SIX

“You look beat,” Karp said.

“I’m totally ruined,” Marlene said. “I have to pee, and I can’t bear the thought of moving my body out of bed to the bathroom. Could you, like, do it for me?”

“I would, but I’m too tired.”

“Your trial, huh?”

Both of them were talking like zombies, lying corpse-like in bed, staring up at the ceiling with glazed eyes; it would have been amusing if either of them could have spared the energy to laugh. It was Sunday night after a weekend with no rest.

“Right,” sighed Karp. “I have to see Waley tomorrow. I thought I should know the case and the relevant law before I met him. He probably does. But I had to spend all Friday with this silly woman who screwed up a perfectly simple case, where the witnesses weren’t—”

“I don’t want to hear it,” groaned Marlene, putting her hands over her ears.

“Right, why bother? The bureau is going to go down the tubes.”

“Uh-huh. Explain to me again why it was so important for you to take this case, even though everyone told you not to.”

“It was important because I am an arrogant schmuck, and as an arrogant schmuck I naturally believe I can do things that no one else can do, like managing a major case against the best defense lawyer in the country while running a homicide bureau that handles a thousand cases a year. How’s Lucy doing?”

“Terrible. She went to bed in tears again. I feel like I’m tearing pieces of flesh from her body. She’s so ashamed of herself she can’t think straight, and I lose my temper. I am many things, but apparently a math teacher is not one of them. Why can’t she learn this shit? I’m thinking. It’s easy! And of course, it’s not easy for her for some reason, and then I think she needs to go into some kind of counseling, so she can tell someone what a bad mother I am. Anyway, it’s clear that something else is going on—it’s not intellectual deficit. I mean, for Christ’s sake, the kid speaks Chinese, she reads at the ninth-grade level … Fuck! I can’t think about it anymore. Look, could you, like, stroke my head?”

“Like this?”

“Yes. Kind of ease the toxic thoughts out of there. Would you mind terribly if I wet the bed?”

“Not at all. On the other hand …” He paused, listening. “I think we are both going to have to get up anyway.” A thin cranky wail drifted through the loft, which was soon followed by a second, almost identical cry, and then both gained volume until they had reached the precise pitch and intensity that evolution had found to be the most irritating to the human adult—but doubled.

“Teething,” said Karp unnecessarily, and swung his feet out of bed.

Marlene clenched her own teeth, distorted her face into a Medusa-like rictus, balled her fists, and thrashed her legs violently about, emitting a hideous sound somewhere between a muffled shriek and a sob. The spasm lasted for a good half minute, leaving Marlene limper even than before. Karp ignored the display, having grown used to it since the twins arrived. Marlene had assured him that the release it afforded helped prevent her from dashing their tiny brains out.

“I’ll get Zak,” said Karp nobly, the senior twin being notoriously the harder to calm.

Marlene grunted, cursed, stiffened her jaw, got out of bed, and clumped into the bathroom. This can’t go on, she thought. I have to do something to make this stop.

Karp was not ready to meet with Lionel T. Waley the next morning. The regular meeting of the bureau to review cases had gone badly, although young Nolan had much improved his case against Morella and had received a nice round of applause. Karp was not as up on the cases as he usually was and was compelled to fake it, a habit he deplored in others and despised in himself. Roland Hrcany made sure that Karp knew he knew that Karp was screwing up, and Karp was certain that many of the others did too. While he could depend on Roland’s native sadism to prevent any truly wretched cases from going forward, the meeting simply added to his feeling that things were slipping out of control.

Lionel Waley’s presence made him feel it even more, through invidious comparison, for if anyone was ever in complete control, it was Waley. Karp had taken as much care with his appearance as he could manage, but he had slept only three out of the last twenty-four hours and it showed. He had definitely remembered to shave, because there was a prominent gash smarting under his chin, and he was dressed, although he realized just after he had risen to shake Waley’s hand that the shirt button over his belt was undone, allowing a charming view of his undershirt.

