Enemy within

9

The next week or so passed in something of a daze for Marlene. Everyone in the office down to the secretaries had gone a little batty. They had set up a television set in the coffee room tuned to a business channel, and there was always a little knot of people around it, cheering and groaning with the movement of OSBN on the Nasdaq. People were not used to having their net worth rise or fall by several thousand dollars in an afternoon, not to speak of the few in the company for whom the daily wiggle was measured in millions.

Of all Marlene's colleagues, none had embraced the new situation with more simple delight than Oleg Sirmenkov.

"What do you think of Boxter by Porsche, Marlene?" he asked her one morning. "Is good car, yes?" He sat on the edge of her desk and flipped his new gold Dunhill on and off.

"A good car, yes. Get a red one. Is what we call a pussy car, Oleg."

He looked dismayed. "What? Is not strong enough the engine, you mean?"

"No, it means beautiful, young girls will come over to you when you drive it, and ignore that you are old and decrepit, and wish for a ride."

"Am not so old and decrepit yet. I can still go to the field with youngsters."

"As in Kosovo."

"Exactly so. And a good thing. Maybe we would not be rich as we are now if Perry and his friends are dead."

"True enough. It was really amazing how you knew just how to find them. I can't get over it."

Sirmenkov shrugged modestly. "We were lucky. Plus, good preparation, good contacts, good operatives." He laughed. "Unlimited bribery as well. But, now, tell me, what are you going to buy? You have so much more than I do, is crime."

"I haven't bought anything. I thought you had to wait six months before selling any stock."

"What? They don't tell you? No, of course, they tell-you was right there next to me."

"I guess I wasn't listening."

"You are so foolish sometime, Marlene, I do not believe you. Is margin account. Margin! See the little man, Mr. Amory. He has set up accounts for all of us."

Indeed, as Marlene discovered via a call and a brief visit, Osborne had arranged for the broker to provide margin accounts secured with stock. Marlene went out at midday, cabbed downtown, had a nice chat with the Toad, who explained that a bank would lend Marlene spending money on the value of her stock. Typically, stock value rose more quickly than interest, so the loan could be financed by selling off small blocks from time to time. What if the stock declined? Marlene wanted to know, and was met with an expression of pity, as for someone worrying whether the earth would ever collide with the moon. Thus assured, she was handed off to Ms. Lipopo, at the private department of Manhattan Trust, and introduced to the pleasures of high-end private banking. No little glass cubicle, exposed to the gaze of the peasantry waiting for tellers; instead, a dark-paneled office, with Edwardian touches and a Kirghiz on the floor. Marlene wondered if they had extruded Ms. Lipopo especially for her, she looked so new and shiny, a slim, golden, thirtyish person of jumbled ethnic antecedents, precisely suitable for personally banking a one-eyed, burnt-out liberal matron. If, Marlene mused, Marlene had been an Irish brickie who had hit the lottery, would that Ms. Lipopo have had a beer gut and a skein of dirty jokes?

The young woman caused Marlene to sign a large number of forms (which, though a lawyer herself, she read only negligently, for who could not trust Ms. Lipopo?) and served coffee and petits fours on fine porcelain. After the signings, Ms. L. turned to her computer terminal, elegant fingers poised. "How much would you want to start with? The limit is fifty percent of market value, but you may want to set up with a lesser amount just for immediate use. Ten percent?"

"That sounds right," said Marlene from Queens, suppressing the "duh."

"At today's prices, let's say five-five." Ms. Lipopo smiled, showing white teeth and lovely pink gums. Everyone was being so nice to Marlene recently. Could it be the money?

"Five-five meaning…?"

"Five point five million." Another charming smile. Ms. Lipopo loved her work.

"Oh, well, yeah, just for my immediate needs," said Marlene, a fine sweat popping out on forehead and upper lip. Shortly thereafter, she left with a nice checkbook bound in genuine black morocco, a little portfolio (ditto) containing a sheaf of forms and densely printed publications, and a credit/debit card of a peculiar dull metallic-gray color, which was apparently the loveliest and most prestigious color a credit card could ever be. No toaster, no mug with the bank logo, but you couldn't have everything, she thought. Or, thinking again, in my case you could, me now being so rich that… the metaphor machine stumbled here. More cold sweat. This was stupid. It's only money. Okay, a lot of money, but still…

She passed a bank, an ATM lobby. Drawn by a mysterious force, like an earthling under the control of body snatchers, she found herself bellying up to the device, slipping the new card into the slot. My immediate needs, she thought, and punched in five hundred. The little door whined, and there were twenty-five twenties, actual money. She snatched up the wad and looked around, as if she were ripping someone off.

