Robert Tanenbaum - Enemy within

Cooley stared at him. His face lost its angry red and went the color of white jade under the sodium lights. "It was self-defense," he said, and choked. "It was self-defense. I was cleared, for chrissake!"

"Yes, and I'm going to unclear you."

"You can't prove shit!"

"Yes, I know. I'm working on that."

Karp walked away and went up the five flights instead of taking the elevator because he wanted some exercise to burn the adrenaline out of his system before, as he expected, getting another jolt from whatever Marlene was cooking up.

Cooking up indeed-a sweetish odor with a burnt undertone filled the loft; he headed for the kitchen, where he found his sons roasting sweet peppers over the gas stove. The mighty Vulcan was turned up all the way, and six-inch blue flames shot close to the intent, small faces.

"Hi, Dad," chirped Giancarlo, "we're charring peppers."

"I burned my hand," said Zak, exhibiting a tiny blister.

"Uh-huh, that's nice," said Karp distractedly, turning the flames down. "Where's Mom?"

"In the bedroom," said Zak. "Lucy's coming home, too. Mom said."

"Isn't that great, Dad?" exclaimed Zak's brother. "We're all home together!"

In the bedroom Karp found his wife lying prone on the bed amid a litter of unpacking-gaping bags, scattered hangers, open closets and drawers-with a folded, wet washcloth across her eyes. And the smell of brandy, sweet and dense.

"Have they burned the house down yet?" she asked weakly.

"Not yet. How are you feeling?"

"Horrible, like I had a rusty railroad spike through my temples. And please don't look at me like that. I can't stand it."

"How do you know how I'm looking at you? You have a compress over your eyes."

"It doesn't matter. I know you're looking at me with disapproval tinged with horror."

Karp did, in fact, have a look of this sort on his face, and he felt ashamed. He sat down on the side of the bed and took her hand. "What're we going to do, babe? You can't do this to yourself."

"I know, I know," she groaned. "I thought I could be a working drunk, but the body won't take it. Wrong genes. I'm starting to feel sick all the time; I want a drink right now, but I know if I do, I'll upchuck. I'm a failure as a wife, as a mother, as a security guard, as a millionaire, and now as an alcoholic."

"Marlene, I believe that is the single stupidest thing you ever said, and that's a tough league."

"Yes, but you have to say that."

"This is ridiculous, Marlene. You're not a failure, you're a success. I love you, your kids love you, your staff loves you, you have to fight the clients off, you're rich as God… tell me, what is the problem?"

"None of that is true. My daughter hates me."

"Oh, horseshit! She worships you. I hear she's coming home."

"Yes. According to Tran, she finished a whole term's work in three weeks, all the papers, and she's prepped to retake her exams. They'll be here later tonight."

"Well, great," said Karp without much enthusiasm. "But I still don't understand why she'll work for him and not for us."

"Yeah, it puzzled the hell out of Lyndon Johnson, too." She lifted the washcloth to expose her real eye. "Look, Butchie: this is not forever, okay? I sort of see the light at the end of the tunnel, speaking of LBJ. I got to do some things, and then I think it'll be all right. It'll be different, but all right."

"I don't understand."

"My company is corrupt. I have to get out of it, and I'm trying to figure out how."

"You want to give me the details?"

"Not right now. It's not a DA thing anyway; maybe SEC, but I'm not interested in whistle-blowing, just getting out." She paused and studied his face. "You look terrible! What have you been doing to yourself?"

"Oh, just fucking up right and left," said Karp bitterly. "We're a pair. Look, Marlene-I need your help."

"My… help? As in wifely support or something professional?" She sat up in the bed and removed the compress.

He took a deep breath. "I can't believe I'm saying this. Basically, I'm in a position where I can't use the official investigation apparatus. I need to find out stuff neither my own organization nor the police want found out. I could go public with it, get the feds or the state involved, but for a lot of reasons I don't want to do that. So I need the resources of a private army."

"This is the Marshak thing, right?"

"Yeah, and the Lomax shooting." And he gave her a quick briefing on the two cases. And as he talked, he felt a lightness flow into him, into his body and his head. It was almost like being a little drunk himself. Marlene was leaning forward now, shooting questions at him, intelligent questions. Her face had on it an expression he had not seen in some time. It was very much like real life again; not euphoria exactly, but a lessening of the dysphoria he had become used to, like the impact of daylight on a prisoner long in the dungeons.

"I see the problem," said Marlene. "You need to find Canman before the cops do, one, and you need to find some way of turning this Ralphie character. You're sure he's lying about what went down in the garage?"

"I'm not sure of anything, but it's a good bet. I need him watched, though. I need to get inside his head."

"Will Clay help with that end?"

"I think so. I think he'll help with Cooley if I can drop the whole package into his hands. He just won't conspire with me, not on this one."

"Some pal!" She studied his face. "Poor Butch! You hate this kind of shit, don't you?"

"I despise it. I'm like Giancarlo. I love it when things are regular. But you, of course, are a different kettle of fish."

"I am. Unfortunately, things being how they are at Osborne, I can't use my troops there. It'll have to be amateur hour, with a little apparat, as Oleg would say, running things. Let's see, who do we know who has a large body of tough guys with no discernible morals on call…?"

"Not him," said Karp.

Marlene shrugged. "Okay, but then I'll have to think about it for a little while." She leaned back on the pillow. "In the interim, I haven't had a big messy kiss from my husband since 1987, so it feels."

"But from others, many?"

"Don't be legalistic," she said, holding out her arms, and he fell into them with relief. She tasted of brandy, like an expensive, warm dessert.

Then from the direction of the kitchen came a shrill cry, a crash, a howl. They were off the bed in an instant, colliding in the doorway, Marlene scooting ahead, her thoughts full of little boys flaming like torches and the presagement of real, rather than neurotic, unbearable guilt.

"Sweetie ate my pepper," Giancarlo wailed. Zak, the semisadist, was giggling. The mastiff was pawing at his mouth and making horrible groaning sounds. The two skilled investigators had little trouble reconstructing the events: the pepper, roasted a shade too long, had dropped off its fork, and the dog, trained from puppyhood to respond to the plop of dropped food, had raced over and sucked up an object with the core temperature of a thermite bomb.

Thereafter was peace restored, comfort tendered, cruelty chastised, the weeping hound treated with ice cubes and kisses, dinner whipped together and served, the boys cossetted into their beds by Mom for an unusually long time, it seemed, but not begrudged by Mom at all. Marlene came back to find Karp sitting on the costly couch idly thumbing through the television guide. The immense, expensive television was dark. She sat on his lap and kissed him. He noted the taste change-sausages, peppers, coffee. Not as exotic, but more delicious, haimish, his favorite flavor.

"I'm thinking of having some people over," she said, "a kind of welcome-home party."

"Like who?" Unenthusiastically.

"Don't grump. Real people. Tran'll be in tonight with Lucy, and we have to thank him, and besides, I have some stuff I need to talk with him about, and Mike Dugan, and your little guy, Murrow, and Guma. I haven't seen him in ages. And let's see… how about Clay Fulton?"