Resolved

4

"So, did you make your contact?" asked Rashid. "Sure, no problem," said Felix. He'd scored some meth after leaving Lucy and was feeling pretty good. "No prob-bob-lemo. She was eating out of my hand."

"Very good. Our friend contacted us today. I will tell him this when I return the message. He will be pleased. This operation is of great importance to him."

Felix looked at Rashid blankly, but smiling.

"Our friend in prison."

"Oh, yeah. What, he called you?"

"No, of course not. All our communication is through the lawyer Bascomb. The message is to launch the other operation now. Here you will help us."

"The other operation?"

"Yes. Come with me, I will show you."

Felix followed Rashid into the kitchen of the house and down the stairs to the basement. Barring the way was a heavy door closed by a large hasp and a combination padlock. Rashid opened it, holding the lock closely as he dialed so that Felix could not see the combination. When the door was opened, Rashid flipped a light switch and ushered Felix inside, closing the door behind him and throwing a bolt to lock it.

A long hanging fluorescent fixture cast its industrial glare over a substantial cement-walled basement room. Shop tables lined one wall, with pegboards on which hung a variety of tools, and there were racks of cardboard part bins neatly arranged below these. Industrial shelving lined the other walls, stocked with cardboard boxes, cans, and lengths of pipe. There was a pipe-cutting vise on a tripod and a complex-looking electrical meter on the shop table. Rashid picked up a length of three-inch pipe capped on both ends, rusty black except for a small toggle switch emerging from a hole drilled in one of the caps.

"Do you know what this is?" Rashid asked.

Felix looked around the shop and then at the cylinder. What else could it be? "A pipe bomb," he said.

"But sophisticated, a sophisticated bomb," said Rashid. "I will explain. You see this small switch? This is the arming switch. Pushed down, like now, the bomb is harmless. Up? I will show you." Rashid moved to the work bench, laid the bomb gently on it, and picked from one of the bins a J-shaped plastic tube, white, as thick as a ballpoint's barrel. It had a squarish lump on one end from which two wires emerged and another pair coming from the belly of the J. He shook it; a tiny rattle.

"That is a ball bearing in there. When the device is on safe, this electromagnet holds the ball bearing in a little shallow cup. When the arming switch is thrown, the magnet shuts off and the firing circuit turns on. Any movement then knocks the ball out of its cup. It slides down the tube and comes to rest between these two contacts, which connect to the firing circuit. The ball closes the circuit and the bomb goes off. This is for cars, you understand, or lean it against a door where the target will come in. Or leave it in a bag at a shop. It can't be moved, do you see?" He jiggled the little tube again.

Felix saw, and struggled to keep his face neutral and interested. Rashid's pedantic manner was getting on his nerves. He thought about hog-tying Rashid and ramming the bomb up his ass and flicking the switch. He played with the thought for a while as Rashid droned on about the other types of detonating devices he had at hand: radio-controlled, timers, spring detonators for package bombs. And the explosives: homemade RDX, ammonium nitrate, and acetone peroxide.

"The explosives are the hardest to get," Rashid explained. "With the recent events, the authorities are being very cautious. We have enough for small demonstrations, but we are still assembling material for our larger project. Here you will come in."

"Me? How?"

"Fertilizer purchases. Small lots in garden and farm supply stores in the area, not enough at one time to be suspicious. Someone who looks like you, an American, would not be suspected. Despite that their own people bomb very often, the Americans are crazy looking for Arabs. It is very amusing, do you not think?"

"Yeah, I'm laughing my ass. What's your larger project?"

Rashid smiled in that annoying smug way he had. "Need to know, need to know. You will be told at the proper time. Now we are ordered to plant one device. The target is a judge. Evan Horowitz."

"What did he do?"

"He condemned our friend to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, on the testimony of a lying traitor. It is impossible in any case for someone like ibn-Salemeh, an Arab patriot, to get a fair trial in New York with the Jews in control, but I think this action will demonstrate that we are not sheep to be slaughtered at their wish. So, here is what you will do: Horowitz keeps his car in an open lot behind the courthouse. You walk through the lot with several newspapers under your arm. You drop one, you stoop to pick it up."

Rashid retrieved the black pipe bomb. "In another newspaper you have one like this. You slip it out and attach it, under the car. It will have a magnet on it so it will stay. You throw the little switch and walk away. Do you think you can do this?"

