“Honest, Butch, how did I know she would fall in love? Christ, I only balled her a couple of times.”
V.T. looked up from his study of the wine list. “Guma, we are going to have to start a collection and hire one of your Sicilian relatives to castrate you. You’re a positive menace to the peace of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.”
“Fuck you too, V.T.”
“Or,” V.T. continued, “we could turn your ass in to Conrad Wharton, the scourge of porn. Why should he content himself with dirty pictures and tapes when pornography incarnate stalks the halls of 10 °Centre Street.” The other two men laughed.
“Wharton, my ass,” said Guma. “I can’t figure out why Garrahy keeps him right there in his office. The fucker is scared shitless of courtrooms, one, and two, he’s an incredible schmuck. A schmuck from Schmuckland.” He kissed his pinched fingers in a gesture of connoisseurship.
“True,” said V.T., “but Conrad has attached himself to the boss’s pet project, which is one way that weasels get on in the world. Deep in Francis P. Garrahy’s Irish-Catholic soul is an abhorrence of public pornography. In the old days, when he was coming up, you couldn’t see pussy until you were married. In fact, where Garrahy came from, you couldn’t see it even after you were married. Now he has to look at snatch every time he goes in to buy cigars.
“Conrad observes this and sells his all-out campaign against smut to the DA. Now he’s got a private office next to Garrahy’s and an army of twerps just like him to drag two-bit magazine publishers into court for five grand fines, like we have space on the calendars for that shit. No, Conrad is going places. He knows how to exploit the foibles of great men.”
“Bullshit. He’s an empty suit,” said Karp.
“As a prosecutor? No question. But Conrad isn’t interested in being a prosecutor and putting asses in jail. He’s interested in power. You know, Butch, there are two kinds of people in the world: people who are interested in doing real things-growing gardens, or inventing, or trying cases-and people who are interested in making other people jump through hoops. Conrad is one of those. And they’re hard to stop because while the rest of us are learning how to do the things we want to do, they’re spending all their time collecting power. Watch the guys who volunteer to do the secretarial and bureaucratic bullshit that nobody else wants to do. They usually wind up running the show.”
“Let ’em,” said Karp. “As long as they leave me alone.”
“Ah, but that’s just the point. They can’t leave you alone. Anything real-passion, excellence, skill-is a reproach to them. It’s a source of satisfaction that they can’t control. They have to destroy it. Look at Stalin and Trotsky. Trotsky ran the Russian Revolution almost single-handed. Stalin was the Communist Party’s administrative boss. Look who won. And I’ll tell you something else. Conrad’s got you targeted, Butch. He mooches around me a lot because he thinks my old man has pull, which he does, and the little piss-ant doesn’t miss an occasion to put you down.”
“Fuck him, he can’t touch me.”
Guma broke in. “Hey, what is all this Trotsky bullshit? This is supposed to be a party. Hey, Margo!” He gestured to the waitress, who came out from behind the bar and over to their table. She was a good-looking woman of about twenty-five, plump, with heavy eye makeup and a blond streak in her dark hair.
She pulled out her pad and smiled. “How are you all tonight? Ready to order?”
Guma said, “No, we’re still waiting for someone. But bring us a bottle of Barolo, the Fontanafredda. And the big antipasto, for nibbles.”
She scratched on her pad. “OK. Hey, Ray, classes are starting in two weeks.” She flashed a smile at Guma, who got red in the face and looked away with a sickly grin.
“Going back to law school, Goom?” V.T. asked.
“No, I am,” said Margo. “Well, paralegal anyway. Ray says he can get me a job.”
“Oh, really?” said Karp. “You’re a helluva guy, Guma.”
“Yeah, he sure is,” said Margo, the light of love, or at least opportunism, gleaming in her eyes. “I’ll go get your wine.”
She left. Guma said, “OK, guys …”
“Very tacky, Mad Dog, very tacky,” said Newbury.
“Yeah, Goom, is that the same technique you used on Kimple? Maybe you promised her a job in Villa Cella,” Karp said.
“Hey, what the fuck. She’s a bright kid, why shouldn’t I encourage her?” Guma protested.
“To quote you, Goom, ‘It’s not her mind I want, it’s her body.’ Tell the truth, Margo is more your speed than Ciampi,” said V.T.
“Don’t remind me. God, that’s an ass I’d love to get a piece of. What a body! Hard, tight-knishy little tits. She can probably yank nails with her snatch. By the way, where is she? You invited her, didn’t you, V.T.?”
“I did, and I believe she’s here now.”
The door opened and Marlene Ciampi breezed in, in blazer, knee-length gray flannel skirt, and high boots, a Marlboro gripped between her teeth like a stogie. Her thick, kinky, coal-colored hair was parted in the middle and drawn into a bun, getting a little ragged this late in the day. She had a heart-shaped face and the conventionally regular features of a cosmetics model, which she downplayed by keeping her eyebrows thick and her expression tight and belligerent.
“Sorry I’m late, guys,” she said, yanking the empty chair out with the toe of her boot and slamming her rear down on the leather. “I’ve had an un-fucking-believable whorehouse of a day.”
“That’s OK, Champ, we waited. As a matter of fact, we were just talking about you. Ray here was saying …”
Guma gave a strangled yelp. “Newbury, you’re dead!”
“Yes,” V.T. continued blandly, “he was speculating that your vaginal musculature was capable of ripping a nail out of a board, weren’t you, Ray?”
Ciampi didn’t blink. “Oh yeah? Did he elaborate? I mean sticking up, pounded flush, or countersunk?”
“A corpse, Newbury.”
“All flesh is grass, Goom,” said Newbury with a dazzling smile. “Ah, here’s our Margo. Let’s drink to Butch.” They poured the rich, pungent wine. “To homicide,” said Newbury, glass raised. They all drank and then Margo took their orders.
Karp said, “You got any pizza, Margo?”
Guma sputtered. “Pizza! Give me a break, Karp. Pizza in Villa Cella? Margo, don’t listen to him. Look, this is my party, I’m the head guinea, and I’ll order. First, bring a big plate of trigliette alio zaffrano, then the special canneloni, with veal piccata all around, OK?”
“I’m not eating veal,” said Marlene.
“Why not?” asked Guma.
“Because they nail the poor animals’ feet to the floor so they can’t move around and their flesh will be white. Yuck!”
“Marlene, they only do that to geese in Strasbourg,” said V.T.
“Well, I read that they lock them up in dark rooms, or something. Anyway, they have a horrible life, the little veals.”
“Shit, Marlene, so what! I have a horrible life,” said Guma.
“Yeah, but I’m not eating you, schmuck.”
“I only wish,” replied Guma, rolling his eyes to heaven.
“Guma, will you get off my case for one fucking minute? Christ, give me another glass of that stuff.” Karp poured and she picked the glass up and drained it in a gulp. She gasped and color rose high on her cheeks. “OK, I’m not going to get pissed off and screw up Butch’s party. But you will not believe my day.”
“What happened, Champ?” Karp asked.
“OK, first of all, you know the Ruddy Child Center case? This scumbag who runs the place is diddling the kids, and one of them tells the parents. It turns out that living on the same floor is our own Rick Pearl. He’s got his own two daughters in the place. So the parents go to their friendly, neighborhood assistant DA and Rick goes apeshit, gets a detective, goes down to the center, and braces the scumbag. Who cracks in about four seconds and spills his guts.