Tragic (48 page)

T
HE
S
COTTISH WARRIORS DRESSED IN
armor gathered on the stage to the solemn beating of a drum and far-off trumpet call. Having just defeated Macbeth’s army, his chief adversary, Malcolm, had just been told that his young son had been killed on the battlefield.

“They say he parted well, and paid his score,” the actor playing Siward consoled the bereft Malcolm. “And so, God be with him!” He pointed offstage. “Here comes newer comfort.”

The actor playing the great warrior Macduff appeared from the shadows. He held the head of the traitor aloft.

“Cool,” Zac and Giancarlo exclaimed together.

Karp rolled his eyes. Leave it to teenagers to appreciate gore over substance. Macduff was one of his favorite characters, a principled foil to Macbeth’s weak character and unbridled ambitions. Polar opposites even in their reactions to emotions. When Macduff learned that his family had been murdered by Macbeth, his grief was palpable even from the stage as he cried out, “But I must also feel it as a man.” On the other hand, Lady Macbeth and her husband made it clear that such an emotional display in other human beings was unmanly and weak.

As Macduff held the head of Macbeth up, Karp thought again
about those parts of the trial that had seemed to mirror Shakespeare’s ancient tragedy, including the ending. It had come as no surprise that the jury had rejected the defense’s shell game and convicted Vitteli. As the jury foreman read the verdict, the defendant had stood with his head down and appeared to be taking their judgment calmly. But as Karp glanced over, the union chief’s face turned from pale to red to an angry purple. He turned to look at Karp with his eyes bulging in rage.

“YOU!” he bellowed at Karp. “It’s your fault!” A court security officer was thrown aside as Vitteli charged at his nemesis.

Karp stepped forward to engage Vitelli, but Clay Fulton came over the top of the rail and flattened the defendant, holding him down until the security officers arrived to take control.

As Vitteli was hauled out of the courtroom, he shouted at the jurors, the spectators, and the media. “It was a setup,” he snarled. “They’re out to get me! EVERYBODY is out to get me! But this isn’t the last you’ve heard of Charlie Vitteli!”

As the side door leading to the courtroom’s adjacent holding pen slammed shut, cutting off the rest of Vitteli’s invective, Karp thanked his detective friend. “I know you were all-American as a college fullback, but maybe you could have made it in the pros as a linebacker,” he said with a laugh.

A month later, Vitteli returned to the courtroom a defeated man to be sentenced. He sat quietly looking straight ahead as Antonia Carlotta talked about the depth of her loss. Nor had he reacted when she turned to him and said, “You will not live to be a free man again, Charlie Vitteli. And where you’re ultimately going from prison will be cold, and dark, and forever. But someday after you are no more than an evil man that once walked on this beautiful Earth, I will see Vince again and feel love and joy.”

As it turned out, both Vitteli’s and Antonia’s prophesies came to pass. The public did hear about Vitteli again, and he was never again free; instead, he shared Macbeth’s fate. A few days after he arrived at Sing Sing to begin serving his sentence, his body was
found draped over a barbell bench, his skull crushed by a blow from a fifty-pound dumbbell. Suspicion had fallen on Russian gang members who gathered at that spot to work out, but none of them were talking.

Syd Kowalski had not fared much better. After the Vitteli trial, Karp had initiated an inquiry into the actions of Conrad Clooney and the attorneys for DiMarzo, as well as Kowalski for suborning perjury. However, the investigation of Vitteli’s attorney was rendered moot when Kowalski’s body was found in the East River with the piano wire used to strangle him still imbedded in his fat neck.

Apparently the Malchek gang did not appreciate losing access to the docks for which they’d paid Vitteli and Syd Kowalski. However, Marlene had received word from Karp’s cousin, Ivgeny, that Frank DiMarzo and his family had nothing to fear. “I guess in the odd way gangs sometimes have of looking at things, they placed all the blame for the failure of their little enterprise on Vitteli and Kowalski,” she told him after returning from afternoon tea in Little Odessa. “Even Jackie Corcione is considered nothing more than a bit player, or at least he’s not worth going to war with the Karchovskis over. Doesn’t mean any of them, including Miller, are safe; they’re still informants and that doesn’t go over well in prison, but at least the Malcheks are washing their hands of the whole affair.”

