Fury (The Butch Karp and Marlene Ciampi Series Book 17)

by Robert K. Tanenbaum

  Even then she wasn’t satisfied. She had her eye on becoming nothing less than the U.S. Attorney General. She and Breman sometimes got together at a private spa she belonged to in Manhattan for a “girl’s day out” and a giggle about their aspirations. “You look so stunning in basic black…like a judge’s robe,” she hinted to Breman, who’d blushed and rolled her eyes.

  After looking the Kaminsky letter over, Klinger had dismissed it as just another inmate who thought he saw a way out of prison. “He probably thinks that you’d jump at the chance to impeach Villalobos and preserve the case against four black men. But there’s no proof here—at best just a he said/he said.” Both women knew that a copy of the letter should have been turned over to the defendant’s lawyer, in this case the Corporation Counsel. But Klinger said, “I see no sense in letting a red herring like this stand in the way of the truth or cloud the issues. There’s a trial coming up; let’s let the jury decide whether to believe Villalobos based on his testimony.” She offered to hold on to the letter “so that it isn’t accidentally discovered in your files and raises questions.”

  Breman had been only too happy to let Klinger have the letter. She was determined not to even remember its existence, except that in a moment of trying to one-up Louis, she casually mentioned it. At first she’d been pleased to see that he was shaken; after all, he’d done it to her often enough, but then she’d regretted telling him. He got surly and demanded to know who had the letter. She was relieved when he seemed to accept that the letter was in safekeeping with Klinger.

  She was happy to report to Louis that she had not heard from Kaminsky since the letter. She glanced over at the two young men. Desmond Davis, a brooding, dark-visaged throwback to mankind’s primitive past, had his head on the back of the couch and was staring up at the ceiling. But Sykes was looking right at her with a smile. She smiled back—at least she could feel good about saving this one. He was so well spoken and polite, a shame that the police had ruined his potential.

  “Yo, Des, check out the bitch,” he said. “She’s afraid the big bad wolf might eat her.” He leaned forward and made smacking noises with his mouth.

  “Jayshon!” Louis rebuked him. “It is important to remember who our friends are…and Ms. Breman is one of them.” He turned to Breman, who refused to look anywhere except at Louis. She was in shock. Whatever happened to the nice young man?

  Sykes apologized, “I didn’t mean anything by that—just the old prison defense mechanism, you know.” He didn’t like being lectured by the fat lawyer, but he did want to be a rich man. If he had to play the fucking game and listen to this fucked-up talk about trying to reintegrate him and his homies, he could deal. Just so long as after he got the money, nobody tried to tell him what cars he could and couldn’t buy, or how many bitches he could have running around the mansion he planned to buy. Then he’d get a little payback on the people who locked him up and, if they weren’t careful, the people who tried to boss him around now. The fat lawyer and this skinny bitch will get theirs if they keep pushing, he thought. Thinking about the other woman had been one of Sykes’s favorite pastimes in prison. Exhausted by the long night of “wilding,” he and his homies had been chilling beneath the pier that morning, drinking the last of the forties of malt liquor they’d stolen from a liquor store and smoking weed. He thought it was funny how easy it was to fool his teachers and others with his clean-cut, valedictorian act. This was the real Jayshon—the other guy was just a fake to get what he wanted.

  He was idly whacking at a piling with the piece of steel rebar he’d found the night before when Desmond spotted the woman running down the beach toward them. He’d ordered his comrades back into the shadows until she was just about upon them, then jumped out in front of her.

  “Boo!” he yelled in her face.

  The woman tried to get away but he jumped in front of her. “Say, where you going, bitch? Me and the homeboys was partyin’ and thought maybe you should join us.”

  The woman tried to move around him. “Leave me alone!” she said in what was apparently meant to appear forceful but only made him laugh and taunt her more. He grabbed her by the arm and spun her around. Then to his surprise and rage, she’d reached out and clawed his face.

  Without thinking about it, his hand with the steel rebar came up and hit her on the side of her head. She’d looked stunned, as if just given bad news, and sank to her knees. “Fucking ho,” he snarled and grabbed her by the hair and pulled her under the pier and out of sight from anyone strolling along the boardwalk.

