Fury

32

Wednesday, January 26

Karp looked up from his notes and turned around as the courtroom spectators suddenly began buzzing. District Attorney Breman had entered the courtroom, although today she wasn't smiling or chatting with the press. The previous night's television reports, as well as that morning's newspapers, had jumped all over Swanburg's testimony and its implications for the plaintiffs' case.

The New York Times's editorial board had even opined that "perhaps" Breman had moved too quickly to exonerate the Coney Island Four "and a more studied approach may have been called for." However, Karp noted, the Times reporter Harriman's "news" story had been slanted with words like "ambushed" and "sly district attorney for the County of New York" and "obviously slanted" testimony from the defense forensic expert.

"While the only undisputed fact is that Villalobos's semen was found on the victim's clothes," Harriman wrote. Meanwhile, "sources close to the plaintiffs" were sure that "the jurors are smart enough to see beyond the smoke and mirrors thrown up by Karp."

Harriman was now sitting in the row behind Tyler. In fact, quite a few members of the press, as well as the courtroom buffs, were now sitting on the defense side of the courtroom, apparently voting with their butts for whoever was winning the case.

Breman, however, walked down the aisle looking neither left nor right and took her customary seat behind the plaintiffs' table. Going down with the ship, Karp thought, as he looked at the plaintiffs and their attorney, who sat looking at his notes as he patted the moisture off his face.

Three-fourths of the Coney Island Four sat staring sullenly at the table. Sykes, on the other hand, was staring at him. Gone was the amiable valedictorian with the falsely imprisoned veneer he put on every day for the benefit of the press and jurors. The look he gave Karp now was of unabashed hatred.

"Are we ready to call the jury?" Judge Klinger asked. When she entered the courtroom that morning she'd actually given Karp a slight smile and nod, which left him somewhat nauseous.

"Well, actually, your honor, there is a matter I'd like to bring up first," he said loud enough to get the attention of everyone in the courtroom.

"Yes, Mr. Karp, please proceed," Klinger said nervously.

"Well, before we run into this issue in front of the jury, I wanted to inform the court that I may be calling Captain Tim Carney of the New York Police Department to the stand," he said.

"And I will object to that," Louis said, rising tiredly from his chair. "Captain Carney is not on any list of witnesses I have. Nor was he, to my knowledge, involved in the original case."

"Your honor," Karp said, "I may call Captain Carney as an impeachment witness, and as we all know, such witnesses do not have to be on a witness list."

"And who and what will he be impeaching?" Klinger asked.

"Mr. Villalobos," Karp said. "Mr. Carney can testify to the veracity of a taped conversation between District Attorney Kristine Breman and Mr. Villalobos in which the former admits to having received a letter from another inmate named Igor Kaminsky, who contended that Mr. Villalobos admitted to him that the plaintiffs initiated and participated in the assault on Ms. Tyler."

Karp was gratified to see Klinger turn white as the courtroom erupted into bedlam. Breman stood and fled, with reporters after her like a pack of wild dogs after a deer. "That's ridiculous," she shouted over her shoulder at the questions thrown at her retreating form.

Klinger finally remembered to pick up her gavel and pound until the courtroom-at least those who hadn't run off to file stories or chase Breman-quieted down. "Is there anything else, Mr. Karp?" said the judge, the fear that she would be named next clearly in her eyes.

Let her stew, Karp thought, and wonder if I have a copy of the letter. "Yes, your honor, I ask that Kristine Breman be subpoenaed by this court and notified that she may be required to appear as a witness for the defense."

"Now, hold on a damn minute," Louis said. "I know nothing about these tapes. How were they obtained? Are they even legally admissible?"

"You can ask those questions of Captain Carney if I need to call him to the stand," Karp said. "But first let's see how Mr. Villalobos answers my questions. Perhaps he'll tell the truth, and there'll be no need for an impeachment witness."

"Well, Mr. Karp, unless we know how these alleged tapes were obtained I will not allow Captain Carney to take the stand," Klinger said. "So before that point, I expect that you will ask for an evidentiary hearing first. Now, if the theatrics are over, I'll ask the jury to be seated."

Karp was not particularly bothered by the ruling-he was mostly just stirring the pot, hoping the judge might "find" the Kaminsky letter, using some lame excuse as to why she'd kept it. On a personal level, it had been fun to watch Breman running from the jackals in the press, but he had a bigger bomb waiting in the wings anyway.

When the jury was seated, the judge gave him the nod and he recalled Villalobos to the stand. To warm up he asked the obviously nervous witness to repeat his testimony regarding how he alone had raped Ms. Tyler and that he'd used a piece of driftwood to assault her. He knew that the jurors would be comparing the disgusting persona of Villalobos and his statements to that of Jack Swanburg.

