Immoral Certainty (18 page)

It must be Felix, was her instant thought. She froze in her chair, scarcely breathing, all romantic thoughts of regret quite blown from her head by cold terror. A minute passed. The buzzer went off again and a voice called, “Anna? Anna, are you there? It’s me.”

Anna got shakily to her feet and opened the door’s two deadbolts. Stephanie Mullen walked in, shaking her head and making sympathetic noises. At the sight of Stephanie’s tough, pleasant face, Anna collapsed in weeping. Stephanie gathered her up and hugged her, making small soothing noises for quite some time.

Later, in Stephanie’s messy kitchen, with a cup of strong tea in her and an ice bag held against her aching and swelling face, Anna began to realize that life would continue. Life was going on at that moment. Stephanie’s kitchen, though none too clean, was bright with kids’ drawings and pinned-up posters and Mexican pottery and houseplants. Stephanie was bustling about, getting her two boys off to school, cooking breakfast, finding homework and socks, while the boys cast shy looks in Anna’s direction. When they were at last out the door, Stephanie plopped down in the chair across the wooden table from Anna and grinned. Anna returned the smile.

“Back from the dead, hey?” said Stephanie offering Anna a Kent.

Anna lit it carefully, avoiding the cut in her lip. “I feel punctured,” she said.

Stephanie nodded. “Yeah, it’ll do that. Funny, there must be a million women living alone in New York—they walk, they shop, they take the subway, they
jog in the park,
for chrissake, and sure, they’re careful, because they watch TV and all, but until it happens, they think they’ve, like, got some kind of armor on, it only happens to other people, you know? Like soldiers in a war. But after, it’s like it was an eggshell, the armor. They’re all naked. They can’t do anything. They’re scared all the time, all the time.”

Anna nodded. “Yeah, that’s right. You sound like you know what you’re talking about.”

“Huh! Don’t I, baby!” She turned her face in profile to Anna. “See that nose? The bump? He busted it once. Talk about pain! And people know, you know? They don’t want to look at you. And you know what they’re thinking? What did she do to make him do that, to rap her around?”

“Who was it? Your husband?”

“Yeah. Willie Mullen, the world-famous shit-head.”

“What did you do? I mean, when he …”

“Beat me up? Well, the first half-dozen or so times, I cried, I begged—what the fuck did I know? I was a twenty-year-old kid with two kids of my own. Then the group started to make some serious bread, do some major gigs. We opened for the Stones once. So he couldn’t pop me in the face anymore, you know. He did other stuff, you don’t want to know about it. We were famous for it, in our little circles.

“Then, one fine day, it was in Tahoe, I remember, I found him in the rack with a groupie. The boys, his
sons,
were watching TV in the next room. I blew up, he went out of control, and busted my nose.

“And then,” Stephanie went on, leaning her head back and smiling, like a gourmet recalling some exquisite dish, “I went out, and asked around, and found this guy, and I paid him two hundred bucks to smash my dear husband into pulp.”

“God, Stephanie! That’s awful!”

Stephanie laughed. “Yeah, a real shame. Funny thing is, I never told Willie I hired the guy, but he knew—I’m sure of it. He never touched me again. And we broke up three weeks after he got out of the hospital. He’s in the City now, you know? I see him from time to time, because of the kids, but it’s like strangers. There’s a lesson in that, I guess, but I’m damned if I know what it is. Want some more tea?”

“No, thanks. I’ve got to get ready for work—God knows how I’ll get through the day, but I need the money. Especially since I’m going to lose some of my security because of that damn kitchen.”

“You’re leaving, huh?”

“I guess. I could never do that, what you did, you know? Hurt Felix. I just want to let it cool off, you know? And if I stay here he’ll hang around and bother me, and be all nice, and I know after a while, I’ll go back with him. I just feel it.”

“I can dig that. So what will you do?”

“Stay with my sister, I guess. For a while, until I can save up for a new deposit. Or maybe I can sublet this place to my cousin Linda and her boyfriend. Something.” Anna stood up and brought her teacup and the icebag to the sink. There was a matted photograph of Stephanie’s two boys pinned to the wall, the kind taken at schools or by department store photographers for the grandparent trade. It had grease spots on it. Anna studied the picture for a moment, wondering how these two handsome and winning children had been marked by the violence and disorder of their early lives. It must go in deep, she thought. It doesn’t show on the surface.

