Reversible Error

by Robert Tanenbaum

  They drove north toward Central Park and its tracts of softball fields. The D.A.’s team was playing their traditional rivals, a team from the Legal Aid Society, called the Bleeding Hearts. The D.A.’s team was called the Bullets, from the slang term for a year in the slams.

  Karp seemed nervous and distracted. He kept looking out the window, checking both sides of the street, as if searching for an address. Hrcany said something, which Karp missed.

  “I said, we should wrap up Petrossi next week,” Hrcany repeated.

  “Good, that’s great,” said Karp absently. Then he tapped Hrcany’s arm and asked him to pull over.

  “We got beer already,” said Hrcany.

  “No, I got to stop in at that travel agency. I’ll just be a minute.”

  Karp returned holding a ticket folder.

  “Where’re you going?” Hrcany asked.

  “Nowhere. This is something else.” He stuffed the ticket in his sweatshirt pocket and said, “So—Petrossi. We gonna win?”

  “You have to ask? It’s a lock. By the way, any progress on this drug-lord business?”

  Karp stiffened, but kept his voice casual. “Not much, I guess. Schick handles the day-to-day. Why?”

  Hrcany looked sharply at his companion for a second, then turned his attention back to the rush-hour traffic. “Oh, I’ve been hearing stuff.”

  “Who from?”

  “Oh, around the hallways. Cops bullshitting. You know. Word is they’re looking at a cop for the shooter.”

  Karp looked at him sharply.

  “Yeah, I figured you’d be interested. Number one on the charts is your buddy Fulton.”

  Karp looked away. Hrcany continued. “So what do you think? You know the guy. Could he be bent?”

  “Anybody could be bent, Roland. But it’s a big jump between ‘could-be’ and bringing a case.”

  “But you have your doubts.”

  “Yeah, I’ve got to say I do. He’s been acting funny. He’s been hanging with some dirty people. And he was seen running from the scene of an attempted murder of a witness in the case.”

  Hrcany said, “It’s a funny business. Considering the scumbags he’s knocking off, maybe they should give him a medal. Some of the cops I talk to think that.”

  “How about you, Roland? You think that too?”

  Hrcany paused significantly before answering. “There are days … but let’s face it— what we’re doing isn’t having much of an effect. A little police terror might calm things down.”

  “Just like Hungary, huh?”

  Hrcany flushed, and snapped angrily, “That’s not the fucking same thing at all!”

  “No, I guess not, from our point of view. Maybe they feel different up in Harlem. In any case, there’s enough people on the lookout so that if it is Fulton, they’ll eventually nail him. A real shame too—he probably cracked up from the strain. It’ll be a hell of case to try, though.”

  “Yeah. Are you sure that kid Schick is up to it?”

  “He’ll learn,” answered Karp dismissively. “Meanwhile, I’m more concerned if he can pull the ball to right field.”

  As it turned out, Peter Schick did pull the ball for a single and a nice double, scoring once. But the Bullets lost the game, 10–7, to a team that had as members a surprising number of Dominican hotshots, purported paralegals, but, to the disgruntled Bullets, patently clients and other semipro ringers.

  Karp went one for four and missed an easy out at first base. He was not playing with anything near his usual concentration, and the reason for the lapse was sitting in a dusty tan sedan parked up on the grass verge of the access road. When the game was over, Karp slipped away from the noisy crowd of players clustered around the beer cooler and walked over to the car.

  “Thanks,” said Karp to Dugman, who was sitting in the car’s front seat. “I’ll bring him right back.”

  Dugman said, “Go with the man, Tecumseh.”

  Tecumseh Booth got out of the back seat and stood blinking on the grass. “What is this?” he said, looking back at Dugman as if the cop were his own momma.

  “Man just want to talk with you, man,” said the detective. “Don’t worry, we gonna stay right here.”

  Karp walked Booth along the verge until they came to a pedestrian path, at which they turned and walked north for a distance in the direction of Sheep Meadow. Karp sat down on a bench placed before a pile of glacial boulders and motioned Booth to sit as well.

  “I hear you had a narrow escape,” said Karp conversationally.

