No Lesser Plea (24 page)

The Gym was the one good part of one of Conrad Wharton’s worst ideas. For decades one wing of the fourth floor of 10 Centre Street, where the Felony Trial Bureau was quartered, had been divided into tiny bathroom-sized offices for the ADAs. For most of them, coming from the squad bays of Criminal Court, it was their first real office-with-a-door, and prized accordingly.

But Wharton had read something about the latest thing in efficiency being open space plans with individual “work-stations,” divided by colorful foam partitions. He therefore ordered the razing of the entire area and the replacement of the cozy old offices with an immense echoing space filled with flimsy tin furniture and cloth-covered panels in earth tones and primary colors. As a functional office it was a disaster, since Wharton had not thought it necessary to buy the sound baffles and special flooring that prevent such offices from sounding like what they resemble—cheap day-care centers for the retarded.

On the other hand, the “modules” were easily shifted. Half an hour’s work produced an open hall with eight big windows that would easily hold 200 people—presto, the Gym.

When Guma and Karp arrived there were only about a dozen people in the room, mostly secretaries and clerks arranging platters of food on desks covered with paper tablecloths. The secretaries supplied the food, the professional staff supplied the drink. The overhead lights had been doused and the room was lit by candles stuck in ashtrays and cardboard coffee cups. Guma deposited his half case of Scotch and Karp his six-pack on the pair of desks designated as the bar. Jugs of wine were cooling in ice-filled trash baskets. Towers of paper cups were arranged around them.

A short, red-haired, pug-nosed man was standing at one end of the “bar,” pouring pineapple juice from a can into a huge galvanized washtub, the type used to bathe the heroine by candlelight in western movies.

“Denny! How they hanging, my friend?” said Guma.

“Not so bad, Goom. A couple more cans and this will be ready to taste.”

“What is it? Oh, hey Butch, you know Denny Maher, from the M.E.’s office?”

“Yeah, sure, hi.”

Maher cracked another can and poured it into the foaming, creamy mixture. “Butch, you look like shit. I believe you are low on potassium, the inevitable result of excessive masturbation. Therefore, as your personal physician I will insist that you swallow at least twelve ounces of this here punch.” Maher finished pouring and filled a paper cup from the tub. Karp eyed it suspiciously.

“What’s in it?”

“Nothing but the purest tropical ingredients. It’s a piña colada, or pina colitis, as we used to call it in medical school. C’mon, taste it.”

Karp took a swallow. The drink was sweet and icy. “Hey, it’s all right. Is it spiked?”

Maher and Guma exchanged glances. “Spiked? No, not really, just enough to prevent bacterial contamination. I mean, I wouldn’t want any of the guests to come down with salmonella.”

“Hey Butch, come over here and help me with the meat.”

Hrcany, dressed in a Hawaiian shirt and cutoffs, was tending half a dozen smoldering hibachis set up on the window ledges. He was taking shish kebabs out of a cooler and placing them on the grills. Karp took his drink and walked over, glad of something to do to get his mind off his troubles.

Maher stirred his tub and gestured in Karp’s direction.

“Spiked? Is he kidding, or what?”

“Ah, Karp’s OK, he’s just a little new to physical depravity. What did you put in it anyway?”

“Oh, the usual twelve pints of Olde Medical Examiner.” Maher reached under the desk and held up a squat bottle with a black and silver label. The label said “Ethyl Alcohol-C2H40H-(Absolute).”

“Is that all?” asked Guma. “No exotic aphrodisiacs?”

“Is that all, he asks! Listen, friend of mine, by the time the bottom of this old tub sees the light of day there won’t be a functional higher brain in this room. The lowest animal reflexes will rule all.”

Guma laughed. “You’re an evil man, Maher, and I love you for it. But isn’t this a violation of your Hippocratic oath?”

“Oh, that. It’s sad, but sometimes we physicians must appear to cause pain in order to work our miracles of healing.” He poured a cup of punch and offered it to Guma. “No thanks, I’ll stick to Scotch, Denny.”

“You’re a fool. That stuff’ll kill you. I speak as your personal physician.” He took a deep drink himself. “Ahh … healthful and refreshing!”

“Better you than me, pal. Oh, and Denny, we’re trying to get Butch to loosen up. Why don’t you see that his cup stays full, hey?”

“A duty and a pleasure,” said Denny Maher.

For the next hour Karp cooked fifty pounds of skewered beef. It was a warm, humid night and the grills were blazing hot. He took off his jacket, then his tie. He unbuttoned his shirt and rolled up his sleeves. Then he wrapped his tie around his forehead. Every so often somebody would appear at his side with a platter and he would load it with smoking shish kebabs and, in turn, receive a tall, cool cup of piña colada, which he gulped down.

