Reckless Endangerment (12 page)

“Changes how?” Roland asked.

“The guy, the floater, was popped by a pro. These kids, we know, are not pros; they got no connection that we can find to any established terrorist group. But this guy had a tattoo that links him to this so-called House of War organization, which the perps are in too, so I’m asking myself, who whacked this guy and why? I’m getting a picture of another level. Somebody set these kids up maybe. Raney figures there was considerable planning went into this, but the perps are definitely in the short attention-span class.”

Roland said impatiently, “Right, speculation is nice, but we have no evidence that these two acted on anybody’s orders.”

“Uh-huh.” Camera nodded. “Maybe that’s why our guy took five through the head. Maybe he
was
that evidence. I mean, he was the contact. Maybe you should get serious about this, talk to the bosses, get some more juice into the investigation …”

“That’s a lot of maybes,” said Roland, waving his hand dismissively. “That’s a big fucking balloon you’re trying to blow up with about as much gas as a good fart. You got a floater with a tattoo, and all of a sudden we got Black September in town?”

Raney reached out and touched Camera’s sleeve. “Let’s go, Primo, you’re wasting your breath. This guy doesn’t want to hear it.”

“What I don’t want is my case fucked up,” Roland snarled.

The two detectives walked to the door. Raney paused for a parting shot. “Say, Roland—in the event somebody blows up a synagogue or whacks a couple more people of the Jewish persuasion, I’ll remind you where you heard it first. It’ll make a great story.”

He closed the door on a burst of obscenity, and as they walked through the outer office of the Homicide Bureau, he remarked to Camera, “What the fuck is it with him? He’s turning into some kind of old lady.”

Camera shrugged. “He’s the man now. It gets to some people. The big guy used to take the political heat for him. Now he’s feeling the flames himself. I seen it happen before on the job, a million times. Guy passes lieutenant, all of a sudden he’s Nervous Nelly. You want to go talk to these AY-rabs of yours or what?”

“Yeah,” said Raney. He looked up and saw Karp talking to one of the clerks. “Speaking of the devil,” he added as they left the office.

Karp was in the Homicide Bureau office on a routine administrative errand, something that he could have handled easily over the phone, but it had become his habit since starting his job with Keegan to descend without warning on the various bureaus or to stop in at courtrooms and view the proceedings there. Although Karp never interfered in any way, this was like poking an anthill with a stick; no one in the great warren of Centre Street was ever sure that at the next moment the long shadow of the D.A.’s guy would not fall across their doings. This had, in general, a salutary effect, as Karp was the furthest thing from a meddler or a spy, and the various satraps of the district attorney began to use him to convey messages, hints, suspicions, and trial balloons back to Keegan. Karp did not mind doing this (or not doing it, as he judged proper), but this was not his reason for roaming. It was simply that at unpredictable times of the day, it became unbearable for him to sit at a desk and talk on the phone or read. He was a large, healthy, athletic man, and sometimes he simply
had
to move, besides which he needed from time to time an actual immersion in the real life of the courts.

He had, of course, observed the two detectives leaving Hrcany’s office, and had caught (as had everyone else within a hundred feet) the concluding sentiments of its occupant, and this, since he knew who Raney was and who Camera was, made him curious indeed. He walked into Roland’s office, after knocking and ignoring the shouted command to go away.

“Butch, I’m busy,” said the bureau chief, glowering.

Karp ignored this too. “Something new on the Shilkes case?” he asked.

“What makes you think that?”

“Oh, you know—Raney’s the guy on it and you’re blowing a fuse at him. What’d he do, lose some evidence?”

“The case is under control,” said Roland. Karp knew him well enough to know that had Roland really thought that, he would have screamed Karp out of his office, so he dragged a chair over with his foot and sat down.

“Make yourself comfortable,” said Roland.

