She shook herself like her dog to put these thoughts aside and turned her attention to her business, humdrum thinking about accounts and vet fees and three-inch galvanized pipe and diesel pumps. She wished, really, that she were a struggling businesswoman supporting her children by honest labor and frugal housekeeping, but this was not the case. The kennel and training operation was a tax dodge. Marlene had made a great deal of money in the way that such money was often made in the midnineties, by being in the right place at the right time. She had been a partner in a security firm that had grown rapidly and gone public, and which had profited vastly from a spectacular rescue of a kidnapped client on the eve of its initial public offering. The stock went up and up, on its merits and on the publicity, and later as a refuge for the smart money when the dotcoms tanked. Marlene had, however, discovered that the spectacular rescue was a scam, although the people killed in it had been real enough, and had demanded a buyout, to which her partners reluctantly acquiesced. She assuaged her Godzilla of a conscience by giving almost all the money to the Church, stashed in a religious foundation. A Jesuit named Michael Dugan ran it for her, as Billy Ireland ran the dog farm. So she could slip away without anyone really noticing she was gone. The twins had each other, Karp had his work, Lucy had her fifty-seven languages. They would all sit down to dinner and wonder why there was no food. No, that was unfair to Lucy; she could cook as well as Marlene herself.
Idiot thoughts. Demonic ravings. She was a little crazy, too, tried to keep it under control, mostly a success, except when she drank. She shook herself again, and this time the dog took this as a cue to shake, too. Unlike his mistress, he sent long streamers of white drool in every direction. She stared at her reflection and made gargoyle faces, crossing her eyes. She could really cross them now that she had been fitted with the latest high-tech socket for the left one, which was fake. Now they tracked together, instead of, as before, the fugazy staring out motionless like the orb of a dead mackerel. Most people no longer thought she looked odd, which said something about the perceptions of most people.
She checked her watch, arose, and looked down the track, into the reddening west. Tiny twin balls of light hovered above the rails out at the limits of vision. It was rather nice having a little summer vacation from being married, she thought. Karp came only on the weekends, so it was almost like college dating again, except you knew the guy wouldn't be a complete asshole, assuming one's husband was not one and you still loved him. Hers was not, by and large, and she did, by and large, although she was not adverse to having an attractive stranger around on the weekdays. Not that she would ever do anything, knowing herself to be the kind of woman who, once unfaithful, would bring her whole life crashing down and end up penniless and drunk in a trailer park in Tempe, Arizona.
She sat down on the bench again. The dog hadn't moved, since she had down-stayed him and hadn't spoken the release. The dog would have stayed there had a butcher's cart overturned before him and strewn the platform with prime rib. Billy Ireland was a hell of a trainer. She smiled and cooed at the dog, who wagged his tail, but still didn't budge. The train pulled in and a woman and two men got off. One of these, very tall and broad-shouldered, carrying a canvas overnight bag, and dressed in a beautifully cut tropical-weight blue pinstripe, was her husband, Roger Karp, universally known as Butch. She watched him look up and down the platform. He saw her coming toward him with the huge dog at her heels, and she observed, first, how tired he seemed, his face gray and heavy with the City, and then how it lit up when he saw her. Oh, good! They embraced and kissed, not just a suburban-wife-at-station peck, but a real kiss with plenty of chewing, like teenagers. It was always something of a surprise to both of them that they were still interested although they had been married since the Carter administration.
They walked arm in arm to the truck. "So how was the week that was?" she asked.
"Don't ask." He settled himself in the passenger seat and waited as she let the dog into the back and got in behind the wheel.
"You look tired."
"You look great. You're tan. You've been lounging on the beach."
"Uh-huh. I met our neighbor there this afternoon. She's got a little girl the twins' age."
"Our neighbor? That old couple?"
"No, on the other side. In the big white house."
"I thought that was empty."
"Me, too, but she's opening it up. They're going to sell it. Her dad kicked off and there's some kind of inheritance tangle. I got her drunk and pried out her secrets. They're a fine old Long Island family fallen on hard times. A nice woman, though-Rose Wickham Heeney."
"Heeney?"
"Yeah, it doesn't go with the other names. Apparently she married a working stiff from Appalachia, which didn't fly too great with the folks."
"So you have a basis."
She gave him a sharp look. Karp's family was a sore point. "Yes, and not only that, there's something worrying her. She'll be talking away and then kind of freeze and look around for the kid, a little panic reaction."
"Well, you know how to pick 'em."
"I'm not getting involved. Meanwhile she's someone to talk to, and the little girl's a doll. GC is smitten."
"How are they?"
"Thriving. Zak has his rat gun and Billy to tag around after, Gianni is building sand castles of ever greater extent and complexity and he's farming up a storm. They stay out of each other's hair."
"And your felon?"
"My felon is fine, and I wish you wouldn't call him that. He did his jolt and he's a citizen now."
"Aren't there any girl dog trainers?"
"Women. Of course, but I haven't found anyone as good as Billy Ireland." She slowed the truck for the turn off Route 25. The sun had sunk at last into Queens and the world had turned pearly blue. She switched on the truck's lights. "You're just jealous. You think we're doing it on the kibble sacks."
