Corruption of Blood kac-7

by Robert K. Tanenbaum

  "You think he wasn't?" asked Ziller.

  "The fuck I know!" snapped Karp. "But V.T. said that Oswald is the key, and it's true whether it's the real one or the fake one, if any. This whole cover-up is designed to do just two things: one, make it impossible to determine exactly how and why and by whom JFK was shot, and two, to obscure who and what Oswald was. The things're connected, and they're connected through the Central Intelligence Agency. Crane just told me he plans to blitz the Agency for starters, so let's do it."

  Ziller nodded after a moment's hesitation, and asked, "Starting where?"

  "With whoever it was at the CIA who supplied the phony picture and the tape to the FBI. That guy, what's his name? Two first names. You know-he testified to the Warrens back then."

  "Paul Ashton David," said Ziller.

  "Yeah, him. Let's get him in here and talk to him. Crane wanted something to show to the committee; let's show them Mr. David."

  The fourth week in purgatory, thought Marlene as she pushed the stroller down the rutted sidewalk alongside Wilson Boulevard; only a thousand years to go.

  After that evening with Bloom, she had dragged herself to work for a few days, increasingly depressed and ineffective. Of course, she was no longer invited to nice meetings in the DA's office, and she could not tell anyone why. Not Karp. Not any of the women in the office. Not her relatives. Friends? Well, did she really have any friends? Who would want to be friends with such a degraded slimeball as Marlene? She had called in sick for a day, then a week, and then she cleaned out her desk. Let Luisa run the unit. Let him try and get into her pants.

  On this morning, Marlene was in her full crazy-lady regalia, wearing her brother's old army field jacket over a red T-shirt she had slept in, and a misbuttoned tan acrylic cardigan. Below this were gray sweatpants and ragged black high-top Converse sneakers. On her head was a venerable New York Yankees hat. Her hair was unwashed and pulled back with a rubber band, and she wore, as she had for some weeks now, the black patch over her missing eye.

  The child in the stroller, in contrast, was immaculately turned out, in a darling lined and belted cherry-colored raincoat, a soft felt hat with a fabric rose in its band, a rust turtleneck jersey with little birdies embroidered on it, nut brown corduroys, red Mary Janes, and fuzzy woolen leg warmers. Lucy's hair shone and her face was scrubbed pink. The message was clear to anyone with the faintest grasp of sidewalk semiotics: I may be a wreck, but I am not a Bad Mother.

  The two of them were going to a playground Marlene had discovered during an earlier expedition. The playground at Federal Gardens was in her opinion unsuitable even for a kid raised in New York, its equipment rusty and covered with lethal surfaces and its sandbox full of cat turds. Besides that, it was frequented by chain-smoking women in their twenties who came out in hair curlers and tatty bathrobes, and talked with one another about daytime TV and about how dumb their husbands were, and screamed in harpy voices at their grubby kids. Marlene had rediscovered the difference between being Bohemian and being white-trash poor.

  As mother and daughter rumbled along they sang, or rather Marlene sang and Lucy pitched in when she knew the lyrics. They sang Lucy's favorite rock classics: "Heart of Gold," "One-Trick Pony," and "Hotel California," all of which Marlene considered to be superior to "Itsy-Bitsy Spider."

  They arrived at the playground, which was built off a side street to the main boulevard, and which served a newish middle-class district of large wooden or brick homes, the kind that have black metal carriage lamps in front of them, to indicate that the owners could afford a coach-and-four if they so desired. The playground equipment was new and artistically woody. Big aircraft tires were also used, for climbing and swinging, and to contribute the proper environmentally responsible effect.

  There were several women and children in the playground when Marlene and Lucy arrived. Unlike the women in Federal Gardens, these were either well dressed in conservative sweater and slacks combos or obvious nannies: one black woman and two Latinas. The nannies sat separately and stared dully at their charges. The four mothers chatted on a bench. Marlene sat on a bench with the black woman, who was young, thin, and wore a pale green uniform with a pink cardigan draped over her shoulders. A baby slept wrapped in woolens in a large gleaming maroon baby carriage, which the nanny jiggled from time to time with a white-shod foot.