  The pain of being dragged by her hair seemed to bring the woman back to her senses. She lunged up from the sand, screaming and scratching for his eyes. He’d felt fear and might have backed off, except Desmond kicked the woman in the small of the back, which knocked the wind out of her and sent her sprawling in the sand. She rose to her hands and knees, then paused, trying to catch her breath. Enraged by his fear, Sykes walked up to her and hit her on the head with the steel rebar again, only harder. The blow knocked her over onto her back, where she lay moaning.

  Sykes reached down and grabbed her running shorts and tore them off. Excited by the site of her half-nude body, he shouted, “Hold her” as he dropped his pants and got down between her legs.

  Kwasama Jones ended up at her head on his knees and leaned forward to pin her arms. Kevin Little and Packer Wilson each grabbed a leg.

  However, after having penetrated her, Sykes found he could not maintain an erection and ejaculate. This only served to anger him more and he punched her twice in the face before jumping up. “Yo, Des, your turn,” he shouted and then egged his comrade on.

  After Davis was finished, Sykes ordered Wilson to rape her but the fifteen-year-old couldn’t get an erection at all, which brought loud guffaws from Sykes. “Look at the little fucker, can’t even get it up. Fuck her, homes, ain’t you a man?”

  Not knowing what else might qualify him for manhood in his leader’s eyes, Packer pulled up the woman’s shirt and then bit her on the breast hard enough to draw blood. The woman screamed, which made Sykes and Davis laugh; Wilson tried to smile as he wiped the blood from his mouth but he then stood back and did not participate in the rest of the event.

  Sykes next ordered Kevin Little to assault the woman, but he turned and threw up in the sand. “Ah shit, the little faggot got sick. Kwasama, you get you some now.” But Kwasama shook his head. He’d continued holding her arms down, but he was crying.

  Sykes was wondering what to do now with the woman when he noticed the ugly pockmarked Puerto Rican man standing twenty feet away. The greasy fucker looked like a hungry rat and was licking his lips and rubbing his crotch. “Hey, ratface, you want some of this bitch?” he asked.

  Villalobos had jumped at the invitation. “Show you boys how to treat these bitches,” he said. “If you want to teach them a real lesson, you got to fuck them dirty.” He’d then kicked the woman so hard in the side that it knocked her over and onto her stomach. Laughing at the look on the others’ faces, he’d then sodomized her, and when he finished, stood and wiped himself on her sweatshirt.

  They all stood looking down at the woman. She was bleeding from both of her ears as well as the ragged wounds on the side of her head from the rebar. There were no more moans, just a sort of fluttery breathing. Sykes kicked her in the head but there was no response. Then he became aware of a high-pitched wailing, in the distance but growing louder.

  “Jayshon!” Davis had yelled. “It’s 5-0! We got to get the hell out of here.”

  “What about her?” Kwasama asked.

  Jayshon shrugged. “She’s dead,” he said and took off running.

  Sykes had no idea what had become of the rat man after that, except that he wasn’t caught. But the others were not so lucky. The cops had picked up Kevin Little and Packer Wilson as they were walking home to Bedford-Stuyvesant; when Kwasama Jones heard about his friends, he’d gone down to the precinct station with his mother. Based on what they said, the cops had show
ed up the next day and arrested Sykes and Davis.

  Little had testified against them, but Wilson and Jones got the hint and clammed up, and Davis he’d never had to worry about. He’d made his own mistakes, like bragging to that ho, Hannah Little, that he’d enjoyed raping the white bitch.

  Next time, no bragging, ’cept to the homies, he thought. But that stupid muthafucka Villalobos had to brag to Kaminsky, and maybe fuck up the whole plan. Well, when this is over, I’ll have some of the homies pay him a visit and cut his fuckin’ heart out and stuff it down his mouth while it’s still beating. He was also pissed off that Lynd had messed up a simple knife job.