"Uh, let me see if I get it," said Felix. "Do I throw the switch before or after I put it on the car?"

"After! After! It is the trembler detonation I showed you. If you throw the switch before…"

"Calm down, Rashid. I was joking, okay?"

Rashid frowned. Was it possible he was being made fun of? "This is not time for joking, Felix. I mean it."

"Sor-reee. So when do I blow the judge?"

"Tomorrow morning. I will give you further instructions then. Now, I have more work to do. You will leave now."

Felix made no move to follow this order, but wandered around the room poking into the various bins.

"Do not touch those things, please! I ask you to leave. Now!"

Felix had found what he was looking for. "Okay, okay, don't get all bent out of shape. I'm going."

He went out of the room. Rashid shut the door and threw the bolt. Felix took a moment to study the combination lock hanging open on its hasp. The sense of confidence and brilliance from the methamphetamine was still strong in him, and the idea that popped into his mind at that moment seemed like a stroke of genius. He left the house and walked with a spring in his step along Broadway to the hardware store he had visited that morning. There he purchased a Master combination lock exactly similar in appearance to the one on the cellar door hasp. He went back to the house and down the basement stairs. The door was still shut, and the lock was still hanging open. He switched locks and crept up the stairs.

When the Spaniards came home, Felix was in the living room watching television. He had been surprised to find that the house had cable, something new since he left for upstate. He was watching MTV with the sound off. He liked watching the girls but thought the music was shit. Carlos picked up the remote and switched the channels rapidly until he found a soccer game. Felix didn't object. He had scored some downers, too, and was working on his mix, just the right combination of prescription drugs for the feeling he wanted, strong and confident, but relaxed, too, so that he wouldn't get into one of his rages. Later maybe, but not now. He had to find the money, find out where the little Arab fuck stashed it. There had to be money. Everyone knew terrorism was a cash business. Then all these fuckers would get theirs.

The little Arab fuck came up from the basement and started jabbering in Arabic to the two Spaniards. They spoke Arabic, too, which didn't make much sense, since they were spics. Maybe part of Spain was Arab now. A lot of things had changed while he'd been in- cable, computers, all this terrorist shit, the weird people on the streets, women in fucking veils, niggers from Africa. He didn't like it, but what could you do? The main thing was the money. Keep calm, get the money, that was the plan. And revenge, that was important, too. That girl.

Rashid went out and drove off in his green Toyota station wagon. Of course, he got to drive a car. Felix waited until the sound of the car had faded. The Spaniards were glued to soccer. He went down to the basement, opened his lock, and went in. The completed bombs were racked neatly in a cardboard box, seven of them, separated by bubble wrap. He took one and adjusted the wrap to mask the loss. He replaced the original lock, went up to his room, and stashed the bomb under his mattress.

"What the hell was that?" said Karp to no one in particular. The sound had been loud and sharp, and seemed close, quite different from the muffled roar that he and everyone else in lower Manhattan had heard on September 11. Karp was in the fifth floor hallway of the courthouse proper. For a moment after the sound, everyone froze and let out an exclamation similar to Karp's, exclamations of astonishment, curses, a few prayers. Then the small crowd moved as one down to the end of the hallway by the elevator banks, to where tall windows gave views of the street. Karp could see nothing except wisps of dark smoke. The word "bomb" was much heard. And "terrorists." This was New York in the zero years of the new century.

Karp crossed through the security door to the DA's side of the building and climbed the three flights to his office floor.

"Did you hear it?" he asked Flynn, the secretary.

She had. She thought it sounded like a bomb, too.

"Murrow!"

Murrow came out of his cubbyhole. "It was a bomb, apparently," he said without being asked. "One of the judges' cars."

"Anyone hurt?"

"Yes, one killed. A court officer, Bedloe. You know, the one who tells you you can't park in the judges' lot. He was moving one of the cars like he does when the lot's jammed and it blew up."

"Christ! Where did you find this out?"

"When I heard the explosion, I called Jerry in the ground-floor snack bar. He always knows what's going on before anyone else. What do you think? More terrorists?"

"Doubtful. I was under the impression that the terror community was into clipping federal judges, not lowly state ones. Do you know whose car it was?"

"A brown Lincoln is all I heard. I could find out."

"Do so. Oh, and Murrow? Did you get anywhere on that other thing? I'm booked in with Jack and Rachman later."

