Corruption of Blood (44 page)

“Yeah, yeah, so you’re always telling me.” Marlene propped herself up on one elbow so she could look at him as he lay next to her. “I happen to be the best rape prosecutor they ever had up there.”

“It’s a weak league, Marlene.”

She socked him a couple of times with her pillow and then asked, “So, Mr. Lawyer, Mr. Smarty-Pants, if you’re not interested in truth and justice, why are you still on this bullshit Kennedy thing? You still think you’re going to make a case?”

“Oh, no,” said Karp blandly. “Now I’m in it for truth and justice. I’m just like you now.”

Marlene laughed and snuggled closer to him. “Oh, goody. At last, something to bring us closer together, even if it’s chicanery.” He was silent for a while and she caught a familiar, distant expression on his face. “What’re you thinking?” she asked.

“Hmm? Oh, nothing, just one of the names you mentioned—this Gaiilov. It rang some kind of bell. I’m trying to think from where.”

“From me, probably. I must’ve mentioned the great Gaiilov hunt. Or maybe Harry did. Or I murmured it in my fevered dreams.”

“Um, I don’t think so. For some strange reason, I think I heard it at the office. It’ll come to me later.” He ran his arm under her body and pulled her close. “Speaking of which … ,” he said.

Back at Federal Gardens on Sunday night, Karp made a quick search for bugs, and found one almost immediately, a small transmitter screwed into the mouthpiece of the telephone. He left it in place.

“Why did you leave it there?” asked Marlene when Karp had ushered her outside to the parking lot.

“Because if I take it out they’ll just put in another one that’s harder to find. Anyway, I think the main thing they wanted was telephone calls, and a bug like that is a lot simpler than a tap.”

Marlene shuddered and moved closer to him “Yecch! It makes me feel slimy. Do you think they bugged our bedroom too?”

“I hope so,” said Karp with a quick grin. “Let them know what they’re missing.” He hugged her and she looked up at his face and said, “This is going to be over soon, isn’t it?”

“Oh, yeah,” said Karp. “Real soon.”

A little past nine-thirty on Monday, a hand-delivered letter arrived at Bert Crane’s office. It was from Flores and it said that Crane was fired and had to be out of his office by 5:00 p.m. that afternoon.

“What’s the plan?” asked Karp when Crane told him.

“Committee meeting today. Hank thinks they can get this reversed. I’d like you to attend it.”

Karp did so, and in the late afternoon reported back to his boss.

“I think Flores has become unhinged,” Karp concluded. “He was behaving like a kid in a sandbox when some other kid grabs his toy truck, like this committee was his personal property. He bluntly accused Morgan of trying to steal the committee from him and become chairman. He was flinging insults at Hank too. The upshot was they reversed the firing letter. After they finally adjourned, Flores talked to a bunch of press people. He called you a rattlesnake.”

Crane chuckled. “That’s what they call ‘colorful’ on the Hill. It’s a synonym for deranged.”

“Bert, why is he doing this? I don’t get it.”

Crane made a helpless gesture with his hands. “He wanted a puppy dog. They all did, except maybe Hank and some of the King assassination people. Somebody who’d go through the motions and essentially reproduce the Warren Report, or even better, say that Oswald did it, and ‘probably’ there were some others but we didn’t know who they were. Something vague like that, enough to take off some of the heat from the critics. What they definitely did not want was a big, expensive, freewheeling investigation involving the CIA, the FBI, and the Dallas Police Force. That was my big mistake; I thought that they definitely
did.
That’s why I got involved and why I got you involved.” He looked sadly into Karp’s eyes. “For which I apologize.”

At four-thirty, Bea Sondergard burst into Karp’s office without knocking. She was pale and wide-eyed. “Flores sent the cops. They want Bert out by close of business. They say they have orders to seal his files.”

Karp leaped to his feet and dashed out into the corridor, heading to the door of Crane’s office. He stood in front of the door, feeling vaguely foolish, but unable to think of anything else to do. Two men in the uniform of the Capital Police, the security forces that answer to Congress, came striding purposefully down the hall.

They stopped in front of him, and one of them, a large moon-faced man of about fifty, said, “Is Mr. Crane in there?”