This was nuts. She hailed a cab on Broadway, and on the ride uptown she tried to think of anything but the money, which was like the old saw about not thinking about a purple rhinoceros and, besides, she had never been much good at controlling her thoughts. Not a mental-discipline type, her, not like her daughter, apparently, or her husband, which was where the daughter must have picked it up, along with her other Karp-like characteristics, such as a tendency to be judgmental, a little self-righteous maybe, a bit hard on old Mom or wifey, as the case might be. Which might change with the new money, might it not? Money was supposed to grease the wheels, make things easier. Why people wanted it, right? Why they killed and whored for it, or killed themselves. Don't think about it, then. Clear the decks. Think about… what? Husband and family. What husband? Never around anymore, and when around difficult, irritable. Doesn't talk about work like he used to, a bad sign, he's worried about something, keeping something stashed deep away, what could it be? Another woman? Butch? Of course, the wife is always the last to know. Plus, he goes into this crazy job situation without a prior consult, violation of prime marital directive, not good. Lucy also never home, consorting with that guy, good-looking enough, thin and wiry, beautiful blue eyes: like mother, like daughter, in that respect. Sex? Ridic! But probably be good for her… no, what am I thinking? Guy's nearly thirty, she's a baby, practically, although the stories you hear about private-school girls nowadays, blow jobs galore at the junior prom. Still, time for the kid to drop that religious stuff, get on with real life, like I did, and look at me-one eye and fifty-five million bucks, ha! She'll probably want me to give it to the poor, or the Church. Maybe I will, some, just to show her I really am generous. Butch is a miser, but I'm not. He hasn't said a word about the IPO either, not even "Good for you, girl"; like he doesn't want to think about it. Or maybe I'll endow a chair at Smith, which is the only way my daughter is going to get in there. The Marlene Ciampi Professorship for the Study of Religious Hysteria in Language Geniuses. Or I could get away. They'd all be better off. Buy an island. Buy a town in Italy. Take the boys. No, not Zak, Zak needs a man, ninety-two pounds in his socks and most of that testosterone. Would Giancarlo come? Maybe. We could have a warped relationship. He could collect porcelains and incunabula and look after his crazy mother. Eccentric. Poor are crazy, rich eccentric. I could have a string of horses, but I hate horses. Cars. I love cars. A Ferrari for starters. And dogs. Hundreds of dogs, vast kennels, yes, the dog lady growing old in her palazzo with hundreds of dogs… No! Don't think about the money! Money would change things, not really change. I'm the same as I was before. We all are.

The cell phone buzzed just then, and she answered it, relieved to be out of the coils of racing thought. It was Wayne Segovia.

"Marlene? I'm down at the Daumier. It could be we got a situation here."

"The Daumier?" She was still a little narcotized by mammon.

"Yeah, Kelsie Solette's place. I got a call from Donny Walker. He thinks he spotted Jimmy Coleman cruising the street. Saw him a couple of times. What do you think?"

"Stay there, I'll come by." She checked outside. "I'm at Third and Forty-sixth. I should be there in ten minutes."

She gave the cabbie the new address. Donny Walker was a kid they had put on the staff of Kelsie Solette's building, in the reasonable expectation that a short jolt in Rikers was not going to dissuade the stalker Jimmy Coleman from his heartfelt vow to make Solette his own or, failing that, kill her and himself. People like Coleman represented the most difficult challenge in the celebrity-protection business. The law couldn't touch them beyond petty sentences for harassment, which typically only solidified their determination. The only way around this was to nail the guy on a major felony, without endangering the client at the same time. That, or shoot him, one; but Marlene didn't do that anymore. She felt her brain slide into a different mode as adrenaline cleared the stupid monologues from her mind like a stiff breeze blowing through a smoked-up kitchen. Ah, action!

