Resolved kac-15

by Robert K. Tanenbaum

  He just looked at her, waiting. She said, "What will you do, Raney?"

  "I don't know." He lifts his hands. "There's some deep damage, they tell me. The bosses are going to consider this a duty injury, trying to rescue a victim, so if I throw in my tin, I'll get a three-quarter pension. I might do it. I could've lost my enthusiasm for police work, all things…"

  "They'll get him."

  "Yeah, and there's been a hundred forty-eight cops through here in the last couple of days and every single one of them looked me in the eye and said, 'Don't worry, we'll get him.' I said the same thing myself to families. Like it matters."

  She helps him to a final drag and then crushes out the butt under her shoe. He says, looking up at the milky hot sky, "I mean, it does matter. If he came in here right now, I'd shoot him like a dog, and I wouldn't feel a thing. 'Don't worry, we'll get him.' Of course they'll get him. He's fucking doomed, now that they know it's him. There's no place he can go. But I got no feeling about it, you know? It's like a fucking meteor came through the roof and killed my life. My wife. So, I might not feel anything for a while. But definitely not wanting revenge. I'm not like you, Marlene."

  "I know."

  "I thought I was, but I'm not. I just want to take Meghan and go hide now. Get out of the city. Her folks want us to come stay with them in Clare. The west coast of Clare, like in the song. You want to hear something funny? If we hadn't had you over, I'd be dead and you'd be here talking to her. And she wanted you over to get a look at you because she was worried we used to get it on, and she wanted to check you out. I got to get back in there or they're going to send a search party. They all want to help, but I'll be glad when it's just me and the girl again."

  Marlene has nothing to say to that. He looks around the yard, as if he's seeing it new. He adds, "I still see her, you know. And hear her. Opening cabinets. Walking, her step when it's quiet. My ma says it's the communion of the saints, the dead are all around us. I don't know. I can't believe all that about playing harps in the white robes, either. You ever think about that?"

  "Death? A good deal. Although even if harps and white robes exist, they're probably not in store for me. Lucy's the expert on faith, though. You could talk to her."

  "I don't know. I wish I had it. I swear to Christ I do. I wish I had it like my old lady and my gran did. Or Nora. The fucking Irish! Aside from the music it was the only decent thing we ever had and we get over here and get a little money to jingle together and a warm place to shit, and we let it go like a used Kleenex."

  With that he walks back into the house. She leaves the yard and goes down the driveway, past the scorched place, her feet crunching on broken auto glass, and down the street to her car. The drive takes unusually long, for they are checking the tunnels, as they have at unscheduled intervals since it was revealed that the Manbomber's plan was to blow them up. The expressway is backed up for miles. She takes out her cell phone and has a long, interesting conversation with Detective McKenzie, the arresting officer in the Agnelli case. Then Marlene plays a CD of the Pavarotti Rigoletto on her stereo, and smokes in the chill of her air conditioner. She doesn't care if it takes four hours to get back to the city. She has to wait until dark before she can go to work.

  ***

  Lucy and the boys walked down Crosby south of Broome. It is a narrow dark street, almost devoid of traffic in the night. Someone has painted the streetlight shadows of the hydrants and parking signs with black paint on the pavement, producing the ambiance of a stage set.

  "Give me your knife, Zak," Lucy said.

  "You took it, remember?" he answered grumpily.

  "She means the one in your sneaker," said Giancarlo.

  "Yeah, that one," said Lucy, who had only suspected. "But I'll give it right back."

  He handed over a big Case jackknife. She knelt next to a manhole cover and tapped a syncopation on it. Again.

  A minute later there was a heavy rattle and scrape and the manhole cover was raised from below, and slid to one side, and a tall, thin man jumped out, so quickly that it might have been a piece of stage magic. He was wearing a dark sweatsuit with the hood up and had a rucksack on his back and a heavy belt such as utility workers wear, from which dangled a number of tools and pouches. The sweatpants were tucked into rubber knee boots. His face was mushroom pale and he had a long pale beard. A dank smell rose from him, alien but not unpleasant.

