Resolved kac-15 Page 13

  He also learned. Rashid gradually slipped back into the familiar pedantry. The man had hardly a fact in his head that he did not wish to share, and not just once, either, because he thought that Felix was stupid. This was true, in the sense that Felix had problems acknowledging that any person knew more about anything worth knowing than Felix himself did. Felix only learned through personal disaster. But there was nothing wrong with his intellect, and so he put up with the Arab's mocking tone and allowed himself to learn about bombs, explosives, and fuses.

  Also, he started to collect. He did not steal. But instead of the fifty pounds of ammonium nitrate that Rashid ordered, he would use his own slim funds to buy seventy-five and keep the difference. The same with the other chemicals and the bits of electronics, and the detonators. He rented a storage locker in Long Island City near the plumbing place, and kept this stuff there. It made a convenient lab, as well, nothing fancy, just the minimum: a table, a chair, some pans, buckets, plastic containers, an extension cord and a hot plate, a postal scale, a set of glass measuring cups, and a thermometer. This equipment allowed him to purify ammonium nitrate out of commercial fertilizer using chilled methanol, to mix this with diesel oil and liquid rubber to make primary charges, to manufacture acetone peroxide for the initiator charge from bleach, acetone, and battery acid. He already knew how to make trembler switches, and the other electronics were easily available. It took him about a month after losing his little finger to assemble the materials, process them, and construct his first bomb.

  He was pretty sure that Rashid had no suspicions, but he remained wary. Felix had never been particularly paranoid before: rather the opposite. His base state had been a blithe feeling of invulnerability, which was perhaps the main reason why he had spent most of his adult life in prison. Now, however, he paused before every move, he cast a sharp eye at anyone who looked Middle Eastern, he drove his truck in such a way as to foil anyone tailing him: sudden accelerations and turns, backtracks, roundabout routes down nearly deserted roadways.

  It was the finger; they shouldn't have taken a part of him away, that was his thinking, it had turned him into a different kind of person. The old Felix would have struck back instantly with some ill-considered action that might not have worked. He had been way too hotheaded in the past, he saw that now. Funny, because he considered himself to be a fairly well-organized guy. He wrote lists, he kept an appointment book, and always had. But now for the first time, he found himself able to think things through from a number of angles, as if he could see himself on a chessboard, taking various actions, with the other players making their moves, and him making countermoves to theirs.

  This business with the girl, for example. He had gone down to the church hall and hung around and watched her. He was a familiar enough character around there by then that several people came up to him and made conversation. Some bums. An old fart, another nut, the guy they called Hey Hey, a pain in the ass. And a new guy, old, with a white beard. Felix didn't like the way this one looked at him, and there was something wrong with his mouth. Felix had left the hall right after that, with no plans to return. Not fear, exactly; he was sure as shit not afraid of a little old guy he could break over his knee. What was it? Maybe the guy knew, maybe he recognized him from before? Anyway, that whole scene was over. It was not going to work the way he had thought it would. The Karp girl was not going to fall for him, was not going to convey the information he wanted via pillow talk. In the old days, this would have made him crazy, maybe provoked him into an assault. No longer. Now whenever he felt that old urge to violent action, he looked at the pink stump, caressed it, felt its absence, calmed himself, and planned anew. He would pull back from the girl for a while. He'd keep in touch, sure, but ease up on the pressure. He'd look for an angle, a chance to either grab her or grab someone she cared about, and then they would see about her snotty attitude. That was another big thing about the new Felix, thought Felix: No more Mr. Nice Guy.

  ***

  "So are you going to be around tonight?" Karp asked as he tied his tie before the cheval mirror in their bedroom.

  "Yes," said his wife from the bed. "I will. I intend to spend a leisurely morning grocery shopping on Grand and Mulberry streets, and then pass the afternoon bent over a hot stove, preparing a terrific meal for my family, which has clearly been eating rifiuti since God knows when."

  "It's not garbage at all," Karp protested. "We have the four food groups. There's milk. I think Lucy does a good job."

  "There are forty-three takeout containers in the refrigerator, and the freezer is full of frozen Milky Ways."

