Justice Denied bkamc-6

by Robert Tanenbaum

  They ate dinner in an atmosphere of chill correctness. They were just clearing the dishes away, and Karp was struggling to think of some magic language that would get them out of marriage hell, when the phone rang.

  He picked it up. A woman’s voice: “What’re you going to do to him?” She sounded drunk or drugged.

  “I’m sorry, who is this, please?” said Karp.

  “I killed her. I killed her. I let him out, the fucking nigger scumbag bastard fuckhead. I let him out and he killed her …”

  The woman’s voice dissolved into sobbing. Then there was a loud crash over the line as if the phone had been tossed against something solid, followed by a hollow cacophany of wailings and things being smashed, picked up by the unattended receiver. Karp hung up.

  “Who was that?” Marlene asked, seeing the odd expression on her husband’s face.

  “I don’t know. I think it was about the Weiner case. A woman, claims she had something to do with letting Russell loose.”

  Marlene went white and sat down on a kitchen stool. “Oh, shit, it must be her sister. The parole officer I told you about-the one I had lunch with when I met Susan. Russell must be one of her parolees. In fact, Christ, I think it was the guy she was talking about when we had lunch-the prize pupil. He had a weird first name, didn’t he? Foley? Mosie?”

  “Hosie Russell.”

  “Yeah, Hosie. Oh, God, what a nightmare! The poor woman!”

  Karp embraced his wife and didn’t say a word, and this time she clung to him fiercely.

  “Who is this guy Kerbussyan?” asked Roland Hrcany, “and why did Karp go to see him this morning?”

  Barney Wayne and Joe Frangi did not know, nor did they particularly care, after a long day. The Ersoy murder was a clearance as far as they were concerned. They had the guy. Hrcany’s thing with Karp was his own business, and while they were willing to go some extra for Roland, seeing as how he was an okay guy, they had other stuff on their plate. Wayne pointedly looked at his watch. Frangi got out of his chair and looked out the window of Roland’s office at the gathering dusk.

  “Why don’t you ask Karp?” Frangi replied.

  Roland said, “I did ask him. I just this minute got off the phone with him.” Roland could not keep a satisfied grin off his face as he said this. He had, of course, learned of Karp’s morning expedition indirectly from his driver, a detective, via the Centre Street police grapevine, into which he was well plugged. That he had thereafter felt free to call his nominal boss at home after hours to pump him for information had given him considerable pleasure.

  Roland continued, “That’s why I want him checked out. According to Karp, he’s some kind of Armenian political. He claims that Tomasian had the guns because he was a gun runner.”

  “You believe that shit?” snapped Frangi.

  “It doesn’t matter what I believe. It’s a plausible story for a jury. We need to find out if it’s true, and also whether Kerbussyan’s ever been mixed up in any funny business. Speaking of which, Karp thinks that Kerbussyan knows something about the victim’s little treasure chest.”

  “For instance …?” asked Wayne.

  “Karp doesn’t know. But we should check it out. Why don’t you guys go up to Riverdale and find out what you can about this guy?”

  Unenthusiastic grunts of assent issued from the two detectives.

  “The other thing,” continued Roland, unfazed, “what’s the latest on the girlfriend?”

  Frangi brought out his notebook. “On that, we got a woman answering her description getting off a plane at San Francisco and renting a Hertz car on a credit card made out to Gabrielle Avanian. We got credit card charges in San Luis Obispo, stores and a motel, the following day. Then we got charges in Disneyland, Huntington Beach, Monterey, and San Francisco. Looks like she’s on a vacation.”

  Wayne said, “I don’t know. Disneyland: she could be targeting Mickey.”

  “Yeah, or a terrorist assault on the Turkish taffy stand,” said Frangi. “I think we should all go out there, Roland. We might save countless lives.”

  “Very funny. Okay, we assume the girl is either too incredibly cool or else not involved. Also, assuming she reads the papers, she doesn’t seem in any hurry to get back and spring her sweetie, which could mean the alibi is a piece of shit. In any case, will you do me one favor? Let’s pick her up when she gets back. Just to dot the I’s.”