“Nice kids,” she said. “It’s a neat picture.”

“Yeah,” Stephanie agreed. “There’s Jordie out front, hogging the scene, charming the hell out of the world. Just like his daddy as a matter of fact. And Josh there, pretending to smile, taking everything in. Calculating. Trying to figure it out.”

“Like you?”

“Shit, no! Damned if I know where he gets it. I never figured anything out in my whole life, except dumping Willie. I just live it as it comes, baby. But I tell you one thing. I don’t think you’re going to see much of the boyfriend anymore.”

“You mean Felix? Why not?”

“Because he’s a con man. I saw it the minute I met him. A con man don’t hang around when you’ve blown his grift. Why should he? No offense, kid, but he could make one cruise up Third and down Second and pull a sweetie he hadn’t beat up yet out of every damn singles bar up there. You understand what I’m telling you? A boilermaker, a strong arm guy, hey, even a musician or an artist, he’ll hang in and hang in ’til hell freezes and he’ll make your life hell, too. But not Felix. He’s a control freak. He loses control, he’s got nothing left, dig? He won’t bother you, believe me.”

And all through her Saturday half-day behind a Macy’s cosmetic counter, Anna tried hard to believe her friend. Stephanie seemed so wise in the ways of men, especially the more unsavory types. She had said Felix would not bother her, but Anna thought to herself that even if Stephanie was right about con men—and Anna agreed that Felix was one—Stephanie had not seen the look on Felix’s face while he was beating her. Maybe, she thought, Felix was different.

By the end of the day, as it turned out, Anna knew that Stephanie was wrong.

Karp finally called Marlene on Sunday evening, a little before ten. She was watching Masterpiece Theater and sucking on a jug of red Mondavi and feeling slightly annoyed at being interrupted. She let the phone ring eight times.

“Hi. It’s me,” Karp said.

“Who?”

“It’s me, Butch.”

“Butch? Oh, Butch
Karp.
Gosh, it’s nice of you to call. It’s only been six days, Mr. Considerate.”

“Marlene, please don’t cop an attitude on me here. I’m being fucking pursued by mobsters. I called as soon as I could. How’s things?”

“At the office? Great. We’ve defeated crime and they’re converting the building into a mental hospital. Little change of personnel required. How about you? Did you, uh, get it?”

“El divorce-o? Signed and sealed. I’m a free man.”

“Congratulations! But with my luck they’ll probably shoot you before I can get my claws into your fine young body. Listen, when they close in, tell them you have a Sicilian girlfriend. It could make a difference.”

“You’re not taking this very seriously, Marlene.”

“I am, I am! You know I get silly when I’m nervous.”

“What are you nervous about?”

“Two things. The possibility of you never coming back is one. Shit, it’d take
hours
to find another boyfriend as good as you. And the possibility of you
coming
back is the other. I mean we have to start getting serious about the big M.”

“Right. I’ll see if Noodles here can get me a deal on a nice ring. We might as well keep it in the family.”

“So to speak. Where are you, by the way? Still in California?”

“Actually, somewhere in Ohio. Noodles is having a pee. Oops! Here he comes. This guy is amazing—Mr. Cruise Control. When they make cars that drive by robots, in the future, they’re going to use him as a model. Look, what I called you about, besides expressing my undying love and all, is that we’ll be back in the city by tomorrow evening. I want to go straight to the place we’ll be stashing Noodles. Call Devlin and get it set up. We’ll question him right away. I can’t believe this—he’s honking his horn, for chrissake! See you.”

“Karp, wait! What are you doing in Ohio? You’re supposed to be in California.”

“No shit? That’s why there aren’t any palm trees or Mexicans. What a ripoff! See you tomorrow, cutie.”

Marlene hung up the phone, relieved, but also unsatisfied in an all-too-familiar way. A lot of her interaction with Karp was on the “see you tomorrow, cutie” level. Breezy dismissal. But of course, he respected her mind and her legal skills. He said so often. And he usually did what she asked him to do, like this divorce. So what was going on, what was the problem?

Seeking the answer, she drank rather more of her jug than she had planned, and not only failed to find the answer, but overslept, and had to hustle to make her first court the next morning. Still running behind schedule, she was racing out of her office with her nose buried in a file and a dozen more clamped beneath her arm, when she ran into Jim Raney.