Assistant Warden Dave Whitney also had passed word that Miller and DiMarzo were now cellmates. Marlene, who had later gone to visit Frank with Liza Zito, asked him about their renewed friendship. “Yeah, it’s good to have a pal in the joint,” he’d told her. “We’ll watch each other’s back like we always done.”

Anne Devulder and her companions were now rooming at a halfway house, staying sober and employed. In fact, Anne had been given a job as the receptionist for T. J. Martindale, who’d been nearly unanimously selected as the next president of the North American Brotherhood of Stevedores. Marlene said Anne
and her friends were also volunteering at the East Village Women’s Shelter.

Antonia Carlotta had stopped by his office a few days after Vitteli’s sentencing to say goodbye. She was headed with her son back to Italy. “That’s where my family is,” she said, tearing up as she added, “and there’s nothing for me here anymore. Maybe someday we’ll return, but for now everywhere I look are reminders of the love I lost.”

At the entrance to the amphitheater that night, Karp and Marlene had run into Greg Lusk, who was accompanied by a pretty young woman. Apparently noting their confused looks, he laughed and said, “Mr. Karp, I’d like you to meet my sister, Linda.”

“Of course.” Karp smiled and held out his hand to shake the young woman’s. “And this is my wife, Marlene. So, do you hear from Jackie?”

“We talk several times a week,” Lusk replied. “Prison is every bit as horrible as he’d imagined, but he says he sleeps better than he has in almost a year. He’s taking online courses to get a master’s degree in English Literature. He hopes to teach at inner-city schools when he gets out.”

“So are you two still together?” Karp asked.

Lusk shrugged. “I waited more than eight years to find someone like Jackie,” he said. “So we’ll see how it goes. For now we’re still friends.”

As Macduff began to recite the last lines of
Macbeth
on that pleasant September evening, Karp knew that for all their similarities, the Bard’s tragedy and the fall of Charlie Vitteli were markedly different, too. He felt no sympathy for Vitteli as he had for the fallen Scottish warrior. He supposed that some might say there was a parallel between the three witches in
Macbeth
and Devulder and her friends. But in the play, the witches had tricked Macbeth and, with the urging of his wife, led him astray. They’d convinced him that what he was doing was his noble right.

But Charlie Vitteli wasn’t tricked. And if anything, Devulder
and her two weird sisters were forces for good, not evil. No, he’d made his own choices and had only himself to blame.

“Hail, King!” Macduff said to Malcolm. “For so thou art: behold, where stands the usurper’s cursed head: the time is free: I see thee compass’d with thy kingdom’s pearl, that speak my salutation in their minds; whose voices I desire aloud with mine: Hail, King of Scotland!”

“Hail, King of Scotland!” the other actors shouted. And then the final curtain fell.

As they were leaving, Karp turned to his twin sons. “So what did you think of the play?”

“Well, all the murder stuff and chopping off Macbeth’s head was pretty cool,” Zak responded. “But there was way too much talking, and I didn’t understand half of what they were saying, even though I know they were speaking English.”

Raising his eyebrows, Karp smiled and shook his head. “An astute observation,” he said with a laugh. “Now, who’s up for a hot pastrami sandwich with chili cheese fries?”

“And cherry cheesecake!” shouted the boys.

“All hail the king,” Marlene added as she stood on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek.

ALSO BY ROBERT K. TANENBAUM

Bad Faith

Outrage

Betrayed

Capture

Escape

Malice

Counterplay

Fury

Hoax

Resolved

Absolute Rage

Enemy Within

True Justice

Act of Revenge

Reckless Endangerment

Irresistible Impulse

Falsely Accused

Corruption of Blood

Justice Denied

Material Witness

Reversible Error

Immoral Certainty

Depraved Indifference

No Lesser Plea

NONFICTION

The Piano Teacher: The True Story of a Psychotic Killer

Badge of the Assassin

Echoes of My Soul