Marlene hung up just as a dark sedan pulled up to the curb.
“Someone here call the police?” Clay Fulton said as he got out of the car.
Tilting her head back to look up at the snowflakes that floated down from the dark gray sky, Marlene took in a deep breath before letting it out. “You know, Clay, I think we’re going to have a white Christmas after all,” she said, then wiped at a tear that formed on her cheek. “But it’s going to be a tough one for Antonia and Nicoli.”
13
KARP LEANED FORWARD FROM THE backseat of the armored sedan and tapped on the glass between him and his driver. “This is good J.P.,” he said. “You can let me out here.”
NYPD Officer J. P. Murphy pulled over to the curb and frowned as he looked in the rearview mirror. “You sure about this, Mr. Karp?” he asked. “Clay Fulton will have my ass in a sling if he hears that I let you walk into Battery Park alone at ten o’clock at night, much less during a snowstorm.”
Looking outside as the wind whipped snowflakes sideways across Battery Place and into the park on the southern tip of Manhattan, Karp shivered. He wasn’t thrilled at the thought of venturing into the elements himself. But he’d received a phone call two hours earlier from Fulton, who was in New Rochelle with Marlene, and he wouldn’t have missed this conversation if hell itself was about to freeze over.
The first part of his telephone conversation with the detective was to get an overview of what Marlene had learned during her conversation with Antonia Carlotta and their subsequent findings after Fulton arrived on the scene. The second part was to let Karp know that NYPD detectives were transporting three “persons of interest” in the Carlotta murders to the Criminal Courts Building for questioning.
It seemed that once again, Marlene’s intuition and some great detective work had paid off. Responding to directions she’d given Fulton to relay, officers had found William “Gnat” Miller, Frankie DiMarzo, and Alexei Bebnev hog-tied in an old Delta 88 at a South Brooklyn landfill, one in the front seat, one in the back, and a third, Bebnev, in the trunk.
“Apparently Bebnev was planning on dispatching Miller and DiMarzo when some good citizen put a stop to it and left them for us,” Fulton said. “We got Bebnev on an immigration hold, and the other two we’re bringing in for a chat. Um, apparently there was a note pinned to Bebnev’s coat, that said, ‘Happy Chanukah, A Secret Admirer.’ Care to explain that one?”
“Maybe later,” Karp had said, smiling to himself.
“Uh-huh,” Fulton replied. “That’s what I thought, but Marlene says she needs to talk to you about that, so I’m handing you over.”
A moment later, Marlene came on the line. “Hello, Butch,” she said. “You’re not going to believe what I’ve been up to!”
“Oh, I’ve lived with you long enough to pretty much know that anything’s possible,” he replied, rolling his eyes.
“You got that right, and we’ll fill you in on the details when we get back,” she said. “But right now I need to tell you that your relative would like to meet with you around ten. He says it’s about these ‘persons of interest’ and you won’t be disappointed.”
“Did he say where?”
“You’ll love this: Castle Clinton in Battery Park.”
“Ten o’clock tonight?” Karp winced as he listened to the wind howl outside the loft’s living room window.
Marlene chuckled. “Afraid so, my love. But I don’t think he’d ask on such short notice if it wasn’t important.”
“No, you’re right,” he replied. “I’ll be there.” He thought about it for a second, then added, “Tell Fulton let’s all meet this evening at the office about eleven; I’ll call Guma. And I hate to do this, but would you ask Mrs. Carlotta to come with you; we’ll get her a ride back home with an officer.”
“Clay and I thought you might want her there, and we already asked,” Marlene replied. “This storm is starting to pick up, but she’s anxious to do whatever she can and has a babysitter coming over.”
After congratulating his wife on her efforts, Karp hung up and called Guma to fill him in, except for the part about going to Castle Clinton to meet with Ivgeny Karchovski. “I’ll see you at my office tonight at eleven,” he repeated. “Do me a favor and set up three lineups, one for each of the stooges, and make sure we have a stenographer ready to go.”
