Something still didn't jibe for Karp. "Chief, assuming you're right, why haven't you got five hundred guys on this thing? What is this business about not charging Booth?"
"Think it through for yourself," Denton replied. "You know what kind of hell we go through when a cop kills somebody in self-defense. Can you imagine what would happen if it came out that a bunch of cops were setting themselves up to be judge, jury, and executioner? Butch, the Knapp business left this department lying on it side, gasping for air. If this came out, it would kill it dead. They'll take our guns away. They'll break up the force. It'll be chaos.
"When Fulton came to me with this, it struck me that in one way we were lucky that it was him that discovered it. He's probably the best man on the force for the job. He's a brilliant detective. He's emotionally mature. He's black and he knows Harlem. And one of our main suspects is in his unit."
"Who?"
"You're familiar with the King Cole Trio? Rough boys. That Dugman is from another age-a head breaker. It could be that they got too rough one day. Maybe they got to like it. Maybe just one of them is involved. We decided on a strategy. You heard the rumors that Fulton is dirty already? That's by design. I want him close to the scumbags up there, in a way that you can't get close unless you're bent. I guarantee you somebody up there knows who's doing these guys, and sooner or later one of them is going to cross paths with Fulton and let it drop.
"The main thing, though, is that it meant that we didn't have to tell anyone else. Fulton's working alone."
"Completely alone?" Karp said in astonishment.
"Completely. He came to me with his suspicions and I decided that full knowledge had to be limited to him and me. And now you."
Karp wrestled with the enormity of this statement. Then he said, "But, Chief, that means he's got no backup. If some wacko asks him for a meet at three in the morning in a vacant lot, what's he gonna do? Beg off?"
"If he thinks it's worth it, he'll go," said Denton. "There's a hundred undercover cops on the force that take risks just as bad every day."
Karp had ready in his mind the argument that those cops had radios and people watching out for them and people they could at least talk to, but his reading of Denton's expression convinced him that the chief of detectives had already written off Fulton's safety as a necessary sacrifice to his plan.
Karp changed tacks. He said, "But it's all going to come out anyway, when it goes to court."
Denton looked at Karp silently, his face a mixture of sadness, anger, and massive determination. Then slowly he shook his head.
Karp felt another chill, and this time his scalp prickled and sweat broke out on his palms and on his forehead. Karp ran a hand across his face and took a deep breath.
"Chief, if you're going to tell me that when Clay finds this guy he's going to kill him, with your… blessing, then I don't want to hear it. I can't know it. Maybe I better go now."
"Stay where you are. I'm not at the point where I'm hiring assassins myself. Maybe I should, but I can't. There's a little mental hospital upstate that specializes in caring for the violent offspring of the very rich. Whoever this cop is, he's a sick man, and he has to be taken care of. He'll go there. Quietly, discreetly, and for a very long time. I've already made the arrangements. I've moved police funds into an account that will pay for it when the time comes. Illegally, of course. If this comes out, my own career will be ruined as well, not that it matters much in the scale of things."
Denton sighed and seemed to survey his office, with its awards and memorabilia, as if he were imagining what it would be like to be hauled out of it, to jail. When he resumed speaking, it was from behind a wan smile.
"You know, I liked what you said about trusting people. I guess I operate the same way. But this thing… it's something else. You and I have always gotten along pretty well. You're smart and honest, and you know how to treat cops, which is rare down your street. I understand the kind of problems you have over there. That's by way of saying we have a relationship that means something to me.
"But let me say this. Nobody is to know anything about what we've just discussed. I gave my word to Clay that it was between him and me, and I've broken that word. I think for good reason, but he may not. So you can't reveal your knowledge to him either, ever. And when I say nobody, I mean nobody. Not your best friend, not your girlfriend. Is that agreed?"
Karp cleared his throat and said, "Yes."
"I'll try to keep you up-to-date on what's happening. I expect the same from you. And, Butch…"
"Yes."
"I have to say this. If you tell anybody, I'll find out about it, and if I do, I'd say a career in Jersey doing divorces will look pretty attractive to you."
SEVEN
Karp dragged himself to Marlene's loft that evening like a whipped dog. He had difficulty drawing a full breath, and was nearly winded when he arrived at the fifth-floor landing outside her door. The door was steel, painted glossy black, and he could make out a faint and distorted reflection in it of his own face.
Faint and distorted was indeed how he felt, as if some internal glue had been dissolved and his inner parts were free to travel independently of the structure that had ordered them. Karp was, of course, no stranger to the petty stratagems and evasions that make up much of the life of any participant in an adversarial system of justice. But until the revelations in Denton's office, and his own acquiescence to what the chief intended, he had always maintained a core of integrity, had never gone completely outside the law.
Now he had. He was conspiring in the extralegal abduction and confinement of a multiple murderer in order to protect the police. He still couldn't quite believe it. A structure of rationalization flew to his aid: he might not have to do anything after all. They might never find the guy. The guy might die. Fulton might die. Denton might die. Karp might die. Now, that looked good.
Suddenly he missed Garrahy with a pain that was almost physical. If Garrahy were still alive, this never would have happened. He would have toughed it out. The criminal justice system would never have decayed to the point where an honest cop like Bill Denton would have had to consider something like this. Or maybe that was an illusion too; maybe everything had always been totally corrupt and he, Karp, was the last real sucker in the city.
As from a distance he heard the sound of singing coming through the door, with an accompaniment of rattling noises. Marlene was singing a sad ballad, a sign that she was in a good mood. He pressed his ear to the cold black metal. It was "The Wagoner's Lad": Oh, sad is the fortune of all womankind, She's always controlled, she's always confined…
She should only know, thought Karp, and pushed open the door. Marlene, dressed in her Japanese kimono and Nikes, was standing in the kitchen area stirring something in a pan. She saw Karp, flashed a smile, and sang, a little louder:
Controlled by her parents, until she's a wife,
A slave to her husband the rest of her life.
Karp flung his suit jacket and his folder on a chair and went over to her. The kiss tasted of garlic and sweat.
"You're supposed to shout, 'Hi, honey, I'm home,'" said Marlene.
"Stipulate it," said Karp. "What are you doing?"
"I'm cooking," said Marlene. "You're familiar with the process? See, you buy raw food in a store. Then you put it in a pan on a stove." She tapped the gas range with her wooden spoon. "This is a stove."
"I think I'm beginning to understand," said Karp. "It's like a restaurant, except you have to wash the dishes yourself. But also, if you fondle the breasts of the attractive waitress, you don't get into trouble."