“Could you, like, lose your job?” she asked. This aspect of the situation had not occurred to her before. Indeed, she was over her head.
“I could, if anyone found out about this conversation,” answered Karp, feeling horribly guilty at putting this kind of pressure on the girl, but what else could he do?
Lucy wrapped her arms around her head to shut out the tormented choices and buried her face in the cool, smelly leather of the couch. Karp waited. She said something he didn’t catch.
“What was that, honey?”
“Kenny Vo,” she whimpered.
“Who’s Kenny Vo?”
“The guy who beat me up. He’s a Vietnamese gangster.” She described what had happened to her, and he took notes. His throat and nose ached with stalled weeping. When she ran down, and had another cry, he asked, “Did he do the murders, too?”
She blinked away the silvery tears, and her pale brown eyes stared levelly into his. “I don’t know anything about any murders,” she said.
“Okay,” said Karp, knowing when he was beaten. “Here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to get Ed Morris to take you back home, and I’m going to arrange for a policeman to watch the loft. I don’t want you going out by yourself until we get this thing cleared up. Do you understand that? Not even down to the store, or to Mott Street, or Janice’s. If you can’t promise me that, then you really will have to go into protective custody.”
“Okay, Daddy,” she said meekly, carefully not promising, and to her immense relief, he turned to the phone and did not press her on it.
When Morris, Karp’s driver and also a D.A. squad detective specially trained not to ask questions, had taken Lucy away, Karp went to the men’s room, splashed cold water on his face, dried it with a towel, and looked deep into the mirror to see if the monster he had become showed much yet. No, not much, which said something for clean living and an absence of cynicism. Karp had been perfectly sincere in his lecture. He was not cynical about the law, was in truth as deeply in love with it as he had been when as a young, dewy bride he had first stepped across the threshold of 10 °Centre Street long ago, and was continually amazed at how a system so inherently stupid and run, by and large, by moral imbeciles, kept cranking along, doing as well as it in fact did. What had not come up in the lecture was what to do when dedication to the law ran up against love of family. Marlene’s shenanigans were bad enough, but Marlene was at least an adult, and Karp truly believed that if he caught his wife in a conscious felony, he would turn her in. It was different, he discovered, when his child was involved, a child who was turning out more like her mother than Daddy felt comfortable about.
Yes, the mother. Karp went back to his office and placed a furious call to the mother, and, fortunately for his marriage, did not get through. He was too old-fashioned a man to allow himself to express anger to an anwering machine, so he left a mere urgent message. He did the same at her office, and then tried the car phone (nothing) and then left another message at her paging service. He then put his notes into shape for a warrant and called Mimi Vasquez, who was in, and available at that very moment.
Nor was that the only favorable contrast with his wife. Mimi Vasquez was in her fifth year with the D.A. and her second in Homicide, and clearly a rising star, quite apart from her status as a Hispanic woman and thus an affirmative action two-fer. Karp had spotted her as a comer early on, and nudged her career helpfully when needed. Vasquez had the broad shoulders, solid build, and narrow hips of a distance swimmer, which she was, a neat round head, and short thick straight hair, cut close. With her round face, huge dark eyes, flat nose, and tawny skin, she presented the appearance of a not entirely terrestrial creature, a seal perhaps, recruited into the legal profession in exchange for those shiploads of lawyers the jokes are always drowning. She and Karp agreed perfectly on what was important; she was one of those who had instinctively understood his corny lecture and gone on to put principle to the test of action. Not in the least frightened of trials, she’d won a couple of nice ones recently, without becoming obnoxious about it as so many of her male peers did after similar victories. She reminded Karp strongly (and sadly) of his wife, when his wife had been a respectable colleague rather than a loose cannon with a short fuse.
For her part, Vasquez was always delighted when Karp took an interest in her work. Not only did he know a lot, but he was not, like Roland Hrcany, her immediate boss, trying tediously to get into her pants. As to that aspect, should anything unfortunate and permanent befall Mrs. Karp, Mimi Vasquez was perfectly willing to dispense entirely with pants in re: Butch Karp, a willingness she shared with any number of women at 10 °Centre Street, and of which the object was entirely oblivious.
