No Lesser Plea

Chapter 12

“Mister Bloom, please. Chip Wharton here. Thank you. Sandy? I’ve got some good news for you. The old man is definitely going to run. Of course I’m sure. Yeah, Conlin must have gone through the roof. No, Sandy, I can assure you, there’s absolutely no possibility that he’ll survive until the end of this next term. If I had any doubts about that, I wouldn’t have urged you not to run, and I wouldn’t have pushed him to run. No, Conlin won’t do a thing, I guarantee, he’ll be out of here in a month. Look, you just work on the governor and his people and I’ll nail down things around here. Karp? Don’t make me laugh! He’s a nobody, a Boy Scout. Yeah, it’s ironic alright. Yeah, it might be a nice gesture if you called Phil and offered him your warm support. Thanks, Sandy. And, Sandy? Just sit tight, I’ll be in touch.”

“Susan, it’s me. I just wanted to call you and let you know. Remember I told you about the primary and what I was doing? Yeah, well, I’m sitting here in the Hilton, election headquarters, it’s a madhouse. I think we’re going to win big, twenty-five, thirty points. Well, yeah, it’s no big surprise, but still … he probably wouldn’t have run it if wasn’t for me and the rest of the gang in the office, so I guess I feel personally responsible, you know? Susan, it was incredible, I mean just about every attorney in the office, the secretaries, the whole staff practically, out on the street, getting signatures for the petition, and then getting the election committee set up, then back on the streets, putting up posters, talking to groups. I still can’t believe it-Garrahy let me run the whole thing. God, I’ve got so much to tell you.

“Anyway, I’ve been running off my feet the past three weeks and it looks like we did it, and, well, the reason I called is, I thought I’d take a couple of weeks off and fly out, and, I thought we could go up the coast to Monterey and stay at that place on the beach we used to go to. You don’t? Why not? I don’t understand, what kind of plans? You’re what? What do you mean you’re seeing somebody? What the fuck does that mean? A relationship! You mean you’re fucking somebody! You’re goddam right I wouldn’t understand.

“Listen, this is bullshit, Susan. I’m flying out there tonight … don’t tell me you’re leaving, uh-uh, baby, we’re going to have this right out, you, me and your bozo, whoever he is. What? It’s not a he? What are you, kidding me? Susan, this is sick. I can’t believe I’m hearing this. OK, OK, I’ll listen, go ahead, tell me.

“Great, Susan, what can I say? You told your parents? No, why should I? No, I realize you don’t want to hurt me, it just takes a little getting used to, you know? No, I’m fine, really. Listen, I got to do some thinking, so, ah, I’ll see you, whenever, right? Right. Good-bye, Susan.”

Karp hung up the pay phone. He walked down the hallway in a daze and went into the Hilton Hotel ballroom that served as primary-night headquarters for the Garrahy campaign. People were clapping and cheering, which probably meant that Vierick had conceded, which meant Garrahy had the Democratic nomination, which meant that unless he was found naked in the Bryant Park public toilet with a thirteen-year-old Republican male prostitute, he had another term as DA locked up.

People surrounded Karp and clapped him on the back and said nice things. An elderly man was pumping his hand; vaguely Karp recognized him as Garrahy’s campaign manager. Karp felt a smile appear on his face spontaneously, like the twitching of a dead frog’s leg or the rictus of recent death. The cheering increased. Garrahy had entered the room. The old man stood before a microphone and made a short speech. Karp couldn’t focus his mind on the words. He felt as if his head was about to explode. He couldn’t catch his breath. Something slammed into his shoulder, rocking him. He turned toward the blow and saw Guma, pop-eyed, sweating, wearing a huge tricorn hat made of a Garrahy poster. The picture of Garrahy contrasted weirdly with the actual face below it, which looked depraved.

“Butchie baby! We did it! L’chaim!” He took a deep drink from a plastic cup full of Scotch and ice. “Hey, where’s your drink. Hey, get a drink for my man here!” A plastic cup was pressed into Karp’s hand.

