Escape (13 page)

He'd even hung in there over the past couple of years when—having left the DAO to work as a security consultant—she'd had a crisis of faith in the legal system. To deal with it, she'd turned to vigilante justice, which in turn threatened to consume her soul in a world of violence and gray moral choices. Although the poster boy for the rule of law and order, he wouldn't let her go when she tried to push him and the kids away because she felt she was somehow tainted and also a danger to them. It was because of his love and faith in her—along with the spiritual guidance of John Jojola—that she was at least most of the way back.

She felt guilty about calling him. As the head of one of the busiest DAOs in the country, he didn't really have time to be bothered with her search for an old man who'd probably just gone out for a walk and would turn up on his own shortly. But Butch Karp was also a man who had his priorities straight; if his wife or kids needed him, there was no power on Earth that could stop him from dropping whatever he was doing and flying to their aid.

As expected, he responded by insisting that he come help her look. "And I'll get Clay to let the cops know to be watching for some crazy old Italian wandering around Queens."

"Well," she laughed in spite of her anxiety, "that will narrow it down to a mere few thousand."

Karp got off the phone with his wife and called Fulton to explain what was going on. He asked him to get a "Be On the Lookout" alert to the cops in Queens and mentioned that he was going to take a taxi to the area, but Clay had other ideas. "I have some time. Why don't I take you over in my car and we can canvass the neighborhood and check out the hospitals ... that sort of thing?"

When Karp hesitated, Fulton insisted. After all, he said, one of his jobs was providing security for the district attorney, and there were parts of Queens where it wasn't safe for him to be wandering around.

A few minutes later, they were heading for the Queens Midtown Tunnel when Karp received a call from Mrs. Milquetost. "Yes, Darla?"

"A Mr. Moishe Sobelman called from a bakery on Third Avenue and 29th Street. Apparently, your fatherin-law is there but confused as to how he got there. Mr. Sobelman left a telephone number. Have you got a pen?"

"Yes, thank you, go ahead." As Fulton headed for Third and'29th, Karp called the number.

"Il Buon Pane bakery, Moishe Sobelman speaking," a man with a heavy accent answered.

"Yes, hello, this is Butch Karp..."

"Ah yes, Mr. Karp, thank you for calling me back. I believe you are related to one Mariano Ciampi?"

"He's my fatherin-law. I was told that he might be there."

"He is indeed. He walked in an hour ago and wanted a piece of my cherry cheese coffee-cake. But he couldn't find his wallet—not that I cared, I gave him the coffee cake on credit—and then he couldn't remember how he got here or what he was supposed to be doing. He told me his name and that he lives with Concetta in Queens, but not much else. I didn't want him to wander away, so I asked him a few questions. He remembered that his daughter, Marlene, was married to the district attorney of New York. So I called your office."

"Thank you so much for all your trouble," Karp said, thinking how well Mr. Sobelman exemplified the ability New Yorkers had shown after 9/11 to come through for each other in tough times.

"It's been my pleasure. Mariano is good company, and we have traded old stories over coffee cake and cappuccino. I think he knew the former owner and that's why he came here. Besides, you and I have a mutual acquaintance."

"Oh? Who is that?"

"Vladimir Karchovski. I believe this is one of those 'small world' sort of things, no?"

Karp was silent for a moment. Vladimir Karchovski was his great uncle, the brother of his grandfather on his father's side. He was also connected with the Russian mob over in the Brighton Beach area of Brooklyn. "Uh, yes, it is a small world," he replied and changed the subject; it was not one he was comfortable discussing, especially with a stranger. "I'd really appreciate it if you could keep my fatherin-law there until I show up. We're five minutes away."

"No rush," Sobelman replied. "We're enjoying our cappuccinos."

"Again, thank you," Karp said. "I better get off now and let my wife— Mariano's daughter—know that he's safe. And maybe I can get her to join us for a piece of the cherry cheese coffee-cake."

"The best in the Five Boroughs," Sobelman said with a laugh. "I make it from the family recipe I inherited from Mariano's old friend. I have some baking right now so it will be fresh and warm when you arrive."

Karp hung up and looked at the cell phone for a moment without speaking. When Sobelman had mentioned that Karchovski was a mutual acquaintance, he'd wondered if there was something sinister afoot. Perhaps Mariano had been kidnapped, and this was part of an elaborate blackmail plot. Karp had never publicly disclosed his family connection to an organized-crime boss, and in fact had taken great pains to keep his distance.

