THAT FRIDAY, RANEY TOOK THE 9:00 A.M. U.S. AIR FLIGHT from La Guardia to Syracuse and by 11:00 he was in a rented Taurus with the AC on high, driving through the seared fields of central New York State toward Auburn Prison. In his eighteen years on the job, Raney had been to several state prisons, and when he arrived he found this one a typical maximum-security joint, ugly, noisy, stinking of that characteristically nasty male primate-and-disinfectant smell you got only in monkey houses and men's prisons. As always, Raney wondered how, having once been in a place like this, any sane human being could ever contemplate doing anything that would have even the tiniest chance of bringing him back to one. Yet he knew that something like two thirds of the people here had been in the slams before, and often many times before. The criminal mind: a deep mystery.
They took his gun and sent him to the admin block, where he sat in the cheaply paneled but heavily air-conditioned office of Ewell V. Molson, the deputy warden for administration. Molson struck Raney as the sort of geek who might conceivably have written on an application once that he wanted to go into corrections because he was good with people. He regarded Raney and the world through small black eyes, like coffee beans, and wanted more small talk than Raney did. After this was clearly exhausted, he tapped a thick file on his desk. "This Felix Tighe. Not one of our big successes. Didn't adjust, a bunch of disciplinaries. Poor impulse control- hell, not unusual here- resistance to authority, a fighter…"
"I'm not thinking about hiring him," Raney could not resist saying.
Molson decided that this was a joke and curved his thin mouth up at the corners for a half second. "No. Anyway, he got shanked in a fight, a little race riot in the yard. He was an Aryan Nation kind of guy. Killed a guard in that fight, too."
"Really? I didn't know that."
"Well, we didn't exactly call the networks, and since he died right after, we kind of let it slide. According to our medical records, the stab wound became infected, he went into septic shock, and passed away." He paused. "I shouldn't say this, but small loss to the world. Anyway, to get back to the reason for your visit, there's no doubt that he's dead. He was autopsied and cremated right here in Auburn."
"Cremated? I thought his body was shipped to his cousin in New York."
"Nope. According to these records, a container of ashes was shipped."
"Can I have a copy of that file?"
Warden Molson was accommodating as to copies. He was similarly accommodating in setting up interviews with the staff of the infirmary. Shortly, therefore, Raney found himself in a cramped office that stank of rubbing alcohol and iodine, talking to a cadaverous man who was apparently the medical director of the institution. This interview took a while, because Dr. McMartin spoke very slowly, and sometimes lost the drift of what he was saying. Raney believed the man was a stone junkie, like ten percent of American physicians, but blowing the whistle on the creep was not any part of his business. McMartin confirmed the official version- stabbing, infection, failure to respond to the antibiotics, septicemia, death. He had signed off on the autopsy.
"You didn't do it yourself, Doctor?"
"No, I meant I supervised, ah, supervised the autopsy as per… protocol, of course. But, ah, I was assisted by… my assistant there."
"Named?"
"Outside, down the hall." A languid wave of the hand. "I'm afraid I have a lot to do, seeing patients, so if that's all…"
Raney thanked the man and went down the hall from the medical director's office. There, in a wide space in the corridor he found a tiny cubbyhole with a young man in it. This person, lard-colored, crop-headed, pimply and tattooed, had a short-sleeved set of green scrubs on, with a nametag that read T. AMES, and a frightened look in his wet blue eyes.
Ames was obviously expecting him. He also confirmed the official report. The information that Felix's body had been shipped to New York was clearly wrong. Where did the detective hear that? Someone called the prison on the phone? That explained it. The copies of the records sent to the front office often had mistakes. The filing was done by prisoners, and they didn't really much care where they stuck the forms. Nope, Felix had died, Ames had watched him die, had arranged for the cremation, and sent the ashes parcel post to, let's see here, a Mr. Bruce Newton, in New York City…
Raney knew the man was lying but had no way to nail him with it just then. He wasn't even a cop up here. His eyes had wandered while Ames went through his routine and had been seized by the contents of a bookshelf raised above Ames's tiny desk. There were some medical and first-aid books, a Physician's Desk Reference, some thick manuals for medical equipment, a prison regulation handbook, and some other volumes.