Karp said, “Guma, my wife is a lesbian.”

“No shit? Will she let you watch?”

“Guma! I’m not kidding. This is serious.”

“What serious, it’s California. OK, it’s serious. Your wife is a dyke. My wife is an asshole. We both got problems. Luckily our problems are easily solved by two easily available items, booze, one, and two, pussy.”

“Goom, be serious! What am I gonna do?”

Guma looked at him hard and popped him in the chest with a stubby finger. “Serious? What’re you talkin’ about? I’m serious. Booze is real. Pussy is real. You’re in fuckin’ Oz, in comparison. Wise up, Butch! Start living, for Chrissake. Now listen! What you need is to get drunk and laid, which is going to be easy where we’re going, because you are the man of the hour, and the bitches’ll be crawling all over you. I’m going to get my car from the garage here and I’ll meet you on the Sixth Avenue side in ten minutes. It’s bring your own, so hit the joint across the street and pick something up. See you.”

Guma trotted off. People were leaving the ballroom now and Karp drifted with them. He knew he was losing his mind. My life is falling apart, he thought, and I’m blabbing the intimate details of my married life to Ray Guma, drunk, wearing a funny hat. He walked through the crowded lobby, out into the summer night. The air was soft, and smelled of roasted peanuts for some reason, the way air in New York will often carry odd and unexplained smells. In the food market he bought a six-pack of Schaeffer’s; that amount of beer represented approximately one half of his annual intake of alcohol.

“What did you get, a whole six-pack?” asked Guma, when Karp slid into the front seat of his car outside the Hilton. Guma had half a case of Teacher’s in the trunk. “Jesus, Karp, we’re talking oblivion here. What’s wrong with you?”

“Come on, Goom, you know I can’t stand the taste.”

“Who can? Schmuck! You drink it in spite of the taste.”

“Fine, fine, stop hocking me!” snarled Karp. Then, after a while: “Where’re you driving? What’s this party we’re going to?”

“You’re joking! This is not just a party. This is a classic, guaranteed. We’re having a Dance at the Gym.”

“Oh,” said Karp glumly, and thought about oblivion, heretofore a scarce commodity in his life, but looking better.

The Gym was the one good part of one of Conrad Wharton’s worst ideas. For decades one wing of the fourth floor of 1 °Centre Street, where the Felony Trial Bureau was quartered, had been divided into tiny bathroom-sized offices for the ADAs. For most of them, coming from the squad bays of Criminal Court, it was their first real office-with-a-door, and prized accordingly.

But Wharton had read something about the latest thing in efficiency being open space plans with individual “work-stations,” divided by colorful foam partitions. He therefore ordered the razing of the entire area and the replacement of the cozy old offices with an immense echoing space filled with flimsy tin furniture and cloth-covered panels in earth tones and primary colors. As a functional office it was a disaster, since Wharton had not thought it necessary to buy the sound baffles and special flooring that prevent such offices from sounding like what they resemble-cheap day-care centers for the retarded.

On the other hand, the “modules” were easily shifted. Half an hour’s work produced an open hall with eight big windows that would easily hold 200 people-presto, the Gym.

When Guma and Karp arrived there were only about a dozen people in the room, mostly secretaries and clerks arranging platters of food on desks covered with paper tablecloths. The secretaries supplied the food, the professional staff supplied the drink. The overhead lights had been doused and the room was lit by candles stuck in ashtrays and cardboard coffee cups. Guma deposited his half case of Scotch and Karp his six-pack on the pair of desks designated as the bar. Jugs of wine were cooling in ice-filled trash baskets. Towers of paper cups were arranged around them.

A short, red-haired, pug-nosed man was standing at one end of the “bar,” pouring pineapple juice from a can into a huge galvanized washtub, the type used to bathe the heroine by candlelight in western movies.

“Denny! How they hanging, my friend?” said Guma.

“Not so bad, Goom. A couple more cans and this will be ready to taste.”

“What is it? Oh, hey Butch, you know Denny Maher, from the M.E.’s office?”

