“Son of a bitch!” said Roland, loud enough to draw curious stares from several journalists.
The follow-up question was a no-brainer. Are you implying that this is the case with the New York D.A.? Through a half smirk Mr. Colombo declined to imply anything, asserting that he was interested only in evidence, but that the D.A.’s investigation of the Catalano murder seemed to be in some disarray. The police had come up with a good suspect for the trigger man, but the D.A. had declined to arrest this person. Was there an active federal investigation of the New York D.A.? Mr. Colombo reminded the assembly that grand jury procedures, especially as regards investigations in progress, were closely sealed, but that he intended to vigorously pursue any and all lines of inquiry, no matter where they led, and that was all the time he had for questions, thank you.
“I guess we saw how the pros do it,” was Karp’s comment as they weaved through mobs of rushing journalists.
“Yeah, a truly brilliant job, the little fuck. He just about accused us of sleeping with the Mob. Jack’s going to have twins. And he knew about the Marky Moron business, too. Shit!”
“Hey, we did the right thing there. Cops talk, and Tommy’s always got his ears open for bitching about his colleagues,” said Karp as they passed through the lobby of the Federal Building. “The story is the putatively mobbed-up D.A. won’t get tough with the Bollanos, so the feds have to step in.”
“Yeah, and he’s going to pressure us to give state grand jury immunity on the Eddie Cat hit. And not just for the Chinaman. He’s going to want us to walk Joe P. on it, too. He’ll be glad to forget a murder or two or three provided someone drops a dime on the Sallys.”
They paused outside the building, before the long, rusted steel Serra sculpture, another federal creation that no one liked but everyone had to live with.
“Don’t worry, Roland,” said Karp soothingly.
“Easy for you to say. Frank Anselmo is flashing his famous I-told-you-so smile and telling everyone you fucked us up.”
“Time is on our side,” said Karp.
“Is it? You mean, if we find this Lie is dirty in a previous life. I wish I was as sure as you.”
“I met him.”
“You did. What are you going on, your famous instinct?”
“That, and the fact that the guy asked for me. Why me?”
“You’re in the papers, on TV.”
“Yeah, but so are you, so’s Jack, for that matter. No, the connection has to be Chinatown, the Chens, Marlene, Lucy. . something. I live around there, so I’ll be more. . what? More sensitive to the plight of a poor illegal immigrant gangster? Easy to get to if I don’t do what they say? Anyway, the guy’s not what he seems, and it’s just too damn convenient him turning up to pin it all on Joe P.”
“I’d like to get my hands on the shooter. By the way, Lie has got a solid alibi. On the night of he was gambling. A couple dozen great and near great of Chinatown saw him.”
“So we’re looking for two other guys. I assume the cops are on it?”
“Balls to the wall, or what passes for it nowadays, but no real leads,” said Roland glumly. “How’s V.T. coming on the paper?”
“I was just going to go see him,” said Karp as the two men entered the courthouse via the special D.A.’s entrance on Leonard Street. “Come on along.”
Roland checked his watch. “I’d love to, but I got to see Judge Paine on something. Be nice to have him up there if we ever get a defendant on Catalano.”
Karp made a sour face.
“What, you don’t like Paine? Heshy Paine? He’s got the world’s biggest hard-on for the Mob.”
“I know that. The problem with prosecutor’s judges, as you well know, Roland, is that they’re so eager to please that they leave a trail of reversible errors the size of the Thomas E. Dewey Thruway. Give me fair any day.”
Roland ignored this last, waved, and went off to his date, leaving Karp feeling like a tendentious jerk. Having someone like Paine in there meant that you’d win your case, and two or three years later the guy would walk on appeal, which did not, if you were Roland and his many epigones, count on your scorecard. When Karp put them away, he wanted them to stay put for a decent interval, just as they had back in the golden age under Garrahy, but he understood that this was a minority opinion in the current age of brass.
Karp went back to his office, checked his messages, found one from his daughter and one from V. T. Newbury. Feeling only somewhat guilty, he called Newbury back first, had a brief conversation arranging for an immediate meeting, and then called Lucy.
“I have to go to the lab,” the girl said. “You still have that cop outside.”
“Lucy, we haven’t got those guys yet. I don’t want to take a chance on them trying anything again.”
“Tran will be with me. He’ll stay with me the whole time. Please, Daddy dear?”
She hadn’t called him “daddy dear” in a while, so he adopted a milder tone. What he wanted to say was, okay, Lucy, I know you think Tran is some kind of superhero, but we can’t take the chance, et cetera, et cetera, and more paternal bumf as needed, but all he managed to get out was, “Okay, Lucy-”
At which point she shrilled, “Oh, great! Bye,” and the phone went dead.
Karp yelled out a curse and redialed. Four rings and the machine picked up. He slammed down the receiver and dialed the first four digits of Marlene’s car phone before he recalled that his wife was still in the hospital. Uttering foul language, he then called Columbia information, got Shadkin’s lab number, called it. A woman answered and informed him that Lucy Karp had not yet arrived but they were expecting her. And who was she speaking to?
“Oh, never mind. . her father, tell her her father called and have her call. . oh, hell, just forget it!”
Who to call? He sat there for a minute, fuming. Call the cops? For what? They were doing what they should, looking for Kenny Vo and company. That damn kid! And what was he going to do when he caught up with her? Give her a spanking?
“Should I come back?” V. T. Newbury asked from the doorway.
“Huh? Oh, no, I was just thinking of something.” Embarrassed, Karp put the phone down in its cradle.
“I’ll say. You were sitting there like a waxwork. I was thinking alien abduction.”
Vernon Talcott Newbury came in and sat down in Karp’s side chair, crossed his elegantly flanneled legs, and plunked a thick folder on the desk. Newbury was a short, slight, beautifully sculptured man, somewhat younger than Karp, the scion of a family that had helped give Peter Stuyvesant the boot back in 1667, and had been prominent in the financial life of the city ever since. That such a refined creature should have chosen to labor in the deep slime pits of the criminal courts was unusual; that he had stayed made him unique. Karp thought V.T. was the smartest person currently thus employed and considered him his best friend. He was an ornament at the Fraud Bureau, where it was agreed that when it came to tracking dirty money and bad paper, the perfect little gentleman (as he called himself) had no peer.
V.T. looked at Karp closely, a smile hesitating on his face. “You okay, Butch?”
“Yeah. No, my life is collapsing, but never mind. What’ve you got?”
“Marlene all right?”
“Yeah, recovering is what they say. Head trauma, they like to keep them in there for a while. So, you find out our guy’s secrets?”
“A few. Given the guy, I’d have to say I’m just penetrating the dew on the apple.” He opened his folder. “Okay, some background. This was explained to me by the nice Mr. Yat over at Citicorp. The first thing you start with when you want to trace someone’s movements or money is, naturally, his name. With Chinese persons this is not straightforward. The Chinese character that represents the name is unchanging, but the way we barbarians transliterate it into something we can read varies wildly, and not just because of the different systems we use, but because the way a character is pronounced varies depending on the speaker. When I say ‘varies,’ think, oh, English and Portuguese.”