Robert Tanenbaum - Absolute rage

"Pardon?"

"Kill them," she said more clearly. "Kill them all."

Lenny Polanski arrived on Marlene's helicopter the following day with two others, an oriental man and a striking blond woman, all three wearing Hawaiian shirts and sunglasses. The great surgeon seemed like a cross between a retired middleweight prizefighter and a stand-up comedian. He was blocky, tanned, foulmouthed, crop-haired, and athletic in stride and gesture. Karp loathed him on sight. In the dingy waiting room (Dr. Small having hovered and having been curtly dismissed), Polanski introduced to the Karp family Dr. Chao, who will be passing gas at this party, and Ms. Vava Voom, the world's hottest scrub nurse, who will be cooling my brow, so to speak.

Polanski focused on Lucy. "You're that kid, Morrie's superstar with the languages. Say something in Lithuanian."

"Do you speak Lithuanian?" asked Lucy.

"I don't know, I never tried, ha, ha, ha!"

"If you don't make my brother better, you ape," said Lucy, smiling, "I will have you killed in a particularly unpleasant fashion," in Lithuanian.

Ms. Voom held out her hand to Marlene, who shook it. "I'm Anne Rasmussen. He's a horse's ass, but he really is the best brain surgeon in the country. We can't take him anywhere." Lenny cracked up at this.

Karp was not amused. "You know, maybe this isn't a good idea. I mean, this is a child's life we're talking about and I don't appreciate it being treated as a joke."

"Hey, listen, dad," said the doctor, "do I come into your courtroom or whatever and tell you how to act? Ever since I saw M*A*S*H, I wanted to be the pros from Dover-you know that scene? Where the two docs barge in wearing Hawaiian shirts, cure the congressman's kid, and leave? No? Hey, check it out, a great scene! So the first thing you folks have got to do is lighten up. I know you're worried. I'd be, too, if I was in the shit-bag hospital. But I took a look at the kid's snaps-"

"Giancarlo," said Marlene.

"Right, Giancarlo, his snaps, and it's a no-brainer, so to speak, ha ha. I mean, first of all it's a pellet, obviously at longish range, not the usual shot to the head from a pistol at point-blank, so there's less damage generally. We have minimal penetration, not much bleeding, there's no major circulatory damage-"

"Why is he still in a coma, then?" asked Marlene.

"Brain swelling. What do you want? He got shot in the head, okay? A couple of days being knocked out is absolutely normal here. Okay, we go in, we take out the pellet, we repair the good stuff, we snip the bad stuff, we sew him up. These guys here could have done it if they weren't such patzers. Kid's going to be fine, you'll see." Polanski beamed, and it was hard for the Karps not to share his bravado.

"What about impairment?" Karp asked.

Polanski made an elaborate shrug. "That I can't tell you. I've seen people lose a chunk of brain the size of a Big Mac and live a perfectly normal life, and other people just get a tap on the skull and they never move again." He pointed upward. "That's not my department. Your kid's going to get the best surgical care available, but what happens after that, with the brain… if you believe in God, he's in charge of that part, not me."

At that, Lucy burst into tears and fled the room.

"Hey, what'd I say?" asked Dr. Polanski in dismay.

Everyone was being extremely nice to Karp. He had not had so many strangers so solicitous toward him since his senior year in high school, when the basketball coaches had come around. He went back to the Burroughs Building two days after the New York team had operated and departed. Giancarlo was as well as could be expected. He looked like he was sleeping peacefully. His color was good, his breathing regular. But he would not awake.

The Burroughs Building had been transformed in Karp's absence, for Captain Hendricks and Cheryl Oggert had lent most of it to the FBI, who had over a hundred agents on the scene now, under the command of a bullnecked person named Ron Morrisey. Morrisey treated Karp like an invalid, or someone with a contagious disease, leprosy, for example. He was not invited to the big-time strategy meetings Morrisey held with the state boys.

Still, Karp tried to show at the office in between bouts of watching at Giancarlo's bedside. Once there, he mostly sat at his desk with his feet up and tapped on his teeth with a pencil. Sometimes he tapped on the desk with two pencils. The plan he had come up with, he now saw, was absurd. It was based on George Floyd having a credible fear that he was going to be convicted of murder, and Karp had to admit that inculcating such a fear would require not just a paper confession, but the prospect of an actual live Cade sitting on the witness stand, pointing a skinny white finger at the defendant. Which Cade he did not have. Which Cade was sitting up on Burnt Peak, thumbing its nose, or noses, at the legions of troopers and agents below. Karp had tried to find out whether Morrisey was planning an assault, and if so, whether he had some way of extracting Karp's two confessors, but Karp did not, it seemed, have a need to know these plans. Cheryl Oggert was not helpful, either. The governor would not apply pressure here; the governor was starting to distance himself from the whole mess.

On Thursday (and it was hard to believe that only three days had passed since the raid), Karp and Marlene and the town's notables attended the funeral of Sheriff J. J. Swett. A surprising number of non-notable townspeople also showed for the event. Several people, including Lester Weames and the mayor, stood up and lied about Swett's character and achievement. Karp noted substantial negative murmurings among the crowd during Weames's presentation, which made him feel a little better. Ernie Poole, who was there and drunk, seemed to sum up the general feeling when he said in a loud enough voice, "He was a corrupt old bastard, but he did the right thing in the end, God rest his soul."

After the funeral, the Karps went back to the hospital. Marlene took over the watch from Lucy. Zak, who had hardly eaten a bite in three days, refused to leave his brother's bedside. Karp obtained a chocolate milk shake and threatened to send the boy to a distant state if he did not consume it.

After an almost silent meal with Lucy (What's wrong? Nothing.), Karp went back to his office in the Burroughs Building. Needing to pretend to himself that he was doing something productive, he called Raymond Guma in New York.

"You're still alive?"

"Yeah, barely," said Guma. "I'm smoking dope now."

"How is it?"

"Eh. I don't get what the kids see in it, to tell you the truth. It helps me eat, though. I get it off this Jamaican from that place on Third. Jerked Chicken, we deliver. What's happening in Podunk?"

Karp told him. Guma said, "Jesus, Butch, that's awful. Terrible! Poor little kid! The bastards escaped, huh?"

"For now. Look, Goom, failing something better, I got a little idea you might be able to help me with."

"Anything."

After Karp had finished the exposition, Guma said, "Well, this end maybe I could help with. It could work. We'd have to get the locals involved, probably not a problem, you being you and me being me."

"What about Eddie Bent?"

"Eh, maybe a little sticky there, but Eddie owes me some big ones over the years. Your big problem is gonna be convincing Lester that what's-his-face is going to roll on him, which is going to be hard to do at this point. Absent the hillbillies."

"I know. I'm working on that. But could you set things up in the City, just in case?"

"Will do, buddy," said Guma, "unless I die first. Or unless I come down off this high and decide it's horseshit. I'll let you know."

That night Karp awakened at three-forty. He looked at the little vial on Marlene's bedstand and contemplated, for the first time in his life, taking a downer. He rejected the idea. He got out of bed, slipped the lodge's terry-cloth robe on, and began to pace the room.