Robert Tanenbaum: Absolute rage

"Well, you'll recall we had that election last year, and I think that's what's behind this. McBright got 48.6 percent of the vote against Jack, including nearly 80 percent of the nonwhite vote. The congressman campaigned very hard for McBright."

"Being a black guy himself."

"That is a racist comment and unworthy of you," said Karp primly. "I'm sure the congressman thought he was the better man for the job. However, that's the fact. Given the demographics of the City, in the future it will be very hard to win office in New York County conceding 80 percent of the nonwhite vote. Are you sure you want to hear this?"

"I'm riveted and would be even more so if you would tickle my head."

Karp started to massage his wife's scalp and continued. "Okay, this started with looking at dirty money uptown. The congressman naturally has a campaign fund. Many uptown notables and businesses contribute to this fund. Among the biggest contributors is a firm called Lenox Entertainment Enterprises. They own clubs and restaurants and movie houses, uptown mainly but also all over the City. The firm makes a corporate contribution, as do a large number of its employees, up to the personal max. This is hard money, by the way, right into the congressman's coffers. You wouldn't think that a guy who cleaned up a movie house after the show could afford to drop a grand on a political campaign, but it is so. And not just one, either."

"That's America, God bless her!" said Marlene. "Lower, please."

"Okay, shady campaign funding… not our problem, really. But it turns out that one of the partners in Lenox is a person named Waylin Pennant, aka Beemer Pennant. Or Pimp Pennant, as we like to call him. Who is definitely our problem. This campaign stuff is what tickled our interest, in fact."

"Gosh, Butch, if pimps can't give money to politicians, they'll have to shut down K Street. Or Texas."

"True, it's Mr. Pennant's right to support the candidate of his choice with money beaten out of whores. Pennant, by the way, is not just your average street Mac. He seems to have industrialized the process, like the Mob did back in the old days. Basically, he doesn't run girls himself-pimps pay him for territories, and he probably gets a rake-off out of most of the fleshly commerce in the City. And he does the usual loan-sharking and so on. No drugs, though. He's a smart cookie."

"Yes, I would stick to fleshly commerce myself, were I to go bad."

"Badder than you currently are, you mean."

"Yes. Were you thinking of taking me up to bed?"

"In a minute," said Karp. "You asked for this and you're going to get it. To resume. Beemer is a major bad guy. We've had some killings we like him for, not directly thus far, but people he had beefs with have tended to end up dead more than pure probability would allow. His vics aren't taxpayers, of course, but my position is, it's bad for our image if guys get to commit murder with impunity. It's against the law."

"I love it when you say that. It makes little shivers run up and down my thighs."

"Ditto," said Karp. "Now, we don't have much hope of nailing Pennant for the heavy stuff, but we figured he might be vulnerable to an Al Capone move. We assume he's laundering his dirty money through Lenox, so we look. We subpoena their books and… surprise, surprise. Lenox is not all that profitable, although it's extemely generous to its employees in the form of bonuses. Pennant is drawing only a modest salary from Lenox, not nearly enough to support his lifestyle. And he pays his taxes on it to the penny. So if pimp money goes into Lenox, it doesn't seem to come out, or at least not into Pennant's wallet."

Marlene finished her drink, slipped down, and rested her head on Karp's lap. He was now able to use both hands on her head and did. She sighed and closed her eyes.

"I'm putting you to sleep with this, right?"

"Oh, not at all. This is divine: head rub and complex criminal procedure. I'm in heaven. Go on-so how does he launder his pimp money if not through Lenox?"

"Okay, so we're looking hard at young Beemer, his associates, their businesses, et cetera, and we find Danila Wilson. Ms. Wilson is very close to Pennant; you might say she's an intimate associate of his. She owns and operates a publicity agency, Wilson, Lowery, Jones."

"A front?"

"Not at all. A legitimate agency, that does legitimate publicity. They have rap stars, and straight businesses, and artists. This is a high-class operation. But a nice chunk of their business, it turns out, is managing the congressman's public image and his campaigns. They print up the posters and do the TV commercials. And it's kind of funny because even though the congressman is in his twelfth term and regularly wins by thirty-point margins, he pays them a very large amount of money. Inordinate, you might even say."

"Like how much?"

"Oh, for this campaign, four point three mil."

"Got it," said Marlene. "The pimp money goes in as fake contributions from Pennant's smurfs and comes back out to him as overpayments to his girlfriend's company."

"You're really smart, Marlene. Do you think it has anything to do with me massaging your head all these years?"

"Maybe, maybe not, but I think it would be prudent to keep doing it. I'm thinking a state case is going to be hard to make."

"Yes, that was Jack's point. Obviously, the way you handle something like this is you grab up the little guys, hit them with a blizzard of charges. We'd go with first-degree falsifying business records, because of the intent to conceal another felony, which in this case would be the pimping operations, and, of course, the 470.10 money-laundering second degree, nice felonies, and we'd hope that they'd deal, roll the big guys, right up to Pennant and Wilson, and Soames.

"Who is…?"

"Sorry, Alonzo P. Soames, Soapy Soames-our congressman's campaign manager and main guy uptown. He actually writes the checks to Wilson and would obviously know the whole story."

"But…?"

"We have some likely little guys, people making just over min wage, who got five-figure bonuses, and paid it all into the campaign war chest. Phony on the face of it, and enough to warrant a search of the relevant paper-the campaign records, and Wilson's, but I've been told that's a nono. In writing. Basically Jack doesn't want to go up against that crowd right now. He thinks it would look like a vendetta against the people who supported his opponent. Especially with Ku Klux Karp as the lead agitator."

"They're still calling you that?"

"Not to my face, but it's well-known I'm this big racist," said Karp bitterly. "Jack adverts to it often in his subtle way. My own theory is that he wants me around mainly to keep the white vote in his pocket, one of the little ironies of my life. It goes to show you, once you're blackened, so to speak, in New York politics, that's all she wrote."

"So why don't you quit?"

"Marlene, don't start that again…"

She sat up abruptly and looked him in the face. "No, really. It's not like we need the money."

"What would I do? Conduct a practice devoted to defending us against dog-bite lawsuits?"

"That would be more fun than what you're doing now, although my dogs only bite people who deserve it. Besides, I'm a lawyer."

"You could've fooled me."

"Oh, don't get all spiky, again, for God's sake. We were just beginning to be cozy." She laid herself back again on his lap. "Okay, so then what are you going to do?"

"I don't know. Wait for something to turn up that Jack will have to move on. Leak to the press. Bluff. The usual, what I've been reduced to."

"What we should do is put the twins in boarding school and head for Europe."

He ignored this. "What irks me is that he really doesn't give a shit one way or the other about Pennant and the congressman. What he really wants is for me to admit that it's okay to screw around with cases for political advantage."