Irresistible Impulse

Irresistible Impulse

Robert K. Tanenbaum

To the ones I love,
Patti, Rachael, Roger, and Billy T.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Again, and yet again, all praise belongs to Michael Gruber whose genius and scholarship flows throughout and is primarily responsible for the excellence of the manuscript. His contribution cannot be overstated. He is alter ego and truly lifetime partner.

None of the prosecutorial experiences dominating the central core of these books could have occurred without Rick Albrecht and Mel Glass, who gave me entry into the DAO. The former, an outstanding prosecutor and trial lawyer, had the wisdom to guide me through the process; the latter, the best of all the DA’s, blessed me with his knowledge as well as by his incredible example.

And special heartfelt gratitude to Mike Hamilburg, who for fifteen years has represented me with the utmost integrity and loyalty.

And to Georgia di Donato, who still shows enthusiasm and wonderment after listening scores of times to the tales of Marlene, Karp, and their band of merry men and women. Such is the nature of confidential executive advisors!

Contents

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

TWENTY-ONE

TWENTY-TWO

A BIOGRAPHY OF ROBERT K. TANENBAUM

ONE

I
n the early hours of the 5,742nd year since the creation of the universe, Dr. Mark Davidoff, M.D., stood in the crowded, marvelous, immense nave of Temple Emmanu-El on Fifth Avenue, and belted out “
Ain Kelohanu
” in a lusty voice, and thought that so far the universe was working out fairly well. He was young (young-ish), healthy, and rich, an internist like his father and grandfather before him, possessing all his hair, a Jaguar Van den Plas, a ten-room condo on Central Park West, a wife and two blossoming Davidoff-ettes. Around him standing and singing were his people, in whom he was well pleased, the upper crust of Jewish New York, a group as prosperous and secure as any Jews had been since collapse of the caliphate of Cordova.

The song and the service ended. Davidoff crowded out with the rest, for the temple was packed for Rosh Hashonah, the beginning of the High Holy Days, when it was appropriate for Jews of Davidoff’s degree of religiosity to seek solidarity and, it might also have been, exculpation for countless Sundays of Chinese food, countless Sabbaths at the office or on the links.

He knew many of the people milling around the cloakroom, and there was considerable hand shaking, and “good-Yonteff”-ing, before Davidoff, enclosed in camel-hair coat and cashmere muffler, was able to leave the synagogue and emerge out into the bright, crisp day. He was about to walk down the avenue, to where he would stand a better chance of finding a cab home, when he heard his name called and saw the very last person of his acquaintance he would have expected to see standing in front of Temple Emmanu-El on Rosh Hashonah.

Vincent Fiske Robinson stood out in that particular throng like a Hasid in Killarney. He was tall and slim with a face both sculptured and sensual, set with sky blue eyes and decked with fine blond hair worn swept back from a widow’s peak. Mark Davidoff had blue eyes and blond hair too, but not, of course,
that
kind of blue eyes and blond hair. Davidoff moved through the crowd and held out his hand. Robinson’s hand in his felt hot and damp.

“Vince. Long time no see,” said Davidoff with an uncertain smile. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to see you, man. I called your apartment, and your wife told me I’d find you here.”

“Yeah, I didn’t figure you were thinking about conversion …” Davidoff began in a bantering tone, and then stopped, automatically checking out the other man with a diagnostician’s eye. Robinson seemed flushed and overheated despite the chilly air. He looked as if he had dressed in the dark—he was wearing grubby jeans, a worn blue button-down shirt, and sneakers, over which he had thrown a lined Burberry. “You okay, Vince?” Davidoff asked.

“Yeah. No, actually, I’m in a bit of a mess. Actually, a gigantic mess. The thing is, could you do a consult for me? It would really help me out.”

“A consult? Vince, it’s Rosh Hashonah. Can’t it wait?”

“Actually, no, it can’t,” said Robinson. “It’s personal. My nurse, one of my nurses, actually, she’s my girlfriend … she’s in my apartment, very sick, very, very, sick … I was … could you, you know, take a look at her?”

“Vince, what is this? You have an emergency, call 911, get her into a hospital …”

“No, actually, I don’t think that would be appropriate in this case. That’s why I came here.”

Davidoff was about to refuse when he registered the desperation in Robinson’s eyes.

“Please, Mark. I really need your help.”

This was new and, Davidoff could not help feeling with a little thrill of self-satisfaction, not a mien that Vincent Fiske Robinson had ever adopted with Mark Davidoff when the two of them had been at Harvard Medical School together. For a brief period the two students had shared a group house in Cambridge, during which Robinson had given Davidoff numerous unspoken lessons about the difference between New York Jewish aristocracy and
Aristocracy
. There was no actual anti-Semitism, of course, not that you could put your finger on, only a humorous, casual condescension. That Davidoff studied hard and got top grades, while Robinson did not seem to study at all, but eventually received the same degree, and got a good internship, too, was also the subject of considerable comment on Robinson’s part, charming comment, for Robinson was certainly the most charming man in Davidoff’s experience. Even when he had pissed you off, and made you feel like, for example, a grubby Jewish grind, it was hard to remain angry with him. Unaccountably, on this cold New York street corner, an image from a dozen years past flashed across Dr. Davidoff’s mind: spring in Cambridge, a Friday, the Friday before the dreaded human physio exam, himself surrounded by books and notes, glancing up from his desk as Robinson pranced by, swinging a lacrosse racket, a white sweater draped around his neck, and a pale laughing girl with a blond pageboy haircut draped on his arm. Somehow, the current situation, Robinson begging Davidoff to help him out of a mess, balanced out that long-ago scene on some cosmic and inarticulable scorecard.

