Robert Tanenbaum: Reversible Error

The voice rose nearly to a scream. Then, when there was no response, the voice said tentatively, "Dick! Dick? Are you there?"

Karp said, "No, Mr. Reedy, Dick can't come to the phone."

"What! Who is this?"

"This is the sheeny bastard, Mr. Reedy," said Karp. "I guess you don't want me to be D.A. anymore." "So," said Marlene after Karp had related the story of what had happened in Manning's apartment, "I guess he hung up pretty fast when you said that."

"Yes," said Karp, "he didn't stay to chat. Odd, because previously he was always so sociable."

"And the bad guys are in irons?"

"Surprisingly, yes. Maus and Jeffers grabbed Reedy moving out at a dead run, with his passport, a second, phony, passport, five grand in traveler's checks, and twenty grand in Krugerrands in his briefcase. We made the point to the judge that Mr. Reedy was not a good risk to stay for trial."

They were in Marlene's little office. Karp's office had become the focus of enormous attention from the press as news of the scandal leaked out, and nearly uninhabitable. "Yes," Karp continued, "I said that if Mr. Reedy was not sent to Rikers Island he would turn up in some other island beyond the reach of justice. I thought that was pretty good, myself."

"And so it was, my jewel," said Marlene, "and it deserves a long, soul-shattering kiss."

Somewhat later Marlene said, "Do you think you really have him?"

"Reedy? Yeah, I think we can make at least the accessory charge stick. That's quite apart from the fraud stuff V.T. is working on, not to mention the feds taking a couple of whacks at him. And obstruction of justice, of course. He certainly demonstrated guilty knowledge of the crimes on the phone. I owe you one for that, incidentally."

"Be still, my heart," said Marlene. "What, you mean the way we did Meissner? But that was your idea, originally."

"Yeah, but you brought it up last night. You mentioned something about using the scam in the other rape cases, and it must have stuck in my mind. It bubbled up out of my subconscious and it was all laid out when I got up this morning. Magic."

"Not to mention that, until you met me, you didn't know you had a subconscious. Or a conscious. But to continue-what about the murder charges?"

"Well, we'll go for them, sure. But I don't know… convincing a jury that a distinguished Wall Street lawyer hired two cops to murder dope pushers? Hard to believe. Hard for me to believe. And we don't have any direct witnesses."

"Except Fane," said Marlene.

"Except Fane. Of course, if we could get one of them to rat the other one out, that's a different story. It's the prisoner's dilemma: if one rats and the other holds his mud, the rat walks and the stand-up guy goes over for a long one. If they both rat, both have to do time. If neither rats, they still do time, but less of it. Both our guys are pretty hard-boiled, they've got good counsel, and they won't go for the usual tricks.

"But we've got the better case on Reedy," Karp added after a pause, "and he's definitely looking at serious upstate time. I'm betting he won't be able to sit in jail and watch Fane walking around free. But we shall see."

"So we shall," said Marlene. "And by the way, how did our fearless leader receive the news?"

"Like the great American he is," said Karp. "I told him we had Reedy and what had gone down. And then there was a pregnant pause and I said, 'I guess we know how he knew that we were on the way to arrest Manning.' And he didn't say anything, just had on that shit-eating smile. And he was sweating."

"My God!" said Marlene. "Do you think he was in on it-like Fane and Reedy?"

"No, he's not that kind of crook, to give him credit. He's just a schmuck. He just likes giving tidbits of information to influential people. Reedy probably prompted him by saying he was very interested in the case and wanted to follow it as closely as possible.

"Anyway, then I said it would have to come out in trial, that we hoped that Reedy would call his accomplice, not knowing Manning had been killed, and people would want to know who tipped him off. Not to mention how Reedy learned that Clay was undercover."

"Did he wet his pants?" Marlene asked.

"I couldn't tell. He was sitting down," said Karp. "So then I said something like, 'I guess we could establish that you were part of the plan from the very beginning and that the reason you were feeding Reedy information all through this case was so that he wouldn't get suspicious that we were on to him. Fulton being nabbed was a simple unpredictable glitch.' And so on."

"He must have liked that," said Marlene.

"He was fumbling at my fly," said Karp. "In fact, his gratitude was so embarrassing that I felt it necessary to change the subject."

"Oh? What to?"

"Well, I mentioned that I had a bright and experienced attorney whose services we were about to lose because of the nepotism rules. Which I heartily supported, of course."

"Of course," Marlene agreed.

"And also that because of the change in the rape law we had a good opportunity to increase our success rate in these cases, provided we had someone in charge who was experienced in same, and that, given all this feminist agitation, har-har, it might be seen as a shrewd political move to, ah, set up a rape bureau, with the right person in charge, of course."

"Of course," said Marlene. "And did he solicit any recommendations for such a post?"

"Indeed, he did," said Karp. "And I took the liberty of putting your name forward. Which was accepted, on the spot. How do you like that? The last little spurt of nepotism."

"Yippeee!" Marlene shouted, jumping to her feet. "Let's hear it for corruption! Karp, you are quite a piece of work!" She kissed him soundly and looked at him, beaming the celestial smile that she was capable of when-and these occasions had been few in recent months-she was completely at peace.

Karp grinned back at her and said, "I guess you still want to marry me, then."

"Yes, naturally, we've already ordered the cake."

"Yeah-God!-it's only ten days away."

"Actually, it's nine," said Marlene, frowning. "You should write it in your little book. Which reminds me-all is prepared except for two small details."

"Which are?"

In answer she waggled her left hand in front of his face.

"Oh, shit!" said Karp.

"Yes, a ring is traditional," said Marlene. "Fortunately, to save you a trip to the K-Mart, I should tell you that your Aunt Sophie has volunteered one. It belonged to your mom."

With feeling Karp said, "Good old Aunt Sophie! How do you feel about that?"

"I'm honored, actually," said Marlene. "Although it's gonna blow them away at St. Joseph's. As you may recall, it weighs about four pounds and has little Jewish stars and Hebrew letters all around it."

"Yes, they spell out, 'Guaranteed: not a shiksa,'" said Karp. "What was the other thing?"

"Guma. He's coming, of course. But somehow, in his usual expansive way, he invited Sylvia Kamas to be his date. I thought you should know beforehand."

"I see," said Karp, starting to giggle. "He's going to pretend to be John Ciampi in the middle of a hive of Ciampis, including the real John Ciampi. How are you going to handle that?"

"Don't worry, my prince," said Marlene. "I'll think of something."