“Yes. Everything, save for these trifles.” Tranh indicated the duffel bag with his toe. “I regret only my little library, some items of which had sentimental value. This is now the third time I have lost everything. One grows accustomed to it, I find: to having nothing.”
“But where will you stay?” Marlene asked. “And you can’t go wandering around in a blanket. It is the autumn already. Have you got any cash?”
“A little, thank you. And I am given to understand that there are facilities for the destitute-”
“Ah, your compatriots of the Vietnamese community will provide for you?”
“I fear not. The Vietnamese community and I are not in communion. No, I refer to the establishment of the city itself.”
“The men’s hostels? Never! They are, you comprehend, a species of hell, full of robbers and those of degenerate tastes. I will not allow it. No, I have a suite of small rooms connected with my business. You will stay there until we can devise a better solution.”
“Madame, I could not possibly impose upon you …”
“Nonsense!” cried Marlene. “I insist. Are you not my friend?” she said. “And it is no imposition. In return, you can perform a valuable service for me perhaps. I operate a security business. I detect that you are not altogether lacking in useful skills associated with such work. Therefore, let us walk!” She took the man’s arm, whereupon he nodded in assent and lifted his bag.
“Mom! What’re you talking about?” demanded Lucy, who was unused to being the one who was missing the story, at least in Chinatown.
“Mr. Tranh is going to live behind my office,” said Marlene.
“With Sym and Posie?” Lucy began to giggle.
“We’ll work something out,” said Marlene, an interesting idea beginning to form in her mind.
SEVEN
Paul Menotti was a short, stocky, energetic man: a fireplug was the usual expression, which denoted not only his approximate shape but also carried the notion that in the event of a conflagration, he would be a good source of the wherewithal to extinguish it. Karp sat in a comfortable chair in Menotti’s office in the federal building off Foley Square reflecting, not for the first time, that the offices of those who pursued the violators of federal law were more stately than those occupied by mere state prosecutors. Menotti’s mahogany was bright, his brass shone, and his leather was thick and soft. He had a rug of some generalized colonial pattern on the floor and federally supplied artwork on the walls. He also had two windows opening on Foley Square.
With Karp and Menotti in the room were V.T. Newbury and a slim young woman with light blue eyes and nice cheekbones. Her dark blond hair was neck-long and held back by a tortoiseshell clip, but it fell forward as she wrote on the pad she had on her lap, hiding her face. She had been introduced as Cynthia Doland, Menotti’s special assistant, with no indication of what was special about her and what she assisted in. Apparently, she was there to take meeting notes, since after the introductions she had kept mum.
Menotti and V.T. were now engaged in a technical argument, clearly one of long standing, about how to draft a warrant against St. Nicholas Health Care so as to extract enough information to nail Dr. Robinson without at the same time putting him wise to the extent of their suspicions and (possibly) prompting him to crank up his shredder. V.T. was holding out for the incremental approach, the Death of a Thousand Cuts, as he called it-a small demand, followed by another and another, until there was enough cause to justify a major raid. Menotti wanted to seize everything at once.
With no direct role in this argument, Karp was free to muse, and to examine the delightful line of Ms. Doland’s neck. She was wearing a scoop-necked dress, and as she bent over recording the ever changing proposed language of the warrant in question, Karp had a nice view of her small, pointed breasts, enclosed in a pale rose bra. Karp was as faithful as a chow, but he had no objection to observing what was in plain view, as allowed by the Fourth Amendment.
Karp became aware that the discussion had ceased, that Menotti was looking at him, that Menotti knew where he had lately cast his eyes. A brief cloud crossed Menotti’s face; Karp sensed that his relationship with the tasty Ms. Doland was not entirely professional. Or perhaps it was; Karp had never been very great shakes at ferreting out the intimacies of the people he met in a business way. In any case, Menotti had asked him a question.
“Well, it’s not my area,” Karp responded, “but if I had to choose, I’d go with V.T.’s slow and steady. I don’t want this guy spooked.”
“Why not?”
“Because your boy could be a killer as well as a fraud.” V.T. had briefly mentioned the affair of the dead nurse at the start of the meeting, and Menotti grunted in acknowledgment. Karp went on, “The point here is that if in fact he went to that extreme, he’s not going to cavil at trashing some records. Or somebody else.”
They all thought about that for a while.
Then V.T. said, “Just an idea. Is it at all possible that our anonymous tipster was this nurse?”
Karp said, “Anything’s possible, but how the hell would we ever find out?”
“They record all the calls on the hotline,” said Ms. Doland. They all looked at her. She blushed faintly and batted long-lashed eyes.
“Check it out, would you, Cynthia?” said Menotti.
The woman made a note on her pad.
“I meant now, Cynthia.”
She nodded and left the room. Since clearly no federal business could transpire without a note taker, the three men talked sports and politics in a desultory fashion until Cynthia Doland returned, about twenty minutes later, the time being punctuated by Menotti accepting several calls, during which he did a good deal of snarling and did not spare the obscenities.
When Doland came back, she was carrying a Sony portable tape recorder.
“You got it,” said Menotti. It was not a question.
“They played it over the phone,” she said. “It’s fuzzy, but you can make out the type of voice.” She sat down and pushed the Play button.
A voice said: “St. Nick’s is ripping you all off big time. That Dr. Robinson got his hand in deep. They got phony patients, they got phony treatments, and there’s something bad going on with the pharmacy, I don’t know what.”
“Sounds black. Middle-aged, I’d say,” offered Menotti.
Doland clicked off the recorder and seemed about to say something. They all looked at her, but she shook her head and blushed again.
Then they all looked at Karp, who frowned and said, “Evelyn Longren was a twenty-eight-year-old white woman, so unless she was a pretty good mimic, that’s someone else.”
“In any case, are you going to pursue this as a homicide?” Menotti asked.
“Providing it’s a homicide I will,” said Karp. “They’re doing the full autopsy now. I’ll let you know when I know.”
“I thought we weren’t going to do this,” said Karp, discontented in the bosom of his family. The twins had been efficiently bedded down by Posie, who was now watching the Mary Tyler Moore Show in the kitchen with Lucy, Lucy having done her homework with less row than usual. Butch and Marlene were in the living room of the loft discussing the new domestic arrangements.
“Yes, that’s what I thought too,” said Marlene. “No live-in nannies for me. No, I was going to run a business, and take care of Lucy, and a set of twins, and continue to be married and have a relationship with a man, you. Did I leave anything out? Oh, yeah, prepare meals, and not just meals but good ones, with home-made sauces and noodles, and baking once a week. And go to church. And go to the bathroom. Well, here’s a flash: I can’t do it. I give up. I have to be able to sleep, and I can’t, and I have to be able to set my own hours and come and go more or less at will, and I can’t. And I need more time with Lucy. So that’s why Posie has to live in. We can leave the twins here in the morning now. We don’t have to schlep them down the stairs and then up the stairs to my office. We can work on weekends without having to break off every ten minutes.”