“Yes,” said Karp.

“Well, we got orders to remove him and take charge of all government material in his possession.”

“No,” said Karp.

“What?”

“You can’t.”

“Why not?” said the cop.

“Because I won’t let you. That’s an illegal order anyway. The full committee rescinded Mr. Flores’s order a few hours ago.”

“I didn’t hear nothing about that,” said the guard. “The shift captain told me to come down here and remove Mr. Crane, and escort him off the premises, and that’s what we’re going to do.”

As this took place, Bea Sondergard had been playing Paul Revere. The staff had gathered in murmuring clumps at both ends of the corridor, and several of the male members of the staff, and Bea herself, now moved to stand in the doorway with Karp.

The cop tried out a false smile and a pleading tone. “C’mon, mister, we’re only trying to do our job.”

“I know,” said Karp. “Nothing personal, but we’re not going to let you past. You can try to remove us by force, but in that case, if the order you’re carrying out is in fact illegal, I will press charges of assault against you, and sue both you personally and the Capital Police for damages. And if you choose to get physical there will certainly be damages.”

Karp hunched his broad shoulders and widened his legs to a fighting stance, demonstrating how the potential damages were likely to occur. There was some eyeball work between him and the cop, who was suddenly conscious that the eyes he was staring into were seven inches higher than his own. After a tense half minute, the cop said, “I’ll have to check with headquarters.”

He backed off a few yards and consulted his portable radio in low tones. Then the two cops left without a backward glance. A burst of applause from the staff. Karp was clapped on the back as he walked back to his office. Bea Sondergard, grinning, said, “A famous victory!”

“Yeah,” replied Karp sourly. “Like the Alamo.”

The next morning, early, Karp was called into Crane’s office.

“Well, I’m gone,” Crane said without preamble as Karp took a seat.

“What?”

“Yeah, I just came from Morgan’s office. Hank was there and a few others. The deal is, Flores will be replaced as chairman by Louis Watson, who’s been chairing the King operation. It’s something of a coup for the black caucus, which is how they got the leadership to go along with it. But they want a new face in my slot. They didn’t actually fire me, but it was real clear that that’s what they wanted. For whatever reason, they think I’ve shot my bolt here. And if I were to stay, the press would keep pecking at me, Flores’s friends would keep doing it too, and I’d be spending all my time answering these ridiculous charges. What do you think?”

“Yeah. I think resignation is your only option at this point.”

“I agree. The question is who replaces me.” He looked straight at Karp, who had some difficulty in meeting the other man’s gaze.

“Well,” Crane resumed, “do you want it?”

“No,” said Karp without an instant’s thought. “I don’t. If I took the job, it would be almost an endorsement of the way you’ve been treated. And I agree with you. Even with Flores gone, there’s no real political will to run a serious investigation.”

Crane nodded several times and then swiveled to look out across the railroad tracks. When he turned back to Karp he said, “Yeah, I kind of thought that’s what you’d say. But, I’ll tell you, Hank Dobbs, for one, is going to be real disappointed. He had his little heart set on you.”

That evening Karp brought home a small film-editing machine and a large red manila folder. In the folder was a copy of all the material that had been stolen plus the Depuy film and the Guel envelope and ledger. He had decided to remove it from the office entirely and carry it with him. He knew this was dumb, but he couldn’t think of anything else to do with it. It gave him something to hold on to, like a talisman. And if they tried to take it away from him, at least he’d get a look at one of the shadowy creatures who had dogged his steps for the last six months.

“I’m at National,” said Caballo.

“Good,” said Bishop. “Read the papers?”

“No, what happened?”

“The investigation just collapsed as planned,” said Bishop. He sounded pleased.

The thin man hoped that this would mean he could go back to Guatemala, where it was warm. “So that’s it?” he ventured.

“Not quite. I think we can get a tame dog in there, and then it’ll just peter out, but there’s still some sensitive material lying around. It’s basically a broom job. Take a cab to this address and stay there.” He read off an address in Alexandria. “I’ll be in touch.”

Caballo copied it down on a page ripped out of the phone book.

