and a couple of detectives were standing amid broken glass and blackened trash, talking to a uniformed patrolman. Above the entrance a charred sign—Chelsea Women's Clinic—was still legible. Abortions were among the services provided there, and someone objecting to the practice had, a few hours before, blasted out the storefront window with a shotgun and tossed in a gasoline bomb. The staff had been able to smother the flames with extinguishers, however, and no one, oddly enough, had been badly injured. The director of the clinic had thereafter been informed by the police that, despite the attack, the NYPD could not post a permanent guard at the site henceforward until forever. So she had called Marlene.

She crossed the street and walked up to the group of cops. She knew one of the detectives from the time she had spent some years ago as head of the Rape Bureau at the New York D.A.

“How's it going, Shanahan?”

“Marlene Ciampi! See, guys, I knew this was gonna get more interesting. I hope you're not here for an abortion, Marlene, 'cause I think they're closed for the day. However, if you're interested in a simple gynecological examination, I think Patrolman Vargas and I can accommodate you.”

The uniformed kid snorted in surprise and looked nervously away. The other detective chuckled and said, “Vargas, watch this—now she's gonna sue us for sexual harassment. This is good training, Vargas. Get your notebook out.”

“Also, Patrolman Vargas,” Marlene said, “you'll want to note that aging detectives whose sexual function has been all but destroyed by excess consumption of alcohol often try to compensate by making vulgar remarks to women, including, as in the present case, decent Catholic mothers. It's something you'll want to avoid as you rise through the ranks. What happened here, Shanahan?”

The two detectives were grinning broadly. They didn't get to do this much anymore. “You wouldn't think it to look at her, Vargas, but this woman has the dirtiest mouth in the five boroughs, not excluding Margo the Transvestite down by Manhattan Bridge. What's your interest?”

“I'm not sure I have any, Shanahan. The people here called me, asked me to come by. Anything cooking yet on the perp?”

“You see how these cheap P.I.s operate, Vargas? Trying to get confidential information off the Job? They use bribes, threats, even fading sexual allure, like now . . . what's that on your shirt, Marlene, stick out your chest a little. Oh, yeah, Confucius say, man with erection who enter airplane door sideways going to Bangkok.”

“That and, ‘Kiss my ass, I'm Irish,' but, really . . . ?”

“Really? Well, it's a highly skilled master criminal terrorist we got here, if you want my opinion. They didn't want to use their own vehicle for the job, oh, no, so they rented a van from Penske over in Jersey somewhere. That's 'cause Penske don't ask for any personal information or anything, you just give them your watch or your dog and drive away.”

“A grounder.”

“Uh-huh. They're probably closing in on the desperadoes as we speak. Too bad you won't get to use your sleuthing powers in this one, Marlene. Officer Vargas, when Marlene uses her sleuthing powers, it usually ends up with hair on the walls. You want to keep your hand on your weapon around Marlene here. So to speak.”

Marlene grinned, waved, and stepped over the crime tape.

Shanahan called after her, “And may I say, Marlene, that your ass is holding up pretty good, considering your age.”

She wiggled that unit parodically in the interest of good police relations and entered the building.

The pattern of shot had come in high, judging from the pits marking the wall above the receptionist's desk. Either the guy had rushed his shot or he intended to miss; in any case the woman sitting behind the desk had retained her brains in her skull. She was still at her post, carefully sorting through charred files. A couple of other women and a man in rough work clothes were sweeping burnt trash into a barrel. Marlene asked the receptionist where the director's office was; a weary motion pointed her down the hall, toward where a television crew—camera, sound, and glistening reporter—was recording an interview with Alice Reiss-Kessler, the director herself. The reporter, the same Gloria Eng who had reported on the Asia Mall killings, was wearing a peach-colored suit miraculously free of the fine soot that covered every other surface in the place, and at the moment she was asking the inane and inevitable “How do you feel” question. Ms. Reiss-Kessler, a good-sized brunette with a strong, plain face that tended to go jowly under ten-thousand-candlepower light, was not looking her best, but she was gamely doing her duty as a patriotic American by allowing television to share her pain. Marlene wished fervently for her to say something like, “I feel really great, Gloria. We've wanted to redecorate this crummy barn for ages, and since we're insured up to the nipples, we'll be able to do it right and also pay for about six hundred late-term abortions.” Instead, she did the usual victim moan, and Marlene could see Eng calculating behind her faux-sympathetic matte face how to get an eight-second sound bite out of this farrago. Marlene backed away, intending to lurk in a corner until the newsies left, but her heel came down on a pile of trash and she stumbled noisily.

At the sound Eng looked up and, without missing a beat, broke in with, “Is it true that you've retained a private investigator in this matter?”

Reiss-Kessler hesitated. “Ah, well, we're looking into increased security, but—”

“Does that mean you approve of counter-violence against the kind of people who might want to bomb abortion clinics?”

“No, I believe that the police should do their job and protect the legally recognized right to choose.”

“Then why have you hired Marlene Ciampi? Isn't Ms. Ciampi associated with the kind of ‘security' not very distinguishable from vigilantism?”

“We haven't hired anyone,” said Reiss-Kessler. “We're talking to consultants.”

Nice block, girl, thought Marlene, but a moment later she was bathed in the unforgiving light herself, as the reporter directed camera and microphones toward an even more interesting subject.