Karp waited a beat or two and said equably, “What is it with you, Roland? Both of us worked for years for Jack Keegan. He trained us. We respect him. He respects us. I respect you. I
had
the job. Now you
got
the job … and you’re acting like it’s still the former asshole up there in the D.A. slot and I’m some kind of stooge. And I come in here, you just had a big fight with the detective on the hottest case you got, and I ask you what’s wrong and instead of just fucking
telling
me, you get all coy. So what should I think? That for some weird reason you’re planning on
concealing
something from the district attorney?” He paused. On Hrcany’s face he observed the same petulant curl of lip, sidewise look, and wrinkled brow he had observed on his son Zak’s face after the child had been caught in a misdeed. Not for the first time Karp reflected that raising baby sons gave him insights into how to deal with men like Roland Hrcany, a type with which the criminal-justice field was inordinately well supplied.

“Concealing is not a word I would use,” said Roland with studied casualness, pursing his mouth. “There’s nothing to conceal. It’s garbage. Raney and Camera found a floater who may or may not be connected with the two defendants in Shilkes, and I was trying to make the point that they shouldn’t prejudice the case against these guys when they question them.”

Karp pressed him for details, which he gave out, honestly but with as little good grace as possible, ending with the conclusions he had shared with the two cops.

After that Karp was silent for a long while, until Roland asked impatiently, “So, are you going to lay this shit on Keegan?”

“Not at the moment. Let’s wait and see what Raney finds out from the suspects. But let’s really keep in touch here, Roland. Let’s play it straight up.”

“Right,” said Roland in a tight voice. “I just don’t want my case soured behind this.”

Karp suppressed a sigh. “Roland? Can I give you some advice? Ease up a little. Just run the case on the evidence you got, which is plenty. Don’t try to control the externals. Lay as much as you can on your second seat. Who is it, by the way?”

“I picked Harris for it.”

“Good choice. Tony’s good.”

The tension that Roland had felt since Raney and Camera had come through with their news was now just starting to dissipate. Roland felt this, but did not understand why, or what Karp had done to make it so. He perceived that he had won something from Karp and thought he felt all right again because of that, because he was on top of things. He leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head.

“So—anything else you want to know?” he asked easily.

Karp, smiling, replied, “You’re running like a clock, I hear, Roland. The Mexican brothers are scheduled?”

“Uh-huh. Late May, probably. Oh. Speaking of them, take a look at this.” He picked up a sheet of folded lined notebook paper and handed it across. On it was written in ballpoint pen, in bold capitals:
OBREGONS ARE INOCENT LET THEM GO OR YOU IN BIG TROUBEL WE MEAN IT
!

Karp flipped the note back on the desk. “You talk to them about this yet?”

“Hell, no! I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.”

“I don’t know, Roland, threatening a prosecutor is no joke.”

“Fuck ’em! I got a whole folder of those things. Don’t you?”

“Some,” admitted Karp. “But it’s probably not as thick as yours.”

At which Roland, after a suspicious scowl, laughed long and hard, and Karp joined in.

In the apartment in Washington Heights he now shared with the woman Connie, El Chivato dressed for work: his tooled boots, his white jeans (held up with a thick belt, its concha buckle set with turquoise), a white shirt buttoned to the collar, a tan sports coat in the yoked-front Mexican style, with slash pockets outlined in dark piping, and his long canvas coat over all. He examined himself in the mirror affixed to the back of a closet door. He walked back and forth, observing how the coat hung. He knelt, bent over, sat down on the bed, watching and listening carefully. Nothing clanked and the coat concealed what it had to.

El Chivato had experienced no difficulty in finding the material he needed in New York. Obregon had given him some names in the area, and Connie had access to sufficient cash. Therefore, in pockets cleverly built into the heavy canvas of his coat, the boy now carried a Colt King Cobra .357 Magnum revolver, a Winchester Model 1300 Defender twelve-gauge shotgun with a plastic pistol grip and an eighteen-inch barrel, a K-bar commando knife, and sufficient ammunition to start a small insurrection. He had a Model D-22 Davis two-shot derringer, loaded with magnum hollow-points, in his left boot. Satisfied, he put on his white hat and walked out into the apartment’s living room.

Connie was sitting on a sofa in a black quilted robe, with a towel around her hair. She was applying red lacquer to her nails and watching a game show on a large color television set. She saw him and was a bit too slow in suppressing the smile that sprang onto her face. The kid did not like people smiling at him. Jodón had instructed her carefully on how she was to handle El Chivato and promised her an extremely large tip if all went well. He had also filled her in on his reputation in Mexico and Arizona. Don’t offer unless he asks, he said. Get him anything he wants. Don’t give him any advice. Never, never laugh at him.

