Capture (Butch Karp Thrillers) (7 page)

Yet, he was still uncomfortable with exposing her to danger. She was, in fact, a relative—not a niece but a cousin, the daughter of his first cousin Roger Karp, the district attorney of New York.

“My taste in women? Nadya was as beautiful as she was dangerous when she was young…a very stimulating combination to a lonely army officer fighting the mujahedeen in Afghanistan. And she was good at hiding the corruption in her soul.”

“The corruption in her soul? You Russians are so poetic,” Lucy scoffed, rolling her eyes. “I think a better description might be ‘hiding her sociopathic tendencies.’ But enough about your past conquests of dangerously ill women, isn’t it time to tell the boys that she’s on the way?”

Ivgeny held up a small electronic device. “I already have,” he replied. “As soon as you confirmed it was the…target.” He gave the horse a whack on the rump to send it trotting off down the road.
“Let’s go.”

The pair left the disabled cart in the road and walked across the field to the barn of an abandoned farm. Inside, they changed quickly out of the peasant garb and into the Westernized clothing of city dwellers out for a drive in the country.

Lucy opened the door of the barn further, looking up toward a distant hill. “Good hunting, my darling,” she whispered. “And be safe.” She turned as Ivgeny wheeled a Ural 750 motorcycle with sidecar out of one of the stalls in the back.

Karchovski pulled on an old-fashioned leather helmet, swung his long leg over the motorcycle, and started the engine. He revved the engine and grinned. “So, I look like James Dean, no?”

“Uh, no,” Lucy replied. “More like Boris Karloff in leather. Besides, who said you get to drive?”

“Such impudence! And like hell I would put my life in the hands of such a
ëhok
Now have a seat, it’s time to leave.”

Lucy laughed and got in the sidecar, pulling on her own helmet as Karchovski put the motorcycle in gear and roared out of the barn. At the road they stopped and looked in the direction Malovo’s truck had gone, then Karchovski turned the other direction and raced off up the road.

A
S THE PREMONITION OF AN UNSEEN THREAT FADED FOR THE
moment, Karp motioned for the detective to remain in the sedan and walked around to the front passenger side. “Good morning, Detective Neary,” he said as he opened the door and got in next to the driver.

“Morning, sir,” Detective Al Neary replied without a lot of enthusiasm.

“What’s new?” Karp asked, noting a crumpled copy of the sports section from the
New York Post
lying on the seat between them.

“You mean, other than the Knicks still suck, the Jets are playing like horseshit, and the Rangers are goin’ nowhere but down the toilet?” the young man replied in his thick New York Irish accent, then shrugged. “Not much.”

“Pretty much the same with the Yankees,” Karp commiserated.

“I’d thank you to never mention those bums in this vehicle again,” Neary replied. “After that meltdown in September…and to that bunch of stiffs from Boston…Jesus H. Christ on a stick! ’Scuse my language, but I’ve sworn off baseball.”

“But aren’t you the guy who named your kids after Yankee players?”

“Yeah, Lou Gehrig Neary, Joe DiMaggio Neary, and Micki
Mantle Neary…. Micki’s a girl, so me and the wife spelled it with two
i
’s instead of an e-y.”

“I’m sure she’ll appreciate the gesture someday.”

“It was that or name her Babe Ruth Neary. But I didn’t want a bunch of guys runnin’ around her high school callin’ my little girl Babe. I mighta had to shoot one of ’em.”

“Well, then I’m glad you chose Micki with two
i
’s. Our caseload at the DAO can’t handle another cop brutality trial.”

The short green-eyed detective laughed. “Yeah, and I wouldn’t do so well in the joint. So where to, chief?”

Karp turned toward the younger man and wiggled his eyebrows. “How’d you like a piece of the best cherry cheese coffee cake in the world?”

The detective put the Lincoln into Drive and lurched away from the curb. “Got to be Il Buon Pane at Third and Twenty-ninth.”

Karp was impressed. “You’re right. But how’d you know?”

Neary looked at him like he was nuts. “You’re askin’ a cop how he knows where to find pastry and a good, hot cuppa joe?”

“Yeah, okay, I’d expect nothing less from my NYPD guardians,” Karp conceded. “But it’s a small place so I didn’t think anybody else had heard of it.”

“Well, actually, you’re probably right, unless you live in the neighborhood or someone turned you on to the place,” Neary admitted. “But I used to walk that beat when I was first comin’ up on the force, and Moishe’s one of those old-school guys who still believes in free coffee and a snack for the cops. Makes the bad guys think twice about hittin’ a place that’s popular with New York’s finest. Go ahead, rob the banks. Kidnap the women. Beat the crap out of each other. But never, ever roll a place where cops get free eats. Not if you want to keep your ass out of Riker’s Island.”

“Then Il Buon Pane it is,” Karp chuckled. “And make it snappy. I’m starting to drool all over one of my favorite Father’s Day ties.”