  Frangi made a notation in his pad. “Dot the I’s. Pick up girlfriend. It’ll be soon. MasterCard says she’s running close to her credit limit.”

  The next day Karp went for his arthroscopy in Dr. Hudson’s office. His knee was shot full of dope, but he could still feel the conducted vibration of the instruments rattling up his skeleton, informing him that someone was working inside his living flesh. He sweated bullets.

  After the procedure, Dr. Hudson was characteristically blunt: massive destruction of cartilage, bone abrasion, chronic inflammation of the bursa. The whole thing would have to be replaced, and soon. Karp told Hudson to set up the operation.

  In a somber mood Karp was driven to his next appointment, which was with Milton Freeland at the Legal Aid Society offices on Leonard Street. The offices were suitably shabby, to go with the clientele, but Karp observed that Freeland had replaced Dora, Tom Pagano’s old secretary, with a shiny new model. Karp was ushered into the presence. It was wearing a yellow tie and yellow suspenders and a good false smile. Karp sat in an uncomfortable wooden visitors’ chair without being asked.

  “We have a problem, Milton,” he said without preamble.

  “Oh? What problem is that? Butch.”

  “Well, specifically, that stunt you pulled the other day on Tony Harris in the Devers homicide, but-”

  “It’s not my fault if your people don’t know the law,” Freeland interrupted.

  “But,” Karp continued, “but, I just wanted to get together with you at the beginning so as to make sure that the good working relationship that my office had with Tom’s office continues.”

  “And what was that, pray tell?” Freeland was smirking. He could tell Karp was embarrassed and was enjoying it.

  “A certain respect. A certain understanding of the position of the formal adversary. We don’t break our word. We don’t pull funny stuff in court. I don’t railroad people or accept phonied evidence. You don’t yell racism and police brutality when none exists-”

  Freeland laughed out loud, unpleasantly. “Oh, be serious. The next thing you’re going to tell me is that all the people you bring to trial really did it.”

  “No. But I’d say if I bring them, I believe they did it.”

  “What about Morales?” Freeland sneered. “Do you believe in that piece of shit case?”

  Karp’s stomach lurched and he suppressed a sigh. “Between us? No, and I didn’t mean to imply we didn’t ever screw up. But there’s a good example. If Tom were still here, when he saw Morales he would’ve called me up and chewed my ass for a while and we would’ve worked it out some way.”

  “What way?”

  Karp stared hard at the smug little face and looked for something that he was more and more sure was not there. “Are you asking hypothetically,” he inquired calmly, “or are you interested in working something out?”

  Freeland seemed to consider this for a while, leaning back in his swivel chair, with his feet on the desk, staring at the corner of the ceiling, tapping with a pencil.

  At last he faced Karp and said, “Actually, no. I’m not interested in working something out. We intend to fry your Mr. Bergman’s shorts publically, in open court, and do the same in every case in which an innocent defendant is framed. Especially homicide. And especially when your cops have picked some poor black or Hispanic at random. And from what I can see, in even the short time I’ve been here, there are plenty. And this West Village murder-the body wasn’t even cold, before they dragged some pathetic piss bum out of a cellar and pinned it on him. It sucks, Karp! And it’s not going to go on. I don’t ca
re what cozy little deal you had with my esteemed predecessor.”

  “Good speech, Milton,” said Karp, “but allow me to point out one difference between Morales and the Weiner killing. In all probability Morales didn’t do it. Russell definitely did it. That strikes me as significant.”

  “Oh, please! It’s another FAN job. A white woman gets stabbed and it’s grab the first available nigger.”

  “Well, since we’re on the subject already, I presume that you won’t be pleading guilty to the top count in Russell.”

  “The plea is not guilty.”

  Karp rose slowly to his feet and looked down at Freeland as at something adhering to his shoe. He said, “In that case, Counselor, I’ll see you in court.”

  He started to leave, but Freeland said quickly, “Wait a minute! You mean you’re trying Russell?” There was something flickering across his pale face: anticipation, excitement? Karp couldn’t be sure. He said, “Yes, the luck of the draw. Why?”

  “Nothing. It’s a bullshit case. You’re gonna get creamed. Well. Maybe I really will see you in court.”

