Tranh followed, still gripping the little thug, his thin blade held rigid, an improbable length of steel vanishing into the kid’s ear, the kid’s face twisted into a rictus of pain. Tranh was talking to the kid in a low voice. Suddenly he stopped, withdrew the knife. Blood oozed down the kid’s neck. Tranh delivered a mighty kick against the base of the kid’s spine. The kid went sprawling on the pavement. His friends picked him up, and without another word they got back in their car and drove away, tires squealing. Tranh watched them go, nodded to Marlene and Lucy, and then went back into his shop.
“Wow!” said Lucy.
“Wow, indeed,” said Marlene, starting her car. “Very impressive. You know, Luce, I think that whatever Mr. Tranh did in the war, it probably didn’t involve a desk job.”
“Or noodles either,” said Lucy.
FIVE
Dr. Davidoff came in to Karp’s office later that day, accompanied by Clay Fulton and, somewhat to Karp’s surprise, a man named Aaron Weinstein, who was introduced as Davidoff’s lawyer. Karp and Fulton exchanged a brief look. The detective’s eyebrows rose a quarter of an inch, his broad shoulders somewhat more: I didn’t tell him anything, boss.
The three men settled themselves in chairs around Karp’s desk. Weinstein, a portly, balding man somewhat older than Karp, projected an air of bonhomie, focusing charm on Karp, noting mutual friends, claiming acquaintanceship with the powerful. He told a small joke. The message: we’re all friends here aiming at straightening out this little difficulty, but on the other hand, we are not pushovers. He did it well; that was what Davidoff was paying him for.
After the usual five minutes of smiles, Karp opened the real bidding with, “So, Doctor, how did you come to be the attending physician at the death of Ms. Longren?”
Davidoff paused, flicked a glance at his lawyer, and answered, “I was asked to as a professional courtesy by Dr. Vincent Robinson.”
“I see. And was it usual for Dr. Robinson to call you in for consultation?”
“No. I mean, yes, it was unusual.”
“Very unusual? Maybe unique?” Karp pressed.
Here Weinstein stepped in, asking genially, “Um, could we slow down here a little, Mr. Karp? Maybe we could answer your questions better if we had some idea where they were going. Surely, there’s no implication or suggestion that Dr. Davidoff did anything untoward or wrong. So, what are we …?”
“Well, actually, we don’t know that, do we?” Karp responded. “What we see is a young woman dead under circumstances that we might call suspicious.”
“Suspicious!” Weinstein exclaimed. “How ‘suspicious’? Good Lord, there were two physicians in attendance.”
“Yeah, that’s the point, Mr. Weinstein. An overabundance of docs and an insufficiency of records pertaining to the deceased. There is no record of Ms. Longren ever having been a patient of Dr. Davidoff’s. Moreover, Ms. Longren was an employee of Dr. Robinson, and Dr. Robinson was a beneficiary of her insurance policy. And drugs were involved; there is evidence of a hasty attempt to dispose of barbiturates and other drugs at Dr. Robinson’s apartment.”
The geniality had flown from Weinstein’s face. He whispered something into Davidoff’s ear. Karp caught the word “records.” Davidoff nodded and licked his lips nervously. Weinstein said, “Actually, Dr. Davidoff does have records of his treatment in this case. Show him, Mark.”
Whereupon Dr. Davidoff drew from a leather folder a manila records jacket that, when opened, proved to contain only an incomplete cover sheet and three pages of lined loose-leaf paper covered with hurried, scribbled writing. Weinstein sighed gently. Detective Fulton cleared his throat. Mark Davidoff flushed and jiggled his leg. Karp stared at him and said, “Doctor, you have a big decision to make right now. We have an exhumation order in on the body of Evelyn Longren. I think that whatever else we learn from it, we’ll find that she did not die from viral pneumonia. So, pretty soon you’re going to have to decide whether you want to be a witness in a homicide case or one of the defendants.” Karp’s tone was polite, dry, firm, designed by years of experience to pierce the composure of middle-class, heavily lawyered culprits.
More murmured conversation between doctor and lawyer, at the end of which Weinstein said, “Without any admission of wrongdoing, we are perfectly willing to be completely frank and open as to Dr. Davidoff’s part in this affair.”
Karp nodded and picked up the phone to call for a steno.
Harry Bello was back in the office when Marlene returned from re-depositing Lucy at P.S. 1.
“What’s with Lucy?” he asked, using a tone and wearing an expression designed to promote guilt. (Marlene’s mothering had never been up to Harry’s standards; even Harry’s mother might have fallen short with respect to caring for Lucy.) Although she was prepared to cut Harry some slack, he having been a detective for thirty years and therefore incapable of asking a question that did not assume some vicious secret, she was not having any of it today.
“Nothing, Harry,” she said shortly. “It’s all straightened out.”
A doubtful look, a 138-grain magnum doubtful look.
“She is fine, Harry!”
Tiny shrug, change of subject. “How did it go with your uptown fiddle player?”
“Cellist. I like her. It’s some fan, a nut. He’s started to follow her.”
“Are we taking it?”
“Yeah, it feels like it could go sour. And she’s got the money for it.”
Harry’s eyes flicked up to the large board pinned over his desk. He said, “Umnh.”
Marlene looked at the board, at the names of clients and commitments, at the names of their largely part-time staff written in with black grease pencil on a plastic overlay, and saw what the grunt meant. Bello amp; Ciampi handled three kinds of jobs. The first was conventional security for celebrities, which entailed bodyguard services when the women (nearly all their clients were women) were out and about, performing, modeling, having lunch, being vulnerable. This was the cash cow, but also required the most time and the most rigid scheduling. The second was a kind of pest controclass="underline" finding men who were stalking or abusing women and getting them to stop, either through writs and prosecution or through what Marlene called reason and persuasion. Finally, there was the pro bono work, which usually involved desperate women, often with children, who were fleeing dangerous relationships, passing through shelters, needing to be set up with new lives. This was by far the work most likely to lead to actual violence, and Marlene had always done most of it herself. Now, looking over the manning chart, Marlene had to admit they were overextended, especially if Marlene wanted to continue the time-consuming pro bono tasks. Which she did.
“We need at least another guy, full-time,” she suggested.
“Two,” said Harry. “Dane called, said he’s bringing over a guy who might be okay.”
“Checked out?”
Harry lifted a noncommittal eyebrow. “Ask him. He’s supposed to be coming in today. Meanwhile, I’ll look around.”
“For one guy, Harry.”
“Two, Marlene, you want to spend a night at home, tuck in your kids-”
“Okay, already, Harry!” Marlene snapped, and went back to her own office, her brow knotted. Harry was perfectly correct, but she resented being told that her fantasy of a cozy little crusade was fading. The little firm had grown perhaps too rapidly. Starting with just Harry and herself two years ago, it now employed the equivalent of twenty full-time people, but because many of their employees were part-time cops, they actually had over thirty people on their payroll. This was a serious problem: neither she nor Harry were famous for their management skills. Sym was bright and willing, and Marlene had started to load her with routine duties, but even Marlene hesitated at giving any independent responsibility to a nineteen-year-old ex-streetwalker.