  "Hello, David," said Lucy. The man smiled and the smile illuminated his face in a way that was not entirely pleasing. Both Zak and Lucy, who saw it, felt a chill, and Giancarlo, who did not, sensed that chill and drew closer to his twin. There was something inhuman in the look, not cruel or uncaring, but rather beyond humanity entirely, the look Lucy imagined must have appeared on the faces of one of the tormented torturers with whom God has so generously supplied the Catholic Church.

  "I'm glad to see you, Lucy," said David Grale. "You know, besides Father Dugan, you're the only person I miss up here in the world. And look at you! You've turned into a lovely young woman!"

  Lucy felt herself blush and was glad of the night. At one time she had maintained a crush of gargantuan proportions on this man, when he was a Catholic Worker and a fellow servant of the poor. And she was not called lovely very often.

  He turned to examine the twins. "And these are your brothers. All grown up, too, I see, and I see God has sent an affliction to… which one are you?"

  "Giancarlo."

  "Great things often arise from the afflictions God sends. You're a believer, I think… yes?"

  "Yes."

  "Yes. And your brother is not. Isn't that mysterious?"

  Grale walked across the pavement and sat on the deep windowsill of an art gallery, right on the little sawteeth set there to prevent such sitting. They stood in a group in front of him, like tourists gawking at an exhibit.

  "Dear, would you possibly have a cigarette on you?" he asked.

  She did and he lit one up, inhaling luxuriously and blowing a column of smoke.

  "I love these," he said, "and, you know, I don't think I have to worry about lung cancer." He grinned. "They said you were having some trouble," he said.

  "A little. You know about the Manbomber, right?"

  He'd heard nothing but rumors. Grale did not do current events. She quickly filled him in, especially about the more recent revelations: that Felix Tighe was alive (and she had to explain who he was) and had set off a bomb that had killed a cop's wife in the presence of all the Karps; that a man of Latino or Middle Eastern appearance had tried to kidnap Giancarlo, and one other thing.

  "I know Tighe. He called himself Larry Larsen and said he was a homeless ex-con, you know, down at Holy Redeemer. He was pretty curious about my connection with Tran. You remember who Tran is?"

  "The Viet bodyguard, yeah. Why did he want to know about Tran?"

  "I thought he was just making conversation. I mean it's pretty unusual to know someone like that and Tighe is a con artist. You know, they want to find out all about you so they have some kind of angle… that's all I thought it was. But now, that there's this connection with ibn-Salemeh, that explains it. They wanted to find out where he was, and they figured I'd know."

  "Do you?"

  "Of course. And that was the reason for the snatch on G.C. They figured if they had him, I'd tell."

  "Would you?" asked Giancarlo.

  "No, silly. I wouldn't care if they gave you a million nuggies," she said, giving him one. "But there's another thing. You remember when we used to talk about spiritual stuff and about how dumb people were if they believed that 'spiritual' meant 'good'?"

  He nodded. "Yes. I miss those discussions. As I recalled we talked about saints and demons…"

  "Yes. Anyway, I think Felix is one. I mean he's inhabited. I told Father Dugan about it and he sent a guy around, a priest, and the guy agreed. He put a kind of zinger on Felix and Felix stayed away from the soup kitchen after that. I saw him in front of our place a little while later. I gave him some
cash and he booked. But now, with all this, with the Arabs coming after us and him, too… and my parents can't know this is going on, they have enough to deal with right now, and… you were the only one I could think of."

  He finished his cigarette, stubbed it out carefully, and placed it in a tin box he took from his pocket, nodding all the while. "I see. So you want me to marshal the armies of the night to look after you and your brothers." He grinned again, more wolfishly this time.

  "Yeah, just until they catch them. Can you do that?"

  "I'll need a little while to set it up. I'm sure Spare Parts will help out once he knows the story. Actually, I'd very much like to meet this Felix. I must say, I'm a little surprised at you calling on me. I thought you had scruples about…" He gestured vaguely, taking in all of society's norms and the corpus of Christian morality.

  "I guess you were wrong," she said. "About Felix, you'll be careful, right? I mean-"

  "Oh, you think if I confront him and he happens to not survive, I'll be infected?"

  "Yes."

  "Darling, who do you think lives down there where I live? What do you think I'm doing down in the deep tunnels?"

