Corruption of Blood

TWO

Marlene regarded Karp's trip to Philadelphia as merely a good excuse for a day off and had asked him to bring home a cheese-steak and a Liberty Bell piggy bank. Karp was scarcely more enthusiastic as he rode the elevator up to Crane's Market Street office. The car was done in dark, gold-flecked mirrors, with shiny baroque brass rails and trim. A fancy building, and a fancy office, he observed when he got there: dark wood panels set off the shine of the mahogany furniture and the blond receptionists.

Crane had a huge corner office with a good view of Ben Franklin hanging in the cloudy sky. He stood up when Karp entered and so did the other person sitting there, a tall, saturnine man with deep-set intelligent eyes.

"Glad you could make it, Butch," said Crane. "You know Joe Lerner, of course."

"Sure. Long time, Joe." The two men shook hands. Lerner seemed to have aged little in eight years. A little more jowly, the crinkly hair receding and graying on the sides, he still crackled with a nervous, aggressive energy. Karp imagined Lerner was remembering the green kid Karp had been and was doing his own assessment of the current version.

They left immediately for lunch, which was taken in one of those expensive, dark, quiet saloon-restaurants that thrive around every major courthouse in the nation by purveying rich food and large drinks to lawyers and politicians and providing a comfortably dim venue for deals.

Seated in a secluded booth, the three men declined cocktails and ordered carelessly: the "special." No bon vivants, these. There was a period of obligatory sports talk. All were basketball fans, all had played in college, but only Karp had played NBA ball, albeit for six weeks as part of an undercover investigation. Crane wanted to hear all about that.

The food came; they ate. Over coffee, Crane settled back and gave Karp an appraising look, which Karp returned. Crane was a good-sized man in his early fifties, who exhibited the perpetual boyishness that seems to go with being a descendant of the Founding Fathers and rich. He had a sharp nose, no lips to speak of, light blue eyes, and graying ginger hair, which he wore swept straight back from his high, protuberant brow.

"So-to business," he said. "First, some background. What do you know about the JFK assassination?"

"Not much," said Karp. "Just what everybody knows."

"You haven't read the Warren Report?"

"Not really. Just the Times stuff and Cronkite on TV. Like everybody."

"All right. Let me say this. If the victim had been a minor dope dealer, and you had Lee Harvey Oswald in custody as a suspect, and the cops brought the evidence presented to the Warren Commission to you, as a homicide case, you would've laughed in their faces and given Oswald a walk. You wouldn't have even taken that trash to a grand jury. And they served this up on the most important homicide in American history."

"That bad, huh?"

Crane nodded. "Worse. All right, it's never been any big secret. As a result, almost from the start the Warren Commission has been under fire. Three main reasons."

He held up a big, freckled hand and counted on his fingers.

"One, it didn't take a genius to figure out that even if the conclusions of the commission happened to be correct, no legitimate case had been presented. The chain of evidence for critical material was a hopeless mess. The autopsy was a joke. There was no follow-up on possibly critical witnesses. Two: The conclusions are inherently implausible. The existing amateur film of the actual assassination locks in the time sequence of the shots striking Kennedy, which means that if you want all the shots to come from Oswald's rifle you have to make some fairly hairy assumptions about what happened to the three shots Warren assumed that Oswald got off. The magic bullet and all that-you remember the magic bullet? Also, 'assumed' is a word I don't like hearing around homicide investigations, but that's nearly all Warren is made of. Look-you know and I know that crazy things can happen to bullets. I wouldn't want to rule anything out a priori. But you also know that if you're going to make a claim that a missile did a bunch of things that no missile is likely to have done, then your ballistics and your forensics have to be immaculate. Which in this case they are distinctly not. Three-and this is the tough one. It wasn't some junkie who got killed-it was the president of the United States, a man with important political enemies, some of whom may have been involved in the investigation itself. Then we have the supposed assassin, who is not your garden-variety nut, but a former radar operator with a security clearance who defected to the Soviet Union, who was involved with Cuban weirdos, who had a Russian wife, and who was killed in police custody by a guy who had close ties with organized crime."

Crane paused, looking at Karp. A cue. "You mean the conspiracy angle," Karp said.