  "We like them. They're in a food group."

  "It's chozerai, in the language of your people."

  "In the language of my people, who the fuck asked you to leave?" said Karp, and immediately after, "Sorry. I didn't mean it that way, but really, it's a little much, Marlene."

  "I know it is," she said in the dulled voice she often used now. "I'm a bitch on wheels, yes, I know it, and I'm ruining everyone's life."

  He sat on the side of the bed and took her hand, which was damp and warm, like the day.

  "I didn't mean it that way. Obviously, we're all glad you're back, but everyone's on eggs wanting to know what's going on- are you here, are you there, in out…?"

  She winced and held up her other hand, its palm toward him. "Butch, don't hover! Give me a little room- I'm sort of in pieces right now, okay?"

  "Okay." Tightly.

  "Oh, God, I'm sorry again! And here you are with this horror show at work. Look- could we just take it one day at a time like the drunks do? Let's say I've come back to support the family in a crisis. Our cover story. How's Collins?"

  "He seems okay, although they say you can't tell with concussions. I guess it was a lucky break, what happened, with that woman backing up and setting off the bomb. Klopper's in worse shape, but apparently he'll live, too."

  "I'm surprised Jack didn't make an objection, you taking the case personally."

  "I was surprised, too," said Karp, happy to be easing into a neutral topic. There was no one he'd rather talk to about things than Marlene, always excepting those things he couldn't talk to Marlene about. "I thought he'd go ballistic, because he's always said that trial work is a full-time job and I'm still the chief ADA, and also the racial thing. But he didn't peep. In fact he positively beamed at me. 'Good, great, keep me informed.' The hottest trial on the docket, involving blacks and cops, the two major interest groups he's got to have on his side, and they're on opposite sides in this one, and he's smiling. Why is he smiling?"

  "He's smiling because he's not going to run again," said Marlene without apparent thought.

  "Not run? But he's the DA."

  "Yes, now he is," she said, "but when he was a little Irish boy, he wasn't the DA, and someday he won't be the DA again. Not everyone dies in office, you know. He's not the pope."

  Karp checked his watch and threw on a jacket. "I have to go," he said, leaning down to kiss her. "I'm glad you'll be here. Call me old-fashioned, but…"

  "Old-fashioned!"

  "Yeah, and so is Jack Keegan, and even though he's not, as you point out, the pope, it's totally inconceivable that he would not run, and now that I think about it, it strikes me that for the past week or so, the man has been… what? Uncharacteristically merry? Maybe he's starting a new medication?"

  She pulled the sheet up to her chin. "That sounds right," she said. "Find out what it is and get some for me."

  ***

  After Karp left, Marlene wrapped herself in her old silk kimono and went into the kitchen. She loaded the big hourglass espresso pot, sliced a bagel into the toaster, and sat hunched in the folds of the kimono while boiling and toasting proceeded. The kimono was the oldest garment she owned, made of heavy silk brocade, printed with plum blossoms against a deep violet ground. It smelled of incense, smoke, perfume, Marlene's body. "Guinea slut" was what her roomie had called her in college when she wore it. She wondered idly where Stupe
nagel was at this moment, and envied her, familyless, a stranger to guilt.

  The espresso pot shook in its usual threatening way, and issued forth its unique scent. The pangs of exile! She had to stop and blink the clouds away as she poured the coffee into her favorite cup, which (of course!) was a hand-painted mother's day gift from the preblind Giancarlo. I am not going to break down weeping in my own kitchen, thought Marlene, and brutally wiped her eyes with the frayed collar of the kimono. She buttered her bagel, sat, chewed, drank.

  "Is there any coffee left?"

  She jumped, startled. Her daughter had appeared behind her, silently, as was her way. She was neatly dressed in a baggy Filipino silk shirt and khaki Bermuda shorts. Marlene jumped a little.

  "Yes, there's plenty," she answered. "I hate it when you sneak up like that. You should carry a bell."

  "Good idea, Mom. I'll stop by Leper's World and pick one up." She poured a cup and sat down at the table.

