Act of Revenge

Chapter 6

The offices of Osborne Group, Inc., were housed in a twenty-four-story building on Third in the Sixties. The building was an undistinguished crate in the usual degraded International Style (glass over steel, and on the columns and in the lobby marble facings colored like pale toast and as thick), the den of small firms in fields representative of the city’s business, including especially the innumerable parasites that cling like lice to the creative spirit-agents, producers, publishers, packagers, ad agencies, tax lawyers-plus a scatter of legal and medical professionals, and on the ground floor behind glass windows a discount brokerage and a health club. It was a respectable if not prestigious building and right for a security agency that liked to think of itself as having some class.

Marlene had her own marked parking space in the underground garage, which was a nice perk, and meant, among other things, that she could shop at Bloomies and get home without schlepping packages on the bus or trying to hail a cab or taking out a second mortgage to pay for parking. Many women in New York would work for Satan to get a deal like that, and Marlene knew it and was grateful that she only had to work for Lou Osborne, who was a pretty decent guy. In fact, she only had to report to her pal and former partner, Harry Bello.

Who was in, and looking good, as he usually did these days. During his last years on the cops Harry had run into some bad luck and got into the sauce and done some dreadful things, things he couldn’t live with, and been in the process of committing slow suicide. They’d called him Dead Harry then. Marlene wasn’t sure whether she or God’s infinite mercy had saved Harry, but saved he was, now a prosperous security executive, and good at it, and while remaining a reliable pal, not in the least willing to cut Marlene any slack. She found his paternal concern alternately chafing (she already had, for Christ’s sake, one semi-oppressive Italian father) and comforting (he was also the smartest detective she had ever met, fearless, and loyal). The arrangement was that Marlene ran her own business how she liked and worked for Osborne under Harry’s nominal supervision, straight security for organizations and the well-to-do, celebrities even, as Marlene had a rep of the kind that the golden people delighted in, a sort of violence-chic. Which she herself despised, but it paid the bills.

He was wearing an expensive-looking gray suit and a blue striped tie, and he’d gained some weight in the last year or so, which he had needed to do. Not much hair left on Harry, and he still had those dark, sunken cop eyes, but his face was now healthy, rather than damp-clay swarthy, and he no longer looked like a fresh corpse.

Marlene greeted him with a kiss, went to the little refrigerator, opened a Coke, and flopped in one of Harry’s leather sling chairs.

He said, “You know, you’re supposed to call in, we send you on an appointment. How did it go?”

He meant the abortion clinic. “I was my usual charming self and a credit to the firm,” said Marlene. “I don’t think I made a sale. In fact, I think Ms. Hyphen-Name expected something very different. More of a sister, which I was not.”

“Well, you must’ve done something right, because she called this morning and signed up. Site hardening, security service, the works. They caught two of the guys there, did you hear?”

“Wait a minute, she hired us? I thought she was going to throw me out of there.”

Harry indicated amusement by crinkling his eyes and twitching the left side of his mouth up a quarter of an inch.

“What’s so funny?” Marlene was a skilled reader of Harry’s minimalist emotional field.

“You never can tell the effect you’re having on people. Back on the Job, I used to bang away at some witness, trying to get cooperation, and it was no, no, I didn’t see nothing, I wasn’t there, and a couple days later you get a call, they want to sing. Meanwhile, who’s Vivian?”

Marlene had to laugh. “That was cute. Where did you find out about old Vivian?”

“Woman’s been calling here every couple hours,” said Harry. “Won’t give her full name, asks for you, no, nobody else can help her. The girl up front figured it might be something we should know about, so she told me. So?”

“She’s from the shelter. No, don’t roll your eyes at me, Harry! Showed up in a blanket and a pair of panties, been abused. Vivian Fein, she calls herself, maiden name, and she didn’t strike me as someone who normally goes by the maiden name. She tried to hire me to investigate the suicide of her father. Gerald Fein.” Marlene waited for Harry to make the connection.

“Not Jumping Jerry? You got Jumping Jerry’s daughter in that shelter?”

“Yep. She was serious about it, too. Had a diamond the size of a golf ball she was going to give me as a retainer.”

