Reversible Error

by Robert Tanenbaum

  “That was fast,” said Karp. “What’s the answer?”

  “What’s the question?” V.T. shot back with a wan smile. “But really, what you said about Agromont was the key. So I thought of Poppie Foote.”

  “Poopie what?”

  “Poppie Foote. We were at school together. He married my sister Emily’s best friend, Anne Kring. Surely I’ve mentioned Poppie?”

  “Not recently, V.T.,” said Karp. “But you were saying …”

  “Yes, I recalled that he’d touted the stock last year when it was in play. He’s a specialist at Bache and he handles Agromont. In any case, here’s the story. As I said before, when the takeover bid went sour last year, half a dozen people were left holding the bag in a big way, including Mr. Sergo and your congressman, but it was a lot worse than I thought. Essentially, they had leveraged everything they owned; the notes were coming due, the market was down generally, so even if they sold out, they couldn’t get clear. The Street was talking about Sergo going belly-up, in fact.

  “But starting about ten months ago, Sergo got cured in a big way. He was flush with liquidity and back in action. I don’t have the details on Fane, but my sense is, the same thing happened to him. So the question is, where did the money come from?”

  “Where indeed?”

  “It came from offshore, as I surmised earlier. A brass-plate operation in the Caymans called Burlingame Imperial, Ltd. The rumors are that it’s a way for people in the U.K. to play the American market without their tax people knowing about it. Everyone thought Sergo was very clever for tapping this loot.”

  “And is it British money?”

  “One doubts it. The major British players don’t seem to be involved. But it could be the royal family for all I know. The darker streams of international finance flow very deep. Or maybe Sergo started the rumor. Oh, and this too: the place didn’t exist a year ago. Poppie knows that for a fact.”

  Karp nodded. “And who owns this ghost bank?”

  “Oh, it doesn’t matter who owns it. These places are always owned on paper by secretaries and maiden aunts in nursing homes. The issue is who controls it, and that’s terribly hard to discover. That’s why they’re located offshore. But I can tell you who did the legal work involved in chartering it.”

  “Who was that?” Karp asked, almost knowing.

  “Your new friend Mr. Richard Reedy.”

  SEVENTEEN

  “You’re moping again,” said Marlene at breakfast the next morning. “Why are you moping? God’s in his heaven and Meissner’s in jail. You have a sexy pregnant girlfriend, a good job, indoor work with no heavy lifting—what’s to mope?”

  “I’m not moping,” said Karp, aggressively snapping the sports section of yesterday’s Post.

  “Yes, you are,” Marlene insisted. “And how I know is, you positively rejected my patent sexual availability last night, conveyed by many a squirm and sigh, preferring to sink into sodden sleep.”

  Karp looked up from the paper. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Oh, not to worry,” said Marlene. “I’ll stop off and pick up some new batteries for the vibrator.” She drank some coffee. No reaction from Karp. She continued, “But, really, I’m concerned. And I’m also starting to get mildly pissed. You can’t keep dragging these black clouds into the house and expect me to cohabit around you like everything was just fine. It makes me think that maybe it’s me, but I know I haven’t done anything, and it drives me crazy. I’m not going to put up with it anymore.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Karp again.

  “Saying ‘sorry’ liked a whipped dog doesn’t cut it either. Come on, Karp! This is good marriage practice. Share your inmost thoughts with your near and dear.”

  Karp shrugged and rubbed his knuckles over his mouth. “It’s embarrassing,” he began.

  “What, you wet your pants before you go in front of a jury? Shit, everybody knows that. You’re famous for it and nobody holds it against you.”

  Karp laughed out loud in spite of himself. “No, it’s this fucking drug thing. I’ve been an asshole and I don’t like it. I’ve been ignoring my instincts for months now and I’ve made a complete fuck-up of it.”

  “Welcome to the club,” said Marlene. “Everybody blows one occasionally. So what’s the story?”

  “No, it’s not just blowing a case. I just got myself involved in … sliminess. Politics. I didn’t look where I should’ve looked because I didn’t want to see. I wasn’t on top of the investigation itself because I was playing games. I was playing games with Chief Denton. I was playing different games with Reedy and Fane. And then, of course, Roland started playing his own games. Why not? The fucking boss is doing it, right?”

