Lou Catafalco was part of the last generation of catholic new Yorkers to have spent his elementary-school years entirely in the hands of nuns, and to this he attributed his difficulty in speaking extempore before a group. He hated any meetings at which he might be called upon to speak. He feared the slashing ruler still; and of all meetings, he hated most the one that took place every Wednesday morning in the office of the chief assistant DA. It was the meeting of all the bureau chiefs-homicide, narcotics, fraud, rackets, special investigations, complaint, appeals, and the six trial bureaus, which handled the people's cases in all criminal matters that did not fall under the rubric of the specialized bureaus. Here the chief assistant DA, the operating boss of the DA's office, in other words, heard about any problems likely to arise, and any complaints, and a description of what the particular bureau had been doing for the past week and would be doing for the week to come. Simple, routine, but…
The chief assistant DA did not much resemble Sister Mary Angelica (a woman who still made appearances in Catafalco's nightmares, slashing her eighteen-inch maple measuring device like a cossack's saber), being much taller, six five at least, and with a flat, hard, vaguely Eastern face. Jewish, too, rather than Irish, like Sister, and the eyes were gray with yellow flecks, not ice-chip blue. No, it was something about the look in the eyes, a look impossible to prevaricate against, an intelligence impatient with fumfering, with incompetence. His name was Roger Karp, universally called Butch. Catafalco had known Butches before, and they were all genial, overweight, happily stupid men. Why did he call himself Butch? To disarm probably. You didn't expect a Butch to embarrass you in public; a Butch told you to forgedaboudit and invited you for a brewski.
The meeting was starting, as it always did, with homicide. Catafalco thought this a little unfair. The position ought to be rotated so that everyone got a chance to be first. Special investigations was always last, except for complaint, which was a bunch of clerks and kids. Favoritism, and homicide always took up the most time. That was because Karp and the homicide bureau chief were buddies from way back. Karp never came down hard on Roland Hrcany, the way he did on some of the others. Catafalco didn't care for Hrcany either. The guy looked like an ape, for one thing, like a pro wrestler-huge shoulders, a jagged Neanderthal face, that white-blond hair, which he probably dyed, hanging down over his collar like some hippie. And he was mean, too. When Karp was on someone, Roland often put the needle in, too, sarcastic, contemptuous…
Hrcany finished talking about a case, People v. Benson. Karp raised a point about a possible violation of the confrontation clause. Hrcany said it was a Green exception. Catafalco tried to recall what Green was, as if he ever knew, and gave it up. Some Supreme Court decision. They seemed to enjoy this kind of argument, all the precedents vital to trial work seemed to be in their heads. He couldn't follow much of it himself. Instead he looked at his notes for his turn at show-and-tell. Neighborhood school-board corruption, a hardy perennial. Indictments were almost ready in two cases. A scatter of inspector bribes now in the system and being negotiated. All, he thought, would settle, no trials there. A continuing investigation into the taxi and limousine bureau, clerks taking bribes for licenses. He was fairly sure that would yield a sheaf of indictments. A bad cop in Inwood, Patrolman Martino. And the Cooley case, the Lomax shooting. Just starting on that one, but clearly routine. In and out.
He waited, mind drifting, while the trial bureaus and the other specialty bureaus had their five or ten minutes each. Then Karp nodded to him. He cleared his throat and began. During his presentation several of the chiefs excused themselves and left, pleading more pressing engagements. That was fine with Catafalco, although also unfair. It would be nice to slip out early himself for a change, were he not ever the next to last. As he spoke, Karp made notes in one of those pale green ledgers he used. Catafalco thought it unlikely that the notes were about special investigations. Fine again; he was almost done.
"… and we're getting full cooperation from the taxi people on this, a lot of good data. We should get at least twenty-one indictments, and I expect the whole thing to wrap up before the first week in April. Finally, a couple of police cases. We have Patrolman Vincent Marino, in that drug-ring business up in Inwood, we'll be bringing an indictment there day after tomorrow, the police are fine with that, a clear-cut bad boy, and Brendan Cooley, a self-defense shooting, no problems foreseen."
Karp raised his eyes and looked directly at Catafalco. "The Cooley? You've investigated this already? I thought it just happened Sunday night."
"Well, yeah, Butch, it was a very straightforward case."