“Yeah, sure, hi.”

Maher cracked another can and poured it into the foaming, creamy mixture. “Butch, you look like shit. I believe you are low on potassium, the inevitable result of excessive masturbation. Therefore, as your personal physician I will insist that you swallow at least twelve ounces of this here punch.” Maher finished pouring and filled a paper cup from the tub. Karp eyed it suspiciously.

“What’s in it?”

“Nothing but the purest tropical ingredients. It’s a piña colada, or pina colitis, as we used to call it in medical school. C’mon, taste it.”

Karp took a swallow. The drink was sweet and icy. “Hey, it’s all right. Is it spiked?”

Maher and Guma exchanged glances. “Spiked? No, not really, just enough to prevent bacterial contamination. I mean, I wouldn’t want any of the guests to come down with salmonella.”

“Hey Butch, come over here and help me with the meat.”

Hrcany, dressed in a Hawaiian shirt and cutoffs, was tending half a dozen smoldering hibachis set up on the window ledges. He was taking shish kebabs out of a cooler and placing them on the grills. Karp took his drink and walked over, glad of something to do to get his mind off his troubles.

Maher stirred his tub and gestured in Karp’s direction.

“Spiked? Is he kidding, or what?”

“Ah, Karp’s OK, he’s just a little new to physical depravity. What did you put in it anyway?”

“Oh, the usual twelve pints of Olde Medical Examiner.” Maher reached under the desk and held up a squat bottle with a black and silver label. The label said “Ethyl Alcohol-C2H40H-(Absolute).”

“Is that all?” asked Guma. “No exotic aphrodisiacs?”

“Is that all, he asks! Listen, friend of mine, by the time the bottom of this old tub sees the light of day there won’t be a functional higher brain in this room. The lowest animal reflexes will rule all.”

Guma laughed. “You’re an evil man, Maher, and I love you for it. But isn’t this a violation of your Hippocratic oath?”

“Oh, that. It’s sad, but sometimes we physicians must appear to cause pain in order to work our miracles of healing.” He poured a cup of punch and offered it to Guma. “No thanks, I’ll stick to Scotch, Denny.”

“You’re a fool. That stuff’ll kill you. I speak as your personal physician.” He took a deep drink himself. “Ahh … healthful and refreshing!”

“Better you than me, pal. Oh, and Denny, we’re trying to get Butch to loosen up. Why don’t you see that his cup stays full, hey?”

“A duty and a pleasure,” said Denny Maher.

For the next hour Karp cooked fifty pounds of skewered beef. It was a warm, humid night and the grills were blazing hot. He took off his jacket, then his tie. He unbuttoned his shirt and rolled up his sleeves. Then he wrapped his tie around his forehead. Every so often somebody would appear at his side with a platter and he would load it with smoking shish kebabs and, in turn, receive a tall, cool cup of piña colada, which he gulped down.

Now the room was jammed with people. Somebody had brought a ghetto blaster, which was blasting away, and dancers were leaping in the candlelight. When the meat ran out, Karp staggered toward the music. Guma was up on a desk doing the dirty boogie with Proud Mary, a 300-pound property clerk with chocolate skin and blonde hair. He had removed his shirt, shoes, and socks and rolled up his trouser legs. He was wearing a green cellophane Hawaiian skirt and Proud Mary’s brassiere, stuffed with paper napkins. Karp watched hypnotized as Proud Mary’s unrestrained size 46s struggled for freedom against her dress. She was laughing, a high-pitched, “hee-yuh-yuh-yuh … HEE-yuh-yuh-yuh” like the artificial fat lady in front of a Coney Island fun house.

“Butch! Man of the hour! C’mon dance!” Marlene Ciampi grabbed his hand and pulled him onto the dance floor. “Jesus, Butch, you look like you just finished the graveyard shift at a coal mine. What you been doing?”