“You do choose the most inopportune times to champion the cause of justice,” Guma responded. “It’s going to be tough to drag myself away from the warm attentions of the affectionate Madam Milquetost, but duty calls. Honey Bear, would you hand me my robe?”
“Goom, that was way too much information.” Karp grimaced. But now, watching the snow swirl in the light of the streetlamps, he identified with Guma’s complaint.
“How about I at least call the park police and get them to let us through the security gate?” Officer J. P. Murphy said. “That way I can drive you right up to the castle.”
Karp thought about who was waiting for him and shook his head. “No, I can use the walk,” he said with only a touch of irony. “I’ll be okay. There’s my escort, I believe.”
A very large man in a Russian-style fur hat with earflaps and a fur coat, all of which made him look like a bear, loomed out of the gray and white landscape of the park. He stood ten feet from the car, waiting patiently with a large bundle in his arms.
“I think I should at least come with you,” Murphy suggested as he looked warily at the stranger.
“Sorry, J.P., you have to stay put,” Karp replied. “National security stuff. Need-to-know basis only. Very hush-hush. Get my drift? This doesn’t go any further than me, you, and Detective Fulton, right?”
Murphy arched an eyebrow and looked impressed. “Oh yeah, gotcha, sure, Mr. Karp,” he said, obviously relieved that he now had a good excuse not to venture forth in his NYPD-issued winter jacket. “Uh, you’ll talk to Fulton?”
“We’re meeting as soon as this is over; it won’t be a problem. I should be about a half hour.”
“Okay,” the officer said. “I’ll be right here. Call if you need something, and I’ll come running, or slipping and sliding.”
“Good man,” Karp said, smiling as he opened the door of the sedan and stepped out into a sudden blast of frigid air from New York Harbor. He immediately wished he’d worn something more substantial than his long peacoat and a sweater.
However, he didn’t have to suffer long. The big man stepped forward and presented him with a fur hat. “Is ushanka,” he growled, though he was trying to smile at the same time. He then offered Karp a long coat with a fur collar. “Wear this too, please.”
Noting the long, ugly scar that bisected the giant’s rugged face, Karp placed the hat on his head and immediately understood how some animals withstood winter in the open. He quickly shucked his peacoat and tossed it back in the car before slipping into the new garment.
“Thank you,” he said to the big man, who only grunted before turning to lead the way into the park.
As they passed the pier on his right, Karp noticed a dark speedboat tied to a dock. He could see the glow of a cigarette coming from a shadowy figure standing on the dock near the bow and another from someone standing in the stern of the boat. He couldn’t be sure, with the poor lighting and blowing snow, but they appeared to be armed with rifles of some sort. My cousin does not travel lightly, he thought.
There was further evidence of that fact when he and his escort walked up to the circular sandstone building known as Castle Clinton, where they were waved inside by two more guards, though these were not exhibiting any weapons.
Also known as Fort Clinton, the structure was originally built to guard against British warships in the War of 1812, though no one had ever fired a shot in anger from it, and it was named after former governor and New York City mayor George Clinton. It now served as a museum, gift shop, and ticket office for those wishing to visit Ellis and Liberty Islands.
And apparently a clandestine meeting place for Russia
n gangsters, Karp thought as he followed his guide down a dark hallway toward a light at the end. His cousin’s sometimes alarming access to places otherwise off-limits to everyone else amazed him. I guess money can buy most everything.
When they reached the small room, apparently an office of some sort, Karp saw his host standing next to a table, pouring a clear liquid into two glasses. The man was tall, as tall as himself, not heavy like his fur-clad guide but again, more like himself, thick but fit. Indeed, the few people who had ever seen them together often commented that they could have been brothers. They both had the same gold-flecked gray eyes and pewter-colored hair, though Ivgeny wore his in a crew cut. The biggest difference was that the right side of the gangster’s face had a shiny, melted look to it, and he wore a patch over his missing right eye; a former colonel in the Soviet Army, he’d been pulled, almost dead, from a burning tank in Afghanistan.
