Depraved Indifference (37 page)

Marlene backed out of the drift and drove slowly away. She was shaking with released tension. Karp felt a heavy pressure in his chest; it went away when he started breathing again. “That was incredible! How the hell did you learn how to do that?”

“Aunt Agnes's hill? We used to do it every winter when we were teenagers. It was a trip. The one who spun the car the most times won.”

“Yeah, but what if the guy in the van knew how to take ice?”

“Well, I thought about that, and then I figured, Cubans? From Miami? On black ice? I figured it was worth a shot.”

“I guess. I'm glad I went to the bathroom before, though. OK, where to?”

“Well, why don't we drop in on Aunt Agnes? I'm starving and she's always good for a feed. And we can call Denton from there. Besides, you said you wanted to meet my family.”

17

“T
HEY'RE TEARING UP
the street again,” Fred Brenner said disgustedly. “I'll drop you at the corner here.” Karp shrugged and opened the door. The clanging explosions of air drills rattled down Centre Street from its junction with Canal and reverberated between the Courthouse and the Federal Building across Foley Square. “You sure you can make it by yourself?” the big detective asked solicitously. Karp shot him a sour grin. At Denton's insistence, Brenner had been continuously with Karp since he and Marlene had returned to the city the previous night. He'd even set up a folding cot in Karp's pristine living room.

“I think so,” Karp said. “By the way, I go to the can around two-thirty, and I like soft paper. Be there.” Brenner laughed and pulled away in a screeching U-turn down Canal.

Karp walked past the Courthouse to Pearl and stopped in at Sam's. The little luncheonette was thick with the smell of bitter coffee, toast, and grease, the air almost like a food itself. He unbuttoned his coat and ordered a coffee with two bagels to go from Gus, the current Sam, a squat person with a striking resemblance to Yassir Arafat. Karp was about to leave with his order when V.T. and Guma came in, with a smiling Dirty Warren in tow. V.T. and Warren were their usual impeccable selves; Guma, unshaven and uncombed, looked like a man just arisen from bed.

Gus scowled when he spotted Warren and began to shake his head. “Hey, uh-uh—”

“It's cool, Gus,” Guma said. “He'll be good.”

“No shoutin'.”

“Right. Just a little quiet breakfast. We'll sit back by the john. Hi, Butch, come on back. We're just putting the finishing touches on you know what.”

“Sure. Hey, V.T., sorry we had to run. We had a great time.”

“Glad to hear it. You have any problems getting home?”

“You could say that,” Karp replied. When they were seated, he related the story of the encounter with the white van. “So you're a hunted man,” said V.T. when he had finished. “That's pretty exciting. Can I have your Yankee jacket if they get you?”

“You ought to get out of town, Butch. Until they catch those assholes,” Guma said.

“Yeah, but I can't right now. The trial's in a few weeks, and I got to watch the store or Bloom will let them cop to mopery. Of course, if I had something solid on Bloom, that'd be a different story. Like those tapes—”

“Oh, no, we went through that already.”

“Guma, I'm risking my life here, and you won't risk … I don't know what.”

“My balls? No thanks.”

“What are you guys talking about?” V.T. asked. Karp told him. “Goom, I can't believe my ears. Passing up the match of the century? Klepp and Guma, my God! Alert the networks!”

“Fuck you and the horse you rode in on, Newbury,” said Guma, starting in on his prune danish and black coffee. The others were silent, except for Dirty Warren's random muttering of curses under his breath. Finally Guma slammed his cup down in the saucer. “OK, goddammit! I'm not promising anything, but I will try. One try, that's all. If I draw a blank, or I get any shit from that bitch, that's all she wrote. You understand?”

“Perfectly,” Karp said. “Nobody could ask for more. Right, Warren?”

“Right, Mr. Karp. You jerk-off motherfucking dickhead.”

Outside the luncheonette, Karp paused to fix his collar and button his coat. The wind blowing up Pearl Street was making the crowd hunch over and the perpetual steam plumes from the manholes jitter in wispy rags. He spotted the big guy almost at once. He didn't seem to be taking any trouble about hiding himself. He climbed down from a large van that was parked across the street, a blue Dodge this time, parked tight so that Karp couldn't read the plates.