"Really? That would make it unique in the annals of cop shootings." Chuckles around the table.
Catafalco made himself grin, too, and said, "Hey, sometimes it goes easy. We should be thankful and not make trouble for ourselves. The deceased's a known felon, a known thief. The officer involved spotted him in a stolen car and gave chase. A high-speed pursuit then ensued, during which the actor, in his vehicle, attempted to ram the police vehicle. Shots were fired and the man died. Straightforward. I fought the law, and the law won."
Catafalco smiled again with the small joke, but Karp's face was neutral as he asked, "He stopped the high-speed chase and then tried to ram?"
"Something like that. No, not stopped really, sort of slowed and then whipped around on the highway and attempted the ram. He was in one of those giant SUVs, too, a goddamn Jeep Cherokee. You imagine one of those tanks coming toward you? It looks like a clear selfdefense to me, Butch."
A couple of long beats while those funny eyes bored into his own. Catafalco felt sweat start popping on his upper lip and forehead. Then, to his relief, Karp nodded sharply once and said, "Fine. Bill, your turn." The complaint bureau chief rattled off some numbers and complained about the toilets down there not working. Karp made a note and said, "Anything else? No? Then thank you, and… go forth and do good."
The meeting broke up. Roland Hrcany hung behind, as he often did, to speak a few private words to Karp. The two men were friends, in an oddly rivalrous way, the rivalry existing almost entirely in Hrcany's mind. They had started in the DA on the same day nearly twenty years ago and were among the last survivors of the golden age of the New York DA, when it had been run by the immortal Francis P. Garrahy.
When the last of the chiefs had departed, Roland rolled his eyes, snorted, and said, "Christ, what a putz!"
Karp had no need to ask which putz, although there were several among the ranks of the bureau chiefs, in this age of lead. "Lou does the best he can," said Karp charitably.
"Right, and if you're a clerk boosting postage stamps, the man's all over your sorry butt. Meanwhile, the feds get all the real action on official corruption."
"Yeah, that's a shame. I'll tell you what, Roland, since you're so eager, why don't we move you over to special investigations? Make a nice change for you. You can go after the mayor."
Hrcany guffawed and held his fingers in the shape of a cross, as if to ward off Dracula.
Karp smiled. "Yeah, right. I rest my case. For whatever reason, this office has never gone after the big boys, even when Garrahy was here. The feds and the state carry the coal on that, and we pick up the bent fire inspectors, which is why we have people like Lou in there. Same with narcotics, same with fraud and rackets. As you know. What did you think of that last case?"
"What, Cooley-Lomax? Why do you ask?"
"I don't know. I didn't like how fast he got through his investigation. When was Lou Catafalco ever known for speed?"
Roland shrugged. "Hey, sometimes it's easy, like he said."
"Uh-huh. You haven't heard any buzz about this one, have you?"
"It's a little early for buzz to circulate. But, if you're uncomfortable about it, you could give the case to me."
This was a mischievous suggestion, and they both knew it. "Come on, Roland, be real."
"Why? Hey, that bozo shouldn't be allowed within five miles of a homicide case, which is what this one is. Why are you rolling your eyes? What-you think I'm in bed with the cops, right?"
"Not in bed, Roland, I would never say that. But the cops are buying you your fourth sidecar and running their hand up your dress."
Roland tried not to laugh, failed, and said good-naturedly, "Fuck you, Karp."
"Thank you, Roland. Hear anything new on the bum slasher?"
"Just the usual scuttlebutt. The cops figure it's one of the homeless, a psycho. Between you and me, it's probably not the department's highest priority. A lot of people think, 'Oh, what a disaster, the bums'll get scared and move out of town.'"
"I hope you're not one of those people."
"Moi? Hey, you know me, a soft touch. I gave a dollar to a guy last week. No, wait, I think it was 1988. Why, you think Jack is interested?"
"No, I'm fairly sure he's not. I have a funny prejudice against serial killers, even if they pick people with low incomes. That may be just me, though."
"Oh, I got a great joke reminds me of that. There's these three lesbians on the bum, right? A Jew, an Italian, and a black one. And they're diving in Dumpsters and all, and they find this dead rat…"
Karp looked ostentatiously at his watch. "I have another meeting."
"You do? What an extremely important man you must be!" said Hrcany, miffed.