Harry didn’t appear to hear this. “Jesus, that takes me back. Jumping Jerry. It was what? Nineteen sixty, right? Right, yeah, because it was my last year in the city before I transferred out to Brooklyn.”

“You were in on the investigation?”

“Nah, I was in Auto at the time. But there was an investigation. Fein was mobbed up-you knew that?”

“I recall something of that nature.”

“Yeah, what they call a Mafia lawyer. So the thought was that he might’ve had some help going off. But nothing turned up, and we had to let it go down as a legit suicide. Arnie Mulhausen had the investigation.”

“You remember this? I’m impressed, Harry.”

Bello smiled deprecatingly. “It’s a habit. But I tell you, it’s not that impressive because stuff is starting to slip. I’m trying to think of Mulhausen’s partner and I can’t. Stocky guy, Irish, thin red hair. Donovan? Donohue? Something like that, and he had a nickname, B something. . Billy-club? No. Anyway, Mulhausen passed while I was still working out of Bed-Stuy, so what’s-his-name would be the guy to see. Dolan? I’ll think of it.”

“Guy to see? What, you want me to do this?”

“Why not?” replied Bello easily. “She’s got means. We’re running a business here, Marlene. It’s got to be a long project, lots of billable hours at the top rate, and we got participation on a sliding scale based on our billables. She wants you, we know that, so go for it.”

Marlene hugged herself, wriggled in her chair, and in a breathy voice cooed, “Oooh, Harry, when you talk that business talk, it just makes me feel shivery all over.”

“Don’t get wise, Marlene, like you couldn’t use the money,” Harry grumbled. “Besides, her money, it’s a public service. Donnelley? I should sing that damn song with all the Irish names in it.”

“What?” said Marlene. Harry occasionally reverted to a gnomic form of communication that assumed that the person he was talking to was making the same mental leaps he was. Marlene could often follow him, but not now. “What’s this about her money?”

“Just that prick of a husband. It’d be nice to put it to him. On the other hand, he’s not going to be happy she split on him. I hope your pal’s ready for action there, got her six-gun oiled.”

“Harry, what the hell are you talking about? You know who Vivian Fein’s husband is?”

Harry snapped his fingers. “Doherty! John Doherty. They called him Black Jack. I knew there was a B in there somewhere.”

“That’s Vivian’s husband?”

Harry looked at her as if she were speaking Welsh and replied in an elaborately patient tone. “No, Marlene, that’s the guy on the investigation, with Mulhausen. Who you should see. The husband is Bollano. Jerry’s daughter married Little Sal Bollano about two years after Fein hit the sidewalk. It was the wedding of the year for the wise guys.”

Marlene could hear it through the elevator as it approached the fifth floor, the incredible volume produced by a pair of four-year-olds in full wail, and her heart shriveled inside her. As she had so many times before, she resisted the desire to head directly for the bedroom and bury herself beneath the covers, and went like a good momma bear toward the source of the noise. In the playroom she found Posie mopping vomit and her husband, still in his suit, a red-faced twin on each knee, his lapel decorated with little yellow flecks.

“I think it’s coming out both ends,” said Karp, which Marlene could smell for herself. The screams increased in volume when the boys spotted their mother, source of all comfort, and they reached for her like infant cuckoos.

“What did you give them?” Marlene snapped at Posie. Toddler dietetics had never been one of the girl’s strong points.

“Nothing, Marlene, honest! They just had their regular lunch and they started acting cranky around four and then Zak had the shits and I cleaned him up and then they both started puking just before Butch got home.”

“Pick one,” said Karp.

They had done this before. Marlene grabbed Zik and snapped out orders to Posie.

“There’s a container of chicken barley soup in the freezer. Zap it for ten minutes!”

“I threw up, Mommy,” Giancarlo wailed.

“I threw up, too, Mommy,” said his brother. “We’re sick as dogs.”

As if cued, in pranced the mastiff, who began licking up delicious bits of yellow matter off the floor. Screams, shouted orders, startled giggles from the twins; the dog slunk off, but the cycle of hysteria was broken, which, thought Marlene, was just one more reason to have a shambling monster in the household.