"You a reader, Ames?" Raney asked, standing to peer at the titles of these.
Ames followed his eyes to the shelf. "Sure. I got a lot of time on my hands." A false, scared smile.
"That's pretty high-toned stuff you got here. Fanon, Lenin, looks like some French guys- hey, there's even one in Arabic script. You read Arabic, too?"
"No, that's something… ah, we had a Arab guy here a while ago, he must have left that."
"Yeah? He still in the joint?"
"No, he paroled out."
"And he left his book. Well, well." Raney jotted down all the titles and laboriously copied the intricate calligraphy on the spine of the Arabic volume. He left the prison feeling both frustrated and excited.
Lucy was a block and a half away when she saw the man try to kidnap her brother Giancarlo, at the junction of Crosby and Howard streets. It was a pretty good place for a daylight snatch. The area is almost entirely industrial, with scant street-level foot traffic, and what traffic there is consists largely of Asian people who would rather not get involved with the authorities, as their immigration papers are not what they should be. A Ford van, dirt-colored and battered, had been drawn up to the curb, with its side door slung open, and a large man was trying to haul the boy into it. Giancarlo had dropped his accordion case and it had popped open, spilling the instrument on the pavement like a dead snail. Both brothers were howling, this noise accompanied by barks from Blue, the guide dog.
Then it was all over. Lucy was just starting to run, a shout was just forming in her own throat, when she saw the kidnapper's white T-shirt turn scarlet around the big knife that Zak plunged into the small of the man's back. The man dropped his grip on Giancarlo and did a hideous little pirouette with his hand behind his back, reaching in vain for the black grip of the knife. In the next second, Giancarlo kicked the man in the groin and Blue clamped excited jaws around the back of the man's right knee. He fell like a tree onto the bed of his van, screaming something. The driver gunned the engine with a roar and a cloud of exhaust, and the van took off north on Crosby, with the man's legs dangling from the open door and, for a few yards at least, the dog hanging from a leg. The van passed Lucy too quickly for her to get the plates.
She ran up to her brother and clamped on the hug of steel, then held him at arm's length for inspection. His shirt was torn, but he seemed all right. "My box!" he said, and she had to let him inspect the button accordion with his hands. While he was so engaged, she grabbed the other brother's arm. "Did you recognize that guy?"
"I don't know. I recognized the driver, though. He's a Latino guy I've seen around listening to G.C. play."
"I've spotted a guy like that, too. Big, shaved head, little beard, gold chains, Latino-looking. I thought he was following me," she said.
"I saw that one too, I think." He looked away nervously, then at his sneakers. "Luce, you're gonna tell the 'rents about this, right?"
"Well, duh, yeah I am. Aren't you?"
"Hell, no! We'll be grounded for life. They'll never let us play on the street anymore. And if Dad finds out I was carrying a knife, he'll go ballistic."
"When did you start carrying?"
"After…" Zak gestured to his brother, lowered his voice, "you know, when he got hurt. It's a good thing I had it, right? And it's gone, too. It was a Bucklite Goliath, sixty-three bucks."
Giancarlo was packing away his accordion, and added, "He's right, Luce. Our lives will be totally over if you tell. Also, what'll they do if they know? Call the cops, the cops'll do zero. They're not going to put a twenty-four seven on us, so what's the point? Mom'll grab us up and take us out to the island, where we'll waste away in boredom. And my career is just getting hot. A guy the other day invited me to an open mike in the East Village, and an Irish guy was here the other day and he said I was gonna be as good as Johnny Connolly. You should find out who these guys are. I mean, why did they pick me?"
"I should find out? What am I, Wonder Woman?"
"Yes," said the twins. "Puh-leeeeze, Lucy?"
"Oh, shut up and don't be ridiculous!" she snapped. "Of course we have to tell them."
"You asked me to find out why the boss was so happy," said Murrow.
"Yes," said Karp distractedly. That had been a while ago, he recalled, before this trial had eaten up his working life. Why was it important to know that? He couldn't quite think of it. He was running through autopsy reports for perhaps the twelfth time, trying to find the one thing he really wanted to recall, the thing that would impeach Frank Nixon and Eric Gerber on the witness stand. First bullet, entry right flank, exit right back, damage done: superficial, not mortal; second bullet, upper left arm, damage done: not mortal… he looked up. "And did you?"
