Naked Cruelty Page 32

  The two men turned and began to walk together.

  “I knew I was right,” Buzz said at last, clenching his fists. “I kept telling Corey there was a splinter group, but he wouldn’t believe me. I didn’t have any facts, just my cop instincts. I was conned too, Carmine, by Corey’s Black Brigade snitches. They talked me into thinking that the Black Brigade wasn’t worried by the formation of Black People’s Power. Whereas the truth is that Milo was making significant inroads into Mohammed’s army, and war was in the wind. The trouble is Mohammed’s ordinary soldiers are not in the picture—I should have seen it, but I didn’t. Jesus!”

  Another silence fell, again broken by Buzz Genovese.

  “I put in four hours writing that report, busted my ass, but I didn’t have facts to back up my cop instincts. Just little signs—stray remarks, sidelong looks, interrupted whispers—not facts, facts, facts! The Valley bank holdup went down to finance BPP weapons purchases, but tell me why—just tell me why they had to hide the weapons in a school? A school!” He stopped, recollecting himself. “Well, too late now. Five lives! I am haunted, Carmine.”

  “What report, Buzz?”

  “The supplementary one I submitted about the Taft High arms cache. Corey closed the case for lack of evidence a month ago—well, I guess you know that. But I knew it wasn’t over. So I watched and listened for another nearly two weeks, then I wrote this second report.” He looked embarrassed. “Sorry, Captain, I didn’t mean to snitch, and Corey was right. There wasn’t a shred of evidence.”

  ***

  “What do we do about it?” Carmine asked, holding up the second report. He was staring at Commissioner Silvestri and Captain Vasquez, whose faces were carefully neutral.

  “If so much as a whisper of this gets out, the media will have a field day. The death of kids in a school is world news,” Carmine went on. “Holloman is full of journalists. The Black Brigade and its splinter, Black People’s Power, are local black power groups with no national impact. To the journalists in this year of riots and terrible violence, the BB and the BPP are peanuts. Martin Luther King Junior dead, then Robert Kennedy—it’s an awful year! But what if it leaks that the Holloman PD had warning of a second weapons cache at Taft High, and didn’t so much as look for it? It’s known now that both groups had a cache at the school, but nothing indicates that the Holloman PD didn’t do its job. Except this.” He put the seven sheets down on Silvestri’s coffee table.

  All three men had read Buzz’s report, pulled from the back of the Taft High file by a terrified Corey Marshall. What Carmine didn’t know was whether Corey had intended to bring him the report, or burn it. His cop instincts said Corey intended to burn it, but just as he pulled the sheets, Carmine had walked in.

  “You said one of my cases would come back and bite me,” said Corey, handing him the report.

  “I’m sorry that it’s so terrible, Lieutenant.”

  “What’s going to happen to me?” He sounded petrified.

  “I don’t know. But if you have any brain at all, don’t so much as mention it to Maureen. That’s your only hope.”

  “I told Corey not to confide in Maureen,” Carmine said now. “He might even obey that order, because I don’t think he could face the tongue-lashing she’d give him.”

  “You’re very smart, Carmine,” Fernando Vasquez said.

  “If I were, this wouldn’t have happened. I knew that Corey Marshall was weak, but so was I for not acting.”

  “That’s aftersight speaking.” Fernando’s beautiful hand indicated the report. “You kept this unduplicated, and you guys in Detectives haven’t caught up enough with modern policing to keep copies of everything. For instance, did Sergeant Genovese keep a copy for himself?”

  “No. Why would he? It’s in the file.”

  “In future, he should. The world increasingly belongs to the lawyers, Carmine, and some of them are more ruthless than any journalist. I don’t increase paperwork for no reason. I do it to protect my men. With the Dodo on your back, I haven’t gotten around to Detectives yet, but it’s coming.”

  “I gather that the existence of one copy of this is a good thing?” Carmine asked.

