Robert Tanenbaum - Reversible Error

"Ready? I'm frothy. It's blowing tiny bubbles." She squirmed deliciously on the seat cushions, sliding flat and hoisting one leg on the back of the settee.

"Wait a second," said Karp, after wriggling out of his sweatpants, "you got pizza crusts under your ass."

Marlene grabbed him by the front of his sweatshirt and yanked him onto her. In an instant he was firmly socketed, sinking into her like a pipe wrench dropped into a crock of warm chili. She heaved and bit his ear and whispered, gasping into it, "We can… eat them… later. Or cut them… into little cubes and… serve them to… special guests."

"Stop talking, Marlene," said Karp. Which she did.

Detectives Lanny Maus and Mack Jeffers were sitting in the back of an old Ford van on 143rd Street in Harlem, waiting for a murderer to arrive so they could arrest him. The van was hand-painted a dull black and it was hot inside. By an arrangement of the van's rearview and side mirrors they had the entrance to the apartment house under indirect observation. The two men reclined on scraps of old carpeting and munched on doughnuts, washed down with quantities of iced Coke from a cooler. This was one of the penalties the King Cole Trio paid for being famous in Harlem, that in order to observe unnoticed, they had to hide in uncomfortable places.

"We should call in," said Maus.

"Fuck that," said Jeffers. "He show up, we call in."

"But Art said-"

"Fuck him too," said Jeffers, shifting his bulk and rocking the van on its worn springs. "Man got the rag on all week, and he takin' it out on us."

Maus nodded. "You think he's still pissed about how the Tecumseh thing went down?"

Jeffers glared at him. "No, I'm pissed about that. Fuckin' little mutt get a free trip to L.A., gets to lie around in the sunshine, while we sweatin' our ass off in some damn van. The fuckin' Loo what give Dugman a hair up his ass."

"What, he thinks the Loo is dirty too?" asked Maus.

"I don't know if he think it, or he know it, but that's it, man."

"So, hey, so he's dirty," said Maus. "I never figured it for him, but it could happen. There's a stink, the snakes'll be in and hang his ass. Why is that skin off Dugman's butt?"

"You don't know much, son, if you got to ask that," said Jeffers.

"Yeah? So I'm a dumb maggot. Tell me why. Is it because Art's in on the dirt?"

Jeffers scowled at the other detective and rolled his eyes in disbelief. "Not that kind of dirt. Look, Dugman a cop for what? Goin' on thirty years. You got any idea what being a black cop in Harlem was like thirty years ago? We talking just after the war. They was still lynching folks down South. Cops up here'd think no more about wasting a bad nigger than giving a goddamn parking ticket. Shit, less.

"But a black cop, a black cop was like a fuckin king up here, you understand? Power of life and death. Money coming in from the whores, from numbers, liquor violations. Fuckin dude hasn't bought a meal or a suit of clothes or a bottle of J amp;B in Harlem in all that time. Shit, fuckin Dugman used to perform weddings. Get the picture?"

"Yeah," said Maus, "kind of." He shifted on his knees and checked the mirrors. There were half a dozen young men and a couple of girls lounging on the steps leading to the house they were watching. An old woman in black climbed painfully up the steps dragging two shopping bags. Without stopping his observation, he said, "By the way, what makes you so sure this sweetheart is gonna show today?"

"His girlfriend live there. Also this the end of the month. Tomorrow welfare Tuesday-jingle day in the ghet-to, you dig? He gonna slip in there, get her pussy feelin good, and also make sure nobody else there for the payday."

"Wait a minute-I thought this guy shanked his girlfriend; that's why we're chasing him."

Jeffers smiled pityingly. "That was a different girlfriend. Take a couple, three mommas to support our boy in the style to which he has been accustomed. What's the matter, you disapprove of the life-styles of the poor and soulful?"

"Hey, no shit, I love all you people," said Maus, straight-faced. "The sense of rhythm, Harry Belafonte, Martin Luther King, watermelon, chitlins-the whole nine yards."

Jeffers grimaced and flicked icy water from the cooler at his companion. Maus laughed and said, "But go on about Dugman and the Loo. You're saying that old-time Harlem had something to do with why Art's pissed off?"

"Yeah. OK, so Art's dirty, but it's clean dirt. There's a line he draws. The skells, the bad niggers, the drugs-especially the drugs-are on one side. He's on the other. He gonna shoot people, but nobody else gets to shoot people. Not on his stand. Like that. And the paddies downtown think that's just great; as long as he keep passing along a piece of the pad from his action, keep the brothers from running riot up here, he's golden. He's never gonna make higher than sergeant, but what the fuck, he's a dinge, right?

"So then comes Knapp. Turn on the lights in Harlem and people running around like roaches. Art's shakin-he's going down. And who saves his black ass?"

"Fulton?"

"Yeah, Fulton. This was just before you got here. You never heard this story?"

"Yeah, I heard. They were getting charges ready on Art, and Fulton cashed in some chips."

"Yeah, that's how it went. But, dig it, it was more than that," said Jeffers. "Look at it from Art's point of view. Here's this black guy and he's everything Art ain't. College graduate. One of the first black detective loos in history. The guy's platinum. Besides, the dude is one tough motherfucker street cop-first guy through the door, wounded in action twice, police medal of honor, commendations up one side and down the other. So afterwards, when they drop the charges, he lay down the law to old Art; things has changed. I cover your ass, I ain't gonna hassle you about no chickenshit, but no fuckin cash better change hands no more.

"And Art buys it. What, he's only got three, four years max he's gonna stay. You got it now?"

"I got it," said Maus thoughtfully. "What you're saying is that if Fulton is really killing guys for pay, for pushers, Art is like the asshole of the century."

"Yeah, man. And Art can't afford to look like no asshole in Harlem. It's his fuckin neck on the street. And you know something else? Underneath, what hurt him worse'n even that-Art love that boy. Seeing a black kid gettin over like that-"

"Hey," Maus interrupted. "Check this out!"

Jeffers slid forward and looked at the mirrored image. Maus said, "The dude in the blue track suit talking to the mutts on the stoop. He looks good."

Jeffers nodded. He picked up an Ithaca pump gun and jacked a round into the chamber. "Yeah, that's him. Wait'll he goes inside. We'll get him on the stairs." Marlene sat at the prosecution table of Part 30 waiting for the court officer to call People v. Meissner so that the panty-hose killer could be arraigned on the grand jury's indictment. She glanced sideways across the aisle at her opponent and his client. Henry Polaner was a small man with a large head decorated with an abundance of pepper-and-salt hair through which prominent ears peeked like inquisitive jungle animals. His eyes were dark and heavy-lidded, his nose bulbous, and his infrequent smiles showed a rank of perfectly capped teeth. His favored expression was bored amusement, as if to challenge anyone's serious belief in the farrago of legal nonsense brought by the prosecution.

His client, now undisguised, was an unprepossessing man of about thirty. His hair was medium brown, his eyes were pale hazel, his build was average. His features were even and conventionally handsome. His nose was straight and long, without bumps, and he had all his fingers. The only remarkable thing about him was his expression, and that only remarkable in a man facing trial on a charge of murder. He seemed like someone about to watch a play or a sporting event, long-anticipated and promising pleasure. He liked to smile, and his smile was that of a mischievous little boy caught at some trivial misdemeanor by an indulgent parent.