Tragic (15 page)

Antonia retrieved a coat and soon they were both walking up the street in a light snowfall, their breath coming out in great clouds of condensation. When they were opposite the elementary school, they crossed the road.

“This is where they parked,” Antonia said.

Marlene looked around and then spotted something in the grass between the curb and sidewalk. She walked over as she opened her purse and took out her phone, which she used to take a photograph of the object. Returning the phone to her purse, she pulled out a pen that she stuck in the ground next to the item. Then she retrieved a pair of tweezers, leaned over, and picked the object up. She looked closely at it and then turned to show Antonia.

“We may have our smoking gun,” Marlene said.

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand,” Antonia said.

“Just an expression. I need to look around more before the snow covers everything up. Would you have any envelopes at your house?”

“Would plastic bags do?” Antonia asked.

“No, paper envelopes,” Marlene replied.

“I’m sure we do,” Antonia said and then walked off across the street toward her house.

Marlene started to search the area but was interrupted again by the
1812 Overture
playing in her coat pocket. “Hello, Ivgeny,” she answered lightly, but as she listened her face grew grim.

“Are they okay? Butch is going to want to talk to all three.” She pulled the note out of her coat pocket. “Can you see their car’s license plate? FPB eight-one-nine-six? Great.” She paused and then laughed. “No, please, leave the questioning to Butch. We don’t want this coming back to bite us in the butt because some Russian gangster started cutting fingers off of the suspects. Thank you anyway, sweetie, and that will be a nice present; just make sure all the pieces are still attached. I’ll talk to you later.”

Marlene hung up just as a dark sedan pulled up to the curb.

“Someone here call the police?” Clay Fulton said as he got out of the car.

Tilting her head back to look up at the snowflakes that floated down from the dark gray sky, Marlene took in a deep breath before letting it out. “You know, Clay, I think we’re going to have a white Christmas after all,” she said, then wiped at a tear that formed on her cheek. “But it’s going to be a tough one for Antonia and Nicoli.”

K
ARP LEANED FORWARD FROM THE
backseat of the armored sedan and tapped on the glass between him and his driver. “This is good J.P.,” he said. “You can let me out here.”

NYPD Officer J. P. Murphy pulled over to the curb and frowned as he looked in the rearview mirror. “You sure about this, Mr. Karp?” he asked. “Clay Fulton will have my ass in a sling if he hears that I let you walk into Battery Park alone at ten o’clock at night, much less during a snowstorm.”

Looking outside as the wind whipped snowflakes sideways across Battery Place and into the park on the southern tip of Manhattan, Karp shivered. He wasn’t thrilled at the thought of venturing into the elements himself. But he’d received a phone call two hours earlier from Fulton, who was in New Rochelle with Marlene, and he wouldn’t have missed this conversation if hell itself was about to freeze over.

The first part of his telephone conversation with the detective was to get an overview of what Marlene had learned during her conversation with Antonia Carlotta and their subsequent findings after Fulton arrived on the scene. The second part was to let Karp know that NYPD detectives were transporting three “persons of interest” in the Carlotta murders to the Criminal Courts Building for questioning.

It seemed that once again, Marlene’s intuition and some great detective work had paid off. Responding to directions she’d given Fulton to relay, officers had found William “Gnat” Miller, Frankie DiMarzo, and Alexei Bebnev hog-tied in an old Delta 88 at a South Brooklyn landfill, one in the front seat, one in the back, and a third, Bebnev, in the trunk.

“Apparently Bebnev was planning on dispatching Miller and DiMarzo when some good citizen put a stop to it and left them for us,” Fulton said. “We got Bebnev on an immigration hold, and the other two we’re bringing in for a chat. Um, apparently there was a note pinned to Bebnev’s coat, that said, ‘Happy Chanukah, A Secret Admirer.’ Care to explain that one?”

“Maybe later,” Karp had said, smiling to himself.

“Uh-huh,” Fulton replied. “That’s what I thought, but Marlene says she needs to talk to you about that, so I’m handing you over.”

A moment later, Marlene came on the line. “Hello, Butch,” she said. “You’re not going to believe what I’ve been up to!”