  “A very good thing. What happens if Buzz goes poor Morty Jones’s route, huh? Guilt, depression, a steel meal? Without a copy of his report, he’ll be seen as confabulating,” Fernando said, black eyes like two glistening stones.

  “It won’t come to that,” Carmine said. “This time, I’ll make absolutely sure.” He felt sick, pressed his midriff. “John, you haven’t said a thing. Fernando has left me in no doubt of his solution to our troubles—burn the report. What do you say?”

  “That God moves in mysterious ways,” the Commissioner said, “and that you’ve acted for the greater good of the Holloman PD. It’s not even a question of blame—attitudes vary. Is Corey’s hard-nosed attitude more reprehensible because five people have died? He had every chance of being right.”

  “If you’d read Buzz’s report, John, would you have pulled your men out of Taft High?” Carmine demanded.

  “No,” Silvestri said flatly.

  “And you, Fernando?”

  “I would have blitzed the place, no matter what the parents and teachers said in objection. That was the only way to do it, Carmine. Empty the entire school, then search the cockroaches and fleas to see if they were packing.”

  “Lessons for the future,” Silvestri said, sighing. “I am going to maintain that the school was scrupulously searched and all the weapons it contained were confiscated. Luckily the kids involved all went to the juvenile courts, so it’s not our fault if they’re already back at Taft High. As for the BB cache and the second BPP one, the guns had been placed in the school so recently that we’d had no word of it. Like so many other places, we’ve had a bad year with race riots in Holloman.”

  “You intend to burn it,” Carmine said, voice flat.

  They look like father and son, he thought as Vasquez and Silvestri went to a glass-fronted ornamental cupboard. John took out a big silver tray while Fernando hovered at his side. Trim, in silver-encrusted navy uniforms, very dark of hair and eye, flawless features and a certain catlike grace of movement. Thank God! John has finally found his heir. Not that he intends to retire for some time to come. He has to groom Fernando.

  Buzz Genovese’s report burned while Carmine watched the two uniformed men make sure no flake remained unblackened.

  “I’ll see Buzz tomorrow morning,” the Commissioner said when Fernando took the tray off to the private bathroom. “It’s sad but simple—when Lieutenant Marshall looked for the report, it had gone. Too suggestive, you think, Carmine? Well, I think Corey deserves to wear the odium, especially in Buzz’s eyes.”

  “I appreciate your having me here, John.”

  Fernando returned.

  The three men sat down again.

  “We still have one problem,” said Carmine.

  “Corey, you mean?” Silvestri asked.

  “I mean.”

  “It’s a hard one.”

  Fernando leaned back, satisfied that he had done his part; Carmine continued to speak to Silvestri, as if he too thought it.

  “I have a solution, John.”

  The Commissioner sat up. “You do? Hit me!”

  “First of all, Corey’s not suited for his present position. He’s too anti-routine in a job he thinks should have no routine, not to mention that he paints himself into a corner. A more secure man would simply admit that he was wrong, but Corey’s not secure. He’s also dominated by his wife. What he needs is a job having equal status but none of the responsibility—no human beings as individual human beings, just as ciphers.”

  Fernando was bolt upright, wary and annoyed. “No!”

  “Oh, come on, Fernando, he’s perfect, and you know it. By Christmas you will have completed your reforms—three lieutenants, remembe
r? After pushing Mike Cerutti through one department after another, you intend to put him in as lieutenant in charge of anything with wheels—well, it’s logical, and you’re a logical man. Of course you need a lieutenant in charge of personnel, but a guy very much under your thumb. For that reason it won’t be Joey Tasco, it will be Virgil Simms. Mike and Virgil are good men who can’t afford to forget that you promoted them over a lot of heads, that their income has zoomed, and that they get to wear silver braid. However, you need a senior lieutenant, and whom can you trust in the Uniform Division, tell me that? Ideally you need someone from outside, but you haven’t been here long enough to survive the palace revolution that would provoke. Whereas Corey Marshall has been in the Holloman PD for seventeen years, eleven of them in uniform. Everybody with seniority knows him, and he’s well liked. His being awarded the top job will be seen as shrewd and inarguable. On the other hand, what you know about him chains him to you. He’ll have to work from a list of do’s and don’t’s that you write in letters of stone—he’ll have absolutely no room to maneuver. Nor will his wife have the smallest share in his power. Corey is the perfect senior lieutenant. C’mon, Fernando, admit it!”