Another swarthy guy. He leaned against the front of his van, his dark eyes studying Karp calmly. He was about six-two and broad across the chest and shoulders, a weightlifter type, and wore a navy blue track suit with running shoes and a tan down vest.

Ruiz's second string looked a lot more impressive than the first, Karp thought. Or maybe this was the first team. As he began to walk down Pearl toward Centre, the weightlifter followed. He was not interested in losing the big man. On the contrary, what he wanted was a conversation with this dude in the company of the Chief of Detectives.

Arriving at his office, Karp threw himself into his chair, still with his coat on, and called Denton. “They got another boy on me.”

“You said you were coming over here this morning.”

“I got work to do, Bill. I'll be over afterward, maybe five-thirty. I'll bring that Flanagan stuff over, too.”

“I'm worried about you, not the evidence. Why don't I send Fred?”

“For what? To sit in my office and read comics? Chief, nobody is going to pop me in the goddamn courthouse. No, I'll tell you what you
can
do. Let's follow this guy and see who he works for. Maybe he'll lead us to Ruiz.”

“I was going to suggest that, too. What's he look like?”

As it turned out, the plainclothes detectives dispatched by Denton could find no trace of the weightlifter in the blue track suit. All they could do was to circulate his description to security and put out a bulletin for the guy.

Karp thus went through his hectic day with the back of his neck tickling. He found himself studying the faces in the crowded courtrooms, seeking the guilty look, the quick turning away of somebody who had been watching him. Of course, he found nothing—or rather, he found too much. Looking for suspicious people in the New York criminal courts was like looking for communists in the Supreme Soviet.

By three, he was irritable and nervous and wishing he drank liquor. Marlene had gone off somewhere; “out of the building” was all she'd told the secretary. Karp arranged and filed the ragged cardboard portfolio of case papers he had dragged around with him all day, the high point of which was the presentation of a homicide case to the grand jury. It was a simple case. A woman had left her abusive husband, and he had found her and shot her five times. Karp had no trouble getting an indictment. As far as he knew, the CIA was not interested in the affair, nor were the Vatican, the FBI, the KGB, or the Elders of Zion. It was his kind of case.

Marlene had to visit the fourteenth-floor ladies room three times before she found Rhoda Klepp. She sidled up next to Rhoda's sink and began to comb her perfectly combed hair. For this occasion she was wearing the most debauched costume she felt she could get away with in the office, a size-three lavender sweater dress that buttoned down the front, with the top six and the bottom four unbuttoned. You could count her rib bones.

She sighed loudly. “God, I'm beat,” she exclaimed. “What a weekend.”

Rhoda glanced over and did a double take. It wasn't that Marlene looked slutty, it was just that she had shaved the line between low-class lawyer and high-class whore to near transparency. “Oh? Where did you go?” she asked casually.

“Up to V.T. Newbury's place. What a scene! That woman he hangs out with is too much. You've heard of Annabelle Partland? I wouldn't call her a porn queen exactly, more of a classy erotica sort of thing, but she's into some incredibly kinky scenes. I mean internationally—the Velvet Underground, the Hellfire Club and all that West End stuff in London, and of course that thing that was in all the papers, with those Greek millionaires in Juan Les Pins? You remember, with the corrupt little girls?”

“You're putting me on, right?”

“No, really,” Marlene laughed, “I mean, my dear, I'm no blushing virgin, but this was a bit much for even me. She showed us a film some guy had made, starring her and a couple of dudes, one of whom is now a big TV star, but I'm not supposed to say who. We were positively writhing by the time it was finished. After that it was every girl for herself and no holes barred.”

Marlene hesitated before using this last line: its grotesque vulgarity might spill the beans. But no, she observed, Rhoda was now looking at her without her usual supercilious air, and her vixen face exhibited instead that mixed expression of disgust and fascination of a rubbernecker at a fatal automobile crash.

“Hey, swinging,” Rhoda observed, too flatly. Her brain was reeling. It was simply not possible that Marlene Ciampi, whom she had patronized as being hopelessly naive, could have attained this level of sophistication. Not to mention that Marlene was apparently a delicious source of gossip and scandal of which Rhoda had been completely unaware. It could not be tolerated.

“Um, who was there?”

“Just me and V.T. and Annabelle. And Butch, of course. Naturally, it didn't get really weird until Guma showed up. Now, there's a hunk!”