Waley was, in contrast, as perfect as an oil portrait of a nineteenth-century alderman, and like one of these, he seemed to glow softly. He was a slight, well-proportioned man in his early sixties. His hair was white and curly, like that of a show poodle, or Santa, and this lent a softness to what otherwise would have been too severe a face. His eyes, large and canny under thick white brows, were gray-blue, and he wore a beautifully tailored, conservatively cut suit of a similar shade, the sort of ineffably custom color that never appears on pipe racks at even the best department stores. He spoke in deep, mellow. tones, like an oboe in low register, and he had the perfectly neutral accent of a newscaster.

After a somewhat briefer than usual bout of pleasantries, Karp said, “Your meeting, Mr. Waley. What can I do for you?”

“Well, I believe we can do something for each other, Mr. Karp, and put this dreadful tragedy behind us in a way mutually credible to our respective causes.”

This was not the sort of language that dripped from the mouths of lawyers much in evidence at 100 Centre Street. The stately period was not often heard in those precincts, and when it was, Karp was frequently the source. He enjoyed a certain formality of language, as befitting the dignity of the law (assuming it still retained any in Centre Street) and tending both to suppress the passion that could lead to legal errors and to allay the hostility of the lowlifes. Now, however, Karp found it irritating, perhaps because he sensed that Waley considered him one of the lowlifes.

Bluntly, therefore, he snapped, “You want to make a deal?”

“Any arrangement that would avoid the spectacle of a trial would, I think, be an act of mercy, for my client, for his parents, and, given the case’s peculiar circumstances, for the community at large.”

“What about the families of the murdered women? You think it would be a mercy for them too?”

Karp’s tone was harsh, but Waley seemed not to notice. In the same mild voice he answered, “Frankly? Yes, I believe so, unless you still imagine that it would be purgative or healing for them to sit in a courtroom day after day, pecked at by the vulture press, while experts jabber on about precisely how their beloved mother, or sister, or grandmother died. You don’t believe that, do you?”

In fact, Karp did not; nevertheless, and paradoxically, that he agreed only served to heighten his irritation. He said, “Okay, Mr. Waley, you made your point. If Jonathan says he’s really, truly sorry, he can go home, no hard feelings.”

A tiny pause, as if something faintly disgusting had occurred. Then Waley said, “Really, Mr. Karp, I did not expect cheap sarcasm from you, someone with your reputation among the criminal bar of this city as a decent and honorable man.”

Karp’s neck grew warm; he could hardly believe it. Embarrassed? By a lawyer? He cleared his throat and snapped, “What’s your plan, counselor?”

Waley replied, “My only aim here, Mr. Karp, is to obtain for Jonathan Rohbling the psychiatric treatment he very badly needs, in a setting where he has some chance of recovery. We would therefore offer a guilty plea to manslaughter in the second degree on the homicide of Jane Hughes, the sentence not to exceed five years. All other charges would be dismissed. We would make application to the court that sentence be served in an appropriate facility, and we would expect the People to concur.”

“You’re serious?”

“Perfectly.”

“So, essentially, we would give your client a free pass for four murders and around three years in a psychiatric country club for the fifth? I’m curious, sir, why you would imagine there to be any advantage to the People in such an arrangement.”

“The advantage is avoiding a racially divisive circus trial, which cannot but lead to the same result.”

“That’s breathtaking confidence, even for you, Mr. Waley. We have a confession for all five murders. We have solid forensic evidence linking Rohbling to the murder of Jane Hughes—”

Waley waved his hand dismissively. “Mr. Karp, the murder of Hughes is neither here nor there. We concede Hughes died as a result of my client’s actions. But the boy is insane, a palpable and obvious lunatic. Your confession, so-called, is therefore meaningless and without legal effect, as I’m certain any judge will confirm. And any jury confronted with the evidence will bring in a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity.”

“He was found capable of assisting with his defense.”

“Oh, yes,” said Waley irritably, “so he is. He can also tie his shoes and go to the toilet by himself. You know very well that has nothing to do with what we’re discussing. He is, in fact, insane.”

“That is your opinion. I disagree.”

