Capture (Butch Karp Thrillers) (14 page)

“H
ERE WE ARE,” ANNOUNCED THE CABDRIVER.
“T
WO FORTY-NINE
Forty-ninth…St. Malachy Chapel.”

Marlene paid the fare and got out in front of the small gray Gothic church known as the actor’s chapel. Built at the beginning of the twentieth century, St. Malachy had since the 1920s attracted actors, dancers, and musicians seeking refuge from the nearby Theater District. Just a couple of blocks west of the hustle and noise of Times Square, it had served as the setting for the funeral of Rudolph Valentino and the wedding of Douglas Fairbanks Jr. to Joan Crawford, and was certainly the only Catholic church in the world with chimes that played “There’s No Business Like Show Business.”

Although not as grand as St. Patrick’s Cathedral or the massive St. John the Divine, it was one of Marlene’s favorites and the current assignment of Father Mike Dugan, a Jesuit priest, another character who’d become embroiled in her family’s unusual history. But she wasn’t there to visit with him.

On the way over to the church, she’d asked her driver to turn west on Forty-seventh to take her past the Augusta Theater, where F. Lloyd Maplethorpe’s latest hit,
Putin: The Musical,
was playing. At the little island created by the convergence of Broadway and
Seventh Avenue called Duffy Square, she’d noted the line of people waiting at the discount ticket office and wondered how many of them were hoping to get in to see
Putin
.

She’d glanced up at the marquee above her head bearing the name of Maplethorpe’s hit production and her stomach turned.
I guess the Irish writer Brendan Behan was right when he wrote “There’s no such thing as bad publicity except your own obituary,”
she thought. But it galled her that a craven coward like Maplethorpe would be enjoying such success a few weeks before his murder trial, while a good and decent man like Stewart Reed was lying on a cold steel table at the morgue.

Funeral services for Reed were still a week away. His sister was serving in the army in Iraq and had been granted a hardship leave to attend the services and care for their invalid mother, but she wouldn’t arrive for several days.

Marlene felt guilty, but wished it could be over sooner. Devastated by Reed’s suicide, her husband was obsessing over riddles sent to him by some mysterious little boy and his pickpocket father, convinced that there was a real threat and worried about the implications for Lucy. It didn’t help that Ned was away on some secret mission and Lucy was leaving that night to return to New Mexico alone.

Knowing that it might be a while before she heard from her daughter, Marlene had planned to stay home all day with Lucy. But then she got a telephone call from Alejandro Garcia asking her to meet him at St. Malachy. Lucy had told her to go ahead.
“I have some errands to run before I leave. We’ll have time to talk at dinner.”

Marlene and Butch had learned that the reformed gang leader turned rap star was back in the city when he’d shown up at the loft with the twins in tow a few weeks earlier. She’d been out walking Gilgamesh and was returning home when a limousine pulled up and the twins popped out with Garcia.

“‘Sup, Marlene,”
Garcia had said, his round, boyish face lit up with his trademark grin.

“Alejandro, good to see you,”
she exclaimed, holding her arms out for a hug.
“I read that you were back in town. And here you are arriving in style…and with my boys.”

“Yeah, check it out, señora,”
Garcia said.
“I saw the boys walking home…I think they said from the movies…so I offered them a lift.”

Marlene caught the follow-my-lead look from Garcia to Zak and Giancarlo.
“That was kind of you,”
she said, giving her boys the eye.
“I can’t wait to hear all about the movie.”

Zak had yawned.
“Boy, am I tired. I think I’m just going to go to bed. We’ll tell you all about it tomorrow, Mom. Isn’t that right, G?”

“Absolutely,”
Giancarlo responded, barely able to stifle a yawn of his own.
“Really wore ourselves out playing football in the park.”
The twins had hurried into the loft building.

Marlene had laughed.
“Guess that’s what you’d call ‘buying time’ or ‘by morning the old lady will probably forget.’ I won’t ask you to betray a confidence, but thanks for bringing them home.”
She nodded up at where the lights were on in the loft.
“Come on up and say hi to Butch.”

“Are you loco?”
Garcia laughed.
“A notorious gangster hanging with the Man in his crib?”