As gangsters went, the Karchovski clan was rather benign. They didn't deal in drugs or guns or prostitution. They made their living off of gambling and smuggling illegal immigrants—especially from Russia and former Soviet Bloc countries—into the United States while smuggling goods into Russia for the black market. That didn't make them Boy Scouts either; there'd been times when Vladimir Karchovski and his son, Ivgeny, had had their people resort to violence to protect their territory and themselves from rival gangs.

Karp quickly dismissed the idea that Sobelman had intended his remark as a threat. The fact of the matter was that Ivgeny Karchovski, a former colonel in the Red Army who'd been seriously wounded fighting in Afghanistan, had proved a valuable ally in recent run-ins with Islamic terrorists and Nadya Malovo, a former Soviet KGB agent turned hired gun for certain government and crime interests in Russia. That past spring Ivgeny had also helped him expose Jon Ellis as a double agent and a traitor.

Karp decided that Sobelman meant the comment as no more than it had seemed, acknowledgment of a mutual acquaintance. He opened the cell phone again and dialed Marlene's number. "I'm on my way to meet your father," he said when she answered, "who is relaxing over coffee cake and cappuccino at the Il Buon Pane bakery on Third Avenue and 29th."

"Il Buon Pane bakery?" Marlene exclaimed. "His friend, Alfredo Turrisi used to own the place. They met on the boat coming over from Sicily, but he's been dead for twenty years. What's Pops doing there? And what the hell is he doing scaring me half to death?"

"Beats me. We can take him back to the loft, sit him down under a 100-watt bulb, and hit him with a hose until he talks. But I was promisee! a piece of cherry cheese coffee-cake, so the interrogation will have to wait until I've finished."

"Cherry cheese coffee-cake, eh? So much for the diet, big boy. Well, it better be good if Pops had to jump across the river to get it."

"I'm assured it's the best in the Five Boroughs, which would have to mean the best in the world," Karp said. "But I'll let you be the judge of that if you'd care to join us there."

"I'm on my way."

Fulton let Karp out in front of the bakery but declined to come in. "I have a few things I want to check out on a case," he said, "and Marlene has her truck, right? Good. She can drop you off downtown. Catch you later."

Il Buon Pane was located on the southwest corner of the busy intersection—one of those precious holdovers from another era when New York City, for all its skyscrapers and asphalt, was still the land of promise for immigrants. As in the past, its large windows were filled with many-tiered wedding cakes, pastries, and breads of every imaginable type. Even out on the sidewalk, the smell of the fresh-baked delights drifted by so that few who walked past could resist turning their heads and at least wishing they could stop and sample.

Above the store was an apartment with a menorah in the window, which Karp assumed belonged to the baker. It was another reminder of the days when New Yorkers lived and worked in their neighborhoods. He pulled the door open to the tinkling of bells.

A gnomish man with a big nose and ears that jutted out beneath a tall baker's hat looked up from behind the counter, where he'd been helping an equally tiny woman with red hair that fell about her face in ringlets. "I'll be right with you," the man said.

Karp recognized the voice as belonging to Moishe Sobelman. "Take your time. I see my appointment," he said, pointing toward the back of the store. Two small tables with chairs occupied what little space there was, and sitting at one of them, hunched over a game of checkers, was his fatherin-law, who looked up as he approached and seemed surprised to see him.

"Butch!" Mariano Ciampi shouted. "What the hell are you doing here? Not more than five minutes ago—five minutes I tell you—me and my friend Alfredo were talking about you."

The man behind the counter wiped flour-covered hands on his apron. "Moishe Sobelman," he said, extending a hand to Karp. "I'm afraid my new friend Mariano has me confused with the former owner."

Mariano looked confused for a moment, but then he smiled sheepishly. "That's right. That's right. All this talk about old times, I got mixed up. Alfredo has been dead many years. This is Moishe's place now, and it's just as good as it ever was. He kept the name you know, Il Buon Pane, 'The Good Bread' bakery."

Sobelman waved Karp to the seat across the table from his fatherin-law. He pointed to the woman behind the counter. "And that's my boss, Goldie Sobelman. She doesn't speak, but she understands more than all of us put together."

Karp nodded to the woman, who smiled and headed back to the kitchen. He turned in time to see Moishe's look as he watched her go. He looked like a proud man who'd just introduced his beautiful young bride to the neighbors, though both Sobelmans were only a little younger than Mariano. "Did you know the former owner, Alfredo Turrisi?" Karp asked.

"Yes, I have worked here since 1959," he replied. "I was new to this country when our mutual friend Vladimir Karchovski introduced me, and Mr. Turrisi gave me a job. I believe I remember Mariano coming into the shop to see his friend, but it has been many years."