Connie was the daughter of a Dominican woman, an illegal, born right here in the city. She worked out of a lounge on Broadway, girl-friending for a succession of Dominican and Central American bad boys, all with fairly short life expectancies. Not Colombians, though. The Colombians were known for going after the girls too, even before they hit the guys, as a form of warning. She had, naturally enough, encountered
chuteros
before this, but El Chivato was in a class by himself. When he fucked her (and of course he had fucked her, a number of times, immediately upon their return from visiting Rikers Island), it was like being in one of those movies with an animal. Connie had seen a number of such films (they seemed popular with the men in her circle) and she had always wondered what went on in the minds of the women in them when the burro or the dog was thrusting away. Now she thought she had some hint. There was nothing in his eyes when he did it, not that she saw much of his eyes. He liked it with her face pressed down in a pillow. What he looked at was the picture of the elderly woman in a silver frame that he kept on his dresser. That was another thing. Don’t look at the picture. Don’t say anything about the picture.

He was staring at her now. One problem was that he was so good-looking that it was a moment before you realized that what confronted your eye was not a small, sweet-faced kid, but something entirely outside your experience.

“What amuses you?” he asked. He had a soft, almost whispery voice.

“Ah, just something on the TV. You going out, huh?”

He kept staring at her for what seemed like a long time. She was finding it hard to breathe, and she could feel her pulse building in her ears. Finally he said, “Tell me how to find this place.”

“It’s in Brooklyn,” she said. “You have to take the subway, or drive.” In that outfit you better drive, she thought.

“I will drive,” he said. He had been on the subway in Mexico. It was not to his taste. “Get me a car. Not stolen.” He sat down in an armchair and directed his attention to the TV. She rose immediately, dressed in haste, with two fingernails left unpainted, and went out. At the lounge, which was on Broadway at 189th Street and called the Club Carib, she made an arrangement with Ramon the bartender. For two thousand dollars she arranged the rental, for two weeks, of Ramon’s brother Felipe’s 1975 Pontiac Firebird. Felipe had a large number-of cars, many of doubtful provenance, but all lovingly repainted and maintained. While she waited, she drank two vodkas. She would have preferred rum, but she knew that El Chivato did not like the smell of liquor. As she drank, several of the local
guapos
passed the time of day with her, and one inquired whether she was back in circulation. She wished that she was. The Obregons were, she judged, even more stupid than the normal run of men and, besides that, had absolutely no idea how America worked. And they did not want to learn either, which made them different from the immigrants, legal and illegal, among whom she had been raised. And as bad as they were, they were nearly gringos compared to that little
pendejo
up in the apartment. Still, there was a good deal of money left, and she would stick it out while it remained. It never occurred to her to steal the money. Don’t steal money, don’t steal drugs: rules to live by up in the Heights and Inwood. She did not think that the
pendejo
would last long. Someone would push him, or say something, and there would be a killing and that would be that. The cops would not have much trouble finding somebody dressed like El Chivato in New York.

She finished her drink, and one of Felipe’s boys came around with the car. It was black with a red vinyl interior. Connie drove back to the apartment and gave El Chivato the keys. “Do you know how to get there?” she asked helpfully.

He ignored the question and gave her the famous look. “Write again to the
fiscal,
” he ordered. “Say again the Obregons are innocent and say we are watching him and that we can reach him at any time.”

El Chivato then walked out, to locate a man he had never seen in a city where he had never been. He had absolutely no doubt that he would succeed in doing so, and that he would not be bothered by the police or anyone else. This was because his mother was a saint, and God naturally paid more attention to her prayers than to the prayers of ordinary mothers. This had always been true and was the reason for his great success, why he could walk through guarded doorways and squads of bodyguards to do his work, and also why he had never been arrested or even questioned. This is what gave him his nerveless courage and confidence. (Of the subtle networks of bribery and subornation that attended his assassinations El Chivato was completely unaware.)