Fury kac-17 Read online

  12

  About the time Karp and the boys had been arriving at the synagogue, Marlene's cab pulled up to the curb outside Ariadne Stupenagel's walk-up loft, which occupied a corner of the fifth floor of a turn-of-the-century brick warehouse between Avenues A and B on East Thirteenth Street in the East Village. Lucy and John had arrived only ten minutes before she'd had to leave-much of that time spent chattering with and holding her daughter, so there hadn't been much time to grill Jojola.

  The Indian police chief had given her the same "no big deal" dream answer when she asked what brought him to town. But unlike her husband, she knew that dreams were taken seriously by Jojola. And if this dream was enough to get him away from his beloved home in the desert, it was because he deemed it serious indeed. But he'd also told her they'd talk later about it "when there's more time and the kids aren't around."

  "Madam, we are here." The cabdriver was half turned in his seat, obviously anxious to get on to his next fare.

  Marlene glanced at the New York City cab driver's permit hanging from the dash. Hassan Ahmed. She wondered if he was sympathetic to Islamic terrorists and immediately felt ashamed at the thought. That's what fear does to you, she thought as she handed her money through the partition. Divides and conquers. "Keep the change," she said and hoped he wouldn't know the extra-large tip was paying off a guilty conscience.

  "Thank you, madam," Ahmed replied with a smile. "God bless you."

  "And you," she said, exiting the cab.

  As Ahmed sped off, she stood for a moment looking up at Stupenagel's building. It wasn't much on the outside; its dingy mustard-colored bricks had been surrendered to the neighborhood's graffiti artists, and the rusty metal fire escapes looked more ornamental than practical. But otherwise the building and the surrounding buildings had that look of the newly gentrified, as the upper middle class moved into yet another run-down ethnic neighborhood and caused the rents to skyrocket. There were no weeds in the repaired sidewalks and staircases; the small cement basketball court across the street had a fresh coat of paint, and the playing area was swept clean of the broken bottles, beer cans, and syringes she'd seen there in years past. Many of the windows had flower boxes, now dormant in winter but indicating a certain pride of ownership; in a window of the building across the street, she could see the black fin of a baby grand piano cruising above the sill.

  Stupenagel, who'd moved into the neighborhood years before it was safe to do so, complained that it had been a lot more entertaining before the junkies got chased out and the Dominicans couldn't afford to live there and blast salsa from their car stereos. True, there were many fewer reports of robberies, rapes, burglaries, and domestic violence, as well as an increased police presence due to the income level of the new owners, "but it's all been sort of…I don't know…sterilized," her friend had said sadly.

  The journalist was proud of the fact that she had been living there before Beat poet Allen Ginsberg bought the corner loft opposite from hers. She was there when he died in April 1997. "I got invited to the party when he was dying in the back bedroom; it was all very Buddhist," Stupenagel told her whenever she got the chance. "All sorts of important literary and arts people were there, like Phil Glass, Gregory Corso, Lucien Carr; Bill Burroughs showed up the next day. Did I ever tell you about the day Allen came over with Bob Dylan? They were working on a collaboration putting Allen's poetry to music and wanted my opinion. I've seen his ghost, you know…Allen's, that is, wandering around in the hallway, reciting 'Howl'…'I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness…'"

  A large black-and-white poster of Ginsberg sitting naked in the lotus position greeted Marlene when Stupenagel opened the door. Catching her glance, the reporter said, "It's a self-portrait, one of only fifty original prints from his private collection. I got it for a steal after helping his secretary, Peter Hale, catalog some of his recordings. Come in, come in, some old friends have joined us."

  Marlene followed Stupenagel down the hallway, wondering what sort of mischief her old roommate had in store. A moment later, she knew, as she entered the living room and saw Robin Repass and Pam Russell drinking wine and chatting.

  "I think you know Robin and Pam," Stupenagel said in her best hostess voice.

  Marlene shot her a dirty look but smiled with genuine affection at the two younger women when they stood up and moved quickly over to her. She embraced each of them, then stood back and asked, "So how are you two holding up?"

