Reversible Error (36 page)

"More," said Karp with a deep sigh.

Marlene knelt astride his back and began kneading his shoulder muscles. "God, you're tense!" she exclaimed. "I'm surprised. You should be positively laid-back now that this drug-killing is solved."

"Not finished," mumbled Karp into the rug.

"It's not? You got Clay back, didn't you? By the way, I ran into Martha at the hospital. She was shaking with relief. I didn't think Clay looked all that bad, though. I mean, considering he's been tortured. So what's the problem, anyway? If you have Manning… you do have Manning, right?"

"Dead," said Karp.

"Oh, I see. That's the problem."

She massaged him in silence for a few more minutes, then said, "It's Reedy. You can't get Reedy."

"Mmm-hm," said Karp. He was trying not to think about Reedy, trying, in fact, not to think about anything but Marlene's hands on his back and the thin bar of intense heat that was pressing against the small of his back where her groin touched it. He was also thinking about spinning around and pulling her down on him for a sweaty clinch on the floor, balancing this possibility against the delights of the continuing back rub.

But Marlene abruptly stopped her rubbing, stood up, and sat on the bed. She pulled a Marlboro from a pack and lit it. Karp looked up at her. "Something wrong?" he asked.

"No, except I'm starting to get tense myself. The fucking job."

"Leave it at the office," said Karp.

"Oh, yeah, look who's talking! That's my line. The problem is, I got one trial pending, which is Meissner, and about a hundred other cases, mostly rapes, which I should be preparing seriously, because with the new law we could win some of them, or at least muscle some good pleas, but I can't because as soon as Meissner is finished I have to leave.

"Also, there's only a couple of other people in the bureau who know how to handle the new law, who understand how to develop cases. It's a completely different situation. Ideally we should set up a structure, train new ADA's, run programs to get the cops up to speed, contact the E-wards and the crisis centers-to pull it all together. Like you always say, the D.A. is the captain of the team. But in this case, there's no captain, no team."

"What do you want me to do?" Karp asked. "I could talk to some of the zone commanders-"

"No!" said Marlene vehemently. "That's another thing that's wrong. Look, don't take this personally, because you've actually really been terrific all these years, and all, but…" She took a deep drag and let it out. "I can't work for you anymore. The rules are right. I thought it through after we nailed Meissner. There's enough tension in my life without adding the craziness of working for my husband."

She grinned at him. "Especially considering I'm a nervous wreck to begin with. Look at that fight we had about Meissner, all the nasty things I said about you and about the baby."

"You didn't mean all that?"

"Of course I didn't mean all that. Look, it's one thing to take me seriously; it's another thing to take me seriously when I don't want to be taken seriously. But that's an example, and it comes from working for you. It would just screw up my working life and my personal life, not to mention the Little Stranger to be. So that's it."

Karp felt a mix of satisfaction and disappointment; the disappointment was odd because he had wanted Marlene to quit, but he found that he did not like the thought of Marlene being whipped by anything. He said, "You could transfer to another bureau."

"Which one? Felony is Sullivan, one of Bloom's empty suits. Can you see me working for Charlie Sullivan? I'd last three days. Rackets? Fraud? Narco? Possible, but they don't sing to me. I want to do rape; rape needs doing, but I can't figure out how to make it happen." She laughed ruefully. "All those damn cases; it's a shame we can't work a Meissner on all of them. Your basic rapist doesn't take calls when he's on the job."

She put out her cigarette and crawled into bed and Karp followed her, and they had a close-knit and vaguely sad little bang, which blended imperceptibly into a deep and merciful unconsciousness.

From which Karp awoke with the solution to all his problems glowing in his mind with crystalline perfection. He had come floating up out of an unremembered dream and there it was-perfect, legal, nasty, and decisive-tying up a hairy mass of loose ends. Oddly, his mind buzzed with the notion of reversible error. A legal concept, one of the pillars of the system: judges made mistakes, which were reversed by other judges. In the trial of life, the judge that banged his gavel irritably and without recess in a corner of Karp's soul had found him guilty. He had misjudged Clay; he had misjudged Reedy. Your Honor, if it please the court, this particular set of errors is indeed reversible. Is it? You can remove the shame? The self-contempt? No, sir, but I can nail the bad guys. That was something.