"Nonsense," Mariano chimed in from his seat. "I remember you well. You always had flour on your cheeks and hardly spoke a word of English. In fact, you reminded me of myself when I came over from the Old Country. We were good friends with Alfredo and his wife, Helen—though not so good that he would ever tell me the secret to making his delicious cherry cheese coffee-cake."

Karp smiled and patted his fatherin-law on the shoulder. Whether Mariano truly remembered young Moishe with flour on his cheeks didn't matter; it was a fine memory now.

"I was sworn to maintain that secrecy when Alfredo sold me the business and the apartment above. That was when he got sick and could no longer work," Sobelman said. He winked at Karp. "But I'm forgetting my manners. I believe I promised you a piece of that same cherry cheese coffee-cake."

"It's to die for," Mariano Ciampi assured his son-in-law.

Sobelman moved quickly for a man his age and disappeared into the kitchen. A minute later, he returned with an enormous piece of coffee cake oozing cherries and cream cheese. As he placed the delicacy on the table, the shirtsleeve covering Sobelman's forearm slipped back, revealing an old blue-green tattoo of a number. Karp had seen many such numbers before on older Jewish men and women, their permanent reminder of time spent in Nazi concentration camps.

Sobelman pulled the sleeve back to cover the tattoo. "Long story," he said quietly. "Perhaps I'll tell it to you someday since it has a happy ending, because of my friend Vladimir."

"Vladimir? Who the hell is Vladimir?" Mariano asked.

"Just an old friend," Karp assured his fatherin-law.

Karp had just finished his coffee cake and was contemplating the calories he'd have to work off if he asked for a second piece when Marlene marched in through the door. She wasted little time letting her father know she wasn't happy.

"So Pops ... how'd you get here?"

"The subway, what else?" Mariano rolled his eyes at the men present. "I took the Seven to Grand Central Terminal, then the Green Line to the 23rd Street station. I walked the rest of the way."

"Okay," Marlene said. "But why? You scared me to death. I show up at the place and the door is wide open but no Pops around."

Mariano frowned. "I thought your mother would close it," he said. "After all, she's the one who suggested that I come see my old friend Alfredo." He stopped and looked at Sobelman. "But of course, Alfredo is dead and this is Moishe's bakery. I don't know why she'd forget something like that."

The comment was followed by an embarrassed silence until Sobelman spoke. "I know why," he said. "It was so that I could meet a new friend—or perhaps an old friend—as well as your beautiful daughter and her fine husband. And such a treat for me, a rare beauty and the district attorney of New York in my humble little bakery."

Everyone laughed, grateful for the out. "You're right," Mariano agreed. "God works in mysterious ways, and He must have guided my feet today."

"Yes, God has His own way of doing things, and His own reasons," Sobelman agreed. "I hope you'll come often. Now, wait a minute so that I can get a photograph of my new friends so that I can prove to my old friends that such a thing really did happen."

Sobelman nipped behind the counter again and reemerged with a digital camera, which he used to snap several photographs. A few minutes later, as Marlene and her father stuffed their faces with more coffee cake, the little baker quietly pulled Karp aside. "Is there anything you can tell me about whoever was behind the bombing of our synagogue?"

Surprised, Karp asked, "You belong to that synagogue?"

"Yes, for many years. And I noticed on the message board that you teach a bar mitzvah class. You are also a scholar of the Torah, as well as U.S. law?" Karp shook his head. "Unfortunately, I'm not," he said. "It's more of a class about modem issues."

"There are no modem issues," Sobelman responded. "Just old issues with new names. But forget my question, it was rude to put you on the spot."

"Don't worry about it," Karp said. "There's really not much I can say that you probably haven't heard. The investigation is being handled by federal agencies."

"I see."

"Did you lose any friends?"

Sobelman studied Karp's face before speaking. "I have lost many friends over many years to acts of evil," he said quietly. "And yes I lost friends this time, too. But I was asking because I was there when the bomb exploded, and I constantly wonder why God continues to spare me and not others." Karp was still thinking about that last conversation with Sobelman when Marlene pulled up in front of the Criminal Courts building to drop him off. He kissed her and was about to get out of the truck when Mariano, who was riding in the jumpseat, suddenly covered his face and wailed. "Oh God," he cried. "I'm such an old fool. I'm no use to anyone and just cause trouble."

Marlene turned in her seat and reached back to put her hand on her father's face. "Don't say that Pops. You're not useless. You're just a little forgetful sometimes, but who isn't? And we do need you. The kids need you, and I need you. Do you understand that?"

Mariano nodded and wiped away the tears on his cheeks. But when Karp again started to get out of the car, he suddenly reached forward and gripped his son-in-law's arm. "Just hope you die before you get old, Butch. Losing your mind isn't a lot of fun."