“One of those consultants is apparently Marlene Ciampi, who has just entered this ruined clinic,” Eng said. “Ms. Ciampi has been involved in several fatal shootings in the last few years, and in other acts of violence against people she claimed were harassing her clients. Marlene! Could you tell us what your response will be to whoever perpetrated this attack?”

“No comment,” said Marlene, and moved to pass the reporter, who counter-moved to remain in her path.

“Give me something, Marlene,” said the reporter. “Have you spoken with the police? How do they feel about your involvement?”

Marlene kept her smile, checked, faked, got by, and in a moment had clutched Ms. Reiss-Kessler by the elbow and steered her into her own office, kicking the door shut in the camera's face.

“Well,” said the director, “you certainly know how to make an entrance. I'd offer you coffee, but the coffee room was a casualty. Have a seat.”

Marlene brushed plaster dust off a side chair and sat down. Reiss-Kessler settled on the edge of her desk. “You don't care for the media, I take it.”

“They do their job, I do mine,” Marlene said. “In fact, I had no comment.”

“I'd think that getting your face on television would be good for business.”

“I have enough business, Ms. Reiss-Kessler—”

“Please, Alice.”

“. . . Alice, and I don't particularly want to encourage the kind of business Gloria is interested in promoting for me. I'm here representing the Osborne Group. Security? I assume that's what you're interested in.” She indicated the wreckage with a wave.

The woman let out a bitter chuckle. “Yes, locking the barn door. Security, but mainly I want the people who did this caught and punished.”

“Uh-huh. I bet. Fortunately, you don't need me for that. The cops have a good lead on the perps here, and they should make an arrest fairly soon.”

Reiss-Kessler's eyes widened. “Really? They didn't say anything about that to
me
.”

“I try to cultivate good relations with the police.”

An expression of astonishment tending toward sneer appeared on the woman's face. “You
like
those chauvinist bastards?”

Marlene stiffened and smiled falsely to cover. “Not like. They're hard to like. A great many of them are boorish, violent, corrupt, and stupid. But I do love them. In a manner of speaking. My heart goes out to them. They see stuff and do stuff every day that if you did it, it would make you cry for a week, and they've got no real training to deal with it and they get no support for it, except that silly macho cynical business they're all into, which makes it all worse, and includes the idea that only the penis-equipped can do the job. So they make comments to me, technically sexual harassment, technically clear violations of the Patrol Guide, and what I do is, I mean within limits, I don't give them the ‘that's not funny' line and utter threats, I grin like a bimbo and give them a shot back or two. And when I need some help from them, which I do a lot in my business, I usually get it.”

“It's nice that you're one of the boys,” said Reiss-Kessler.

Marlene ignored the icy tone, kept her smile, and replied, “Yes, it
is
nice. Let's turn to business, Alice, if you don't mind. We both have a lot to do.”

Alice gave a stiff nod, and Marlene went into her spiel, laying out what the Osborne Group could and could not do in the way of protection and site hardening. This included building surveys, installation of equipment and architectural mods, security seminars for clinic staff, and the provision of bonded square-badge guards. The woman listened, took some notes, asked the usual questions. Marlene could see she was disappointed, had expected something else, something more ardently feminist, a source of emotional support rather than a security firm functionary, which is why she had called Osborne and asked for Marlene by name. Marlene couldn't help that (it happened a lot), nor could she help what she felt about the clinic. This emerged, too, in the conversation.

At the end, the director made some noncommittal remarks that they'd be in touch. Marlene doubted this; she was being given the boot. She was not exactly famous, but she'd been in the news enough over the past decade so that there were people who would call for an appointment just to take a look, and others who wanted the cachet of having her guard their bodies, and others who thought she was in the business of shooting unwanted males on order. Marlene figured that Alice Reiss-Kessler's initial thought in the immediate aftermath of the attack had been punishment and revenge, and since she came from a class and subculture that did not trust the police to have the right attitude toward feminist issues, she had sought a private enforcer.

Which Marlene was not, and had made that clear, and now, leaving the sooty storefront, wondered why it was easier for her to be nice to horrible male-chauvinist cops than to a perfectly decent woman with the right liberal opinions on every subject. To be fair, she was just as impatient with the right-wing verities of most cops. And of her mother.

She walked now, head down and grumpy, to her car, an old Volvo 240 station wagon in the usual faded orange, parked illegally on Tenth. Her personal assistant was sitting in the passenger seat. He grunted a greeting as she entered.

“I don't know, Sweets,” she said when the car was moving in the south-bound flow. “I screwed that up for no reason. I had to give that dumb speech about the cops, and what she wanted was the us girls against the men business, oh, bite my tongue, not
girls
, of course, and I had to sound off about abortion, but when she said that about those abortion-is-murder nuts, and said well, it is and they're not all nuts, and she gave me that you can't be serious look, and I said well, yeah, legal, safe, and available, sure, I'm for that, but you're also killing babies, you should stand up for that, and be sad, I'd like to see more tears, more anguish, I mean it's not a haircut and a rinse, is it? And she got chillier and chillier, and then I cracked wise about me participating in a number of post-natal abortions and I didn't care for those either, and then we went back to talking about doors and bomb barriers. And of course, she's big in New York feminist circles, and she's going to spread the word about what a traitor I am to the cause, which will not help with the celebrity jobs either, and Osborne is going to start having second thoughts about bringing me in. I mean, really, Sweets, what is going on here? How can you be more of a feminist than me? Huh?”