Ten minutes after he returned from handing the warrant to a couple of DA squad cops, his secretary buzzed him and said that the DA wanted to see him right away. He went up and found, not to his surprise, that Norton Fuller was there. Both he and the DA were looking grim.
The DA flipped the pages of the Canman transcript. "Would you mind telling me what this is all about?"
"Not at all," said Karp. "This statement demonstrates that Cooley knew Lomax, and that he had a serious grudge against him. His story that he was in pursuit of a stolen vehicle that just happened to contain Shawn Lomax is therefore false. This is confirmed by the fact that Cooley didn't know the vehicle was stolen when he set off in pursuit. The stolen-car call didn't come in until after Lomax was dead. A simple examination of police records will bear that out. A similar examination of the crime-scene analysis will demonstrate that the chase did not go down as Cooley and the other police witnesses testified. I refer to the complete analysis, not the mere excerpt on which our grand jury presentation was based. The complete analysis is quite competent. It shows that at no time was Cooley in danger of being rammed by Lomax's vehicle. The tire marks and damage to the vehicles don't add up to that at all. In fact, Lomax was so incapacitated by gunfire that he couldn't have threatened the detectives at all. Incapacitated by fire from the rear, by the way, and he was shot through the head by Cooley while Cooley was on the ground less than ten feet away."
"A police cover-up," said Fuller, trying the phrase out for the first time.
"No. The police report is complete and accurate. The grand jury verdict was the result of incompetence encouraged by political expediency. They guessed correctly that we would give Cooley a pass, and we did. It's our bad."
"Wait on that-" began the DA, but Karp said, "No. There's only one way out of this now, and that's to take our lumps and move on. Speaking of which, I want you to look at this videotape. It concerns a different but curiously related case."
Karp went to the large television in the corner, switched it on, and slipped the videotape into the VCR on top of it.
They watched the interview in silence.
When the tape ended, Fuller said, "What a load of bullshit. What did you threaten him with to get him to say that?"
"Quite a lot, as it happens, but it's true nevertheless," said Karp.
Fuller turned to the DA. "This is ridiculous, Jack. He concocted this whole thing to get back at me. It's palace politics pure and simple. I mean really! The idea that anyone would take the word of some piss bum against the word of me and Sybil Marshak…"
"And we have confirmation, or will have before long, from Peter Walsh, Solotoff's PI, the man who found Mr. Paxton there. He will testify that the original story Paxton told him is the same in every respect as the one you just saw. Solotoff made the whole thing up and conspired with you to suborn perjury. And it would have worked if there hadn't been that watch. No one carrying a watch that expensive would have gone for a cheap mugging. That's how I knew that Paxton's story had to be phony. And you did your part, Norton, by releasing Ramsey's juvenile record, making him out to be a violent criminal. And you got Jack to push through a grand jury whitewash, which worked out okay, by the way, because now I have a perjury charge to hang over Paxton's head, to make sure he behaves when we bring Marshak up again."
"I can't believe you're listening to this… this vile conspiracy, Jack. I would never dream of conspiring to suborn perjury."
The DA maintained a stony silence, but Karp could see a faint grimace of disgust blossom on the noble face. Karp said, "You weren't paying attention. Shelly taped you, just like Nixon. The conspiracy is an open book."
"It's not! There is absolutely nothing incriminating in any conversation I ever had with Solotoff…" Fuller froze and stared at Karp, then at the DA. The disgust was in full flower now.
"I rest my case," said Karp, wishing more than anything that he knew for sure whether that look was born out of revulsion for the act, for Fuller's compromising the integrity of his office, or because the weasel had been so stupid as to get caught.
Fuller was pale now, sweating, and his words came out in a highpitched jabber quite different from his normal voice. "Jack, I swear there is nothing there, nothing they can prove. Of course, I talked to Solotoff. It's our most politically sensitive case. But at no time did I say or do anything even remotely suggested by these charges. Solotoff will back me up on this a hundred percent."
Karp laughed and said, "Oh, Norton! The absolute index of your incompetence for this kind of work is the fact that you still don't understand that when I put the hooks to Shelly Solotoff, you will be the very first bit of meat he throws me."
The DA said, "If you'll excuse us, Norton."