Waley stared at him for what seemed a long while. “You disagree? Tell me, Mr. Karp, have you met my client? Have you spoken at any length with Jonathan Rohbling?”

“No, of course not. Why should I? I know what he did, which is the only issue here.”

“Is it? Yes, I suppose it must be, to you.” Waley’s face took on a look that was nearly wistful, with little flarings of the nostrils. “You know, Mr. Karp, as much as I respect our adversary system, it is at times like these I wish that we could simply sit down like civilized men and just do the decent thing, to do what we would want done if our own families or loved ones were involved in this dreadful affair. Instead we will lend our considerable talents to making each other look foolish or evil, we will bring out what the British charmingly call trick cyclists to pontificate upon whether this pathetic boy is mad or sane, and in the end the jury will either commit him for treatment, which is what we ought to have done during this interview, or else condemn him to certain, miserable death in some prison.”

“Death?”

“Of course, death! I don’t mean the formal penalty. But what do you suppose the fate will be in Attica or Dannemora of a slight, pale boy accused of murdering five black grandmothers?” Waley coughed and stiffened his face, as if the air in Karp’s office had somehow congealed or turned noisome. Then, in one dramatic motion, he rose to his feet and slipped his fawn cashmere topcoat over his shoulders. He smiled sadly, extending his hand, which Karp shook. “A pleasure, Mr. Karp. Regrettably, it seems we will be much in each other’s way in the coming months.”

Waley paused at the door. “They tell me you have never lost a homicide case, Mr. Karp. A string of over one hundred now, isn’t it?”

“Something like that.”

Waley smiled. It was a warm, delighted smile, and Karp felt his face twitching to return it. “Well, well,” said Waley, and left.

“It was the most uncanny thing, V.T.,” said Karp that afternoon over a mediocre Chinese lunch. “I mean, it’s not like I’m a blushing virgin. I’ve been around the block with the defense bar, good ones, sleaze balls, the usual range, but this guy was a piece of work. You know, for an instant I actually felt myself wanting to accept his offer. He seemed so reasonable, so decent …”

“Perhaps he is,” said V.T. Newbury. He was a small, fair, handsome, elegant man whose most common facial expression was one of ironic surprise. He wore it now.

“Oh, right!” Karp snorted. “V.T., he’s a lawyer. Be real! No, but, Jesus, I tell you, man, I haven’t had a warm douche like that in years. Some kind of weird rays coming off that guy.”

“Probably has demonic powers.”

“I’d believe it. Three sixes tattooed on his ass, the whole thing. What a technique, though! Fucker’ll go through a jury like a dose of salts.”

“Aren’t you worried?”

“I’m pissing in my pants, V.T. You know, I’ll tell you something strange. When he was sitting there, I swear I was flashing on Garrahy. Not because he looked like him, or he sounded like him, because he didn’t, but there was a presence there, like the guy was the best and he knew it and it didn’t affect him—there was no arrogance. You remember Garrahy—there wasn’t an arrogant bone in his body. Well, this guy is the same thing, like God reached down and touched him and said, Hey, Lionel, somebody got to be the best fucking defense lawyer in the universe and I picked you.”

“You sound like you’re in love,” said V.T.

Karp laughed. “I don’t know, man, but I’m definitely going to have to bring my lunch to this trial. The thing of it is, whatever you do in life, there comes a moment—I mean, let’s face it, I won a lot of cases, but seventy-five percent of them were mutts with a dumb alibi and a court-appointed good Democrat out of Brooklyn Law night school. This is going to be something completely different.”

“As they say on the Monty Python show. So, you feel like backing out?”