"Yeah, I am, and Roland? I'm sure it's a hilarious joke, but let me remind you yet again…"
"Oh, right, the thought police. For crying out loud, it's only a joke."
"Nothing's only a joke anymore, man. And you have the rep."
"Bullshit! I haven't grabbed anyone's ass in over two weeks."
"Laugh all you want," said Karp wearily, for they had been over this ground many, many times, "but I'd hate to see you crash and burn on this."
Hrcany cocked a hand behind his ear. "Okay, what are the latest rules? Tell me. No sexist jokes, no honey or sweetie to the secretaries, no pats on the ass…"
"No calling Judge Leonora Parkhurst, quote, a fat, dumb cunt, unquote, right out in the fucking hallway in front of Part Forty-nine."
Hrcany reddened. "Who told you that?"
"Everyone, Roland. It's common knowledge."
"Well, she is a fat, dumb cunt!"
"No. She is incompetent, a nitwit, a nincompoop, a juridical nonentity, a cretinous, slack-jawed, lazy disgrace to the bench. But she is not a dumb cunt."
"If she was a man, could she be a dumb cunt then?"
Karp sighed. "Get the fuck out of here, Roland."
When Hrcany was gone, Karp stood up, stretched, yawned, and said, "What did you think of that, Murrow?"
From his chair in the corner, shaded by the leafy fronds of a potted palm, Gilbert Murrow, Karp's special assistant, said, "The colloquy with Hrcany? Or the meeting?"
"The meeting, of course," Karp snapped. "The business with Catafalco and Cooley."
"Oh. Well, Catafalco seemed anxious not to draw undue attention to the case. He seemed much more comfortable with the taxi inspectors. Do you suspect hanky-panky there?"
Karp sat down again and looked at the ceiling. He motioned Murrow to emerge from the jungle, and Murrow did. He was a small, neat man in his early twenties, sandy-haired with old-fashioned round, steel-rimmed spectacles on his bland, Protestant American face. He had an oddly Dickensian way of dressing-heavy tweeds, figured waistcoats, shiny high-laced boots, foulard or paisley ties-that Karp found both annoying and comforting by turns. Karp was a traditionalist by instinct and liked Murrow's decorative aspects, and the idea that he, an assistant himself, had an assistant amused him. Murrow was an obscure legacy of someone the DA had owed a favor and, from objecting to the idea of parking this person with him, had come to value the young man. He was efficient, invisible, had a lightning shorthand, and belying his antique mien, knew what there was to know about computers, a subject in which Karp himself remained at pre-Dickensian levels.
"Not hanky-panky as such," said Karp after a moment. "A highspeed chase… the boys get their adrenaline pumping, and they catch the guy-it's Rodney King time, they're liable to dance on his head awhile before they're calmed down enough to take him in. Especially if the suspect is from one of our fine minority groups."
"I've always wondered why they did that."
"What, be racists?"
"Oh, no, I take it for granted that they're racists like everyone else in the country. But, you know, they read the papers, they know about video cameras, they know about mass rallies in support of some poor bozo some cops shot twenty holes in for no reason. You would think they would, I don't know, pause? Maybe think, 'Hey, duh, we could maybe get in trouble if we keep shooting this demented old lady'?"
"A demented old lady with a potentially dangerous spoon," said Karp. "Yeah, I ask myself that all the time, Murrow. Most street cops would say that people like you and me aren't qualified to ask it, because we've never faced deadly force or had to use deadly force in response. My wife would be the one to ask that one. On the other hand, it's an outlier problem. Thirty-nine thousand cops, all armed, eight million people, and how many shots get fired in a year? Three hundred? We had a little over two hundred fifty cop shootings last year, twenty dead. On the other hand, that's probably more than there were in all of Europe and Japan combined. We're a violent people and…"
Karp paused, for so long as Murrow, who was used to thoughts intruding in this way on the natural flow of his boss's conversation, prompted him, "And…?"
Karp chuckled. "And I have to go to a meeting. Sometime we'll have a longer talk about the role of the police in the criminal justice system."
"Oh, good! Can I invite my friends?"
"Go to your room, Murrow," said Karp, at which point his intercom rang.
"Mr. Solotoff is on the line," said his secretary.
"Shelly Solotoff?"
"He didn't give me his Christian name, sir. Would you like me to inquire?"