Now the room was jammed with people. Somebody had brought a ghetto blaster, which was blasting away, and dancers were leaping in the candlelight. When the meat ran out, Karp staggered toward the music. Guma was up on a desk doing the dirty boogie with Proud Mary, a 300-pound property clerk with chocolate skin and blonde hair. He had removed his shirt, shoes, and socks and rolled up his trouser legs. He was wearing a green cellophane Hawaiian skirt and Proud Mary’s brassiere, stuffed with paper napkins. Karp watched hypnotized as Proud Mary’s unrestrained size 46s struggled for freedom against her dress. She was laughing, a high-pitched, “hee-yuh-yuh-yuh … HEE-yuh-yuh-yuh” like the artificial fat lady in front of a Coney Island fun house.

“Butch! Man of the hour! C’mon dance!” Marlene Ciampi grabbed his hand and pulled him onto the dance floor. “Jesus, Butch, you look like you just finished the graveyard shift at a coal mine. What you been doing?”

Karp rocked back and forth on rubbery legs. He had stopped feeling his face a long time ago. “Cooking … meat,” he said. He tried to think about why he was sad, but couldn’t quite recall the reason. It was hard enough to keep Marlene’s face, her flying black hair, in focus, and to remain upright. Grace Slick sang, her voice like copper pennies on the tongue: “When the truth is shown, to be just LIES, and all the joy within you DIES, don’t you WANT somebody to love, don’t you NEED somebody to love, wouldn’t you LOVE somebody to love, you better FIND somebody to LUH-UH-UV!”

Karp thought this made good sense. He made a clumsy grab for Marlene and squeezed her to his breast.

“Oooof! Hey, Karp, take it easy! This is so sudden! God, Karp, what a sweathog! Yecch!” She spun away and danced around him. He stumbled after her through the whirling couples, like King Kong stalking the blonde.

“May I have this dance?”

Marlene found herself dancing with V.T. Newbury, looking elegant in a white dinner jacket.

“V.T.! Where you been?” She fingered his lapel. “What’s with the getup? Trying to make the peasants feel bad?”

“Only a true peasant could have made a remark like that, my dear. No, actually, I’m coming from a wedding reception. My cousin Phootie.”

“Phootie? Be real, V.T. Nobody calls themself Phootie.”

“One does, if one is rich enough. Actually, there’s a charming family story about how she got that name, but I’m pledged to reveal it only to Episcopalians. Good Christ! What’s wrong with Karp?”

Karp’s head and shoulders could be seen over the crowd. His jaw was slack and he had a curiously intent expression on his face, the kind imbeciles wear when they are trying to remember how to tie their shoes.

“I don’t know,” said Marlene. “I think he’s drunk.”

“Karp? Drunk? Impossible. Where are the networks, the cameras?”

“No, he’s whacked out, V.T. Maybe we should get him to sit down.”

“No that’s absolutely the wrong thing to do. Keep him on his feet and working, that’s the answer. Speaking of which, I have just the job. Come on!”

The two of them shoved through the dancers to Karp and led him out of the Gym.

“V.T., where are we going?” Marlene asked. Karp was docile and softly humming to himself.

“Just down the hall to the men’s room.”

“What! V.T., what the …”

“Now, Champ, you know you’ve been longing for this opportunity. It’s your ultimate rite of passage into the closely guarded world of male supremacy. Ah, here we are.”

V.T. opened the men’s room door with his foot and shouldered Karp in. Marlene followed, cursing fluently.

Roland Hrcany and Denny Maher were standing in the corner by the towel dispensers, looking speculatively at what first appeared to be a pile of clothes.

“Hi guys,” said Hrcany cheerfully. “We’re just waiting for the ambulance. Denny called Jerry Lipsky at Bellevue and he’s sending one over. The problem is, it probably isn’t a good idea to have it come right up to One Hundred Centre, so we’re going to have to drag him a couple of blocks away and make the pickup there.”

“I’m going to start screaming if somebody doesn’t tell me what’s going on,” said Marlene, her voice rising threateningly.

“Calm down, Champ,” said Hrcany. “Look at this.” He turned the pile of clothes over to reveal a face like a spilled quart of cottage cheese (large curd) attached to a corpulent, three-piece-suited body.

“Hey, it’s Sheldon the Shit. Far out! Is he dead?”

“No such luck, dear,” replied Maher. “My preliminary analysis shows that Sheldon, who was, by the bye, uninvited to our party, has overindulged in my famous punch.”