She hit him so hard that his shoes lost their grip on Monday’s fresh wax and the two of them crashed together on the floor, with Marlene on top. Raney was covered with her papers like a corpse in a shroud.

“Oh, shit, I’m sorry,” said Marlene, struggling to regain her feet and collect her papers at the same time.

“I’m not,” said Raney blissfully. “This has made my month.”

“Raney! What are you doing here?” asked Marlene, flustered and blushing as she picked papers off the detective’s recumbent form. He was grinning like a maniac.

“I’m lying on my back, enjoying the sensation of tiny fingers plucking at my clothes,” Raney sighed.

Marlene got to her feet and straightened her skirt. “Knock it off, Raney, and help me get this crap together. Jesus, I’m going to be late again!”

Raney got to his knees, still grinning, and began gathering papers. “That was a nice hit there, Marlene. You play much hockey?”

“As a matter of fact, wise-ass, I used to play a lot of roller hockey.”

“Marlene, girls in Queens don’t play roller-skate hockey.”

“Except for me, they don’t. I was on the Hundred and twelfth Street Rangers for three years and we cleaned every clock in Ozone Park, if it’s any of your business, Mr. Wise-ass. But really, were you looking for me? What’s going on?”

Raney’s face looked bemused as he digested yet another bit of odd information about Ciampi, and then became grave. “I thought you’d want to know. They found another dumpster kid last night, over in Queens. An old lady was pawing through it looking for aluminum.”

Marlene went rigid. “The same guy?”

Raney shrugged. “A possible. Puncture wounds like Segura and a finger off.”

“Possible! Raney, it’s him! Have you identified the child yet?”

“Not yet. Uh, actually, I just heard about this unofficially, Marlene. It’s not our case.”

“What are you talking about? Of course it’s our case. It’s the guy, the Bogeyman!”

“Maybe, but the case is in Queens Homicide and Queens D.A. I talked to the guy there, Lt. Shaw. He’s glad to get any info we got, but he’s going to run the case out of Queens. I bet Shaughnessy is gonna say the same …”

“Fuck them! It’s our case. They can’t do that!”

“Yes, they can, because it turns out that this is not the first time they found one of these in Queens. They had one in April and one at the beginning of March.”

“What! Why didn’t we know about it? How come they haven’t put a task force or something together? Jesus, Raney …”

“Yeah, I know. But they laid them on child abuse, just like we did. Anyway, it’s a Queens squeal now. We’re out.”

Marlene’s shoulders slumped and she sighed, her excitement gone. New York City has one government and one police department, but because each of its five boroughs is a separate county, it has five District Attorneys, and each is the prince of an independent criminal justice domain. With the exception of Richmond, on bucolic Staten Island, all of them were stressed to the limit, and the possibility that the New York District Attorney would pressure his colleague of Queens for more work, especially work on a serial killer case that would have the media clawing at his flesh for months, was remote on a galactic scale.

Karp, maybe, could kick the old fart into it, she thought glumly; he knew how to pull the levers that could make Bloom act like a real D.A. on occasion. But
she
couldn’t. And Karp was not here. And if he had been here, she realized, she might not have asked him, because worse than the feeling of losing a case she felt belonged to her was the prospect of going to Karp and asking him for a favor, like a little girl asking for a doll.

A thought stirred in the back of her mind. She focused on what Raney was saying. “… and so anyway, I pulled together all our notes from the case and got them typed up. I was gonna take them over this afternoon. But then Pete reminded me that he gave you the list of the people with the dolls. It’s a dead end, maybe, but they ought to have it.”

Marlene gave a yelp and, clutching her ragged mass of paper, fled back down the hall into her office. When Raney followed her in, he found her rummaging through files and drawers and cursing herself for an idiot and a fool.

Raney said soothingly, “Hey, Marlene, calm down, it’s no big deal. I don’t need it today. It probably don’t mean shit, anyhow.”

She stopped and stared at him. “I know where he lives. I just figured it out. It has to be.” She shuffled through the stacks of paper on her desk and with a cry brought forth her folder on the Segura case. In a moment she had Balducci’s list of doll owners in her hand. “I was right. She’s here. Irma Dean. I knew that place was too good to be true.”

“Slow down, Marlene,” said Raney. “You know where who lives? Who’s Irma Dean?”