Robert Tanenbaum - Reversible Error

"It's an open ticket to L.A. in a fake name," said Karp. "You answer a few questions, and then we both go back to the car and the detectives drive you to La Guardia. They'll give you some cash and kiss you good-bye. You're on the next flight to L.A. with two hundred dollars in your pocket. A new life. Or maybe I should say the only life you're likely to have."

Booth took the ticket out of the folder and read it slowly, paging through the counterfoils, as if it were a letter from an old friend, full of sage advice. Booth tried to think it through, to figure the angles, but he was unused to thought. Other people made the plans. He just drove and kept his mouth shut. Hesitantly, and in a near-whisper, he said, "I just tell you? No court? I don't sign no papers?"

"Just me, and right now. And you're gone."

Booth released a long, soft sigh, like the last breath of an old, sick man. "Yeah, what the fuck," he said. "Whatever you want."

Twenty-five minutes later, Karp sat on the bench and watched Tecumseh Booth walk rapidly away down the leafy path. Two minutes after that he heard a car door slam and the sound of a car accelerating. For a while he sat quietly in the breezy silence. Then in a loud voice, he said, "Home-free all!"

Steps crunched on ground litter behind him, and Clay Fulton came out from behind the boulders, brushing grit off his suit coat and trousers. He had a small Nagra tape machine hanging from a shoulder strap and a gun microphone in his hand.

"Did you get it?" asked Karp.

"Yeah, I did," said Fulton, sitting wearily down next to Karp. "Helluva thing. It never fucking occurred to us." He shook his head, flabbergasted.

"I know. I've had the same feeling about the D.A.'s office from time to time. It makes you wonder."

"It do," said Fulton. And after a brief silence: "So where do we go from here?"

"Well, now that we have names and places, we can start building a real case. If you're up for it, I figure the best thing is for you to keep on with what you're doing. You're getting an evil reputation, my man. Anybody interested in hiring bad cops, you'd be right up there with the real bad boys."

Fulton offered a smile without much humor in it. "Yeah. The bad boys. Son-of-a-bitch. I still can't get my head around it. Cops taking money-sure. Maybe pulling burglaries even-we had that a lot. Lifting dope and selling it. But contract murder?"

He shook his head hard, as if trying to dispel a bad dream. "And Manning. The inside guy, the task-force guy. Son-of-a-bitch!"

"Yeah, Manning. That'll have to be your end. But I'd watch one thing."

"What's that?" Fulton asked.

"I've been thinking. Manning was a little too enthusiastic in blackening your reputation."

"Blackening. I like that."

"So to speak. I'd also bet that he's been clocking overtime accelerating the rumors around town. Why would he do that? One reason might be that it's getting hot. He hears the hounds baying across the bayou. Whatever. So wouldn't it be neat if he, Manning, was to bring down the notorious Fulton, who turned out to be the black killer cop that's been popping all these drug dealers?"

"I like it," said Fulton after a moment's reflection. "I'd have to be dead, of course."

"Needless to say. So watch your young black ass.

"How?" Fulton said, and then he laughed, a rich loud sound that echoed off the rocks. Karp saw that it was genuine release of tension. Fulton was glad, at least, to be no longer alone in the chase. Then Fulton said, "OK, but I'm gonna have to get close to them, and stay away from you. We'll have to figure something out." He thought for a moment and then snapped his fingers. "Perfect!" he said. "I just wasted Tecumseh. He's in a car trunk in the Jersey meadows. That's the story. It's my ticket in."

Karp grinned in appreciation. "Very good. I love it. It's sneaky and clever. You're sure you're not Jewish?"

"I am. This black horseshit is just for affirmative action so I could make lieutenant. Yeah, it should work, unless Manning is down at La Guardia seeing his momma off on a plane. What'll you be doing meanwhile?"

"Somebody hired them. That's who I want."

"Hired them? But we already know that. Booth said they were working for Choo Willis."

"No, he didn't-not exactly. Sit down for a second, I want to play some of that tape."

The two men sat on the bench and Karp fiddled with the Nagra, rolling the tape back and forth until he had the section he wanted. "Listen to this carefully," he said.

The voice of Tecumseh Booth was thready but the words were clear enough: "…an then we went down to that club, you know? Club Mecca. An Manning, he tol' me to wait outside, in the club while him and Amalfi went inna back. So then he come out an he have a big envelope, an he peel off my end from a roll of cash, thick as shit. Motherfucker got paid, you know? So then, I say, who back there? An he say, you don't got to know that, you just got to drive.

"So later, I'm out in the car, drivin, an I go by the club, an there's Choo Willis standin with some of his homes outside, an I figure that was him, cause Choo bout the biggest dealer we ain't killed, an he hang there all the time. We doin it for him, dig? So then…"

Karp clicked off the tape. Fulton shrugged and said, "So? That's what I said-it's Willis."

"Yeah, they're doing it for Willis. He's the immediate beneficiary. But Willis didn't organize this. No way. And I doubt he was the only one in the back room with the cash."

"How do you know that?"

"Look at it! This whole thing stinks of heavy cover. Would cops work for a Harlem dope pusher? They might help him, but they're not going to take orders from a mutt like that. Would Willis have the clout to roll Nolan? I told you, Nolan isn't a fat-envelope guy. No, there's somebody else, somebody big."

Karp pondered for a moment. "Tell me something: what's your take on Fane?"

"The congressman? Shit, Butch, what do I know about those kind of people? He comes on like a regular politician. You think he's involved?"

"No, just wondering," Karp said. "It could be, though. He's supposed to be smart enough. And everybody likes money, especially pols. But it's somebody like that. Somebody who knows how to move money and move the system. Just you do your end and I'll look into it."

Karp walked slowly back to the ballfield. The post-game party had thinned out and the beer was almost gone. Karp put his hand on the shoulder of a small wiry man and said, "V.T., we need to talk for a minute."

Vernon Talcott Newbury looked around and smiled when he saw Karp. His smile was perfect, white and even, and his face was perfect too-classical features and dark blue eyes with long lashes. He wore his blond hair long and swept back.

Karp picked up a Coke from the cooler and V.T. grabbed a beer and they walked over to sit near first base. "I need some advice, V.T."

"Sure, Butch. Is it that sexual-dysfunction thing again?"

"Fuck you," said Karp with a laugh. "No, it has to do with the drug-dealer killings. I need to run some financial traces."

"Aha. And you thought to yourself, think money, think V.T. Newbury. Why go through the messy business of subpoenaing records and causing a fuss when you knew that V.T., with his elaborate connections in the financial community, could gather much the same information, et cetera?"

"Something like that. And your vast personal wealth, so that if you got caught and got fired, you wouldn't suffer."

"My vast personal wealth is so tied up in trusts that I have to struggle to make ends meet. My wine merchant is now asking for cash, if you can believe it. Who's the malefactor?"

"Marcus Fane, and maybe some other people," said Karp.

V.T.'s eyes widened. "Representative Fane… so he's been killing the pushers. I admire that. More congressmen should cut through the red tape and bureaucracy to rid our streets of these villains, et cetera. Of course, it's not the kind of thing you can use in a campaign speech…"