But Rachman didn't answer this question. Instead, with a half smile on her face, she asked, "When you say every detail, would that include the involvement of your wife? Including your wife's, ah, interaction with Cherry Newcombe?"
So Laura had done her homework. Karp answered, "Of course. I expect you to be as forthcoming as possible. Also, should you come across any material that would prompt a criminal complaint against Marlene Ciampi, I would expect you to pursue it. You would inform me in such a case so that I could recuse myself from any supervisory responsibility. Finally, I want your resignation on my desk by close of business today."
"You're firing me?" Rachman's face blanched, making her face paint look more than it usually did like an amateur spray finish on an old car.
"Not at this time. I've asked all the bureau chiefs for their resignations. When I take over officially in a couple of months I'll decide which of them to accept."
"You're sure you'll be allowed to take over officially if that business with your wife comes out?"
"That's up to the governor, Laura. What's up to me is telling you to do the three things I just told you to do, failing any of which I will fire you. Are we perfectly clear about all this?"
Apparently so. Rachman left. Murrow said, "Whew! That was certainly a high colonic. Do you think she's going to go after your wife?"
"She might. She's vindictive enough. But Marlene's a big girl, with a lot of money and a brilliant legal mind. In any case, it's not a suitable subject for speculation in this office, is it, Murrow."
"No, sir. But are you going to can her?"
"I might. But maybe she'll come around. Maybe no one ever kicked her in the butt before. I certainly needed kicks in the butt at her age, and of course you do, too. In any case, everybody gets a second chance in Karp's All-Star Technicolor Flying Circus and Peep Show."
***
Lucy Karp had inherited from her father the peculiar notion that the cure for emotional exhaustion was hard work. She put in a morning serving free breakfasts to kids in a church basement at Third and Avenue B, and then did a food distribution- dented cans and past-sell date items at a grocery warehouse on Hudson Street, and then traveled uptown with a group of Catholic Workers to hand out a pallet-load of surplus blankets and ponchos at a refugee center in Inwood. In each of these places her language skills were invaluable. New York was full of people who had dropped into the twenty-first century from the far elsewhere and were hurting in various ways. She forgot about her own troubles, which was part of the deal, too, as it seemed that a crazy mother, a broken family, and a case of sexual frustration did not make the top ten among the afflictions of mankind.
She finished at the refugee center at about seven, had soup and bread with the Catholic Workers in a nearby church hall, and walked out onto Dyckman Street to find it had started to rain. An actual cool breeze was coming from the nearby Hudson. She reached into the big military sack she habitually lugged through her life and drew out a Gore-Tex anorak. There was a bodega nearby and she went in and got a coffee and hung out under the red-and-yellow plastic awning, watching the rain increase in volume, and watching all the people who couldn't afford Gore-Tex anoraks trying to cover themselves with newspapers or plastic trashbags.
Then she saw, across the wide street, dimly through the sheets of rain, a familiar figure, the red doorman's coat, baggy cutoffs, the floppy hat with the skeins of fishing line wrapped around it: Hey Hey Elman doing his little dance. He seemed to have seen her and was gesturing and calling her name. She waved him over, but he shook his head violently and beckoned to her. He seemed more agitated than usual, and this might mean that he was having one of his spells. Hey Hey was normally as harmless as a bunny, but sometimes he decided that some passerby had stolen his thoughts and sought to have them returned, starting a conversation with that person from which it was nearly impossible to withdraw. Which meant the cops, and rough handling, and tears, and having to go down to some precinct to get him released to New York Psychiatric. Lucy had done this herself several times and did not look forward to doing it again. Hey Hey was turning in little circles now, flapping his arms- something she had not seen him do before. She tossed her container in the trash, pulled up her hood, and dashed into the traffic.