  “Who are you?” demanded Booth.

  “My name’s Karp. I’m with the D.A.”

  “I don’t need to talk to no D.A. I got a case-dismissed.”

  “OK, suit yourself.” Karp leaned back and breathed deeply. The air was cool and scented with mown grass and orange rind.

  “Sure is a nice day,” Karp observed. “You should enjoy it. It’s probably going to be your last.” He turned and looked Booth full in the face. Booth wore his usual stubborn passive mask, but there was something twitchy around the eyes. Being shot at, with the prospect of more shooting to come, will do that.

  “See, the problem we got here is, you’re no good to me anymore as a witness,” Karp resumed. “You got off, as you point out, and you won’t testify against whoever got Clarry, because you’re a stand-up guy. I need a cooperative witness.

  “Now, what do you get for being a stand-up guy? You saw what happened. They tried to kill you. And they’re going to keep on trying.”

  There was no reaction. Booth continued to stare mutely at him. This wasn’t working.

  “The penny hasn’t dropped yet,” said Karp, more urgently. “You’re still thinking this is just another job—you drive for some guys knocking over a liquor store, and the cops catch you and you keep your mouth shut. That’s natural. We understand that. But you’re in a whole different game now. There’s big guys involved, very big guys—cops too. Look, you see those ants down there?”

  Karp moved his foot to indicate a swarm of the insects mining some strewn Cracker Jack. “They’ve got a code too. They stick together. Maybe there’s another kind of ant tries to move in on their turf, they gang up on them. Who knows, maybe they make deals. Maybe there are stand-up ants and rat ants. Whatever. But what you’re into is this!”

  Karp brought his sneaker down sharply, with a savage twist, crushing the ants and their food into a damp smear. A couple of the surviving ants went scurrying off in different directions. Booth was watching the demonstration with interest.

  “The ones running are the smart ants, Tecumseh,” Karp said softly. “They know when they’re licked and they get small real fast. OK, I don’t want to waste your last day on earth, so I’m going to make it short. One of two things is going to happen right here and now.

  “One is, I’m going to ask you what you know about these killings and you’re going to keep quiet and I’m going to get up and walk back to that car and we’re going to drive away. That’s it—sayonara, Tecumseh.

  “You figure the odds. Think you can get out of town on your own? Think you can get out of the park? Want to bet we’re not being watched right now?”

  Booth was not able to suppress an involuntary searching movement of his head. The trees and bushes rustled and crackled in a way that suddenly seemed menacing. It was not like the warm security of a police station or an interrogation room. Booth felt hideously exposed. His breath came shorter and Karp pressed on.

  “On the other hand, you could talk, and I’d give you this.”

  Karp took an airline-ticket folder out of the belly pocket of his sweatshirt and handed it to Booth.

  Booth looked at it as if it were a crossword puzzle in Amharic. “What’s this about?” he asked.

  “It’s an open ticket to L.A. in a fake name,” said Karp. “You answer a few questions, and then we both go back to the car and the detectives drive you to La Guardia. They’ll give you some cash and kiss you good-bye. You’re on the next flight to L.A
. with two hundred dollars in your pocket. A new life. Or maybe I should say the only life you’re likely to have.”

  Booth took the ticket out of the folder and read it slowly, paging through the counterfoils, as if it were a letter from an old friend, full of sage advice. Booth tried to think it through, to figure the angles, but he was unused to thought. Other people made the plans. He just drove and kept his mouth shut. Hesitantly, and in a near-whisper, he said, “I just tell you? No court? I don’t sign no papers?”

  “Just me, and right now. And you’re gone.”

  Booth released a long, soft sigh, like the last breath of an old, sick man. “Yeah, what the fuck,” he said. “Whatever you want.”

  Twenty-five minutes later, Karp sat on the bench and watched Tecumseh Booth walk rapidly away down the leafy path. Two minutes after that he heard a car door slam and the sound of a car accelerating. For a while he sat quietly in the breezy silence. Then in a loud voice, he said, “Home-free all!”

  Steps crunched on ground litter behind him, and Clay Fulton came out from behind the boulders, brushing grit off his suit coat and trousers. He had a small Nagra tape machine hanging from a shoulder strap and a gun microphone in his hand.