The couple repaired to the bathroom, where the twin boys got stripped and cleaned and Karp held each one in turn screaming while their mother poured Kaopectate down their throats.

“What do you think?” asked Karp as he shoved Zak’s arms into pajamas. “Not too hot, are they?”

She felt both their foreheads: warm, but not blazing. Diagnosis, stomach virus. After which, Mommy and Daddy pumping chirpy cheerfulness out like water from a spigot, which improved the boys’ moods a good deal, then a bowl of healthful broth, a powerful dose of baby aspirin ground into applesauce for both of them, and a long lounge for Daddy and the twins in Zak’s bed, reading one of Richard Scarry’s compendiums, and, three times, the preschooler’s answer to Phenobarbital, Good-night Moon. After the delicate little snores sounded, Daddy carried Giancarlo over to his own bed, tucked him in, and staggered down to the kitchen, where he found Mommy with a tumbler half full of red wine attempting to resume the character of Marlene.

“They are down,” he said.

“Well, aren’t you a light unto the Gentiles,” she said, grabbing him and planting a kiss on the side of his head as he walked by to the refrigerator. She joined him and cut herself a chunk of Asiago cheese and a quarter loaf of yesterday’s Italian bread, oiled and garlicked it, and ate the rest of the soup out of the Tupperware 6.

She watched Karp manufacture a roast beef on rye with his own hands, even, Marlene was amazed to see, slicing a tomato to go into it without damage to any vital organ.

“Sorry about your suit, by the way.”

“Oh, no problem. It’s designed to shed vomit. I’m a lawyer, you know.”

“And besides that, how was your day?”

He told her then about the Catalano case, and its political ramifications, and Ray Guma’s theory that it was something to do with the family, and Marlene listened, and did not tell him she suspected that at least part of the crime family’s problem was sitting in room 37 at the East Village Women’s Shelter. Indeed, it was common for Marlene to conceal things from her husband, although Karp was perfectly open with her about everything the law allowed. This imbalance was all right with Karp; he had no interest in learning all that his wife was up to.

“By the way,” Karp continued, “I had a talk with Mimi Vasquez, the ADA who’s handling the Asia Mall shootings. They’ve come up with some interesting stuff. The vics flew in that morning from L.A. on the red-eye. They got in the night before from Hong Kong. No known contacts in the city, so they’re figuring someone followed them here to whack them. They’re checking airport arrivals now, but it looks like-”

Marlene dropped her soup spoon and interrupted, “Wait a second-where’s Lucy?”

“She’s in her room, isn’t she?” said Karp. The twins crisis had prevented either of them from thinking about the family’s usual problem child.

“Is she?” Marlene got up and went down to Lucy’s room, whose door was, as usual, locked. She knocked. “Lucy? Are you okay?” A grumble assured her that the girl was inside. “Come out and have something to eat.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Are you sick?” No response. “Open the door, please, Lucy.” More muttering, not all of it in a Christian tongue, stomping feet, the click of the lock. Marlene entered to see her daughter, dressed only in the Chung-King T-shirt and underpants, heading back toward her bed, where she jumped under the Italian flag duvet and turned to the wall.

Marlene sat on the bed and pressed the back of her hand against Lucy’s cheek.

“You’re not hot,” said Marlene, her heart twisting as her daughter seemed to cringe away from her touch.

“Have you eaten anything?”

“I said, I’m not hungry.”

“If you have anorexia, I’m going to kill you,” said Marlene, trying to lighten it up.

“I don’t have anorexia, Mother,” said Lucy to the wall, mumble, mumble.

“What was that?” asked Marlene, comprehending very well what it was.

“Nothing, Mother. I just want to sleep, okay?”

“At eight o’clock? Lucy, did something happen today? Are you upset about something? Lucy. .?”

Lucy burrowed deeper under the covers and pulled a pillow up over her head. Marlene started to feel like a weasel digging a baby bunny out of a hole. She patted the mute lump and left.