“What I feel like is getting into my jammies, pulling the quilt over my head, and putting my thumb in my mouth. You want the last shrimp? Another thing I flashed on when I was coming over here. It happened back in ’61. Summer after my sophomore year. I was a hot ball player, I’d just burned up the PAC-Ten, set a single-game scoring record, and set a couple of Cal records too. I had triple doubles in a dozen games. Okay, it’s the summer, I’m playing ball in the Rucker Summer League, up in the Rucker playground on 155th Street. This, you should know, is like the killer playground of the world. There’s guys playing there, that’s all they do, street guys. If they could read and write, they’d’ve been All-Americans, first-round draft choices. So it’s a tough game, but I’m hot, I’m like one of four white guys playing in the whole place. I could still move back then, and jump, not too embarrassingly, and shoot, of course. Okay, so at Rucker, in those days, the thing was, you never knew who’d turn up. Chamberlain would come by, Richie Guerin, Oscar Robertson, and the thing was, you weren’t supposed to notice them as anything special, they would just jump in and run around with the playground guys. Now, of course, there would be TV cameras and the whole entourage, but back then it was still a game. Anyway, it’s after the regular competitions, pick-up playground games, it’s getting dark, that kind of blue twilight you get in the summers here when you think it’s never going to be night, and you can play forever, the lights are on, and the game I’m in ends and some guys leave and others drift in. This is done on automatic pilot, five guys strip off their shirts, five guys keep them on, and you’re playing, twenty-one points, deuce rule, make it, take it. Okay, so seven seconds into the game I notice the guy I’m playing against is something special, and I look, and I think to myself, holy shit, it’s Elgin Baylor. This was the year he averaged thirty-eight points a game in the NBA. So, in the next fifteen minutes I learned the difference between a hot sophomore college ball player and one of the best basketball players in history.”

“How did you do?”

“He pounded me into the ground like a tent peg—what do you think?”

“And your point is … ?”

“I’m not sure,” said Karp, his forehead wrinkling. “Obviously, I want to win, but maybe even more I want to be in the game with this guy. He gets my juices flowing. You know, we win cases all the time because we only go in there, to court, when we think we have an overwhelming case, and when the mutt hasn’t got the sense to cop a plea. But the fact it, the system is skewed to let the guy off unless the prosecutor’s really sharp. We should get beat a lot more, and we would if we faced more people like Waley.”

“Lucky us,” said V.T. “What am I hearing, you think you’ll get creamed?”

Karp shrugged. “I’m not sure I’d bet my next three paychecks on me to win. He’ll go with NGI, so it’s going to be dueling shrinks, which is always a toss-up. Also, with him in there, I make one mistake it’s all over. But that’s the job: they let the bull in, you got to wave the cape. Otherwise, you walk up the aisles selling enchiladas. So what’re you up to?”

What V.T. was up to was the undermining of a complex Medicaid-fraud scheme. He described the convolutions of this with verve and humor, while Karp, not really following the details, was content to relax and listen in the dim booth, occasionally dropping a piece of Mongolian beef into his mouth and nodding appropriately.

Suddenly, however, he grew alert. “What was that doc’s name again?” he asked.

“Which doc? Robinson?”

“Yeah, Vincent Robinson. What do you have on him?”

“Oh, Vince! Old Vincent is a rare bird. He runs a string of clinics, three in Harlem, one in Washington Heights, two in the South Bronx. A social benefactor, Dr. Robinson. He does well by doing good.”

“These are Medicaid mills?”

“We think so. Medicaid and Medicare.”

“What’s the difference?”

“You haven’t been listening. I’m hurt. To review, Medicaid is the federally funded program for people on welfare. Medicare is for the old, regardless of income. The federal government sets rates for particular payments for medical procedures and drugs in both cases, but with Medicaid the money is run through the state, and through city agencies with the state making a contribution. The paperwork is extremely complex. For example, you can have a health-service provider bill another provider for services, only some of which are Medicaid-eligible under Part Two—”

“Snore,” said Karp. “Just the story on Robinson, please. What’s he up to?”

“But all the fun is in the details!”

“No, really, V.T. Tell me about Robinson.”

“Well, since you insist, about a month ago the Southern District U.S. Attorney’s Office got an anonymous tip that Robinson’s clinics were dirty. They have a hotline for stuff like that. They did some preliminary screening and found discrepancies. Okay, no surprise there, the regs are so complicated that practically everyone in the program is in some kind of irregularity, but Robinson’s operation was big enough and funny enough to flash on the screen. Paul Menotti caught the case. You know him?”

