Depraved Indifference (36 page)

“What's that, babe?”

“You're already married, remember?”

“Oh, yeah, that.”

“That. And while Vatican Deuce has made the Church more liberal, I kind of think they draw the line there, you know?”

“All right, all right, I'll take care of it,” he said grumpily, his romantic mood vanishing. The last he had heard of his first wife was that she had repaired to a lesbian commune somewhere in northern California. It was going to be a pain in the ass to track her down.

“And I'll wait for you forever, my prince, but meanwhile, my feet are freezing,” she said. “Cheer up, big boy, I appreciate the thought anyway. Hey, I'll race you to the house.”

“Guma,” Karp said, “how would you like to torpedo the district attorney?” The power had come back on and the two men were sitting in the kitchen of the farmhouse, watching snowy figures play football on a small black-and-white TV. Unshaven and hung over, Guma was eating potato chips and drinking Carling and occasionally banging the side of the TV when its image displeased him. The three women and V.T. had gone to town for supplies in Annabelle's pickup truck. Guma scratched himself and thought about Karp's question. “Yeah, sure I'd like to. Who wouldn't? What'd you have in mind?”

Karp told him about Bloom's tapes and about what might reasonably be supposed to be on them. Guma listened attentively, then said, “Sounds great. You thinking about pulling a burglary?”

“Shit, no! That would be wrong. Besides, we might get caught. No, it occurred to me that Iron Tits is the key to this little problem.”

Guma snorted. “Yeah, Rhoda Klepp—Wharton in drag. What about her, the bitch?”

“Well, where could he keep the tapes? There must be a shitload of them. OK, you know the DA's outer office? There's a row of file cabinets along the wall to the right. One of 'em's got a big security bar and a humongous lock on it. I figure the tapes are there.”

“Yeah? So what? How're you gonna bust in there?”

“Klepp. She's got a key. I saw her open it once. You know that big ring of keys she jangles around with? It's on there.”

“You gonna ask her to lend you her key?”

“Goom, be real. No, I figure, ah, if somebody got close to her, got her relaxed, sort of, it might be possible to borrow them for a while. I'd sure like to listen to those tapes.”

“Well, shit, Butch, ask her out. Take her to Radio City and buy her an ice cream soda. She'll come across, no problem.”

“Hey, Goom, come on, this is out of my league. I freely admit it. I'm not man enough to take on Rhoda Klepp. In fact, there's only one man I know of who could really pull it off.”

Guma looked at Karp for ten seconds, waiting to hear the name. Then the light dawned and he grinned. “Oh no, you sneaky guy. Uh-uh, include me out. No fuckin' way. Hey, look at this asshole, he's gonna try a fourth-down pass.”

“Why not, Guma? I thought you were always up for a new challenge.”

“Hey, Karp, give me a break. I got a nice thing going with what's her name there, Sunni. I want to work on it, let it blossom, you know? I don't need any challenges right now, OK?”

“Guma, you just met the woman last night.”

“Hey, what can I say? It was magic.”

“Guma, you're missing one of the great experiences. Imagine those incredible mazumas unleashed. They'd stalk you across the room like a beast of prey. Also, I hear she's into every depravity.”

“Depravity, hey? Talk to a German shepherd, then. Talk to a fuckin' pony. Not me.”

“You're chicken.”

“I stopped listening, Karp. I'd like to help out, but let me put it to you this way: I wouldn't fuck her with
your
dick.”

“Guma won't do it,” Karp said to Marlene later that evening. “Any ideas? I guess I could try.”

“Yeah, but you wouldn't get far without genitalia, and I'll cut off your first move in that direction. No, I'll work something out. I'll catch her in the little girl's room one time and lay a trip on her. I owe her one anyway.”

Shortly after lunch on Sunday the blessed isolation Karp and Marlene were enjoying was cut short by a telephone call from Bill Denton.

“I'm going to ruin your weekend,” he said.

“You already did. What's up?”

“They found the waiter, Koltan. In a dumpster in Canarsie.”

“Ah, shit. The poor bastard. How'd he get it?”