When she reached the other side of Dyckman, Hey Hey was half a block away, still beckoning. She shouted for him to wait up, but he just beckoned more urgently and skipped away around the corner. They headed west toward Broadway and the park. Just past Sherman Avenue there was a fire site, a five-story building gutted black and gaping with boarded window holes above a heavily gangster-decorated plywood fence. The fence had long since been penetrated by people seeking salvage or a place to shoot up. Lucy saw Hey Hey duck behind a plywood flap dedicated to the work of RAMON 178. After a moment's hesitation she followed.
Inside, the usual rubble lot, decorated with broken plumbing fixtures, rotting furniture, rusting appliances, and scorched rubble. She saw a flash of red ahead that quickly disappeared into an irregularly shaped blackness, the entrance to the former basement. She stumbled forward through the junk. The rain was coming down harder than before, the breeze had turned into an actual wind, lightning flashed and thunder echoed like cannonades through the Manhattan canyonlands. She laughed to herself and thought, Yes, the pathetic fallacy, the image of my life, chasing a lunatic through a hurricane into a ruin.
She stood for a moment blinking in the dark. Hey Hey was nowhere in sight. She shouted, but nothing came back but dull echoes and the sound of innumerable freshets burbling through the roofless building. When her eyes adjusted she found she was on a brick ledge a few feet above a rubbled slope that led, she guessed, down to the original basement floor. Then there was a sound, a groan, and a sharp, high shout. She scrambled down the rubble and onto concrete.
The air was damp and the damp brought out the smells- burnt things, mold, broken sewage pipes, rats both live and dead. From her bag she took the little Maglite she kept on her keychain. Its narrow beam shone on standing water; the basement was flooded and she had to walk carefully, feeling beneath the black water with her sneakered foot. Another cry just ahead, and there was a glow. Lucy thought it must be another sick one sheltering in the ruins, like the one Hey Hey had led her to before. She reached into her bag to make sure she had her cell phone.
Candlelight was shining from what must have once been the building's boiler room. The boilers were gone, carted off for scrap, but the walls still held twisted stumps of pipes and the floor was a tangle of rusty plumbing. She saw the candle, stuck in a beer bottle, and saw its light reflecting from Hey Hey's red coat. She moved toward him, saying, "Oh, there you are. Why didn't you wait up, man?" She saw him hang his hat on a pipe. That was wrong. Hey Hey never took off his hat. The man turned. Lucy said, "Oh, shit!" and spun and leaped for the door, but she stumbled on a pipe and he had her. He was incredibly strong. His forearm around her neck felt like a tree limb. It only took a few seconds for Felix to choke her into unconsciousness.
Felix Tighe looked on his work and found it good. The bitch was naked and spread-eagled on a frame of one-inch piping, her legs stretched as far as they would stretch, her arms in a crucifixion position. The wacko had been carrying half a dozen rolls of tape in his belongings, which had come in handy; a good omen, Felix thought. He had neglected to buy tape, and he thought it amusing that the victim had supplied tape not only sufficient to immobilize himself but enough to take care of Lucy Karp, as well. The guy's clothes stank, however, and Felix was anxious to get this over with and get back into his own clean ones. Not so anxious that he would leave anything interesting out of his forthcoming session with the cunt.
A clank and a scraping sound told him she had revived. He had three candles arranged to cast light on her face and body and he watched avidly. He loved to see them when they woke up and realized where they were and started to understand what was going to happen to them. The best part of the present setup was that he didn't need a gag. With the
thunderstorm and the isolated venue, no one was going to hear her yell. Another really terrific omen.
But the expression on her face was not what he was expecting. She wasn't looking at him in horror at all, but staring at something in the corner of the room, behind him. He snapped a look around; nothing. Then she began to speak, as if to someone standing right there, pausing as if to listen to a reply, and then speaking again. She was speaking in Spanish, not the jailhouse Caribbean Spanish he was familiar with, but a pure, lisping Castilian.