  Actually, she hadn't thought about that at all. "So how do you keep from, you know…"

  "Being infected? I don't. I trust to the Holy Spirit to keep them all under control." He laughed and, lowering his voice an octave, said, "My name is Legion."

  "That's not funny."

  "No. It's a shame. It's hard to be in polite company anymore." He rose and hoisted his pack onto his shoulders. "It was nice seeing you, Lucy. Boys. Don't worry, we'll keep an eye on you all." His mad eyes met hers. "God be with you," he said.

  "And also with you," she replied.

  He walked over to the manhole and lifted it with a tool he took from his jangling belt. In a moment he was gone. The lid clanged dully into place.

  "Boy, that was great!" exclaimed Zak. "God, Luce, you know all the cool people. How come I don't get to meet cool people like that?"

  "He's an insane serial killer, Zak," she said.

  "Yeah, wow!" Zak exclaimed, his face shining. "Neat!"

  ***

  It is dark by the time Marlene enters Manhattan. Policemen and camo-clad Guardsmen populate the entranceway to the Battery Tunnel, and trucks of various types are pulled out of line for inspection, including Marlene's. There is an altercation between Gog and the NYPD's bomb dog, which Marlene has to sort out, with much exhibition of identity papers. Vere are your paperz? No longer an ironic line, it seems, in New York. They clear her without a thorough search of her truck- silly them- and she creeps through, her many felonies unrevealed.

  As she turns east on Houston her cell phone buzzes. One of her street informants: Cherry Newcombe is on the move. Marlene drives into the Lower East Side on Essex, parks in a certain lot near Delancey. It's still a little early, so she goes into the camper and lies down on a foam pad with her dog, who is transported by this act to paradise. She allows him to nuzzle her face and then wipes herself off with a towel kept for that purpose. She stares into his brown eyes and hopes that she may come back as a dog: a short intense life where morals and ethics are reduced to mere loyalty seems good to her just now. "Why was I not made a dog, like thee?" she purrs. Oh, shut up and rub my belly, the dog replies.

  She dozes and wakes with a start. Voices and the occasional sound of thumping music. She strips her clothes off and gets into the jumpsuit, sneakers, and balaclava. She loads her pistol and screws in the suppressor. Peering out the camper's side window, she sees that a black Lincoln Towncar with custom gold trim is sitting in a dark corner of the lot. A white guy is leaning in the passenger window. He walks away and she slips out.

  There is a black man sitting in the driver's seat listening to Usher sing "U Remind Me." Marlene looks in the passenger window and taps on the frame with the butt of her weapon. "Get out of the car," she says politely.

  Smoke Belknap looks at her without expression. "It's in the glove. You want the money, too?"

  "I don't want either. I'm not after dope or money. I want you out of the car."

  "Well, then fuck you, bitch! You want to cap me, go the fuck ahead. You not getting my ride."

  Marlene shoots Belknap twice in the car stereo to make her point. The pistol makes a thirty-decibel sound, about the same as clearing your throat in church.

  "I don't want your car, either. Get out now. Take your keys."

  Belknap gets out, slamming the door. "Then what the fuck do you want?"

  "I want you to make a call to one of your customers."

  After some protest, Belkap places the call, and after a good deal more protest, he himself is placed in his car trunk. When Cherry Newcombe comes out of the nearby nightclub on the promise of a sachet of particularly pure and cheap cocaine, Marlene kidnaps her and forces her into the back of the camper. There she is introduced to Gog, who does his insane carnivore act, which is not entirely an act, while Marlene explains what she will let the dog do if Cherry does not tell her right now the truth about Paul Agnelli, Mr. Fong, the ex-wife, the phony rape charge, how Agnelli's DNA had arrived on Cherry's underpants, and how Cherry's fibers and other traces had arrived in the back of Paul's car.

  After urinating in terror on Marlene's foam pad, and after she stops crying, the girl is forthcoming into a tape recorder for some time. It is a complex plot, and Cherry does not know all the higher details, but enough. She's been paid three thousand dollars for her participation, which amounted to her testimony, a used pair of panties, and a selection of hair and secretions. A Chinese man had paid the fee and taken the stuff; that is all she knows.