At least she wasn’t rude in English, thought Marlene. At least no heavy, sharp objects were flung. She was walking back down the hall to her husband when the street-level buzzer sounded. She went to the kitchen wall and asked who it was.

The tinny voice spoke in French. “Marie-Helene, it is Tran. We should meet and talk.”

“Come on up. I’ll make some coffee.”

A pause. “Perhaps that is not a good idea.”

“Ah, that sort of talk. I’ll come down.”

Karp was used to his wife dashing off at odd hours. “Will you be late?” he asked mildly.

“No, be right back. I just have to have a word with someone.”

Karp listened to the elevator descend. He got up, checked the twins, and then knocked gently on the door of Lucy’s room. No answer. He entered and saw that it was dark, but heard not the calm and steady respiration of childhood sleep, but a caught breath.

“You okay, Luce?” He moved carefully toward her and sat on the bedside. He felt her forehead. Clammy. “Can’t sleep?”

“I’m okay,” she whispered.

“I don’t think so. Why don’t you tell me what’s wrong?” Silence. “Is it what happened with the Chens?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Lucy, listen to me. There’s no problem that we can’t fix together. But you got to come clean. I’m worried. Your mother’s worried. .”

“Hah!”

“What, you don’t think she cares about you? Are you nuts? Whatever this is between the two of you is making her miserable.”

“The only way she would really care about me is if somebody was trying to kill me,” said Lucy with finality, and then pulled her quilt over her head in an unambiguous signal that she wished to converse no more.

Down on the street, Tran shook hands with her formally as he always did. They walked up Crosby through the warm blue evening. They inquired after each other’s health, remarked on the pleasant and seasonable weather. Marlene spoke her correct schoolgirl French, Tran his soft and nasal Vietnamese variety.

“So? What did you want to talk about?” Marlene urged when Tran seemed reluctant to begin.

“A delicate matter, I think. This afternoon Lucy called me and told me that she and the Chen girl were being followed by some Chinese boys she thought were gang members. Let me explain also that Lucy had earlier expressed to me fears that she might have been followed by someone of uncertain motives.”

“And you didn’t tell me?” Icily.

“I did not. The relations between you and your daughter at the present time are such that if she thought I was carrying tales to you, she would not share confidences with me; hence she would have no adult guidance at all in a certain restricted sphere. I trust that what I tell you now will not be flung in her face.”

Marlene fumed briefly, but she took the point and grumblingly agreed. The score she gave herself in the motherhood category dropped yet again. “Who was following them?”

“A pair of boys associated with the White Dragons. They were hired by a man who called himself Leung Wenri. Their target was Janice Chen rather than Lucy. They were supposed to follow, and show that they were following, and put a fright into the girl. Which they did.”

“This has something to do with the shootings in the Asia Mall, doesn’t it?”

“That is a reasonable assumption,” said Tran after a moment. “It is possible that the elder Chens are somehow involved. Perhaps they agreed to have their shop used for these assassinations. Perhaps they were not told it would be an assassination. Now they are frightened. The assassins wish to impress upon them how vulnerable they are.”

They reached the end of the street, and Tran turned and started back the way they had come, Marlene at his side, as if they were some Edwardian couple taking a turn around the gardens.

“Do you think the girls are in any real danger?”

“Not from those two, at least.”

These words sank in. She stopped short and blurted in English, “Oh, Christ, Tran! Don’t tell me you whacked them!”

He gave her a pained look. “I assure you, Marie-Helene, they are entirely intact, aside from a little fear. One of them soiled his underclothes, but that is, I believe, the only damage. I thought it would be useful if they went back to Mr. Leung, so that whoever hired him would understand that the girls are not entirely bereft of friends useful in such matters.”

“This Leung is not the principal in the shootings, you surmise?”

“I would be startled to learn it. From what I can gather, he is a petty gangster. It is unlikely that he would dream of assassinating men such as the Sings.”

“These are the victims?”

“Yes. Sing Peichi and his son, Sing Zongxian. From Hong Kong.”

She stopped again and examined her friend’s face. He seemed hesitant, as if unwilling to discuss the subject. This was a sure way to attract Marlene’s avid attention.