So Davidoff smiled and said, “Sure, Vince, I’ll have a look at her. Let’s go.”

Robinson lived on the East Side, of course, a duplex in an old brownstone in the Sixties off Madison. They walked there in silence.

“Shit, Vince!” he cried when he saw the woman in Robinson’s bed, and felt sick himself. She was a lovely woman, or had been. Pale hair framed a fine-boned face, with a wide, inviting mouth. Davidoff found himself thinking once again, just for an instant, of the laughing girl in the Cambridge hallway. He cleared his throat to gain control of his voice, and said, “When?”

“This morning. She was, um, like that, nine, nine-thirty.”

“ ‘Like that’? You mean
dead
, Vince. That’s the term we docs use for a person in this condition. How long was she sick?”

“A day, a day and a half. She was fine Friday. We went out for dinner, came back here, went to bed, and mooched around Saturday morning. We were going to go out biking in the afternoon, and she said she wasn’t up for it; she said she felt feverish, headachey. I thought, flu. Saturday night she started spiking a fever. One-oh-three, one-oh-four. I couldn’t bring it down. I gave her a shot of penicillin Sunday morning. Sunday afternoon she was sick but coherent. We joked, you know, we’re playing doctor. Jesus, Mark, she’s twenty-eight! Never been sick a day. I figured, viral pneumonia, liquids, bed rest, antibiotics to keep the secondaries down. Sunday night I went to bed in the guest room, and I came in to see how she was, seven, eight this morning, and she was in coma. I panicked, and …” He made a helpless gesture.

“Okay, so let me understand this: you wake up, find your girlfriend dead, and your first thought was to come get
me
for a
consultation
, I think you said? Right. We’ve consulted. She’s dead. I agree. So, what’s going on here, Vince?”

“It’s … I need a certificate, Mark,” said Robinson. He was looking off into the distance, his eyes shying from both the dead woman and the other man. “I want you to declare her.”

“You want me to
declare
… ?” Davidoff felt the first stirrings of anger. “Ah, Vince, correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t Harvard give you one of those nice posters with the Latin? I got mine framed. Why the hell don’t
you
write out the goddamn certificate?”

Robinson gave him a brief look, in which Davidoff read both despair and shame, and then turned his face away again. “I’m involved with her, Mark, you know? And, well, I’ve been giving her things.”

“Things? What kind of things?”

“Oh, megavitamin shots, diet stuff, stuff to help her sleep. She was a troubled person.”

Davidoff took a deep breath and bit off what he was about to say. He went over to the bed and examined the dead woman’s arms and thighs.

“This is a junkie, Mark,” said Davidoff, his voice now quaking with rage. “What the fuck are you trying to get me into?”

“She’s
not
, she
wasn’t
a junkie! I told you, she was a troubled girl. I was trying to help.” He turned to face Davidoff, and he seemed a different person from the elegant figure Davidoff had envied for a dozen or more years. He was literally wringing his hands, and his eyes were wet and red rimmed. “She has a family, Mark, you know? A mom and dad? I just … I want her to go out decently. I loved her. Mark, I’m begging you … do you want me to go down on my knees?”

Davidoff believed that he would have. He felt a wave of loathing, and an intense desire to get out of this apartment, away from this man, and, what was worse, he felt a tincture of self-loathing too, because some part of him was enjoying the sight of Vincent Fiske Robinson brought low.

They stood that way in silence for what seemed a long time. At last Davidoff let out his breath in a huff and said, “Okay, shit, give me the thing and I’ll sign it. I presume you have one.”

“Yeah. God, Mark, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this.”

“Viral pneumonia, huh?” said Davidoff as he cast his eye down the single-sheet form that Robinson handed him. “Why not?” He signed his name and dated the death certificate in the spaces provided.

“Well, Vince,” he said, handing over the paper. “I wish I could say it was nice seeing you, but …”

“Thanks a million, buddy,” said Vince, the famous perfect smile appearing for the first time that afternoon. “Look, I’ll call you, we’ll have lunch.”

Davidoff said nothing, nor did he offer to shake hands. Outside the apartment, in the fresh, cold air again, he took several deep breaths. Vince Robinson had never called him for lunch before, although they had been working in the same city for at least a decade. He doubted Robinson would call him now, and found that he was glad of it. He would have been even gladder had he observed the expression on Robinson’s face as he walked out.