"Yes, indeed, the conspiracy angle. JFK was killed by the CIA, the FBI, the Cuban right, the Cuban commies, the Russian commies, the Mob, or any three working in combination. There's a vast literature on the subject ranging from the plausible to the insane. You'll have to go through it all, along with the original Warren material, of course-"

"Um, Bert, slow down. You're making the assumption that I'm gonna do this thing. I haven't decided I am yet. I still have a lot of questions."

Crane opened his mouth to speak and then checked himself. Karp saw him shoot a quick glance at Lerner across the table. Crane smiled and said, "Sorry, my enthusiasm runs away with me. Of course, you have questions, and I just broke my own rule about assumptions. Please-ask away."

He waited, smiling. Karp said, "Okay, first, why me? If you're really serious about digging up these old cans of worms, you're going to need somebody who knows his way around politics. That's not my strong point, as I'm sure Joe will tell you." Karp glanced toward Lerner, who returned a cool, ironic look.

"Second, I'm not sure why you think you can get to the truth in this Kennedy thing. You know as well as I do that the chances of solving a homicide go into the toilet after a week, much less a year, much less-what is it? — thirteen years. I'm trying to think of a New York homicide case that got solved after that long and I can only come up with one."

"Hoffmeyer," said Lerner.

"Yeah, Hoffmeyer. Killed his wife, the cops loved him for it, but they couldn't find the corpse. Confessed out of remorse after fifteen years."

"He fed her to his dogs and ground the bones up into the Redi-mix for the patio," said Lerner.

"He did. Oh, yeah, I forgot the serial cases. The Mad Bomber. We catch a guy with an MO used in an old case, we can clear it-sometimes. So-either, you got a guy trying to kill the current president in Dallas with a mail-order Italian rifle, or somebody's confessed, which I haven't heard about either of them. Or, maybe the job is to make a show of activity around this to cool down the Mark Lane types. In which case, I'm also the wrong guy."

Crane was grinning broadly now. "This is just the attitude I want. Look-you've answered the first question yourself. I want you because you're a professional homicide prosecutor, and not a politician or a bureaucrat. You've been in charge of hundreds of homicide investigations. The whole Kennedy material has never been approached from that perspective by a real pro, ever. That's what was wrong with the Warren operation."

"I thought Warren was a DA once," offered Karp.

"Yeah, back when Pluto was a pup. He'd been wearing a black dress for a while by then, and that changes you. Besides, he had another agenda going."

"Oh? Like for instance?"

Crane paused, frowned briefly. "I'll get to that. Also there was Jim Garrison and the Clay Shaw thing, but that was a conspiracy case. Garrison had to show that Shaw, a prominent New Orleans businessman, had been in on the assassination planning. There was all kinds of weird stuff there, too, that Shaw was a homosexual who had a liaison with Oswald and a nut named David Ferrie-all hard to prove, and frankly, screwed up. Anyway, the fact that you're not interested in political wheeling and dealing is a big plus as far as I'm concerned. That's what I'm for; I'll run interference while the both of you do the real investigative work. Now, as to the possibilities for really doing something: I think they're good. The journalistic material has reached a critical mass. That stuff has to be examined by a professional team, and either tossed out for good or confirmed. And the Senate Intelligence Committee, the Church committee, has come up with some amazing stuff. I think that's part of what's triggering the House reinvestigation."

"It's been in the papers," said Karp.

"Not what I'm talking about, and it won't be, either," said Crane.

Karp waited, but Crane said nothing more.

"And you're not going to share it with me?"

"Not until you're in for real," said Crane.

The waiter appeared and asked them if they wanted dessert or coffee. They declined. A brief silence descended. Then Karp said, "Well, in that case, thanks for the nice lunch."

"I don't believe this!" Lerner blurted out after a moment.

The other two men turned to him, startled. Lerner had said almost nothing during the meal.

Now he stared at Karp, tight-jawed. "What is it, Butch? You worried about your pension already? Got a family? Lost the edge? No, you can't believe that. You're not dumb. You know you're living on borrowed time…"

"What're you talking about, Joe?" asked Karp irritably.

"You know what I'm talking about. You think I don't know what goes on up there? You've been lucky. But you're dead-ended. Bloom has you in a box, and he's squeezing. How long can you last? Another year or two? Three? Sooner or later he'll get you out. You'll be lucky if he doesn't scam you into something that'll get you disbarred."