It had taken Karp the better part of a week to get his homicide chops back. Roland had vanished without a word to anyone-no farewell party, no parting gift from the loyal staff. Karp had called once and left a message on the machine at Roland's place, and so far no reply. He was secretly relieved. He was also relieved to find that Roland had run a fairly tight ship. The people were reasonably competent, the records were in order. The ship was somewhat tighter than Karp would have liked. Roland was the kind of administrator who kept everything flowing through his fingers and ruled by yelling, which meant that the staff tended to keep mistakes to themselves and hesitated to seek guidance. Karp made no major changes in procedures, but met individually with each of the thirty-odd staff members, assured them of his continuing confidence, received a rundown on their caseloads, made some gentle suggestions, and in general attempted to suggest to them that he was not one to bite their heads off if they goofed. Which they would. Tony Harris was Roland's deputy, which was good; Karp had known Harris from his first day on the job, had trained him, and trusted him. He made it clear that Harris would handle the day-to-day running of the bureau, while Karp focused on the big-ticket items, Benson and Marshak. And Lomax, but Karp did not mention that to Harris.

The homicide bureau chief's office was a little smaller than the one he'd occupied up on the eighth floor, and more crowded, with a desk at one end, a glass-topped conference table in the middle, a worn and cracked green leather couch along one wall, and the rest so occupied by bookcases and filing cabinets that a normal person had to navigate by walking sideways. The paint was yellowing and dirty, as were the windows. No young law school graduate going private would have tolerated such conditions for a minute, but Karp and his colleagues in the courthouse were used to it, and to the notion that public officials were obliged by their choice of profession and its critical importance to the commonwealth to work in squalor.

Two people were sitting on the couch at the moment. One was Terrell Collins, a tall, caramel-colored, crop-headed man wearing hornrims, a gray suit, and glistening Florsheims. The other was a broad-shouldered young woman wearing an olive suit with a white silk T-shirt beneath it. She had bold indio features and a mass of thick black hair: Mimi Vasquez. Both Vasquez and Collins shared some history with Karp, and as a result of it were slightly nervous with him, or rather expectantly concerned. Collins had second-seated Karp on a notorious trial, the same one whose loss had lost Karp his original job as homicide bureau chief. Vasquez had prosecuted a teenaged infanticidal mom a couple of years back, in which Karp had involved himself in a way that, while serving Karp's idea of justice, had cut Vasquez out of the real action. Both of these people had no doubts about Karp's basic integrity or competence, but they both considered that working closely with him could, under the right conditions, be like accepting a copilot's berth on a kamikaze bomber.

"I suppose you're wondering why I asked you here," said Karp in a mock-portentous voice. They both laughed. "Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to get the DA out of the jam he has gotten himself in because of this goddamn election, and by so doing serve justice, God, the people, and our precious American way of life. Whaddya say, kids?"

"Will it take long?" asked Collins innocently. "I have a dentist's appointment."

Vasquez said, "That was incredibly inspiring, Butch. I want to say that I'm behind you all the way, or until it becomes personally inconvenient."

"Gosh, you guys!" said Karp. "I'm deeply touched. Let me pause and wipe away the tears." He clapped his hands smartly. "All right! We have two cases, both politically hot. Whichever way they go, they are each going to piss off an important constituency that the DA needs to get elected. The DA told me to fix them, and I intend to fix them. I have a suspicion that what the DA means by fix, whether or not he knows it himself, has to do with figuring out what the maximum political advantage is and then crafting our cases to make that happen. But this is not what I intend to do." He paused to let that sink in.

"My own feeling," he resumed, "is that the DA is mistaken, and that skewing cases in this way is a disastrous strategy because the office of DA is different from a general political office. The mayor and the governor have to balance competing goods, and if the goods they support have more beneficiaries than the goods they don't support, then they stay elected, and if not, not. But that's their job, that's what they're for. But we don't have competing goods, or anyway we shouldn't. We have the law; we have procedure; we have skill and judgment. We know what a good case looks like. And so I propose that the best politics is to just go by what's carved in stone on the outside of the building: 'Every place is safe to him who lives in justice-be just and fear not.'"

They stared at him. After a short pause, Collins asked, "Are you serious?"

"Damn right I am."

Vasquez said, "Um, Butch, that's very idealistic, but…"

"No! It's not idealistic. In this case, it's pragmatic as hell. Look, Vasquez, as soon as we start thinking directly about political consequences, we get lost in a tangle we can't get out of, which is not the case in plain-vanilla politics. The side that loses the election might feel sorry for itself, it might have to pay more taxes or get less services, but it doesn't feel betrayed. If the losers were actually right about policy, sooner or later things will get worse and they'll win the next time out. Rah-rah, democracy in action. But here, if we screw around with a prosecution, it is a betrayal, and people will see that, and they won't forgive Jack Keegan for it, and all the political influence in the world won't save him. I'm not sure he realizes that, but I do, and that's how we're going to proceed in both these matters."

"Shit, man," said Collins, "we have to be honest now?"

