Depraved Indifference (8 page)

“Thanks, V.T. I hope it didn't screw up your weekend.”

“Substantially. However, we WASPs are used to sexual deprivation. We had planned to perch on a settee and read aloud from
The Wings of the Dove
, thus whipping our etiolated libidos into white heat, but now—”

“Bye, V.T. Call me if you hear anything else.”

5

T
HE
FBI'
S NEW YORK
office was lodged in the old telephone company building on 69th and Third Avenue. The lobby still bore in mural and relief medallions some of the communication symbology dear to Ma Bell's frozen heart—wire-girdled continents, hands across the sea, the long progress from the African drum to the self-dial telephone of 1938. Karp noticed especially the engraving on the bronze elevator doors: the thin, naked kid standing tiptoe on the globe, with electric hair under his World War I helmet, looking hopeful as he held aloft a snaky tangle of cables. This same icon had appeared on the cover of the old green New York phone books and had fascinated Karp as a child, filling his mind with maddening questions: why was the soldier playing with spaghetti? How did he stay on top of the basketball? Why did he have a leaf instead of a wee-wee? It was his first big case.

Karp soon discovered that the spirit of communication did not enliven the offices of the FBI. Pillman's secretary, a squat and tough-faced federal-issue blonde, informed him that Mr. Pillman was in emergency meetings all day and couldn't be disturbed.

“I'm here about the hijacking. Mr. Pillman is expecting me. Karp, DA's office.”

She looked dubious. “The DA's office is in with him now.”

“What! Who?”

She consulted her desk calendar. “A Mr. Lucca, it says here.”

Karp placed his large knuckles on her desk and leaned over her. “OK, Mrs. ah … Finelli,” he said, picking her name off the black plastic plate on her desk, “as far as I know, I'm representing the DA's office in this case. You got somebody else in there says the same thing, it means I got to call my boss and involve Mr. Pillman's boss and maybe the assistant AG, too. It could have to go to Washington, I don't know. So maybe we could clear up the whole thing in about ten minutes and avoid all that. What d'you say?” He smiled brightly.

Washington was the magic word. A minute later Karp was standing in Elmer Pillman's bright corner office, looking at Pillman's froggy scowl. There was another man in the room, who stood and shook hands with Karp. He was thin and wore a rumpled brownish suit and one of those polyester ties that sports two unrelated patches of plaid. He nervously introduced himself as Jerry Lucca, from the Bronx DA's office.

Pillman leaned back in his government swivel chair and said magisterially, “Mr. Karp, Jerry and I were just saying that since the hijacking was a federal case and your policeman was actually killed in the Bronx, we would coordinate the investigation, with the Bronx DA picking up the local charges. I assume that's agreeable to you?”

“No, it isn't,” Karp replied, pleasantly enough. “Obviously, we'd like to work as closely as we can with the Bureau. But we intend to bring the murder case against the hijackers in New York County. Moreover, we've made arrangements with the police department to coordinate all investigations and evidence through my office. And no other,” he concluded with a sharp glance at Lucca.

“Wait a minute,” Lucca said, flushing and attempting a conciliatory grin, “we can work this out. First of all, we have the murder site in our jurisdiction. That counts for something. And two—”

“That don't count for shit, Jerry,” Karp interrupted. “And we don't have anything to work out because it's already been worked out. It's my case. You don't believe me, ask Moroni. He doesn't believe it, tell him to call the C. of D.”

This casual mention of two godlike beings, the Bronx DA and the chief of detectives, took the wind out of the young man's sails. Something was going on that he didn't understand. He understood he was here on Moroni's orders. Pillman had seemed willing to work with him. He was excited by the possibility of handling the action on a potentially big murder case. Now this guy Karp comes and makes him look like a jerk. Unless he was bluffing … He looked at Pillman, who was examining the way the smoke from his cigar curled against the ceiling. Karp continued to regard Lucca with bland indulgence. He did not look like a bluffer.

“I guess I better check with uptown and straighten all this out,” he mumbled, standing.

