Reckless Endangerment (40 page)

“Roscoe being the survivor.”

“Right, Haroon Roscoe, nineteen, a.k.a. Rough, a.k.a. Shane. Not a choirboy. A mugger, a hype. Now a hero of the downtrodden black race, a model citizen cut down in his youth along with his dear friends, also model citizens. The vics are Jermane Metcalf, eighteen, a.k.a. Doughboy, and Pierre Claussen, seventeen, a.k.a. Bose. According to Roscoe, these fine lads were just minding their business in front of the Ro-Lo convenience stores at five-ten this morning, you know, discussing contemporary French literature and the latest advances in molecular biology, when this Hasid walks in, buys a carton of o.j., some rubbing alcohol, and some shaving and first-aid stuff, pays, and walks out. Metcalf approaches this person—”

“Right there, in front of the store?” Karp asked.

“Ah, you catch on!” said Maus, grinning. “No, it seems the boys felt the need of some exercise just then, and they headed down Lenox about thirty yards, down to where this Jewish fella had parked his van. He had a new white Dodge van with tinted windows. Metcalf politely asks if he’s got a light, and the fella pops open his coat and blows Metcalf practically in half with a burst, and then sends another burst at Claussen and Roscoe, who wun’t doin nuthin’. Then he drives away. We got a city-wide out on the van.”

“So what really happened?”

“Oh, that’s easy. These three guys are a strong-arm crew; they’re all graduates of Spofford Prep and Rikers. They’re hanging out there, just about set to put it away for the evening, when the vic from heaven shows up—a skinny little Hasid with a brand-new van and carrying Allah knows how much cash, because it’s well known that the Jews are all loaded. It’s practically a direct deposit in their bank. So they follow this fool back to his van, maybe play with him a little, tell him to give it up, cash and keys, and then—surprise! He pulls a fucking Kalashnikov out and mows them all down.”

“A Kalashnikov, hm?”

“Yeah. We found nineteen 7.62mm casings at the scene, Soviet military markings and all. And Roscoe knows what an AK looks like. They’re hard to miss.”

Karp said, “You know …” and paused so long afterward that Maus said, “What?” and then Karp said, “Just thinking out loud. You know, Jim Raney found a Kalashnikov bullet with Soviet markings in the apartment where Ray Netski got shot. It’d be interesting to see if they match up. You know, same batch marks and all.”

Maus knotted his brow, puzzled. Given the character of his face, he looked like he was trying to figure out what number came between four and six. “Netski? I thought that was Mexicans. Where does a Hasid fit in?”

“Well, as far as that goes, what we have for sure is a man wearing Hasidic clothes. Everybody in a Santa Claus suit isn’t Santa Claus.”

“Oh, now you’re really fucking with my head, Karp. Let’s try to keep some things sacred, okay? Also, I’m trying to think why a guy would want to run around Harlem at night dressed up like that, unless he was looking for trouble.” He stopped. “Uh-oh …”

“Right. If the guy was halfway legit, then there’s a possibility that somebody’s trying to get the word out on the street, don’t fuck with the Hasidim.” He told Maus what he had told Fulton about Zwiller’s fears.

“Oh, shit,” said Maus. “That’s all we need, Jewish vigilantes. Did you notice what’s going on in the street?”

“A little. You think it could get bad?”

Maus humped his shoulders. “This was August, I’d say no question. The X-men are hot over this, and they’re hot over this Arab business too. Solidarity with the Arab brothers, even though actual Arab Muslims think they’re full of shit. Still, it’s something to get pissed off about through a bullhorn. We better pray for a couple weeks of cold, chilly rain.”

El Chivato lay in a dry bathtub and poured rubbing alcohol into the festering wound in his side. He was biting on a washcloth so he wouldn’t scream, but he made a noise anyway, arching his back and writhing, washed with waves of agony such as he had never imagined. He rested for a while and then, staggering to his feet, turned on the shower.