  “I agree it’s my best answer,” Fernando said. “Damn you!”

  “So do I agree, and mine’s the deciding vote,” said Silvestri.

  “You told me I had too many lieutenants, and you were right,” Carmine said, grinning. “In future, Detectives will have one lieutenant—Abe Goldberg, and one captain, me. One fewer loot, a lot fewer headaches.”

  But, thought Carmine later, driving home, today has been an awful day. Not every death at Taft High was an innocent one, but even a flesh wound is too high a price to pay for a troubled peace. And I have colluded at the destruction of a document that indicts one of my own men and should be published to vindicate another. What might have happened if I had refused to collude? If I had insisted on publication? John Silvestri wears the pale blue ribbon, and he colluded. It’s Vasquez, of course. The new breed, the modern cop.

  What good would publication have done? It could only have worked did it happen beforehand, and for that, I blame Corey Marshall. He knew the report existed, but no one else did except its author. It’s a terrible dilemma, and both of its horns are cruel. To have published his findings, Buzz Genovese would have had to go over his boss’s head, and he had seen that as lacking honor. Well, so would I. Honor is preserved, but at the cost of five lives and a bunch of wounded. I can see why John Silvestri has chosen to make Corey Marshall the villain of the piece, but are the three of us—himself, Fernando, and I—innocent?

  “One of my worst days,” he said to Desdemona, telling her everything save the collusion.

  “Oh, Carmine, a horror! And I do understand why guns are such a large part of it,” she said. “Male creatures are genuinely combative, it’s a part of the sex. Now that we’re busy making war so unpalatable, a different sort of war is breaking out on our streets and in our schools. Or else some kid’s crashed his bike at a hundred miles an hour. Whatever. Young men die violently. When young women do, it’s mostly at the hands of a man.”

  “Shall we mourn together, Desdemona?”

  “Better together than apart, dear love.” She led the way to the sitting room and got busy at the little bar, so that when next she spoke, it sounded offhand, casual.

  “I’m starting to go to church with Maria,” she said.

  He took the glass carefully. “Why?”

  “It can’t do any harm, can it?”

  “No, it never can.”

  MONDAY, DECEMBER 2

  to

  END OF YEAR

  1968

  CHAPTER VIII

  When Helen asked Captain Delmonico for the return of her completed journals, he denied her request. “They’re locked up and they stay locked up until you’ve finished your training,” he said. “One question before you go, please. Why did you show part of them to Kurt von Fahlendorf? My instructions were explicit.”

  “Sir, I showed Kurt the parts relevant to his kidnapping, in the hope he’d offer me a clue,” she said—well, it was half true.

  One eyebrow rose, but he said nothing.

  “I admit I didn’t preserve its security properly when I began my journals, but I have learned, sir. Delia chewed me out because my gun and badge were in my bag too—she was right, of course.” Her laugh sounded unconcerned. “But no one burgled my bag, sir.”

  “Did you have an enjoyable little vacation?” Carmine asked.

  “More enjoyable than you could know, Captain. I managed to avoid Dad’s Thanksgiving table.”

  “That can’t have impressed him.”

  “Well, no, it didn’t, but I had an excellent excuse.”

  She really must have had a good excuse, Carmine thought, for M.M.’s Thanksgiving dinners were huge and required the whole of his rather meager family. His practice was to have his bursars find him fifty poor freshman students on scholarship who wouldn’t be able to afford to go home. Helen’s loss would have been felt.

  “The Dodo didn’t strike,” she said, heading for the team’s office. “He’s way overdue.”