  Their smiles faded. "You've heard about what happened with our Coney Island case and the lawsuit?" Russell asked.

  "How could she not unless she's been living in a cave," Repass said.

  She was always the brash one, Marlene thought, Pam the polite counterpart. Together they'd been a dynamic team.

  "I'm holding up about as well as can be expected after being labeled a lying racist pig, losing my job, and being sued for every cent I've ever made and ever will make," Repass said.

  "And then being told to bend over and take it," Russell added, the unexpected sexual reference causing them all to burst out laughing.

  The laughter stopped abruptly at the sound of the front door opening and a man's voice calling out, "Honey Buns, I'm home."

  Ariadne jumped up to intercept the visitor but not before Gilbert Murrow entered the room with an armful of flowers and a handful of videos, which he promptly dropped when he saw that he and Honey Buns were not alone.

  Marlene bent over and picked up one of the videotapes. "Hmmm, a classic…Last Tango in Paris," she said with an amused look on her face. "Should we remove the butter before we leave tonight?"

  Stupenagel plucked the video out of Marlene's hands and gave it back to her boyfriend along with the other two she'd picked up. "Murry, sweetie, don't you remember," she said, relieving him of the flowers. "This was supposed to be boys night out. You're supposed to go out with your guy friends, get drunk, go to strip bars and place folded dollar bills in G-strings, get all horny, and THEN come home. Remember? I was going to spend a quiet evening at home with my girlfriends, and then after I kicked them out, wait up for you."

  "Oh…yeah," Murrow said. "Sorry, thought I remembered this was movie night." Only then did he get a good look at the women beyond Marlene and his girlfriend. His mouth and eyes opened wider. He quickly covered both with his hands. "See no evil. Hear no evil. Speak no evil. I don't even want to know what's going on here." He spun on his heel and made for the front door.

  Stupenagel smiled at the other women. "I'll be right back," she said and rushed after Murrow. There was the sound of urgent whispers from the hall, a period of quiet, and then the door opened and closed. Stupenagel reappeared with her lipstick smeared, tucking her shirttail back into the waist of her skirt. "He's such a sweetheart," she said, her voice somewhat husky, "if a little forgetful. Now, where were we?"

  "Well, I for one was wondering about all the secrecy," Marlene said.

  "I wasn't sure you'd come," Stupenagel replied.

  "Why? Because I might not want to be part of whatever story you're working on?"

  Stupenagel looked hurt. "Sure, I like having the inside track on a juicy story. But believe it or not, I arranged this because I'd like to stop what I think is a huge injustice. I don't know if you remember this, but I was the first reporter to write about what really happened to Liz Tyler on that beach. That was back when I was working for the Times. And I covered the trial from gavel to gavel. I guess you could say this is one of those stories that really stuck with me. I don't know about this Villalobos guy-maybe he was there from the beginning, or came along during or after-but those other guys are guilty as sin."

  "So what's this have to do with me?" Marlene asked. When the other three women were silent, she shook her head. "Oh, no, I'm retired. No more private investigator, no more lawyer, no more vigilante shit. I'm a painter, a mother, and a housewife. Besides, aren't you two being represented by Corporation Counsel?"

  "The office is, and by all appearances, Corporati
on Counsel is about to offer a large settlement to the plaintiffs," Repass said dryly. "But we're on our own as private individuals. The law allows such suits if we were 'acting outside the constraints of our official duties.' Apparently, the plaintiffs are alleging-and Corporation Counsel isn't doing anything to say different-that our actions were so horrible that we can be sued for violating their civil rights."

  "You need a good civil attorney," Marlene advised.

  "Oh, come on, Marlene, there's something going on here that requires more than a good civil attorney," Stupenagel jumped in. "Robin and Pam, as well as a few good police officers and detectives, are being offered up as sacrificial lambs when the city, the NYPD, and the Kings County DA ought to be fighting this tooth and nail. I was thinking you might be willing to poke around a little. I'm working on some angles-a little bird told me something interesting I can't divulge at this moment-but I don't always have your…imagination…when it comes to getting to the bottom of things like this."