"Possibly. Judge Patrick F. Toomey has retired from the federal bench."
"Uh-huh. Well, so long, Pat. This is what's got Jack Keegan singing bird songs? Why, did he think Toomey was a bad judge?"
"I have no idea, but it does create a vacancy in the Southern District of New York."
"And… what? You think Jack thinks he's got a chance?"
"An excellent chance, I'd say. A practically preemptive chance."
"I don't see why. It's a presidential appointment, and the president, the last I heard, unless they had another coup d'йtat, is a Republican."
Murrow gave him a peculiar look. "You really don't understand how this works, do you?"
Karp said, a little sharply, "Don't patronize me, Murrow- you got something to fucking say, just spit it out."
Murrow took a deep breath. "Yes, the president is a Republican, but both U.S. senators from the state are not Republicans. In fact, they are both famously liberal Democrats. Which means, the president is not going to get what he really wants, an anti-abortion, progun, pro-death penalty fascist Republican. There's no way in hell those two senators are going to pass on that kind of candidate, and as I'm sure you know, regardless of party, U.S. senators have essentially veto power over judicial nominees from their states. So the administration is thinking, Why not go with a Democrat? But it would have to be a very special kind of Democrat. It would have to be an Irishman first of all, because it's an Irish seat on the court that's going to be vacant. Obviously, you'd also want unimpeachable legal credentials, tough on crime, and if not pro-death, then at least neutral on it, and most of all, anti-abortion. Big time. Can you think of anyone we know with all that going for him?"
Karp could. "This is actually going to happen?"
"I hear it's practically a done deal. The beauty part for the White House is that it manages to shove a bamboo splinter under one of Hillary's red nails. She has to explain to her liberal witch constituency why she's backing a man with that kind of record, whose wife, by the way, is cochair of New York Right to Life."
"And if she doesn't go for it?"
"Then she can run for re-election next time without even the small part of the Irish vote that she had last time, and without the help of the regular party. Jack's paid his party dues, he deserves it, and the old bulls'll never forgive her if she fucks him on this one. Oh, it's rare. It's nearly as good as Clarence Thomas as a fuck-you message."
"Holy shit," said Karp.
"Yeah." He studied his boss briefly, a bemused smile on his lips, as if standing before a museum exhibit about a lost civilization. "Tell me, no offense, but you really don't get all of this, do you?"
"It's not that I don't get it, Murrow. It's not like it's particle physics. I don't spend any time thinking about it, is all."
"No, I guess not. But assuming what I just said is true, you do realize that it means the DA is up for grabs. Have you given that any thought?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that Keegan will have the gift of it. Within limits, he can pick someone to fill out the last year of his term."
"No, it's a gubernatorial appointment and the gov is a Republican."
"True, but Keegan could preempt that by appointing a profoundly nonpolitical acting DA during the time of his confirmation hearings, at which point the gov would not like to look like he was politicizing the office by trying to push some Republican back in there for the final year of the term. The Times wouldn't like that. And that leaves…" He paused and looked meaningfully at Karp.
Karp pointed a finger at his own chest. "What? Me? You have to be joking."
"It's you, boss."
"What about 'Ku Klux Karp'?"
Murrow waved a dismissive hand. "Yes, but that's going to disappear when you win this trial, and put those two white cops away for killing a black man. You see all those pickets out in front of the courthouse? They're going to be your best friends if this goes down right. That's why Keegan hasn't said anything, and why he wanted you to take this trial. He's waiting to see how it goes."
Karp suddenly realized why Keegan had made no objection to his taking on Gerber amp; Nixon. "And if I lose?"
"Then the governor will be able to present you to the great and the good as Jack's first choice, an excellent lawyer, blah blah, but he has this unfortunate reputation, doesn't really seem to understand black lives are just as valuable, blah blah. The great and the good will know that he tried to be nonpolitical, and then he can go ahead and appoint someone his party owes a favor to."
"You have this all figured out, huh?"
"It's not particle physics," said Murrow, "and I happen to be interested. Are you?"
"Am I what?"
"Going to win?"
