"I look like h.e.l.l, huh?"

"Heaven," he said. Behind him Harry Bello murmured, "Take care, Marlene. I just wanted to see if you were all right."

"Thanks, Harry."

"You're covered on this; the firm will take care of everything," he said, and left.

"That's a relief," she said. She grasped her husband's hand, hard. "I can't remember anything after I talked to you, about Lucy, except a little at the cells there, with Harry. I knew something was wrong with my brain, but I didn't know how to say it. I couldn't find the words. Would you still love me if I couldn't talk?"

"Somewhat more, maybe," he said, and got a smile. "We have to stop meeting in hospital rooms, Marlene. Marlene?" She had drifted off, the smile still in place. He stayed there, holding her hand, also unable to find the words.

Lucy, meanwhile, had run through a teary blur to an exit door, gone down a flight, and collapsed on a stair, sobbing, her face against the unyielding cold steel of the railing.

"I want to die," she cried, in French, as soon as Tran was seated next to her.

"Yes, I know the feeling," he said, "and yet remarkably, at the times I most wanted death-I was presented with the opportunity to die in a very large number of convenient and glorious ways-I never took them. Also, I observed that death came to people who very much wished to live. So after that I was impressed with the idea that my life might have an interesting purpose, after all, not one I might ever have thought of either. This seemed enough reason to go on, until death should make up its mind to take me."

Lucy snuffled, received one of Tran's infinite supply of clean hankies, blew, asked croakingly, "What was the purpose?"

"I don't know yet. Maybe it is you. Perhaps I am to teach you how to manage your gifts. Perhaps the fates that gave them to you, in a moment of hilarity, decided that a horrible old Asiatic person would be just the one to make sure you became the sort of woman who could put them to good use."

"I detest my gifts!"

"Allow me to doubt that," Tran said dryly. "In fact, not only do you treasure your gifts but, greedy little thing that you are, you desire those that belong to others. Those of your beautiful mother, for example. How many times have I seen you look at your reflection and recoil, appalled. The envy is, I a.s.sure you, quite palpable."

Lucy felt hot bars spring onto her cheeks. "You are disgusting," she snarled, and burst again into tears.

After an interval of silence he said, more gently, "My dear, in the end you are still only a little girl, and greatly loved. Much may be forgiven you."

She fell against his hard chest, sobbing. "It's the guilt, Uncle. I can't stand it!"

"Ah, as to that: I know very little of guilt. It strikes me as a useless emotion, since it does the bearer no good and yet does nothing for the person about whom one feels guilty. Shame, on the other hand, is of some value. It can be easily discharged by humble apology and by sincere rededication to one's duty."

This hung in the air for a long moment, during which Lucy stopped weeping, uttered a long, shuddering sigh, wiped her face, blew her nose, drew away, and straightened her back. She said, "I am sorry, Uncle Tran, that I was stupid, and threatened you with the police. I never would have done such a thing. I ask you to forgive me."

"You are forgiven," said Tran. "Now, perhaps we may go and visit your mother."

Karp sat and watched Marlene breathe for a few minutes, a.s.suring himself that she was merely resting, and then he slipped out and went to a pay phone, where he made several calls, one to a court clerk, one to Roland Hrcany, one to the captain of the Ninth Precinct, and one to Clay Fulton. For Marlene was still officially a prisoner in custody, who, when stricken, should have by rights been placed in the prison ward at Bellevue, a concern not noted for its expertise in brain surgery, but those who have deep connections in the criminal justice system often receive special treatment, and Karp, who ordinarily did not approve of special treatment, felt only the faintest blush of shame as he called in chips and arranged it for his wife. Records were jiggered, papers were misplaced. Marlene Ciampi was made to vanish for a time from the cognizance of the law.

Karp walked out of the hospital and hung around in the balmy evening on the corner of 16th and First Avenue for a quarter of an hour until a dark Chevrolet Caprice rolled up to the curb and he got in.

"How is she?" asked Clay Fulton, switching off the engine and the lights.

"Pretty good, considering," answered Karp. "Thanks for coming."

"You had a rough one, Stretch," Fulton said. "What can I do?"

"For starters, listen," Karp replied, and he related the theory about the recent troubles of the Bollano family he had outlined earlier to Keegan.

"And . . . ?" was Fulton's comments when Karp finished.

"What, you don't think that's suspicious, the whole top of the order getting knocked out that way?"