“They tied his hands behind him with wire and cut his throat. Butch, these guys are going crazy. Their scam is coming unglued and I think they figure they got nothing to lose. I got extra guys with the hijackers and all the people I can steal looking for the Cubans, but who knows? Lot of places to hide in the city, and they could have left already. By the way, did you get that stack of shots I sent over?”

“Yeah, Ruiz and company, real beauties.”

“You recall seeing any of them yourself? I mean recently.”

“No, not that I recall. It'd be hard to miss Ruiz, the little fucker really looks like some kind of reptile. Why do you ask?”

“Well, there's one figure in this case who's wandering around with nobody watching him, and I'm getting a little concerned.”

“What figure is that, Bill?”

“You.”

Karp laughed. “Come on, Bill. Mutts don't waste ADAs.”

“Yeah, but these aren't your usual mutts. And as I recall, somebody tried real hard to punch your ticket a couple of years back. With that letter bomb.”

“Yeah, there's that. Well, what do you suggest?”

“Get back to the city as soon as you can and stay put. I'll get Brenner to babysit you for a couple days, until we nail these assholes. Oh, yeah, speaking of assholes, your friend Flanagan has turned up missing too.”

“Flanagan? Oh, crap!”

“What is it?”

“Nothing. I just thought of something I had to do.” It had occurred to him that the Q and A he had taken off Flanagan was sitting in its sealed envelope on the floor of his bedroom. If anything happened to the detective, he would have no proof of a conspiracy to introduce tainted evidence into
Karavitch et al.

“OK, Bill,” he said, “we're leaving in a little while. I'll talk to you Monday.”

It took them nearly an hour to dig the car out, and they left about four. The roads were icy and Karp sweated bullets on the mountain turns. It was nearly six when they hit the clear pavement of the Taconic, a black canal between the mounds of snow pushed up on its shoulders by the plows. The sky had gone dark purple when he decided he needed some coffee and pulled into one of the Taconic's rustic rest stops.

He was waiting at the take-out counter for his order, thinking about nothing in particular, when he happened to look out the window. At that moment, with an intensity that prickled his scalp, he was overcome by a feeling of déjà vu. A good-looking, swarthy man was using his reflection in the restaurant window to comb his long black hair. As he finished, he cocked his head at an angle and tossed it back so that a lock of hair fell just so over one eye.

Karp felt the ice form in his belly. He had seen that man before, doing just that in the window of a Chinese restaurant. He had seen that gesture reproduced in the crazy mimicry of Dirty Warren, which meant that this guy had been hanging around Centre Street for weeks. Now that he had seen Denton's pictures, he realized that he was looking at Esteban Otero, the man who had helped to kill Alejandro Sorriendas. Hermo.

He picked up the paper bag with his order in it, paid, and walked out, trying not to shake, trying to think, trying not to look at the man four feet away. He walked toward where he had parked the Chevy, but a large green station wagon was parked in his slot.

His stomach dropped and he tasted acid on his tongue. He turned slowly in a circle, searching for the pink car. A string of curses directed at Marlene appeared on the screen of his mind. Where the hell was she? He looked back toward the restaurant. Hermo was gone. He started back to the restaurant. There was a phone there, maybe he could call Denton—

An enormous blast erupted behind him. He stumbled and almost dropped the bag of coffee as he spun around.

Marlene was sitting in the Chevy's driver's seat, grinning. He walked to the driver's side and she rolled down the window. “Hell of a horn,” she said. “It's a diesel air jobbie.”

“Marlene, what the fuck are you doing?” he choked out between clenched teeth.

Her grin faded. “I was just getting some gas. I didn't want to bring the car back empty. Butch, what's the matter?”

“I just spotted one of Ruiz's men. He's been following me. We got to get out of here. Move over.”

“Get in!” She leaned over and jerked the passenger door open.

“Marlene, move over! Stop playing around!” he shouted.

“Butch, listen. You want to get away from these guys? Get in. You can't drive worth a shit. Hey, is that them?”

In her rearview mirror she had spotted a white Econoline van pulling out of a slot. There were two men in the front seat.