"Are you?"
"Not on the kibble sacks. And again she asks, changing the subject, how was your week, darling?"
"Hot. It was over ninety all week and it's only June."
"I mean work."
A cloud came over his face. "Fine. The usual." Which meant, not fine. Unusually awful.
But he greeted the boys cheerfully enough when they ran out to mob him, and he seemed more relaxed, later, at the table, dressed in worn jeans and a T-shirt. The twins filled him in on the week's events, including a detailed description by Zak of the backhoe operation and of each of the four rats he had stalked and killed, and from Giancarlo, a long summary of the rules of a swords-and-sorcery fantasy game he had invented, and a crop report, corn and carrots, tomatoes, potatoes, lettuce. She noted, however, that Karp drank two beers, as much alcohol as she had seen him consume at one sitting, and that, try as he might, his attention was drifting.
"Zik has a girlfriend," announced Zak when they were clearing the table.
"I do not!"
"Yes, he does. She has red hair. He loves her." A snarling chase through the house, which Karp broke up by grabbing each boy under an arm and dragging them out to the porch, where he plopped the three of them down on the rusty glider.
"It's true," Zak insisted.
"Is it true, Giancarlo?"
"No. I have a friend and she's a girl, but she's not a girlfriend. I'm too young to have a girlfriend."
"I see. When had you planned to start?"
"When I'm sexually mature, Dad," said Giancarlo, which reduced his brother to choking giggles.
After this had subsided, Zak said, "Billy Ireland taught me how to drive the truck. I can put it in second."
"Really? Does your mom know about this?"
"Oh, you know-Mom knows everything."
Later, when the boys were in bed, Karp sat on this same glider with his wife, who was drinking Remy out of a juice glass. The night was humid and warm, but there was a comfortable salt breeze from the Sound. Crickets sawed away in the surrounding trees, invisible in the country dark, real darkness, which
Karp always found disconcerting after the City's perpetual glow. They had turned off the lights in the house. Then a light appeared from the small window under the barn's eaves. It came from the small apartment occupied by the dog trainer.
Which reminded Karp. "What's this I hear about Ireland letting Zak drive the truck?"
"Oh, it's just on the property. He's thrilled about it. You know how he is."
"It's still dangerous."
Marlene shifted to look directly at him. "No, it's not, and you don't really think so, either. You're pissed off about something at work and you are about to start a wrangle to get your ya-ya's off at me."
"I'm not."
"Everything's perfect at the office?"
"Yeah, it's fine."
"Oh, bullshit!"
"Marlene, forget it. I'm just tired."
"What are you tired about? I thought you conquered crime up there. You're not a kid ADA running around Centre Street with fifty open cases. You have a nice office, a glamorous secretary, minions at your beck and call…"
"Marlene, be serious. I'm chief assistant district attorney of New York County. There are a lot of pressures…"
"Like what?"
"Nothing." Long pause. A release of breath. "Jack's calling me off the congressman."
Marlene raised her eyes to heaven and her palms upward. "Thank you!" And to him: "Why do I always have to worm it out of you?"
"Because it's my problem, okay? Why should I bring that shit home?"
"It's not your problem. It's our problem, because when you're pissed off at that fucking office, you snarl, and pick nits, and get on everyone's nerves. My nerves, to tell the truth. The boys are so glad to see you, you could whip them with coat hangers and they wouldn't mind. So give! What's with the congressman?"
Karp cleared his throat. His childhood memory did not recall a single scene in which his father had talked business with his mother, and despite the years he had lived with Marlene the process remained uncomfortable, unnatural.
"Well, you'll recall we had that election last year, and I think that's what's behind this. McBright got 48.6 percent of the vote against Jack, including nearly 80 percent of the nonwhite vote. The congressman campaigned very hard for McBright."
"Being a black guy himself."
"That is a racist comment and unworthy of you," said Karp primly. "I'm sure the congressman thought he was the better man for the job. However, that's the fact. Given the demographics of the City, in the future it will be very hard to win office in New York County conceding 80 percent of the nonwhite vote. Are you sure you want to hear this?"
"I'm riveted and would be even more so if you would tickle my head."
Karp started to massage his wife's scalp and continued. "Okay, this started with looking at dirty money uptown. The congressman naturally has a campaign fund. Many uptown notables and businesses contribute to this fund. Among the biggest contributors is a firm called Lenox Entertainment Enterprises. They own clubs and restaurants and movie houses, uptown mainly but also all over the City. The firm makes a corporate contribution, as do a large number of its employees, up to the personal max. This is hard money, by the way, right into the congressman's coffers. You wouldn't think that a guy who cleaned up a movie house after the show could afford to drop a grand on a political campaign, but it is so. And not just one, either."
"That's America, God bless her!" said Marlene. "Lower, please."
"Okay, shady campaign funding… not our problem, really. But it turns out that one of the partners in Lenox is a person named Waylin Pennant, aka Beemer Pennant. Or Pimp Pennant, as we like to call him. Who is definitely our problem. This campaign stuff is what tickled our interest, in fact."