  Marlene stretched out her legs gratefully and pulled a cigarette pack out of her bag. It was turning into a fairly nice day. The sun was a bright coin shining down through the leafless maples and there was no wind. Lucy had gone immediately to the sandbox and was playing happily there with her Barbie and her lavender My Little Pony. Two husky boys of five or so were constructing piles and ditches with Tonka trucks and shovels. They ignored her, and she them.

  Marlene lit her Marlboro, blew out a cloud of smoke, and gradually became conscious that the nanny on the other end of the bench was looking at her.

  Marlene nodded. "Nice day," she observed.

  "Sure is. I can't stand it when it rains all day and you get cooped up in the house. Say, I left mine back at the house… would you…?" She gestured toward her mouth.

  Marlene moved closer to her and handed her the pack and matches.

  "I ain't seen you around here," the nanny said after lighting up. "Where you work?"

  "I'm sorry, work…?"

  "Yeah." The nanny cocked a hand toward the sandbox. "Where's the kid live?"

  Marlene pointed vaguely. "Oh, east of here. Off Wilson."

  The woman looked Marlene over and chuckled. "How you get away with that? They cut me loose I showed up dressed like y'all."

  Marlene shrugged. "Different strokes. I guess it makes them feel liberal, I dress like I want."

  "You lucky, girl. People I work for-they like, Lincoln didn't free no niggers. But they pay pretty good. How about y'all? You makin' it?"

  "Barely," said Marlene. "My husband got a job down here and we just moved."

  "Yeah, I'd move too, but I ain't got the coins yet. Good thing, though: I got my mama here. She watches my two, and I watch the white folkses'. But not for long. Jerome, that's my husband? He got a job in a factory down in Raleigh. I save up enough, we gonna all move down there, get me a good job, maybe a house."

  "You sound like you've got your act together," said Marlene.

  The woman grinned, showing a flash of gold. "We just startin' in, sister. They got a community college in Raleigh. I figure I could study X ray technician. That or dietician. Get me a qualification, a AA degree, you know? And then, while I'm working, my husband'll go to school." She went on in this vein for some time, and Marlene was content to let the chatter wash over her, sitting in the weak sun and smoking and watching the children play. Time drifted by.

  The nanny stopped abruptly, and smiled sheepishly at Marlene, as if embarrassed to have blown too loudly on her own horn. "You could do that too, you know," she said. "Go to school. You speak real good English. Them over there"-she motioned to the Latina nannies-"they some kinda Guatemalas. Hell, I don't even think they speak Spanish. So, how long you been here?"

  "In Washington?"

  "No, the country. The U.S."

  "Um, oh, years and years."

  "Where from?"

  "Ah, Palermo?"

  "What's that, one of them islands?"

  "It's on an island."

  "Well, if you don't want to be watching other folkses' kids all your life, go to a school. Get you some qualification-"

  This useful advice was interrupted by a loud shriek from the sandbox. One of the little boys had snatched Lucy's My Little Pony and, sporting the bully's nasty grin, was dangling it by its long acrylic mane. Lucy stood in front of him with her fists clenched. "That's mine! Give it back!" she yelled. The boy ignored her and started to twirl the toy horse around by its hair. Lucy made a grab for it and the boy pushed her hard in the chest. She staggered back a few paces, and looked over at Marlene, who had tensed but hadn't moved.

  Lucy dropped her
raincoat, crouched, adopted the boxer's stance she had been taught from infancy, took two steps forward and hit the kid twice in the mouth with straight left jabs. Startled, the boy dropped the pony and threw a roundhouse preschool right. Lucy checked this easily with her left, stepped in close, and crossed a solid right to the nose. And again. Blood spurted and the kid collapsed howling in the sand. Lucy picked up her My Little Pony and began unconcernedly currying the sand from its tresses.

  The mother of the wounded child now came racing from her klatch, crying "Jason! Jason!" and swept up her kid, who was now blue with howling and still pouring with what the sportswriters used to call claret. The woman pulled a wad of tissues from her pocket and held it to the child's nose. After a few minutes, she put the still-sniveling boy on the ground and leaned over Lucy menacingly. "Did you see what you did!" she shouted, grabbing Lucy by the shoulder and waving a finger. "You made Jason bleed. You're a very naughty, naughty girl." Lucy looked at her wide-eyed, and then over at Marlene, who was up and over to Lucy's side in a flash.

  "Hands off my kid, lady," she said flatly.