“And why, pray, would one consider the Sings, father and son, as being outside the reach of the petty gangsters of the world?”

Tran saw she would not let it drop, sighed, and resumed strolling. “I suppose you know what a triad is?”

“Of course. The Chinese version of the Mafia.”

“Which is what most Westerners think, but, like most aspects of China, the truth is somewhat more complex. How to explain this? A Mafia is a feudal organization: that is to say, it is a strict hierarchy, ordered and controlled from the top, bound together by loyalty and the conferring of valuable gifts, with violent sanctions for those who break its rules. In comparison, a triad is more like a trade association or a chamber of commerce, except the trade is largely criminal and the commerce illegal. And being Chinese in origin, they are naturally festooned with all manner of ritual and superstition. Shall I explain how they operate?”

“Yes, but first tell me how you came to learn all this.”

Tran gave her a sidelong look and pursed his lips in a manner that reminded Marlene of Sister Marie-Michel, the elderly nun who had introduced her to the French language.

He said, “You know, Americans are the only people in the world who believe it is their natural right to know the entire history of a person with whom they converse; worse, they feel obliged to deliver their own complete annals, whether desired or not.”

“Allow me to tender my apologies on behalf of Americans everywhere. You were saying. .”

“I was not saying. But, suppose you imagine me in 1975, on a beach in the Philippines, after eighty-six days at sea, in rags, penniless, my only possessions a pistol and three books. Four years later I possess enough money to travel to New York and open a restaurant. Now, I have but two real skills: one is the teaching of literature, somewhat rusty, and the other the efficient generation of death and terror, sharp and well honed. Which do you suppose afforded me the most profit in those years?”

“You were actually in a triad?”

“Tchah! Don’t be foolish, Marie-Helene! I cannot be in a triad. I am Viet, not Han. Triads are not-you have this marvelous phrase-equal opportunity employers. But since the war and our diaspora, we Vietnamese have acquired a reputation throughout the Pacific and elsewhere as men of desperation, with little respect for life or property. In my case, sadly, it was even true. If something particularly nasty is to be done, the Chinese especially look for a Viet-Kieu. In Europe it is Albanians; in the Pacific, Vietnamese. Thus I prospered. I worked for a gang associated with the Ssu Shih K Hau triad, which was a branch of the 14K triad group of Hong Kong. Are you satisfied that I know whereof I speak? Thank you, very good. To resume: triads act like clearinghouses and substitute families for the Chinese criminal classes. They are networks and are further organized into associations of networks, triad groups-the 14K and the Wo in Hong Kong, the Hung Pang in Thailand, the Hung Men in Malaysia, and so forth. Now, imagine I am a criminal who wants someone killed, or I wish to open a house of prostitution. .”

“That requires very little imagination, Monsieur.”

“How very droll, Madame. Suppose, as I say, I am such a one. I go to my triad and they put me in touch with someone I can trust to perform the extermination, to supply the young girls. I do business with this person or gang, and the triad vouches for both parties. In return, the triad receives a grateful gift. Now, suppose I betray one of my partners, to the police, or an enemy. In that case, the triad has lost face, and it must make the betrayed party whole again, either by payment or by exacting revenge upon the traitor. Naturally, triads may take a direct hand in criminal activity, but what I have described is the more usual case. Is this clear?”

“Perfectly. And with respect to the present shootings?”

“The Sings are adherents of the Wo Hop To triad, originally from Hong Kong but now well established in other nations, although not, as far as I know, in New York. The elder Sing held the rank of White Paper Fan, which is a kind of very senior adviser. It is quite unusual for such a person to leave Hong Kong. There are a number of business connections. . do you know what is meant by guanxi, or guanhaih, as the Cantonese say?”

“Yes, Lucy has explained it to me in painful detail.”

“Of course. Well, there is considerable guanxi between the Wo Hop To and the Hap Tai tong here in New York. The Chens are members of the Hap Tai. Thus, it becomes somewhat more clear, doesn’t it? The triad people wish to have a meeting of some importance in New York. They wish it to be entirely cryptic and anonymous, hence the selection of a storeroom as a venue. As I have pointed out, the Chens oblige their tong with the offer of the Asia Mall’s back room. Then, for whatever reason, disaster; also, clearly, some betrayal by the other party to the meeting.”