"Gosh, Butch, if pimps can't give money to politicians, they'll have to shut down K Street. Or Texas."
"True, it's Mr. Pennant's right to support the candidate of his choice with money beaten out of whores. Pennant, by the way, is not just your average street Mac. He seems to have industrialized the process, like the Mob did back in the old days. Basically, he doesn't run girls himself-pimps pay him for territories, and he probably gets a rake-off out of most of the fleshly commerce in the City. And he does the usual loan-sharking and so on. No drugs, though. He's a smart cookie."
"Yes, I would stick to fleshly commerce myself, were I to go bad."
"Badder than you currently are, you mean."
"Yes. Were you thinking of taking me up to bed?"
"In a minute," said Karp. "You asked for this and you're going to get it. To resume. Beemer is a major bad guy. We've had some killings we like him for, not directly thus far, but people he had beefs with have tended to end up dead more than pure probability would allow. His vics aren't taxpayers, of course, but my position is, it's bad for our image if guys get to commit murder with impunity. It's against the law."
"I love it when you say that. It makes little shivers run up and down my thighs."
"Ditto," said Karp. "Now, we don't have much hope of nailing Pennant for the heavy stuff, but we figured he might be vulnerable to an Al Capone move. We assume he's laundering his dirty money through Lenox, so we look. We subpoena their books and… surprise, surprise. Lenox is not all that profitable, although it's extemely generous to its employees in the form of bonuses. Pennant is drawing only a modest salary from Lenox, not nearly enough to support his lifestyle. And he pays his taxes on it to the penny. So if pimp money goes into Lenox, it doesn't seem to come out, or at least not into Pennant's wallet."
Marlene finished her drink, slipped down, and rested her head on Karp's lap. He was now able to use both hands on her head and did. She sighed and closed her eyes.
"I'm putting you to sleep with this, right?"
"Oh, not at all. This is divine: head rub and complex criminal procedure. I'm in heaven. Go on-so how does he launder his pimp money if not through Lenox?"
"Okay, so we're looking hard at young Beemer, his associates, their businesses, et cetera, and we find Danila Wilson. Ms. Wilson is very close to Pennant; you might say she's an intimate associate of his. She owns and operates a publicity agency, Wilson, Lowery, Jones."
"A front?"
"Not at all. A legitimate agency, that does legitimate publicity. They have rap stars, and straight businesses, and artists. This is a high-class operation. But a nice chunk of their business, it turns out, is managing the congressman's public image and his campaigns. They print up the posters and do the TV commercials. And it's kind of funny because even though the congressman is in his twelfth term and regularly wins by thirty-point margins, he pays them a very large amount of money. Inordinate, you might even say."
"Like how much?"
"Oh, for this campaign, four point three mil."
"Got it," said Marlene. "The pimp money goes in as fake contributions from Pennant's smurfs and comes back out to him as overpayments to his girlfriend's company."
"You're really smart, Marlene. Do you think it has anything to do with me massaging your head all these years?"
"Maybe, maybe not, but I think it would be prudent to keep doing it. I'm thinking a state case is going to be hard to make."
"Yes, that was Jack's point. Obviously, the way you handle something like this is you grab up the little guys, hit them with a blizzard of charges. We'd go with first-degree falsifying business records, because of the intent to conceal another felony, which in this case would be the pimping operations, and, of course, the 470.10 money-laundering second degree, nice felonies, and we'd hope that they'd deal, roll the big guys, right up to Pennant and Wilson, and Soames.
"Who is…?"
"Sorry, Alonzo P. Soames, Soapy Soames-our congressman's campaign manager and main guy uptown. He actually writes the checks to Wilson and would obviously know the whole story."
"But…?"
"We have some likely little guys, people making just over min wage, who got five-figure bonuses, and paid it all into the campaign war chest. Phony on the face of it, and enough to warrant a search of
the relevant paper-the campaign records, and Wilson's, but I've been told that's a nono. In writing. Basically Jack doesn't want to go up against that crowd right now. He thinks it would look like a vendetta against the people who supported his opponent. Especially with Ku Klux Karp as the lead agitator."
"They're still calling you that?"
"Not to my face, but it's well-known I'm this big racist," said Karp bitterly. "Jack adverts to it often in his subtle way. My own theory is that he wants me around mainly to keep the white vote in his pocket, one of the little ironies of my life. It goes to show you, once you're blackened, so to speak, in New York politics, that's all she wrote."
"So why don't you quit?"
"Marlene, don't start that again…"
She sat up abruptly and looked him in the face. "No, really. It's not like we need the money."
"What would I do? Conduct a practice devoted to defending us against dog-bite lawsuits?"
"That would be more fun than what you're doing now, although my dogs only bite people who deserve it. Besides, I'm a lawyer."
"You could've fooled me."
"Oh, don't get all spiky, again, for God's sake. We were just beginning to be cozy." She laid herself back again on his lap. "Okay, so then what are you going to do?"
"I don't know. Wait for something to turn up that Jack will have to move on. Leak to the press. Bluff. The usual, what I've been reduced to."
Absolute rage kac-14 Page 3