Karp smiled benignly. “You do that, Jerry.” Lucca shook hands sincerely all around and scooted out.

Pillman did not like this development at all. He would have loved a green kid tying up the local end while he himself controlled the case. Also, wrangles among local jurisdictions made the Bureau look good by comparison. He decided, as he always did, that the best defense was an attack.

“What the fuck was that all about, Karp? Like I told Jerry, this is a federal case; I run it. What I don't need is a bunch of local pols screwing around with it. We'll coordinate like we always do. I got stuff in your yard, I'll let you know. Am I clear?”

Karp smiled. “Yup. It's your show, Elmer, skyjacking, kidnapping, the works. Us political types are just interested in murder one, killing a cop in L.O.D. Any little crumbs off your table we'd be glad to get. And, of course, if any evidence from our extensive investigation of the homes and businesses of the suspects bears on your case, or on any little conspiracies they might have been planning, or any other little exploding surprises they might have planted, or any connections they have with other terrorist groups, why then, we'll be sure to do the same. Sound good? Now, what's the situation in Paris? How are we going to get these guys back here?”

Pillman blew smoke and grinned nastily. “You're a bullshitter, Karp, you know that? You can take your evidence and stick it up your ass. I'll handle the situation in Paris, and if I think of any way you can help, I'll let you know. Meanwhile, it's been a pleasure, but now I got to make some calls, so—” He waved toward the door and reached for his phone.

Karp stood up. “Good idea, Elmer,” he said, “and by the way, since this interagency cooperation is going so great, could I borrow a phone?”

Pillman paused, then pointed to one of the doors leading out of the office. “My deputy's out. You can use his.”

Karp smiled his thanks and walked into a smaller but similarly furnished office next door. He sat down at the desk and dialed the district attorney's private number.

Sanford Bloom had recently adopted a tone of hurt avuncularity toward Karp, as if he were the bad boy of the office, bright but unreliable, who could not grasp that Bloom truly had his best interests at heart. Like everything else about the man, it was as phony as a lead slug.

Karp wasted no time on pleasantries. “This is Karp. I'm down at the FBI. I'm dealing with Pillman on the hijack, and I think we're getting shafted on this murder. I need an irate call to the assistant director and maybe poke somebody in Washington. The sooner the better.” Bloom had been United States Attorney for New York's Southern District before becoming DA, and was well-known to have important Washington contacts. Indeed, he rarely stopped talking about them.

After a pregnant silence Bloom replied, “Hold on a second, Butch. I can't go making calls just like that. Can't you work something out with this Pillman?”

“Yeah, sure, I could, but I haven't got time. There's no way I can be in on what's going on in Paris without the FBI's cooperation, and I've got to be in on it or somebody will make a deal with them that could queer our case on the Doyle killing. Look, I'll hang around here while you make the calls. Tell whoever that a police officer has been killed, and the FBI is being uncooperative about bringing the killers to justice.”

“Butch, I can't do that. It would set interagency cooperation back twenty years.”

Karp said, “If you want my advice, the cooperation you got to worry about is with the New York PD. It gets out that you are not vigorous in the extreme in pursuit of a gang of cop killers …” Karp left the thought unfinished.

“OK, Butch, you made your point,” Bloom said peevishly. “I'll ring some people up right now.” Karp heard the phone slam down.

During this conversation Karp had picked up the phone and sidled over to the door, which he had left open a crack. He had observed Pillman listening closely to his own phone. After Bloom hung up, Pillman did too, and Karp heard the click on the line. He replaced the phone and went back into Pillman's office. With a jaunty wave he started towards the outer door.

“Uh, Karp?”

“Yes?”

“Have a seat.”

Lucky for me you're a sneak, Karp thought.

For the next half hour Elmer Pillman gave as good an imitation of interagency cooperation as he could contrive. The scene in Paris was much as V.T. had described it (although Pillman significantly left out the mysterious Dettrick, and the mixed signals) with one important exception: about an hour ago, the gendarmes had shot out the tires of the airplane, immobilizing it.

“So they're not going anywhere,” Karp said, feeling considerable relief. “What happened then? Did the hijackers do anything?”