Karp looked. “Yeah, that's them.” He felt drained. “OK, you drive.” He got in and Marlene stomped on the gas. The big engine screamed. She slammed into gear, popped the clutch, and the big Eagles on the rear wheels squealed, spinning wildly and sending up clouds of stinking rubber smoke. Then the treads caught and the car took off, hitting sixty by the time it reached the end of the exit ramp.

“So far, so good,” she said after a few minutes. “Are they following us?”

He peered through the rear window. “I can't see them. But it's getting dark. That was quite a takeoff, Marlene.”

“It was
comme il faut
at the Tastee-Freeze on Linden Boulevard. Some things you never forget. It's a good thing we got this car. I can blow the doors off anything but a Ferrari. Assuming it holds together. Oh, crap, look at this!”

They had crested a hill and before them stretched the taillights of a monumental traffic jam. She hit the brakes, skidded sideways, corrected, and slowed to a crawl behind a Volvo with a loaded ski rack.

“Shit, if there wasn't this goddamn snow I could cut across the median or go down the shoulder. Can you see them yet?”

“I don't know. Yeah, I think that's them. About four cars back.”

“OK, let me try something.”

They inched along in the center lane for about five minutes.

“Um, Marlene, what's the plan? You going to try to get us to a phone?”

“Yeah, after we lose these guys. Pretty soon now. We should be real close to the Tuckahoe Road exit.” When the exit sign appeared, she hit the brakes and the car rolled to a stop. In seconds, horns were blaring behind them and drivers were rolling down their windows and poking their heads out. “Marlene, what's going on?” he said anxiously.

“Wait a minute. I'm getting some maneuvering room.” The left and right lanes continued to move forward, and then they too were blocked by cars far back in the center lane attempting to get past the obstacle. A clear space of about five car lengths opened up. Marlene gave it the gas and the car screamed forward. Then she leaned on the horn.

It had a spectacular effect. Half a dozen cars in the right lane leaped into the snowy shoulders of the road as their drivers instinctively wrenched their wheels away from the terrifying sound. Marlene barreled past them and tore up the exit lane at fifty. There was a scream of brakes and a metallic crash behind them.

“What happened?” she shouted.

“Our guys tried to pull right out and cut off somebody. Shit, they're still coming.”

She drove east on Tuckahoe Road. In the rearview she could see the headlights of the van glaring against the snow as it left the exit ramp in pursuit. A quarter mile later, she whipped the Chevy into a high-speed turn down a suburban lane.

“What are you doing now?” he asked. The van had also made the turn, and the headlights behind them were getting closer. There wasn't another car in sight.

“My Aunt Agnes lives here,” she replied. Karp stared at her. Her lips were tight and she held the wheel in a white-knuckled, stiff-armed grip, hands in the ten of four position.

“Your Aunt Agnes? What are you talking about?” he shouted.

“Don't yell at me, goddammit. I have to concentrate. OK, here comes the hill. Hang on to something.”

The street was a one-laner that wound through a neighborhood of large houses set back from the road. Suddenly she accelerated and spun the car across the road in a skidding left. When the car had straightened out on the new road, Karp looked ahead and gasped. The headlights shone out on nothing. Then the front of the car dipped and he was looking down a long, straight, steep hill coated with glistening black ice.

The rear wheels gently shifted to the left, farther and farther, until they were descending the hill sideways, gathering speed. Karp felt a scream well up in his throat. Marlene was shouting something, but everything was moving too fast for him to concentrate on what she was saying. The lights of houses and shadows of trees tore by in a monochromatic blur like an old movie in a broken projector.

Then it struck him that she was in control. By delicate twitches of the wheel and dabs at the gas she played the car as it continued its slow spin around the compass, at last reaching the right way around, pointing down.

The hill bottomed out and began a more gradual upgrade again. Marlene headed its nose into a snowdrift and set the brake. “Watch,” she said, turning and facing the rear window.

The white van came flying around the curve and started down the hill. It hit the ice and began to skid. Karp and Marlene saw its brake lights glow red on the snow as the driver jammed on the pedal. The van spun like a top, caromed off a pile of snow, smacked a buried car, toppled over onto the driver's side, and skidded down the hill like a runaway carnival ride. Leaving the roadway entirely, it ripped through a high privet hedge and ended up smoking in the middle of a broad, snowy lawn.