  Karp walked across the small office, but paused at the door. “Tell me,” he said, “I’m curious. This is about winning to you, isn’t it? I mean, that’s basically all it is to you, a game to win?”

  Freeland snorted. “You mean it’s not to you? What the hell are we doing here, then?” He gestured at his dingy office. “Making lots of dough?”

  Karp ignored this. “You didn’t play any ball in school, did you?” he asked mildly. “I mean letter ball. Varsity.”

  “No. Why?” Freeland seemed genuinely puzzled at the question.

  “Just curious,” said Karp, and left.

  He went back to his office, spent the rest of the morning on routine paperwork, and was about to break for lunch when he got a call from the Tombs. It was Tony Chelham, the captain of the day shift. Karp listened to what the man had to say with growing disbelief.

  “Hold on a minute, Tony, Russell wants what?”

  “He wants his blue shirt. We had him signing for his stuff, you know? And he says, ‘Where’s my blue shirt? I ain’t signing without my blue shirt.’”

  “Holy shit! Um, did he want the knife he killed her with too?”

  A booming laugh. “No, but I thought it could be something, the shirt. He said the cops had it down by the Six. So I called.”

  “You did great, Tony. Okay, here’s what I want you to do. Get with Charlie Cimella at the Six. Have him bring the shirt. Get Russell in a cell by himself. Show him the shirt and say, ‘Is this the blue shirt you asked for, Russell?’ Let him handle it, sniff it, whatever. If he says, yeah, it’s mine, just say something like, okay, but we have to hold it for a while-you’ll get it back, we’ll put a note saying that in the effects bag. Then leave. Don’t say anything else at all, no questions, nothing. Make sure Charlie understands that too. Then both of you get over here and we’ll make out a statement.”

  “Okay, check. I’ll get right on it.”

  An hour later, Karp watched as the two officers signed statements to the effect that Hosie Russell had positively identified the shirt as his, amid much rolling of eyes all around.

  “You know, guys,” Karp said, “this is what makes this job such a challenge-matching wits with Professor Moriarty.”

  9

  Harry Bello walked the night streets of Alphabet City, that part of the upper lower East Side of Manhattan where the avenues are named not for great men or events but for letters of the alphabet, as if it might have been inappropriate to name them after anything admirable. There are many slums in New York that have fallen from better times-Harlem and Bedford-Stuyvesant were once proud middle-class districts-but Alphabet City was built as a slum and had not risen in the world. It contains block after block of New Law tenements, five-story walk-ups with fire escapes and air shafts. Down the bleak avenues parade the storefronts of bodegas, liquor stores, cheap furniture and clothing marts, record and hairdressing rooms, pentecostal churches, and the rest of the economy of poverty, all heavily grilled and shuttered at night.

  In the sixties, tens of thousands of young people seeking bohemia flooded into New York, and naturally gravitated to the famous art enclave of Greenwich Village. They were thirty years too late; the rents there were designed for art patrons rather than actual artists and their friends. So they moved east, displacing elderly Ukranians, and the East Village was born. There, middle-class kids on the bum could live in agreeable squalor, take drugs, catch sexual diseases, and (a few of them) make music and art.

  Where the East Village ends and Alphabet City begins is a question only real estate brokers care much about. To a homicide cop like Bello the presence of a borderland like this one, between the faux poor and the hard cases, meant mainly that it was a place where taxpayers’ children in search of excitement were particularly likely to get themselves killed.

  Every night for the past week Bello had walked the streets around midnight. This was after a full day’s work acting as Marlene Ciampi’s private detective on a variety of other cases. Bello didn’t need much sleep, and he had no hobbies except Lucy Karp, who was not available in the wee hours.

  He was looking for a middle-aged black man, the man who had called 911 at 1:58 one evening a month or so ago and said, “There’s a dead woman on Fifth Street off Avenue A.” When the operator had asked for his name and number, he had shouted, “You heard me. Fifth and A,” and hung up. Bello had listened to the tape many times. The pronunciation was diagnostic: “there’s” was “deh’s”; “Fifth” was “Fi’t”; “dead” was “daid”; and, most interesting, “heard” was “hoid.” You didn’t get that much among the recent generations. The guy would be over fifty.