Fuller said, "Jack, you want to be very careful now. The primary is nine weeks away and-"
"I said, if you'll excuse us, Norton. I will attend to you in a few minutes."
Fuller left. Karp had read about people slinking out of a room, but he had never seen it actually done until then.
The DA's lips had disappeared into a rigid horizontal line. "So," he said after a long time. "Where are we?"
"He has to go, immediately. I have no great interest in prosecuting either him or Solotoff, but at a minimum both Fuller and Solotoff get disbarred. I'll let you decide what should be done with both of them beyond that. I can indict Marshak behind this new material, and I intend to go forward with it. Cooley is a little more problematic, but I intend to give the grand jury another crack at him, too."
The DA was shaking his head from side to side like an old clock's slow pendulum, and his expression was the kind that rare and spiny fish see from the other side of the glass.
He said, "I can't believe it. You still, at your age, want to be the white knight. It's preposterous. It's like still wanting to be a cowboy. I should have gotten rid of you years ago. I don't know, it must be a brain lesion. You simply never learned how things get done."
"I guess not."
"Then let me give you some advice. The problem with the white knight is he comes to the castle and they send him off to slay the dragon. And he slays the dragon. Then there's another dragon, and he slays that, too. And another. Sooner or later, though, there'll be a dragon so big that the white knight's going to get chewed up and fried, you can put money on that. So the moral of the story is, when you grow up, you don't want to be the white knight. You want to be the guy that sends the white knight out to kill the dragon. Get it?"
"Is that you, Jack?"
"Yes, it is. Or was. This little drama you produced just lost me everything I worked for my whole life."
"Well, you know, I don't know about that. People might like to see a DA who's not afraid to clean his own house and take some political risks. McBright is the pol in this race, and he's good. I might even say he's better than you at working a crowd. In a political race, an ethnic race, a special-interest race, he's going to whip you. But if you demonstrate integrity and courage, maybe people will decide they like that better than having someone in here who's always telling them what they want to hear. If not, maybe the office isn't worth having."
"That's your opinion, is it?"
"Yes, it is. And while you're soliciting my opinion, you should cut your losses on Benson. As I pointed out earlier, he's not convictable on capital murder. I mean while you're starting to do the right thing without fear or favor…"
"Oh, terrific. The police vote, the West Side liberal vote, and now you want me to dump the Jewish vote, too. You think I can get elected by the Ukrainians?"
"I'm Jewish, and I'll vote for you."
"Oh, get out of here!" Keegan growled. "I'm sick of the sight of you."
Karp bristled at Keegan's tone and leaned over Keagan's desk, placing his face inches away from his boss's. "Don't you ever talk to me like that! If you can't handle truth anymore, and want to break faith with everything we're really all about, just tell me and I'm gone for good." Karp pulled back.
Keegan peered i
nto Karp's eyes and suddenly slumped in his chair, now appearing like a half-filled laundry bag set on a subway seat by a seasoned strap hanger. While staring down at his desk, Keegan spoke in a depressed, steady monotone. "OK, OK, you're right. Maybe I'm the only prick around here, but it's tough. It's tough sledding. I just want to be DA."
Karp went out. He found Brendan Cooley waiting for him in the hallway outside his office, alone.
Karp ushered him in, sat him down, settled himself into his chair, and gave the detective a long, searching look. "What are we going to do with you, Cooley? It's not very often I get to jam up someone who saved my life. Read this!" Karp tossed over the transcript of Canman's Q amp;A and waited as Cooley paged through it.
Cooley flipped it back across the desk. "It's just talk. He doesn't know anything. You got nothing solid."
"Actually I do. The problem with a scam is that it might look good on the surface, but it never stands up to serious poking. The simple fact is that you lied, and your partner backed your play, about chasing a stolen car. We can absolutely prove that wasn't the case. That knocks the blocks out from under your testimony. Then we have the crime-scene analysis, and the medical forensics, neither of which confirms your story. Then you have the witnesses, the patrol cops, and your partner. They're caught in a lie. Okay, cops stretch it all the time, especially to cover an excess of zeal by a brother officer, but when we put it to them that they're covering up an assassination, will they hold up? When they're looking at dismissal and prosecution for perjury? I don't think so. I know I can indict, and I'm pretty sure I can convict you, if not for murder, then for manslaughter one." Karp waited. Cooley stared at him, his face stiff. He said nothing. A smart guy.