"I'm game," said Vasquez. "It'll be a refreshing change. What do you want us to do?"

Karp could see that she wasn't letting herself believe him, but at least she was peeping over the wall of cynicism all these young attorneys erected after a few months on the job. He smiled encouragingly. "Good. You have Marshak. Raney's the cop on it, a very bright guy, inclined to be helpful. Go see him, get involved. I know they don't like us hanging close to them, and usually we don't have the time, but we're going to free you both up of everything else you have for the duration of these two cases. Push him to find the other guy, if any. Check out the vic. Talk to the people he hung with. We want to try to reconstruct his last day. Most important, did he pack a knife, did anyone ever see him with a knife? And the watch. Where did it come from, where did a homeless guy get a highend Rolex watch? There's a story there; find out what it was. On the Marshak end, what was she doing in that garage? You need to talk to my wife on that. And my daughter."

"What?"

"Yeah, the accused was a client, or almost a client, of my wife's. She thought she was being stalked. In any case, it happens that Marlene was at the vicinity of the crime at or near the time of. She saw Marshak make her getaway. Also, people who knew her in the weeks before it went down, what was her general behavior, her morale? Most important-did she know the victim, any connection whatsoever? Raney will help you out."

"You said your daughter?"

"Oh, yeah. Lucy helps run a soup kitchen down in Chelsea. Ramsey was one of the regulars. She can give you background on him and his homies. Along with that, see his family, get a sense of what the guy was like. Details, Vasquez, it's all details. Bring 'em in, the more the better." She nodded, scribbled on a yellow pad. He pointed a big finger at her. "Every day on this, okay?"

"Got it." She seemed a little brighter now, energized. "I have an appearance in ten minutes."

"Okay, go. See Tony about getting out from under everything else. See you tomorrow."

Karp turned to Collins. "You-you have a much harder problem because you have a case that's supposedly made already. Basically, I want you to remake it."

"Remake it," said Collins neutrally.

"Yeah. Let's face it, Jack is going to ask for death on this one, absent any serious flaw in the case. Everybody is out for this kid's blood. The crime is tailor-made to appeal to everyone's New York violence fantasies. Black criminal kills respectable white family man in the subway for money. We are bound and determined to kill the guy who did it."

"It's the law."

Karp nodded impatiently. "Yeah, I know it's the law. And I know we can probably convict him. That's not the point. Unlike the chief justice of the Supreme Court, I happen to still believe that actual innocence is an exculpatory fact. I need you to convince me that Jorell Benson stabbed Moishe Fagelman to death on the M line, me, not a bunch of retirees and high school graduates who want to get home to their families."

"I don't get it. What is it about the case that you find unconvincing?"

"A bunch of stuff. Benson was a strong-arm mugger, a chain snatcher, a knock-down-women-and-take-their-bags artist. Why did he decide to go with a knife? And, by the way, where's the knife? Two, it's a big jump from petty mugging to hitting a diamond merchant. He had to know the guy was carrying diamonds, and what he was carrying them in. It was, you'll recall, a little leather pouch. The perp took only that. Benson is a sixth-grade dropout with a seventy-two IQ. Is it credible that he could put a hit like that together and then not know that every diamond merchant in the city would be looking for just those stones, and then come waltzing into some booth in the diamond district and try to sell them? Three, our eyewitness, Walter Deng, ID's Benson from inside his token booth as the man who supposedly ran by on his way out. I'll stick you in a token booth, and I'll run by, and I guarantee you won't be able to tell me from Joe Pesci."

"Deng picked him out of a lineup."

"Right, which means he picked one out of six. Sorry, but I don't feel comfortable killing Mr. Benson for rolling snake eyes. Finally"-Karp took a deep breath-"finally, Terrell, the guy has an alibi. He was home with his mother, his sister, and her two kids when the crime went down. They were watching a basketball game."

Collins shrugged. "Relatives lie to protect their families."

"Uh-huh, but did these? Let me ask you a question? You have any brothers or sisters?"

"One of each. Why?"

"I have two brothers. If one of them was accused of committing a violent murder for gain, and he came to me and said, 'Tell a lie, give me an alibi,' I wouldn't. Would you?"

Collins thought for a moment. "Maybe I would."

"Oh, bullshit! Perjure yourself, put everything you've worked for at risk? Because your brother wanted a little extra cash and killed someone to get it? Come on!"

"Okay, I take your point. I'll go over the case. But the cops… Jesus, they're going to hate me for this."