Ten minutes later, Neary had successfully battled morning rush hour and let Karp out in front of the little bakery.

“Sure you don’t want to come in?” Karp asked.

“Nah, I’m going to stick with the car,” the detective answered. “My luck the frickin’ city street department would come along and
tow it just out of spite. But if you’d send out a piece of the cherry cheese coffee cake and a cuppa, I’d be much obliged. I might even stick around and give you a ride to the office…. On second thought, make it a piece of the blueberry cheese coffee cake. I’ve heard blueberries are good for you.”

“Yeah, blueberry cheese coffee cake has got to be healthy. I’ll make sure you get a piece. But after that you don’t have to wait, I’ll be about thirty minutes and I can catch a cab…”

“Take your time, I ain’t going nowhere. Clay would have my ass. Besides, I want to reread the story about last night’s Knicks game so that I can get my blood pressure to spike again…. Those dumb-ass wastes of space…”

Karp got out of the car and stood there for a moment looking at the bakery, its big windows filled with every sort of delicacy, from many-tiered wedding cakes to pastries to loaves of breads. A vent above the window, apparently leading directly back to the ovens, poured a delicious aroma over the sidewalk that chased away any thoughts of a cold winter.

It never ceased to amaze him that a place like Il Buon Pane—a two-story, redbrick affair probably built sometime around the beginning of the twentieth century—could still exist on a busy intersection in the heart of Manhattan. Although lease prices had fallen after 9-11 and the subsequent exodus to supposedly safer havens on the other side of the East and Hudson rivers, it seemed incredible that an old neighborhood bakery could pay the rent and support its owners and their employees.

Then again, there was always a steady stream of customers going into the shop. Some appeared to have been arrested by the bouquet of fresh bread and drifted into the store as if sleepwalking; others swung open the door with obvious joy written all over their faces, like soldiers home from a war.

Karp knew how they all felt. His stomach growled at the thought of a warm, dark rye right out of the oven, slathered in Pennsylvania apple butter. Or the German chocolate cake so rich that a simple taste was ecstasy, though who could stop at anything less than a full piece? And yet all these delights were trumped by Moishe’s cherry
cheese coffee cake—sensually warm, oozing cherries and cream cheese, and big enough to feed a family of four.

Glancing up, Karp noted the Star of David in the window of the apartment above the store. Moishe and his wife, Goldie, lived above the bakery, a quiet Jewish couple who kept Shabbat by closing on Fridays late afternoon and Saturdays and attended the Third Avenue Synagogue near Central Park.

He’d met them one day several months earlier when Marlene’s father, Mariano, who had been recently diagnosed with senior dementia, left his home in Queens, took a subway, and then walked the rest of the way to the bakery. Il Buon Pane had once been owned by a boyhood friend from Italy, and in Mariano’s confused state, he thought his friend still owned it. But Mariano’s friend had died many years before after selling the bakery to Moishe and Goldie, who had immigrated to the United States after World War II. Moishe had worked for the owner for many years and took over when he retired.

It turned out that Moishe had been in the synagogue when the suicide bomber attacked. He’d been one of the lucky ones who’d survived with nothing more than bruises and cuts. But then, he was a born survivor, having lived through the horrors of the German death camp at Sobibor during World War II.

Detective Neary could still be heard cursing his hometown teams in the car when Karp opened the door to Il Buon Pane. He grinned when he saw the small elderly man with the big ears, which seemed to be the only thing preventing his baker’s cap from sliding down over his face. Moishe was turned away from him, smiling at a customer as he took one of her hands in both of his and thanked her for visiting his shop.

The customer, a young woman, looked up at Karp, a beatific smile on her face, as if she’d just had a word with the Pope. She opened the bakery bag she clutched and bent her head to sniff the contents. “Strudel,” she murmured as she turned and headed for the back of the shop.

“Butch!” the old man shouted as he turned and saw him. He wiped his flour-coated hands on his apron and came out from
behind the counter with both arms extended. “It is so good to see you, my friend…. Such a thing to be able to say that the district attorney of New York is my friend! What a great country! Shalom!”

A half dozen customers turned to watch curiously as the gnomish little baker embraced the giant man in the off-the-rack dark blue suit. The special attention embarrassed Karp a little, but Moishe was so open and unaffected that Karp clapped the little man on the back and gave him a squeeze. “Good to see you, too, my friend,” he said, looking around behind the counter and toward the doorway leading to the ovens. “Where’s Goldie?”

At the mention of his wife’s name, Moishe turned somber. “She’s upstairs in bed,” he said quietly. “Today is the anniversary of the day the Germans rounded up her family in Amsterdam and shipped them off to Auschwitz. It still troubles her that of them all—her parents, two brothers, and her older sister—only she survived. Every year it’s the same; she shuts herself in the dark and wants to be alone with her memories.”

Karp nodded. “I understand. I’m sorry if this wasn’t a good day to invite my friends to visit your shop.”

