Corruption of Blood (17 page)

It was hot in the room, and Marlene slipped out of her suit jacket, for some reason not feeling it was an odd thing to do. Bloom removed his golf sweater.

A hiatus here, blankness. Marlene drifted off into a dream. She was naked in a cage, in some sort of zoo. Karp was in the next cage. There were people watching them expectantly. She was full of sexual desire and so was Karp, but she was nervous and embarrassed. Then, in the strange way of dreams, it became all right, natural. She pressed against the bars, spreading her thighs. He stroked her thighs and belly. She squirmed.

She awoke, gasping. She was lying on her back, on the couch, with her skirt hiked up and her legs asunder. Her shirt was open to the waist and her bra had been unhooked. The district attorney was kneeling over her, breathing hard, with one of his hands under the elastic of her panty hose, groping at her crotch.

In a convulsive movement, she sat up and thrust him away. She stood up, tottered, her head spinning, and fell back against the arm of the couch. Bloom stroked her leg and said soothingly, “Relax. Relax, there’s nothing wrong… .”

She struggled again and found her feet, in deep panic now, disoriented and feeling ill. There was a peculiar medicinal taste at the back of her throat. Drugged. Something in the brandy. She saw her jacket and snatched it up and shoved it under her left arm and did the same with her bag. With her right hand, she held her blouse closed. She started to walk away, but Bloom reached out and grabbed her left arm. His face was flushed. He said in his best avuncular tone, “Hey, look, let’s sit down and talk about this. Before you run off and do anything rash, let’s just sit …”

Marlene set herself, hauled back, and threw a solid right cross into Bloom’s mouth. It was not an artful blow and her father would have disapproved of the right hand lead, but it was a sincere one, with all her meat and considerable skill behind it. Bloom staggered away from the punch, caught the backs of his calves against the coffee table, and crashed down on it. Two of its legs collapsed, dumping him on the carpet, so that the cheesecake and everything else on the coffee table slipped down the slope thus created, covering him with a mess of glutinous dessert, cold coffee, cream, sugar, and shattered crockery.

Marlene ran out of the apartment, without stopping to pick up her coat or her briefcase and her carefully prepared plan. She adjusted her clothing in the elevator, and raced past the lobby without disturbing the nodding doorman in his chair. On the sidewalk she was overcome with nausea. She knelt and puked her expensive meal into the gutter. Then she wobbled herself upright, whistled through her fingers, and snagged one of Park Avenue’s plentiful yellow cabs.

Once in the warm and deodorant-scented taxi, the shock caught up with her. She came apart. One part of her, that is, stood apart and analyzed the situation with a cold and well-trained logic. She had, of course, been a fool to think that Bloom was interested in her ideas. Bloom might have actually used the rewards available to him to help her career, if that was necessary to get her into bed, but the main thing was the sexual titillation of fucking the head of the rape unit, and not just that, no, not just, or even principally, for love of Marlene’s sweet body, but to put it to Karp. To fuck Karp.

And there was, of course, no way of getting back at him, even though she was almost certain that she had been drugged. What would she tell the police, for example? That she had gone to a man’s apartment while her husband was away, and he had what … grabbed a cheap feel? And who was the guy? Oh, the
district attorney
? Did you talk to the rape unit? Oh, you
are
the rape unit? Delightful. And of course, her career was now in the toilet, permanently.

Another part of Marlene was balled up, screaming in shame and rage. Marlene was, needless to say, no stranger to sexual violence. She had, in fact, once been kidnapped and subjected to various intrusive rituals by a gang of satanists. This was different, and, in a way, worse. She herself had written this script. What had Karp called him? A corrupt fuck. Yes, and of course she had known that, and of course she had conspired to hide that from herself, to pull off a coup, to show that she could succeed where Karp had failed, in controlling Bloom, in getting—what was it?—
past
Butch in a way? Because that would mean that she didn’t
need
him in some pathetic fashion, that their relationship was purely voluntary, that she was in control, and free.

