Robert Tanenbaum - Act of Revenge

“Don’t get wise, Marlene, like you couldn’t use the money,” Harry grumbled. “Besides, her money, it’s a public service. Donnelley? I should sing that damn song with all the Irish names in it.”

“What?” said Marlene. Harry occasionally reverted to a gnomic form of communication that assumed that the person he was talking to was making the same mental leaps he was. Marlene could often follow him, but not now. “What’s this about her money?”

“Just that prick of a husband. It’d be nice to put it to him. On the other hand, he’s not going to be happy she split on him. I hope your pal’s ready for action there, got her six-gun oiled.”

“Harry, what the hell are you talking about? You know who Vivian Fein’s husband is?”

Harry snapped his fingers. “Doherty! John Doherty. They called him Black Jack. I knew there was a B in there somewhere.”

“That’s Vivian’s husband ?”

Harry looked at her as if she were speaking Welsh and replied in an elaborately patient tone. “No, Marlene, that’s the guy on the investigation, with Mulhausen. Who you should see. The husband is Bollano. Jerry’s daughter married Little Sal Bollano about two years after Fein hit the sidewalk. It was the wedding of the year for the wise guys.”

Marlene could hear it through the elevator as it approached the fifth floor, the incredible volume produced by a pair of four-year-olds in full wail, and her heart shriveled inside her. As she had so many times before, she resisted the desire to head directly for the bedroom and bury herself beneath the covers, and went like a good momma bear toward the source of the noise. In the playroom she found Posie mopping vomit and her husband, still in his suit, a red-faced twin on each knee, his lapel decorated with little yellow flecks.

“I think it’s coming out both ends,” said Karp, which Marlene could smell for herself. The screams increased in volume when the boys spotted their mother, source of all comfort, and they reached for her like infant cuckoos.

“What did you give them?” Marlene snapped at Posie. Toddler dietetics had never been one of the girl’s strong points.

“Nothing, Marlene, honest! They just had their regular lunch and they started acting cranky around four and then Zak had the shits and I cleaned him up and then they both started puking just before Butch got home.”

“Pick one,” said Karp.

They had done this before. Marlene grabbed Zik and snapped out orders to Posie.

“There’s a container of chicken barley soup in the freezer. Zap it for ten minutes!”

“I threw up, Mommy,” Giancarlo wailed.

“I threw up, too , Mommy,” said his brother. “We’re sick as dogs .”

As if cued, in pranced the mastiff, who began licking up delicious bits of yellow matter off the floor. Screams, shouted orders, startled giggles from the twins; the dog slunk off, but the cycle of hysteria was broken, which, thought Marlene, was just one more reason to have a shambling monster in the household.

The couple repaired to the bathroom, where the twin boys got stripped and cleaned and Karp held each one in turn screaming while their mother poured Kaopectate down their throats.

“What do you think?” asked Karp as he shoved Zak’s arms into pajamas. “Not too hot, are they?”

She felt both their foreheads: warm, but not blazing. Diagnosis, stomach virus. After which, Mommy and Daddy pumping chirpy cheerfulness out like water from a spigot, which improved the boys’ moods a good deal, then a bowl of healthful broth, a powerful dose of baby aspirin ground into applesauce for both of them, and a long lounge for Daddy and the twins in Zak’s bed, reading one of Richard Scarry’s compendiums, and, three times, the preschooler’s answer to Phenobarbital, Good-night Moon. After the delicate little snores sounded, Daddy carried Giancarlo over to his own bed, tucked him in, and staggered down to the kitchen, where he found Mommy with a tumbler half full of red wine attempting to resume the character of Marlene.

“They are down,” he said.

“Well, aren’t you a light unto the Gentiles,” she said, grabbing him and planting a kiss on the side of his head as he walked by to the refrigerator. She joined him and cut herself a chunk of Asiago cheese and a quarter loaf of yesterday’s Italian bread, oiled and garlicked it, and ate the rest of the soup out of the Tupperware 6.

She watched Karp manufacture a roast beef on rye with his own hands, even, Marlene was amazed to see, slicing a tomato to go into it without damage to any vital organ.

“Sorry about your suit, by the way.”

“Oh, no problem. It’s designed to shed vomit. I’m a lawyer, you know.”

“And besides that, how was your day?”

He told her then about the Catalano case, and its political ramifications, and Ray Guma’s theory that it was something to do with the family, and Marlene listened, and did not tell him she suspected that at least part of the crime family’s problem was sitting in room 37 at the East Village Women’s Shelter. Indeed, it was common for Marlene to conceal things from her husband, although Karp was perfectly open with her about everything the law allowed. This imbalance was all right with Karp; he had no interest in learning all that his wife was up to.

“By the way,” Karp continued, “I had a talk with Mimi Vasquez, the ADA who’s handling the Asia Mall shootings. They’ve come up with some interesting stuff. The vics flew in that morning from L.A. on the red-eye. They got in the night before from Hong Kong. No known contacts in the city, so they’re figuring someone followed them here to whack them. They’re checking airport arrivals now, but it looks like-”

Marlene dropped her soup spoon and interrupted, “Wait a second-where’s Lucy?”

“She’s in her room, isn’t she?” said Karp. The twins crisis had prevented either of them from thinking about the family’s usual problem child.

“Is she?” Marlene got up and went down to Lucy’s room, whose door was, as usual, locked. She knocked. “Lucy? Are you okay?” A grumble assured her that the girl was inside. “Come out and have something to eat.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Are you sick?” No response. “Open the door, please, Lucy.” More muttering, not all of it in a Christian tongue, stomping feet, the click of the lock. Marlene entered to see her daughter, dressed only in the Chung-King T-shirt and underpants, heading back toward her bed, where she jumped under the Italian flag duvet and turned to the wall.

Marlene sat on the bed and pressed the back of her hand against Lucy’s cheek.

“You’re not hot,” said Marlene, her heart twisting as her daughter seemed to cringe away from her touch.

“Have you eaten anything?”

“I said , I’m not hungry.”

“If you have anorexia, I’m going to kill you,” said Marlene, trying to lighten it up.

“I don’t have anorexia, Mother,” said Lucy to the wall, mumble, mumble.

“What was that?” asked Marlene, comprehending very well what it was.

“Nothing, Mother. I just want to sleep, okay?”

“At eight o’clock? Lucy, did something happen today? Are you upset about something? Lucy. .?”

Lucy burrowed deeper under the covers and pulled a pillow up over her head. Marlene started to feel like a weasel digging a baby bunny out of a hole. She patted the mute lump and left.

At least she wasn’t rude in English, thought Marlene. At least no heavy, sharp objects were flung. She was walking back down the hall to her husband when the street-level buzzer sounded. She went to the kitchen wall and asked who it was.

The tinny voice spoke in French. “Marie-Helene, it is Tran. We should meet and talk.”