Upon receiving Karp’s call, Vasquez had spent three minutes in front of the glass in the sixth-floor ladies’ getting herself into perfect court-appearance order and two minutes after that was sitting in Karp’s side chair, legs neatly crossed, ears perked, pad on lap.
“How’s the Sing double going?” asked Karp.
“Nothing new since the last time you asked,” replied Vasquez, and seeing his frown added, “I realize that’s not the right answer, but it’s always like that down there, especially in this case, where it looks like an out-of-town job. You know the story: a couple Ghost Shadows hit a Flying Dragon one night on Canal Street, at least there’s talk on the block, some history behind the crime, and we can bring in the snitches, not that Chinatown is full of snitches, but the cops hear stuff. Here. . it’s like it never happened. A couple out-of-towners with heavy triad connections in Hong Kong walk into a stockroom, followed by person or persons unknown, and wind up dead. Nobody the cops talked to will admit to seeing anything unusual.”
“Who caught it in the Five?”
“Phil Wu.”
He waited, but she did not elaborate. “And. .?”
“I never worked with him before, but Roland says he’s okay. Smart, speaks Cantonese and Mandarin. He had the collar on that pool hall shooting in ’81, Bayard Street. He seems to be doing the right things, but. .”
“Uh-huh. He talk to the Chen family, do you know?”
“They own the place? Yeah, in the original canvass at the crime scene.”
“But not afterward?”
“Not that I know of.” She gave him an interested look, scenting something. “Why? You think they’re connected?”
“The vics got in through the back door and so did the killer. That back door is always locked. Somebody opened it from the inside. Also, there are always people in and out of that stockroom. If nobody saw anything, then either they’re lying or they were pulled away from there.”
She was frankly staring at him now, as if he had just produced a live chicken out of thin air. “Jesus, Butch! How the hell do you know all that?”
Karp glanced away, as if embarrassed. “We’ve known the Chens for a long time. That door is on Howard Street right down from where we live. I’ve seen delivery guys ringing the bell back there or pounding on the door a million times. It’s never unlocked except when they’re taking in merchandise.”
Vasquez waited a moment and then asked, “So. . what? You want me to bring in the Chens or. .”
“Yeah, bring them in. Nothing heavy, but you need to find out whether there’ve been any threats, keep your mouth shut or else. Re-interview the whole staff there too. Explain to everyone that keeping information from the authorities is a serious crime, and so is threatening people who have information about a crime. Get Wu to explain things in Chinese just to make sure they understand.”
She wrote rapidly on her pad and then looked up again. He asked, “You ever hear of a Kenny Vo? Some kind of Vietnamese thug?”
“Doesn’t ring a bell. Is he involved in the Sing double?”
“It’s possible. Swear out a warrant and have him picked up. He’s got an associate with a busted face, so have them check the emergency rooms. The charges are kidnapping one and assault two. Here are the details.” He passed a shee
t of yellow bond across the desk. She read it and gaped.
“Your daughter?”
“Don’t ask, Vasquez,” he said. “Just do it, and when you’ve got the son of a bitch I want to see him. And make sure Roland’s in the loop on this. Go ahead,” he ordered, blocking the questions he could see forming in her eyes. “Do it now!”
After Vasquez left, he stared at the door that closed behind her, his ordinary impulse to action quite overcome by confusion and dull despair. Over the years he had become used to Marlene’s quasi-legal and perilous lifestyle and had even accepted that it might involve some danger to their children-Manhattan was in any case a risky place to raise kids. Karp was good at accepting things he couldn’t change. But the idea that Lucy was on her own hook getting into Marlene-style trouble had struck him like a clout on the ear. It was not to be borne. It wasn’t fair. He didn’t deserve this.
Karp was several leagues into the sere and unfamilar country of self-pity when the phone rang. Listlessly he raised it to his face and spoke his name.
“Butch? It’s me. What’s so urgent?”
“Where are you?”
“At Mattie’s. What is it?”