"Mr. Villalobos, do you recall telling anyone that this whole 'confession' was made up?" Karp asked.

"That's a lie," Villalobos hissed, looking at Louis.

"You never said that the plaintiffs were the first to assault and rape Ms. Tyler?"

"More lies. You lie," Villalobos shouted.

"Then, perhaps you've forgotten your former cellmate, Igor Kaminsky?" Karp fired.

"I had a lot of cellmates," Villalobos said. "I don't remember every one."

"Well, then," Karp said, looking toward the back of the courtroom where Clay Fulton, who had been waiting by the door, disappeared, "maybe seeing his face would remind you."

Fulton returned to the courtroom escorting a thin, white male with one arm. "Do you recognize Igor Kaminsky now?" Karp asked.

Marlene and Karp had shown up at Battery Park a few minutes before midnight, standing in the chill until an old man followed by a large younger man walked up to them. "Thank you for coming, nephew," Vladimir Karchovski said, kissing Karp on the cheeks. "Oh, and finally I meet your beautiful bride, the lovely and-so I'm told-quite inventive Marlene Ciampi."

"Marlene, I'd like to introduce to you my great-uncle, Vladimir Karchovski," Karp said.

"What? I didn't know you had a great-uncle Vladimir," Marlene said, extending a hand and blushing like a schoolgirl when the old man took it and raised it to his lips.

"Ah, unfortunately, we are an estranged family due to our…um…career choices," Vladimir said. "But come, it is cold outside and I'd like you to accompany me for a boat ride."

"Where?" Karp asked.

"Why, Ellis Island, of course," Vladimir said.

"Ellis Island? Why?"

"Please, just humor an old man. It is to make a point to you and to someone else important to me. And you know how we Russians love the dramatic gesture."

Vladimir and his bodyguard led the way to a small speedboat that waited at the dock. "Please, step aboard my steed," Vladimir said.

"Aren't you worried about the park or harbor police?" Karp said. "I don't believe that Ellis Island is open at this time of night."

"No," Vladimir said and smiled. "Perhaps not to the general public. But the park police are poorly paid and they sometimes can be persuaded to let an old man visit when the crowds are not so large. Now please, I suggest you get down out of the wind. The ride over can be quite chilly."

The Ellis Island boat dock was empty when they arrived, but waiting on the steps leading into the museum was a tall, gray-haired man whose face had been scarred by fire. "Yvgeny Karchovski," Marlene said. "How nice to see you again. Karchovski-I take it you and Butch's uncle are related."

"He is my son," Vladimir said, turning to Karp. "Which makes him your father's first cousin. I get confused after that but you are cousins of some extraction."

"I don't understand," Karp said. "I've never quite understood the family's connections." He stepped forward and shook Yvgeny's hand. The two men were of almost the same height and build.

They could be brothers, Marlene thought. Although if I remember Alexis Michalik's comments, they would be oil and water, a gangster and a prosecutor.

"I'll tell you the story," Vladimir said. "But let us go inside. I'm, as the young say, freezing my ass off."

As they walked into the building and up the stairs to the great hall where millions of immigrant families had waited to be processed for entry into the United States, Vladimir told the story of another family. "It begins with two brothers, Yakov and Yusef, who were part of a large Jewish family living in the Galicia area of Poland when Imperial Russian Cossacks embarked on one of their periodic pogroms to terrorize and murder Jews.

"Yakov and Yusef survived because they were gone from the village that day, hunting. However, they returned to find their family slaughtered and their home burned to the ground. With many tears, they decided to split up. Yusef was tired of the old hatreds of Europe and dreamed of starting fresh in America, where even a Jew might hope to accomplish great things. He arrived on a ship filled with many other desperate people and waited in this very hall, where they changed his name to Karp for simplicity's sake and set him free to pursue his dreams.

"Meanwhile, Yakov burned with a desire for revenge, fighting first with the Germans against the Russians when World War I broke out; then when the Bolsheviks rebelled, he signed on to fight against the forces of Czar Nicholas. It wasn't so much that he believed in socialism, he just wanted to kill Cossacks. He met Lena, another revolutionary, who in 1918 bore him a son, Vladimir, who you see standing before you now.

"Unfortunately, my mother did not survive the Revolution and was killed outside of Yekaterinburg. An even more embittered Yakov fought on heroically, received the Red Star-the Soviet equivalent of the U.S. Medal of Honor-and was promoted to colonel, both relatively rare occurrences for a Jew, even in Lenin's new world order."