"No, it's got to be the guy and there's nothing Christian about him. Look, Flynn, I'm running late. Make my excuses and tell him I'll get back to him." Karp hung up and walked down the short corridor that separated his office from that of the district attorney.
Who was at his desk, in shirtsleeves, playing with a big, unlit claro Bering cigar, and talking with his assistant DA for administration, Norton Fuller. Karp felt a burst of irritation when he saw Fuller, who was sitting in the side chair to the DA's left, where Karp normally sat during a one-on-one. Fuller was a new thing. Previously, Karp and Jack Keegan had met alone after Karp's staff meeting, wherein Karp would tell the DA what he thought the DA needed to know, and the DA would give his orders, many of which Karp would actually carry out. Now, however, Keegan had started to invite Fuller to these meetings. Karp sat down in the other side chair and arranged his face into neutral pleasantness.
"Hello, Jack. Norton." The other two men nodded and continued their conversation, which was about the DA's schedule of political speeches. Karp watched them interact, not paying much attention to the content. Keegan was looking good; politicking seemed to energize him. He was a big man, not as tall as Karp, but more massive, with a red Irish hawk-face and a great mane of silver hair, worn long and swept back. Norton was half his size, the sort of person who in Karp's tough old Brooklyn neighborhood would have been called a shmendrick: Woody Allen without the nose or the sense of humor. Karp did not like Fuller very much, but Karp always made an effort to be nice to the man, since it was Karp's own fault that the man was here. Karp hated administrative work, the sign-offs, the endless committee meetings, the columns of figures, and was not shy of complaining about it to Keegan, so that when the DA had brought Fuller in, not as a sort of glorified clerk, but as a grandee nearly as powerful as Karp himself, reasoning (he said) that the operations of the DA were ultimately dependent upon the stuff Fuller had charge of-budgets, personnel, training, scheduling, computer systems, and the like-it seemed ridiculous for Karp to complain. He suspected that Keegan had manipulated him into this situation, a suspicion that had approached certainty when the man Keegan picked as administrative chief was Fuller, a political operative of some reputation in the state. Also Karp's fault; Karp avoided politics to the extent possible and complained bitterly when he had to stand in for Keegan on the rubber-chicken circuit. Now he no longer needed to. Fuller had taken on those tasks. He liked rubber chicken and giving speeches in hotel ballrooms. He had a little folding stand that he stood on when he did, so that his head appeared at an acceptable height above the lectern.
Fuller was going through a list of venues Keegan had to appear at. Even Keegan seemed bored. At a break in the spiel, Keegan asked Karp, "You heard the news?"
"About the president?"
"Fuck the president! I mean about McBright. Norton here says he's going to announce today."
"He'll make a fine district attorney," said Karp.
"No, Butch, you're supposed to express horror and predict sheer anarchy and chaos in the streets."
Karp said, "McBright! My God, there'll be sheer anarchy and chaos in the streets. Besides that, do you think he has a chance?"
Fuller answered, "Hell, yeah, he has a chance, the fucker. Historic first black New York DA? The minority vote'll eat it up, and the usual West Side liberal-guilt vote, a lot of that will roll his way, too. I think we got a fucking serious fight here, chief." Fuller had a deep, gravelly voice, remarkable in so small a man. Karp suspected he kept it low through conscious effort. That and the salty language. Being tough was high on Fuller's list of virtues.
"Which means," Fuller continued, "we absolutely have to have the whole goddamn white, ethnic, law-and-order vote, which means we got to have the union endorsements, especially the cops."
"We've always had the union endorsements," said Keegan.
"Right, but McBright's father is a sanitation worker. That's a lot of votes. And there's the Jews, too. This whole fucking Benson thing. You need to come out on that ASAP. In fact, it would be good if you came out with it when McBright announced. Fucking steal some of the bastard's thunder."
Both men now looked at Karp. Keegan asked, "What's going on with Benson, Butch?"
"Roland thinks it's a strong case," said Karp.
"Roland always thinks it's a strong case," said Keegan. "What do you think?"
Karp waggled a horizontal hand. "Strong depends on what you're going to do with it. Strong enough to convict? Yeah, I'd say so."
"Remind me."