This was Roland's influence, thought Karp, his one great flaw as a prosecutor, his desire to stay palsy with the cops. "Fuck 'em, then," Karp snarled. "They're supposed to hate you. You want cops to love you, join the Police Athletic League."

They discussed some reporting details, and then Collins rose to go. Karp made a restraining gesture. "One other thing. You know Lucius McBright, don't you?"

Collins's face took on a suspicious cast. "Why would you think that?"

"Because you're politically active, and ambitious, and live in his district, and attend the same church where he's a deacon."

A nervous smile. "You've been following me around?"

"No, your address and church affiliation are in your personnel records. I'm a trained investigator, remember?"

Collins laughed, relieving some of the tension. "I guess. As a matter of fact, I do know him. Not well, but we've talked some. Why?"

"I want to meet him."

"Call his office. He's a public official."

"I don't mean that way. I want to converse with him informally. If you could set it up, I'd consider it a personal favor."

Collins nodded. "Sure. I'll see what I can do." He left. Toward the end of the day, he called Karp and said, "The man said, come to church this Sunday."

"Church, huh? No problem; thanks, Terrell. He'll find me?"

"Oh, yeah." Collins laughed. "You'll be easy to spot."

Wayne Segovia was waiting in his car, a tan Nissan this time, parked in a bus zone on Fifth, across the street and a few dozen yards uptown from the entrance to the Daumier. Donny Walker, a muscular, young black man, was in the backseat, dressed in a brown handyman's coverall with the building name and DON embroidered in the breast. Marlene got into the passenger seat.

"What's up, guys?"

"I spotted him when I was taking out some junk from the service entrance," said Walker. "He cruised by up Fifty-eighth, real slow and turned onto Fifth. I stayed where I was, and then he came by again, same thing. A Honda, light blue, New York plates."

"You're sure it was him?"

"Absolutely. Glasses, the blond hair, no chin. He was driving real slow, so I got a good look."

"Okay. You get his plates?"

Walker spoke a number, and Marlene wrote it down. "I'll call this in to the cops. He's in violation, coming this close to her building. I can get him revoked. Good work, Donny."

The man grinned. "If they snatch him up, can I drop this janitor act?"

"You could be a doorman," said Segovia.

"Really? Gosh, my boyhood dream. A uniform with gold on it! Marlene, tell me I'm not dreaming!"

"The fact is, we need to get you closer to that stupid woman than a doorman," said Marlene. "I should take another run at her now that old Jimmy's started coming close. She might be more inclined to listen." Marlene smiled at Walker. "Can you be a rock musician? For Tainted Patties you just need the three chords and some attitude."

"I'd rather hump ash cans," said Walker.

Marlene called the complaint in to the Nineteenth Precinct, and they all waited, talking companionably. Shop talk at first, idiots I have guarded, the freakiness of celebrity and its discontents. The talk grew more personal. Segovia passed around a pack of snapshots of his family, a pretty wife and a fourteen-month-old, a rottweiler he was training. Marlene liked this. She enjoyed the company of her troops more than she did that of the Osborne executives with whom she spent most of her time. The troops were very much of a type, these men and the few women in the trade, physical creatures, impatient with routine, bright but without much academic talent, rebellious under bureaucratic controls. The part of her that had never really integrated with the dutiful and brilliant student, the dutiful and loving mom, blossomed among them.

A pause in the conversation. Marlene checked her watch. It was taking them a damned long time to respond. Walker said, "I should go back and watch the service entrance."

"Yeah, go. We'll wait here for the cops," Marlene agreed.

Walker left the car and loped through the traffic, disappearing around the corner.

"A good guy," said Segovia. "He's tickled about the stock. He wants to buy a boat when we can sell it." He shook his head. "It's amazing. I never thought I'd be hanging on the damn stock ticker. Every time I come home, Stella says, 'Hey, we hit fifty-eight and three-quarters today,' or whatever." He looked at her, grinned. "Hell, if I'm happy with twelve hundred shares, you must be out of your head."

Marlene did not want to discuss the money, however. "You going to get a boat, too?"

"Me? Uh-uh. Stella's got that earmarked for the college fund. How high do you think…" He stopped, stiffened, stared across the street. "Oh, shit! There he is."

Marlene followed his gaze. Through the moving cars she could make out a short man in a red jacket and baseball hat. It was the familiar livery of a large Madison Avenue florist, and naturally the man was carrying a long white box wrapped in red ribbon. The man had the hat pulled down low, but she saw the eyeglasses and the familiar profile. Jimmy Coleman. He was carrying his flower box in a peculiar manner, narrow end against his chest, left hand high, right hand low and hidden underneath. A thought flashed through her mind: people don't carry flower boxes that way; that's the way they carry rifles.