"Joe, I don't need a lecture about Bloom."

"No? Then why the hell don't you jump at this? You're actually telling me you're gonna keep working for fucking Sandy Bloom instead of coming in with Bert Crane and closing the homicide of the century?"

"It's more complicated than that," said Karp lamely. But Lerner had virtually repeated one side of his own internal arguments. The complication was, of course, The Wife. And The Kid. And Moving. Karp had already wrecked one previous marriage because, among other things, he had moved his first wife away from Southern California, where she had been comfortable and happy and working at something she enjoyed, to New York (because he'd wanted to work for the DA there), where she hadn't much of anything but Karp himself; which proved, in the event, insufficient.

Lerner was looking at him as if he had Karp's number-not a nice look. He asked, "How's Marlene these days, Butch?"

"She's fine," Karp answered shortly. Crane caught the interplay. He said, "I'm sure something could be found for your wife, Butch. I hear she's quite a competent attorney in her own right."

"Yes," said Karp, beginning to steam. "She is. And I'll need to discuss this with her. And think about it some more. Why don't I call you tomorrow or Monday?"

Crane frowned. "All right. But we need to get moving on this."

After thirteen years, why the rush? Karp thought to himself, but said nothing.

On the train back to the city, Karp went through the interview again in his mind, obsessing about what he should have asked, how he should have acted. It was an uncomfortable pattern of thought, and unfamiliar. Nerds did it, playing out witty things never said to snooty girls, going home on the subway to Queens, having failed to score in the Village. L'esprit d'escalier. Karp nearly always said exactly what he thought at the moment (except, of course, when he conversed with his wife). Athletics, they say, builds character, and Karp had the sort of character built by big-time athletics: all-state guard, high school all-American, Pay-Ten star, and that peculiar six weeks in the NBA. You see the opening, you go for it. Roll over anybody who gets in the way. You screw up, you don't think about it, there's always another game. Shoot the ball.

It happens that this sort of character is also well suited to prosecuting homicides, although less so for major life decisions requiring introspection. That's what Marlene was for.

Karp shook himself free of troubled thought and watched New Jersey flow by outside the dirty window. What he should have said, he concluded, when Crane first offered the job was, "Sure. When do I start?" Holding that thought, he dozed.

"What's wrong?" asked Marlene, five minutes after she arrived at the loft. Karp had come back to town, hopped a cab to the day care, picked up Lucy early, for a change, and was now draped across the red couch watching the news on TV. Karp looked up at her.

"Nothing," he lied.

"How was Philadelphia?"

"Okay. I got a nice lunch."

"What was the guy like?"

"Crane? A good guy. Reminded me a little of Garrahy, if Garrahy had been a WASP. A straight shooter. Joe Lerner was there too. He sends his regards. How was your day?"

Marlene sat in her rocker and threw off her shoes. "Hell on earth," she began, and launched into a familiar litany: witnesses not showing, witnesses fishtailing; the idiocy of social workers and psychologists; the cynical malfeasance of the police. People who prosecute sex crimes rarely have a nice day.

Karp had, of course, heard it all before, and was as a rule no more than passively sympathetic, when he did not offer irritating advice about what Marlene should do or should have done to solve various problems.

Now he was almost therapeutic-considerate, patient, interested. When she started to run down, he asked casually, "It might be nice to take a break, wouldn't it?"

"Oh, like a long weekend? Try me! Like where? Vermont?"

"Um, no, I meant a real break. Doing something else. Do you really want to spend the rest of your life with scumbags? I mean, you come home like this every day, bitching and complaining about the witnesses, the shrinks. Trying to put together child abuse cases, rapes… yeah, occasionally, very occasionally, there's a real bad guy, and maybe you can put him away for seven years and he gets out in three and a half, and meanwhile you got all the others. He-said, she-said; who the hell knows what happened in the back of the goddamn Buick?" He looked at her searchingly. "Don't you get tired of it? Wouldn't you like to do something else. I mean you paid your dues. I've paid my dues…"

A look of confusion on her face: "I don't understand. What are you saying? I should just quit-or what?"