  "Did you see what your kid did?" said the woman. She was a slim aerobic blonde dressed in a style Marlene always thought of as neatsy-keen: a navy blue car coat, red crewneck, a little pin, blue slacks, new Adidas. Under Marlene's baleful one-eyed stare, she released Lucy.

  "Yes," said Marlene matter-of-factly, "I did. Little Jason here ripped off my daughter's toy, my daughter asked for it back, and when she tried to take it, he pushed her. Then she decked him. You've got blood on your nice coat."

  "Is that what you're teaching her? To hurt people?"

  "In self-defense, yes," said Marlene calmly. "Little Jason's learned a valuable lesson today, madam, one that might keep him out of prison some day, provided it's reinforced: if you take by force things that don't belong to you, you get your lumps. Good day to you."

  Marlene took Lucy's hand, picked up the raincoat, and strode out of the sandbox with as much dignity as such striding allows. Jason's mother stared openmouthed after her; except that she was not dripping ropes of saliva, she looked much like a fighting bull stupefied by a skillfully brandished muleta.

  Marlene steered Lucy back to the bench and put her into her raincoat. "That, that lady was yelling at me," Lucy said, her voice uncertain. "Was I bad?"

  "No, baby, you did good. You remembered never hit once when you can get two shots in. Only next time remember to keep your thumbs tucked." She demonstrated with a fist. "You keep slugging with your thumbs up, one day you're going to break them off."

  "Then I would have broked-off fingers like you?"

  "Yeah, right," Marlene said, and kissed her.

  The nanny, observing this, put in, "You did right, sugar. Don't let them boys push you around."

  Marlene smiled at her and said, "Well, I think we'll be going while the going's good. Always leave 'em bleeding is our motto."

  Jason's mother had joined her group over at the other bench. They were talking animatedly and looking daggers at Marlene and Lucy.

  "Okay, you take care now," said the nanny. "Nice talking to you, and hey-mind what I told you, get yourself some school!"

  Marlene waved at her and she and Lucy headed down the path, Lucy pushing the stroller, singing her version of "One-Trick Pony," which, when she got to the part about a herky-jerky motion, required her to throw her body into a Dionysiac spasm, giggling madly. Marlene was required to join in this, which she did gladly, feeling better than she had in weeks.

  The healing power of justice was what it was, she thought, even playground justice. Maybe especially playground justice, which seemed like the only kind she was likely to see again in this life.

  She felt oddly free and she knew why. She was feeling bad, as she had when, as a schoolgirl she had come home to Queens on a Friday night, shucked out of her blue serge Sacred Heart livery, raced competently through her homework, slipped into skintight black toreador pants, a sleeveless blouse with the collar up in back, over a wired bra that transformed her young breasts into hard little conical gun turrets, between which hung the little gold cross; applied scarlet lipstick and blue eye shadow; put on gold hoop earrings; and booked out the back door to meet, waiting at the end of the block, the sideburned and leather-jacketed Rocco in his chopped and channeled 1950 Ford Fairlane.

  They would cruise Queens Boulevard, hitting a sequence of drive-ins, pizzerias, and vacant lot hangouts in an order as nearly formalized as the stations of the cross. They would race their engines and lay patches of rubber. They would trade friendly insults and use phony draft cards to buy beer, and after enough beer the insults would turn less friendly and there might be scuffling, clumsy fights. A car might be stolen for a joy ride. This was what was meant by being bad, in Queens, in the early sixties.

  That, and parking out by the runways at La Guardia for a bout of similarly formalized sexual groping. Of this activity Marlene was entirely in charge. She had no intention of letting the passionate bad boy go, as the saying then was, all the way, and had discovered, at fourteen, that any importunate demands in this direction could be easily forestalled by direct attention to the actual fount of desire. Marlene's fascination with Rocco's organ, and those of the various Roccos that succeeded him, was (if such a word is not entirely inappropriate) innocent. She regarded penises (how different each one!) much as the air force regarded its X-15 at the time-as experimental instruments, from which much might be learned. A skilled and enthusiastic fellatiste by fifteen, Marlene never heard any complaints about being denied the ultimate liberty from any of the Roccos.