"I might. But I'd have more of a chance if you left me alone so I could find out how I know these fuckers are lying."
Lucy parked the boys in the loft and made them swear that they would not budge from the place until an adult returned.
"Are you gonna tell?" asked G.C.
"I will definitely tell if you're not here when I get back."
"Where are you going?" he asked.
"Out," she said, and left. As she headed uptown on the baking train, she writhed in a moral quandary more uncomfortable than the damp heat. Clearly the thing to do was tell the parents, call the cops, kidnapping was serious, not something to fool around with. On the other hand, G.C. was right. Confronted by an actual threat rather than her own guilt-driven paranoia, Marlene would instantly snatch both of them back to the far reaches of Long Island, would register them in school out there, and keep them in paranoid security behind razor wire, protected by a herd of mastiffs, and that would be the effective end of the Karp family. Better to identify and neutralize the threat first. It did not occur to her that she was doing here what her mother had taught her, nor did she doubt for a moment that she was equal to a gang of kidnapping thugs of whatever size and resources. She had resources of her own; another thing learned at her mother's knee.
An hour later, Lucy was giving out candy bars and cigarettes in a dim underground vault lit by candles stuck in bottles and jars. It was a disused railway tunnel, bored into the rock of the Hudson shore to service a Lackawanna Railroad pier that was never built. It was difficult to access, dry, cool, and extensive, and had both official and unofficial connections to the remainder of New York's many-thousand miles of tunnels. For these reasons, it was popular with that segment of the homeless who wanted even less to do with the authorities than the more sociably inclined destitute. New York City has a substantial population living almost entirely underground- no one knows how many, but estimates run to several thousands. The "regular" homeless called them the mole people.
Lucy was now walking through their largest settlement. As in the city's sunnier precincts, a certain proportion of the population was evil, and several of these regarded Lucy with bad intent as she moved past, but they knew that if they tried anything with her they would immediately be torn into tiny little pieces, in as painful a manner as possible. Lucy had been coming here since age fourteen dispensing small gifts and her particular brand of hard-headed goodness. For her the place was as safe as church.
Deeper into the tunnel, the railway engineers had carved bays out of the living rock and lined them with brickwork, intending them to hold the sidings of the notional railway. These were now the sites of separate communities, and the most populous of them, which Lucy now entered, was known as Spare Parts. The ruler of this troll kingdom was also called Spare Parts for the place was named for him. She found him on his throne, a sprung couch set up on railway ties, lit from below by a Coleman lantern's hard glare. The effect was stunning, like a pagan idol on an altar, although this god could and did come down from on high to reward and punish. Spare Parts the man had a cleft palate and a harelip, one brown eye and one pale silver eye, and only one ear (the other being a scrap of greasy cartilage), all stuck on a head the size and approximate shape of a half-deflated basketball. Other than that, Spare Parts was only slightly smaller than Shaq O'Neill. Lucy climbed up and sat beside him, an unusual privilege.
"Hello, Jacob," she said. "I brought you a Dove Bar. I hope it's not too melted." She removed it from its insulated bag and handed it over. The big man took it in his filthy paw and, raising it high, let the whole thing slide into his maw. Lucy politely looked away and tried not to pay attention to the wet noises. Spare Parts did not like people watching him eat.
"Ank 'ou, 'ucy," said Spare Parts, when the sounds had ceased. "I 'ove 'ove 'ars."
"You're very welcome, Jacob," she replied. They conversed briefly about the underground world, mainly about deaths and sicknesses and recoveries, together with tips and hints, about who could use what kind of help, and how to manage things so that the needy would accept what they needed. It was strangely restful, like something from a fairy story. As usual, Lucy found that she could understand him fairly well, her skillful brain supplying the dentals and palatals that the man could not pronounce. She imagined that he didn't speak to anyone as much as he spoke to her. After an interval of silence, she said, "Have you seen Grale?"
"E's a'oun'."
"Is he still, you know, down with the rats?"
"Not nany 'ats 'eft now."
Not many rats left. David Grale was a religious maniac and a serial killer. The people he killed were feral humans who lived in an ancient and unrecorded tunnel. It was rumored in the upper tunnels that they lived on human flesh. For sure they lived on rats. Grale considered it his ministry to cut their throats.