Segovia popped his door. "I'm going to nail the little fucker," he said, and was out of the car and dodging across the street before Marlene could say a word of warning. Without thinking, she snatched up her bag and followed him. She had to wait for a couple of trucks to go by, and while they passed and she bounced on her toes in frustration, she heard the first shot.

Holding up her hand, she crossed in front of a cab, made a car slam on its brakes and honk furiously. When she got clear of the roadway, she saw the doorman lying in a heap at the entrance to the Daumier with a dark stain spreading on the back of his maroon uniform coat. She ran into the lobby just in time to see Coleman shoot Wayne Segovia through the chest and disappear into the mail room.

Marlene knelt beside Segovia, who was gasping and expelling bits of bloody froth. She yanked off his tie, popped open his shirt. In the right side of his hairless, tan chest was a red-black hole just southeast of the nipple. Hideous, bloody foam was drooling from it, and every labored breath produced a raw plumbing noise. Osborne had insisted that everyone who worked in the field take a serious first-aid course every year, and so Marlene knew immediately that this was a sucking chest wound and that she had to get something to patch it or Wayne would die of anoxia in a few minutes. Something airtight, waterproof… She upended her bag and studied the jingling heap that fell out onto the floor. Lipsticks, compact, wallet, date-minder, cell phone, pack of tissues with one remaining, a folded sheaf of twenties. She shoved the twenties inside the tissue package, held it to the wound, hard. The sucking noise diminished. She yanked off Wayne's tie, ran it under his body, and bound the expensive dressing into place. Then she called 911 again and demanded an ambulance for two or more, reported the shots fired, and briefly described an incipient hostage situation. Nine one one wanted to chat some more, but she cut them off.

"Hang in there, Wayne," she said. "The cops and the ambos'll be here real soon. I'm going after him."

She rose. He grunted something, waved weakly at his left chest.

"Oh, right," she said, and removed Segovia's pistol, a serviceable Beretta nine, from its shoulder rig. Then she headed for the elevator.

When she got to seventeen, the small lobby was empty, but the door to 1702 hung ominously open. Inside the door was the hapless Pete, lying in a blood pool of unlikely extent, a surprised expression on his dead face. The flower box, with its red ribbon, lay discarded beside the body. Coleman certainly didn't need it anymore.

Marlene ran directly to the hallway that led to Kelsie Solette's bedroom. Another body lay on its side, half out of one of the bedroom doors, a woman, blonde, spiked hair. Marlene's heart froze. She knelt. No, not the client, someone else, a girlfriend of the band's, a groupie. Marlene checked the bedroom. A man lay half-sitting against the bed, his head lolling, his T-shirt black with blood.

Marlene moved on, holding the pistol in front of her. She had not touched a weapon in over two years, except for the firing practice Osborne demanded. She had stopped carrying. She had sworn an oath that she never would again. She nudged the door to the master bedroom open with her foot. There was the bed, and she could hear the frightened yips of Kelsie's dog, but muffled as through a door. The room was L-shaped, she recalled; a little corridor led to a dressing table and, beyond that, to the private bathroom.

She paused at the corner of the L and looked around it cautiously. He was sitting there, at the little dressing table, with his rifle across his knees, talking in what sounded like a reasonable voice to the closed bathroom door. Marlene examined the weapon. Some kind of cheap military-surplus job, a Mauser bolt-action with a box magazine, the stock and barrel cut down to about eighteen inches, and wrapped roughly with silver duct tape. A deadly piece of shit, she thought, like its owner.

Who was toying with the cosmetics spread in messy array across the table. As he talked, he occasionally lifted an item to his face and sniffed. He was in paradise, along with his beloved, surrounded by her intimate life and her scents. "Kelsie, I love you. Don't you understand that? I'm the only one in the world who really loves you." From behind the door, nothing but yapping.

Marlene said, "Jimmy, put the gun down on the floor."

He turned his head. She saw that his glasses were fixed with Scotch tape at the temples. He licked his lips.

"Jimmy, real slow now, grab it by the barrel with your left hand and lay it on the floor. Come on, it's over now."