  The fat lawyer had gotten on his case about shoving the wrong Kaminsky brother beneath the train but it wasn’t his fault. How was I to know he had a twin? Louis didn’t tell him until later that he knew where to find Kaminsky because he’d received a call from Olav Radinskaya, the Brooklyn borough president, who employed Ivan Kaminsky. Ivan Kaminsky had asked for the afternoon off to go meet his brother at Grand Central Station on the number 4 train platform.

  Louis should have told me there were two brothers, Sykes thought, frowning at the lawyer. Now he was going to have to wait for the remaining Kaminsky to surface again. He tuned back in to the conversation between Louis and Breman when he heard the name Kaminsky.

  “I just hope that if he does surface, you’ll contact me first,” Louis was saying. “I want to ask him a few questions before the police nab him and get a chance to feed him a story to protect their colleagues.”

  “Well, again, that’s a rather unusual request,” Breman said. She realized, though it was a jolt to her conscience, that at the same time she was pleased because it gave her power over Louis that he was afraid of what Kaminsky had to say. However, the pleasure and illusion of power were short-lived.

  “Forgive them, but my clients here were the ones who wanted to meet you and have me ask that if you hear from Kaminsky, you call me first,” he said. “They wanted me to express how very unhappy they will be if this lying sack of shit Kaminsky is allowed to ruin our hard work.”

  The reference to the gangsters made Breman want to go to the bathroom. How did it ever get this far? she wondered as she squirmed a little trying to get comfortable. She hazarded a glance at Sykes. He was grinning like the Cheshire cat and had a hand on his crotch. “Maybe you’d like a taste of this now?” he offered.

  The men were still laughing when she hopped up and fled through the office and reception area and out the door of the building, stumbling down the steps. Teddy Chalk ran across the sidewalk and caught her by her arm or she might have fallen.

  “Did they harm you, ma’am?” he asked, his face a mask of concern and anger.

  “Oh, quit with the fucking chivalry, you idiot, and drive,” she snarled as she jumped into the backseat of the limo. As they made their way south and east through Harlem into East Harlem, she broke down and cried. She cried so hard she hardly noticed the two Arab-looking men standing outside the small mosque, one of them staring down an alley with his hand in his coat.

  10

  Monday, December 13

  “GOOD MORNING, MR.KARP,” MRS. DARLA MILQUETOST, HIS new receptionist, said in what was her perpetual monotone when he walked into his office on the eighth floor of the Criminal Courts building. He’d hoped that she’d be away from her desk getting coffee or something, as he’d had all the disapproving stares he wanted that morning.

  Mrs. Milquetost had informed him on her first day on the job that she, too, found the name unfortunate but it was the only one her husband had, and as a good Catholic it had been her duty to assume her husband’s family name. “I’d appreciate it if you would avoid sniggering when you say my name.”

  “Sniggering?”

  “Yes,” she replied. “Sniggering. Everyone always does unless I put my foot down at the beginning.”

  “Well then, I assure you I will not snigger nor tolerate sniggering in this office, Mrs. Milquetost,” he’d said without sniggering…at least until he was in his office.

  At first he’d wondered if Mrs. Milquetost, a temp from the steno pool, might not be quite the right fit for the office. But she’d proved to be an efficient, hardworking, and, importantly, closemouthed receptionist, even if she did dress like June Cleaver on the old television series Leave It to Beaver.

  “Would you like me to have those boxes in your office removed, Mr. Karp,” said Mrs. Milquetost, who refused to call him Butch and didn’t like random piles of boxes showing up. “Do you need me to call someone to move them to filing?”

  “No, Mrs. Milquetost, they’re fine right where they are for now,” he said, continuing through the door leading to his inner sanctum, where he hoped for a few contemplative minutes before the morning meetings began.

  The day had not started off on a good note. Marlene was still ticked at him for the “stray dog” comment and refused to accept his apology. He even tried kissing her as she lay in bed, but she’d kept her lips as tight as possible and simply glared at him until he gave up.

  Out in the kitchen, he’d cheered up some to find the twins, who, surprisingly, were already up and dressed in sweats, hoping they’d get a chance to play basketball with the big boys on the courts at Sixth and Fourth. Their lively banter had taken a little of the chill out of the air, until Zak was reminded that he and his brother had bar mitzvah class that night.