  The Church to one side, Marlene simply could not accept that the Creator of the Universe was overly concerned about the odd blow job. That she had finessed the virgin-whore business by becoming both and neither seemed to her a practical application of the Thomistic synthesis she had learned about in Religion 2, in which she had received an A.

  Throughout this period, therefore, Marlene remained a regular communicant, both at Sacred Heart and at St. Joseph's in the neighborhood, and a frank and voluble confessor, adding much interest to the lives of several elderly priests. Her reputation did not suffer at all, owing to both the sanctity of the confessional and the convenient fact that she went to school miles from where she hung out on weekends. At Sacred Heart she was a model student, demure, and submitting cheerfully to discipline. The Mesdames could hardly have realized that much of her good humor derived from imagining what they would do if they only knew.

  Lucy had now switched songs to "Heart of Gold," which she rendered with something approaching a genuine Neil Young whine. Marlene joined in, her thoughts turning from the past to her present situation and to Karp. Karp was not bad, ever. He had, in addition, a true heart of gold, honest and loving. Occasionally priggish, perhaps, but never would he have sucked after Bloom the way she had, never betrayed himself as she had… Stop! she told herself, that was quite enough of that. She was paying for her mistake, had ditched her job, was living in a rat hole, was dead broke, but on the other hand, she was at long last starting to recover a taste of free. Free to hang out with Lucy, who was more enjoyable company than anyone she was likely to meet in the criminal courts, or official Washington, and free to fully explore bad Marlene, something that she now discovered filled her with a certain anticipation.

  Back in Federal Gardens, Marlene left Lucy snoring gently in her stroller in the living room and opened a beer for herself. She could hear loud voices and heavy movements from the apartment next door. Marlene and Karp called the couple who lived there Thug 'n' Dwarf. Thug was a hulking long-haul truck driver, and Dwarf was his tiny bride. Their relationship seemed to consist of silence, violent arguments, and noisy fucking. Lately the arguments had grown more violent, as Dwarf had brought home a dog without Thug's permission. The barking and whining of this dog now added its note to the audio channel. A final burst of screaming and the door slammed next door: Thug going off to get his load. He'd be back at midnight, ready for action. />
  The phone rang and Marlene went into the kitchen to get it.

  "God, Marlene," said Karp, "I've been calling all day. Where have you been?"

  "It was a nice day. We took a long walk. Why, is anything wrong?"

  "No, but I just wanted to remind you that we have a dinner party to go to tonight. At the Dobbses'."

  A pause. "That's 'remind' meaning 'to inform for the first time'?" asked Marlene sweetly.

  "Yeah, well, I lost track of it; Bert reminded me yesterday. Is that going to be a problem?"

  "No, not really. I have nothing to wear, no baby-sitter, and we have no means of transportation. I tell you what, why don't I just huddle in the cinders and sniffle while you go to the ball?"

  "You're sounding more feisty, anyway," said Karp. "Last couple of weeks I thought it was Invasion of the Body Snatchers."

  "Yeah, well, it's probably just the manic phase. Couple of days I'll try to break into the White House with a secret plan for world peace."

  "Please, don't joke!" said Karp. "Meanwhile, smarty-pants, dumb old husband happened to take care of the baby-sitter and the car both. Clay's going to watch Lucy, and we can borrow his car."

  "Great!" said Marlene. "Does he have a dress I could wear?"

  The truth was that Marlene had packed hardly any of her own clothes during her precipitate flight from New York. She had dragooned her younger brother into leaving his comfortable Village apartment and moving into the loft, at a ruinously low rent, carefully packed all of Lucy's clothes and toys, and, as an afterthought, emptied some of her own drawers and shelves almost at random into an army duffel bag, lest she have to walk the streets of Washington literally nude. Tony dinner parties in McLean were not uppermost in her mind during those dreadful days.

  Thus, she was well supplied with undies, but the only shoes in the house, besides sneakers, were a pair of knee-high, floppy boots suitable for appearing in performances of Der Rosenkavalier. As for dresses and suits, Marlene had grabbed a handful of summer items, having picked up that Washington was swelteringly hot in summer, but having somehow forgotten that it was now closing in on winter. As these were obviously unsuitable, she chose a quilted grayish purple long skirt of some vague central Asian ethnicity, and a good silvery-colored French silk blouse from Saks that unfortunately had a large and indelible wine stain under the right breast.