Reversible Error (27 page)

"Granted."

"And as a final matter, your Honor, I ask that a reasonable bail be granted in this case. My client has lived in this community all his life. He is a college graduate, gainfully employed in a professional position. He has strong family and neighborhood ties and is additionally the sole support of his widowed mother."

"Your Honor, we strongly object to setting bail in this case," said Marlene with a sinking heart. "We have an overwhelming case on the evidence, and the charge is murder. Both these elements make flight before trial a distinct possibility."

"Yes," said the judge blandly, "but there seems to be some doubt about this so-called evidence. Bail is set at twenty-five thousand dollars." The gavel came down. Polaner turned to his client and shook his hand and clasped him on the shoulder. But Meissner wasn't looking at the lawyer. He was looking over Polaner's shoulder, directly at Marlene. He smiled at her, a confident and mocking smile. He winked.

"Next case," said Judge Nolan.

Marlene gathered up her papers and walked out of the courtroom, feeling as if she were wading in taffy. The press was there in force, people shoving mikes and cameras in her face. She put her head down and no-commented her way to the elevator. Her face seemed larger and hotter than normal. It was a nightmare. The guy walked!

"The guy walked," Marlene wailed as she burst into Karp's office.

"Who did, babe?" asked Karp, alarmed. Marlene's face was blanched and her good eye was wild in its socket.

"Meissner. The fucking judge walked him on twenty-five K, and he made me turn my grand-jury minutes over to him."

"What!"

"Yeah. According to Mr. Motion, the evidence presented at the grand jury, meaning the five rape cases with the panty hose, was prejudicial and irrelevant."

"And the judge bought it? What was he, senile?" Karp asked this not at all facetiously.

Marlene shook her head. "Not so you'd notice. It was Nolan, for God's sake! Oh, and he was all of a sudden concerned about reversible error. Yes, well you may gape-Judge Nolan, who has been reversed so many times he has a gearshift stuck up his ass. Here's a bastard who never walked an accused homicide in his life, and you would think, wouldn't you, that when he finally gets a chance to show it's not just black and PR thugs who get put away, he'd… What's wrong?"

Karp was biting his upper lip and staring at the floor in thought. "Nolan," he said. "It's not the first time he walked one. He did it on Tecumseh Booth too."

Marlene wrinkled her brow in confusion. "What're you talking about? What does Meissner have to do with the drug killings?"

"Nothing, I don't think," answered Karp. "Except for the honorable Nolan. I'm pretty sure that somebody told him to spring Booth. Springing Meissner might have been a freebie."

"But why? On a case like this? It can't make him look good."

"Judges don't have to look good," said Karp. "Besides, he was just protecting our precious civil liberties. We have to look good. Bloom does and I do, assuming…"

"Assuming what?"

"Assuming I'm interested in running for D.A. anytime soon. Meissner is a hot public case. Maybe somebody's sending me a message. Like, lay off Nolan."

"I didn't know you were on Nolan," snapped Marlene, her anger shifting, as it often did, from the issue at hand to the person of her own sweet lover.

"I need to know who put the fix in on Booth," said Karp. "I asked V.T. to look into Nolan's finances, see if maybe there was a connection to Congressman Fane or somebody like him. That was it. Word must have got around."

"Yeah, well, if that happened, it seems to have royally fucked up my case. Christ! What the hell am I gonna tell the women?"

"Tell them we get shafted sometimes but we're not out of the game yet. You'll do a great job responding to Polaner's motions, and meanwhile things could change all around. Also, I'll check out what's going on with my newfound friends in high places."

"OK," said Marlene grumpily, "but anybody who fucks with me on this one is dead meat."

Dick Manning had a small but elegant apartment off West End Avenue in the Eighties. He had decorated it in masculine modern, full of the type featured in Playboy magazine: the furniture covered in pale or dark leather, the lamps of spidery black metal, tables of glass and gilt steel. He had African masks on the walls and some colorful primitive paintings he had picked up for a song on a Haitian vacation, and which were now, he had heard, appreciating nicely in value. His stereo and TV were large and expensive, with immense flattened speakers reaching halfway to the ceiling. One wall was covered with gold-flecked mirror squares; another wall was windows, looking out over the avenue.