"I mean we should seriously sit down and think about what we're doing, the kind of life we have-"

At that instant there was a loud, high-pitched shriek from the nursery, of just that timbre that turns parental blood to transmission fluid. They both sprang up, crashing into each other like the Three Stooges exiting a ballroom, and raced down the hallway, Marlene in the lead.

Lucy was standing in front of her bed, red-faced, in hysterics.

Marlene knelt to embrace her, but the child shook away from her and backed away toward the bed.

"What's wrong, baby! Calm down and tell Mommy what's wrong," cooed Marlene, heart in throat.

Karp, trained observer that he was, said, "It's her foot." The child had all her weight on her left leg, with only the toes of her bare right foot touching the floor. Marlene lifted her thrashing, sobbing daughter and grabbed at her ankle. She inspected the foot and cursed. "Christ, she's got another splinter."

"No needuh! No needuh!" yelled Lucy.

"Baby, please calm down! Mommy has to take it out. You don't want an infection, do you?"

"Nooooo! No neee-duh!"

"Hold her," said Marlene, after which ensued Karp's absolutely least favorite paternal chore, that of clamping in a viselike grip the wriggling, choking, screaming, red-faced, snot-bubbling changeling his darling had become, while its mother probed the splinter out with a flame-sterilized number two sharp.

And after that necessary torment, Lucy extracted the maximum of cosseting, as being only her due. After a fretful supper there were multiple tuckings in, expeditions for milk and cookies, story after story read, cramp-backed sittings by the little bed-in short, all the forms of torture imposed upon guilty, loving parents by their innocent young.

The couple collapsed in the living room, having at last seen their kid off to dreamland. Marlene poured herself a stiff one of jug red and drank off half of it.

"God, did I not need that! I've told her a million times to wear her slippers."

"She's only three and a half," said Karp in defense. "She gets splinters because we live in a decaying industrial building. Maybe she should wear gloves too, and a face mask."

"Please, don't start…"

"No, really! It's all part of the same thing. You have a job that drives you crazy and leaves you exhausted, we live in a five-flight walk-up with splintery floors and leaky plumbing that's freezing in winter and boiling in summer, and you wonder why we're irritated all the time."

"We're not 'irritated all the time,' " snapped Marlene. "Every time something happens you blame it on the loft. Okay, we'll get the floors sanded and refinished."

This was far from a new argument. The loft had originally been Marlene's dwelling. She had constructed it herself, with help from family and friends, tearing out the industrial ruins, cleaning it, painting it, putting in drywall, kitchen and cabinet work. She'd lived in it happily for six years. When Karp moved in it had seemed to him just one of his lover's delightful eccentricities. But as the seat of a marriage, and a place to raise a child, it was, in his often-voiced opinion, a giant pain in the ass.

"Refinishing isn't going to do any good. The damn floor's sagging all over the place. It's probably totally rotted out underneath."

"Okay, we'll replace the fucking floor! Why are you hocking me about the floor? Why now?" A flush had appeared across her famous cheekbones and she took another swallow of wine. Then she looked at her husband narrowly. He met her gaze for an instant and then glanced away.

"Because," said Karp, "we have to make some decisions. How long are we going to keep pouring money into this place? I mean, is this it? We're going to live here forever?"

Marlene wasn't listening. She was still staring at him and the expression on her face was not pleasant.

"What?" said Karp.

"You rat! This isn't about the floor, or Lucy, or how hard I work. They offered you a job in Philly and you want to take it and move and you're afraid to just come out and say it."

Karp felt his face steam in embarrassment. A denial sprang to his lips, but, to his credit, he suppressed it. He was a rat.

"Well?" pressed his wife. "Did they?"

He nodded.

"And you want to take it."

He nodded again.

"Christ! What I hate is having to worm stuff like this out of you like you were a little boy. Why don't you just come up to me like a real person and talk about it?"

"I don't know," answered Karp, meaning that he did know. "I guess… avoiding. I really started wanting this and I knew there was going to be an incredible explosion when I told you and I was just easing into it. I'm just basically slimy that way."

"I'll say! So spit it out already. What is it, a glossy partnership with the white shoes, down in Philly there?"

"No. It's a government job. In D.C."

"Huh? Schmuck! Darling! You already got a government job. What, you just developed a sudden interest in federal crimes?"