"It happens all the time. Some of the other goombahs figured Big Sally's day was over, the kid is a loser, the capos are snapping at each other, the outfit was ripe for takeover."

"And the Chinese connection, Willie Lie?"

Fulton laughed. "Yeah, Willie. Willie is a card, all right. No flies on Willie."

"How do you figure the connection?"

"Here's how it plays. Pigetti sees the Bollanos are f.u.c.ked and they're drawing all kinds of heat. He makes a deal with another family, the Gambinos, the Luchese, who knows? To the effect, I'll take care of our guys in a way that will never get back to you, and when I end up on top, you'll accept it. Go ahead, Joe, good luck, they say. Joe gets the Chinese fella to whack Eddie Cat. That's one down. Then he's got to get rid of the Chinese fella, but he misses, and Willie gets spooked and runs to the law, and Joe gets the shaft. The best-laid plans."

"What about Little Sal, and his wife running off just at the right time?"

Fulton shrugged. "f.u.c.k him, the little s.h.i.thead is crazy. We knew that already. If not that, then something else."

"You think it's all in my head?" Karp asked.

"No, I think what's in your head is you're worried about the kid and this Chinatown business and about Marlene. Jesus, Butch! Your kid gets kidnapped and beat up, your wife's in a gunfight and almost dies from a kick in the head. You expect to be thinking clearly?"

Karp thought about this. He thought he was thinking clearly, but, of course, one always did, even in the throes of mania. This is why one needed sensible pals. He made a silly, shuddering sound and rubbed his face vigorously. Fulton chuckled and laid a heavy arm over Karp's shoulder.

"Listen to your Uncle Clay, Stretch. Just focus on taking care of your crazy lady and that kid. I'll take care of the bad guys."

"How is that going, by the way?"

"Fair, so far. Nothing on Willie, but we picked up one of the Vo boys at Kings County, face all beat to s.h.i.t. We'll need Lucy to look at a lineup when the guy's back in shape. As far as the other three bad boys, we're looking, but . . . you know how it is. Asians: we don't speak the language, they don't talk to cops. These Viet boys travel around a lot, too. Show up in Bridgeport, pull a home invasion, next week they're in Richmond knocking over a jewelry store. I got them out on the wire. We'll see."

Karp popped the door and got out. All of a sudden he felt deeply tired, wobbly in the knees, his head dull, eyes grainy. He leaned in at the window.

"Okay, Clay, thanks. Keep in touch."

The car drove off. Karp walked back to the entrance and met his daughter coming out, accompanied by Tran.

"You all right now?" Karp asked, caressing her hair.

"Yes, I think so. I saw Mom. And I apologized. Tran's taking me home."

An objection hung on Karp's tongue. He'd get a police escort, he was about to say, and then thought better of it, realizing that he had unexpectedly become someone who sends his little girl home with some kind of weird Asian professional a.s.sa.s.sin or whatever Tran was, not what he had started out as at all, or even imagined. He looked Tran in the face-carved ivory, it looked like in the orange glow of the lights of the avenue. He held out his hand. After an instant's hesitation, Tran took it.

"Thanks for what you did for Lucy. I appreciate it," Karp said.

"No sweat," said Tran.

Chapter 12.

ON THE MONDAY AFTER THE EVENTS at the East Village Women's Shelter, Karp called Roland Hrcany.

"Doing anything for the next hour or so?"

"Why?"

"Tommy Colombo's holding a press conference in ten minutes. He's got his federal grand jury indictments. I want to hear what he's going to do about the Pigetti business."

They walked across Foley Square to the Federal Building and went to the press room on the eighth floor. They got in without difficulty, using their D.A. identification, and stood at the back of the room behind the TV cameras. Inside the miniature auditorium was the usual bedlam-cursing of technicians, the sounds of marshaling and testing media gear, the low, dull roar of the jackal press. Roland was smiles, Karp glum. He hated this, while Roland had the politician's instinct: he understood that in the present age it was not what you were that counted but how you appeared, which was controlled by the fifty or so ladies and gentlemen seated and standing in the hot, bright room.

Nine-thirty came. Karp checked his watch irritably. Colombo was making them wait, just like the president. Roland was trading wisecracks with a couple of print guys. Karp heard him say, "Ah, the lovely and talented!" and turned to see Gloria Eng approaching, trailed by her crew. She gave Roland a professional dismissive smile and focused on Karp.