Lucy awoke to pain and a dark, nauseous headache. Hard things were pressing into her back and her thighs ached. She knew exactly where she was and what had happened to her, but no terror stabbed her belly or made her tremble. Instead, all her attention was focused on a dim figure standing in the corner of the room, a middle-aged somewhat plump woman dressed in the black-and-white habit of the Carmelites. The woman had three small moles on her face, which was otherwise distinguished by a long nose, huge round eyes, bushy eyebrows, and a perfect rosebud mouth.
"Is this one of His jokes?" Lucy asked the figure in her native tongue. "I went through agonies to preserve my precious virginity and now I'm going to be raped and murdered in a cellar?"
"It is somewhat amusing, I suppose," said Saint Teresa. "No more amusing, perhaps, than that a woman such as I, who lived only for delight, and fine clothes, and witty companions should have founded a strict order of cloistered contemplative nuns. You can have no idea of the dullness of the conversation of young, ignorant Castilian girls. If it happens as you imagine, I hope you commend your soul to Him and give thanks that you have had the great good fortune to be tortured to death as He was. What an honor! I knew many who would envy you your situation."
"That's a point of view, Reverend Mother," said Lucy, at which the apparition gave her the kind of God-haunted grin one only ever sees on the faces of people far advanced in holiness, and Lucy burst out laughing.
"Who the fuck… what the fuck are you laughing about!" Felix screamed. "You think this is funny? How about this, you think this is funny?"
With which he began to torture Lucy with his knife, and was happy to see that she howled appropriately.
"You're not laughing now, are you, bitch?" he said. It was not as good as he thought it would be, and he was starting to get pissed. He asked her where the Vietnamese was, and she told him he was in Paris, but she didn't know any more. Felix didn't think that was worth too much, but maybe something. Maybe she knew more and wasn't telling yet. But she would.
The problem was that he was causing her pain, but not fear, and so it was about as much fun as torturing an animal: okay, but nothing special, not like doing Mary and the brat or the others, before prison. She was not begging for mercy. On the contrary, she seemed to be praying for Felix's soul and forgiving him for what he was doing to her. She also wanted to know about the goddamn looney he got the clothes off of, and he took pleasure in telling her that her looney was resting quietly and would be released unharmed in time to put on his bloody clothes and take the rap for what Felix was going to do to Lucy. To which she had replied only, "Thank God he's all right."
The worst of it was that he needed the fear to get sexy and so far his attempts at raping her had been unavailing. He used the handle of the knife instead, but it wasn't the same. No, he was going to actually have to cut parts off her to get her off this God shit and make her understand that he was what she needed to worship, the center of everything, the only thing worthy of any attention at all. The problem with that, unfortunately, is that once you started to cut pieces off they went into shock real fast and checked out, and then it was just meat, and not as much fun, although fooling with the body and thinking about the people who would find it gave him a giggle or two. But he was still a little annoyed that she had turned out to be some no-fun religious maniac. He voiced this thought to his victim as he idly twirled the point of his knife under her small breast.
"I'm not a maniac," she said and cried out as he increased the pressure. She felt no need at all to be stoic.
"I bet you think I'm a maniac, though, don't you?" This was a fun game. You asked them a question and however they answered, you zapped them and when they finally agreed with you, you zapped them to say the opposite.
"No, you're not a maniac, either," she said. "You're a demon. He's the maniac."
At which she looked over his shoulder at something, like she had before. Felix paid no attention. He grabbed the substance of her breast in his left fist and set his blade for the stroke that would slice it off. He was kneeling awkwardly upon the pipe arrangement, the backs of his knees exposed by Hey Hey's baggy cutoffs, so that it was really no problem for David Grale to roll in, and in one smooth, and, Lucy thought, obviously well-practiced motion, slice through both of Felix's hamstring tendons.
Felix screamed shrilly and flopped around among the pipes like a landed tuna. His knife clattered away. David Grale searched out a short length of pipe and whacked him a few times on the head.
"Don't kill him!" Lucy cried.
"Good Christ, Lucy, look at what he did to you! Isn't that an excess of forgiveness?"
"Shame on you, David," she said, "and thank you. Could you unwrap me, please?"