“Oh, I’ve lived with you long enough to pretty much know that anything’s possible,” he replied, rolling his eyes.

“You got that right, and we’ll fill you in on the details when we get back,” she said. “But right now I need to tell you that your relative would like to meet with you around ten. He says it’s about these ‘persons of interest’ and you won’t be disappointed.”

“Did he say where?”

“You’ll love this: Castle Clinton in Battery Park.”

“Ten o’clock tonight?” Karp winced as he listened to the wind howl outside the loft’s living room window.

Marlene chuckled. “Afraid so, my love. But I don’t think he’d ask on such short notice if it wasn’t important.”

“No, you’re right,” he replied. “I’ll be there.” He thought about it for a second, then added, “Tell Fulton let’s all meet this evening at the office about eleven; I’ll call Guma. And I hate to do this, but would you ask Mrs. Carlotta to come with you; we’ll get her a ride back home with an officer.”

“Clay and I thought you might want her there, and we already asked,” Marlene replied. “This storm is starting to pick up, but she’s anxious to do whatever she can and has a babysitter coming over.”

After congratulating his wife on her efforts, Karp hung up and called Guma to fill him in, except for the part about going to Castle Clinton to meet with Ivgeny Karchovski. “I’ll see you at my office tonight at eleven,” he repeated. “Do me a favor and set up three lineups, one for each of the stooges, and make sure we have a stenographer ready to go.”

“You do choose the most inopportune times to champion the cause of justice,” Guma responded. “It’s going to be tough to drag myself away from the warm attentions of the affectionate Madam Milquetost, but duty calls. Honey Bear, would you hand me my robe?”

“Goom, that was way too much information.” Karp grimaced. But now, watching the snow swirl in the light of the streetlamps, he identified with Guma’s complaint.

“How about I at least call the park police and get them to let us through the security gate?” Officer J. P. Murphy said. “That way I can drive you right up to the castle.”

Karp thought about who was waiting for him and shook his head. “No, I can use the walk,” he said with only a touch of irony. “I’ll be okay. There’s my escort, I believe.”

A very large man in a Russian-style fur hat with earflaps and a fur coat, all of which made him look like a bear, loomed out of the gray and white landscape of the park. He stood ten feet from the car, waiting patiently with a large bundle in his arms.

“I think I should at least come with you,” Murphy suggested as he looked warily at the stranger.

“Sorry, J.P., you have to stay put,” Karp replied. “National security stuff. Need-to-know basis only. Very hush-hush. Get my drift? This doesn’t go any further than me, you, and Detective Fulton, right?”

Murphy arched an eyebrow and looked impressed. “Oh yeah, gotcha, sure, Mr. Karp,” he said, obviously relieved that he now had a good excuse not to venture forth in his NYPD-issued winter jacket. “Uh, you’ll talk to Fulton?”

“We’re meeting as soon as this is over; it won’t be a problem. I should be about a half hour.”

“Okay,” the officer said. “I’ll be right here. Call if you need something, and I’ll come running, or slipping and sliding.”

“Good man,” Karp said, smiling as he opened the door of the sedan and stepped out into a sudden blast of frigid air from New York Harbor. He immediately wished he’d worn something more substantial than his long peacoat and a sweater.

However, he didn’t have to suffer long. The big man stepped forward and presented him with a fur hat. “Is
ushanka,
” he growled, though he was trying to smile at the same time. He then offered Karp a long coat with a fur collar. “Wear this too, please.”

Noting the long, ugly scar that bisected the giant’s rugged face, Karp placed the hat on his head and immediately understood how some animals withstood winter in the open. He quickly shucked his peacoat and tossed it back in the car before slipping into the new garment.

“Thank you,” he said to the big man, who only grunted before turning to lead the way into the park.

As they passed the pier on his right, Karp noticed a dark speedboat tied to a dock. He could see the glow of a cigarette coming from a shadowy figure standing on the dock near the bow and another from someone standing in the stern of the boat. He couldn’t be sure, with the poor lighting and blowing snow, but they appeared to be armed with rifles of some sort.
My cousin does not travel lightly,
he thought.

There was further evidence of that fact when he and his escort walked up to the circular sandstone building known as Castle Clinton, where they were waved inside by two more guards, though these were not exhibiting any weapons.