“Uh, Bishop. In Miami, I think that big guy, Karp? I think he might’ve seen me. Do you think we should …”

“No, no,” said Bishop, chuckling. “He’s going to be the tame dog.”

EIGHTEEN

In the morning Karp found a message waiting for him at the office telling him that Hank Dobbs wanted to see him. Karp dutifully trudged up the Hill, the red folder enclosed in a cheap government briefcase.

Dobbs greeted him warmly and led him into his private office. Dobbs seemed to have expanded since Karp had last seen him; he filled more space, his motions were more abrupt, more decisive, his eye harder. The various manipulations that had led to the downfall of Flores had added to his stature as a man to be counted in the inner workings of Congress. He had saved the leadership from embarrassment, and that was always a consideration when the plum assignments were handed out. This new status showed in his mien, more subtle than the fruit-salad ribbons oh the chest of a soldier, but as readable to those in the know.

After giving Karp a brief appreciation of the politics of the committee, Dobbs began speaking of “your” staff, and “your” plans, as if offering the job of chief counsel to Karp obliquely, as if they had already agreed that Karp was already installed.

Karp interrupted. “Hank, I don’t know if you’re planning to formally offer me Bert’s job, but just to clear the air, I want you to know that I’ve decided not to take it.”

Dobbs stopped with his mouth open, and the color drained from his face. “What! Why not?”

Startled by the force of this reaction, Karp stumbled through a version of the explanation he had given Crane the day before.

“But that’s crazy!” said Dobbs, and now color flooded into his face, making the freckles stand out like nail-heads. “You
have
to take it! What do you think all this has been about?”

“I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about,” said Karp.

“Oh, don’t play innocent, for God’s sake, Butch! Crane has been doomed for months, ever since those stories broke and he put in that crazy budget, and I’ve been busting my hump trying to make sure that when the crash came, you’d be wired for the job.” He got up from behind his desk and paced in agitation. “Jesus! I’ve been goddamned horse-trading with half the committee to get you positioned, and now you have the gall to tell me you won’t take it?”

He stared at Karp, his blue eyes like gas flames. “What else’re you going to do, huh? You have a wife and a child. Hell, I even arranged for free day care for your kid and gave your wife something to keep her busy. God, man, think! You haven’t got a dime. What do you think’s available to you in this town? A GS-thirteen U.S. attorney job? You know how many of those guys would commit murder for this kind of chance? Running a big investigation—it’s a launching platform, it’s
national recognition:
the sky’s the limit here, Butch.”

Dobbs began to expatiate about how high the sky was, and as he spoke, illumination struck Karp like a slow, painful dawn after a night of bad dreams. He knew this was an important moment in his life, a place of many branchings. Part of him wanted badly to take this job, to be friends with people like Hank Dobbs, and Hank Dobbs’s friends, to have a nice house in McLean, or Kalorama, or Cleveland Park, to do this little job they wanted him to do and then wait around for an assistant AG slot when the administration was right, or when it wasn’t, a high-visibility job on a congressional staff. He could write legislation; he could go after big-time criminals; the FBI would jump when he cracked the whip; he could even
have
the FBI some day.

The only hitch was that the part of him that wanted the job would become, should he take it, the whole of him. His father would like that. Karp would know senators. He might even know the president. He would be on television behind the podium with a cabinet agency seal on it, pointing at charts, and he would be driven around in large cars, the kind with the little reading lamp behind the rear seat, provided so that important people might not lose even a few minutes of precious study time as they were driven to and from home during the hours of darkness.

And Marlene, what would she make of the new Karp, the wholly owned subsidiary Karp, the great success? Well, she would get used to it. There would be advantages for her too, she’d already received some and would get more, if she’d only learn how to
behave… .

Suddenly, almost without consciously willing it, Karp found himself on his feet.

Dobbs stopped talking and looked up at him in surprise.

“No,” Karp said, and again, “No. Sorry, but I can’t do it.” He really
was
sorry and he really
couldn’t
do it.

Dobbs struggled to control himself, being enough of a politician and student of human nature to realize that shouting and bluster would not work with this one. In a meliorative tone he said, “Butch, come on—sit down, we’ll talk it through. If you have problems, or questions, or concerns, I’m sure we can work them out.”