As she had been since she (sort of) stopped believing in God at the age of twelve. This thought crossed her mind quickly, but not quickly enough, for now the taps were opened and the vast reservoirs of shame and guilt supplied as part of her Catholic girlhood and held back these many years by her worldly success, by her confidence, burst forth and flooded her spirit. She blubbered noisily down Broadway, prompting a nervous look in the rearview by the cabbie.

The final part of her was barely conscious. This was the part that knew that, if only fleetingly, she had considered letting Bloom screw her, for the advantage it would bring. That she had instantly rejected it did not in the least balance the horror of having made the calculation, having considered it at all. It was indelible, like a bloodstain on white silk.

Marlene was now moving toward a state that, as she well knew, the Church calls
acidie:
the condition of believing that one is beyond salvation, which is itself a mortal sin, and unique among the sins in that the indulgence in it is its own punishment.

Arriving at Crosby Street, she thrust a ten-dollar bill at the cabbie, double the fare, and staggered through her door and up the stairs.

In the dark loft, she checked the child, stifling her sobs so as not to wake her. Karp was asleep too; she could hear his heavy breathing. It was past two. She rinsed her mouth out at the sink and brushed her teeth for a long time. Then she curled up on the red couch in the living room and drew a quilt around her against a chill that was as much from within her as from the air in the loft. That was how Karp found her in the morning, wide awake and staring at nothing.

The thin man settled easily into the house in Little Havana. He watched a good deal of television and slept late.

It was fairly cool for Miami, nights in the sixties, but the thin man kept the air-conditioning set high, and slept under blankets. He had a serious air-conditioning deficit, almost thirteen years’ worth. The Cuban brought him his meals, takeout from American places, Kentucky Fried Chicken, McDonald’s, Dairy Queen. Another deficit to be made up. The man who called himself Bishop had told him not to go out, which he thought somewhat peculiar, because he would have to go out sometime, or there was no point in his being there at all.

One day, a little over a week after his arrival from Guatemala, the Cuban went out and returned with Bishop. They sat at the Formica table in the kitchen and drank American beer. For a few minutes they made small talk about how they both were doing, how the country had changed, about sports and television.

Bishop slid a paper across the table. It was a list of names. All of them were familiar to the thin man.

“You want all of these done?” the thin man asked.

“No. I wish we could leave all of them alone, but that may not be possible. The point is, we want the minimum possible hangout here. It’ll depend on how much the investigation learns before it collapses.”

“It’s going to collapse, though?”

Bishop smiled. “Assuredly. That operation’s already under way. We just need to stay one step ahead for a relatively short period.” He tapped the list of names. “We may not need to do anything. I’d prefer that, frankly.”

The thin man thought about that for a moment and drew the obvious conclusion.

“So you have people inside. The investigation.”

“Oh, yes, our sources are quite good,” said Bishop. “That’s what we do, after all. We’re spies.” He laughed, and the thin man laughed too.

EIGHT

“It must be nice to have your wife and kid here in Washington,” said Bert Crane conversationally. “How are they settling in?”

“Oh, just fine,” said Karp. “It’s an adjustment.”

“I’m looking forward to meeting her. You’ll be at the Dobbses’ tomorrow night, right?”

Karp had forgotten the dinner party. He always forgot parties. In the city, Marlene had kept track of their social obligations. He hoped she had kept track of this one, and secured a baby-sitter. Somehow he doubted it; Marlene wasn’t into tracking anything anymore. He said, “Oh, yeah, we’ll be there.”

“Good. Dobbs is doing us a favor on this one, you know. Parties are where things happen in this town, or so I’m given to believe. We haven’t quite burrowed in on the social side the way I’d hoped we would. These damn loose ends up in Philadelphia—I haven’t stroked egos and bought lunches to the extent I should have.” He rubbed his face and stared briefly out of his window at the train yards. Karp thought he looked more drawn and tired than he had in his plush Philadelphia office that first day. These were changes similar to those Karp saw every day in his own mirror. The expression “pecked to death by ducks” popped into his mind.

“Things are looking up, though,” Crane resumed. “I’ve just been invited to address the Democratic caucus. This could be a turning point for us, but we need something splashy, some breakthrough, to throw to the dogs.” He looked at Karp speculatively. “That CIA stuff we got from Schaller, for example …”

“You’re not serious.”