“Quit it.”
Marlene laughed.
“We’re all proud of you, including Butch. We have both of your CDs, and I think he knows all the words to the current big hit ‘Spanish Harlem.’ Or at least he does a pretty decent job of lip-syncing with the twins, and even busts a few moves when he thinks I’m not watching. Come on in, maybe we can get him to do it.”

Marlene was only exaggerating a little. She and Butch appreciated that unlike other rappers their boys sometimes listened to, Garcia avoided using profanity, never used “niggah” or any derivations thereof, and never felt like he had to refer to women as bitches or “hos.” His lyrics still resonated with the anger and frustrations of the streets, but they were antiviolence and preached respect for one another. The twins had pointed out that he might have made more money if he’d sold out to gangsta rap or got more sexually explicit, but he’d stayed true to his beliefs in using his music as a constructive force.

“The Man bustin’ moves? Uh, gracias, but no, I don’t think I want to see that,”
Garcia said with a look of mock horror on his face. Then he smiled.
“But maybe some other time. I appreciate the offer…. Anyway, I need to cruise. I’m supposed to meet up with Father Mike, and I’m running late. I was at a cast party with an old girlfriend who has a part.”

“Really? Which show?”

“Putin: The Musical,” Garcia said, and noted the sour look on Marlene’s face.
“Yeah, I know, I know. I’m not wild about it either. But she’s just trying to make it on Broadway and it’s a job. She’s also having a hard time believing that little punk-ass is a killer. Or she doesn’t want to believe it.”

Alejandro had obviously been uncomfortable talking about Maplethorpe, so Marlene had patted him on the shoulder.
“I understand. Say hi to Father Mike,”
she said.
“I hope you’re not going in for confession, he might be up all night listening to your laundry list of sins.”

Garcia laughed, but then a troubled look crossed his face.
“Unfortunately, it’s nothing as simple as that. I don’t know if you heard about it, but a couple of my old homeboys got shot up a couple weeks ago.”

“The Inca Boyz shooting in Central Park? Sure, I read about it in the newspaper,”
Marlene replied.
“The press speculating that it was some sort of turf war.”

“Well, for once they got it mostly right. Another gang is trying to muscle in on my old hood in the SH. They call themselves the Rolling 777s. They’re Black Muslims.”

“A Muslim street gang?”

Garcia nodded.
“Damn straight. I’ve been told that the triple Seven is a special number to Muslims, like triple Six is to devil worshippers. Word on the street is that they were associated with that mosque that was involved with that attack on the New York Stock Exchange. Until recently, they mostly stayed in the black part of Harlem, but according to my former homies the Inca Boyz, that’s not true anymore.”

“So what’s different about them?”
Marlene asked.
“Aren’t they just sort of a younger version of Nation of Islam?”

“No, they’re a lot more radicalized than that,”
Garcia replied.
“We hear they get their direction from overseas.”

“Al-Qaeda?”

Garcia shrugged.
“I don’t know. But they do a lot of talking about jihad and that Islam is the only religion for brown people—black or Latino. I know they’re a lot better organized and more militant than the average street gang like the Inca Boyz. We were mostly about protecting our hood and trying to make a little money. The Rolling 777s sell dope and whores and guns just like any other big gang—apparently it ain’t against their religion if their customers ain’t Muslim. But mostly what they’re selling is radical Islam, and if you ain’t buying, they can get nasty. My homeboys are mostly retired from the gangbanger life, but these shootings has got everybody riled up and lookin’ for revenge. Father Mike asked me to come back and see if I can help him avoid a street war.”

That had been in early October and Marlene had not seen Garcia since. As she walked up to the carved wooden doors of St. Malachy, she wondered what he wanted.

When she got his call that afternoon, she figured it had something to do with the Inca Boyz and the Rolling 777s. But was surprised when he said he wanted her to “meet someone who might have something to say about the Maplethorpe case…if you can get her to talk about it.”

Marlene had suggested that if this person was a witness or had information to provide regarding the case, it would be more appropriate for her to talk to a police detective or someone with the DAO. But Garcia had nixed that.

“I don’t know that I can get her to talk even to you,”
he’d said.
“She sure as hell ain’t ready to talk to the 5-0 or your old man. Maybe that’s the next step, but she’s heard me talk about you before and knows I trust you.”