  And then he did tell her the whole story, from the conversation in his office with Clay Fulton about the drug-lord murders, to the scarifying interview with Bill Denton, to the revelations about Amalfi and Manning and Fane brought out by Tecumseh’s confession and the further investigation by Clay. Reluctantly he also described his own involvement with Fane and Sergo and Reedy.

  “And so there we have it,” he concluded, “the whole investigation down the drain and me standing there like an idiot faked out of my jock. And there’s Clay.”

  “Yeah, there’s Clay,” said Marlene, patting Karp’s hand. “Do you think they, Manning, would actually kill him?”

  “In a minute,” said Karp. “All they need is Tecumseh’s tape recording, and pow! pow! he’s dead. Amalfi’s gone, so the tape he made with Clay is pretty much useless, and the Tecumseh tape is all there is to connect Manning and Amalfi and Choo Willis to the killings. I’m on the tape and I can vouch for it, which makes it significant as evidence. So Manning has to have it.

  “I don’t even want to think about what the fucker is doing to Clay right now to get him to tell him where it is. If he gets it, and gets rid of Clay, we can’t touch him. With the money they have, they can buy every snitch in Harlem. Oh, yeah, they can kick him off the force, but I doubt he’s depending on his pension. Basically, we have no serious legal case. And, of course, Manning is the only connection we have with Fane, Sergo, and Reedy.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Marlene. “These stock guys all of a sudden decided to be dope dealers?”

  “No, it probably went in stages. Fane owns the Club Mecca, where Choo Willis hangs out. So he had to know that Willis was a big-time dealer. Maybe they were even partners. Fane is in stocks with Reedy and later with Sergo. They’re doing OK, but then Sergo comes up with this Agromont deal. Now they can get really rich.

  “Maybe Fane approaches Willis with the idea about using drug money to buy stock. It’s a perfect laundry when you add the off-shore bank. Drug money goes out—loans to buy stock come back in. The profits from these LBOs are so huge that the dirty money is swamped when the deals come off.”

  “But the Agromont deal didn’t come off, you said,” Marlene objected.

  “Yes, that’s what started this mess. They, the stock guys, were going to lose everything, including the cash they had got from Willis. They were running millions through their bank, but now they needed hundreds of millions.”

  “There’s that much in dope?”

  “In coke there is,” said Karp. “And, of course, the more you buy, the better the deal from the suppliers and the bigger the profits. But the only way they could get as big as they had to get as fast as they needed to was to take over other big dealers. Which meant they had to have a foolproof way of knocking them out. That’s where Manning and Amalfi came in. Manning was dirty already; he knew Willis. And the rest is history.”

  Marlene shook her head. “It still seems incredible. Guys like that …”

  “I met Sergo,” said Karp. “It’s not that incredible.”

  “Are you positive Reedy’s involved?” Marlene asked.

  “I’m not positive about anything anymore,” Karp replied grimly. “I’m pretty sure he’s involved with the stock deals. He set up the offshore bank. He must have known wha
t it was being used for. He’s tight with Fane and Sergo. But whether he had actual guilty knowledge of the murders? That I can’t say for sure.”

  “You sound like you’d be sorry if he was really deep in on it.”

  Karp nodded. “Yeah. I guess. I have to admit he got to me. That’s really what makes me writhe inside. He read me like a book and got to me.” He laughed. “I guess I’m queer for elderly Irish lawyers. Garrahy really meant something to me. I felt … I wanted that slot filled again, and he saw that and moved right in.

  “And the chance to be D.A. That was the corker.” He waved his hand to indicate the loft. “I mean, look at this! We’re going to have a baby, for Chrissake! Is this a place for a kid? Five flights walking up and a floor full of splinters and God knows what kind of shit lying around. And you’re going to have to stop work, at least for a little bit—”

  “I’m not.”