  Afterward, she starts crying again and asks Marlene what will happen to her, what the cops would do, what Fong will do when he finds out. She starts to cry again. Marlene looks at the girl, the absurd sex-ruined child in her expensive tiny dress, and finds that she feels nothing at all.

  "I don't care," she says honestly. "There's a trunk-latch button inside the car. Go let your dope dealer out and maybe he'll give you a freebie."

  Marlene climbs into her truck and drives away. As she drives she feels that something is amiss, that she has forgotten to do something. When she has parked and is walking toward her door, she realizes what it is. In the past, when Marlene participated in acts of violence, she always became nauseated, and threw up. But she's not nauseous now. She feels fine. She feels nothing at all.

  17

  Dr. Shah was a good witness. When asked a question he would cock his head slightly to one side and knot his brow, demonstrating that he was making an effort to utter the whole truth, and in his answers he was precise, answering just what was asked. His diction was precise, too, featuring the clipped accent of the vanished empire. His mien was distinguished without being threatening: a pale brown man of about sixty, slightly overweight, with graying sides to his full head of dark hair. He was heavily diploma-ed as a forensic pathologist, and had worked as an assistant medical examiner for fourteen years. Karp watched the courtroom as he took his seat. He felt a tension that had not been there yesterday. All the jurors were alert and staring.

  "Dr. Shah," said Karp, "when you first appeared here as a witness some weeks ago, what was your goal, in your testimony?"

  "Why, my goal, as required by the law, was to attest to the cause and manner of death."

  "And so you discussed those wounds of the victim that taken together produced the shock and exsanguination that were the immediate cause of death, and only those, correct?"

  "That is correct."

  "But there were other wounds, were there not?"

  "Yes, there were."

  "Doctor, I would like you to tell the jury about one of those wounds, the wound from the bullet that we have been calling during this trial 'bullet number two,' which was the second bullet shot from Detective Nixon's weapon. What was the path of that bullet and what damage did it do?"

  Dr. Shah said, "Yes, well, based on the transcript of my notes, that bullet entere
d the anterior deltoid muscle at an oblique angle and struck the anatomical neck of the humerus, shattering it, and then rebounded back into the axillary region of the torso, striking against the posterior surface of the clavicle. It caused a greenstick fracture of that bone, and came to rest two centimeters from the medial end of the clavicle, where it was retrieved by me during autopsy."

  "Thank you. Now, in plain language, Doctor, what were the physiological results of this damage?"

  "The damage was localized, of course, and not life-threatening, but neurologically quite severe. No major blood vessels were damaged- the brachial and subclavian arteries and veins were intact. But the bullet shattered a large bone mass, sending a hail of bone splinters down and medially- that is, toward the body. The ulnar nerve, the median nerve, and the radial nerve of the left arm were all completely severed proximal to the insertion of the deltoid."

  "And what would have been the medical results of such damage?"

  "The voluntary muscles of that arm would have been paralyzed."

  "I see. And after such damage, would the victim have been capable of exerting a powerful grip on something with his left hand?"

  "Oh, there is no question of powerful. He would not have been able to grip at all. He would have had no control of that arm whatsoever. It would have been hanging like a dead fish."

  "Thank you, Doctor." Karp nodded to Hrcany. "Your witness."

  Karp had to give Roland game. When confronted by a hostile expert who is not bullshitting at all, the only strategy is to get him to tell a slightly different story than the one he provided for the opposition, and hope that the jury will take this as reasonable doubt. So Roland had the doc go through the list of nerves in the arm and to say yes or no as to whether those nerves were cut. He was able to prevent Shah from expanding on his answers, to point out, for example, that these other nerves didn't matter, that the major motor nerves were the only ones that counted. Unfortunately, Dr. Shah bridled under this treatment, and became more and more impatient, so that when Roland finally said, "So, Doctor, it's not correct to say that Mr. Onabajo's arm was entirely deprived of neurological impulse, is it?" the medical examiner did not give a simple "no," but burst forth with, "Not relevant, sir, not at all. The left arm was completely paralyzed." After which Roland had to ask the judge to direct the witness to answer the question asked, and to tell the jury to disregard the doctor's answer.