  “Ah gee, during vacation?” Zak complained.

  Zak’s demeanor got worse when his brother then exclaimed, “Great! I can’t wait.” Zak then punched Giancarlo in the arm and called him a “butt kisser.” A loud wrestling match ensued, which was broken up by Marlene, who’d stomped from the bedroom, separated the boys, then glared at Karp as if he’d put them up to it, before stomping back to the bedroom. The ice age had returned, so he dressed and left for work.

  “Mr. Kipman is waiting for you,” Mrs. Milquetost said just as he opened the door. He sighed; there went his few minutes alone, but at least Harry tended to calm his nerves, not rake them across the fiery coals of hell.

  Kipman was sitting on the couch reading a book. Karp turned his head to look at the title: The Dust-Covered Man: The Story of Ulysses S. Grant.

  “Good book?” Karp asked.

  “Interesting,” Kipman replied. “Funny how some of the famous people in history sort of come into the roles that will define their greatness by accident. Grant for instance. He was a West Point grad and a hero of the Mexican-American War for his actions during the storming of Mexico City. But he was out of the army, working as a clerk for his father-in-law’s harness business when the Civil War broke out. He went in as a captain. He ends up as the top general in the Union Army, and pretty much ends up winning the war for them. I doubt he gave greatness a second thought when he joined…in fact, he already had something of a drinking problem.”

  “Why the dust-covered man?” Karp asked.

  “An allusion to the fact that he wasn’t the sort of leader who hung back and expected his troops to do all the dangerous stuff,” Kipman said. “Even at the end of a long day on horseback, he’d push ahead to get the lay of the land and scout the enemy’s position. His troops would see him covered with dust and if they didn’t love him the way Robert E. Lee’s men loved him, they respected him and fought for him like they’d fought for none of the other Union generals. They came up with the nickname the Dust-Covered Man.” The conversation was interrupted by a knock on the door, which only briefly preceded the appearance of V.T. Newbury, Ray Guma, and Gilbert Murrow.

  Blond-haired and still boyish-looking, V.T. was the aristocrat of the bunch, a genuine descendant of the Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth Rock. His great grandfather—or maybe great-great, Karp couldn’t remember—had started what was now one of the largest and most prestigious law firms in Manhattan. V.T. had shocked his father and set his illustrious ancestors rolling in their graves when, after graduating from Harvard Law School at the top of his class, he’d eschewed the family business
and applied for a job at the New York District Attorney’s Office, where he and another recent graduate, Butch Karp, became close friends.

  Disenchanted when Francis Garrahy died in office and was replaced by a crook, Sanford Bloom, V.T. had gone to work for the U.S. Attorney General’s Office. However, when Karp was appointed to complete the term of Bloom’s successor, Jack X. Keegan, V.T. had been lured back to run the office’s Special Investigations Unit, which was charged with rooting out and prosecuting corruption and malfeasance in city government, including its police department.

  Bushy-browed and thick-featured, Ray Guma came from the other end of the social strata. Born and raised in an Italian neighborhood, he’d spent the first part of high school trying to decide whether to pursue a career in the mob or with the New York Yankees as the next great shortstop. Then “something snapped,” he liked to say; he went to college on a baseball scholarship, even got scouted by the big leagues, but decided to go to law school. He surprised himself as well as his pals from the old neighborhood, several of whom were “made” men, by joining the New York District Attorney’s Office, where he’d earned a reputation as a tough, no-holds-barred prosecutor not afraid to take on the mob, even his friends, if they messed up and got caught for something. He also had a reputation for cheap cigars, cheaper whiskey, and women cheap or not.

  However, in recent years, a bout with colon cancer had forced him into retirement. The once-muscular, apelike body had aged almost overnight and his thick Sicilian hair had turned as white as bedsheets. But inside he was still the same old Guma—“minus a yard or so of my guts that the quacks hacked out of me”—and Karp had been only too happy to hire him to work part-time on special cases.