"If you see him, tell him I'd like to talk with him again, okay?"
"Ih I shee 'im I'll 'ell 'im," said Spare Parts, after a pause. Spare Parts didn't care for David Grale. Compared to David Grale, Spare Parts was the borough president of Manhattan.
"What's wrong with the boys?" Karp asked. Marlene was driving the truck east on the Belt Parkway, heading for Raney's house in Woodmere. The radio was tuned to an oldies station, the Isley Brothers telling the listener to keep holding on, keep holding on…
"I don't know," she answered. "They do seem a little subdued."
"Subdued? The pair of them look like the after picture in a Prozac ad. Usually they're up to meet new people they can embarrass us in front of. Whatever it is, Lucy's in on it. She barely met my eye when I came in," said Karp.
"What can I say, our children are master criminals. I belief in Old Vienna, ve haf called zis eine ab-reaktion. In order to define zemselfs ze kinder must go srough a period in vich zey reject zhe parental walues."
"Thank you, Doctor. Although, given the differences between your walues and mine, it's surprising that they knew what to react against. Or that they didn't become saints."
"Actually, if you noticed, they did become saints, at least Lucy and G.C. did," said Marlene.
"Yes," said Karp. "Are you going to claim credit for the assist on that one?"
"No comment. And how was your day, dearest?"
"Not bad. Murrow thinks I'm going to be the next DA." he explained the theory about Keegan, the federal judgeship, politics, and the trial. Marlene nodded, as if he were telling her something she already knew.
"Yeah, that makes sense," she said. "It was just a matter of time before Jack got his slot. He's been wangling for it for years; it's practically a courthouse joke. And who else are they going to get besides you? Congratulations, sweetie."
"Not so fast. There are a lot of qualified people," said Karp, to which she snorted, "Oh, please!" and then, musingly, "I wonder if it'll change you. Nothing else has."
"Well, I haven't got it yet," he said, choosing to ignore the last remark. "According to Murrow, I have to win this trial to be eligible."
"I guess," said Marlene, as if this was obvious to small children. "How did it go today?"
He shrugged and rubbed his face. The feeling of being on the edge of some trial-winning revelation had not dissipated after leaving the courtroom. It still tugged at his mind, making him uneasy with domestic relations. Even the song on the radio seemed to be a part of the puzzle- keep holding on, to what? Soon it would be the birds in the trees and the drops of water on the windows that held high significance, and the slope down to madness.
"Hello? Ground control to Major Tom…"
Karp shook his head, as if to dislodge an insect. "What? Sorry, I was thinking." The radio turned to a discussion of California dreaming.
"About what?"
"I don't know. The trial. Anyway, Roland had Gerber up there all day. I could see that it was killing him to do it, but they must have insisted."
"How was he?"
"He looked pretty good. Roland spent most of his time getting out their story about the victim trying to sell them heroin, but…" He pointed. "You need to get off on Twenty-seven east, on your right here."
"I see it," she said. "Well, they can't be too morose. Giancarlo is playing his accordion back there."
Karp twisted around and peered through the rear window of the pickup, but the matching window of the camper back was dirty and he could only make out shadows. He could hear the tweedle of the accordion, though. It sounded fairly morose to him, but he didn't know anything about music.
The Raney home in Woodmere was a postwar brick bungalow, immaculately kept, on a pleasant street of similar ones. Marlene pulled the truck into the driveway, and they all got out, trooped around to the front, and Zak pushed the bell. The door flung open.
"Now here you are and very welcome all of yez, but Raney's not home and there's no dinner at all."
"You're Irish!" said Giancarlo.
This was even more obvious to those of the Karps with intact vision. Nora Raney had bright red hair done up in a once neat but now dissolving bun, pale freckled skin, grape green eyes, a snub nose, and not much in the lip department. She stood in the doorway, dressed in pale blue surgical scrubs, with a whining red-haired toddler, a miniature of the mom, on her hip.
"That I am," she said with a laugh, "and don't I rue the day I came to America and married a policeman. Well, don't stand there like statues, come in!"