Crane flushed and opened his mouth to say something else, but instead sighed and grumbled, “No, damn it, now they’ve got me doing it. I never thought I’d be in a position where leaking material in an investigation would look good. No, obviously, once that stuff gets loose, everybody remotely associated with any leads it provides will head for the tall timber. Or worse. Of course, they know we’ve got it.”

“Of course,” said Karp, “but they don’t know how we plan to use it. They might even be hoping it’s still buried in that pile of crap they gave the Senate committee. Once it’s out …”

“Yeah, the shit hits the fan. So what
do
we have to throw to the dogs?”

“In the way of progress? Nothing, frankly. The investigation hasn’t really started, because I can’t do any investigating, because I don’t have any money.”

“Yes, yes, I know that,” said Crane testily. “I’m working on it. But I have to give them a taste, a scent of something that’s worth the budget I’m asking for.” He thought for a moment, leaning back and considering the little dots in the stained acoustic tiles of the ceiling. “How about this? We’ve uncovered conclusive evidence that shows the CIA was involved with Oswald before the assassination. Just that. And that we believe a thorough independent investigation of the Central Intelligence Agency will be a key first step in our work. I could use that in my speech to the caucus. What do you think?”

Karp made a helpless gesture with his hands. “Hey, what do I know? I told you I was out of my depth here. Sure, try it. It probably won’t make things any worse.”

They turned then to administrative details, and the meeting lasted only a few more minutes. Crane had a TV interview to go to and Karp had a meeting with Charlie Ziller.

Back in his office, Karp called Marlene at the Arlington apartment, but she was out. He was glad of that, having urged her for many days now to get out of the house and do something. It was starting to irritate him. She was a few blocks from the metro and a few stops on that from the wonders of tourist D.C., most of which were free or near enough to it. And, God knew, she had all the free time in the world, while he was working eighty-hour weeks.

Restless, he got up and moved through the warren of offices. Everyone he looked in on seemed to be doing something, although Karp could not have said with assurance what those things were. In the corridor, he spied V.T., dressed for the outdoors in a double-breasted camel hair coat.

“Going out?” asked Karp.

V.T. looked down at his coat and then, quizzically, at Karp. “I can see you’re still a sharp investigator. You know, there was a dead rat in my office this morning.”

“No kidding? A big one?”

V.T. regarded him bleakly. “Let’s say it was larger than any rat I have found in my office heretofore, and
far
larger than any rat I expected to find in my office when I graduated from Harvard Law School. No, make that any rat who was not a paying client.”

“What can I say, V.T.? It’s hell on earth and it’s my fault. Where are you off to anyway?”

“Away from rat-land, mainly. No, I’m going over to Georgetown to follow up on something. Maybe a lead on Lee’s lost weeks.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, August 21 to September 17. We’ve been checking out the people that Oswald knew at that period and seeing if we can develop any secondary sources—on people like Gary Becker, David Ferrie, the New Orleans Cubans on both sides. Nearly all the principals are dead now. So, in checking out David Ferrie, we came up with the name of a small-time reporter named Jerry James Depuy …”

“Who got this?”

“Pete Melchior, our guy in New Orleans. He’s really good. Anyway, Depuy was apparently doing a story on Ferrie, except Ferrie died in 1967. Depuy was well known in New Orleans saloons for bragging about how when his book on Ferrie came out, he’d be rich and famous, and so forth, the usual failed reporter stuff. Nevertheless, worth checking out—he did know Ferrie, maybe Ferrie knew something about where Lee was, that he hadn’t told anyone else but Depuy. But Depuy died too, in seventy-four. Pete went out to his house, and the widow told him that she’d cleaned out all Jerry James’s stuff, and that should’ve been that, another dead end, except I recalled that the Associated Press had a program of checking the estates of reporters who had kicked off and seeing whether they hadn’t saved stuff of historical significance—original notes and so on. The AP also has a JFK archive at Georgetown, full of that same sort of original material and I thought just possibly …”

“That’s quite a long shot,” said Karp.