Karp rocked back and forth on rubbery legs. He had stopped feeling his face a long time ago. “Cooking … meat,” he said. He tried to think about why he was sad, but couldn’t quite recall the reason. It was hard enough to keep Marlene’s face, her flying black hair, in focus, and to remain upright. Grace Slick sang, her voice like copper pennies on the tongue: “When the truth is shown, to be just LIES, and all the joy within you DIES, don’t you WANT somebody to love, don’t you NEED somebody to love, wouldn’t you LOVE somebody to love, you better FIND somebody to LUH-UH-UV!”

Karp thought this made good sense. He made a clumsy grab for Marlene and squeezed her to his breast.

“Oooof! Hey, Karp, take it easy! This is so sudden! God, Karp, what a sweathog! Yecch!” She spun away and danced around him. He stumbled after her through the whirling couples, like King Kong stalking the blonde.

“May I have this dance?”

Marlene found herself dancing with V.T. Newbury, looking elegant in a white dinner jacket.

“V.T.! Where you been?” She fingered his lapel. “What’s with the getup? Trying to make the peasants feel bad?”

“Only a true peasant could have made a remark like that, my dear. No, actually, I’m coming from a wedding reception. My cousin Phootie.”

“Phootie? Be real, V.T. Nobody calls themself Phootie.”

“One does, if one is rich enough. Actually, there’s a charming family story about how she got that name, but I’m pledged to reveal it only to Episcopalians. Good Christ! What’s wrong with Karp?”

Karp’s head and shoulders could be seen over the crowd. His jaw was slack and he had a curiously intent expression on his face, the kind imbeciles wear when they are trying to remember how to tie their shoes.

“I don’t know,” said Marlene. “I think he’s drunk.”

“Karp? Drunk? Impossible. Where are the networks, the cameras?”

“No, he’s whacked out, V.T. Maybe we should get him to sit down.”

“No that’s absolutely the wrong thing to do. Keep him on his feet and working, that’s the answer. Speaking of which, I have just the job. Come on!”

The two of them shoved through the dancers to Karp and led him out of the Gym.

“V.T., where are we going?” Marlene asked. Karp was docile and softly humming to himself.

“Just down the hall to the men’s room.”

“What! V.T., what the …”

“Now, Champ, you know you’ve been longing for this opportunity. It’s your ultimate rite of passage into the closely guarded world of male supremacy. Ah, here we are.”

V.T. opened the men’s room door with his foot and shouldered Karp in. Marlene followed, cursing fluently.

Roland Hrcany and Denny Maher were standing in the corner by the towel dispensers, looking speculatively at what first appeared to be a pile of clothes.

“Hi guys,” said Hrcany cheerfully. “We’re just waiting for the ambulance. Denny called Jerry Lipsky at Bellevue and he’s sending one over. The problem is, it probably isn’t a good idea to have it come right up to One Hundred Centre, so we’re going to have to drag him a couple of blocks away and make the pickup there.”

“I’m going to start screaming if somebody doesn’t tell me what’s going on,” said Marlene, her voice rising threateningly.

“Calm down, Champ,” said Hrcany. “Look at this.” He turned the pile of clothes over to reveal a face like a spilled quart of cottage cheese (large curd) attached to a corpulent, three-piece-suited body.

“Hey, it’s Sheldon the Shit. Far out! Is he dead?”

“No such luck, dear,” replied Maher. “My preliminary analysis shows that Sheldon, who was, by the bye, uninvited to our party, has overindulged in my famous punch.”

“Yeah,” said Hrcany, “I was in here taking a leak, the door crashes open and Sheldon comes in, opens a booth, gets down on his knees to puke, and passes out in the bowl. I had to save him from drowning.”

Marlene said, “And here I thought you just looked like a lifeguard. Did you give mouth-to-mouth?”

Hrcany made a face. “Give me a break! But then it occurred to me that here was a God-given opportunity to help Sheldon out, kind of show him the error of his ways. And of course pay the asshole back for all the times he’s left us holding the bag. Denny, for your information, Sheldon Ehrengard is generally considered the chief prick lawyer in this office …”

“No, Wharton is,” said Marlene.