"No, it's with a congressional committee, working for Bert Crane. The House is reopening the Kennedy assassination case and they want me to be in charge of it, Crane does."

Marlene was sipping at her wine when this emerged and her snort of amazement sprayed a purple mist over the nearby area, including Karp.

"I'm sorry!" she sputtered. "That was unexpected. Let me hear that again: they want you to find out who killed Kennedy?"

"Yeah. What's wrong with that?"

"It's looney's what's wrong with it," she laughed. "I mean, I knew you were a caped crusader, but…"

"Marlene," said Karp, his tone strict, "it's a serious investigation: A lot of new stuff has come up."

"Oh, yeah? Like what?" She waited. After a silence and some uncharacteristic fumfering by Karp, she added confidently, "They didn't tell you, did they? They sold you a pig in a poke. And you bought it." She struck her forehead to indicate the extent of her amazement.

"I can't believe it! Especially you. Jesus, Butch! It's like some mutt said, 'Hey, let me walk on this one and I'll give you Mr. Big,' and you let him walk and then you called him up, hey, Mr. Mutt, how's about coming down and talking about Mr. Big?"

"Bert Crane isn't a mutt, for Chrissake, Marlene!"

"No, he's a lawyer," Marlene shot back. "I rest my case."

They glared at each other for an uncomfortable few seconds. Then Marlene rose and went to her closet, where she shed her working outfit and put on a T-shirt and Osh-Kosh overalls and flip-flops. Then she began putting together a meal. Karp drifted into the kitchen. Wordlessly she put on the butcher block in front of him a tin colander loaded with washed salad ingredients. Karp got a salad bowl and tore and cut the vegetables into bits. Marlene threw a mystery casserole into the oven.

They ate a silent meal. Marlene put the little espresso maker on the stove. They listened to it hiss. Then they both said "Look" simultaneously, which made them smile.

Karp said, "Your 'look' first."

"Okay, look… I'm sorry. I'm sure what's-his-name thinks it's a great honor to get picked for this job, and maybe you do too. I shouldn't have pissed all over it like I did. But… we got to work stuff out like this together, Butchie, like a team. We got to think it through together, the pros and cons, for all three of us, what's best-you know? That's all I'm saying."

"Okay," said Karp. "I should've been straight about it. I'm a cryptic son of a bitch, all right? But… if what Crane suggested to me checks out, if we could really crack the assassination…" He waved his hands, speechless before the magnitude of those "ifs."

"Big time, huh?"

"Not just 'big time.' If you want to know, it's mainly not working for the clown anymore. It's eating me up. Crane's a real guy. It'd be like Garrahy again."

Marlene took the little silvery pot off the stove and poured herself two ounces of tarry liquid into a squat clear glass cup. She put half a cube of sugar into her mouth and slurped the coffee past it until the sugar was all gone.

"Well. You shouldn't be eaten up. Except by me, of course." She smiled, faintly, not the real Marlene thousand-watt room-lighter, but a smile, and welcome.

"I haven't said I would yet, Marlene," Karp said, smiling back. "It's still not a done deal."

"I see in your eyes it's a done deal, babe. You want it, you oughta go for it."

He reached across the table and grasped her hand. "Okay. That's good. I'll call him tomorrow and tell him we're coming. It'll be okay, Marlene. Moving-it's not the end of the universe or anything."

"No, 'cause I'm not moving."

He cocked his head as if he hadn't heard her. "What?"

"What I said. Go do it! I'll keep a candle burning in our little home against your return. I mean, how long can it take, solve the crime of the century? For you? Couple of weeks, tops."

"Marlene, this is serious…"

"Yeah, you keep telling me. I'll tell you what else is serious. Ripping our life apart is serious. Dumping my career. Taking Lucy away from her grandparents and everybody she knows. Leaving our home. Serious stuff, and what's the most serious is that I can tell you haven't thought much about it. You hear crime of the century and Bert Crane, another solution to your perpetual lost-father complex, and you're off and running, and let old Marlene deal with the little details."

"That isn't fair, Marlene."

"No, you're right, it isn't. How about you springing this shit on me? Hey, babe, I got a job in D.C., pack it up! That's fair? Look-you can't stand working for Bloom? Fine! There's four other DAs in the city, plus two federal prosecutors, and half a dozen other county prosecutors within commuting distance. Not to mention, I hear there's one or two private law firms in New York. I don't recall you beating on those doors, you can't stand another minute of Bloom."

