“Now listen to me, little bro. You fuck up once, OK, you jus’ learnin’. You fuck up again, you dead. You dig what I’m sayin’?”
Elvis dug. And resented it. He had moved into Louis’s apartment, which apparently included, as an appliance, the occasional favors of the luscious DeVonne. He told himself he would keep an eye on things until Louis’s situation cleared up, which, he hoped, would not be for a long time. Meanwhile, he could live damn good on Louis’s stash, and after that was gone, he was pretty sure he could, with a solid base like Louis’s pad, figure out some ways of bringing in easy money. Elvis had big plans.
Which was why the voice on the phone had come as such a shock. Elvis tried to get his thoughts together. There was obviously no need for panic. Louis was behind bars, prison or crazy house didn’t make no never mind, and Elvis was outside. Shit, Louis needed him, right?
“Now wait a second, Man,” said Elvis, putting a little sass into his voice, “don’t go comin’ at me like that. I ain’t your nigger.”
“You ain’t?” said Louis after a long pause. “I think you wrong there, little bro. But I see how you could maybe think that, I do indeed. Now say if I go wrong now, but you thinkin’ ‘Shit, Louis in the can now, I get to play with his toys, play his fine stereo, an’ all, sleep on his soft bed, nothing can’t touch old Pres.’ That right? Yeah.
“But the problem with that, see, is if it turns out I gotta do time in Attica, well then it’d be my duty to stand up in court and tell them all ’bout you, boy, how you help me plan the crime, how you stood right by me when I blew those two dudes away. That make you guilty, same as me, the law funny that way. So we both be in Attica at the same time. You gonna love that, Pres, I promise you that. Shit, Pres, there’s dudes in there, they’d shove goddam broken glass up your asshole for ’bout fifty dollars apiece.”
“Ah, Man, I din mean …”
“No, lemme go on, Pres,” said the soft voice on the line. “It hurt me you not doin’ all you can to help me out, especially since it was your own self got me into this. Anyway, let’s say I don’t go to Attica, let’s say I stay here in Matteawan. Shit, Pres, this place-a fuckin’ blind man could walk outa here. So you see, Pres, I figure we friends, you gonna help me outa the fine affection you feel for your main man, but if not, you know I’m gonna come after you, one way or the other. I’m up on murder one already, so I don’t have shit to lose, you dig? An’ when I catch you, an’ I will catch you, cause you a dumb muthafucka, I will cut your black ass into tiny little pieces. Now, you dig how you might of been wrong about you not bein’ my nigger anymore?”
Elvis was bathed in sweat, both from fear and from the effort of having ventured to suggest an independent course of action for himself. Elvis did not fear the law; there were thousands of ways of avoiding it, and even if it caught you it was no big deal. But he was pretty sure there was no way on earth of avoiding Mandeville Louis, and he was absolutely sure that if Louis caught him, it would be a big deal.
“Hey, Man, hey be cool. Jus bullshittin’, that’s all. Shit.”
“Good. I like your attitude, Pres. Now, listen, here’s what I want you to do.”
“The problem,” Karp was saying to V.T. Newbury, “is that he only has two weeks to get certified as a candidate. Vierick’s been campaigning for months. Every time somebody gets mugged, the mayor puts Vierick on TV, with the implication that the city needs a war on crime under a new general, which is him.
“Meanwhile, Conlin is going batshit. He can’t come out publicly as long as Garrahy is hanging fire, but short of that he sure as shit is acting like a candidate. Hogging press? Fucking guy is now inviting reporters from the Times and the News to sit in on Homicide Bureau meetings. It’s unbelievable. Morale is in the toilet.”
The two men were sitting on a bench in Foley Square. It was spring again. The Marchiones had been in their graves for over a year. Karp was carrying a full load in Homicide, as was Ciampi. Hrcany was in Felony Trial. Newbury was in Frauds, conducting interminable and arcane investigations of the financial markets, most of which involved, according to him, jailing his relatives and their friends. He loved it. Guma was in the new Narcotics Bureau, also, presumably, jailing his relatives. Conrad Wharton had been named chief administrative officer of the District Attorney’s Office.
“Something’s wacky there, Butch,” said Newbury. “Why doesn’t Conlin get together with the other bureau chiefs and tell Garrahy he’s either got to run or to declare for a successor, you know, for the sake of the glorious DA’s Office? I mean, the thought of Vierick in there ought to shake him up. Or, dare I say it, a Republican.”
Karp laughed. “Bite your tongue. Yeah, I can’t figure it out either. I’ve heard some weird rumors, but Conlin assures me that he’s been pushing Garrahy to run for a year.”
“What does he say Garrahy says?”
“That he’ll see how he feels when the time comes. Anyway, the time has come. I’ll tell you though: I wish I was a fly on the wall at the next bureau chiefs’ meeting.”
They were silent for a while. Then V.T. said, “We couldn’t bug his conference room, could we? I mean, that would be wrong.”
“Oh, very wrong, and besides there isn’t time. The meeting’s today at four-thirty. However, talking about ‘flies on the wall’ and ‘bugs’ has got me thinking. You know that big wooden wardrobe at one end of Garrahy’s conference room? If somebody was standing in it, he could hear everything that was going on at the meeting.”
“Yes, he could. But surely you’re not suggesting that you or I …”
“Of course not, V.T. I’m way too big and you’re way too couth. No, for this venture we need somebody small, slimy, utterly devoid of moral discrimination, yet possessed of a kind of animal cunning, and most of all, somebody who has absolutely nothing to lose as far as career goes.”
“I believe you’re right, Butch. But where are we to find a colleague so utterly devoid of professional ethics, so desperate a villain that he would stoop to spying on our esteemed leaders? I mean, where in the New York District Attorney’s Office would we find a creature so vile?”
“Where indeed?” said Karp.
“No fucking way!” said Guma. “You guys are crazy.”
Karp, Newbury, and Marlene Ciampi were ranged around Guma’s desk, like detectives around the suspect in an old-time movie. Karp had been inspired to drag Ciampi along on the theory that the presence of a woman would turn Guma’s brain to mush, a necessary preamble to the plot. She came, but was not amused.
“Come on, Goom,” said Karp. “There’s nothing to it. We got to find out what Conlin’s been feeding Garrahy about the election, and this is the only way. There won’t be another chiefs’ meeting until it’s too late.”
“You do it, then!”
V.T. said, “Raymond, where’s your spirit of adventure? What happened to the Mad Dog we used to know? You lost your nerve?”
Guma scowled like a sulky Pekinese. “Up yours, V.T.! Look folks, I’m a busy man-got places to go, people to see. Let’s have lunch sometime …”
“Guma, we got to have you in on this. Name your price.”
“Fuck you too, Karp. What d’you think, I’m some kinda sleaze bag? ‘Name your price,’ my ass! It’s unprincipled, that’s why I’m not gonna do it, and nothing you can say is gonna make me change my mind.”
At this, Ciampi leaned forward from where she was perched on the corner of Guma’s desk and looped her finger through one of Guma’s curly locks.
“Guma,” she said, “this is the final offer. Do the job and I promise that when we ride up on the elevator when it’s crowded and you accidentally-on-purpose brush my bazoom with your arm, I won’t kick you in the ankle anymore.”