  “OK, great, you’re not. You’re going to squat down in front of Part 30, say, ‘Excuse me, your Honor,’ pop the kid out, hand it to the stenographer, and continue the case. I wanted … I don’t know, something more solid, a little comfort, a house maybe. Shit, Marlene, I’m thirty-three years old, and what do I own? Three suits, a first baseman’s mitt, and a pair of sneakers.”

  “You have a rowing machine,” said Marlene.

  “Thank you! I rest my case. But you catch my drift. This can’t go on. Running the bureau, dancing little circles around Bloom, waiting for a knife in the back. So when I saw a possible out … And now it’s all shit, and Clay is fucked, and I don’t know how to crawl out of it. So … am I moping? I’d like to change my plea on that. First-degree mopery. Yes, I’m moping. I have moped. And I plan to mope some more.”

  The King Cole Trio sat in their dusty black van in the street outside the Club Mecca. This was a four-story building with apartments on the top two floors, offices on the next one down, and the nightclub itself occupying the rest. It had a gaudy tan stucco Moorish facade on its street side and a large green marquee that carried the club’s name in neon letters shaped like Arabic script and an expanse of lettering that advertised the club’s show.

  The men did not talk as they worked, the only sound in the van being the snick-clunk of reloading weapons. The club had closed its doors to the public at three A.M., but the Trio knew that for a good number of its habitués this merely signaled the start of the evening.

  The detectives left the van and marched abreast to the front door. All three carried Ithaca twelve-gauge pump guns. The door was covered by a steel gate pierced with fanciful Moorish designs and secured by a Yale lock. Maus knelt and brought out a ring of keys. “We don’t need no stinkin warrant,” he muttered, and after several tries found a passkey that worked.

  They entered the darkened lobby of the club and walked softly down the carpeted hallway to where a strong light shone from under a door. The door, a cheap interior wood-core model, was locked. Jeffers backed up a few yards, braced, propelled himself into violent motion, and crashed through the barrier with no more apparent effort than an ordinary man would use to pass a beaded curtain.

  The nightclub they entered had two levels: an upper horseshoe filled with tables, on which the three detectives now stood, and a lower level consisting of a deck of tables grouped around a large dance floor. Both faced a full stage decked with a heavy red-and-gold curtain. There were a dozen or so people on the lower level: showgirls, demiwhores, and a group of Choo Willis’ hard boys. Five of the men were playing cards at one of the tables. The scene was brightly lit by the overhead cleaning lights.

  Art Dugman went to the wrought-iron railing that rimmed the upper level and fired a round from his shotgun into the ceiling. Shrieks from the women, curses from the men. Plaster floated down on the card table and the men around it, dusting their clothes and the cards and piles of paper money on the table like light snow.

  Dugman marched down to the lower level in silence. No one moved. All the players sat frozen like mannequins in a store window. They had all recognized the King Cole Trio, and no one wished to make any inadvertent twitch that might be construed as an attempt to extract a weapon.

  As Dugman approached the card table, one of Choo Willis’ lieutenants, a large shaven-headed man known as Buster, spoke up. “What the fuck is this, Dugman? Ain’t you got no other shit to do?”

  In one swift movement Dugman pumped a shell into the chamber of his shotgun and placed its muzzle against Buster’s upper lip. “Are you addressing me?” asked Dugman mildly. “I don’t believe I solicited a comment.” He continued to push on the shotgun. Buster’s head arched backward. His chair tipped. Dugman kept the man artfully balanced with just the pressure of the shotgun’s muzzle on the man’s lip. A thin trickle of blood and saliva started down Buster’s chin.

  “I’m looking for Choo-choo,” Dugman said. “Where is he?”

  Buster’s eyes bulged and he mumbled something.

  Dugman cocked his head. “What’s that, Buster? I can’t make out what you said.”

  The muzzle of the shotgun, greased by Buster’s copious sweat, had worked its way up until it was now lodged under the man’s cheekbone.

  “He ain’t here. I swear to Jesus, he ain’t here.”

  “Where is he, then?”

  “I dunno. He din tell me nothin.”

  “Was he here tonight?”

  “Yeah, early. He was in his office, upstairs. Then he call an say he going out and won be back. An he lef. Hey, man, my face hurt.”

