Depraved Indifference by Robert K. Tanenbaum Page B

trusted; with their volatile politics, they could have a red-loving regime in power at any time that might listen too sympathetically to the demands of the communists. And the French loved the Serbs in any case and always had. No, he had to get back to the United States, to New York, where he had friends. Or at least people in high places who owed him favors. He began to think of how he might contrive to bring this about. He thought well under pressure and did not especially mind the heat. In an hour he had come up with several plans, none of which was entirely satisfactory, but none of which was, in the event, required. To his great delight, they soon dropped the thing in his lap.
    Marlene Ciampi puffed her first cigarette in two hours on the sidewalk outside Bronx Municipal Hospital Center. She had talked to both Doheny and D’Amato. Doheny was in bad shape and could barely mumble, but D’Amato had been lively and voluble. Doheny swore he was not drunk. The blast that had killed Doyle seemed to have sent chunks of shrapnel into his soul; he blamed himself entirely.
    Marlene did not think he was lying to save his job, and D’Amato confirmed this. The sergeant may have been feeling the results of the previous night’s drinking, but D’Amato swore that Jack Doheny never took a drink on the job. Nobody in a bomb disposal gang would have worked with him if he had.
    This made sense to Marlene, even if nothing else did. She stamped out her cigarette and looked idly across the street. The great massif of the Bronx Psychiatric Center loomed over Eastchester Road and the railroad tracks. It was half empty, she had heard, since they had let the crazy people out onto the streets. Marlene watched an elderly black woman in a long purple coat, pink trousers, and a brown turban, pushing a rickety baby stroller. It was loaded with greasy brown paper bags that appeared to be full of garbage. Naturally, the woman was talking to the city at large, announcing to its citizenry seen and unseen, temporal and spiritual: “My cherry, my chicken, they got me all right, all right. May the Lord bless and keep you forever.”
    Marlene was jumpy by the time she got to Rodman. She wanted to get to work, to move. With little difficulty she talked Captain Marino into lending her a set of blue coveralls and letting her help out in the pit. For the rest of the afternoon she sifted sand and picked and bagged odd bits of matter. The sky went yellow, then purple as the sun sank into The Bronx. A salty breeze drove in from the bay. The gang completed its work and went home.
    Marlene went back to Marino’s office. He wasn’t there, but she found him in a larger room down the hall fitted out with black-topped lab tables. On them had been placed large enamel trays and piles of plastic bags. Several men were examining things through magnifiers and binocular microscopes.
    Marino greeted her and waved her over to where he stood next to a balding man at one of the microscopes. “Long day, huh Marlene?” he said cheerfully. For a man who had been going for more than twenty-four hours, he looked remarkably fresh.
    â€œYeah. You look bright, though. How do you do it?”
    He chuckled. “Eat right and stay regular. And lots of black pepper—it washes the blood. Hey, you want to see something? Here, I think we might have got lucky.”
    He led her over to an enamel tray that contained some small blackened metal bits. “Look at that. Neat, huh?”
    â€œWhat is it?”
    â€œIt’s how they set it off. We still got samples being analyzed at the lab. We’re doing GC-mass spec work-ups plus the usual chemistry, but we think we got basically a disassembled hand grenade. The lab’s got formulations for just about every conventional explosive in the world, civilian and military. It’ll help a lot to know where it came from.”
    â€œHow do you know it’s a grenade?” Marlene asked.