And she couldn’t tell anyone about it. Most of her friends from high school were married and had settled suburban lives. They’d think she was a freak. Her family? Mama, I’m fucking this married man. No, he’s not Italian. He’s not Catholic, either. Instant coronary. Her professional friends? Out of the question. That’s all she needed, this story to get around the office.
She rubbed her face and tried to shake these thoughts out of her head. To work. Maybe he’d call. She turned to her brimming in-basket. Sorting through the papers, she noticed that they were still sending her Karp’s mail.
Karp was in his outer office talking with some of his staff when the call came through.
“Mister Karp, there’s a call for you-they say it’s extremely urgent,” said Helen Simms.
“OK, guys, back to work. The city never sleeps. It’s probably the laundry calling, they put in extra starch by mistake.”
The voice on the phone was scratchy and interrupted by bursts of static.
“Butch, it’s me, Sonny. Listen, I found Pres.”
“What, who? Speak up, Sonny, I can hardly hear you.”
“Pres. The third man. His name’s Preston Elvis, and he SKRRRCHHHH, the paper that Louis worked for.”
“You got him? Is he in custody?”
“No! Look, I’m on the Deegan, they patched me through over the radio. Butch, he’s got SKRCHHHWOOOOWRR in an envelope. He’s tied in with that guy, the terrorist. Butch, I think he’s heading for you SSSSCHHHRRWOWR already called the bomb squad, they should be there any minute. So don’t WOORRSCHH.”
“Jesus, Sonny, what the fuck are you talking about. What’s this about the bomb squad. I can’t hear shit on this line.”
“The third man, Butch. Louis set him up with a bomb. Don’t touch any CCCHHWWOOOOWRRCHH.”
“Any what? What?”
“Any mail! It’s a letter bomb. The bomb’s in a nine by twelve manila envelope, with an out-of-town postmark. You better get your office cleared out, too. Butch, are you there? Butch? Ah, shit!”
As soon as Dunbar said “letter bomb,” of course, Karp had thrown down the phone and leaped for the door. He ran to his secretary and told her not to touch any mail. Then, with mounting horror, it came to him that he had still not told the mailroom that he had moved his office. His heart was pounding in his throat as he ran out of the office and toward the stairs to the sixth floor.
Marlene had three pieces of Karp’s mail lined up on her desk. One was an American Express bill. One was a letter from the University of California Alumni Association. The third one was the item that held her interest, a thick manila envelope with a Berkeley postmark, addressed in a flowing, patently feminine hand.
Marlene turned the envelope over and inspected it. The flap was fastened, but not sealed. She had a cold feeling in the pit of her stomach. She wants him back, she thought. It’s a long letter explaining her affair with that woman and how she realized it wasn’t for her and how she’s going to come home to New York and make a great little home for him and have kids. Or maybe she’s sending back a bunch of letters he wrote to her, begging her to take him back, he’ll be her slave, he’ll move to California and sell insurance. Telling her he’s been screwing this little guinea in revenge but that’s all over, she’s the one and only. Or maybe it’s divorce papers.
“Oh, God!” said Marlene out loud, “I can’t stand this.”
She undid the clasp and pulled the flap up.
Now even in the midst of this emotional turmoil, there was a part of Marlene’s mind that remained cool and rational. It was trying to send messages through to Marlene Central, but the circuits were blocked by hormones and random emotional noise. This part of Marlene knew pretty well what she held in her hand. Marlene had, after all, seen pictures of such envelopes before. Perhaps if it had been postmarked Detroit all would have been well.
“Bomb!” said that part of Marlene, as Marlene’s hand came up on the flap. “Bomb!” it said again as Marlene felt the tiny tug of resistance and saw the fine wire glued to the flap. By then it was too late, for electrons were already flowing from the battery to the primer charge. Marlene knew what it was now, and sent an urgent message to her hand and arm to throw the thing away. Her hand came dutifully up, slowly, slowly, while her mind screamed in overdrive. The envelope left her hand, but now it was hardly an envelope any more, more like a hot flower. Marlene brought her arm up in front of her beautiful face as the fireball swallowed her.
Chapter 18
Karp’s chest hurt. He had a broken heart. He was breathing mere pints of air, and his face ached with unshed tears. His stomach was empty and his mouth was still sour, because after he had entered the shattered office and seen the scorched and bloody thing that lay behind Marlene’s desk, he had vomited. After that, he had knelt by her side and tried to help, covering her with his jacket and mouthing meaningless words of reassurance, more for him than for her, since she was mercifully unconscious. The cops and the emergency team had arrived a few seconds later and gently moved him aside so they could tend to her.
Now he was waiting in a hallway in Bellevue, studying the cracks in the peeling green paint and trying to forget his last sight of her as they wheeled her past, the black and red Halloween mask on her face, blowing red bubbles. He shared the waiting with a crowd of assorted Ciampis, sitting in stunned silence on benches, pacing nervously, or-in the case of her mother- sobbing without letup. Karp didn’t introduce himself, nor did they make any effort to include him in their circle of grief.
A tired young man in green scrubs came through swinging doors and approached the Ciampis. Karp watched from across the hall. The doctor spoke quietly to the family. Several of the women began to shriek at once. The mother fainted, and the family redirected its attention to this immediate crisis. The doctor saw Mrs. Ciampi settled on a bench and then strode briskly away. Karp followed him.
Once past the swinging doors Karp accosted the surgeon.
“Hey, Doc, wait up. What’s the story on Marlene Ciampi?”
“You are?”
“Roger Karp. I work with her. At the DA’s office.”
“Well, as I told them back there, she’s pretty badly hurt. In fact, it’s amazing she survived. Of course, she was sitting down at the desk when the explosion occurred, so there’s only minor damage from the waist down. She’s going to need extensive reconstructive surgery on her face, though. And the hand.”
“The hand?”
“Yes, it looks as though she was able to get her arm up over the left side of her face. She’s going to lose a lot of function in the left hand. And, of course, the right eye is completely gone.”
“Of course,” said Karp, the nausea rising in him again.
The doctor looked at him curiously. “Say, are you OK? You look like you got blown up, too.”
Karp looked down at his clothes, which were caked with blood and soot. “I wish,” he said. He turned away and walked out of the building.
Karp was startled to discover, on emerging from the hospital, that it was still day, the smoky yellow twilight of late summer in the city, hot and humid. He had mistakenly thought his hospital vigil had lasted through the night.
Karp began walking rapidly down First Avenue. He wanted to go home and change his clothes. He wanted to get drunk. But most of all he wanted the guy who planted the bomb, and the guy who made it, and the guy who thought it up. He had a pretty good idea about who two of these were. And he wanted them without Miranda or Escobedo. He wanted them raw.
By the time he got to 20th Street, Karp’s imagination had subjected them to a series of punishments not authorized by the New York State Penal Code. Also, in the sliver of his mind not given over to rage and grief, he was beginning to understand how seductive an idea was vengeance, and how-beneath all the talk about rehabilitation and civil rights-that idea remained as the ancient core of criminal justice. Bad guys have to be hurt, and they have to be seen to be hurt. The cops’ old song.