Yet he was still a handsome man with a generous smile that he now turned to Karp as he spotted him coming into the room. “Cousin Butch!” he shouted as he picked up the two glasses. “You look good, like true Slav in your fur!”
Smiling as he watched his cousin walk across the room, Karp thought about how they’d met late in life, in fact only ten or so years earlier, and learned a side of his family history that he hadn’t known. His grandfather and Ivgeny’s grandfather were brothers growing up Jewish in Poland when Russian Cossacks burned the village to the ground. Karp’s grandfather had immigrated to the United States, arriving at Ellis Island where his name had been changed to Karp. Ivgeny’s grandfather had made his way into Russia and joined the Red Army when the tsar was overthrown.
Eventually, Ivgeny’s father, who himself had been a general in the Soviet Army until purged after World War II, fled to the U.S. at his uncle’s invitation. However, while the Karp side of the family had walked the straight-and-narrow path, the Karchovskis had settled in Brooklyn and gone into what Ivgeny euphemistically called “the import-export trade.” When the Soviet Union dissolved and Ivgeny retired from the army, he joined his father, whom he hadn’t seen since childhood, in Little Odessa and was groomed to take over the family business.
Their “business” mostly revolved around providing transportation and false paperwork for immigrants from the former Soviet Union into the United States, as well as the traditional exchange of black-market products between the U.S. and Russia, whether it was Russian icon paintings or pirated American music. They did not deal in drugs, guns, or prostitution. However, as the other Russian gangs were well aware, they were quite capable of swift, efficient violence to protect their turf and themselves; many of Ivgeny’s “associates” were former Soviet special forces who’d served under him, and no mere criminals with guns.
Under normal circumstances, Karp would have probably never had anything to do with his cousin. Not that he didn’t like the man; he did, but consorting with known criminals was not appropriate for the district attorney of New York County. However, they’d been thrown together out of mutual necessity, and Marlene had taken a liking to Karp’s Russian cousin and uncle and stayed in contact. Privately, he was glad she had, both from a personal perspective and because Ivgeny and his men had more than once stepped in and helped thwart terrorist attacks on the city.
The leopard had not changed his spots much. Ivgeny still retained his natural Russian distrust of authority, particularly law enforcement, but he had put family first. And since their original meeting, Ivgeny had come to a grudging respect for the system and its caretakers. “At least, he says, as it is administered by the current DA,” Marlene had once told him.
And here he was yet again, ready to step in and help. We’re going to make an honest man of him yet, Karp thought as he smiled. “Good evening, Ivgeny. It’s good to see you, though you might have chosen better weather if you can arrange that like you seem to be able to arrange everything else.”
Ivgeny grinned mischievously and laughed loudly. “My apologies,” he said. “My ‘influence’ is greatly exaggerated and God hardly pays any attention to my requests. But come, let us drink to warm friendships and families on a cold winter night,” he said, offering a glass to Karp. “Not unlike Moscow, I might add.”
Karp tried to turn down the drink. “I better not,” he said. “I’m going to need to be on my toes later.”
Ivgeny looked like he’d just been told that breathing air was bad for him. “What? Vodka helps clear the mind of everything but the task at hand,” he said. “And is just one little toast with your wayward cousin.”
Karp held out his hand for the glass. “I knew that wouldn’t work, but it was worth a try.”
“Yes, I am a bad influence. Prost!” Ivgeny shouted. “And happy Chanukah!”
Trying not to cough as the fiery liquid ate its way from his mouth to his stomach, Karp had to clear his throat several times before being able to croak out, “Cheers and happy Chanukah to you, too!”
Ivgeny tilted his head and grinned. “Sorry. Is homemade. Old family recipe from Poland. Special top-secret ingredients to give it a little extra kick.”
“It does have that,” Karp agreed. “But I believe the last of the chill has left my toes.”
“Good, good,” Ivgeny said. Then his face grew more serious as he took the glass back. Indicating two chairs near a coffee table, he added, “I know you have work to do, so I should not keep you longer than necessary. Let us sit and I will tell you some things you should know.”