Manning sat in a large leather armchair. Fulton was on the Haitian-cotton couch opposite and Amalfi was in a chrome-and-leather sling chair off to one side. It was Fulton's first visit, and he regarded it as a good sign, the only good sign in a period of intense frustration. Six weeks had passed since he had revealed Tecumseh's tape to Manning and Amalfi, weeks devoid of action. All the remaining dope dealers were healthy. Fulton had no play except to sink deeper into his persona as a bad cop. As a result, no cop would talk to him unless he had to. Even the King Cole Trio was giving him furtive, hostile stares and responding to his orders with sullen obedience.

Manning poured Hennessey and orange juice into glasses and handed one to Fulton. Amalfi came over to the coffee table and got his. Manning said, "Drink up, Fulton. You look like you could use it."

"I'm psyched," said Fulton. "Long time, no action."

Manning lifted an eyebrow. "You think there's gonna be action?"

"Yeah. You didn't drag me up here to, ah, solidify our close friendship. So what is it?"

A broad smile spread over Manning's face. "You sharp, Clay. They told me you was a smart mother, and it's true. Ain't it, Sid?"

Amalfi said unenthusiastically, "Yeah, Dick, he's a sharp one, all right."

"Yeah, we do have a little job for you tonight," Manning continued. "You know Nicky Benning?"

"What about him?"

"We're taking him down," said Manning.

Fulton snorted. "Benning? With what army? Fucking guy runs half the dope in Harlem and all of it in the South Bronx. There's fifteen layers of operation between him and the street. Nobody's even seen him on the street for years. How the fuck you gonna get close to Benning?"

"Easy," said Manning. He took a sip from his glass and lit a cigarette, enjoying the pause and the attention it generated. "Brother Benning is in the hospital. Seems his ulcer bust day before yesterday. Must be a tense business running all that skag through town. So he's in a private room at Roosevelt under a phony name. No guards. It's a easy hit."

Fulton said, "How did you find out about it?"

Manning grinned. "I got a little bird, tells me stuff. So-you wanted some action. You in on this, or what?"

"I'm in," said Fulton. "What, you figure I go in alone?"

"Uh-uh, we don't work alone," said Manning. "Sid'll go with you."

"Yeah, OK," said Fulton carefully. "You staying?"

"No, I'll go out with you. I got some business uptown. Lemme get my jacket."

Manning went into the bedroom. Fulton stood up. The mirrored wall dimly reflected the inside of the bedroom. Fulton saw Manning take a pale sport coat and a shoulder holster from a closet. He put on the shoulder holster and took an automatic pistol from a bureau drawer and stuck it in the holster. Then he took a small revolver from the same drawer and, propping his foot up on the bed, placed it in an ankle holster strapped to his right leg. He put his jacket on and checked himself in a long mirror. As he emerged, Fulton turned quickly away from the mirror and noticed Amalfi staring at him. Amalfi looked peaked and gray. There was a twitch in one eye. Fulton had a good idea why he was nervous.

Roosevelt Hospital, on Ninth and 59th, was only ten minutes from Manning's apartment. Fulton and Amalfi parked Amalfi's old car near the emergency entrance. Amalfi handed Fulton a brass key. "This'll open the fire door from the outside. He's in room 523."

"I gotta walk up five flights?"

"Unless you want to go up the elevator with a bunch of witnesses. The room is between the fire stairs and the nurse's station. You should be in and out in three minutes. Wrap the gun in the pillow."

"Good advice, Sid," said Fulton. "I can tell you're the brains of the outfit. You gonna stay here?"

"Yeah, it's a one-man deal."

Fulton nodded and got out of the car. He found the fire door, opened it with no problem, and walked quickly up to the fifth floor. Nicky Benning was where he was supposed to be, draped with various tubes, sleeping, unguarded.

Fulton went back to the fire stairs and waited on the landing for a few minutes. Then he went back to the hallway and took the elevator down to the ground floor. He went through the emergency room and paused in the shadows by the doorway. He could see Amalfi's car clearly. As Fulton had expected, Amalfi was no longer in it.