“I don’t consider Wharton a lawyer,” continued Hrcany, “but anyway, Debra Tiel, down in the Complaint Room, calls him the laziest white man in North America. Hey, Butch, you remember the night in the Complaint Room, when he didn’t show up and we got bombed? Butch?”

Karp was swaying gently back and forth like a poplar in a gale. “What’s wrong with Karp? We need him for this plan.”

Maher peered into Karp’s glassy eyes. “Ah, he’s all right. It’s merely the ill effects of years of clean living and regular exercise. The man can hardly drink at all.”

“Wait a minute,” said Marlene, “what’s Butch got to do with this?”

“Beast of burden, dear,” said Maher. “And I’m sure that were he in his right mind he’d be glad to cooperate. As you can see, Sheldon is a considerable tub of lard.”

“Hey guys, the ambulance is here, over on White and Baxter. Holy shit? What are you doing here, Ciampi?”

Guma had burst in, still in his hula outfit, but with a suit jacket thrown over his shoulders in the manner of Italian movie directors. The debonair effect was marred by the magenta bra peeking out from between his coat lapels.

“What am I doing here? You rat! You promised you were going to teach me to pee standing up. Hey, nice set of jugs, Goom. You’ll blow them away at Brighton Beach this summer.”

“Ciampi, one of these days … ah shit, let’s get him out of here.”

In the manner of an animal trainer, Hrcany coaxed Karp into picking up Ehrengard’s elephantine legs. The other four men arranged themselves around the massive form, and with Marlene in the lead as door-opener they marched out of the building and into the night, giggling and humming the Dead March. What in any other city would have been a remarkable procession drew hardly a glance on the still-crowded streets of Chinatown. The ways of the round-eyed barbarians are inscrutable.

Once at their destination, the City Morgue, they removed Ehrengard’s clothes and laid him on a stainless steel autopsy table. It was chilly in the big room, but Guma had-with his usual foresight-brought along a full bottle of Teacher’s, which passed among them until it was empty.

“Great party, Denny,” said V.T. “Nice place. I like the lighting.” He gestured to the half dozen real corpses lying on tables for next morning’s scalpels. “I like your friends, too. They’re a laid-back bunch.”

Maher grinned and pulled a sheet over Ehrengard’s body, and tied a toe-tag to his big toe. “Thank you, Newbury. Now, who will say a few holy words over the dear departed?”

“I’ll do it,” said V.T. “Dearly beloved …”

“No, Jewish, Jewish,” said Hrcany. “Let Butch do it. Butch, make this kosher.”

“Naw, Karp can’t do it,” Guma said, “he’s so fucking assimilated they revoked his bar mitzvah. He had his foreskin surgically reattached. Besides he’s too pissed.”

“Sure he can do it.” Hrcany shook Karp gently. “Butchie. Wake up. Say something Jewish so we can get out of here.”

“Joosh?” said Karp.

“Yeah, say the Ten Commandments.”

“Manments?”

“C’mon Butch, say the first commandment, c’mon think! Thou shalt … thou shalt …”

“Never …”

“That’s right, good, never what?”

“Never … never … ah … never pay retail.”

“A-men! Ah rest mah case. Let’s go. Night-night, Sheldon.”

The party was still humming when they got back. The punch was nearly gone, and two hundred people were poised on the delicate boundary between total abandon and utter psychophysical collapse. But this was not lively enough for the Mad Dog of Centre Street. Guma had no difficulty in talking Proud Mary out of the key to the evidence locker. Soon the crowd had liberated a pile of films confiscated during the great Pornography Campaign. Someone was thoughtful enough to have been caught stealing a 16 mm. projector, which was dragged out and set up.

Guma stood on a chair and shouted out the titles: “Beach Boys in Bondage? Wrong crowd. No? You want it? OK, second feature, Cheerleaders in Chains, must see! OK, here it is! A Girl and Her Donkey! I’m dying! Hunk! Roll this one first. Where’s the fucking popcorn! I got to have buttered popcorn!”