  Marlene glowered at Stupenagel. "You know Butch would blow a gasket if he thought I was trying to 'get to the bottom of things like this.'"

  Russell reached out and touched her arm. "That's okay, Marlene. You're right, we need to find a lawyer who'll represent us and fight this thing ourselves."

  "Let's forget about it," Repass added, "and just have dinner and a little conversation between friends. Stupe says she's been sweating over a hot stove, but we think she ordered out-"

  "Lies!" Stupenagel complained. "I've been wronged!"

  "And the wine is probably homemade."

  Stupenagel laughed and agreed. "Yep, squashed the grapes in the bathtub with my own size-ten feet."

  Marlene looked at the three women who were grinning at her. "Shit," she swore. "I suppose it can't hurt to drink a little wine with old friends, can it?"

  Somewhere into the third bottle, Marlene decided that letting her two former protegees run through their case also wouldn't hurt.

  One of the most pernicious aspects was the position taken by DA Breman in what Marlene viewed as an improper vacatur of the convictions, based on purely hearsay revelations by Villalobos, which were unsworn and suspiciously documented by Breman.

  "The fact that Villalobos was one of the assailants does not answer whether the other five, including Kevin Little, who would testify for the People, weren't also participants," Russell said. "We always conceded in the trial that there was a sixth assailant."

  "And nothing he said warranted an outright dismissal of the convictions," Repass added. "In fact, it's prohibited under relevant New York legal precedent-Section 440.10 of the Criminal Procedure Law. The law does not permit an otherwise valid conviction to be set aside merely on the basis of a third party's claim of guilt for a crime for which other defendants were convicted."

  "At best," Russell said, "such a claim mandates only that the court conduct a full evidentiary hearing-complete with sworn testimony and the right to cross-examine him-to test Villalobos's allegations that he, and he alone, was responsible for the assault on Liz Tyler."

  "And the court should have decided at such a hearing if Villalobos's account was trustworthy enough to justify a new trial-not whether the convictions should be set aside," Repass said.

  "Yet, Breman ignored legal precedent and set up you, the NYPD, and the city to take a fall," Marlene mused as she swirled a red cabernet around in her glass. "But why?"

  "Ah, that's what we'd all like to know," Stupenagel said.

  The women sipped their wine silently for a minute before Repass, who was opening the fourth bottle, spoke. "The thing that really bothers me is that we would have won at trial again, using the defendants' own words. We went through an exhaustive month-long Huntley Hearing before the trial to determine the voluntariness and admissibility of their confessions, took testimony from over twenty prosecution witnesses, and heard from the defendants and their families and friends. The court concluded that the statements were properly and legally obtained and that no improper methods were employed to secure them."

  There were tears in Repass's eyes when she looked at Marlene and, slurring somewhat from the wine and emotion, added, "You trained us well, Marlene. We won those convictions fair and square. The only thing that would have changed at a new trial would have been that we'd be able to tell the jury who the sixth man was-although, of course, Villalobos waited until the statute of limitations had run out so he couldn't be prosecuted for it."

  Stupenagel tossed in her two cents. "From what I understand, there's no trick that Hugh Louis or any other scumbag defense lawyer could have pulled to simply have those confessions thrown out. The Huntley decision had already been tested at the appellate level and sustained. He had to get Breman to vacate the convictions."

  The reporter, with the two prosecutors' concurrence, said she suspected that Villalobos had "confessed" as a favor to the Bloods or under threat. "What we can't figure out is why Breman capitulated so easily-"

  "Except that she would do anything to appease the minority population," Repass said. "But even then there's got to be more to this."

  Corporation Counsel had set them adrift. As soon as Sam Lindahl settled, they and the individual police officers would be sitting ducks.

  "At stake, of course, are our reputations and future job prospects," Russell said. "But I know Robin agrees with me that the most important issue here is justice for what those pigs did to Liz Tyler."