“By rep. A hard charger.”

“To be sure. Anyway, Paul called me in, because of the state law violation, of course, but also because, though I blush to say it, if you want to find out where naughty money is flowing, I am The Man.”

“And was there naughty money flowing?”

“Mmm, that’s what we’re trying to determine. There’re a couple of different ways to defraud these programs. Most fraudulent docs just add on treatments they haven’t done and bill for them. An old lady comes in, they have some lackey slip her the happy pills, and then they bill for a full examination, with lab work. A little upscale from that is where they invent patients, which has the advantage that they don’t even have to have a real clinic, just a bunch of government patient numbers and a vivid medical imagination.”

“Where do they get the numbers?”

“Oh, from actual people, alive or dead. Mrs. Jones dies and they keep using her number for billing. Or Mrs. Jones wanders off to another provider, but she’s still, quote, getting her pills every week, unquote, and the feds’re paying. And then, finally, we have the whole lab and drug business, kickbacks to and from labs and pharmacies—the labs pad their billings and the clinics get a schmear off it. Or the clinic generates scrip for drugs, but the pharmacy doesn’t really supply them, and they get a cut of the billings. Or the pharmacy really does supply drugs, which the feds pay for, and then the drugs get sold on the street. The only limit is the human imagination.”

“This is big money?”

“Immense. A bonanza. Fifteen billion in Medicare-Medicaid money goes through New York City every year. Robinson’s clinics alone have over thirty million bucks’ worth of the pie. How much of that is skim, God only knows.”

“Assuming God is an accountant.”

“Of course God is an accountant. It’s the basis of all morality.”

“You can’t get to him? Robinson, not God.”

“Not yet. As I said, he’s a rare bird. Very smart, very smooth.”

“You’ve met him?”

“Yes, we’ve had several dates. It’s all a big misunderstanding. Dr. Robinson is a Park Avenue specialist. He maintains an interest in St. Nicholas Medical Centers, Inc., which is the holding company for the clinics, out of noblesse oblige: he has an investment in the corporation, and he gets a modest return in exchange for his medical advice and his Harvard degree. The board of the corporation and the management of the clinics are full of local fronts, of the correct ethnicity. We find any fraud, in other words, his tame Negroes and Hispanics take the fall.”

“So what happened to the money he’s supposed to be skimming here?” Karp asked.

“Ah, that’s the question,” said V.T., beaming. “And the answer? The answer is, we don’t know yet. We have to move somewhat gingerly with Robinson. He is heavily accoutered with legal counsel. What we do know is, one, he set up St. Nicholas, and two, St. Nicholas is dirty. It follows that he has his fingers in the money stream somehow, but …” V.T. shrugged elegantly. “What’s your interest in the doctor? Prostate acting up again?”

Karp laughed. “Au contraire. If anything, it is I who will be jamming large irregular objects up Doctor Robinson’s rectum. Tell me, does Dr. R. strike you as the sort of man who might remove a close associate if that associate grew troublesome?”

“ ‘Remove’? You mean the Big M?”

Karp nodded. “Could be. His nurse slash girlfriend turned up dead this past September, in his bedroom, and Robinson went through a lot of trouble to distance himself from the death. The death itself is suspicious.”

“Oh-ho,” said V.T. and was silent for a moment, playing with his lip. Then he said, “Well, since you ask, I’d have to give that a qualified yes. There is a shitload of money floating free here, and if someone was, say, threatening to tell us where it is, or trying to grab a piece of it, then, yes, I’d say Robinson could do the deed. As a moral being, Dr. Robinson is easily distinguishable from Dr. Schweitzer.”

“It sounds like it,” said Karp. “We’re digging up the nurse for a full postmortem. If it shows anything nasty, we’ll get the doc in for a frank exchange of views.”

“Speaking of which, why don’t you sit in with me and Menotti before that? It might give you some sense of a possible motive, or maybe you’ll pick up something we missed.”