“Marlene,” said V.T. as the film unfolded, “help me out. Do you think this film has any redeeming social value? More to the point, is she getting off with the donkey, or is it just clever acting?”

“Gee, V.T., why ask me, I’m a Sacred Heart girl. But off-hand, I’d say yeah, there was a close personal relationship.” Marlene became aware of a heavy pressure on her shoulder. The tower of sodden flesh that was Butch Karp was about to collapse onto her.

“Hey, Butch, wake up! Damn, V.T., help me here!”

The two of them managed to get Karp settled in a large swivel chair.

“Drink,” said Karp, his expression witless and good-natured, like that of the donkey performing on the screen.

“Sorry, baby, you’ve had enough. V.T. what are we going to do with this man?”

“Oh, we’ll think of something. We usually do … what the hell!”

“ALL RIGHT YOU PERVERTS, FREEZE! THIS IS A RAID!”

A man in a long trench coat with a snap-brim fedora pulled over his eyes was standing in the projector beam, pointing a shotgun at the onlookers. The room froze for an instant, the only sound the whirring of the projector and the boom of music from the tape player. Then someone laughed hysterically: the front of the man’s trench coat was covered with the projection of a dripping genital close-up. Then the gunman whipped off his hat and flung open his trench coat.

“Guma, you asshole. Get out of that cunt!” Hrcany shouted. Boos, catcalls, and bits of debris flew through the flickering light. “Guma! Where’d you get the gun?” somebody yelled.

“The evidence locker. There’s goddam everything there. Here take this! It’s COPS AND ROBBERS TIME!” Guma pulled pistol after pistol out of his coat pockets and flung them into the crowd. The average mental age of the assemblage was now six and dropping fast. Distinguished attorneys and grave civil servants crouched behind desks and crawled on their bellies through potato salad, shouting POW-POW! CHHSS! CHHSS! YOU DEAD, MUTHAFUCKA! at one another.

Guests began dropping to the floor, and not from the imaginary bullets. The bottom of Denny Maher’s washtub was finally shining in the sputtering candlelight. Stouter physiques dragged the wounded away from the scene; toward home in some cases, in others toward offices known to have long leather couches.

Around 3:00 A.M., a group of about twenty hard cases were watching the last few minutes of “Babes in Toyland,” an item that featured two teenaged girls who were being forced by a mad scientist to submit to an increasingly elaborate collection of motor-driven sexual appliances. The girls had thoughtfully removed their pubic hair to provide the last iota of lubricity.

“I can’t stand any more of this,” said Marlene Ciampi, yawning. “I’m not going to think about sex for a year. Goddam, look at that!”

“Yeah,” said V.T., “it looks like a clam eating a Buick.”

“CLAMS!” shouted Guma. “Let’s go for clams! Larrupa’s All-Nite Clam House in Sheepshead. Clams! Clams!”

Everyone started chanting, “Clams! Clams! Clams!” as they rose from the wreckage and started for the exit. “Pick up the guns!” yelled Hrcany, “and the films!”

The porno films and the weapons were dumped into a trash can and thrown into the evidence locker. Guma led the chanting procession down the hallway: “Guns! Clams! Guns! Clams!” He had removed his grass skirt and now wore Proud Mary’s bra around his neck in place of a necktie. Somebody hoisted the tape player. Jim Morrison was asking his baby to light his fire, at 110 decibels.

“Hey, wait!” Marlene shouted. “What about Karp? Hey, guys! Wait, he’s out cold. Don’t leave!”

She shook Karp as hard as a smallish woman can shake a 210-pound man. No reaction. The sound of the party faded away.

“Ah, shit!” said Marlene. She was exhausted and not a little drunk herself, having been sucking white wine all evening, not to mention the Scotch in the morgue. But she felt unable to leave Karp helpless in the middle of the Gym.

Looking about for a solution, she spotted Maher’s washtub. It held about two inches of icy water-the remains of the fifty-pound block that had cooled the punch-in which floated some paper cups and a pair of beige lace panties. She removed this debris, emptied a trash can, and tilted the washtub to fill the can with about a gallon of ice water.