"Yeah, Dr. Hirsch and the lovely Leona. Memo's on your desk."

Karp found that Murrow had done his usual thorough job, a page and a half of pure fact, which the sex crimes bureau should have discovered, but did not. He absorbed the details and turned to other things.

At lunchtime, Karp went down the street and walked around Foley Square to the special lot where the judges and other court officials kept their cars. Crime scene tape was up and the area was thronged with police and media wagons. Also present were the small band of demonstrators, with placards and bullhorn, demanding justice for Mr. Onabajo. They had been there since the trial started, local Nigerians, the women in loud prints, the men in African caps, together with the usual representatives of the African-American community. The wrecked car had been towed away, but a police tow truck was lifting another car damaged by the blast. Karp approached a detective he recognized from another case.

"What's the story, Sam?" he asked.

Sam Moscow looked around with a hard cop expression on his round face, which softened when he saw who it was. In response to Karp's questions, he said, "Oh, this here? We like it as an attempted assassination of a judge. Unless someone had a hard-on for old Bedloe. He gave out one ticket too many."

"Who owned the car?"

"Judge Horowitz. Nice Lincoln Towncar. There's frag all over the lot. No question it's high explosive, not any cheap-ass black powder jobbie."

"That doesn't sound good."

"Tell me about it!" said Moscow, turning a hard eye on a couple walking past, the man bearded with a turban, the woman in a sari, and also taking in the Onabajo people.

"Fuckin' city these days."

Karp let this pass. "You on the case?"

"Me? Nah, our loo sent a bunch of us from the Five down here to help out with the canvass. A red-ball obviously, with a judge being a probable target. The bomb squad will get most of the action. We're trying to see if anyone saw the perp."

"Did anyone?"

"Not yet. What's this Horowitz like? A hard ass?"

"Not particularly," said Karp. "He's been in Supreme Court about twelve years. I don't recall anyone shaking their fist at sentencing-'I'll get you if it's the last thing I do, you bastard.' But you never can tell. Or it might have nothing to do with his courtroom life. He might not even be the target. You recall those scumbags who were whacking cops at random, back in the day."

"Oh, yeah, them," said Moscow, morosely. "That's all we fuckin' need. Anyway, we'll find out which. Or not, as the case may be. I gotta go."

Karp watched the detective walk over to a group of uniforms. He thought about bombs, and bomb cases, of which there had been more than might be expected in his career, and Judge Horowitz. Out of his vast memory for cases the connection floated up: Evan Horowitz had been the judge who sentenced Feisal ibn-Salemeh to life imprisonment without parole for several murders and for plotting to bomb the offices of B'nai Brith, what was it? ten or so years back. That was a connection, thin but real, between terrorism, bombs, and the judge. He thought briefly of going over and telling Moscow this, but dismissed the idea. They'd find it out in short order. As the man had said, people who tried to assassinate judges got the full attention of the police.

At 4:30, Karp slid Murrow's memorandum into one of the green accountancy ledgers he used as notebooks, and went into the DA's office. Laura Rachman was there already, today in an insistent violet costume. She was talking animatedly at the DA, who was studying the never-smoked Bering claro he used as a prop. He seemed happy to see Karp, if only to terminate Rachman's spiel.

"I hear you're interfering with the course of justice again," Keegan growled.

Karp sat down and nodded to Rachman. "Just a difference of opinion on People versus Hirsch. I don't think it's ready, Laura does."

"He wants a corroborating witness," said Rachman. "For crying out loud, it's a rape case."

"Actually, I didn't say that. What I said was I wanted something else besides the completely unsupported testimony of a woman against a doctor where we don't have a breath of anything else against him."

"Also untrue," said Rachman. "We have enough other stuff. Jack, this is a critical issue for me, I mean if I don't have your confidence…" She left it hanging.

Keegan said, waving the cigar dismissively, "No, no, come on, Laura, you know that's not the issue. What is the issue, Butch?"

"Well, I always thought that if your whole case depended on uncorroborated testimony from the victim, with no forensics at all, with the victim not reporting until five days later, like we have here, then the quality of the witness was pretty important. So is this the case with Ms. Coleman? You'll judge for yourself. It appears that Ms. Coleman got herself evicted from her apartment late last year, for nonpayment. She eventually came up with the rent and they let her move back in. She subsequently sued her landlord, claiming the stress and whatever of the eviction had caused her severe digestive upset, so severe that she had to quit work. She's suing for two million."

