Irresistible Impulse by Robert K. Tanenbaum Page B

was a place for the defense to introduce doubt, and of course, there was inherently doubt in any objectification of an inner state. So Karp never based his presentation on motive; he wanted to convince the jury only that the defendant was at a certain place and did a certain thing to the victim, which caused the victim’s death.
    Here, however, the nature of the crime cried out for some explanation. Why would a young white man from a wealthy Long Island suburb travel to Harlem, disguise himself as a black man, and murder elderly black women? The jury would want to know. Karp wanted to know. He read on, although he doubted he would find the answer among the DD5’s.
    “Hey, Marlene,” said Marlon Dane at the door to her office, “this is the guy. Wolfe, this is Marlene Ciampi, the boss.”
    “Glad to meet you,” said Wolfe, stepping forward and holding out his hand.
    Marlene shook it and sized him up. A muscle guy, first of all. The hand was big, hard, and warm, and attached to a considerable arm and shoulder. Six-three, two-ten, Marlene’s experienced eye estimated, a jock, a bodybuilder. The face was pleasant enough in an all-American way, sandy hair, cropped closer than was fashionable, odd sandy eyebrows that stood out sharply against what must have been a tanning-parlor tan. He wore a tweed jacket over a white sweater over a shirt and tie, with dark wool pants and shined shoes. The eyes were tan too, the nose undistinguished, the expression—what was it? Not quite menschlike. An astronaut, but one of the ones who never got to go on a moon mission. Well, she thought as she gestured him to a seat, that’s what you generally got when you hired security. The best you could expect was just enough of the almost right stuff to get by.
    They sat down. A little small talk. He’d spent time down South and in New England, wanted to try his luck in New York. He reached into his jacket pocket and brought out a folded resume. Marlene read it. Clean, neatly typed, not too many misspellings. Jackson Wolfe, age thirty-one, unmarried. It was a usual sort of history. High school (letters in football, track), one year of college, military service with an M.P. unit in Korea, honorable discharge, black belt in tae kwan do. The job history was a scatter of security work in several big East Coast cities, no longer than two years in each place. Also not untypical. Security was America’s fastest-growing business and nearly the only one in which a strong, quick, presentable, unskilled man who didn’t much care for the classroom could freely move from job to job and earn a modest living. It was the modern equivalent of being a cowboy or a seaman a century before, a drifter’s job.
    Marlene looked up from the resume. “It says here you’re working for Macy’s now. How come you want to leave?”
    “I don’t much like working retail.”
    “Why not?”
    Wolfe shrugged and said, hesitantly and with what seemed embarrassment, “Well, you know. It’s all shoplifting, pilferage. I don’t like … I mean, the people we pick up, most of them, they’re pathetic. Some skinny teenager, they got to have the sixty-dollar bag with the logo, the right sneakers they saw on the TV. We bust ’em, they sit in the office crying, you know, what’ll my dad say, and stuff. Even the pros, you know, miserable junkies, most of them. And the—what d’you call ’em—the guys who think they’re girls—”
    “Transvestites?”
    “… yeah, them: I couldn’t believe it, a PR kid, a boy, trying to walk out with an eight-hundred-dollar gown. Pathetic! Anyway, I figure I’d rather, you know, protect people from, like, terrorists, wackos, and like that. And when Dane—Lonny—told me you might be looking—”
    “Right. Well, as a matter of fact, we are looking for some people.” Marlene looked at Wolfe. He met her gaze, his eyes mild, neutral, a reflecting lake, willing to be liked.
    “You have any problems with working for a woman, Mr. Wolfe?”