“Oh, not much. Your daughter was kidnapped and beat up today while you were out solving everybody else’s problems.” He heard a quick gasp over the wires, and then Marlene asked in an over-controlled, even voice, “Is she all right?”
“Yeah, she got out of it with a shiner and a bloody nose. She’s home and I got a cop watching the place. Marlene, what the fuck is going on? Will you please tell me before you get our kid killed?”
“I get. .? What the hell are you talking about? You think I was involved in getting her. .”
“No,” he shouted, “I’m the one who’s modeling semi-criminal behavior, and sometimes not so semi either. Jesus, Marlene, she’s up to her little ears in a double murder, and those fucking Chinese pals of yours are in on it, too. You better tell me what the hell is going on, because if I don’t get some straight answers right away-”
“Oh, shut up! How dare you accuse me of endangering my child!”
“No reason, except you’ve done it about a dozen times that I know of.”
“I’m not going to talk to you when you’re like this. I’m hanging up.”
“Marlene, don’t you dare put down that phone! Marlene. .?”
He heard a scream over the phone, coming as from far away, and then a loud bang, and then more screams, and a string of pops that sounded like firecrackers, but which Karp doubted very much were firecrackers.
“Marlene, what the hell. . ”
“Oh, Jesus!” said Marlene, and then, “Butch, I got to go now.”
He yelled her name a couple of times into an instrument unmistakably dead and, slamming it down, cursed fervently to the unsympathetic heavens. Then, being a good, even a model, citizen he dialed 911 and called in the shots fired and gave the address of the East Village Women’s Shelter.
Chapter 11
Marlene dropped the phone, leaped up, and made for the door of Mattie Duran’s tiny office, where she was knocked back against a filing cabinet by the incoming proprietor, who did not interrupt her violent Spanish cursing to make an apology. The woman raced to her desk, leaned over it, jerked open a drawer, and came away with her family heirloom, a Colt Peacemaker.44 caliber revolver, like the ones cowboys shoot in the movies, but this one was real and it worked. More shots sounded; above, a child began to shriek in terror. Marlene got out a feeble “Hey, wha-” but Mattie had already gone off at a run, the sound of her steps echoing in the narrow hallway. Marlene ran after her, unlimbering her own weapon, yelling for Mattie to for chrissake wait up.
A nice little firefight was under way in the shelter’s reception room. Marlene could not see anything much because Mattie had halted in the doorway, but she could hear the sound of a heavy pistol firing and the snap and thunk of bullets flying and striking the walls and floors and furniture. A man was yelling obscenities in the entrance hallway, beyond the door with the glass window, now shattered. Mattie raised the big Colt and took aim.
Marlene felt the rage rise in her; these morons, and Mattie Duran not the least of them, were going to keep shooting until someone was dead or a stray round traveled up into the building and struck some kid. Unlike most people, Marlene when enraged did not start shaking and doing irrational things. Instead she became preternaturally cool, steady, and calculating. Scholars who study men in combat have discovered that this anomalous condition is present in about two percent of soldiers, who make up the vast majority of both heroes and the perpetrators of atrocity. An odd gift to bestow on a Sacred Heart girl from Queens, but there it was, and Marlene used it now, first throwing a solid body check into Mattie, knocking her against the door frame and, not incidentally, ruining her aim. The Colt boomed in Marlene’s ear, deafening her. Then she was past Mattie and into the anteroom. Vonda the guard, she noted in passing, was crouched behind the thin protection of her steel desk, her face a ghastly greenish-tan, trying to clear the round jammed in her shotgun, while confronting her from the doorway were two obvious Mafiosi, one shooting, the other crouched low, changing magazines on a large chromed pistol. Marlene strode directly up to the two amazed men, firing rapidly, every shot finding its mark in a disabling but non-lethal place, the guy on the left going down with two through the shoulder and one through the other bicep (his gun rattling onto the floor) and the second taking a bullet through his raised kneecap; he went over like a ninepin, howling. Marlene kept moving, kicking their guns out of reach, passing the shattered inner door and up to the shouting man in the hallway.