"How's Marlene, Butch?" she asked.

"Recovering," said Karp.

"Good. No impairment, then?"

"No."

"That's great. I'd really like to do a piece on the raid. Any chance of setting that up?"

"Ask her," said Karp, continuing his well-known tradition of restricting all his conversation with the press to phrases of two words or less, a habit that had earned him among journalists the nickname "No Komment Karp."

Eng made a gesture, and the camera light behind her shoulder went on, blinding Karp as she brought her microphone up to attack position.

"You know, Sal Bollano's lawyer is claiming it was a setup. The story is he and his bodyguards were lured to the shelter so he could be a.s.sa.s.sinated in so-called self-defense. They claim Marlene was in on it. What about that, Butch?"

"No comment," said Karp.

Eng rolled her eyes and turned to Roland. "Do you have anything on that, Roland? Is the D.A. going to look at this as an attempted murder?"

Roland flashed his perfect set of caps. "Well, Gloria, it's far too early for any speculation on that score. The police investigation is still ongoing."

"But Marlene Ciampi remains in police custody, is that right?"

"As far as I am aware," Roland lied.

"And what about the Catalano murder?"

"That investigation is still ongoing."

"You don't intend to charge Joe Pigetti with that homicide?"

"As I said, Gloria-"

"Is it true that a witness to that murder presented himself to the district attorney's office and you turned him away?"

The smile vanished from Roland's eyes, and involuntarily they flicked over to meet Karp's. Gloria Eng's smile broadened, because she now had tape of the Homicide Bureau chief looking shifty in response to her questioning. Roland cleared his throat. "Gloria, we, ah, get any number of people coming in and claiming to be witnesses to crimes. There's an a.s.sessment procedure that we go through, and I would venture to say . . ."

A venture aborted, for Roland was saved from having to concoct a load of nonsense by a stir at the front of the room. The man himself walked across the little stage and took up position at the podium behind the Justice Department seal and a bouquet of microphones. The room settled, the lights flared, the cameras hummed. Thomas Colombo looked at what he had wrought and apparently found it good, for the small man seemed to inflate under the focused attention of the onlookers.

"As many of you are aware," he said without preamble, "for the past three months a federal grand jury has been hearing evidence concerning the influence of organized crime on various businesses in this city. I am pleased to inform you that the grand jury has issued twenty-four indictments under the so-called RICO law, that is, the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization statute. This statute is our major weapon against the ability of organized crime to infiltrate and corrupt legitimate enterprise and to launder its ill-gotten revenues. Among the criminal organizations of this city, it is the crime family run by Salvatore G. Bollano that has been most famous for the extent and subtlety of its infiltration. It has sent its grimy tentacles into commercial laundries, food importing, meat cutting, trucking, restaurants, construction, and waste hauling. To cover up these infiltrations, it has bribed and corrupted public officials at all levels, including those in the criminal justice system itself. It has threatened, beaten, kidnapped, and murdered, without mercy, without the smallest shred of human decency. For over thirty years it has operated with impunity, garnering astronomical profits, and hanging like a bloated parasite on the economic life of New York. The head of this organization, Salvatore G. Bollano, and his henchmen have considered themselves immune from the law and from the legitimate anger of the people. I'm here to tell you that as of today, that immunity is at an end."

"He's in rare form," said Roland. "I like grimy tentacles."

"Bloated parasite isn't bad either," said Karp. "But twenty-four RICO indictments seems kind of slim for how long he's been hacking at this."

"All you need is one good one," said Roland. "Ah, here's the charts and the pointer. I always like the way he snaps his little car aerial out. Do you think it has s.e.xual connotations, these guys and the pointers?"

Colombo had gestured to one of his minions, who had thrown back the cover from a stack of large charts on an easel, and Colombo was indeed probing it with a gleaming extensible steel pointer. First he poked a chart depicting the organization of the Bollano family, then one showing the various businesses it controlled, then a chart summarizing various pieces of paper evidence, phone taps, and grand jury testimony, tying reputed members of the Bollanos to this or that restaurant, laundry, or trucker. It went on, and grew tedious. It seemed that a large number of people with Italian surnames (many bearing colorful sobriquets p.r.o.nounced by the U.S. attorney with obvious relish) had indeed been very naughty. They had bribed platoons of petty officials and had made threatening calls to good citizens and hadn't paid their taxes and had lied like bandits under oath. Not much juice here yet. The TV people began looking at their watches. Colombo appeared to sense this and moved toward his punch line, snapping his pointer in with a sharp click and turning back to face his audience.

