Robert Tanenbaum - Enemy within

She passed a bank, an ATM lobby. Drawn by a mysterious force, like an earthling under the control of body snatchers, she found herself bellying up to the device, slipping the new card into the slot. My immediate needs, she thought, and punched in five hundred. The little door whined, and there were twenty-five twenties, actual money. She snatched up the wad and looked around, as if she were ripping someone off.

This was nuts. She hailed a cab on Broadway, and on the ride uptown she tried to think of anything but the money, which was like the old saw about not thinking about a purple rhinoceros and, besides, she had never been much good at controlling her thoughts. Not a mental-discipline type, her, not like her daughter, apparently, or her husband, which was where the daughter must have picked it up, along with her other Karp-like characteristics, such as a tendency to be judgmental, a little self-righteous maybe, a bit hard on old Mom or wifey, as the case might be. Which might change with the new money, might it not? Money was supposed to grease the wheels, make things easier. Why people wanted it, right? Why they killed and whored for it, or killed themselves. Don't think about it, then. Clear the decks. Think about… what? Husband and family. What husband? Never around anymore, and when around difficult, irritable. Doesn't talk about work like he used to, a bad sign, he's worried about something, keeping something stashed deep away, what could it be? Another woman? Butch? Of course, the wife is always the last to know. Plus, he goes into this crazy job situation without a prior consult, violation of prime marital directive, not good. Lucy also never home, consorting with that guy, good-looking enough, thin and wiry, beautiful blue eyes: like mother, like daughter, in that respect. Sex? Ridic! But probably be good for her… no, what am I thinking? Guy's nearly thirty, she's a baby, practically, although the stories you hear about private-school girls nowadays, blow jobs galore at the junior prom. Still, time for the kid to drop that religious stuff, get on with real life, like I did, and look at me-one eye and fifty-five million bucks, ha! She'll probably want me to give it to the poor, or the Church. Maybe I will, some, just to show her I really am generous. Butch is a miser, but I'm not. He hasn't said a word about the IPO either, not even "Good for you, girl"; like he doesn't want to think about it. Or maybe I'll endow a chair at Smith, which is the only way my daughter is going to get in there. The Marlene Ciampi Professorship for the Study of Religious Hysteria in Language Geniuses. Or I could get away. They'd all be better off. Buy an island. Buy a town in Italy. Take the boys. No, not Zak, Zak needs a man, ninety-two pounds in his socks and most of that testosterone. Would Giancarlo come? Maybe. We could have a warped relationship. He could collect porcelains and incunabula and look after his crazy mother. Eccentric. Poor are crazy, rich eccentric. I could have a string of horses, but I hate horses. Cars. I love cars. A Ferrari for starters. And dogs. Hundreds of dogs, vast kennels, yes, the dog lady growing old in her palazzo with hundreds of dogs… No! Don't think about the money! Money would change things, not really change. I'm the same as I was before. We all are.

The cell phone buzzed just then, and she answered it, relieved to be out of the coils of racing thought. It was Wayne Segovia.

"Marlene? I'm down at the Daumier. It could be we got a situation here."

"The Daumier?" She was still a little narcotized by mammon.

"Yeah, Kelsie Solette's place. I got a call from Donny Walker. He thinks he spotted Jimmy Coleman cruising the street. Saw him a couple of times. What do you think?"

"Stay there, I'll come by." She checked outside. "I'm at Third and Forty-sixth. I should be there in ten minutes."

She gave the cabbie the new address. Donny Walker was a kid they had put on the staff of Kelsie Solette's building, in the reasonable expectation that a short jolt in Rikers was not going to dissuade the stalker Jimmy Coleman from his heartfelt vow to make Solette his own or, failing that, kill her and himself. People like Coleman represented the most difficult challenge in the celebrity-protection business. The law couldn't touch them beyond petty sentences for harassment, which typically only solidified their determination. The only way around this was to nail the guy on a major felony, without endangering the client at the same time. That, or shoot him, one; but Marlene didn't do that anymore. She felt her brain slide into a different mode as adrenaline cleared the stupid monologues from her mind like a stiff breeze blowing through a smoked-up kitchen. Ah, action!

It had taken Karp the better part of a week to get his homicide chops back. Roland had vanished without a word to anyone-no farewell party, no parting gift from the loyal staff. Karp had called once and left a message on the machine at Roland's place, and so far no reply. He was secretly relieved. He was also relieved to find that Roland had run a fairly tight ship. The people were reasonably competent, the records were in order. The ship was somewhat tighter than Karp would have liked. Roland was the kind of administrator who kept everything flowing through his fingers and ruled by yelling, which meant that the staff tended to keep mistakes to themselves and hesitated to seek guidance. Karp made no major changes in procedures, but met individually with each of the thirty-odd staff members, assured them of his continuing confidence, received a rundown on their caseloads, made some gentle suggestions, and in general attempted to suggest to them that he was not one to bite their heads off if they goofed. Which they would. Tony Harris was Roland's deputy, which was good; Karp had known Harris from his first day on the job, had trained him, and trusted him. He made it clear that Harris would handle the day-to-day running of the bureau, while Karp focused on the big-ticket items, Benson and Marshak. And Lomax, but Karp did not mention that to Harris.

The homicide bureau chief's office was a little smaller than the one he'd occupied up on the eighth floor, and more crowded, with a desk at one end, a glass-topped conference table in the middle, a worn and cracked green leather couch along one wall, and the rest so occupied by bookcases and filing cabinets that a normal person had to navigate by walking sideways. The paint was yellowing and dirty, as were the windows. No young law school graduate going private would have tolerated such conditions for a minute, but Karp and his colleagues in the courthouse were used to it, and to the notion that public officials were obliged by their choice of profession and its critical importance to the commonwealth to work in squalor.

Two people were sitting on the couch at the moment. One was Terrell Collins, a tall, caramel-colored, crop-headed man wearing hornrims, a gray suit, and glistening Florsheims. The other was a broad-shouldered young woman wearing an olive suit with a white silk T-shirt beneath it. She had bold indio features and a mass of thick black hair: Mimi Vasquez. Both Vasquez and Collins shared some history with Karp, and as a result of it were slightly nervous with him, or rather expectantly concerned. Collins had second-seated Karp on a notorious trial, the same one whose loss had lost Karp his original job as homicide bureau chief. Vasquez had prosecuted a teenaged infanticidal mom a couple of years back, in which Karp had involved himself in a way that, while serving Karp's idea of justice, had cut Vasquez out of the real action. Both of these people had no doubts about Karp's basic integrity or competence, but they both considered that working closely with him could, under the right conditions, be like accepting a copilot's berth on a kamikaze bomber.

"I suppose you're wondering why I asked you here," said Karp in a mock-portentous voice. They both laughed. "Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to get the DA out of the jam he has gotten himself in because of this goddamn election, and by so doing serve justice, God, the people, and our precious American way of life. Whaddya say, kids?"