The fileting knife that Grale used went to work and, in half a minute, Lucy was free. She tried to stand up, but found she could not. He lifted her and carried her a few yards to where some junkie had once made a bed out of cardboard and pink insulation.
"You need to get to a hospital. You still have your cell phone?"
"My bag, if it's still around." As he went to search for it, Lucy thought, This is odd: I'm naked and bleeding, but I'm perfectly comfortable with him. Maybe I'm going into shock.
There were sounds now, and voices. Into the boiler room came several people Lucy recognized from Spare Parts, and with them Spare Parts himself. The giant came to her side and spread an army blanket over her. "Oh, 'ucy, you 'oor sing! Oh!" cried Spare Parts. On his face was an expression of almost childlike grief. Grale came near, too, and handed Lucy her cell phone. "They're on their way. You may want to call home."
"Thank you," said Lucy, and broke down in hysterical sobs. This lasted for some time. The wounds she had endured were really starting to hurt now, and around the corners of her mind slunk fears that she had been permanently maimed. When she had somewhat recovered herself she asked, "How did you know where I was?"
"People have been following you, dear. The invisible people had you in view. I'm just sorry we didn't get here any sooner."
"Soon enough. Did you call the cops, too? I mean, for him."
" 'e'll 'ake 'are ah 'im," said Spare Parts.
"You mustn't hurt him," she said sternly.
"We won't touch him," said Grale, with his most saintly smile.
***
Felix awoke and realized immediately that he was being carried on foot by several men. The pain in his legs and the back of his head was enormous, but even worse was his fear. He was a cripple now, and would be for some time. He had to get to a doc, even if it meant turning himself in. He escaped once, he could escape again, but he had to get fixed up. He was being transported in some kind of tarpaulin; there was rough canvas against his face. They were probably taking him to a police station, he thought, because if they were going to kill him he'd be dead by now. Bunch of piss bums. Who could figure?
He had tape against his mouth and around his hands. He tested the bonds and felt a little satisfaction. An amateur job: he could get out of this with a little work, maybe an hour or two- tape stretched and his wrists were mighty. The canvas was damp and he heard the patter of drops against it. They were traveling through the streets. He could smell the rain.
Then the rain stopped and there was another smell, smoke and cooking food, and he was put down for a while. He kept working on his wrists and controlling his breathing. He felt himself being picked up again. They were taking him head first and the general direction was downward, because his head felt lower tha
n his feet. That was good because his legs didn't ache so much when they were a little elevated. This went on for some time. He had about a quarter of an inch of play now between his crossed wrists.
Then he felt his head go much lower and he was sliding. He felt the canvas rush past his face and then smooth damp soil and small pebbles against the back of his head, and then sheer dread as he flew through space. It was only for a moment, however, for he landed heavily on his back and felt the horrible stroke of agony as his useless legs followed and hit the ground. The darkness was absolute. He heard the drip of water and a rustling sound, and smelled a dank stench. He was in a sewer.
He heard something- not so much rustling as a light clicking. He wondered what it was. Then he felt something heavy moving on his leg and something else climb up on his chest. Now he knew what that sound was. There were a lot of them; he could smell their stink, sharper than the sewer gas. Warm weight pressed on his face. He twisted and humped and made noises behind his gag. The rats did him the favor of chewing this away in order to get to his delicious soft mouth parts, and so he could scream and scream as they ate the face off his skull.
Now Again
18
"No, Stupenagel, they didn't have a point," Karp snapped. "It happens to be the case, one, that the vast majority of black and Hispanic defendants are ill-defended easy outs; and two, that the insanity defense is what it is largely so that people with expensive lawyers, most of whom happen to be white, can avoid prison. It's part of the system, like the kid who sells an ounce of smack gets ten in Attica and the guy who loots a hundred million from the pension fund and wrecks the lives of ten thousand people gets, maybe, six months in a country club jail. I never said it was fair. It's just what we got."
Resolved kac-15 Page 30