"How did Salvatore Bollano a.s.semble this vast empire of crime?" he demanded rhetorically. "By violence, by murder, and the credible threat of violence and murder. Now murder, as you know, is not a federal crime. But ordering murder to prevent testimony to a federal grand jury is a federal crime. Three weeks ago Edward Catalano was scheduled to appear before a federal grand jury. As noted in the chart I just showed you, Mr. Catalano, street name Eddie Cat, was one of Salvatore G. Bollano's closest a.s.sociates. He knew where the bodies were buried, and I mean that literally, and he was going to tell what he knew. He never got the chance because he wound up with five bullets in his head on the night before his scheduled appearance. Recently, however, a witness has emerged, a witness who will lay the murder of Eddie Cat at the doorstep of none other than Salvatore G. Bollano. This witness is a Chinese illegal alien named Willie Lie . . ." This stirred up a murmer of nervous laughter, and Colombo waited, unsmiling, for it to die away, before continuing.

"Mr. Lie has testified before the federal grand jury, and on the basis of that testimony we issued indictments and have arrested Mr. Joseph Pigetti on charges of conspiracy, interference with a federal prosecution, witness intimidation, and kidnapping in connection with the abduction and murder of Edward Catalano. That concludes my presentation, and I am open for questions at this time."

"Oh, s.h.i.t, it's going to be a feeding frenzy," said Roland as a forest of hands shot up from the ranks of the press.

No one asked about the various indictments, the ostensible purpose of the press conference. What they wanted to know about was the murder and the mysterious witness. Where was this witness? In protective custody. Why wasn't Pigetti being charged with murder? Colombo was happy to explain that murder was not a federal crime. Murder was, of course, a crime under state law, and the witness, Mr. Lie, had approached the district attorney's office with his information, but the district attorney had refused to act on it. Pandemonium, shouts, urgent wavings. Colombo picked one and got the obvious: why did the district attorney not act?

"I have no idea," said Colombo, his expression indicating that he had a very good idea. "In general, federal investigations enjoy excellent cooperation with local law enforcement, using both state and federal statutes against defendants of this type. After all, we're all on the same side. There are exceptions, of course, in cases where organized crime has compromised local law enforcement organizations."

"Son of a b.i.t.c.h!" said Roland, loud enough to draw curious stares from several journalists.

The follow-up question was a no-brainer. Are you implying that this is the case with the New York D.A.? Through a half smirk Mr. Colombo declined to imply anything, a.s.serting that he was interested only in evidence, but that the D.A.'s investigation of the Catalano murder seemed to be in some disarray. The police had come up with a good suspect for the trigger man, but the D.A. had declined to arrest this person. Was there an active federal investigation of the New York D.A.? Mr. Colombo reminded the a.s.sembly that grand jury procedures, especially as regards investigations in progress, were closely sealed, but that he intended to vigorously pursue any and all lines of inquiry, no matter where they led, and that was all the time he had for questions, thank you.

"I guess we saw how the pros do it," was Karp's comment as they weaved through mobs of rushing journalists.

"Yeah, a truly brilliant job, the little f.u.c.k. He just about accused us of sleeping with the Mob. Jack's going to have twins. And he knew about the Marky Moron business, too. s.h.i.t!"

"Hey, we did the right thing there. Cops talk, and Tommy's always got his ears open for b.i.t.c.hing about his colleagues," said Karp as they pa.s.sed through the lobby of the Federal Building. "The story is the putatively mobbed-up D.A. won't get tough with the Bollanos, so the feds have to step in."

"Yeah, and he's going to pressure us to give state grand jury immunity on the Eddie Cat hit. And not just for the Chinaman. He's going to want us to walk Joe P. on it, too. He'll be glad to forget a murder or two or three provided someone drops a dime on the Sallys."

They paused outside the building, before the long, rusted steel Serra sculpture, another federal creation that no one liked but everyone had to live with.

"Don't worry, Roland," said Karp soothingly.

"Easy for you to say. Frank Anselmo is flashing his famous I-told-you-so smile and telling everyone you f.u.c.ked us up."

"Time is on our side," said Karp.

"Is it? You mean, if we find this Lie is dirty in a previous life. I wish I was as sure as you."