  “Yes, he’s done what he intended to—confuse us,” Carmine said. “You’re on your own, Helen, I’m afraid. Nick and Delia are still on special duty. I know it’s not glamorous, but your most valuable occupation will be to man the phones and study. Stella only fields my calls, so the team phones are unattended. Fred has linked all three team offices plus Lieutenants Marshall and Goldberg together, which means you’ll be busy with messages.”

  He was smiling; the least she could do was smile back. But as she went to sit at her desk, Helen was fighting annoyance. How dared they? Oh, why wasn’t she older and plainer, why did her hair have to be the famous apricot?

  The phone rang.

  “Helen MacIntosh taking messages for everyone!”

  This was greeted by silence; then came a laugh. “Helen? Isn’t this your phone?”

  “Oh, Kurt! I’m sorry, just—oh, it doesn’t matter.”

  “I’ve been trying to get you for over a week.”

  “The Captain gave me leave. They’ve got something going on that I’m not equipped to participate in, and since I had a private matter to attend to, I applied for leave.”

  “I went around to Talisman Towers,” he said, “but no one was ever home. Thanksgiving Day, I suppose. But when your father didn’t know where you were, I was worried!”

  “Oh, poor Kurt! I’m sorry.”

  “You keep saying that. I’ll forgive you anything if you come to Solo’s with me tonight.”

  “What a brilliant idea! I can tell you everything.”

  “I’ll pick you up at six forty-five,” he said.

  “Uh—no, that’s too difficult. I’ll meet you there at seven, okay?”

  “It will have to be,” he said, and hung up.

  Typical Kurt: he was there to welcome her. Sometimes Helen contemplated arriving somewhere an hour earlier than the appointed time, just to see how early Kurt arrived. Not only was he dreamy to look at, he was also a total gentleman. And a genius besides.

  “Did you finish your equations?” she asked, accepting a glass of French chambertin.

  “Yes, I did, then went back and rewrote the ones on the tank wall.” He added sparkling mineral water to his own glass.

  “Honestly, Kurt, how can you ruin a wine this good by diluting it? Sometimes you don’t make sense.”

  “It’s heavy, darling Helen, and I want a clear head.” The icy blue eyes gleamed. “I want to hear your news, for instance.”

  “No, let’s start with your news,” she said.

  “How do you know I have any?”

  “I can read you like a book.”

  “Ach, so … It is stale news by now, but you are entitled to know it, I think. Josef was indeed married to the Richter woma
n, which made his marriage to Dagmar bigamous.”

  “I am so sorry!”

  “Sorrow is not necessary. No one will ever know. Frau Richter and her son were shot dead just minutes after Josef—isn’t that amazing? Such a coincidence!”

  Helen threw her head back and laughed. “About as amazing a coincidence as Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin meeting at Yalta!”

  “That is ironic,” he said placidly, starting on his shrimp cocktail. “This is delicious! You are not shocked?”

  “No, Kurt, I’m not shocked. Who did it?”

  “Turks, I believe.”

  “Who are now on their way back to Turkey to live the life of lords,” she said, still chuckling.

  “About that, I cannot postulate.”

  “Did the Munich cops make the connection between Frau Richter and Josef von Fahlendorf?”

  “How could they? Josef was careful to leave no evidence, and the Frau, who had all the documentation, kept it in her desk—not even locked, can you imagine that?”

  “Yes, actually I can,” said Helen, who felt no pity for the Richters. What if she had been fool enough to fall for a con man and foisted him into the MacIntoshes? It wouldn’t have happened, of course, any more than it would happen in the future, but she understood the von Fahlendorf predicament completely. Dagmar had the flaws of genius: she could conceive new formulae and processes and she could administer a multi-factory company with all the shrewdness and knowledge of a born business person, but she couldn’t judge people or manage her private life. How like her was Kurt? Very different in most respects, but …

  “Would you fall in love with the wrong person?” she asked.