While the hot water beat down on his head, he thought about his recent misfortunes and the various stupidities he had committed. He had, naturally, no remorse for shooting the three
negros,
only that he had not made sure that they were all dead at the scene. Nor had he killed the pimp and the girls from whom he had taken the van; nor, worst of all, had he taken out the man with the black Chrysler. So there were people alive who could identify him as the cause of a good deal of death and damage. In Mexico, he thought ruefully, this would not have happened. On the one hand, he was well known—mothers pulled their children in off the streets in both Hermosillo and Nogales when he walked by. On the other hand, the police were bought off. The law belonged to the man paying the highest
mordida,
and El Chivato had always worked for that sort of man. But here in New York the rules were all different. The police were bribed, as everywhere—drugs and prostitution were much in evidence, openly pursued, and this was clearly impossible without the connivance of the police. But the Obregons had not been able to buy their way out of jail. Why? Because they had killed a cop? Or because they had tried to buy the wrong person or hadn’t offered enough? It remained a mystery, and one that he would never decipher, because he was not going to be there very long.

El Chivato left the shower and dried himself, as he did so examining his wound in the mirror. It was still vividly red on both sides of the gouge, and swollen and dripping a pale, unpleasant fluid, and it throbbed, sending a bolt of pain out with each heartbeat. He bound it up with the material he had purchased, padding it heavily with gauze squares and absorbent cotton. Then he wrapped a towel around his middle, lay down on the bed, and switched on the television.

He drank orange juice with ice and flicked through the channels. At five-thirty the local news came on. Several of the items were of interest. A black man in a suit and a bow tie was shouting to a crowd about the shooting of three black boys. It took a while for El Chivato to understand that these were the boys he had shot. This confused him. The man seemed to be saying that there was something wrong with shooting the thieves, that the Jews were to blame, that the police should arrest someone for the shooting, but that they would not, because the thieves were black and the man who shot them was a Jew. Pictures of the thieves appeared on the screen, and then a drawing of himself in the black costume with hat and glasses. He understood now, a little. The word “Jew” had meant little to him; it was like “Toltec” or “Aztec,” a name for people with odd customs who lived long ago. They had killed Christ, he recalled, and then, as far as he knew, had vanished. But it seemed they were still around, and he had inadvertently disguised himself as one of them. El Chivato had very little sense of humor, but this made him smile.

The smile vanished during the following story, which showed a picture of police officers leading the Obregon brothers away in handcuffs. The announcer said they were being held as material witnesses in the murder of police detective Ray Netski. A picture of Netski appeared on the screen, and although he was younger and in full uniform, El Chivato recognized him as the man he had shot and refrigerated. He was more interested, however, in the next snippet, which showed a group of reporters and a muscular blond man identified in white letters at the foot of the screen as Roland Hrcany, Chief of the Homicide Bureau, N.Y.D.A. He was saying, “We are holding the Obregons as material witnesses in the shooting of Detective Netski. That’s all I can say about an investigation that’s ongoing.”

“Are they suspects?” asked a reporter.

“No, not at this time,” said Hrcany

“Do you have any suspects in this case?” asked another reporter.

“We’re following a number of leads.”

Another reporter: “What about the rumor that Russian weapons were found at the murder scene?”

“No comment.”

The same reporter: “Is this killing connected in any way with the recent terrorist violence in Brooklyn in which Soviet weapons were used too?”

“I can’t comment on that.”

The picture changed to show a hefty, well-dressed Latino man, identified as Manuel Huerta, who was representing the Obregons.

“… this is harassment pure and simple,” Huerta was telling the reporter. “First there was a trumped-up charge, and now, when these innocent young men are preparing to return to Mexico and their families, the state tries to pin this
other
cop killing on them. Well, I’m not going to allow it, and I’ll tell you that the Latino community in New York is not going to tolerate it.”

“Have the Obregons been returned to jail?”

“I have no idea where the Obregons are. That’s another thing—I’m being denied access to my clients.”

The man was cut off as he opened his mouth to expand on his outrage, and the reporter finished by saying that, according to the D.A.’s office, the Obregons were being held at an undisclosed location for their own safety.