  “Did you get it?” asked Karp.

  “Yeah, I did,” said Fulton, sitting wearily down next to Karp. “Helluva thing. It never fucking occurred to us.” He shook his head, flabbergasted.

  “I know. I’ve had the same feeling about the D.A.’s office from time to time. It makes you wonder.”

  “It do,” said Fulton. And after a brief silence: “So where do we go from here?”

  “Well, now that we have names and places, we can start building a real case. If you’re up for it, I figure the best thing is for you to keep on with what you’re doing. You’re getting an evil reputation, my man. Anybody interested in hiring bad cops, you’d be right up there with the real bad boys.”

  Fulton offered a smile without much humor in it. “Yeah. The bad boys. Son-of-a-bitch. I still can’t get my head around it. Cops taking money—sure. Maybe pulling burglaries even—we had that a lot. Lifting dope and selling it. But contract murder?”

  He shook his head hard, as if trying to dispel a bad dream. “And Manning. The inside guy, the task-force guy. Son-of-a-bitch!”

  “Yeah, Manning. That’ll have to be your end. But I’d watch one thing.”

  “What’s that?” Fulton asked.

  “I’ve been thinking. Manning was a little too enthusiastic in blackening your reputation.”

  “Blackening. I like that.”

  “So to speak. I’d also bet that he’s been clocking overtime accelerating the rumors around town. Why would he do that? One reason might be that it’s getting hot. He hears the hounds baying across the bayou. Whatever. So wouldn’t it be neat if he, Manning, was to bring down the notorious Fulton, who turned out to be the black killer cop that’s been popping all these drug dealers?”

  “I like it,” said Fulton after a moment’s reflection. “I’d have to be dead, of course.”

  “Needless to say. So watch your young black ass.

  “How?” Fulton said, and then he laughed, a rich loud sound that echoed off the rocks. Karp saw that it was genuine release of tension. Fulton was glad, at least, to be no longer alone in the chase. Then Fulton said, “OK, but I’m gonna have to get close to them, and stay away from you. We’ll have to figure something out.” He thought for a moment and then snapped his fingers. “Perfect!” he said. “I just wasted Tecumseh. He’s in a car trunk in the Jersey meadows. That’s the story. It’s my ticket in.”

  Karp grinned in appreciation. “Very good. I love it. It’s sneaky and clever. You’re sure you’re not Jewish?”

  “I am. This black horseshit is just for affirmative action so I could make lieutenant. Yeah, it should work, unless Manning is down at La Guardia seeing his momma off on a plane. What’ll you be doing meanwhile?”

  “Somebody hired them. That’s who I want.”

  “Hired them? But we already know that. Booth said they were working for Choo Willis.”

  “No, he didn’t—not exactly. Sit down for a second, I want to play some of that tape.”

  The two men sat on the bench and Karp fiddled with the Nagra, rolling the tape back and forth until he had the section he wanted. “Listen to this carefully,” he said.

  The voice of Tecumseh Booth was thready but the words were clear enough: “…an then we went down to that club, you know? Club Mecca. An Manning, he tol’ me to wait outside, in the club while him and Amalfi went inna back. So then he come out an he have a big envelope, an he peel off my end from a roll of cash, thick as shit. Motherfucker got paid, you know? So then, I say, who back there? An he say, you don’t got to know that, you just got to drive.

  “So later, I’m out in the car, drivin, an I go by the club, an there’s Choo Willis standin with some of his homes outside, an I figure that was him, cause Choo bout the biggest dealer we ain’t killed, an he hang there all the time. We doin it for him, dig? So then …”

  Karp clicked off the tape. Fulton shrugged and said, “So? That’s what I said—it’s Willis.”

  “Yeah, they’re doing it for Willis. He’s the immediate beneficiary. But Willis didn’t organize this. No way. And I doubt he was the only one in the back room with the cash.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Look at it! This whole thing stinks of heavy cover. Would cops work for a Harlem dope pusher? They might help him, but they’re not going to take orders from a mutt like that. Would Willis have the clout to roll Nolan? I told you, Nolan isn’t a fat-envelope guy. No, there’s somebody else, somebody big.”