Thirty minutes later, as Karp pulled on the hat and coat to leave, he smiled and patted his head. “Thanks for everything, including the loaners,” he said. “I could probably curl up under one of those trees out there and be perfectly warm. I’ll give them back to your man when I get to the car.”
“There is no need,” Ivgeny replied. “Anton will escort you back, but the clothes are your Chanukah gift.”
“That’s not necessary,” Karp said but was cut off by Ivgeny.
“Please, I understand where some of the reluctance may come from,” his cousin said. “Knowing you, I make sure the money that paid for these came from one of my legitimate businesses, and the garments themselves were purchased from a struggling merchant who was thrilled to have the sale. Please, a gift of warmth from your cousin.”
“You make it tough,” Karp replied. “But all right, I’ll wear them when it’s cold and be thankful that my cousin thought of me while supporting a local businessman.”
Ivgeny and his men had walked with Karp as far as the dock when his cousin stopped and pointed to the dark boat. “This is my ride,” he said. “Again, my apologies to have brought you out on such a night. This is like James Bond movie, no? But I could not risk being seen with you, or calling you with the details. Too many peoples are trying to listen to me—your government, my government, my enemies. I am careful, but I can never be sure. I would have preferred to have you and your lovely bride as guests in my home, but I understand the . . . impracticality . . . of such a thing.”
Karp shook his hand warmly. “It was worth every shiver,” he said. “And yes, someday would be great. I hope it won’t be long.”
“I hope so, too,” Ivgeny said. “Okay, see you later, crocodile.”
“It’s see you later, alligator,” Karp said with a wink.
The Russian gave him a puzzled look. “They are both large reptiles with big teeth.”
“Yes, but it rhymes. ‘See you later, alligator’ rhymes. Then my reply would be, ‘In a while, crocodile.’ ”
“I see, okay, ‘Pretty soon, you old monkey.’ Is better, yes?”
Karp considered suggesting “baboon” but it wasn’t getting any warmer outside. He clapped his cousin on the shoulder. “That’s just fine.”
Ivgeny grinned and patted him back. “You crazy Americans and your sayings. It’s amazing you get anything done.”
“Remember me to your father; perhaps we’ll celebrate the holiday together.”
14
SOME OF THOSE CRAZY AMERICANS were wai
ting for him in his office fifteen minutes later as he walked in from the anteroom after getting off the private elevator. He was brushing the snow off his new coat when Guma, who was slouched in his usual chair sucking on an omnipresent cigar, laughed. “Doctor Zhivago, I presume.”
“Very funny, Goom,” Karp replied, sweeping the hat from his head.
“I think more like From Russia with Love,” Marlene said as she walked up and stood on her tiptoes to kiss him. “I think you look great, and I want to hear all about it later.”
“Now that’s more like it.”
“What? Now I have to start kissing you to get a kind word?” Guma said, looking over at Fulton, who was quietly enjoying the repartee. “Clay, would you stand in for me?”
“No way,” Fulton responded. “I’ve heard some of the language that comes out of that mouth and no way am I kissing Butch.”
“All right, all right,” Karp said, laughing with the others as he took off his coat and hung it on a rack behind his desk. “Enough of the frivolity, the hour is late, and I’m calling this meeting to order. Where’s Mrs. Carlotta?”
“She’s in an interview room with one of Clay’s female detectives,” Marlene said.
“We figured you might want to talk first outside of her presence,” Guma explained.
“Yes, good call,” Karp replied as he sat. He picked up his pencil and jotted down a couple of notes before looking up at the other three, who were sitting down around the room. “Okay, here’s what I got. Just don’t ask me where I got it.”
It took him five minutes to recount the highlights of what he’d learned from Ivgeny about the gangster’s “discussion” with Miller, DiMarzo, and Bebnev. “Your thoughts?”
“Yeah, were they missing any fingers or toes?” Marlene asked.
“What?”
“Never mind, it’s an inside joke I’ll tell you about later,” she said. “So essentially it looks like we’re right about Vitteli’s involvement, unless there’s another ‘Charlie’ who wanted it done as soon as possible.”
Tragic Page 12