“Yeah,” said Hrcany, “I was in here taking a leak, the door crashes open and Sheldon comes in, opens a booth, gets down on his knees to puke, and passes out in the bowl. I had to save him from drowning.”

Marlene said, “And here I thought you just looked like a lifeguard. Did you give mouth-to-mouth?”

Hrcany made a face. “Give me a break! But then it occurred to me that here was a God-given opportunity to help Sheldon out, kind of show him the error of his ways. And of course pay the asshole back for all the times he’s left us holding the bag. Denny, for your information, Sheldon Ehrengard is generally considered the chief prick lawyer in this office …”

“No, Wharton is,” said Marlene.

“I don’t consider Wharton a lawyer,” continued Hrcany, “but anyway, Debra Tiel, down in the Complaint Room, calls him the laziest white man in North America. Hey, Butch, you remember the night in the Complaint Room, when he didn’t show up and we got bombed? Butch?”

Karp was swaying gently back and forth like a poplar in a gale. “What’s wrong with Karp? We need him for this plan.”

Maher peered into Karp’s glassy eyes. “Ah, he’s all right. It’s merely the ill effects of years of clean living and regular exercise. The man can hardly drink at all.”

“Wait a minute,” said Marlene, “what’s Butch got to do with this?”

“Beast of burden, dear,” said Maher. “And I’m sure that were he in his right mind he’d be glad to cooperate. As you can see, Sheldon is a considerable tub of lard.”

“Hey guys, the ambulance is here, over on White and Baxter. Holy shit? What are you doing here, Ciampi?”

Guma had burst in, still in his hula outfit, but with a suit jacket thrown over his shoulders in the manner of Italian movie directors. The debonair effect was marred by the magenta bra peeking out from between his coat lapels.

“What am I doing here? You rat! You promised you were going to teach me to pee standing up. Hey, nice set of jugs, Goom. You’ll blow them away at Brighton Beach this summer.”

“Ciampi, one of these days … ah shit, let’s get him out of here.”

In the manner of an animal trainer, Hrcany coaxed Karp into picking up Ehrengard’s elephantine legs. The other four men arranged themselves around the massive form, and with Marlene in the lead as door-opener they marched out of the building and into the night, giggling and humming the Dead March. What in any other city would have been a remarkable procession drew hardly a glance on the still-crowded streets of Chinatown. The ways of the round-eyed barbarians are inscrutable.

Once at their destination, the City Morgue, they removed Ehrengard’s clothes and laid him on a stainless steel autopsy table. It was chilly in the big room, but Guma had—with his usual foresight—brought along a full bottle of Teacher’s, which passed among them until it was empty.

“Great party, Denny,” said V.T. “Nice place. I like the lighting.” He gestured to the half dozen real corpses lying on tables for next morning’s scalpels. “I like your friends, too. They’re a laid-back bunch.”

Maher grinned and pulled a sheet over Ehrengard’s body, and tied a toe-tag to his big toe. “Thank you, Newbury. Now, who will say a few holy words over the dear departed?”

“I’ll do it,” said V.T. “Dearly beloved …”

“No, Jewish, Jewish,” said Hrcany. “Let Butch do it. Butch, make this kosher.”

“Naw, Karp can’t do it,” Guma said, “he’s so fucking assimilated they revoked his bar mitzvah. He had his foreskin surgically reattached. Besides he’s too pissed.”

“Sure he can do it.” Hrcany shook Karp gently. “Butchie. Wake up. Say something Jewish so we can get out of here.”

“Joosh?” said Karp.

“Yeah, say the Ten Commandments.”

“Manments?”

“C’mon Butch, say the first commandment, c’mon think! Thou shalt … thou shalt …”

“Never …”

“That’s right, good, never what?”

“Never … never … ah … never pay retail.”

“A-men! Ah rest mah case. Let’s go. Night-night, Sheldon.”

The party was still humming when they got back. The punch was nearly gone, and two hundred people were poised on the delicate boundary between total abandon and utter psychophysical collapse. But this was not lively enough for the Mad Dog of Centre Street. Guma had no difficulty in talking Proud Mary out of the key to the evidence locker. Soon the crowd had liberated a pile of films confiscated during the great Pornography Campaign. Someone was thoughtful enough to have been caught stealing a 16 mm. projector, which was dragged out and set up.

Guma stood on a chair and shouted out the titles: “Beach Boys in Bondage? Wrong crowd. No? You want it? OK, second feature, Cheerleaders in Chains, must see! OK, here it is! A Girl and Her Donkey! I’m dying! Hunk! Roll this one first. Where’s the fucking popcorn! I got to have buttered popcorn!”