  Marlene was quiet for a moment and then she asked, "But what do you want me to do?"

  Repass brightened. "Maybe you could sign on as our private investigator for the time being. You could back out later, but you could do some of the poking around that Lindahl won't do," she said. "We got a tip from an anonymous caller with some sort of Euro accent that there may have been an inmate who heard something that would discredit Villalobos."

  "Maybe you can get that big shot husband of yours to weigh in," Stupenagel added. "Part of the problem now is that no one is speaking out for the other side and there's a perception in the public-from which the jury will come-that it's a slam dunk case against these guys."

  Marlene shook her head. "I'm willing to do a little, as you say, poking around," she said. "But I wouldn't hold out much hope that Butch will weigh in through the media. As you know, if the media was a snake, he'd get a stick and beat it to death."

  At about the same time, the man in question was back home, talking to John Jojola, who'd been resting on the couch when they walked in.

  "Off to bed," Karp had ordered the twins, who were tired enough that they didn't complain, although Giancarlo stopped at the entrance to the hall and said, "Thanks, Dad, I really liked class tonight."

  "Butt kisser." A voice, Zak's, had come from farther down the hall. Giancarlo disappeared in that direction and the sound of a brief scuffle ensued.

  "To bed!" Karp yelled, but smiled and winked at Jojola, who was shaking his head.

  "Hey, I think it's great they have each other," Jojola said. "My boy, he's got me and the extended family of the tribe, but there are things you can only tell a brother."

  "Where's Charlie?" Karp asked.

  "Staying with his Auntie Maria," Jojola said. "She's not really his auntie, just a nice neighbor woman who sometimes comes around a lot."

  "Comes around a lot?" Karp said, wiggling an eyebrow.

  "Never mind, just a friend," Jojola said.

  "I believe you're blushing," Karp said.

  "Indians don't blush," Jojola said, trying to scowl but not doing a very good job of it. "This is our natural color, remember? Anyhow, this time of year, my tribe sort of pulls into itself. The Taos Reservation is closed to all but our people, and families-most of whom live in modern houses the rest of the year-take up living in the old pueblo. Sort of a way to touch base, tell stories, and remember who we are. I don't like taking Charlie away from the res during this time, I want him learning the ways of his people."

  "Sounds like something the rest of us have lost," Karp said a li
ttle sadly.

  "Oh, you have it, only it's shorter and the reasons for it sometimes get lost in the other stuff…Christmas and Hanukkah…a time to come together and celebrate the past, and remember who you are as a people. When it gets cold outside, ancient peoples from all lands have always seen winter as a time for gathering together-if for no other reason than body heat and to keep from going stir crazy when the snow gets too deep for going outside. They have also always seen it as a time for introspection and deep thoughts."

  Jojola stopped talking and smiled. "Sorry, didn't mean to pull the Indian medicine man out on you."

  "No, not at all," Karp said, sitting down in his favorite chair and kicking back with his feet up on the coffee table. "I just came from telling a bunch of Jewish kids about Jesus…you don't get more controversial than that. I confess that I'm more interested in some of these matters now than I ever was back in the day."

  "It can take an entire lifetime to find out what you really believe in," Jojola said. "As for the lecture on comparative religions, I find it fascinating that we all have such similar ways of thinking and so much of it is tied to the seasons. In winter, we all seem to have traditions of family gatherings and touching base with our spirituality, if you will. In spring, my people celebrate with the New Corn Festival, which is based around the renewal of the earth and its plants and animals; Christians have Easter, the rebirth of Jesus, following the emptiness of winter. They both represent hope for the future in either culture. Then in fall, we dance in celebration of the harvest that will get us through the winter, and feast; European Americans feast after the harvest, too, at Thanksgiving.

  "Yet, for all we have in common, religion is so often at the root of war. But why? Jews, Christians, Muslims all call the same man, Abraham, the father of their religion, and yet they have slaughtered each other for centuries. Hindus slaughter Sikhs. Chinese Buddhists kill Nepalese Buddhists."