She could see it working in his eyes before it happened. He stood, whirled, fired a shot through the bathroom door, and Marlene shot him neatly through the right shoulder. He staggered, went down on one knee, still clutching the weapon. He rested the sawn-off butt on the floor. Marlene heard the bolt work, heard the tinkle of the spent round. She rushed forward. His back was toward her, but she could see what he was doing.

"Jimmy, please put it down, please-" she cried, stepping closer, bracing herself to kick the stock of the rifle.

Coleman called out, "I love you, Kelsie!" He had the muzzle under his chin, and when he pulled the trigger, it blew his blood and brains all over Marlene.

Lucy Karp handed the priest, Mike Dugan, a Phillips screwdriver. An associate pastor at Old St. Patrick's on Mulberry Street, he was lying on his back with his hands deep in the entrails of a beat-up Champion UH-100 commercial dishwasher someone had donated to the parish kitchen. St. Pat's was Lucy's regular church, although she had not been by as often in recent months and had switched her volunteer work entirely to Holy Redeemer. A pang of guilt here. Father Dugan had been her main man in the religion area ever since her first communion, and she did not want him to feel abandoned. Or so she imagined. In truth, she was feeling abandoned herself.

Dugan slid out from behind the monster and grinned at her. An odd bird, this one. He was a Jesuit, had been on the staff of the vicar-general in Rome, and then had fallen, badly, no one knew why, ending up as a second fiddle in a pokey New York parish. Brilliant and mysterious, which is why the mother doted on him, and the daughter, too. He had a broad, lumpy Irish face, a shock of black hair, and blue eyes of the kind called penetrating, although they only penetrated on rare occasions. Mostly they skipped over the surface of life with an amused and kindly look, as now.

"I think we got it, kid," he said, standing, stretching, groaning theatrically. "Be a priest, Michael, me dear mother said to me, be a priest and you won't be breaking yer back like yer father and grandfather before ye. And look at me now!"

"Oh, the shame of it, Faather," replied Lucy, falling in with the shtick. "And all for a dishwasher."

"Yes. In the old days, the Church didn't need dishwashers. We had nuns!"

"So ye did, and they were happy to do it, the good sisters. Oh, the holy Church is in a sorry way, Faather."

The priest put his finger to his cheek and applied an impish expression. "Well, we have to see if the blessed thing works, and to do that we need some soiled dishes, do we not? And how do we soil dishes? Why, by eating off them, that's how."

"Ah, Faather, 'twas not for nothing that you read Aquinas for years and years."

The priest walked over to the refrigerator and peered in. "Ah, Mrs. Camillo has left one of her famous chocolate cakes, the lovely woman!"

"Isn't that for the poor, Faather?"

"The poor ye have always with you," said the priest with a dark look. "And we have milk, too."

"Would you be wantin' yer wee drop now, Faather? I wouldn't mind."

"I'll wee drop you on your head, girl. Get us some plates and glasses."

They ate at the table, cake set out on plates, with glasses of milk.

"Ah, this is the fat life, isn't it?" said Dugan, smacking his lips. "Free cake, and no man to say us nay. Sometimes I sympathize with old Luther. We're corrupt to the bone."

The cake was too rich for Lucy's taste, but she ate every crumb, to be companionable. They loaded the dirty stuff into the Champion and threw the switch. The machine gurgled and whirred into life, and Dugan cheered, hugging Lucy.

"Well, now, hasn't this been the grandest day since the cardinal archbishop slipped on a dog turd getting out of his limousine?" Dugan turned to her and looked into her face. The penetration flicked on. "And where have you been hiding yourself, Lucy? We've missed you."

"Oh, going to and fro on the earth," she said lightly. "Mostly around Holy Redeemer, the soup kitchen. Doing some stuff with the homeless."

"Well, good for you." A pause. He smiled. "That's where David Grale works out of, isn't it?"

She swallowed and willed the blush to stay off her cheeks. "I guess. I mean, yes, it is."

Dugan stared at the vibrating dishwasher. "An interesting young man. I understand he's been in some bad places."

"Yes."

"Very romantic, those bad places."

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, just that it can become something of a habit. I knew young priests like that in Salvador."

"You were in Salvador? During the war?"

"Yes, I was," he said in a tone that did not encourage curiosity. "Tell me, does he talk about his experiences?"

"No, not really. I mean stuff comes out. I mean we were talking about the mole people, in the tunnels, and someone said they, like, eat human flesh, and he told me about seeing people doing that in Sudan. But he doesn't, like, discourse on it."

Dugan closed his eyes briefly and sighed. "No, he wouldn't. Does he go down in the tunnels?"