  Bello had canvassed all the houses on both sides of 5th between avenues A and B and come up blank. A lot of “no comprende” on 5th Street. Bello understood enough Spanish to understand that something was being hidden, but not enough to squeeze for it. So he continued to walk the night streets. He bought cigarettes and coffee in the bodegas. He stared down the guapos swaggering on the streets. He was polite, almost courtly, to the women.

  After a while the people got used to him, and when they found he was not interested in their minor grifts, they almost forgot about him, except that, to the majority of the people, it was nice having their own private lajara on the street at night. He became invisible. He was good at it; he felt invisible.

  On this night Harry Bello crosses Avenue A to a little comidas y criollas, where he buys a cup of excellent coffee and a greasy sugar bun. He reads the News, the other three men in the place, Puerto Ricans and a Dominican, chat, smoke, read El Diario. Two whores come in for beer, indulge in light raillery, leave with a scream of tires. An elderly black man in dark green work clothes comes in, buys a pack of Camels and a newspaper. When the man gives his order, Bello puts down his paper. There is a brief, inexplicable hiatus in the Spanish conversation.

  The black man leaves. Bello, without a word, rises and drifts out behind him. The black man is mid-sixties; he walks stiffly, but his shoulders are square and his back is erect. He enters a building on A off 7th Street. Bello follows him into the building. The man hears a step sounding behind him, whirls in fear. Bello holds up his gold shield. He says, “Tell me about the girl. How she died.”

  Marlene said, “He said they were laughing?”

  “Yeah,” said Bello. “Laughing their heads off. Shouting stuff. Have a nice trip. Like that. Two of them, that he saw over the parapet.”

  They were in her office, and Bello was telling her what he had learned from William Braintree, sixty-four, a Con Ed maintenance worker who, walking home from his swing-shift job at a local substation, had nearly been struck by the falling body of a young woman.

  “No, he couldn’t ID them,” Bello continued, anticipating as usual. “Just saw silhouettes.” Pause. “The problem is proof.”

  Marlene struggled to keep up with the detective. “Um, Harry, you know who did it?”
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  “Oh, yeah. There’ll be somebody saw it. Let you know.” He got up and left.

  Weeks now pass. The season moves into full summer, the City heats ups, and geographically literate New Yorkers recall that they live at the steamy latitudes of Madrid and Naples. Having no corrida to distract them, the poor cannot pass the unbearable summer like the dignified Madrileños and so take up the habits of the Neapolitans, shooting and stabbing one another in increasing numbers.

  Lennie Bergman’s case against the despicable Emilio Morales collapses amid scandal. Bergman receives a scathing lecture from the judge. Karp is subjected to a public tongue-lashing by the district attorney, who is able to use some tough-guy lines that he has been saving up for years. (“What kind of whorehouse are you running down there, Karp? You can’t keep your people in line, maybe I better find someone who can!”) Karp takes it calmly, as he does most things these days. He is convinced that he will never recover from his impending operation. Nevertheless, he prepares the case against Hosie Russell for the grand jury and gets his indictment.

  Lucy Karp grows two tiny fangs. She is not amused. Sleep is banished. In desperation, and secretly, Marlene dips a rag in marsala wine and sugar and sticks it in Lucy’s little gob. It works like a charm. Marlene decides not to think about her daughter’s brain cells perishing in squadrons, or what Karp will have to say if he finds out.

  Emilio Morales returns to his neighborhood, to no great enthusiasm among the home boys. The People’s Republic of East 112th Street having not, like the state of New York, suspended the death penalty, Morales is found one sunny morning among the trash cans with two through the ear. Another listless murder investigation begins.

  Frangi and Wayne do as little as possible on the Tomasian case. It is the height of the murder season, and they have much to occupy them. They visit the mistress of Mehmet Ersoy, from whom they learn that the late Turk was a big spender, unsurprising information. They also learn that Sarkis Kerbussyan is precisely what he appears to be, a wealthy Armenian art collector with no obvious criminal ties. Aram Tomasian languishes in jail. Gabrielle Avanian is still among the missing. She had never returned from California after the credit card ran out. The police have ceased to look for her with any ardor.