Marlene thought for a moment before voicing the significant word. “Betrayal. You said. . do you think the triad will take revenge on the Chens?”

Tran shrugged. “It is possible, if they think the Chens colluded in the trap. The most immediate danger to the Chens, however, would seem to come from whoever planned the assassination, to prevent them from saying what they know, if anything. Here the only thread we possess is this Leung person.”

“We should interview him at the first opportunity, don’t you think?”

“We? Perhaps I have not made myself entirely clear, Marie-Helene. With the exception of those who are insane, or are fatigued with life, no one strikes at a senior triad official unless with the support of another triad. We, unless I am mistaken, are not a triad, but a one-eyed woman, an old tired man, and a dog. In the normal course of events, the two contending triads will ask a third triad, from another triad group, to mediate. Harmony is an important Chinese value, as you know, and conflict is bad for business. Until then, whoever inserts himself into this affair will be like a beetle playing between two millstones. I believe the Chens have demonstrated that they do not want your help.”

Marlene stopped walking and rounded on him. “So, Monsieur, you recommend that we stand by with our hands in our pockets while thugs terrorize my daughter and her best friend?”

“You have grasped my point exactly, Madame,” Tran replied stiffly, “although allow me to point out that, whereas Janice may have been terrorized, Lucy considered the affair, what is your expression? A day at the beach.” They stared at one another for some time, like duelists. Marlene controlled her temper first, and asked in a softer tone, “Truly, can nothing useful be done here?”

He dropped his eyes, nodded, and took her arm; the pair continued walking. They were almost back at the loft.

“Well, in point of fact,” he said, “I have already done something, this afternoon, with those two bad boys. I have attracted the interest of M. Leung, at any rate. The next move is his, and we will respond within the scope of our resources. Speaking of these, I must report an unauthorized expenditure from the cash drawer: six hundred and twenty-six dollars, seventy-two cents. I also made long-distance calls totaling thirty-seven dollars, eighty cents.”

“Not an inconsiderable sum. What, pray, did we buy with it?”

“The services of three young people of my acquaintance, countrymen of mine, with their van, and the purchase of two canvas mailbags, used, suitable for confining unwilling guests, and one U.S. Army field telephone, TA 312/PT, also used. I have the receipts.”

“Thank you, but one doubts that a street abduction is a tax-deductible business expense. To whom were you sending telephone messages?”

Tran smiled. “No one at all. The useful part of the apparatus is the crank generator, which is quite powerful. I would have sent a message of a different sort to certain sensitive regions, but it was not necessary. As with the great Galileo, a mere exhibition of the instruments was sufficient. Do you wish to know the details of how this machinery is used?”

“No, not in the least,” said Marlene quickly, trying to keep the distaste from her voice. “I assume the calls were to your contacts in the triads? To find out about the Sings.”

“That is correct. Two calls to Hong Kong, one to Manila, one to Texas-an old comrade.”

“And these three young people, how ever were you able to arrange it so quickly? Not an hour could have passed between the time Lucy called you and the kidnap.”

“Oh, you know, one has contacts, here and there. These boys are from the Hoi-Do gang, as they call themselves. Viet-Kieu like myself. Their usual business is home invasions and armed robbery, but they are also willing to take on such engagements, especially against the Chinese. They were quite put out that I did not have to use wet techniques.”

“How sad for them,” said Marlene. They were at her doorstep. She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek; they were almost the same height.

“Thank you for this, my friend. You know, as the world judges men, you are very nearly the worst man I know, yet there is hardly a person of my acquaintance whom I like better. Why do you suppose that is?”

“It is because you are perverse, Marie-Helene,” Tran responded immediately. “You are the most perverse woman I have ever known. Whatever one expects of you, as soon as you are aware of it, you do the opposite. You act the thug among lawyers, among thugs, the lawyer. Among the liberal intelligentsia you are a Catholic mother, conservative as the pope. Should you ever be called to meet the pope, however, you would appear nude and twirling a gun. It is a peculiar way of life, and disconcerting to all around you. I wonder that you remain married or have any friends at all.”