This, as she had expected, was Little Sally Bollano, singing an aria in which the words cunt, fucking, stupid, and bitch appeared repeatedly in uninteresting combinations. Little Sally was locked from behind in the embrace of an enormous neckless man who filled the hallway like a cork in a bottle. This was Lorenzo Mona, Larry Moon as he was known, the Bollanos’ leg breaker and Little Sally’s personal bodyguard. Marlene read confusion and dismay on the vast, lumpy face: he couldn’t let the boss proceed farther toward what had become a free-fire zone, nor did he have the gumption to roll the little shit under one arm like a newspaper and carry him out of there. Marlene attempted to resolve his confusion by pointing her smoking nine at Little Sally’s low forehead. “Out! Get him out of here!” she shouted. This had the effect of redirecting Little Sally’s attention from the absent wife to the woman just in front of him, and he launched his signature fucking, stupid, cunt, and bitch at Marlene, together with a shower of fine spittle. He seemed not to notice the gun pointed at him, and on closer examination Marlene could see why: his dark pupils were contracted to the size of elementary particles. As per his rep, Little Sally had medicated himself before attempting a complex mission, with the usual result.
While Marlene considered her next move, whatever it would have been was preempted by the sound of thumping feet and shouts of “Freeze! Freeze!” Marlene looked around Lenny Moon’s bulk to see the face of a terrified young cop. He was pointing his.38, perhaps for the first time in real life, at her in the approved two-handed grip, and she saw with remarkable clarity that it was cocked and that the hands that held it were trembling. She would have been happy to freeze, but the cop changed his tune to “Drop that fucking gun! Now! Now!” She could see his finger tightening on the trigger, the knuckle turning white. Make up your mind, sonny, was her thought, and also, oh fuck, what a stupid exit, shot by an infant cop, at which moment Lenny Moon, straining to look over his shoulder at this new source of potential danger to his charge, relaxed slightly his grip, whereupon Little Sally got an arm free and sucker-punched Marlene in the jaw.
It was a good solid shot: Marlene saw the familiar blazing lights and fell to the floor, where Little Sally connected with a couple of hard kicks to the side of her skull. After that she saw through pain-fed mists an impossible number of dark blue-clad legs towering above black, thick-soled shoes, and felt herself frisked and
rolled, and cuffed. She heard shouts and more rude language. She blacked out momentarily, relaxing into the puddle of warm blood that had gushed from her bitten lip and tongue, and the next thing she was aware of was being hustled out by a couple of cops and tossed into the rear of a blue-and-white (of which there seemed to be unreasonably many on the street in front of the shelter), the driver of same complaining that the bitch was going to bleed all over his vehicle, until an authoritative voice told him to shut the fuck up, Chapman, and he got in and drove off. Marlene lay back in the cool, disinfectant-smelling plastic, and gladly abandoned all responsibility for herself and others, which is one of the very few pleasant features of being arrested.
When his wife got into violent-felony trouble in the County of New York, which she did more frequently than your regular Smith College, Yale Law grad, Karp naturally had to recuse himself from any involvement in the procedural aspects of the case. He interpreted this, however, as not forbidding the conveyance to him of information about her fate from various sources, for it is no fault to keep one’s ears open; God, after all, did not provide us with earlids, and the criminal justice system was chock full of people in the know who wanted to do the chief assistant D.A. a favor. Thus he learned in short order what had gone down at the EVWS, that his spouse had shot two Mafia soldiers and had been written up for assault in the first degree, that she had been punched out, that Little Sally’s wife, Vivian Fein Bollano, was a shelter resident, that Little Sally and his three fuglemen were in custody on a variety of serious charges, and that the bunch of them, including Mattie Duran, were in the cells at the Ninth Precinct waiting for transport to central booking.
Replacing the phone after the last of several informative phone calls, Karp swiveled around in his big leather chair and stared out the window. He placed a pencil in his mouth and tapped out the rhythm of “Yellow Rose of Texas” between his upper and lower teeth with plenty of grace notes, as his mind drifted like a hang glider through the twisted canyons of the present situation. After four choruses he re-swiveled, stuck the pencil behind his ear, and picked up the phone.
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