This she poured over Karp’s head.

Karp sat upright and made a sound like a breaching fur seal.

“Phooooo-ahhh! ‘sall right! ‘sall right! I’m fine,” he said looking about wildly. Seeing Marlene, he smiled and said “Hi, Champ. Les go t’the Garn.”

“C’mon Butch, we got to get out of here. Everybody’s gone.”

She helped Karp to his feet, and steadied his sway, like a flying buttress. “OK, Butch, one step at a time, slow and steady.”

They left the wreckage behind, descended in the elevator, and staggered drunkenly, clutching one another, into Foley Square.

“Christ, Butch, where the hell are we going to find a cab? Shit, I don’t even know where you live.”

“Wanna go t’ Manson Squa’ Garn. Play basabaw,” said Karp.

“Karp, you’re looney. Just sit there, willya, and I’ll go get us a cab. Jesus, I’m going to have to flash tit to get anybody to stop at three-fucking-thirty.”

But as she turned to walk up toward Broadway, Karp suddenly leaped to his feet and went into a basketball crouch. He took the long throw from Frazier, hit the pivot and raced down court on the fast break.

“Karp! Wait! Oh, goddam it! Karp, stop!” Marlene took off after the weaving figure. Karp was naturally much faster than Marlene, but of course he had to keep the ball away from five Celtics, which slowed him down somewhat. On the other side of Foley Square Park he saw De Busschere open and whipped a screen pass over to him and then raced for the boards, which happened to be in the middle of Lafayette Street. He was just getting into good position again when somebody blindsided him with a terrific body check. Not for nothing had Marlene Ciampi spent five straight seasons as the only girl ever to make the first team on the dreaded 112th Street Rangers, the undisputed roller-hockey champions of Ozone Park. He went down on the cool pavement a few feet from the double yellow line.

“Hey, foul,” he called weakly. He didn’t feel so good now. His knee hurt. The game seemed to have passed him by. Where were the other Knicks? Where was the crowd? There was only a woman yelling not very nice language at him.

“Champ! Wha’ you doin’ here? Where’s a game?”

“Game, my ass! Get up, Karp!”

He got up and allowed himself to be led to the curb.

“Oh, thank you God, here’s a cab. Karp, don’t move!”

There was an empty cab with its dome light on in front of an all-night diner on the far side of Lafayette Street. As Marlene approached it, the cabbie came out of the joint, picking his teeth. He was a gap-toothed man with a fringe of graying hair, not much taller than Marlene, but twice as big around.

Marlene opened the rear door and sat in the backseat.

“I’m off duty, lady.”

“Your sign’s not on.”

“I was just gonna. C’mon lady, out. I gotta get home.”

“No way. I’m in the cab and the law says you have to take me.”

The cabbie sighed. “Where you goin’, huh? Canarsie, right?”

“Uh … I don’t know. I mean, I’m taking my friend home.”

“What friend?”

At that moment Karp wandered up. The cabbie saw a swaying giant in a soaked and filthy shirt open to the waist, with a striped necktie wrapped around his head.

“THIS is your friend? No way, lady, this guy’s drunk. No way in hell I’m takin’ him nowhere. Now, c’mon, get out of the cab.”

“Butch, get in the cab!”

“We wanna go t’ Manson Squa’ Garn,” said Karp brightly.

“I’m leavin’,” said the cabbie. “Go play games with somebody else.”

At this, Marlene leaped from the cab, grabbed Karp by the belt and collar and, before the startled driver could make a move, jackknifed Karp face down across the backseat. She then got in herself, sat on Karp’s backside, pulled his legs in so that his shoes pointed to the sky, and slammed the door.

“Look buddy,” she said to the cabbie, “I don’t want any trouble, but it’s been a long day for me too. Take us home and it’s twenty bucks over the meter. But, I’ll tell you this. I work for the DA, Homicide Bureau. Screw with me and I’ll have two blue-and-whites following you around for the rest of your life.”

“Hey, wait a second, I got my rights, huh? I got rights!”