“What a condemnation! Have I no good points?”

“Several. Shall I enumerate them?”

“Do. ‘To refuse to accept praise is to want to be praised twice over.’ ”

Tran chuckled, a rare noise. “La Rochefoucauld, maxim number 149. Very good. One of the little annoyances of fighting a war for the peasants and workers is that one must associate with so many illiterate people. Dying with you will at least be amusing. So that is the first point. One can converse with you without boredom, in French. This alone would make me your slave. Second, the esthetic appeal. A beauty, but maimed, scarred, like something out of Baudelaire. Irresistible. Were I twenty years younger and still an actual human being, I could not answer for your virtue. Third, your courage. Although unlike most heroes you have a full appreciation of the reality of death, still you behave as if you feel no fear. This is the most admirable form of courage. Finally, despite what you do, you have not amputated your moral sensibility. Therefore you suffer agonies in your deepest soul, which is above all what makes you admirable, at least to me. We Vietnamese are connoisseurs of suffering, you understand. It is our national sport and the basis of our most refined culture.”

Marlene placed her hand over her heart and fluttered her eyelids dramatically. She said, “Monsieur, you have quite overwhelmed me. I must return at once to my husband, lest I be tempted to commit an indiscretion.” Tran made a graceful stage bow, and they both laughed. In a more sober tone she asked, “Tran, will it really be so terrible?”

“Who can say? Maxim 310 bears on this. I wish you a good night, Marie-Helene.” He walked off without another word. Marlene took the elevator up to the loft, locked up, and went into the bedroom, a small room with large windows overlooking the back of the building, a lower structure, and a parking lot. Much of the room’s floor space was occupied by an enormous brass bed that would not have disgraced a New Orleans brothel, the rest of the furnishing being the white painted “Provincial” furniture Marlene had used as a child, including a little vanity table with a pink tulle skirt. Karp thought this was weird, but one of the less objectionable parts of the Marlene package. Neither of the pair was into trendy furnishing, however, and so their loft (worth over three-quarters of a million dollars and the envy of any number of trust-fund artists and Wall Street types) was full of bits of odd junk Marlene had dragged home or inherited from Queens and, as a result, was as comfortable and as childproof as an old flannel shirt.

She found her husband stretched out on the bed, which he had converted into a desk, with folders, documents, and neat piles of paper arranged in rows and columns about his long frame.

He looked up when she entered and asked, brightly, “Was that Rocco wanting another taste?”

She ignored this and said, “I knew you were married to your job, but I didn’t think that meant you actually had to take it to bed. What is all that?”

“Oh, it’s a small part of the administration of justice, my dear. Requisitions, petitions, permissions, submissions, admonitions. . I actually blew my day with some criminal justice work, so all this has to be looked at in my, ha!, spare time.”

“Should I sleep in the guest room?”

“Just a second, let me think. . is this stuff more interesting than Marlene in bed. . well, that depends. .”

“Very funny. I’m going in there to pee, wash, and change, and when I come out I don’t want to see anything in that bed but husband.”

“Yes, dear,” said Karp. “No, dear, I don’t know, dear.” She laughed and went into the bathroom.

When she came out, smelling of Jean Nate and dressed in a worn St. John’s T-shirt that descended fetchingly to just past her groin, Karp had cleared the marital deck and was making notes on a legal pad. She got into bed, snatched the pad and pencil out of his hands, and tossed them across the room, snuggling up at the same time.

“Listen, that was Tran just now,” she said. “I’m a little worried.”

“About. .?”

“Janice Chen. Tran said the girls were followed by a couple of thugs today.”

“Thugs? They weren’t hurt, were they?”

“No. Lucy used her head and called Tran and he took care of it, but. .”

“He took. . excuse me, but don’t we have all those guys in blue suits who’re supposed to-”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Butch, it’s Chinatown! I told you, Tran took care of it.”

“Committing how many Class A felonies in the process?”