"Jorell Benson, nineteen, record for strong-arm robbery, did time in Spofford and Rikers. Just after six P.M. in a stairwell of the Bowery subway station on the M line, it's a Friday, last August, he accosts Moishe Fagelman. Fagelman's a diamond merchant. He's going home for the Sabbath. Benson demands his jewels and money, shows a knife. Fagelman resists and is stabbed. He dies on the platform. Two days later, Benson walks into a shop in the diamond district and tries to sell three stones. The merchant, needless to say, recognizes the stones, calls the cops, and they grab him up. Subsequent search of Benson's room reveals a paper envelope with seven other diamonds. These are identified as belonging to Fagelman. Benson's story is that he found the stones in the subway."
"Well, duh, I'll believe it," said Fuller.
Karp ignored this and went on, "No murder weapon was found, and no blood was found on Benson's clothes. The token clerk at the Bowery station, a Mr. Walter Deng, picked Benson out of a lineup as having been through the station at about the time of the murder. On interrogation of Benson's known associates, the police came up with Alicia Wallis, age sixteen, who told the cops, and later testified to the grand jury, that Benson had told her he was going to, quote, get paid off of one of them Hymie diamond guys, unquote, and that he had shown her the proceeds of the robbery on the night thereof. Benson has no significant alibi, admits that he was on the subway at approximately the time of. That's basically the case. The good part, that is."
"What's the bad part?"
"Alicia. At the original Q amp;A she said she didn't know nothing. Then later, she went to the cops and told her diamond story. Roland wants to call her and cross-examine her as to her conflicting testimonies and let the jury decide when she was telling the truth."
"And you think…?"
"It's a risk. It's allowed under the Green decision, as you know, but it's a risk in this case. You got a young girl there, probably show up at the trial in a white dress and Mary Janes-the defense will bring out how she was browbeaten by the cops to implicate her boyfriend, establishing in the jury's mind that maybe the cops did other not so nice stuff to close out a high-profile case with the first likely African-American male. Assuming we get past that, I would predict a conviction on the token clerk's witness and the possession of the stolen goods. Benson, by the way, has an IQ of seventy-two. The question for you, Jack, is do we have enough coal to fire up a death-penalty conviction, and here I'd say we have not."
"That's crazy," blurted Fuller. "He tracked the victim-that's lying in wait. And murder for profit. Two special circumstances. And no mitigation. The fucker's a career criminal. Also, and I can't stress this enough, Jack, the Jewish community is ballistic on this case. And business. The whole diamond trade depends on guys walking around with fucking millions in their pockets, and nobody bothers them. And emotionally, look at the picture-a guy's going home for the Sabbath, and this little piece of shit kills him. I mean, if you're not going to go for fucking death on this one, when are you?"
Keegan listened to this rant in silence. He turned to Karp. "Well?"
"I can't help you, boss," said Karp. "I got no experience with death-qualified juries, and we haven't had a likely case since they reinstituted the penalty. You're the only person in this building who's ever won a death-penalty murder case."
Keegan nodded. "Yeah, I guess I am. Twenty-eight years ago, just before they banned it, that was the last one. Before that, I sent four guys to the chair."
"That's a big selling point, too," said Fuller. "In the election. But it won't help if you wimp on this one. Our polls are running three to one to give him the needle."
Karp stared at the man, his eyes widening. "You're taking polls?" He looked over at Keegan. "Jack… polls? To influence your decision on a criminal case?"
Keegan said, "Nah, for crying out loud, it's just part of the campaign. Everybody takes polls, Butch. And, you know, I opposed the death penalty, I spoke against it up in Albany. But now we've got it. We represent the People, and the People, for whatever reason, have concluded that executing murderers is a good thing. And this case, Benson, is exactly what the public had in mind when they pushed to change the law, a stranger killing for profit. So Norton's right-if not this, when the hell?"
"Jack, you're the district attorney," said Karp, and got the cigar pointed at him.
"I love when you tell me I'm the district attorney in that tone of voice. You think I'm violating my principles for political expediency?"
"I would never say that, Jack."
"You're thinking it, though. Just tell me one thing: Are you ethically opposed to death under any and all circumstances?"