The anchorman came back on and introduced the next story, which was about the Brooklyn disaster. First some tape of the previous night’s catastrophe—smoke, flames, flashing lights, firemen, medics—then grieving Hasidim, flocking into an emergency room, then Chief Inspector Kevin Battle, with a grim account of the police carnage and the medical status of the injured officers, then FBI Special Agent in Charge Anderson, with just a few lines about every law enforcement resource being directed at capturing the dastards, and finally, two faces above telephone numbers to call if you saw them: one a grainy enlargement of the face of Abdel Hussein Khalid, whom El Chivato recognized as his own Lucky, and the other a police artist’s sketch portrait of what the television was calling Arab terrorist number two, himself.

SIXTEEN

T
hey buried the seven slain police officers, six men and a woman, on Holy Thursday. The day was appropriately overcast, but the rain stayed put in the heavy ash-colored clouds. Every police officer killed in line of duty in New York gets what is called an inspector’s funeral—the Emerald Society pipe band, the flag on the coffin, the rows and rows of police in their dress uniforms, with medals, the volley of shots over the grave, the eulogies. These particular obsequies made the usual inspector’s funeral look like the quick cremation of a friendless drifter. The cortege was nearly ten miles long, stretching almost from the Williamsburg Bridge down Brooklyn Broadway and Myrtle Avenue into the borough of Queens and out to Cypress Hills Cemetery, in the center of New York’s vast suburban necropolis. Usually, out-of-town police departments sent a few representatives. This time there were whole squads, an unusual number of horses, including a band of Texas Rangers and a group of actual mounted Canadian Mounties in traditional scarlet, a whole pipe band from Chicago, and literally thousands of out-of-town cops demonstrating solidarity with the Finest, with the mourning bands wrapped around their arms or draped on their badges. Police chiefs in full regalia came from all the major American cities, as did the mayor and the governor of New York, and the director of the FBI, and the vice-president of the United States.

Stands had been set up for the dignitaries, so they could see the elaborate ceremonials and hear the eulogies, not one of which adverted to what was on the minds of a great number of participants—that here were seven Christians who had perished in a war between Jews and Arabs during Easter week. The Israeli consul, and the consuls and U.N. reps of a number of Arab nations had volunteered to make an appearance, but these offers had been firmly turned down by the Department fathers. A lone piper played “Amazing Grace,” which had been edging out the traditional Celtic laments in recent years. Karp, from his position in the rearmost ranks of the VIP stands, saw tears flow down the faces around him. Beneath the genuine sorrow stirred something nastier; he could almost see it rising from the ranks of dark blue, like the heat shimmers from the slowly moving cars of the cortege. For the next few days it would not be pleasant to be an Arab in New York, or a Hasidic Jew. The honor guard was shooting volleys into the air, three for each of the slain. Karp wondered idly why they fired over the graves. Speeding the souls bullet-like to paradise? Doubtful. Perhaps a sacrifice, a little powder burnt instead of an ox. The shots rang on, echoing. Then the flag ceremony, the stars and stripes removed from the coffins, folded into triangles with jerky, precise motions by the honor guard, and handed by its commander to the grieving widow or, in three cases, the mother. At this even Karp felt his throat contract, his eyes sting. He thought of his boys, grown into their twenties, killed. And of Lucy, which did not take as much imagination, the girl clearly out of control and headed for an early demise. Losing a child—how could you live past that? People did, however, which was either a miracle or a horror, depending on how you looked at it, your philosophy. … Taps sounded and then it was done, as was Karp’s speculation on the great themes, his ability to shut down unpleasant thoughts being one of his major psychic characteristics. The VIPs left, in order of precedence, which meant that Karp, as a mere appendage of a district attorney, had long to wait.

Thus Clay Fulton had plenty of time to locate him as he stood by the feeder road to the parking lot, near a clump of cypresses, overlooking the endless rows of graves and monuments. Karp had seen Fulton in his dress blues only when the detective was receiving some sort of official award, and as usual he was impressed, despite his genial contempt for the appurtenances of the military. Fulton’s breast bars rose from the gold shield on the left side of his chest almost to his shoulder straps, capped by the star-spangled green bar of the police medal of honor. Karp noted with surprise that he was wearing double silver bars on his shoulders.

“Congratulations,
Captain
Fulton,” said Karp, shaking hands.

“Yeah, well, it’s acting jack so far. I got lieutenants galore working for me on this task force, and the rank helps. It could get made official if we pull this business off.”