“Several, if you must know, but none that are likely to come within the cognizance of the law. Do you want to talk about this or not?”

“What’re we talking about?”

“Lucy. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but she’s extremely unhappy and she’s taking this business with the Chens very hard. I think they’ve closed ranks in this crisis-family only-and she’s feeling left out. She won’t talk to me about it. Maybe you can get through to her. Also. . Tran told me a lot of stuff he picked up. The details don’t matter, but the Chens could be in a bind. It’s tong stuff, like that. Jesus! Yet another reason for her to go to Sacred Heart, the damned obstinate puppy!”

“Tong stuff? You mean for real?” Karp was incredulous.

“So it appears. I thought maybe we could slip the word to Mimi Vasquez and the cops, to the effect that there’s no point in hassling the Chens. They don’t really know anything, and the guy who did it is probably sipping a sloe gin fizz in Kowloon as we speak.”

“Go easy because they’re our friends.”

Marlene missed his tone. “Yeah. Come on, Butch, they really don’t know anything.”

“This is what they teach in Yale? You’re pals with the D.A., so you get a free one? That’s exactly the reason they can’t get special treatment, Marlene. What’re you thinking of?”

One thing that Karp could not bear was tension in the bedroom, and there was plenty at that moment, so he curled an arm around his wife and said, “Look, Lucy just needs some attention. We’re both somewhat workaholic-”

“I’m not workaholic. .”

“No, you’re worse, you’re a fanatic. We’re supposed to be having a family here. Maybe you should cut down on the Wonder Woman routine and spend some more time with her.”

“What about you? When was the last time you spent any time with her?”

“Okay, let’s not get into it right now. Let’s both spend time with her-we’ll plan something for the weekend, all of us, the boys, too. And this thing with the Chens can’t be that bad. If Lucy knew anything really bad was going on, she’d tell us.”

Marlene thought that was about as likely as Santo Trafficante confessing to the murder of Jimmy Hoffa out of remorse, but held her mouth, which in any case was being nibbled by that of her husband. Marlene thereafter gratefully abandoned her miasmic thoughts to the brief oblivion of sex, not all that brief in this particular case, because Karp, though no Lothario (and thank God that was something she did not have to worry about, him sniffing up other women’s skirts), knew all her fleshly buttons and how to push them, and Marlene, for her part, had found that, contrary to every marriage manual she had read, screwing was better when she had something sneaky going on.

Afterward, they fell into the usual divine swoon, but at 3:10 Marlene popped awake from an unpleasant, unremembered dream, sweating, her heart thumping. She put on her T-shirt and went out of the room, stumbling as she always did on such sleepless excursions over the great dog who was sleeping across his mistress’s doorway, as mastiffs have done for three thousand years. She stifled a curse, patted the dog, went into the dark kitchen, where she filled Zak’s Star Wars tumbler half full of red wine.

She drank and tried to arrange her racing thoughts. Triads. The Mafia. The dead men from Hong Kong and the Chens. Jumping Jerry couldn’t wait. The woman in room 37. The abortion clinic. Her mother and the flying missile. Lucy. What had she mumbled? You have to be cute to be anorexic. Oh, Jesus! Oh, Mary, full of grace. Mama mia! Motherhood, an impossibility in the present age. What a tangled web we weave. She entertained vague escape thoughts (an assumed name, a trailer west of Tonapah, a job with the school board, blast away beer cans on the desert at night, fuck brainless cowboys, shoot crank, and drive her car into an abutment at ninety) and wondered how long she could sustain her current life. Perversity, its origins? Tran had got that right, the bastard. Thinking of that conversation, she chugged down the rest of the wine, gagged slightly, went through the long central hall of the loft to her little office. She looked out the window, pressing her moist forehead against the cool glass. Crosby Street was empty, lit by the nasty orange light from the street lamps. Free of danger, for now.

From her bookcase she took her copy of La Rochefoucauld’s Maximes, the purple-bound Hachette edition, and thumbed through to number 310. She translated: Sometimes in life situations develop that only the half crazy can get out of. She laughed, her laughter sounding maniacal enough in her ears, until the dog came trotting in to see what was the matter.