Robert Tanenbaum - Falsely Accused

Harry got off the phone. Marlene tapped the file folder. “Contact?”

Harry held his hand palm down across the desk and waggled it slightly, fingers spread. It meant that in Harry’s judgment this person was so flaky that a reasonable approach to him would be unavailing.

“What’s the plan?” she asked.

“Report his ass. Get an order.”

“Okay, I’ll take care of it tomorrow. What else?”

Harry passed her a flat black object the size of a cigarette pack.

“A beeper? Gosh, Harry, this is getting so professional I got goose bumps.”

“Use it,” said Harry. “And Marlene …?”

“Uh-huh, I know, Harry-stay away from Jackson and Seaver.”

Marlene walked down to Canal, where she stopped at Dave’s for an egg cream and a phone call. The call was to Tom Devlin, Stupenagel’s contact at the NYPD Internal Affairs Division. She established herself as an anonymous snitch, providing a checkable fact (the theft of the autopsies from the M.E.’s office) and a tantalizing lead (that, whatever he had heard, there was no ongoing D.A. investigation of the gypsy cab shakedowns). She hung up, leaving him panting for more. It was stirring the pot, building the pressure on John Seaver and, perhaps, Paul Jackson, although Marlene thought that the big detective might be an entirely tougher customer than his former partner. Enough pressure and they might do something dumb. In any case she was, in a technical sense, staying away from directly investigating the two cops. In this way Marlene thought she was satisfying both her husband and her partner. She did not want ever to be in a position where she had to choose unambiguously between them. She was not at all sure how she would choose.

“We need to talk, Phil,” said Karp. He was on the phone with Phil DeLino, speaking into one of a bank of phones on the ground floor of the courthouse, squeezed between a cigar-fuming bail bondsman and a winning drug merchant. “Let’s have lunch. Today.”

“Gosh, Butch, today’s rough,” said DeLino. “Can’t it wait?”

“No, unless you want to read it in the papers. I’ll meet you in Wing Fat’s in twenty minutes.”

The Wing Fat Noodle Company is a steamy, small room about the size and shape of a boxcar, slotted into an alley off Mott Street in Chinatown. It is permanently open and caters largely to illegal Cantonese manual workers. Its menus are mimeographed in Chinese only, and while it tolerates the white ghosts, it does not welcome them. It is one of the best public places in Manhattan for an indoor private conversation between non-Cantonese.

“Try the pork lo mein,” said Karp, who was one of Wing Fat’s rare Caucasian regulars. DeLino, who had never been to the place, looked around nervously and said, “Yeah, sure, whatever.” Karp pointed at an item on the menu and held up two fingers. The scowling waiter nodded curtly, slammed a steel quart-sized pitcher of scalding tea down on the table, and left.

“I notice you didn’t ask them to hold the MSG,” said DeLino.

“Hold the dog meat is what you say here,” said Karp. DeLino smiled tightly; Karp continued. “Phil, we got a bad situation, and I wanted to talk to you before anything happens, because even though we’re on opposite sides of this lawsuit, I think you’re basically a straight shooter and you wouldn’t be mixed up in something like this.”

“I’m flattered,” said DeLino with a genuine smile.

“You should be,” said Karp, straight-faced. “Okay, we have determined, to my satisfaction, that in March and April of last year two Hispanic prisoners, gypsy cab drivers, in custody of the Twenty-fifth Precinct, were murdered by police officers and their deaths disguised as suicides. They were passed as suicides by the medical examiner’s office at that time, but we were able to make the autopsy reports available to Dr. Selig, and he has indicated that, in fact, this finding was in error. The prisoners were killed. They were killed by two detectives who’ve been running a shakedown of gypsy cabbies for months. We have independent confirmation of that, of the shakedowns.” Karp paused to let that sink in. The waiter brought a pair of steaming bowls and slapped them roughly on the table.

“You’ll recall,” Karp continued, “that the first time we talked about this case, I asked you why Murray got canned. The only conclusion I can come to is that this is the reason. Somebody couldn’t afford to have a first-class independent forensic expert in that slot, accent on independent. Somebody blocked any investigation by I.A.D. by claiming that the shakedowns came under a broader investigation run directly out of the D.A.’s office, but there’s no such investigation. I presume you see the implications of all this. I also presume that you know me well enough to know that there’s no way I’d be party to concocting a plot like this to gain an advantage in a civil case, especially one in which I seem to be beating the pants off you guys.” Karp filled in a number of confirming details and started to slurp his noodles. DeLino didn’t touch his.

After a minute, DeLino said, “It’s not the Mayor. You’re implying a massive criminal cover-up to protect two bent cops. The Mayor spends half his time on the mat with the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association and that Irish mafia up at Police Plaza. There’s no way in hell they could offer him anything politically that would justify this.”

“What about non-politically? He was felony naughty and these two shitheels caught him.”

“It’s barely possible,” DeLino admitted, “but extremely, extremely unlikely. What could they have caught him doing? The guy has no life. He lives on his salary and spends ninety percent of his time on public business. His sex life is … let’s just say his sex life does not involve felonious behavior. Is there graft? Yeah, as long as we’re letting our hair down, there’s the usual schmeering of bagels, but absolutely nothing, even if every tricky contract the City ran in this whole administration was blasted across the Times, nothing that would justify protection of murder. Plus, I’m telling you, and this is the key point, to my own certain knowledge, this firing idea did not originate in His Honor’s bald little head.”

Karp was glad to see that DeLino did not try to score lawyer’s points with respect to Karp’s statement of the facts. He said, “Well. I tend to believe you, which leaves-”

“Fucking Bloom! Oh, shit! What a mess! God, I’m sick!”

“Yeah, but you know, I’ve known Bloom long enough not to be that surprised. The guy has no moral center.”

DeLino was still shaking his head. “But, Jesus! The D.A.!” He took a deep breath. “Okay-first, I owe you a big one. I will … take steps to minimize the damage to the Mayor’s office from this shit. You think it’ll come out-the whole mess?”

“Without a doubt, once we get the complete story. We’re doing that now.”

DeLino stood up abruptly and put some currency on the table. His lo mein was untouched and cooling in its bowl. “I need to get back right now. Thanks, and Butch? Remember Jack Keegan?”

“Of course.” Jack Keegan had been the chief of the Homicide Bureau in the glory days before Bloom, and one of the men who had taught Karp how to prosecute homicides. He was a man with a monumental reputation for skill and probity.

“He’s casting for a judgeship,” said DeLino. “He needs Bloom’s recommendation, and the word I have is that he’s planning to appear as a defense witness. He’s going to blast Selig.”

“My God!” Karp exclaimed in disbelief. “Jack Keegan shilling for Sandy Bloom?”

“Yep,” said DeLino with a tight grin. “Now you know how I feel.”

“I have here,” said Karp, “a copy of a letter from you to Dr. Murray Selig, dated January twentieth of last year. Are you familiar with this letter?”