Robert Tanenbaum - Falsely Accused

“Marlene, don’t be a jerk.”

“I bet you’ll want to take a nice vacation back home in Ohio,” Marlene continued. “Say, a couple of months, spend the holidays with the folks, get some skiing in …”

“In Ohio? What is this message I’m receiving here, Champ? You don’t want me to write this story? Mayor or D.A. covers for killer cops?”

“Not ‘don’t write it,’ but wait. The story isn’t complete, and if it leaks halfway it’s going to warn the bad guys, one, and two, not that you would care, but it’ll screw up Butch’s case, fuck a really decent guy, and put a big crimp in our extravagant income. Butch is hanging out on this case-his boss didn’t want him to take it in the first place-”

“Why not?”

“Because he’s tight with the Mayor. It was embarrassing to have one of his people sue the City and His Honor personally.”

“So the Mayor is running this cover-up?”

“No, Bloom,” said Marlene quickly.

Stupenagel raised an eyebrow, a disturbing sight with her face in the condition it was in. “Why Bloom?”

“Because,” Marlene began, and then stopped when she realized that it had never occurred to either her or Karp that it was anyone other than Bloom. “Because, ah, the Mayor has no real contact with the M.E.’s office. The D.A.’s office is involved with it every day.”

The reporter’s face twisted into a disbelieving grimace. “Marlene, that makes no sense at all. If Selig is actually being fired to help cover up a crime, then either the Mayor or the D.A. could be the source of the cover-up. Or both of them together.”

“It’s not the Mayor,” said Marlene, sounding more confident than she now felt.

“Why not? I can think of a lot of things that the Mayor might like to cover up. A fifty-four-year-old confirmed bachelor? Maybe Vice caught him in an alleyway with an underage leatherboy. No, you’re just fixated on Bloom, you and Butch, because he tried to fuck you. This is the last act of this vendetta that those two have been running for the last-what is it now? — eight or so years.”

“Bullshit, Stupe! The Mayor’s guy said he barely knew who Selig was until Bloom began needling about how he had to be canned.”

“The Mayor’s guy? Oh, there’s an unimpeachable source! So, meanwhile, tell me what Bloom’s supposed to be covering up that’s important enough for him to help a bad cop shitcan a pair of custody murders!”

“We don’t know yet,” said Marlene weakly.

“You don’t know yet,” the reporter mocked. “But you don’t mind asking me to sit on my story indefinitely until something turns up.”

“You wouldn’t have a damn story,” snapped Marlene, “if I hadn’t got those pictures, and if Butch hadn’t got Murray to look at them.”

“Yes, but what have you done for me lately? Sorry, Marlene, but for the next three to six weeks I’m going to be huddled in my room like the Phantom of the Opera with nothing to do but work the phone and pound keys, and this just became my only priority. I mean, I don’t expect to be dating much until they fix this ”-here she indicated her damaged face- “speaking of which, somebody’s going to pay for this big-time, not so much because of me personally, but because-and I know you think I’m totally cynical and don’t believe in anything, but I do and this is it-because you’re not supposed to beat up on the press, at least not with your fists, not in this country anyway, and I say this as someone who’s spent most of her adult life in countries where it’s practically the national sport. And so, while I feel bad about Selig and Butch and anybody else who might get singed in the back blast …” She left the sentence hanging.

Marlene said, “All right, let me appeal to your journalistic instincts, since you’ve all of a sudden turned into Ida Tarbell, girl muckraker: grant me it’d be a better story if it was complete, if we knew who had set up the firing, and what the cops had on him to make him do it.”

Stupenagel paused for barely a second. “Granted. And…?”

“I’ll find out for you,” said Marlene. “I’ll find out and wrap the whole package up for you like a fish, and you can relax and get better.”

“Your concern is touching,” said Stupenagel. “How long do you think this miracle will take?”

Marlene pulled a figure out of the air. “Five, six weeks.”

“Mmm, would that be just enough to get a judgment in re: Selig?”

“I have no idea,” said Marlene stiffly.

“I bet.” Stupenagel took up her drink again and sipped it until the straw sucked dry. “I don’t know, Marlene, it’s an interesting offer, but …”

“You haven’t heard the downside,” said Marlene. “You don’t have the photographs, and all you have to indicate that the jail deaths weren’t suicides is my word about what Selig said. Shaft me on this, and not only will you not get the autopsy shots, but I’ll deny this conversation ever took place, nobody will admit anything about any murders, and when I do figure it all out, I will deliver the whole story, with evidence, to whomever I figure will piss you off the most. Jimmy Dalton, for example.”

Jimmy Dalton was a police reporter for the Post and a male chauvinist of citywide reputation. Stupenagel slammed her drink down on the bedside table, making the ice in it rattle like maracas. She glared at Marlene for what seemed like a long time, and then abruptly burst into laughter. “Goddamn, Champ-playing hardball with your old buddy! Jimmy Dalton, my ass! Okay, deal. Go get ’em! Don’t get killed, though.”

“I have a gun.”

“No kidding? Can I see it.”

“Oh, shit, Stupenagel! You’re worse than my daughter.”

From the hospital Marlene journeyed downtown by cab to the courthouse on Centre Street. She passed through the guarded entranceway to the part of the building that housed the D.A.’s office, using for the purpose an expired pass from the days when she’d had a right to be there. There was a search point in the main entrance for regular people, and she did not want to have to explain her pistol. Once in the courthouse, she filed some protective orders for clients, attended a hearing for a man who had violated one, and generally behaved like a lawyer for the rest of the morning. When the courthouse emptied out for lunch, she bought yogurt and coffee at the ground-floor snack bar, returned to the D.A.’s offices, and took the elevator to the sixth floor, where she entered a cubicle and made herself at home.

She was on the phone when the office’s official occupant, Raymond Guma, walked in, sucking on a toothpick. Guma was a short, tubby man in his late forties, with an amusingly ugly monkey face and a mop of thinning black curls. He frowned when he saw Marlene sitting in his chair, speaking over his phone.

“Hey, didn’t we finally get rid of you?”

Marlene continued with her phone conversation, but reached into her shoulder bag and pulled out a long white box: a fifth of Teacher’s scotch. She placed it on the desk and gave Guma her brightest insincere smile.

Guma seated himself in a visitor’s chair and ostentatiously twiddled his thumbs while humming loudly without tune. Marlene finished her conversation quickly.

“Anybody I know?” asked Guma, indicating the phone.

“Could be. A gentleman who won’t take no for an answer. I was arguing the prudence of doing so.”

“Or you’ll get your goon to dance on his face? I been hearing stuff about you, Champ. You keep it up with the heavy shit, you gonna give the Italians a bad name.”

“Sorry you don’t approve, Raymond.”

“You know me, a woman’s place is in the home.” He removed his toothpick, examined it, and flicked it into a large brown glass ashtray in which two White Owl butts already nestled. “How’s Butch, by the way? I hear he’s making out like a bandit.”