Karp gave this question some thought. "No. Not under any and all. Probably there are a few, a very few people, your Ted Bundy, your John Wayne Gacy, your Ed Gein, Eichmann, who shouldn't be allowed to breathe the same air as the rest of us. Where the guilt is so manifest that a trial is a formality, and the guy admits it and says he'll gladly do it again. Like that. Maybe. But a semimoron like Benson, who denies it, where we have nothing but circumstantial evidence, a weak eyewitness, no weapon, no forensics? No, then I think not. Life in the can? Yeah. Execution? I'm not comfortable. Obviously, the people I put away for murder, they all did it. The people you put away I'm not so sure of."
A frosty smile here. "Funny, that's just how I feel. About your cases, I mean."
"Right. My point being is that we both know about how trials work and how little things throw them one way or the other. It's good enough for the usual kind of case, because in the back of the mind you're thinking, 'I know this guy did it beyond a reasonable doubt, but still, if it turns out he didn't, if I missed something, the cops screwed up, then we get off with an apology and compensation.' We kill the guy, though, that's a whole other moral universe. I think I'm pretty good at this work, but I have qualms about my ability to function in that environment. And the state, hell, this office is full of prosecutors who got no more business trying a capital case than they do starting for the Yankees."
Karp looked at Fuller as he said this, but Fuller did not pick up the look. Looking down, he was shaking his head from side to side, like a goat searching for a choicer patch of clover.
"No, Butch," Fuller said, "you're not focused on the real problem. The real problem is that Jack stands a good chance of losing the Jewish vote if he gets all squishy about this prick. McBright is a strong deathpenalty guy, which is why he's a viable candidate in the first place. I mean a black guy practically has to be if he's going to run for DA in this state. And against McBright, you absolutely have to have that vote, all of it. I mean, fuck it, moral scruples and all are fine, but after the election."
Karp closed his ledger and stood. "Terrific! Look, if you're actually going to bring political considerations into this kind of decision, or any prosecutorial decision, then there's no point in me sitting here. You know what I think of shit like that."
"Sit down, Butch," said the DA. After a minute pause, he did so. The DA continued, "And I do know what you think, since you've never been shy about comparing your unsullied purity with my base corruption. In any event, I will come to a decision in re Benson on the merits, as I always do. Now, can we move on?"
Karp moved on, summarizing the reports of the various bureau chiefs.
"Oh, some good news," said the DA. "I assume this Marino prosecution is going to go down with no problems?"
"Apparently so. Police Plaza seems to have washed its hands. The guy is a baddie, with a record of petty corruption. Of course, they should have bounced him ten years ago, but who's complaining."
"And Cooley, no problems there?" A long pause. "Butch?"
"A white-on-black cop shooting?" said Karp, pursing his lips in a manner that could have been either judicious or the response to an unpleasant taste. "You're not going to avoid some controversy. Catafalco seems to be moving with uncharacteristic speed."
"That's good," said Fuller. "Speed is good here. We want the thing locked up before we get into serious campaigning. It drags on, McBright is going to make an issue of it. Our position is a simple case of police selfdefense. Only one cop with his gun shooting, too, that always plays well. The perp is a known felon. The perp turned his monster truck around, this huge Cherokee SUV, a fucking tank, and charged the police car on a highway. What could Cooley do but shoot? It's a no-brainer."
Karp said, "Vic, Norton."
Fuller stared at him. "What?"
"Vic. If you're going to use that salty cop talk, technically Lomax is the victim here. The perp is Cooley. Technically."
"Oh, please," said Fuller, bridling, and then Keegan said, "What I want to know is, Catafalco thinks it's a clean shooting and he expects a no-bill?"
"So he tells me," said Karp, now in a tired voice. It was, he knew, one of his moral failings, to let the exhaustion get to him, to sink into passivity in the presence of people who did not get it, who would never get it, even if he screamed or pounded on desks. He sat back into his chair and observed the other two men through half-closed eyes. Fuller would never get it. Ambition and the hallucination of control had rendered him permanently blind. A man like that should be selling cigarettes at an ad agency or brokering shady bond issues. Keegan was another story. Keegan got it. Keegan had, in fact, taught Karp to get it, years and years ago. Now he got it unreliably, like an old-fashioned radio in a thunderstorm, the message only coming through amid static and howls. Was it mere age, Karp wondered, or the effects of office that eroded the decent man and left the hollow politician, a core of cheap eternal plastic? Or ambition? A term at DA and now he saw higher office as a possibility, maybe follow Tom Dewey into the state house, maybe something beyond even that. Or the times? The dreadful seventies, when public order in New York had nearly collapsed, or the eighties with their twelve hundred murders each year and lesser crimes almost beyond counting, battering the DA's operation into a kind of moral pulp, the natural food of people like Fuller and Catafalco. Now they were in the nineties, hooray, the new gilded age-crime was down, way down, everyone was rich, except the poor, who were suitably cowed now, not at all like the threatening, hostile poor of twenty years ago. The cops ruled the streets again. He wondered why this victory did not taste sweet to him.