"What relevance does all this have-" began Rachman, but Keegan stopped her with a gesture.

Karp resumed. "A week after she mounted her lawsuit, she became a patient of Dr. Hirsch, who's a specialist in gastroenterology. She complained of severe stomach pains. Hirsch examined her and found no organic cause for her pain, but being a careful man, he arranged for this colonoscopy. Five days after said procedure Ms. Coleman reported the alleged assault to the police. Five days."

"She couldn't find a precinct with an African-American police-woman," said Rachman.

"So she says. Although she doesn't seem to have any trouble finding Albert B. Pearson, her lawyer in the civil suit she's been preparing against Hirsch. A litigious person, Ms. Coleman."

"She has every right to sue," said Rachman. Little spots of color had appeared on her cheeks.

"It's every citizen's right," Karp agreed blandly. "And her case will be a lot better if Hirsch is convicted. Moving on, we have the curious incident of the post-traumatic visit. The colonoscopy occurred on a Monday, the fifth of March. On Wednesday, Ms. Coleman arrived at Dr. Hirsch's office, without an appointment, and insisted on seeing him. He agreed. In the office, Ms. Coleman asked the doctor to be a witness in her lawsuit against the landlord, to testify that her putative intestinal ailments were a direct result of the stress caused by her eviction the previous year. This Dr. Hirsch refused to do. He said he could find nothing organic wrong with her at present, and even if he had made such a finding, since she hadn't been his patient before the eviction happened, there was no way in good conscience that he could testify to any physical debility attendant upon that event. At that, Ms. Coleman became angry and, for the first time, accused him of the assault. He vigorously denied it, and continues to deny it. Two days later, she reported it to the police. Now, none of what I've just said was included in the sex crime bureau's presentation of the case. But it was easy enough to get."

"Yeah, from Hirsch," Rachman said. "Of course, he's going to deny it and tell stories."

"Did you know all this, Laura?" Keegan asked.

"Of course we did. As I said before, it's irrelevant to the crime. The fact is, Ms. Coleman was abused. And we can prove it."

"Can you?" asked Karp. "Really? I mean, you don't think all of this material rises to the level of reasonable doubt? The unlikelihood of the event given the medical situation, the exposed locale, the prior reputation of the accused, the lack of credible supporting witnesses, the failure to report, the return visit, during which no mention was made of the assault until after Hirsch refused to testify, the financial benefit of a conviction to the supposed victim…"

"I told you, it's irrelevant. And we'll make sure none of that is allowed at trial. With a halfway decent judge…"

Karp felt his jaw drop and his belly tighten. "Laura! For God's sake, what the fuck does it matter what you can get suppressed? It's fucking exculpatory evidence."

"Don't yell at me! Don't you dare yell at me!"

"Guys, guys, calm down," said the DA, who despised histrionics in his office that he did not himself initiate. "Maybe we can avoid trial in the first place. What would Hirsch say to a deal? The charge is sexual abuse first- we drop it to third, it's a misdemeanor, he might not even lose his license."

"We tried that," said Rachman, "Terry tried that and Hirsch told us to get lost. He says it never happened."

"Terry?"

"Teresa Palmisano, the ADA, very competent, very thorough."

Karp could not suppress a sniff here, and got a furious glare from Rachman. They were silent for a moment, while the DA cogitated. Karp thought he could almost see the wheels whirring in the man's head. Another racial case, black vic, white defendant, how would it look to the black vote, Rachman with connections to the liberals, to the women, percentage of votes that represented, plus the black, weak there in the first place, Karp a liability because of the racial thing, the doctor ought to deal, he wouldn't so he gets it in the neck, go ahead with the trial, the low-risk solution…

"Well, I'm inclined," said Keegan, "absent any other information, to let the case go forward. Let the jury sort it out. That's what juries are for. And next time, Laura, let's put everything, good and bad, in the pretrial package, so that Butch doesn't have to get bent out of shape off of this kind of crap."

Karp couldn't meet his boss' eye. He nodded his head and made a note in his ledger. A little forced chitchat to show that they were all still good friends, and Karp was out in the corridor with Laura Rachman. She turned to him and said, "No hard feelings, Butch, huh?"

"No, of course not," said Karp stiffly. "It's all part of the day's work. But, I admit it's still a little bit of a shock to see him do it."