Also known as Fort Clinton, the structure was originally built to guard against British warships in the War of 1812, though no one had ever fired a shot in anger from it, and it was named after former governor and New York City mayor George Clinton. It now served as a museum, gift shop, and ticket office for those wishing to visit Ellis and Liberty Islands.

And apparently a clandestine meeting place for Russian gangsters,
Karp thought as he followed his guide down a dark hallway toward a light at the end. His cousin’s sometimes alarming access to places otherwise off-limits to everyone else amazed him.
I guess money can buy most everything.

When they reached the small room, apparently an office of some sort, Karp saw his host standing next to a table, pouring a clear liquid into two glasses. The man was tall, as tall as himself, not heavy like his fur-clad guide but again, more like himself, thick but fit. Indeed, the few people who had ever seen them together often commented that they could have been brothers. They both had the same gold-flecked gray eyes and pewter-colored hair, though Ivgeny wore his in a crew cut. The biggest difference was that the right side of the gangster’s face had a shiny, melted look to it, and he wore a patch over his missing right eye; a former colonel in the Soviet Army, he’d been pulled, almost dead, from a burning tank in Afghanistan.

Yet he was still a handsome man with a generous smile that he now turned to Karp as he spotted him coming into the room. “Cousin Butch!” he shouted as he picked up the two glasses. “You look good, like true Slav in your fur!”

Smiling as he watched his cousin walk across the room, Karp thought about how they’d met late in life, in fact only ten or so years earlier, and learned a side of his family history that he hadn’t known. His grandfather and Ivgeny’s grandfather were brothers growing up Jewish in Poland when Russian Cossacks burned the village to the ground. Karp’s grandfather had immigrated to the United States, arriving at Ellis Island where his name had been
changed to Karp. Ivgeny’s grandfather had made his way into Russia and joined the Red Army when the tsar was overthrown.

Eventually, Ivgeny’s father, who himself had been a general in the Soviet Army until purged after World War II, fled to the U.S. at his uncle’s invitation. However, while the Karp side of the family had walked the straight-and-narrow path, the Karchovskis had settled in Brooklyn and gone into what Ivgeny euphemistically called “the import-export trade.” When the Soviet Union dissolved and Ivgeny retired from the army, he joined his father, whom he hadn’t seen since childhood, in Little Odessa and was groomed to take over the family business.

Their “business” mostly revolved around providing transportation and false paperwork for immigrants from the former Soviet Union into the United States, as well as the traditional exchange of black-market products between the U.S. and Russia, whether it was Russian icon paintings or pirated American music. They did not deal in drugs, guns, or prostitution. However, as the other Russian gangs were well aware, they were quite capable of swift, efficient violence to protect their turf and themselves; many of Ivgeny’s “associates” were former Soviet special forces who’d served under him, and no mere criminals with guns.

Under normal circumstances, Karp would have probably never had anything to do with his cousin. Not that he didn’t like the man; he did, but consorting with known criminals was not appropriate for the district attorney of New York County. However, they’d been thrown together out of mutual necessity, and Marlene had taken a liking to Karp’s Russian cousin and uncle and stayed in contact. Privately, he was glad she had, both from a personal perspective and because Ivgeny and his men had more than once stepped in and helped thwart terrorist attacks on the city.

The leopard had not changed his spots much. Ivgeny still retained his natural Russian distrust of authority, particularly law enforcement, but he had put family first. And since their original meeting, Ivgeny had come to a grudging respect for the system
and its caretakers. “At least, he says, as it is administered by the current DA,” Marlene had once told him.

And here he was yet again, ready to step in and help.
We’re going to make an honest man of him yet,
Karp thought as he smiled. “Good evening, Ivgeny. It’s good to see you, though you might have chosen better weather if you can arrange that like you seem to be able to arrange everything else.”

Ivgeny grinned mischievously and laughed loudly. “My apologies,” he said. “My ‘influence’ is greatly exaggerated and God hardly pays any attention to my requests. But come, let us drink to warm friendships and families on a cold winter night,” he said, offering a glass to Karp. “Not unlike Moscow, I might add.”