Robert Tanenbaum - Act of Revenge

“They were trying to send you a message, Janice.”

“What? Who? What message?”

“Whoever shot those guys. They want your family to know they can pick you up whenever they want.”

“Why me? Why not you?”

“Because it’s your store, Janice. They might have figured that if somebody saw something, it was a family member. Remember how that guy looked up when Mary panicked? And nobody knows I was there. Which is good, because they won’t be keeping an eye on me and maybe I can find out what’s going-”

“ Stop it! ” Janice shrieked. “I can’t stand this mystery stuff like it was some game you’re amusing yourself with. It’s not TV, Lucy. It’s not one of your books.”

She stood up abruptly and brushed herself off. “I don’t want this to be happening. I just want to be a regular person and let other people worry about murders and shit.”

She looked so miserable standing there, weeping, that Lucy reached out to put an arm around her shoulder, but the other girl shrugged it away.

“No! Just leave us alone, huh? Just leave us alone!”

She ran off in the direction of the Asia Mall. Thus did Lucy learn what her mother well knew about the heroine business: that, unlike in books and movies, the people one saved were not always grateful. Rather the opposite, in fact.

It was part of Karp’s management style to appear unannounced at various bureau offices at the end of the day, to pick up the kind of gossip that would not ordinarily reach the ears of the D.A. and to generally spread the sort of terror without which prosecutorial organizations tend to get lazy and sloppy, as he had recently demonstrated in the case of People v . Ragosi. He stopped by the Felony Bureau, to find the Felony chief, Sullivan, gone for the day, amused himself by poking a few sticks into various anthills, and then went down the hall to Homicide.

Ray Guma was sprawled out on the green couch in the bureau chief’s office when Karp walked in, not dissuaded by Roland’s growled “Go away!” Guma was drinking from a giant container of coffee, and Karp could smell the bourbon in it from the doorway. It was known that Guma often softened the day with a snort after the Supreme Court judges had gone home, which they all liked to do around four, and the place reverted to its natural proprietors. No one begrudged Guma this frailty. He had not been known to appear drunk and incapable in court (drunk, yes; incapable, never) and besides, he was from another age, which the younger men, reared on the movies of that epoch, suspected was tougher, cleaner, and supported a nobler masculinity than their own deplorable era.

“What can I do for you, Butch?” asked Roland, smiling like a haberdashery salesman.

Karp smiled back and took one of Roland’s side chairs. “Nothing, Roland, I just wanted to tell you guys again how much I enjoyed the performance up in Jack’s conference room the other day. Did you rehearse that, or was it improvised?”

“He asked for it,” said Roland dismissively. “Guy’s full of shit anyway. When was the last time Rackets won a case? I don’t mean bookies and that crap. He’s just trying to horn in on my murder, like I’m going to deal him in.”

“Meanwhile, you got shit on the case. Guma? What’s the good word among the wise guys this week?”

Guma said, “The prairie dog sends signals to the hawk.”

The other two men stared at him. “Goom, put away that coffee, for now,” said Roland.

“The prairie dog sends signals to the hawk,” Guma repeated with emphasis. “The hawk’s trying to eat him, and he’s sending up signals, help the hawk out a little. It’s amazing.”

“That’s it,” said Roland, “I’m calling 911. It’s time for the rubber room.”

“What’re you talking about, Guma?” Karp asked.

“Prairie dogs. They live in these burrows, and they come out to feed on the ground. And the hawk flies over them, he’s figuring one of the prairie dogs might not spot him up there in the sky, he dives and bang! Lunch. If he figures right, if the little guys don’t really see him, he’ll nail the dog before it gets into the hole. If not, no payoff. The bird has to fly up there again and start over. The only thing is, the hawk can’t make too many mistakes, he’ll knock himself out, maybe he’ll starve, or his chicks’ll starve. So-and here’s the funny thing-the prairie dog knows this; so if it spots a hawk up there, it’ll like make a little nod of its head. The hawk sees this, it doesn’t dive on that prairie dog, doesn’t waste the effort.”

The two other men exchanged looks. Roland said, “Guma, what the fuck are you talking about?”

Guma ignored this and continued, his voice low and gravelly; Karp listened, fascinated. This was a different Guma. “So you have to ask, what’s in it for the prairie dog? What the fuck does he care about some hawk, the hawk spends the day whacking his pals? Hey, but it’s dog eat dog out there. So to speak. The prairie dogs are competing for turf, I mean real turf, ’cause they eat grass, bushes, whatever. So the dog figures, the hawk’s gotta eat somebody, let him eat the guy who’s a little slower than me, doesn’t look around enough, too busy stuffing his face to check out the sky. I’ll help him out, no skin off my ass, and plus, there’ll be more leaves and shit for me .”

He took a long swig from his cup and was silent.

Roland said, “That was good, Guma. It’s always nice to learn something about the world we live in. Now, would you please get the fuck out of here and sleep it off!”

Karp said, “No, Roland, Guma had a point, didn’t you, Goom?”

“The point is,” said Guma slowly, “the point is, things are not always like they seem. You gotta have all the connections or it don’t make sense, like the prairie dog tipping off the hawk. And we don’t.”

“You’re talking about Catalano, right?” asked Karp.

Guma gave him a long, bloodshot stare. “Of course, what the fuck else’re we talking about? Like I said before, this is a family thing, it’s got fuck all to do with the grand jury.”

“So what’s going on in the family?” Karp asked.

“Wait a minute,” said Roland. “I want to know where you got all that shit about the prairie dogs. I thought you were a sports and pussy man.”

“I am, Roland,” said Guma with grave dignity. “But man does not live by sports and pussy alone. For your information, I got it off a PBS program.”

“I don’t believe this,” said Roland, batting the side of his head with the heel of his hand. “Guma watches PBS? What’re you, joining the ACLU, too?”

“I watch nature programs, Roland. I watch every fucking thing they got, David Attenborough, Nature, National Geographic, Wild Kingdom, I watch fucking Nova , they got an animal program on. What, you’re surprised?” He finished the cup and put it down. “It’s no big thing. Assuming I don’t score with any beautiful young women, and you know they’re all out there just looking for fat, ugly fifty-eight-year-old lawyers with no money, I go back to my miserable, shitty apartment and I watch. It’s relaxing. There’s a whole world out there with no fucking money involved. Eat and be eaten, just like the goddamn city, except they don’t take a percentage. And the lion, or the fucking hyena , wants to get laid, he doesn’t have to make any conversation, he doesn’t have to develop his communication skills, he doesn’t have to respect her in the fucking a.m., he just does it, and the bitch gets the dinner, too. What can I say, it relaxes me.”

“I knew it,” said Roland, “he gets off on the animal fuck scenes.”