  Karp pondered for a moment. “Tell me something: what’s your take on Fane?”

  “The congressman? Shit, Butch, what do I know about those kind of people? He comes on like a regular politician. You think he’s involved?”

  “No, just wondering,” Karp said. “It could be, though. He’s supposed to be smart enough. And everybody likes money, especially pols. But it’s somebody like that. Somebody who knows how to move money and move the system. Just you do your end and I’ll look into it.”

  Karp walked slowly back to the ballfield. The post-game party had thinned out and the beer was almost gone. Karp put his hand on the shoulder of a small wiry man and said, “V.T., we need to talk for a minute.”

  Vernon Talcott Newbury looked around and smiled when he saw Karp. His smile was perfect, white and even, and his face was perfect too—classical features and dark blue eyes with long lashes. He wore his blond hair long and swept back.

  Karp picked up a Coke from the cooler and V.T. grabbed a beer and they walked over to sit near first base. “I need some advice, V.T.”

  “Sure, Butch. Is it that sexual-dysfunction thing again?”

  “Fuck you,” said Karp with a laugh. “No, it has to do with the drug-dealer killings. I need to run some financial traces.”

  “Aha. And you thought to yourself, think money, think V.T. Newbury. Why go through the messy business of subpoenaing records and causing a fuss when you knew that V.T., with his elaborate connections in the financial community, could gather much the same information, et cetera?”

  “Something like that. And your vast personal wealth, so that if you got caught and got fired, you wouldn’t suffer.”

  “My vast personal wealth is so tied up in trusts that I have to struggle to make ends meet. My wine merchant is now asking for cash, if you can believe it. Who’s the malefactor?”

  “Marcus Fane, and maybe some other people,” said Karp.

  V.T.’s eyes widened. “Representative Fane … so he’s been killing the pushers. I admire that. More congressmen should cut through the red tape and bureaucracy to rid our streets of these villains, et cetera. Of course, it’s not the kind of thing you can use in a campaign speech …”

  “Be serious, V.T. I don’t mean he’s doing the killings. I’m not even sure he’s involved. I’m just covering bases
.”

  “Literally, for once,” observed V.T. Karp was sitting on the first-base sack. “So what sort of dirt do you want? Just the basic model, or with air conditioning and whitewalls?”

  “I don’t know, V.T., you’re the expert. Is he richer than he should be? Is his wife? Has he got Krugerrands salted away in Bimini? Also, I’d like whatever you can find on the ownership of a Harlem nightclub called the Club Mecca, and, let’s see …” He thought for a moment more. “Oh, yeah—Judge Terence Nolan. See if you can find out whether anybody’s done him any financial favors lately.”

  “Right. Fane. Mecca. Nolan,” said V.T. “That shouldn’t be hard. Matter of public record, most of it. I won’t hardly have to use any illegal sources, except maybe for about the judge.”

  Karp placed his hands flat over his ears. “I don’t need to hear about how you do what you do, V.T. Just do it,” he said, “and soon.”

  On Monday, Marlene caught Guma outside the grand-jury room on the sixth floor of the Criminal Courts Building.

  “You’ve been avoiding me,” she said flatly.

  “Marlene!” said Guma brightly. “How could I be avoiding you? Everybody seeks you out to bask in your charming personality.”

  “Cut the crap, Goom! What went down this weekend? Did the cops check out the Omega Club?”

  Guma seemed nervous, darting glances down the hallway in both directions. “Well, yeah, they did, and, uh …”

  “And what? What are you looking around like that for? Somebody’s husband chasing you?”

  Guma laughed insincerely. “I only wish. Yeah, look, Marlene, it’s a shutout on that. They got zip.”

  “Zip? How could they get zip?”

  “Easy. The place is dark as a well-digger’s ass, for starters. They got strobe lights there, everybody’s blinking and faces look like a fucking fun house. Also they run two thousand people through there on a good weekend. How the hell do you expect a bartender to remember one chick talking to one guy, much less what the guy looked like?”