Moishe brightened. “Nonsense. This is my Goldie’s day to grieve. But she would not want all the world to cry with her. That’s not Goldie. No…today is a good day and some of your friends are here already…. I am looking forward to a few moments to listen in on the conversations of great men!”

“I think that you’ll more than hold your own in these conversations,” Karp said, “that’s why I asked them to come here. They’re always interested in meeting other agile minds.”

“Well, then I hope a genius comes in for a Danish, because otherwise they may be sorely disappointed.” Moishe laughed as he led the way toward the back of the shop. “You haven’t seen our new sitting room. The electronics store next door went belly up and there was no one to take the lease. So the landlord—an old friend and customer—agreed to lease it to me for a percentage of the profits, which is a good deal for both of us.”

Karp was surprised to discover that a doorway had been built between the old bakery and the space next door on Twenty-ninth Street. He’d been dropped off on Third Avenue and he hadn’t
noticed that the space had been converted into a tastefully decorated sitting room with tall tables surrounded by bar stools, and couches with coffee tables.

Quite a few people were already in the back, enjoying their treats. Some were gathered in small groups that buzzed with earnest conversations. Elsewhere, young couples drank their coffees and looked dreamily into each other’s eyes or laughed about some private joke. Others sat alone, working on computers.

“We have wireless,” Moishe explained. “As you can see, it helps with business.”

“You’ve got Starbucks beat, hands down.”

Moishe looked troubled. “Do you think it’s too corporate? Too impersonal? I agonized over whether to ban computers. Cell phones aren’t allowed. This should be a place to be alone with your thoughts, or with someone else who is also here, not a disembodied voice.”

Karp shook his head. “Not at all. I think it’s very smart, and I think it’s going to be a great success.” He noticed the young woman from the front sitting with her eyes closed and the same smile on her lips as she slowly chewed a piece of her strudel.

The little man’s blue eyes brightened above his prodigious nose. “Ah, good, I was worried that you’d think I sold out to the Man.” He pointed. “And there are your friends.”

Karp looked where he was pointing to a group of older men sitting around a circular wooden table at the very back of the room. Several of them were already waving, trying to get his attention. He walked quickly over. “I see the Sons of Liberty Breakfast Club and Girl-Watching Society has already convened.”

“Ah, the prodigal son has arrived,” a thin, distinguished man with long gray hair tied back in a ponytail and mutton-chop sideburns said as he stood and held out his hand.

“Your Honor,” Karp replied, taking the man’s hand. Although he looked like an aging hippy from the Village, Frank Plaut had once been one of the most respected federal judges with the Second Circuit Court of Appeals and a professor of law at Columbia University.

Karp turned toward the others. In all, seven men sat at the table.
Besides Frank Plaut, there was a former Marine who fought at Iwo Jima, Saul Silverstein, Father Jim Sunderland, top defense attorney Murray Epstein, the poet Geoffrey Gilbert, former U.S. attorney for the southern district Dennis Hall, and a retired editor of the
New York Post
, Bill Florence.

The men referred to their group as the Sons of Liberty Breakfast Club and Girl-Watching Society. They were a self-described group of “old codgers whose wives chase us out of the apartment once a week” to meet over breakfast and debate politics, the law, art, foreign affairs, and anything else that interested them.

When Karp arrived, he found Father Sunderland talking about the Maplethorpe case. “The prosecution presented its case, and he seems guilty. But then the defense called all those experts and suddenly I wasn’t so sure anymore.”

“It was the old spaghetti defense,” former federal prosecutor Dennis Hall said.

“Spaghetti defense?” Moishe asked, having just wandered over.

“Yeah, throw it all against the wall and see what sticks,” Hall explained. “Just how many ‘expert witnesses’ did the defense call, Butch, a dozen?”

“Something like that,” Karp agreed, sitting down. The others knew that as a rule he didn’t comment much about ongoing cases. He trusted these men, but someone might innocently let something slip in the wrong company, and it’d be in the newspapers by morning. He didn’t believe in trying his cases in the court of public opinion, nor did he want something he said to be used by a defense attorney.

“It’s ridiculous,” Hall complained.

“Au contraire,” replied Epstein, who as a former defense attorney was Hall’s counterpart in these philosophical legal debates. “The defendant has the right to produce any and all evidence that might throw doubt on what the prosecution alleges, or demonstrate his innocence. It’s up to the state to prove its case and counter the defense experts if it can. That’s our system of justice.”

“The spaghetti defense has nothing to do with justice or the search for the truth,” Hall retorted. “It has everything to do with trying to befuddle the jury. Defense attorneys hope that if they
throw enough nonsense in the air, Susie Housewife, Joe Plumber, Bernie Businessman, and Miguel Mechanic on the jury will be too confused to convict their client beyond a reasonable doubt.”

“Ah, but the so-called search for the truth is the role of the district attorney,” Epstein pointed out. “The role of the defense attorney is to zealously represent his client and force the state to prove its case.”