"Do what?"

"Pervert the law for political purposes. I don't have a sister, but I guess that if I did, and she turned into a whore and I had to drive past her stroll every day, after a while I'd get used to seeing her in her little hot pants with her tits hanging out. But I bet it'd take a while, and I guess I haven't gotten to that point with Jack Keegan."

Her face wrinkled in distaste. "You know, Karp, you really are an offensive son of a bitch."

"So I've often been told," he said, turning away down the little dogleg corridor that led to his office.

"We're going to win this case," she called after him.

Karp stopped, turned to face her. "Yes, you might. There are enough asshole judges in this building, and one of them might actually allow you to suppress all the material about that woman's history and actions. That's not the point. Winning isn't the fucking point. We're not playing girls' soccer here, Laura. The point is that you know and I know and even Terry what's-her-name probably knows how incredibly, extremely unlikely it is that Hirsch actually stuck his tongue into the alleged victim's shit-smeared vagina in the way the alleged victim described it. The woman is a fraud, and the case is a fraud, and nobody seems to give a shit."

"Girls' soccer?" cried Rachman, her voice rising.

"And furthermore, whatever happens here, you're going to get creamed on appeal even if you get your suppression. Appeals Court judges tend to take a dim view of the state junking exculpatory evidence."

"How dare you talk to me like that!" cried Rachman. Her face had gone pale and blotchy under her makeup, giving it an unfortunate clown-mask appearance. He turned again, and went into his office, slamming the door behind him.

Karp heard her shouting at him, heard himself called a misogynist as well as a racist, heard threats of formal complaint. Rachman had a famously aggressive tongue when aroused.

Terrell Collins was sitting in his office. Karp felt a flush of embarrassment rise to his face.

"You heard all that?"

Collins nodded. "Uh-huh. What's going on?"

Karp sat in his chair and put his feet up on the desk. "Don't ask. Yet another case flavored by racial overtones, into which I inserted myself with totally predictable results."

"I hear you're a misogynist, too. That line about girls' soccer was probably not wise."

"No, it wasn't. I lost my temper and Satan made the phrase swim into my mind."

"Will that be your case when she brings you up on a sex harassment complaint?"

"It might be. It might even work. It's more plausible than the case against Dr. Kevin Hirsch."

Karp took from his desk a baseball signed by Mickey Mantle and threw it hard against an opposite wall a number of times, catching it one-handed on the rebound, enjoying the sting in his palm.

"Ah, fuck 'em all! Let them fire me. It'd be a mercy at this point." Karp tossed the ball into his out-basket, shifted his chair, and stared out the window for a moment, thinking about what his life would be like if he didn't have this job. A descent into the bowels of the profession, chasing ambulances, wills, and closings? Or in a gilded penitentiary, doing civil litigation for Wall Street? He snapped out of the brief, unpleasant reverie and said briskly, "So. What's new with the Gerber and Nixon case? Any sense that they'll deal?"

"Not a whisper. Both Gerber and Nixon claim they did nothing wrong, it was a clean shooting. The victim was grabbing for the gun, et cetera. Unfortunately we don't have criminal stupidity as a charge, because it would be a slam dunk to nail this particular pair on it. They're consistent, I'll say that for them."

"Yeah, like Hirsch," said Karp. "Well, Terry, look at the bright side: Even if you lose, they won't accuse you of letting them off because you're a racist."

"No, only an Uncle Tom."

"We all have our cross to bear, son," said Karp, in his faux paternal mode. "Meanwhile, I think I'll go home."

Felix loved it when the bomb went off. Rashid had warned him not to hang around the area of the courthouse, but he'd wanted to see it go up. He had gone east of the courthouse, into Columbus Park, and there sat with a newspaper, pretending to read, and keeping an eye on the parking lot. It was a lot louder and more gaudy than he had expected, and he experienced an almost methlike wave of pleasure when the sound and the tail of shock wave reached him in a little line of blown dust and scattered trash. He loved, too, the expressions on the faces of the people in the park. For the first time he understood suicide bombers; to have that kind of effect on people was almost worth dying for. His pleasure was hardly diminished when he learned, a few hours later, that the victim had been a parking attendant and not the judge. It was actually better in a way, because if they still wanted him to clip the judge, they would have to give him another bomb. As the sirens began to wail, he started uptown to the Holy Redeemer soup kitchen to find Lucy.