  Marlene said, "I'm sorry, kid, my nerves are no longer the best. As I recall you were a normally boisterous little girl. How did you develop the catlike tread? The Asian influence."

  "Yeah, I guess. He always said American women were like water buffaloes. I remember when I was seven or eight we used to sit silently for hours, just watching things in the park. First it was agony and then I got to like it."

  "If a parent ever tried that it'd be childrens' court and a foster home. Have you heard from him?"

  "Uh-huh. I got a remailed envelope with a postcard inside of the Eiffel Tower, with a circle around the top. On the other side he'd written in French, 'Appolinaire's favorite restaurant: the only place in Paris from which one cannot see the Eiffel Tower.' How about you?"

  "Yes. Same thing. Except mine was a postcard of Chartres Cathedral. It said 'wish you were here' in English. I guess he made it to France."

  "Or he wants us to believe that's where he is," said Lucy. "I miss him."

  An uncomfortable silence here, while they both sipped. It was Marlene's fault that Tran was no longer in the country. She'd used him in her lust for revenge, without considering for one second what it would mean for him or for Lucy. She knew it; it filled her with shame; it was something that stood, reeking, between her and her daughter.

  Noises from the far end of the loft told them that the twins were up. From Giancarlo's room came the hum of the accordion, from Zak's, synthesized weapon noises from the computer. Marlene said, "Maybe I'll make them French toast. And you?"

  "No, I have an early lab and they don't like me to eat a lot before."

  "But you'll be home for dinner, yes? I'm going to do a shop, cook up something nice- veal marsala, maybe."

  "I'm going to have to miss that, too," said Lucy. "I'm going up to Cambridge tonight for a couple of days."

  "Oh, that's too bad," Marlene said, more disappointed than she thought she would be, or revealed. "Seeing Dan?"

  "Yes, and Mary. I'm staying over at Mary's."

  "How're things going with Daniel?"

  "About the same. Friendly." In a flattened tone.

  "Just friendly?" Not taking the hint.

  "Yes."

  "Thanks for sharing."

  Lucy put her coffee cup down and looked her mother full in the face. "Uh-huh. Look, Mom? There's not going to be any intimate girl talk going down around here as long as there's this stuff between us, as long as I don't know who you are, as long as I don't know what my whole life is going to be like. Am I going to have to take care of the twins and Dad, and go to school in the city? Am I going to go back to Boston? I mean, if you have life problems you have to work on, fine, I'm willing to help, but I can't take this void. Hello, Ma? Hello? No answer. Do you realize that we've never had a conversation about what happened in West Virginia? What really went down, how Tran got involved, why you split for the farm after Giancarlo got out of the hospital."

  "I can't talk about that stuff."

  "Why not? You're worried about the legal ramifications? Funny, that never bothered you before."

  "Now you're being nasty."

  Lucy bobbed her head, bit her lower lip: a gesture of agreement. "Yeah, sorry. Meanwhile, are we going to talk? Am I inside this with you, like family, or am I just one of the other people who clean up the messes you make?"

  "You know, Lucy, I've already got a mother to nag me. I don't need another one."

  Lucy waited to see if this was going to be the last word. Her mother lit a cigarette and examined the pattern of the tin ceiling. Apparently it was. She stood. Her face became a neutral mask. "Fine," she said. "Then I'll see you when I see you." Lucy kissed Marlene lightly on the cheek and left the kitchen. Marlene heard her saying good-bye to her brothers. Then, she imagined, one of the girl's silent exits. No slammed doors for Lucy; rather the opposite.

  Marlene finished her cigarette and her coffee, showered, and dressed in a cotton sun dress. When she came out, her boys were in the kitchen staring into the refrigerator.

  "There's nothing to eat," said Zak, meaning "bad mom."

  Marlene demonstrated that there was, although it required loving preparation: French toast, Canadian bacon, banana smoothies according to the secret Ciampi recipe. They ate. Giancarlo chattered away, filling the void for all he was worth, for there was a void there, a strain that had never before existed between Marlene and her sons. They'd always been easy together, the three of them, and Marlene had made it clear that even though they were twins, you knew what the differences were and treasured them. For her, this had been a welcome relief from her ever-fraught relationship with The Lucy. Now, however, Giancarlo's manner was almost hectic, too many puns, jokes, merry tales of the life of a street musician; Zak was more than usually taciturn, but his face spoke his need for a signed and notarized lifetime guarantee from his mother that she would stay, and be sane, and allow him to protect her.