They entered the house. The living room, Marlene saw, was furnished with a combination of Mom and Dada stuff, the kind of solid dark pieces that Irish immigrants bought in the 1920s when the man of the house got on the civil service, and lighter, brighter young-marrieds gear from Ikea and the Door Store. It was the same sort of furniture (substituting Italian for Irish) that Marlene had supplied her own home with twenty years ago, and she felt a pang of… something. Regret? Sorrow? Fear? Yeah, fear was a lot of it, always bubbling up, tainting all the homely sessions of her life. Smile, Marlene, she told herself, this is supposed to be fun. She caught Nora looking at her. Could she smell it, too? No, that was just the young bride checking out the old flame, who wasn't even really an old flame anyway. Good for Raney, though, and the kid was gorgeous.
They were in the kitchen, where a pot was steaming on the stove and piles of potatoes sat in a plastic basket on the table.
"There's not a bite in the house except those spuds…"
"Gosh, you really are Irish," said Giancarlo, and got the back of his mother's hand lightly across the top of his head. But Nora laughed, and said, "Yes, and isn't it a bloody parody. And I was going to make a potato salad to go with the barbecue that Raney's supposedly bringing home, but he's not home. He came down from that prison he was visiting and checked in at headquarters, and there he's sat with no word since he called at half three this afternoon. And I would have been here to go to the shops, y'see, but Moira Flannery asked me to take a shift for her, and I couldn't say no, could I, because hasn't she covered for me a thousand times when Meghan was a babe? Well, and so here we are, I swear it's just like the Great Famine, but at least there's beer."
Bottles of cold Harp lager were distributed to the adults. Zak grabbed one, was yelled at, allowed a swallow, and then set to peeling potatoes with his brother. The others went out the back door and lounged in the somewhat scruffy yard, and got acquainted. Nora was a surgical nurse by profession, and seemed to know a lot about the Karps. She exchanged some phrases in Gaelic with Lucy ("And that exhausts me knowledge of the dear old tongue, I'm afraid"), listened to Marlene's version of the adventures she'd been through with Jim Raney (in which Raney came out a deal more heroic than he apparently had when he'd recounted them to the bride), and then the women got into child-rearing practices. Karp was content to listen to their talk as he might have the sound of the surf. Lucy drifted inside to supervise the boys, who, from the sounds they made, were spending more time flicking bits of spud at each other than actually peeling.
They were all well into their second beers when Raney arrived, laden with meats and looking wilted and whipped. Beers were provided him, he showered and changed into cutoffs and T-shirt, the fire was started, sweet smoke rose to heaven, the party ate the burgers and hot dogs, plus a French potato salad that Lucy had pulled together while Nora, the slut, had taken her ease like a duchess. Who piled compliments on Marlene, for her talented daughter.
"Oh, the Karp show has only started," said Marlene, who had by then lost track of the beers. "G.C.!" she called, "give us a tune!" One never had to ask him twice. Zak trotted out to the car and returned with the box. Giancarlo played "The Night We Had the Goat."
Nora said, "Ah, that's grand, but say, can you play a slip jig at all?"
Giancarlo launched into "The Windy Stairs," and then "Up in the Garret," with Nora doing a credible dance with the baby jouncing and giggling in her arms.
Meanwhile, Marlene had sidled up to Raney.
"Tell me," she said.
"The short version is there's something bent going on. We don't know who's in on it yet, but I think I got them interested enough to get an investigation going. The doc up there is a junkie, and they showed me a kid supposedly in charge of the ward where Felix supposedly died, who was lying through his teeth. The orderly station had a bunch of books there that belonged to someone who was not the hick pretending to be in charge, two in French, one in Arabic."
"Oh, hot damn!"
"Yeah. In French we got Reflections on the French Algerian War by Mouloud Faroun and The Black Book of Jihad by Gilles Kepel. In Arabic there's an admiring biography of Sabri al-Banna, a.k.a. Abu Nidal. Close associate in the old days of…?"
"Not what's-his-name: the B'nai Brith bomber?"
"Him. Feisal ibn-Salemeh. Resident at Auburn. It was a pretty slick setup. Salemeh was in total charge of the infirmary for years, and it'd be nothing for him to slip Felix out. They even had this ringer all ready to pretend to be in charge of the prison clinic if anyone came by."