“Guma? You think Guma is a—a hunk?” Rhoda asked incredulously, wrinkling her nose.

“Yeah, well, I guess you got to get to, ah, know him, if you get what I mean.”

“You're joking.”

Marlene fixed her with a level stare and did her best Joan Crawford. “Darling, you have absolutely no idea. You know, Rhoda, as you get older and more experienced, you'll find you have certain needs, needs that can't be satisfied by some pretty boy. The man is a master. What an imagination! Not to mention the equipment!”

“The e-e-quipment?” Rhoda stammered.

“Giganteroso. And indefatigable.”

“Umm, you mean you and, ah, Guma—”

“Did I ever! Oh, he spent most of the evening in a threesome with this pro he brought and Annabelle, but I got my licks in. So to speak.” Marlene started to titter involuntarily and managed to turn it into a dirty laugh. It sounded utterly phony to her own ears, but Rhoda didn't seem to notice. In fact, as Marlene had correctly judged, Rhoda was hooked. Although she was a habitual petty liar herself, and shrewd enough in detecting the little inconsistencies and fibs of office life, a piece of malarkey as enormous as what Marlene was handing out was quite outside her experience.

“Hmm, but Marlene,” said Rhoda, her mouth dry, “I thought you and Karp were an item.”

“Oh, we are, we are, but what has that got to do with it? Oh, you mean fidelity. Going steady? Like in junior high? Seriously, I mean, it
is
1976. We
are
capable of some sophistication. He has his—how can I put it—his interests, and I have mine.” Marlene finished her face and picked up her bag to go. “By the way, you might consider giving that a fling yourself. Of course, he's picky. God knows, with his reputation in certain circles he could have any woman in town.”

“Who, Karp?”

Marlene laughed hysterically. “Karp? How silly! No, Guma! On the other hand, he might be a little too piquant for somebody your age. I don't know. I mean, he had this bag of implements he brought back from Thailand. Annabelle volunteered, of course. I thought the poor woman was going to have a seizure—” She glanced at her watch. “My God, I'm due in Part Thirty-three two minutes ago. See you.”

Marlene ran down the hall and into the stairwell. There she commenced to laugh so hard that she had difficulty negotiating the stairs. Her nose ran, her eyes teared; she gasped and wheezed. Later, going about her grim business in court, an image kept jumping into her mind bringing to her face a loony grin unsuitable to the venue: Rhoda Klepp, naked and wet, flopping around on a sandy beach like a landed salmon—in her mouth, firmly hooked, a cylindrical pale lure carved into the shape of an equally nude Guma, cigar and all.

Guma stood in the men's washroom, his hair oil, comb, cologne, and deodorant arranged on the edge of the basin while he ran an electric razor over his blue jowls. As he did so, he was smoking the first El Producto cigar of the day, a habit he had pursued since the age of sixteen. It slowed down the shave, especially around the mouth, but he didn't mind. He did his best thinking at such moments, and at this particular moment he was thinking about Rhoda Klepp and about his approach. He reviewed his standard repertoire: Little Boy, Tough Guy With Heart of Gold, Noble But Injured and in Search of the Right Woman. He doubted any of these would work. Although the personality of the woman was hardly ever a factor in his romantic life, in the case of Rhoda Klepp he had to make an exception. His heart was not in the chase, and where the heart would not go, it was unlikely that the more operational units of anatomy would follow.

He now began to consider how he could weasel out of his deal with Karp. Suddenly he smiled. After all, he had promised only to try. He put down his razor and patted cologne liberally on his face and neck. An elderly court clerk came in to the men's room and stepped up to a urinal. Glancing at Guma, he said, “Hey, Ray, who's the lucky girl?”

“Rhoda Klepp,” Guma said. The clerk laughed so hard he had to stop peeing.

An hour later, Rhoda Klepp was talking to her secretary in Wharton's outer office. When she was done, she turned to go back to her own office. That's when she saw Guma leaning casually against a wall near a potted palm. He was chewing gum. She gave him what she thought was a cool and sophisticated look. At the same time she was unpleasantly conscious of the flush that was running up her cheeks. He strolled over to her. In a neutral voice he said, “Hey, Rhoda. Wanna fuck?”