Robert Tanenbaum - Enemy within

"Are you okay, David?" she asked.

He smiled his dreamy smile and said, "I'm fine. Denied my martyrdom yet again."

Lucy turned angrily to confront the white cop and saw that he was staring at her.

"You're the kid who found his last victim, aren't you?" he asked.

"I found a victim, but I doubt very much that it was his."

"You do, huh? On what basis, can I ask?"

"I know him. He's weird, but he's not a killer."

"Really? You've got a lot of experience with killers?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact, I do. More than you have, probably."

She could see the anger start up again in the cop's face, and then vanish, like a small cloud that blocks the sun for an instant. He grinned wryly. "No kidding? But, unfortunately, we can't just take your word for it. The thing is, if your guy is innocent, his best move is to come forward, talk to us, and if he's solid on the facts and the evidence, then he can walk away, and God bless. The way it is now, we got fifty cops running around looking for a serial killer, and he's in the cross hairs. He could get hurt, which would be a shame. Assuming he's not the slasher. Also, you see him again, either of you, you better get on the phone and call the cops." He pointed a finger. "I mean it. Meanwhile, I'm sorry you got in the way of a pursuit, and you ought to get your accidental injuries looked at. You want us to call an ambulance?"

"No, but I want your names and shield numbers," said Lucy.

Again that little black cloud across his face. Then he grinned broadly and said, "Don't push your luck, girlie."

Without another word, both of them got into their car and drove off.

"Good God!" said Karp. "What happened!"

His daughter had tried to slip-slide into the loft that evening, but the dad was lying in wait for her, wanting to discuss earlier events, and grasped her by both shoulders while he checked out her face. It had been washed in a rest room, but the cheekbone and temple flashed a blossoming red-violet bruise, and the firm little chin had road burns.

"Nothing," said Lucy. "I tripped and fell."

"Please! You look like you've been six rounds with Sonny Liston. What happened?"

And he chivied her into the kitchen and made her some tea and listened while she told him the story.

"I think they must have been the same guys that roughed up Real Ali. The white guy… he was really scary."

"Cooley," said Karp. "The other one is Nash."

"How did you…? Oh, right, you said you'd check them out."

"I didn't have to. I've had my eye on them for a while."

"Really? How come?"

Karp contemplated his daughter and considered the events she had just described and this question. He was not one for bringing the office home, but from time to time he would discuss a case with his wife, especially when she had some peripheral connection with it. But Marlene was now… somewhere else, and Lucy had, in fact, become involved in this one, and he was under no illusions about her innocence when it came to acts of blood. So he said, "How come is that Brendan Cooley killed a man named Lomax last month. He said he spotted Lomax in a stolen car, pursued him onto the Hudson Parkway, and shot him when Lomax tried to ram his car. The black cop you saw, Willie Nash, was there, too, driving. Our guys set a record for running the case through the grand jury, at which time it was not brought out at all the bullets that killed Lomax came from behind. I also found out that the car wasn't reported stolen until after Lomax was dead." He paused and was not disappointed when the penny instantly dropped.

"So they were chasing Lomax, not a stolen car. Why?"

"Ah, that's the big question, which actually I seem to be the only one who wants to know." And he went on to explain Brendan Cooley's unique status in the NYPD.

"So they let him go after he shot this guy, and now he's going after the slasher?"

"They did let him off, but as far as I know, he's not assigned to the slasher team. That's Detective Paradisio's guys-you remember him? And Cooley's not one of them. So…"

"So he wants Canman for something else," said Lucy, and Karp saw her face light up in a way so reminiscent of her mother that it brought a stinging to his eyes. "What could it be?" she asked, and supplied the answer. "Obviously, he's running some kind of racket. Lomax was in with him, and he whacked him, and Canman was…" She stopped, and her brow knitted. "No, that's not right. Canman wasn't in any racket. Unless…"

"What?"

"Well, he had this cart, like a laundry cart, and he used to push it around town collecting cans and other stuff, like from trash piles in the rich neighborhoods. He would sell the stuff to the sidewalk vendors and keep the metals for the recyclers. And people knew him, street people, and like rip-off artists, not real bad guys, just like people who had pipe or aluminum scrap."

"Thieves, you mean."

"I guess. I guess at that level the line between thieves and scavengers is pretty thin. And he'd buy their stuff and put it in the cart and haul it to the recycler. That was his business. So he could have had some contact with stuff that was worse than he usually went in for. I know he used to go by Second and Twelfth sometimes."

"I see," said Karp, not really surprised that his darling was familiar with the city's big nightly thieves' market. "What kind of guy are we talking about here?"

"Canman? He's smart, but he keeps it hidden, mostly. He wasn't always a street person. Back in the life-that's what he calls it, 'back in the life'-he was pretty well-off, I guess, a family, a suit type. I think he was an engineer of some kind. He can make anything out of anything. And then… it's hard to say. The only time he ever talked about his life was when he got sick and I was taking care of him."

"Oh? When was this?"

Lucy realized that she had let a secret slip, thought of a covering lie, and then declined to use it. It didn't make sense anymore, especially now that they were sharing confidences. She bobbed her head and had the grace to blush. "Yeah, well, I told you guys I was staying over with friends, to study. This was this past winter. Basically, he just went crazy. He was angry all the time and got into fights at work, and starting weird projects, and he lost his job, and his wife had him committed, and they shot him full of drugs and kicked him out, like they do nowadays, and his wife divorced him, and he ended up on the street. He takes pills. He says he knows enough to medicate himself. He's still angry, but he can function okay. I mean he makes real money. He keeps it in a mail-drop box."

"What's he angry about?"

"The same stuff that gets everyone angry: hypocrisy, unfairness, stupidity, the way things don't work, the bad guys winning all the time, injustice. Most people, they just see all that and they say 'What's on TV?' or 'Let's get high,' or have sex or whatever, but some people don't, and some of them go crazy behind it. They can't turn away, and they don't believe in God, so they have no place to go but the street."

"This is your theory of homelessness?"

"Oh, no. Most of them are nuts or dopers or drunks," she said cheerfully. "God bless them. But some, like Canman, and Real Ali, and maybe David, they're seekers. Saints in training or failed saints, you could say."

"Is Canman the slasher?"

A shadow passed over her face, and she took a moment before answering. "He could be. I know he always carried a knife. I heard he cut a guy once who was trying to rip him off. And he makes bombs, booby traps, really to protect his stuff. I mean it's the street. But I can't believe it, not really." She laughed. "Actually, he looks too good for it. It's probably someone nobody would ever suspect." Again, he saw that shadow cross her face.