  Dugman ignored this comment. He asked, “He see anybody?”

  “The fuck I know, man? He in there with the door locked. He call down for some drinks and food bout eleven. Thas all I know, man.”

  Dugman looked at Buster and saw that he was not lying. Gently he shoved on the shotgun and Buster went over with a crash. Dugman swept the barrel of the shotgun across the table, knocking glasses and ashtrays to the floor, and then gathered up the tablecloth as a sack, with the money and the cards inside.

  “Thank all you gentlemen. And ladies. And thanks for having your contributions to the Police Athletic League ready on the table when I arrived. That is most considerate.”

  He walked back up the stairs to the second level and, leaving the crowd to sit under the guns of Maus and Jeffers, went to check out the office of Choo Willis.

  Clay Fulton was tied into a heavy chair with electrical wire. He was in darkness, blindfolded, in a small room. Although he could see nothing, he could still smell, even though they had broken his nose. He could smell damp, and salt, and his own filth. He thought, from the smell and the sounds, that he was near water, the sea, or the tidal rivers. He was naked and cold. He heard a door open, a scrape, and then someone emptied a bucket of cold stinking water over his head.

  He gasped involuntarily. Another scrape of furniture. They were arranging themselves. Someone—he thought it was Manning—said, “Where’s the tape, Fulton?”

  He didn’t answer. He figured he could hold out another twelve hours. Counting one lie. He could buy maybe two, three hours with a lie. Then there would be nothing left. If somebody didn’t find him before then, they would have drained everything out of him. There would be nobody home to resist. He would tell them and they would get the tape and they would kill him. He wished the lie he had told about lots of copies was true. In fact there was only one tape. He wished he could see his wife.

  He felt the cold pinch as they attached the electrodes. Manning had been in Nam, he recalled. He had learned what there was to learn about making people hurt. They were going to send him a message again, as the saying went. They cranked the generator. Fulton heard himself scream, but as from a long distance away.

  “There was nothing in the office at all?” Karp asked.

  “Nothing,” said Dugman. “And nothing in Manning’s apartment, or Willis’ place either.” Dugman had been up all the previous night, breaking and entering in a good cause, and he was tired and red-eyed. They were in Karp’s office late the next day, and C
lay Fulton had been missing for over forty-eight hours.

  “You tried everyplace? Willis’ associates, Manning’s—”

  “We didn’t hit Fane,” said Dugman.

  “No, he’s not anywhere near Fane,” said Karp, instinctively sure of it. He felt as bad as Dugman looked, oppressed with the futility of going forward with what in any case had been a thin hope. Three cops could not expect to find someone hidden in one of the hundreds of thousands of buildings in the city. And Fulton might have been taken out of town.

  “We gonna have to open this up, my friend. Splash it all around the world,” said Dugman.

  “I guess,” said Karp listlessly. He toyed with a pencil. “Just … You said that Willis was in his office last night. And he was alone. He must have made some calls. Would it be possible to—?

  “No, wait a sec, there,” said Dugman. “I didn’t say nothing about him being alone. He had at least two people in there. What I said was nobody saw him with anybody. But there was two people in there.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “The food cart,” said Dugman, yawning and rubbing his rubbery face. “They cleaned up after serving, and it was a service for three. Two beer glasses. A soda. Look like some kind of cocktail. Three plates—crumbs and chicken bones. And three coffee cups. No, two coffee. One had tea.”

  “Nothing else? Nothing written on the napkins?”

  Dugman gave him a deadpan stare. “You been watchin too much TV, my man. No writing on the napkins, no poison darts, no match-books with the name of the place he at. None of that shit. Two glasses, two beer bottles, one soda glass, one soda can, three plates, three napkins, knives, forks, spoons, cream and sugar, and a coffeepot. That’s all.”

  The detective rose to his feet and stretched. “I got to go get the real search going. Maybe we’ll check, see if we can trace any of the calls they made—that’s a good idea, anyway.”

  “No teapot?” Karp asked abruptly. He desperately did not want Dugman to leave, to start a chain of actions that would make the entire miserable affair public and out of control.