Karp stood up abruptly and walked a distance away from her, his hands thrust deep in his pockets. He was angrier with her than he'd been in a good while. It was the sort of rage we experience when we have been selfish under the guise of some pretended generosity, and have been found out. Naturally, what he said then was, "You're really being selfish, Marlene."

She opened her mouth to say something, closed it, took a breath instead, and knocked back the rest of her wine. "I'm going to bed," she said, and walked off.

"We haven't finished this, Marlene," said Karp.

She stopped and turned. There were tears in her eyes but her voice was steady. "No, but in a minute you're going to bit me with 'A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.' And I agree. A man's gotta. But a woman doesn't, and neither does a little kid. Don't forget to write."

The next day, Karp called Bert Crane and told him he would take the job. Crane made enthusiastic noises of congratulation; they sounded tinny and unreal coming over the phone, and made Karp feel no better. He had a taste like bile in his mouth and his stomach was hollow and jumpy. He was stepping into a void.

Next, he went up and saw the district attorney. Bloom was sitting behind his big, clean desk, in shirtsleeves and yellow suspenders, puffing on a large cigar. He was a bland-faced medium-sized man who might have been an anchor on the six o'clock news. He had nearly every qualification for his job-a keen political instinct, the ability to generate ever-increasing budgets, a cool hand with the ferocious New York media, and a positive talent for bureaucratic management. All he lacked was an understanding of what the criminal justice system was supposed to accomplish and even the faintest ability to successfully try cases.

Karp stood in front of the desk and told Bloom that he was leaving and where he was going. To Karp's great surprise, Bloom seemed stunned and dismayed. He gestured Karp to a chair.

"What's wrong? I thought you were happy here. You got your bureau. You're doing great things…"

Karp had trouble finding his voice. At last he said, "Well, I've been here a long time. I thought it was time to move on. And the challenge… Kennedy…"

"Crane, huh? What's he paying you?"

Karp told him.

Bloom said, "Tell you what-it'll take some screwing around with personnel, but I think I can beat that."

Karp felt his mouth open involuntarily. "Um… it's not really a money thing. It's just time for me to do something else."

Bloom chomped on his cigar and frowned. "You're making a big mistake, my friend. You'll dick around down there for a year or so until they get tired of stirring the pot and they'll get you to write a fat report nobody'll read, and then where are you? Out on your ass."

"Well. I'll have to worry about that when the time comes."

Bloom shrugged and blew smoke. "Think about it," he said.

Karp said he would and walked out. The feeling of weirdness, of being in a waking dream, continued unabated. Bloom being nice to him, Bloom offering him a raise, was, more than anything he could think of, a sign that his life had irrevocably changed.

In the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley, Virginia, a small group of men is sorting through stacks of paper. The paper has been removed from filing cabinets throughout the Agency in response to a subpoena duces tecum from the Church committee, a body established by the United States Senate to investigate certain suspected excesses of the CIA. They are obliged by law, and as federal employees, to comply with this order to yield documents, and they are complying, if reluctantly. The men have been trained in strict secrecy since early adulthood, and more than that, they have been trained to be judges of what must remain secret in order to protect the national security, and more than that, they have come to believe that they themselves are the best judges of what the national security is.

Two of the men are working with ink rollers and thick markers, blotting out the sections of these documents deemed too sensitive for the eyes of United States senators. Some documents have had nearly everything but the addresses and the letterhead blotted out in this way. They have done this many times before and are good at it.

One man walks among the desks, picking up piles of finished documents, indexing their reference numbers, and placing them in a carton for delivery to the Senate. It grows late, but the CIA is, of course, a twenty-four-hour, seven-day-a-week operation. Nevertheless, these are all senior employees and not as young as they once were, when several of them were actual spies. They are anxious to see their suburban beds.

The man picking up the documents yawns, shares a slight joke with one of the men at the desks, and picks up by mistake the wrong pile, a thin stack of paper comprising four brief documents that were by no means ever intended to be seen by senators without being reduced to illegibility. He indites their numbers on his list, tosses them into the carton on the floor, and moves on.