"I can't believe that no one connected him with the bombings."
"Hey, he was in jail, under an assumed name. The guys who knew about his background weren't talking to the people trying to find the Manbomber. We'll be having a conversation with ibn-Salemeh's lawyer, I'm pretty sure. He was the conduit, apparently. And it would've been cool if Feisal had remembered to take his library when he ducked out. Auburn will be crawling with feds and state cops by tomorrow. Of course, the feebs immediately cut us out of it, but who gives a shit about that. I just want Felix."
"And the cops are happy with this?"
"More or less. At least One PP isn't looking at me like I'm a nut anymore. The main thing the Felix connection does for them is to explain the bombing pattern. Yeah, it looked random, because Felix was settling scores and there was no connection between him and anyone with bomb skills. Now there is."
"But besides Judge Horowitz there's no one who's died in the bombings that has a connection to Salemeh. Or is there?"
Raney's face had grown grim. He stared at his dancing wife and then back to Marlene. "Well, there's you. The Karp family is on both bad guys' lists."
"Oh, right. Shit!"
"And there's Daoud got killed, the baker. Also the theory is the bombing so far's been a sideshow, and that they're saving it all up for some big bang. Or were until their base blew up on them. I'm not supposed to tell anyone this… but, we got a tip. They're planning to attack the tunnels: Lincoln, Holland, Queens, and Battery. According to the rat, they have fucking tons of high explosive manufactured and ready to go. They were planning on using septic tanker trucks to carry the bombs in."
"Oh, great! This is going to do wonders for traffic."
"Tell me about it. Anyway, the interesting thing is, they played us the tape of the guy who called it in. He had his voice disguised, but it was obvious that it was a regular American voice, no accent."
"Oh-ho."
"I'd bet on it. Once you have the general outlines, the plot is pretty clear. Salemeh gets Felix out of Auburn and ships him to his pals in the city. Why? Easy. The whole world is searching for skulking Arabs and Felix is an all-American-looking guy. By the way, there's our fella in the ball hat for sure now. So he plants the bombs, buys explosives, whatever. But since Felix is Felix, he's not a happy camper at all. Did you know he was a big racist? Oh, yeah, he doesn't miss a trick, Felix. So he probably wasn't happy taking orders from a bunch of Ay-rabs. So he does a few operations on his own, bombs or people he had a grudge against, that double murder right here in Queens. Which couldn't have made Salemeh's people too happy. So they break up."
"Wait a minute, what makes you think that there are any Salemeh people left? Who died in the Queens house?"
"Two brothers named Alfiyah, Omar and Fuad, from Brooklyn. Palestinians, born here but very hot Islamists. Dying to be martyrs, according to the neighbors and police intelligence. So to speak. I guess they got their wish."
"But they were recruited by someone."
"Oh, yeah, they were just the kind of assholes Salemeh liked to recruit- disposables, okay to put together bombs and then get rid of them. It might have worked, too, except for Felix. I'm guessing that Felix might have helped that house explode. It's a Felix kind of thing. But they're still in business, so since Felix doesn't ever let go of a grudge, as his good-bye present he lets us know what he learned about their plans."
"I like it. Did the bosses?"
"Not all of it. Now, needless to say, they love that Arabs are in the picture now. Arabs they can handle. They're a little spooked about putting a dead guy out on a wanted bulletin, they want to wait for-"
Raney was snatched away with a jerk on his wrist by his wife, who pulled him into a reel. Marlene had no idea that Raney could do Irish dancing. Maybe Nora had taught him. Before Pete Balducci's funeral it had been several years since she'd seen Raney, and she probably would have let him drop out of her life completely had they not met there. Why? They'd always liked each other. Sexual guilt on Raney's part, her own withdrawal from the world after going crazy, and more so after what had happened in West Virginia.
No, let's not think about this shit, Marlene, let's just have a normal evening with friends, and my, didn't they make a handsome couple, dancing to the wild music. Zak was banging out the tempo on a beer tray with a piece of wood from some toy. Lucy was bouncing the baby on her lap in time. Marlene went over and sat on a wide chaise next to her husband.
"Happy times," he said. She didn't answer, but laid her head against his shoulder. He put an arm around her. He was still nursing his first beer.