Vladimir took a seat as he continued his story about how he'd joined the Red Army, too, and fought at Stalingrad against the Germans in 1940. "I met a beautiful woman, Katrina, who also delivered to me a son, Yvgeny here. But I was captured on the front a year later and sent to a slave labor camp. The war ended, but those of us who survived the camps, we learned we were considered traitors in our Mother Country and I was not allowed back in, or to send for my wife and son, who believed me to be dead."

So he had joined the masses of displaced people wandering Europe at the end of the war. The fact that he was also Jewish did not help. "But I got a job working for the Americans as an interpreter-it seems that me and my great-great-niece Lucy share a gift for languages. Through them, I was able to contact my Uncle Yusef who sponsored my entry into this country. I, too, arrived like so many before me and waited here-frightened, not knowing what to expect."

With the help of Yvgeny, the old man rose to his feet and began to walk to the far end of the hall. "I have walked this path many times since," he said. "But that is the one I will remember." They reached the end of the hall. "Because at the bottom of these stairs there is a smaller room, called the 'kissing post,' due to the fact that this is where families were reunited after their long trips. Waiting for me was your grandfather, Yusef. And waiting for you now is someone you want to meet."

"Why all of this?" Karp asked.

"Because this man you seek, if he goes with you tonight, he could very well lose the thing those of us who have immigrated here treasure the most…freedom," he said. "You spend your life putting bad men in prison, taking their freedom, and that is as it should be. But I wanted you to understand the sacrifice this man is making tonight."

Vladimir looked at his son. "At first, my son did not want to assist with this, though he is not as hard as he sometimes gives the impression. You may recall that it was a man with a Russian accent who told your reporter friend Ariadne Stupenagel about a certain meeting taking place at the Sagamore Hotel."

Karp glanced at Vladimir, who nodded his head slightly. "This was mostly a trade-off for Marlene's efforts to assist his half-brother, Alexis Michalik. But in the process he has learned a thing or two about the better attributes of the American justice system, which may not always be perfect, but in the end, it tends to balance itself out…thanks in large part to people like his cousin. So when it came time to talk to this man you seek about your needs at this trial to keep those monsters from profiting by what they did to that poor woman, you had an ally."

The old man led the way down the stairs. "But do not forget the efforts some people make to secure their freedom…even if they are not always the best of citizens. Isn't that right, Igor Kaminsky?"

A young, one-armed man stepped from the shadows. "I am ready to go with you, Mr. Karp," he said. "I ask only one thing before I am deported."

"What's that?" Karp said, wondering what deal he might have to strike.

"That I am allowed to testify against the man who murdered my brother. Jayshon Sykes."

Karp held out his hand. "You can count on it," he said as they shook.

The appearance of Igor Kaminsky didn't work out quite in the manner Karp had envisioned. Villalobos had cracked, as he hoped, and started blubbering about how "Sykes and his gang, the Bloods, forced me to confess. They were the ones who attacked the woman and raped her. I raped her after they were through."

Once again, the courtroom had turned into a circus of reporters rushing for the door and shouting questions as Klinger banged away helplessly with her gavel. Kaminsky stood and pointed at Sykes, shouting, "That's the bastard who killed my brother Ivan. I demand revenge!"

Sykes seized the moment to strike the distracted bailiff and take his gun. He turned and fired first at Villalobos, the bullet striking him between the eyes and spraying Judge Klinger with blood and brain. He next turned the gun toward Karp but was bumped by a panicked Hugh Louis, and the bullet instead struck the Times reporter Harriman in the stomach.

Stunned by the pandemonium of his own making, Karp stood still as Sykes re-aimed to shoot him. He was pulling the trigger when a bullet spun him around, knocking the weapon from his hand. He looked up and into the eyes of the shooter, Liz Tyler.

Tyler had secreted the gun in her purse that morning. The police officers who escorted her past the lines at the security screening had not even considered checking to see if she had a weapon. She'd intended to kill Sykes and then herself.

"Fuck you," Sykes screamed at her. "You shot me, you dumb…" He never finished the sentence as the next bullet caught him in the mouth and exited out the back of his skull.

Before the monster of her nightmares hit the floor, Tyler pumped two more rounds into his chest. "Liar," she said, and dropped the gun.

An hour later, Karp sat in the nearly empty courtroom still trying to sort it all out. Only Clay Fulton remained, mostly to keep him company. His thoughts were interrupted by someone behind him clearing her throat. He looked over his shoulder and saw Verene Fischer, the judge's clerk.

"How's Klinger?" he asked, not that he cared; she was part of the whole corrupt mess.

"They took her to the hospital and gave her a shot to calm her down, and the trial, what's left of it, has been postponed until the day after tomorrow."

"Okay, thanks," Karp said. He waited for the young woman to leave, but she remained standing behind him as if trying to decide what to do next.