And he could. All that was required was the cooperation of the guilty. Karp's first call that morning, once he was settled (and his staff commenting on how uncommonly cheerful he was looking) was to Denton. Denton was in a meeting of chiefs and commissioners and could not be disturbed. Karp said to the secretary, "Would you take a note in to him? It's urgent. Say, 'Butch says that if you want him to stay on the reservation on the Pier 87 thing, I need ten minutes of his time right away.'"

The secretary was impressed and agreed to take the note in, promising to call back when she had an answer. Karp rang off and called the district attorney and made an appointment to see Bloom for five minutes one hour from now. The police-department secretary rang him back. "Denton says be here in fifteen minutes."

This was just enough time for Karp to walk at a quick pace out of the Criminal Courts Building, south on Baxter to One Police Plaza, check through security, and ride the elevator up to the fourteenth floor, where the departmental superchiefs had their offices. He announced himself to the receptionist, and shortly thereafter Denton walked into the room, in shirtsleeves, looking irritated. He jerked his head at Karp and led him into a small and unoccupied private office.

"What is this, Butch? I'm up to my neck in budget."

"Sorry," said Karp. "This won't take long. I need your blessing, apparently, to go ahead with the prosecution of the ringleaders on the drug-lord killings."

"I thought we had an understanding on that," said Denton, glowering.

"We did, but obviously the situation has changed. Sweeping up some sick cop is one thing; covering up a massive conspiracy to use drug money to finance stock manipulation is something else entirely."

"What are you talking about?"

"Manning and Amalfi were hired by Richard Reedy and Marcus Fane to wipe out the competition in the Harlem drug trade, to produce the cash they and some other people needed to get them out of a hole they were in on some stock deal. They also arranged for the kidnapping and torture of Clay Fulton. Fulton has a tape that ties Manning to the killings and he has a taped confirmation from Amalfi of the connection between Marcus Fane and the killings Amalfi and Manning did. We also have circumstantial evidence linking the flow of money from an offshore bank to a series of stock deals on the one side, and to drug money on the other. Reedy set up the bank. He was there in the Club Mecca the night after Clay got lifted, probably talking to Willis and Manning."

Denton listened to this impassively. "And what do you want from me?"

"I think I've figured a way to tie Reedy to the dirty cops, but Manning and Amalfi's part in the killings can't be concealed."

"No way," said Denton. "They're dead. It's finished."

"It's not finished," said Karp. "A bunch of Wall Street and political scumbags have raped the NYPD. They've corrupted officers; they've killed with total impunity; they've kidnapped and tortured a police lieutenant-"

Denton was still shaking his head. "There's a cap on it now. If we go forward-"

"Bullshit, a cap!" cried Karp. "There's no way you can keep this quiet now. Too many people know about it, from Willis' people, to the cops who hauled the bodies away from the pier, to the docs taking care of Clay. You think they don't know what torture looks like? What's the cover story on that? Hey, Doc, I was on the job and I just happened to catch my prick and my nipples in an electrical outlet?

"Not to mention the bad guys, all of them in businesses where every secret has a price tag. And the press is already starting to nose around. You're figuring you can lay the drug-lord killings off on Willis, maybe Manning was working undercover too, got shot, poor bastard. Excuse me, but I still can't believe that you and Clay Fulton were going to stand up and salute at an inspector's funeral for Dick Manning.

"Bill, what can I say? If I really thought you were a run-for-cover type of person, I wouldn't even be here. I was willing to hang out there for you when this started, but…"

Karp took a long slow breath and let it out. "I'm telling you, the time for that is way past. Nobody will believe the story, and to be absolutely frank, you're too damn honest to be a credible liar under the kind of pressure you're gonna have to face. Your only choice is how you want the story to come out.

"And what's the story? The business we discussed a while ago, the crazy-cop angle-that's ancient history. It never happened. The truth that'll come out is that the NYPD had a worm and they assigned the best they had to go after it, and it worked. The bad guys are dead. And look who's really responsible for the mess-not cops: some greedy Wall Street and political sharks. When those names hit the papers, the cop connection will be four inches in the second section."