Keegan was talking to him, some details about court scheduling, some meetings to set up. Karp wrote in his green ledger, making minimal responses. The meeting ended, and Karp went back to his office.
"How was His Excellency today?" asked Murrow.
"Excellent, as usual," answered Karp, throwing his ledger fairly hard against the side of a steel filing cabinet, which made a loud bass-drum sound in response.
"Uh-oh," said Murrow. "Should I hide, or would you like to take out your frustrations by abusing me and making me cry?"
Karp threw himself down in his chair, kicked it back against the wall hard enough to shiver plaster, and put his feet up on the desk. "It is all your fault, Murrow. The corruption of the criminal justice system by politics, the cowardice of its guardians, the worms and vipers creeping in everywhere, the stupidity, the incompetence, the criminal ugliness of this building even, the tackiness of our work environment-all this I lay at your door."
"I'm sorry, sir. I'll try to improve in the future. But aside from that…?"
Karp laughed, not without bitterness. "You know, Murrow, I've been in this business for a long time. I started working for the greatest district attorney of all time, Francis P. Garrahy. This was before the deluge, the whole crime-in-the-streets insanity. He actually expected everyone who worked for him to be decent, honorable, and competent. He actually expected, and I know you'll find this hard to believe, that people who committed crimes should go to jail for the time stipulated in statute, and if they didn't plead guilty to the top count, he would try their ass, and win. Then I worked for a human slime mold named Sanford Bloom. I find that hard to believe, but I did, and not only did I work for him, I actually rescued him on a number of occasions from the results of his folly and misfeasance. I quit the office on two occasions, I'm proud to say, and then I came back."
"Why did you?"
"I'm an addict," said Karp. "I need to smell a criminal trial on a regular basis even if I don't do them anymore. I should write 'Stop me before I prosecute again' in lipstick on the men's room mirror. Anyway, eventually I put Bloom in jail. Now we have Jack Keegan, who I have to say is a lot closer to Phil Garrahy than he is to Bloom, but the rot is still there. Politics."
"It's a political office."
"Yeah, right, the people get to decide if the guy's doing a decent job and toss him out if he's not. But you can't decide how you're going to handle a case on the basis of what you think various segments of the population will think about it; then you might as well hang it up. I mean, forget the law and trials and procedures-just haul the defendant up to the top of the courthouse steps and let the mob decide. I really think we're going to condemn this dumb kid to death to keep a segment of the electorate happy."
"Didn't Benson do it?"
Karp sighed. "That's not the fucking point, Murrow. What's happening is that a decent Orthodox Jew with six kids was murdered in the subway and we got a black kid up for it, and we can probably wangle a conviction. What we don't do all the time is execute people like that. It was one of the things that distinguished the great state of New York from places where I personally couldn't stand to live for a long weekend, like Texas and Florida. No more, apparently. And then there's Lomax."
"The cop shooting."
"Right. Here's the first installment of that lecture I threatened you with, the police in the criminal justice system. Okay, first off, we know they do stupid cop tricks. It's part of the game we play with them. A little perjury on the stand, a little illegally seized evidence, the occasional foray into coerced confessions, the very occasional naked frame-up. Every cop wants to be judge, jury, and executioner, if they possible can. It makes their job a lot easier, and especially, it makes them feel better. They have a really shitty life. So they do stupid cop tricks, and we catch them at it and throw the cases out, and then they can curse us out for bleeding hearts, civil liberties nuts, which makes them feel good, too. And if we don't catch them, which is a percentage I don't like to think about too much, then they can say, 'Hey, we did our job- you guys fucked up.' That makes them feel good, too, and superior to a bunch of candy-ass lawyers. So it's a winwin for the cops, which is why they keep doing it."