"Yes? Is there something else?"

Fischer nodded. "Yes, there is." She handed him an envelope. "I think you've been trying to find what's inside," she said.

Karp opened it and pulled out a letter. Dated and stamped as received by the Kings County DAO was the letter from Kaminsky to Breman. He looked up at Fischer.

"Thank you," he said. "It took a lot of guts to give me this."

"You'll find the real letter in Judge Klinger's safe, if you can get a subpoena for it." The young woman turned to go.

"Wait, can I ask you why you're giving this to me now?" he said.

Fischer shrugged. "I guess I got tired of hiding."

"Hiding?"

"Yes," she said. "You see, Verene Fischer is not my real name. I changed my name ten years ago. My real name is Hannah Little."

Two days later, Marlene was getting ready to go to court to watch her husband's "grand finale," as he put it, though he wouldn't discuss the details. She was almost out the door when the telephone rang. Sighing, she picked it up.

"Marlene, oh, God, Marlene," her father sobbed.

"What is it this time, Dad?" she said. "Is she missing again?"

"No, Marlene," he cried, and began to sob and wouldn't speak.

Alarmed, Marlene shouted. "Dad, pull yourself together. What's happened? Is Mom all right?"

"No," he said in a voice that was almost a whine. "She's dead. I woke up this morning and she wasn't breathing. Oh, Marlene, please, come help me."

"Dad, are you sure?"

"Yes, oh, yes, her eyes are open, but she isn't breathing and she's…she's cold, Marlene."

"Dad, I'm on my way," she said. "It will be okay. Just go down to the living room and sit down."

Marlene arrived at her parents' home in record time. She rushed into the house and up to her parents' bedroom with her father trailing behind.

"What am I going to do? What am I going to do?" he wailed.

Marlene stopped in the doorway when she saw her mother and then walked over slowly. Concetta Ciampi lay in the bed, her brown eyes fixed on the crucifix above the bed but no longer seeing it.

Marlene felt for a pulse, knowing there would be none. She was going to close her mother's eyelids when she noticed something and bent closer. Hardly noticeable, the small blood vessels in the eyes had ruptured. A sign of asphyxiation. She then noticed a crumpled pillow next to her mother's head. On one side there was a smeared lipstick stain, the same color her mother was wearing, and a damp spot.

"Oh, Marlene," her father cried. "What are we going to do?"

Marlene blinked back the tears, removed the pillowcase from the pillow, and closed her mother's eyelids. "I'm going to take you to my home, Pops," she said. "Then I'm going to come back and take care of Momma."

Karp looked at his watch and then at the back of the courtroom. He'd hoped Marlene would show but it was time to get the ball rolling.

That morning he'd met with Hugh Louis in his office. Louis had begun by blustering that the "mayhem" of two days ago didn't change the fact that his clients were still suing the city. "I'll get a new jury…we'll do it all over again…unless you want to settle this now."

"Shut up, Louis," Karp snarled. "And let me tell you how this is going to go down." He pulled out the Kaminsky letter and shoved it in Louis's face. "You're about to be indicted, but if you want to save your fat ass a few years in the big house, here's the deal."

An hour later, Karp was sitting in the courtroom wishing Marlene would show up when Klinger entered. She looked at the empty plaintiffs' table and demanded to know what was going on.

Karp, who had not bothered to rise, held a finger up-a sign for the judge to hold on for a minute.

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Karp," she sputtered. "Since when do you tell this court what to do."

"Hold on a moment, your honor, I'm waiting for some paperwork before we can begin," he said. "Ah, here it is now."

Harry Kipman rushed into the room flanked by U.S. Marshals and NYPD police officers. "Here you go, boss," he said, handing Karp two documents. "Everything went like clockwork."

Karp quickly looked over the paperwork and smiled as he rose to his feet. "Your honor, I have two applications," he said. "The first is that the attorney for the plaintiffs, Hugh Louis, has filed a motion to dismiss the case. I might add that Mr. Louis is now under indictment."

Klinger swallowed hard and nodded. "Very well," she said, her voice trembling, "case dismissed." She got up to leave.

"Your honor, I said I had two applications," Karp replied. The judge turned slowly to face him. "The second application is that you're under arrest."

"This is outrageous…on what grounds?"

"We'll start with obstruction of justice. Based on the grand jury testimony from Verene Fischer, also known as Hannah Little, and Hugh Louis. Kristine Breman-who was arrested in her office earlier this morning-and you have been indicted by the grand jury down the street in the Criminal Courts building. The U.S. Marshals are present to take you into custody and hand you over to the NYPD."

"I want a lawyer," the judge said.

"You better get a good one," he replied as the marshals rushed past.