As he walked back to the fire door, Fulton wondered how they planned to do it. They couldn't just shoot him in the back, not a detective lieutenant. It would have to be a confrontation. They would get the drop on him and set it up. A couple in the chest and then his gun pressed into his own dead hand and a shot fired. Sorry, but I had no choice. I caught him red-handed after he killed Benning, he shot at me and I dropped him. It might have worked, Fulton thought, with a realization that chilled him. Karp would bitch, but he couldn't do much without the cooperation of the police. And of course the investigation would be handled by guess-who. Even Denton couldn't do much, without destroying himself. The other brass would go along with it, if the killings stopped and Manning and Amalfi left the country. To protect the department.

Slowly he inserted the key in the lock with his left hand. He pulled and cocked his.38 Air-weight. There were two good places for an ambush. One was up on the fifth floor, to the left of the fire door. The other was in the little blind corridor to the right of the first flight of fire stairs. Fulton didn't figure Amalfi for a man who would walk up five flights unless he absolutely had to.

He took a deep breath, snapped the lock, flung the door open, and leapt in, crouching, his pistol pointing rigidly down the little corridor. It pointed straight at Amalfi, who stood there flatfooted and amazed, with a flat pint of vodka halfway to his lips, his gun in its holster. The bottle dropped and shattered, filling the landing with an appropriately medical smell.

"Uhhh, no!" Amalfi croaked. His face sagged in terror. Fulton darted forward, spun the unresisting man around, shoved his face up against the concrete wall, and patted him down. He pulled out and placed in his own pockets Amalfi's gun, his handcuffs, and a nasty little blackjack. As his fingers searched the small of Amalfi's back, he stopped abruptly and cursed.

"You're wearing a fucking wire!" he shouted. The sound echoed like an accusation from heaven in the stone vault of the stairway. He grabbed Amalfi's jacket and whipped him around again so that they were face-to-face.

"Talk!" Fulton ordered. "What's going on?"

"Don't kill me! I got money-"

"I'm not going to kill you, asshole. Who're you working for? Internal Affairs?"

Something clicked in Amalfi's mind then. An "aha" from some hitherto untapped reserve of insight, brought forward by fear of death. For the first time in the weeks since his life had gone in the toilet, since he had heard Fulton's tape, since Hrcany and the shoofly had visited him, he was thinking clearly. He breathed deeply and relaxed. "Yeah," he said. "You too?"

"No, but close," said Fulton. "They turned you, did they?"

"Yeah."

"Who are they after? They got you and Manning already."

"They want who Manning… who we're doing it for."

"You mean Choo Willis?"

"Not just him. Fane."

"The congressman? He's in on this?"

"Yeah. He's deep in. Willis works for him. He owns the Club Mecca. There're other heavies involved but, ah, we don't have anything definite on them yet. Manning knows the whole story, but he keeps it close."

Fulton uncocked his pistol and was silent for a while. He made no move to give Amalfi back his gun. "How the fuck did this all get started?" he asked.

Amalfi shrugged. "One thing led to another. Me and Dick was chasing this skell across the roof one night. We cornered him and he shot at us and we wasted him. He had a pile of cash on him and we split it up like we always did. Dick took a little coke off him too. I never did that, but Dick always could move dope. Then we were talking about what a pain in the ass it was gonna be, shooting this shithead, and all the investigation and the fucking paperwork, and Dick said, 'You know, if we was smart, we wouldn't be chasing these assholes across the roof. We could ace them at our convenience and get paid a shitload of money for it.' That was the start. Then we started doing jobs. Dick did the actual… you know, the work. I never did any of that."

"But you took the money."

Amalfi nodded. "Yeah, I took the money. Shit, man, they're dirtballs, what the hell, right?"

"Wrong. I don't know what deal you cut with Internal Affairs, but I'm going to let that slide for now. Just do what they tell you. But whatever goes down, it's got to go down fast. Tomorrow or the next day Manning is gonna find out I didn't ace Benning and the shit's gonna hit the fan. By the way, what did you intend to do, laying for me here?"

Amalfi said, "They, ah, wanted me to bring you in. Put the squeeze on you. Get a wire on you too. They figured you took out Tecumseh."

Fulton smiled without amusement and shook his head. "Can't trust nobody nowadays. Look, tell those assholes I'm the good guys. If they don't believe you, tell them to go to Chief Denton. We were trying to keep the lid on this, but it's blown now. Asses'll be frying like bacon downtown when this gets out."