"Sometimes, I think. We're looking for someone we know, who might be in trouble."

"This has to do with the poor creature who's murdering the homeless?"

"Yes, the slasher."

"You think this friend of yours might be the slasher." It wasn't a question.

"I don't think so, but the cops are looking for him on it." She dropped her eyes. The penetration intensified.

"And you're simply dying to go down the tunnels with David, aren't you, amid the putative cannibals, to search out a mass murderer and bring him back to God?"

"It's not like that!" Turning sulky. "And he's not a mass murderer. He's just a confused and scared guy."

"Your mother is worried about you, you know that?"

"Yes. But what do you want me to do, stop my life? She's always worried about me, and ninety percent of it is guilt. She thinks I'm going to turn out crazy and violent, like she is."

"She's reformed, you know."

"Hah! Anyway, I can take care of myself. She knows that perfectly well. She imagines I'm in love or something, and I'm going to do something crazy and stupid."

"And are you?"

This was her cue to stamp out in a huff, covering her retreat with blasts of denial, but she did not. She did not have to. Dugan was not her parent.

"Oh, not in the way she thinks. He's not interested, and he's too old and all, but I do have feelings. I mean literally." She blushed again and laughed. "You know, thump-a-thump, gasp, tremble. It's embarrassing."

"I bet it is. And…?"

"And nothing. I just suffer. But I think it's connected in some way to, you know…"

"Your sense of spiritual abandonment?" he asked. She nodded dolefully.

"You don't have ordinary connections? With boys your own age? Dating?"

"Oh, please! For starters, look at me! I'm easily distinguishable from Britney Spears, and so, you know, it's not like I have to set up a velvet rope to keep the crowds back. Second, guys my age, they're not interested in the kind of stuff I am. I could hang out with the nerdy crowd, but the truth of it is I'm not really a nerd, either. At least I can talk to David." She sighed dramatically. "Maybe I should just sign up with the Ursulines and put myself out of my misery."

"You have no true vocation," he said evenly. "It would be something like a fraud, wouldn't it?"

She slumped. "I guess. I guess there's no place for me at all, except lying down in an MRI machine. Maybe I should just let them extract my brain for scientific study. At least then I'd be halfway useful."

Dugan held his hands in front of her face, brought the thumb and index finger of each hand together and made tiny reciprocal motions with them. "You know what this is? The world's smallest violin playing 'My Heart Cries for You.'" He knuckled her on the top of her head.

"Ow! Oh, Faather, don't hit me agin! I'll be good and niver will I go behind the pigsty with Kevin O'Flaherty anymore."

"Seriously, you lunkhead! You are deeply loved, marvelously good, gorgeously talented, and obscenely rich. You should be as happy as God in France."

"The same could be said about Simone Weil."

"Oh, would you forget her for two minutes! You're not Simone Weil, who is also, incidentally, a good argument for some measure of orthodoxy. Listen to me: You were not made to run through tunnels after wretched people with the likes of David Grale. The gift you have, which you acknowledge is from God, is simply too great to risk in that way. And it's grossly irresponsible for David to tempt you to do so. And don't give me that stubborn look! Look, you know that St. Teresa, at age eight, went off down a road with her brother to find some Moors and get her head chopped off so she could be a martyr. Do you think it would've been a good thing if she'd succeeded?"

No answer. Lucy was doing the teenage clam.

"And anyway," he added, struggling to control a temper that had often been his undoing, "Grale is not all he seems."

That got her attention. "What do you mean by that?"

"I mean everybody in a St. Francis suit isn't St. Francis. There's a darkness in him that touches on unbalance. Don't tell me you haven't observed it? Or do the glands interfere with your judgment?"

"There's nothing wrong with him!" she snarled with a violence that surprised her.

But not him. He sighed and put his arm around her shoulder. She stiffened, but did not shake it off.

"Okay, we'll drop it. Just promise me you'll be careful."

"Sure."

"And if you're really interested in tunnel lore, I can put you with someone who knows them pretty well. Did you ever meet Jacob Lutz?"

"I don't think so. Who is he, a cop?"

"No, a dweller; a cannibal, too, for all I know. They call him Spare Parts."

"You know Spare Parts?"

"I do. He comes by occasionally to talk. We play chess, too."

"Gosh, he's like the king of the tunnels. I only saw him once, from a distance. What's he like?"

"A troubled soul; like you, like me," said the priest. "In mortal form he's very large and stinks to high heaven, much like some of the early saints, I suppose. I'll set something up. We'll have tea."