Denton looked straight at Karp for a long time, until Karp's eyes ached with the effort of keeping his gaze focused on the other man's steel-blue eyes. Then Denton turned away abruptly and moved several paces away, as if to physically distance himself from the decision he had now to make.

At last he said, "What you've got on Reedy seems pretty light. How do you plan to get him?"

Karp told him, and an almost-smile moved across Denton's thin mouth. "That's a long shot, isn't it?"

"It's worked before," said Karp. Relief began to spread through his body; Denton was going to buy it.

Denton said, "OK, go for it. If it works, we'll play it your way. If not…" He shrugged, shot Karp a dark look, and went out of the door. Karp went back to his office at a trot, made a few calls, and then it was time for his meeting with Bloom. Karp had to push through a crowd of TV people, with their equipment, waiting for a statement from the D.A. on a particularly exciting East Side killing.

The district attorney was not glad to see him, nor was he happy at having his elaborate schedule interrupted.

When Karp came in, Bloom asked abruptly, "Is it about this business on East 63rd? My sister lives in the next building. Everyone's terrified, she says. Can't I do something, she says. It's a good building, how can they get at you in a good building?"

"No, I'm sorry, it's not," said Karp. "This is about the wrap-up on the drug-lord killings."

"Wrap-up, huh?" said Bloom with distaste. "It certainly took us long enough to figure out that it was another dope dealer. What was his name-Williams?"

"Willis," said Karp. "But he wasn't doing the killings. The actual hit men were two police officers named Manning and Amalfi."

Bloom began to smile, and then saw that Karp was not making a joke. "Oh, my God!" he said. "Not the ones who were on my…? Oh, that's all I need!"

"Didn't you know?" asked Karp. "I thought Roland told you the whole story."

"No, I didn't. He just told me this Fulton was really undercover and not the real killer. I had no idea…" He got up from behind his desk and paced briefly, running his fingers through his beautiful gray-blond hair. When he looked at Karp, it was clear that he had been thinking clever thoughts. "They've been arrested, have they?" Bloom asked.

"No, Amalfi's dead. Killed himself. Manning's at large, but he doesn't suspect that we know. We wanted him loose because we thought he might lead us to the people he was really working for."

A puzzled frown creased the TV makeup on the D.A.'s brow. "Working for? Surely it was Williams who hired them-"

"Willis. No, apparently the additional drug money produced by the scheme was being tunneled into a laundry operation run by some Wall Street types. I'm getting a report on the whole thing together for you. It's fairly complex." The D.A. had no comment on this. He just looked blankly at Karp, working his clenched jaw.

As Karp got up to go, he added, "But I just stopped by on my way out-we're going to pick up Manning right now. I wanted you to be fully informed, because it's going to be a huge scandal."

Bloom fixed his usual hearty false smile on his face and thanked Karp for coming by. As Karp went out the door, he said, "Umm, I don't have to tell you the importance of keeping this whole thing entirely quiet until we get Manning and we have a statement from him."

"Oh, of course," said the district attorney. "Mum's the word."

"I'm glad you're here," said Art Dugman as he opened the door. "The phone already rang once."

"You didn't answer it, did you?" asked Karp.

"No, but the tape's set up on the extension in the bedroom. You can listen in there. He'll probably call again."

Karp strolled through Manning's apartment and looked around. "Pretty nice," he said. "You detective sergeants do OK."

"It's the fringe benefits," said Dugman. Then the phone rang. Karp hurried into the bedroom, sat on the bed, hit the record button on the tape machine plugged into the phone receiver, and nodded to Dugman, who could see him by way of the bedroom mirror, and who was poised at the phone in the living room. They lifted the two phones simultaneously.

"Manning?" said the voice on the phone.

"Uh-huh," said Dugman,

"Jesus, Dick! Do you know what's happening? They raided the pier. Willis is dead. I can't get hold of Marcus Fane-they say he's out of town. Christ, the whole thing is going up in smoke."