  Did they want to come grocery shopping with her? They did not. They wanted her desperately, but not enough to take a chance that anyone they knew would actually see them walking on a public thoroughfare with their mommy. She left then, so as to complete the trip before the heat got bad. "If you want faithful," she remarked to Gog the mastiff as they hit the street, "get a dog." The dog indicated his agreement with this proposition by shaking his massive head, spraying drool over the boxes of Chinese vegetables arrayed on the sidewalk. The produce clerk on duty watched her pass without comment and turned on his hose.

  ***

  Karp said, "Delay almost always favors the defense, but not this time."

  "Because…?"

  "Because, Murrow, of the events: the terror, the Towers, and the bombs. We're at war and the cops are soldiers. With time, that has to fade. The police will reveal themselves as the same lovable slobs they've always been. So they'll want to keep moving, keep this jury. Why shouldn't they? They're winning."

  They were in the tiny library outside the homicide bays on the sixth floor. Karp had commandeered a desk in a cubicle for his work on People vs. Gerber amp; Nixon, the papers for which were stacked in teetering piles on the table and on the floor around Karp's chair.

  "But you have a plan," said Murrow, gesturing at the paperwork.

  "Of course, but I don't know what it is yet. That's why I'm going to ask for a week's recess. I know there's something here I missed, and I have to find it before the defendants get on the stand."

  "What makes you so sure they'll call them?"

  "They won't want to. Nixon will insist on it. This case is about their word against our witnesses and evidence. He's told the lie so many times he believes it and he wants the jury to believe it, too. You get that a lot with the classic bold-faced perjurer, and sometimes they roll their counsel."

  "Do you know who the new guy is yet?"

  "No. They're going to have to stretch to get someone to fill Hank Klopper's shoes. But it doesn't matter who takes it. Like I told Collins just before he got blown up, these guys are going for the perfecta. They want to be not merely judged innocent, but totally e
xonerated, reinstated on the cops, and for that to happen they have to go up on the stand. What they'll be hoping is that I go after Nixon and Gerber tooth and nail so it looks like I'm badgering the simple but honest cops. Which I'm not going to do."

  Murrow waited to learn what Karp was going to do, but his boss changed the subject. "This is going to be a load on you for the duration. Tony Harris will take over the admin as the acting chief ADA, but he'll need a lot of help with the details. Whisper the right things in his ear. If he has to face down any of the bureau chiefs on anything, let me know and I'll go up there and break some dishes. They may try to end run around Tony to Jack, but I'm not sure that's going to work right now."

  "Why not?"

  "I don't know why, but Jack has become somewhat disengaged lately. He's been taking Fridays off."

  "It's the summer, Butch. People do."

  "I don't."

  "People. Human beings. I'm not talking Lou Gehrig, Cal Ripken, the Statue of Liberty…"

  "Fuck you, Morrow. The point is, he never did it during the previous ten summers I worked for him, so why now? Getting old? Why don't you find out?"

  "Why he's taking Fridays off?"

  "No, why he all of a sudden turned into a human being," said Karp. "Find out why he's smiling."

  ***

  "I've seen your man," said Father Marcus Skelly.

  "And what do you think?" Lucy asked.

  "Let's walk down the street here a little ways, if you don't mind. My Lord, it's hot. I don't recall it being this hot in Mexico, but maybe I can't stand it as much as I could when I was a younger man. Although they do say it's the cold that gets you when you make old bones. How about if we stopped in here and I bought us both a Coca-Cola?"

  He pushed open the door of a coffee shop. They were on Twenty-Ninth just east of Eighth, a block or so from the soup kitchen run by Holy Redeemer. Lucy went in past the politely held door. The air was chilled and smelled of toast and bacon. He selected a booth in the back.