Motive again, thought Karp, his mind drifting involuntarily back to Rohbling. Greed seemed so simple compared to whatever impelled young Jonathan. He made a mental note: if Waley pleaded NGI, he would have the defendant examined by somebody he trusted more than the usual Bellevue hacks.

He realized V.T. was staring at him. “Oh, sorry,” he said. “Had a thought. Yeah, good idea. I’d like to meet Menotti.”

“Then come with me,” said V.T. “There’s a meeting to talk about warrants at one-thirty today.”

Still strained with each other, but holding hands nevertheless, Marlene and her daughter walked with the big dog down Canal Street toward Tranh’s noodle shop.

“Oh, no!” cried Lucy when they had come near enough to see the debris on the pavement, the police sawhorses set up as barriers, the yellow crime-scene tape. Tranh’s was a black vacancy in the row of shops, stinking of char and dripping with dirty water, from out of which presently emerged a stocky middle-aged man in a firefighter’s coat and helmet. He paused at the barrier to write on a clipboard. Marlene approached him.

“Excuse me, I’m a friend of the man who ran this place. Do you know … did anything happen to him?”

“Not as far as I know,” said the man. “Somebody lived back there behind the restaurant, but he must’ve got out.”

“This was an arson, wasn’t it?”

The officer’s face grew blank. “It’s a case under investigation.”

“Yeah, right. Look, I used to be with the D.A. Here’s my card. I saw a serious altercation the other day between the owner and a bunch of punks who were trying to extort him. I can ID them anytime you want.”

The investigator took the card and expressed his thanks. Then Lucy shouted, “Mr. Tranh!” and pointed across Canal Street, where, indeed, Mr. Tranh was emerging from the all-night Chinese movie theater. He was dressed in an army blanket, black trousers, and flip-flops, and carried a cheap Day-glo orange vinyl duffel bag. Marlene and Lucy dashed across the wide thoroughfare to him and deluged him with a babble of questions in Cantonese and French, while the dog sniffed suspiciously at Tranh’s blanket.

Tranh responded to Marlene in the latter tongue. “Madame, I beg you, relieve yourself of any concern. I am perfectly well.”

“But what happened, M. Tranh?”

“I was visited in the early morning by arsonists. Interesting, because I had just made up my mind to purchase a grille for the window. This demonstrates the necessity of acting swiftly upon one’s instincts, does it not? In any case, they threw a stone through the glass, followed by a gasoline bomb. I am not a heavy sleeper, and so I was warned and was able to escape through the back door.”

“My God! I didn’t realize you lived behind the restaurant. You must have lost everything.”

“Yes. Everything, save for these trifles.” Tranh indicated the duffel bag with his toe. “I regret only my little library, some items of which had sentimental value. This is now the third time I have lost everything. One grows accustomed to it, I find: to having nothing.”

“But where will you stay?” Marlene asked. “And you can’t go wandering around in a blanket. It is the autumn already. Have you got any cash?”

“A little, thank you. And I am given to understand that there are facilities for the destitute—”

“Ah, your compatriots of the Vietnamese community will provide for you?”

“I fear not. The Vietnamese community and I are not in communion. No, I refer to the establishment of the city itself.”

“The men’s hostels? Never! They are, you comprehend, a species of hell, full of robbers and those of degenerate tastes. I will not allow it. No, I have a suite of small rooms connected with my business. You will stay there until we can devise a better solution.”

“Madame, I could not possibly impose upon you …”

“Nonsense!” cried Marlene. “I insist. Are you not my friend?” she said. “And it is no imposition. In return, you can perform a valuable service for me perhaps. I operate a security business. I detect that you are not altogether lacking in useful skills associated with such work. Therefore, let us walk!” She took the man’s arm, whereupon he nodded in assent and lifted his bag.

“Mom! What’re you talking about?” demanded Lucy, who was unused to being the one who was missing the story, at least in Chinatown.

“Mr. Tranh is going to live behind my office,” said Marlene.

“With Sym and Posie?” Lucy began to giggle.

“We’ll work something out,” said Marlene, an interesting idea beginning to form in her mind.