Robert Tanenbaum - Falsely Accused

“Not very likely, is it? The guy sounds truly obsessed.”

“Yeah,” Marlene agreed. “Maybe that’s why I got involved. Maybe I thought that the only thing that worked against an obsession was a counter-obsession, a stronger one. I just felt … impelled to stop him, you know? Do you ever get feelings like that? Yeah? Anyway, it felt good.”

Stupenagel wrote this down and then put her pad on the coffee table. “Speaking of obsessions, I think I’m getting one over this gypsy cab business. And the jailhouse suicides.”

“Why? I thought you said it was likely that they really had killed themselves.”

“Yes, yes, I did,” said Stupenagel impatiently, “but … I have a feeling that not all is as it should be in the old Two-Five. I went to a retirement racket the other night-your good buddy Roland set it up-and after I talked to Clancy, I lounged in the bar, keeping my little ears open and engaging in good-natured sexist banter. There was so much testosterone in the air, I felt myself growing a beard. Anyway …”

“What about Clancy?”

“Clancy’s just a bureaucrat. Nice guy, knows nothing. This Jackson character, on the other hand-”

The phone rang. “I better get that,” said Marlene, and left for her office at the end of the loft. Stupenagel refreshed her drink and began to compose in her mind the story she would hand in later that afternoon. After five minutes, Marlene returned and sat down with a puzzled look on her face.

“Who’s Suzy Poole?” she asked. “I know the name.”

“Of course you do. She’s the super model. Cover of Vogue this month? Why do you ask?”

“Oh, that was her.”

“Suzy Poole called you ? What did she want?”

“Oh, you know-fashion tips, my famous makeup secrets-”

“No, really! ”

“Off the record, Stupe,” said Marlene heavily. “I mean it.”

“Swear to God.”

Marlene gave her a hard look. “If this gets out, it will not be God who will punish you.” She leaned back and lit a Marlboro, only her third of the day, she was happy to realize. “Well, she’s being stalked. By this guy she had a fling with. And she wants me to help her out. Carrie Lanin knows her-from the rag trade. That’s how she got my name. Carrie was talking up my prowess in some ladies’ john on Seventh Avenue.”

“Wait a second-models at that level must have security up the ying-yang. Doesn’t she have, like, a regular bodyguard?”

“Oh, yeah, that was my thought too. She said she’d tried that. It’s like living in jail, she said. The guy is everywhere. He’s got some money too. Somehow he always gets her number no matter how many times she changes it. And he’s smart too. There’s no physical evidence, no threats.”

“What does she expect you to do?”

“Get rid of him, of course.”

“Will you?”

Marlene watched the smoke from her cigarette circulate up to the ceiling and said lazily, “Oh, I might. I just had the thought when I was talking to her that it could be an interesting thing to do. I mean, as a business.” She turned an interested face to Stupenagel’s bemused one. “So, what happened with the gypsies?”

“Oh, yeah. I was telling you about Jackson. Paul. The cops at the Two-Five are not anxious to talk about Detective Jackson, even when a little drunk and getting any number of cheap feels off the kid here. Something’s smelly going down up there in Spanish Harlem. This morning I got with a guy I know at Internal Affairs, Tommy Devlin. They have their suspicions, but nothing solid. Jackson lives a little too well, but that could mean he’s just lucky at the track. They haven’t had any complaints, not that a bunch of illegal Guats are going to make much of a stink if they’re getting shook down by a cop. They think that’s how the government collects taxes. I asked him about the suicides too. Those he swears’re strictly kosher. The M.E. autopsied the first two as genuine hangings. Apparently there’s ways to tell hanging from getting strangled. The third kid just stopped breathing like the ones I told you about in Asia. They called it ‘panic death.’”

“So where are you going with it?”

“Oh, I think I’ll work the gypsies a little more, see if I can find someone who’s not too scared to help.” She finished her drink, stood up, and shrugged into her coat.

“In fact, I’m off now. I’ll let you know when the story comes out.” Marlene walked her to the door. “You know, we should really get a picture of you for this piece.”

“Never!” said Marlene vehemently.

“Suit yourself.” Stupenagel paused by the door. “You know, you may think me a cynical bitch, but my heart really goes out to those poor bastards. They escape from total hell down there, and they come up here and some fucking scumbag cop takes their few pathetic dollars, when a rookie cop’s base salary is about eight times the per capita income of Guatemala. If that fucker is running a racket, I’m going to have his ass for it.”

“Good luck,” said Marlene, pleasantly surprised by the cynical bitch reporter’s words. The two women hugged and Stupenagel stepped out of the door. She felt in her bag.

“Oh, crap, I left my pad on your sofa,” she said.

“I’ll get it,” said Marlene.

Stupenagel waited in the shadowed hallway, pulled from her bag a Leica M3 loaded with ASA 400 black-and-white film, and looked through its eyepiece. As Marlene, returning with the pad, stepped into the light from the track unit outside her living room, Stupenagel silently snapped two frames and put the camera back into her bag.

“I thought that went pretty well,” said Murray Selig. The Mayor had just been ushered out amid a flurry of false smiles and the usual faux collegial banter between Karp and his opposite number, the corporation counsel, Josh Gottkind.

“You did, huh?” replied Karp sourly. He was thinking that at this moment the Mayor was visiting with Jack Weller, accepting apologies and being assured that the firm was not involved in this sad and messhugah affair.

“Yeah, I thought the guy was, you know, more cooperative than I thought he would be,” said Selig in an uncertain tone.

“Oh, he was cooperative, all right. On the other hand, he doesn’t know much, and I didn’t push him very hard for it. Did you notice that he got annoyed every time Gottkind told him not to answer?”

Selig nodded. “But he didn’t want to talk about the probation business.”

“No, he didn’t, because the City changed the probationary period from six months to one year after they hired you, and he never officially informed you of that fact. You had a reasonable expectation that your probationary period was over. I needed to pin him down that he never told you.”

“And you did.”

“That’s right. He’s in a tough position, which is why, when he refused to answer, I told him I would be in Judge Craig’s chambers this afternoon and walk out with an order to compel in my hand, and this evening the news would be ‘Mayor Refuses to Answer Questions in M.E. Case.’”

“So we’re doing good?”

“Oh, the Mayor’s easy. Pinning down the other people will be a lot harder. Speaking of which, the fun’s about to begin on your end. Tomorrow Gottkind gets his crack at you.”

Selig shrugged. “Let him take his best shot.”

“It’s not that simple, Murray,” said Karp, a hint of irritation in his voice. “You’re under oath, and they’ll be scrutinizing every word you say for fishhooks to hang favorable precedents on. I know we’ve been through this a little before, but let me lay out the legal situation as it affects what you’re supposed to say.”

Selig looked at his watch. “Will this take a long time?” The doctor, having placed his affairs in Karp’s hands, had shown little interest in the nuts-and-bolts aspects of the case.