"You think this shooting is a stupid cop trick?"
"I don't know. On the one hand, there's the incredible-idiocy defense. Is it credible to believe that the NYPD-in the situation they're in now, with the Mollen report, with the exposure of corruption, with these crazy cop shootings, here in the post-Rodney King era-would actually conspire at the highest levels to cover up a bad shooting? I would not buy that at this point in time."
"You think it's not a cover-up?"
"Not as such. I think every ass above captain on this thing has got to be stuck inside a pair of stainless-steel Jockey shorts. No one has ever actually said, 'Hey, let's lie, cheat, and steal and get old Cooley off the hook.' But I do think they want to make it go away. 'Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, folks.' Like that. And they're depending on us to help them make it disappear, hence the intemperate speed. Hence… hmm."
Karp's eyes had gone blank and he was frozen in position; his finger, raised to make a point, stayed erect and directed at the ceiling, as if he were for the moment transformed into a classical statue-Large Jewish Lawyer, Late Hellenistic Period. Murrow did not panic, nor did he call 911 to report a case of narcolepsy. He was used to this tic in his boss. If Karp's mind were a 1950s computer, it would be whirring and clicking and spitting out punched cards.
After a decent interval, Murrow said, "Hence…?"
Returning to the world, Karp said, "Oh, nothing. It just now occurred to me that I never mentioned the kind of vehicle Lomax was driving when I was talking to them in there, and it wasn't mentioned in the press that I could see. But you recall Catafalco mentioned it, the brand name, and so did Norton Fuller just now. A Cherokee. What do you make of that?"
"Catafalco called Fuller and told him about it."
"Yes, speaking of stainless-steel Jockey shorts. Old Lou was covering his ass. Which means he's about to do something that needs some asscoverage in re Cooley."
Karp glanced at his watch, then got out of his chair and put on his suit jacket.
"You going somewhere?"
"Yes, I intend to get my raincoat on, pick up that bag in the corner over there, call Ed Morris, and have him drive me in a police vehicle to Chelsea Pier, where I will play a vigorous game of basketball with my daughter."
"Speaking of corruption."
"No, actually, the state pays me to think deep thoughts about the criminal justice system, and I think my deepest thoughts when out on the b-ball court."
"A plausible answer," said Murrow.
"I'm glad you think so. When you finish wising off, I want you to sneak around special investigations and find out who's handling it for the grand jury. Do you have any dull, stupid friends?"
"Not that I'd admit to. Why?"
"Because after you find out who it is, you will make at least one. Him. Or her. I want to find out what's going on in Cooley without having to ask anyone."
Murrow vanished into his cubbyhole. Karp was about to leave when he noticed the pink message slip on his desk. He dialed the number. It was picked up on the second ring.
"Hey, Butch."
"Shelly. Long time. I thought you went out West."
"I did. San Diego. But, like the man says, when you're out of town, you're out of town. Long story. Anyway, I'm back. I'm with Fenniman, Bowes."
"Criminal practice?"
"Oh, yeah. Plus a little bribery and manipulation, the usual. Look, let me buy you a lunch, we'll catch up."
An instant's pause, then, "Sure. Sounds good. When?"
"Tomorrow okay? Check your calendar."
"I don't have to. I always eat lunch in. Or out. You remember."
A deep, rumbling laugh came over the line. "Oh, God, yes, the cancer wagons. I'm still digesting a knish from 1973. How about La Pelouse?"
"Ouch! I'm a civil servant."
"I'm buying."
"No, you are not," said Karp pleasantly.
Another laugh. "Looking forward to it, buddy."
Karp put down the phone and thought about why he had for that instant considered putting Shelly Solotoff off with an excuse. "I'll have my secretary set it up" was a good one, and then it wouldn't happen and the other guy wouldn't call again. He didn't exactly dislike Solotoff. He'd known the man for years and years, never actually friends, but not enemies either, rather the sort of uncomfortable relationship that grows up whenever one party seems a lot more interested than the other. No, that wasn't it, although Karp would never have called Solotoff in a similar situation. He wants something, Karp thought. About a case? Hard to believe. A job offer? More likely. But maybe he was just lonely, a guy recently back in town, looking to renew old acquaintances; maybe he felt isolated, beset, friendless… Karp put on his raincoat and picked up his gym bag. Yes, he could understand that.