Karp said, into the seat cushion, “You have the ri’ to remain silen’. You have the ri’ t’ have a lawyer presen’ durn quesering. If you cannot afrd a lawyer you are a cheap l’il punk.”

“Ah, crap, lady, what if he pukes in my cab-it’s the end of the goddam shift!”

“If he pukes,” said Marlene in a voice that rose into an alto shriek, “I will personally wipe up every single motherfucking drop-with my UNDERPANTS! NOW DRIVE!”

“Where to, lady?”

Marlene had to pull Karp’s wallet out of his hip pocket and read his address to the cabbie.

When they reached Karp’s place, Marlene opened the door with Karp’s keys. He stood in the middle of his bedroom for about ten seconds, then stumbled to the bathroom, got on his knees, and threw up everything he had eaten since October 1956, or so it seemed. He rinsed out his mouth, walked to the side of the bed, and fell straight across it, bouncing twice. He was snoring before the second bounce.

Marlene watched him for a moment. She thought, if I could just rest my eyes for a minute, I could get myself together and figure out how I am going to get back to my apartment. She looked around. No chairs, no couch, no rug. She walked over to the bed and eased herself down across its head.

Just five minutes, she thought.

When she opened her eyes again, sunlight was streaming through the closed Venetian blinds in thin, downward-slanting shafts. She looked at her watch: 11:30. She got out of the bed and stood up. After a while her brain caught up with her skull and the room stopped spinning. Karp hadn’t moved a millimeter all night, was still face down, mouth open, gently snoring.

Marlene felt as if her skin were covered with glue. She ran her fingers through her hair, and started when she felt something damp. It was a bit of cole slaw. If I don’t get a shower this minute, she thought, I am going to commit suicide.

She walked into the bathroom and stripped. She let the hot stream of the shower beat the garbage out of her head and off her body. Looking around for soap or shampoo she found only a double cake of Ivory. Ivory? Oh, Karp, you sybaritic devil, you! OK, she thought, so I’ll smell like a dish.

Karp was awakened by the familiar sound of his shower running. The previous evening was nearly a complete blank. He remembered the phone call to his wife (Oh God, that!), the campaign headquarters, going with Guma, cooking shish kebabs-and that was it. Period. He couldn’t remember ever having gotten that smashed on a six-pack of beer. Maybe he was losing his marbles. He couldn’t even remember turning on the shower.

The bathroom air was nearly opaque with steam. Naked now, Karp pulled back the shower curtain on the faucet side and took the heavy spray straight in the face, as was his habit. Then he reached behind him to grope for the soap in its shelf midway up the wall. But instead of the soap, what he grabbed was Marlene Ciampi’s small and pointy breast.

“Hey,” said Marlene, “you could at least say ‘good morning.’ “

He pulled away and spun around. Marlene was standing with hands on her hips, a characteristic pose of hers when fully dressed, and trying to arrange her face into an expression suitable for the occasion. Karp struggled to do the same.

Karp said, “Marlene. Oh.”

Marlene said, “Butch. Oh.”

Simultaneously, their faces fell apart and they began to laugh uncontrollably, a huge, gasping, wracking laughter. Their legs couldn’t hold them. They slid down the soapy walls to the floor of the tub, with the bullets of water streaming down on them.

“God! Karp, stop it, I’m peeing in my pants,” said Marlene, and this struck them as additionally hilarious, and they laughed some more.

After a while their laughing died away, and they looked each other in the eye. Both were a little frightened, which, of course, they saw in each other’s eyes. Because they knew, these two very smart, very verbal people, that the Animal Train was about to leave the station, taking them both to some unknown place which they both hoped was True Love, a hope neither of them would admit for some time, having been taught that it was no longer a regularly scheduled stop.

So without thinking-for once-Karp jumped on the delicious girl in his bathtub, and Marlene opened her arms and her soapy thighs to him, also without a thought in her head and they both, as Marlene would have said, fucked like minks until they were wrinkled, soggy, exhausted, and drunk with happiness.