Marlene was surprised to find the door of the church locked. She knocked and after a few moments heard a latch being turned. The door opened and she smiled at the sight of the rugged countenance of the gray-haired priest who stood there beaming at her.

“Marlene, my old friend! Come in out of the cold, child,” Father
Mike Dugan insisted. She stepped over the threshold and into a bear hug from the former Notre Dame football star.

“It’s good to see you, too, Father,” Marlene replied, looking beyond him at the apparently empty chapel. “Is Alejandro here?”

“Not yet,” he said. “But any minute.”

About the same time that Marlene Ciampi went past the Augusta Theater, Alejandro Garcia greeted Carmina with a dozen roses as she left her dressing room. “For the most beautiful and talented actress,
muy bueno
.”

Carmina rewarded him with a smile and a kiss. “Alejandro Garcia, are you trying to tell me you recognize your mistake when you walked out on me?”

“Oh no, never me,
chica
. If I remember right, you was the one who said she didn’t want to be my girl.”

“That was back when you was the Inca Boyz gang leader and headed nowhere fast,” she replied. “Then you shot that punk in the ass, and they sent you to juvie. Next thing you know, you’re a big-shot rapper and no room for me in your life.”

“I don’t remember no letters or visits at juvie,” Garcia pointed out.

“I don’t remember being invited,” Carmina retorted, and then reached up and touched his face. “Doesn’t matter,
mi amor
. We both had our own roads to follow.”

“Maybe those roads don’t always have to be in other directions,” Garcia responded, taking her hand and raising it to his lips.

Carmina giggled and was about to answer when she looked over his shoulder and a cloud passed across her face. Garcia looked behind and saw F. Lloyd Maplethorpe, dressed in a crimson suit, approaching, accompanied by a large, heavily muscled man and, of course, followed by his gaggle of sycophants.

“Ah, the lovely Carmina,” Maplethorpe squeaked in his Truman Capote–esque voice, “and Boom, what a pleasure to see you again. Did you catch the show? You did? Didn’t you just love it? You know I’ve been thinking that perhaps after this I should do a hip-hop musical. Perhaps you’d write the score for me?”

“Sounds interesting,” Garcia said without enthusiasm. He noticed that Carmina kept her eyes down even when Maplethorpe reached out and lifted her chin with his finger. He reacted instinctively to intervene, which caused the big man with Maplethorpe to step forward menacingly.

Maplethorpe caught the escalation in tension between his bodyguard and the young Latino and chuckled. “Now, now, Gregor. Mr. Garcia was only resenting my touching his girlfriend. He was playing out his role as protector, which is as it should be. Then again, he should know that Carmina and I have a special relationship that goes beyond the theater. Isn’t that right, my dear?”

Carmina nodded but stepped back and away from his hand. “Yes, Mr. Maplethorpe, we’re…friends.”

“Excellent,” Maplethorpe said, and clapped his hands as if Carmina had just performed her lines perfectly. “You do remember our little agreement, darling?”

“Yes, of course, Mr. Maplethorpe,” Carmina responded. She looked at Garcia and saw the anger rising to the surface of his face. “Our business agreement.”

Maplethorpe tilted his head and then smiled as if he was catching on to some hint. “Yes, indeed…our business agreement.” He stepped forward and patted her on the top of her head. “There’s a good girl. Now I really must be off. Boom, dear boy, you really must call my assistant the next time you’re in town. We’ll do lunch and talk about my idea.”

With that, Maplethorpe suddenly turned and walked away, his retinue parting like the Red Sea before an iridescent Moses. The man named Gregor lingered a moment to stare at Garcia, his wide, scarred face and thick features contorted into a sneer.

However, although six inches shorter and forty pounds lighter, Garcia didn’t blink or look in the least intimidated. “You got a problem?” he demanded.

“Alejandro! Please don’t,” Carmina said, placing a hand on his chest.

The big man smirked. “That’s right, listen to girlfriend,” he said in heavily accented English. “Safer that way.”

“Fuck that,
pendejo,
” Garcia spat, but Carmina grabbed him by
the arm and guided him away. The big man laughed and the young rapper started to turn back, but Carmina dug her nails into his skin.