Karp watched the dancers turn. He was listening to the music, but through his head still traveled the lyrics of that song, about keep holding, keep holding on. It was almost there. The weight of Marlene's head on his arm was pressing it against the pipe frame of the chair, making it tingle unpleasantly. The ulnar nerve, the median nerve, the axillary nerve were tingling. He knew that because…
He knew that because…
A drop of water fell on his hand. He looked up at the sky, darkening to deep blue with approaching evening, but clear of clouds. Not rain, but a tear. His wife was crying; her cheeks were wet with it.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing. Life. I'm in terror."
"What? What is it?"
"I can't have this. Peace. Felicity. Friends and music and the kids happy and us together. I feel like the skeleton at the feast."
"That's… not true, Marlene." He had almost said, "That's crazy."
"It's okay. I'm being an idiot. Jim thinks Felix Tighe is still alive, and on the loose."
"What? I thought…"
"That he died in prison, like everyone else thought. Well, he didn't, and he's b-a-a-a-a-a-ck! Apparently, he's also the Manbomber. At least he distributed the bombs. There's probably a cell connected with our old pal ibn-Salemeh. It looks like he masterminded the whole thing from prison."
"Are you serious?"
"Deadly. I'm sure the details will emerge, but just now they're keeping it all real dark." A howl sounded over the music. "Shit, what does that dog want?"
"Hamburgers?"
"No, it's something… I better go check." She heaved herself up and went through the chain-link gate to the driveway. Gog was whining and fretting and when she opened the camper back door, he stuck his face in hers, drooling buckets.
"What is it, pal? What's up? Calm down! Be quiet, everything's okay." She walked around the truck, looked beneath it, walked down the driveway past Raney's sedan, and out into the street. There were some kids on a bike riding around in the twilight. They zoomed past, shrieking, and the mastiff growled. That was it.
"It's just kids, you big silly. Calm down. It's all right. Look, Magog is fine. Settle down!"
She poured the rest of her beer into the dog's dish and walked back to the party.
Which went on. They finished the beer and started on the Jameson. Nora was imposed upon to sing "West Coast of Clare" and "Four Green Fields," which she did in a pleasant contralto. A Pogues poster had been discovered in the bathroom, and Zak announced that his brother could play nearly everything on "Rum, Sodomy and the Lash," so they had to hear some of that, too. Then Marlene tickled her son until he consented to play "Lady of Spain," which he did off-key, while she sang the lyrics with drunken vigor. Karp watched this resignedly. He didn't much care to drive and he would be driving tonight, but it was worth it to see her having fun. So she drank a little too much, so what? He was feeling better than he had felt in a long while because solution to Nixon amp; Gerber had just that minute popped into his head.
The shot through the arm, not mentioned in the original testimony from the medical examiner because not contributory to cause of death, but noted in the autopsy report. Everyone focused on the fatal bullets from Gerber, ignoring Nixon's non-fatal ones. Keep holding on, keep holding on, like in the song, like they both said the victim had. But he hadn't. He couldn't. Karp knew he would have to check when he got back to the office, but he was as sure about it as he was about anything.
Now it was full night. Little Meghan had been put to bed. Raney was on the couch nodding. Karp was making eye signals to his wife.
"We should go," he announced. He looked out the narrow window that gave a view of the driveway. "You need to move your car, Jim."
"Oh, hell, I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking." Raney rubbed his face and started to look for his keys.
"Ah, would you look at the man, too plastered to back a car down a drive!" said Nora cheerfully. "And the old lady's got to do it for him." She snatched a set of keys from a china bowl on a side table and went out.
Karp supervised the boys' retreat, gathering up shoes and socks and various bits of boyish equipage. Lucy supervised her mother. Raney walked them out to the front walk and they were all standing there in front of the house watching as Nora Raney backed her husband's Pontiac out of the driveway. There was a small drop where the lip of the driveway met the road, ordinarily a hardly noticeable little bump. But it was quite enough to trip the trembler switch in Felix Tighe's last bomb, which was fixed by its magnet to the chassis right under the seat she sat on. No one else was even scratched by the blast, although Raney burned all the skin off his hands trying to reach his wife.