“Yeah, they want a new plane by sundown or they'll set off the bomb. The same shit they've been handing out all along.”

“What's the French position?”

“Who the hell knows? Facedown with their ass in the air, as usual, probably. Their main worry was keeping the plane from taking off again and flying over Paris with a bomb in it, which they've settled. Now we think they're willing to let the other guys make the next move.”

“But what's our move?”

Pillman looked away, his face suddenly tense. “How do you mean?”

“I mean we want them back here. They killed a cop. The last thing we want is for the French to screw around with them for a couple of years and then maybe trade them back to Yugoslavia for a tractor contract. I want to offer the hijackers a deal that'll break them loose now, today.”

“Like what?”

Karp's brain spun for about two seconds. He had not, in fact, given the problem any thought. However, he was in his natural element. One thing he knew how to do was make deals with crooks.

“Three choices. They can surrender to the French authorities for trial under French law. They can go back to Yugoslavia. Or they can come back here for trial.”

Pillman frowned. “What makes you think they'll choose the one you want?”

“Because the Yugoslavs will put them up against a wall and shoot them. The French are pissed off at the Croatians already, and they've got no leverage in France. But on the other hand, some of these guys have been in New York for a while. They've got support here, friends, lawyers. Plus they read the papers. They know how easy it is to beat a rap in New York. But I doubt they're familiar enough with the New York State penal code to know how seriously we take killing an officer in the line of duty. Or about the felony murder rule. They should roll our way on this.”

“There's a fourth option,” Pillman said, chewing the plastic tip of his cigar. “They could blow up the plane.”

“Not a chance. These guys aren't maniacs. They haven't hurt anybody on the plane. They let off the women and kids. They're some kind of big patriotic front. They want positive publicity, which is exactly what they'll get from a big New York trial. I'm telling you, they'll go for it.”

Pillman considered this for a long moment, his face reflecting a frantic search for some element in this scheme that he could turn to his personal advantage. At last he saw a glimmer of one and allowed himself a thin smile.

“OK, Karp. I got to make some calls, but I'll buy it for now. I'll keep in touch, hey?”

When Karp had left, Pillman lit another cigar and called the assistant director, his boss. After listening to a lecture about how upset Mr. Bloom was, and about how important good interagency cooperation was, Pillman said, “Harry, don't worry about it. The whole thing's fixed. I just had a great idea about how to get those people back.”

Back in the lobby again, Karp felt that he had done pretty well in Pillman's office, although he was by no means sure that the deal he had struck would hold. Pillman was obviously running his own game. Karp was dying to find out what it was, but had no levers to pry it out of the FBI as long as the Bureau kept up the appearance of cooperation. Which they were doing, for now, but it remained an open flank.

The other source of worry was the cops. He called Denton from a phone booth and brought him up to date on the case.

Denton asked, “You getting good cooperation from my guys?”

“Yeah, sure, the best. Only, ah …”

“What?”

“I'm getting funny feelings about Arson and Explosion. Are you sure everybody's playing on the same team?”

“What do you mean? Pete Hanlon's solid.”

“Right. But I hear he's casting aspersions that the bomb blast might be the result of incompetence on the part of his own men.”

There was a long pause on the line. Then Denton said, “That's bullshit. Anything else?”

Karp sighed. The Blue Wall ran long and high. “Nothing. Except I'd like it made clear that my people collect all the evidence in this case directly from the source. Just in case.”

“You got it. By the way, you still think this case is a grounder?”

Karp didn't think so. It was more like one of those deceptive sinking fly balls behind second base that make backpedaling infielders and onrushing outfielders collide as it drops just out of reach.

At high noon in Paris, although it was not a particularly hot day, the heat within the cabin of what had been Flight 501 had reached the debilitation zone. An airliner is a thermos bottle; without the cooling provided by its own or ground-based power a couple of dozen human bodies can boil themselves in their own heat within a surprisingly short time. The plane was also nearly out of water and food, and its toilets had stopped working. The cabin stank like a sewer pipe.