Karp continued, "I actually think you're guilty of murder. You might be thinking, in a trial who knows how it would go? A popular heroic cop, the victim a lowlife. The right jury might give you a pass. You know and I know that we don't ever really try the crime that's in the statute books. We try a particular defendant against a particular victim, which is why you're always better off killing a black person, God help us. Or maybe that's changed. The jury pool isn't what it was when we were coming up. You might get convicted, which would be twenty-five to life, hard time. On the other hand, while I'm not corrupt enough to give you a pass, like some of my colleagues here, I am corrupt enough to recognize that you're basically a decent man stuck in a job he hates."
Cooley snapped out of his trance. "What? What're you talking about?"
Karp held up a meliorative hand. "Cooley, I'm not going to insult you by trying to psychologize here. But I met your wife. I know your story. Your dad, your brother, the whole cop thing. What you should do now is look at where you are and where your whole life is going. Right now, you got Dad and the cops and nothing else. You lost your wife and kids. It's not what you wanted out of life. You're never going to be able to replace your brother, or show your father that you could bring down the bad guy that got away from him."
"Goddamn it, leave my family out of this!"
"Right. But just look at it, is all I ask. Now, like I just said, I'm twisted enough to take into account what you did down in the tunnel and the kind of person you really are. You're not someone who needs to be off the streets forever. So your choice is, what I'm giving you here is, on the one hand, a trial for murder, a huge scandal, incredible heartbreak for your family, and the real possibility that your life could be completely gone. I will try that case myself, and I am very, very good at prosecuting homicides. The other thing to keep in mind is that we could have a guy in here next year who wants to make his rep by showing that white cops don't get to blow away African-Americans whenever it strikes their fancy. He will want to drop the jailhouse on your head. Or, on the other hand, I will offer you a plea: manslaughter in the second degree. That means you will have to stand up in front of a judge and admit that you were reckless in pursuit of a fleeing felon and killed a man. That's not a lie, even you'd have to admit that. You'd serve the minimum in a low-security facility along with crooked accountants and corrupt assistant district attorneys and lawyers, eighteen months, twenty months, something like that. Don't answer me now. Talk to your lawyers, talk to your family. But don't take too long, okay? I don't know how long I'm going to be in a deal-making position myself."
Cooley sat frozen for a full minute. That was good, Karp thought. He was thinking seriously, not going in for histrionic denials. And for an instant there Karp thought he had seen relief on the man's face. Then Cooley snapped his head down once and rose to his feet. "I'll be in touch," he said, and walked out.
Karp sighed and looked out the window for a while, twiddling a pencil against his teeth. The phone rang. His secretary said it was Sheldon Solotoff, and it was urgent.
Karp told her to hold the call. Then he dialed his home.
"How did it go?" his wife asked.
"Terrific. Can I have a job on the dog farm?"
"Send me a resume. Really, though. Did you smite the evildoers, as always?"
"I smited, but I think my smiter is wearing out." He gave her a rundown on the events just passed, including the interview with Cooley.
"Do you think he'll go for it?" she asked.
"I have no idea. I like to think of him a few years out, back with his family and flying around in little airplanes or talking in jetliners. I shouldn't be thinking that, the guy killed a man and all, but there it is, I'm being honest. For a change."
"Oh, don't be silly. You have innumerable faults, as I know to my cost, but dishonesty is not one of them. I say that as an accomplished liar."
"Then how do I know you're telling the truth?"
A raspberry sound over the phone. He asked, "How's Lucy holding up?"
"Oh, shattered, shattered. She cares so much and sees the good in people. It knocks her down when it turns out they're all too human. What she needs is a nice kid with piercings and blue hair and a heavy coke habit. Then we could be real parents."
"Well, she's got a do-good foundation named after her. That should take some of the sting out."
"Oh, the Lucia Foundation isn't named after Lucy, or not directly. It's named after the person she was named after. You know, Nonna Lucia, my mother's grandmother."
"I don't know."
"You do! I've told you that story a million times."
"Nope."
"Yes, but you never listen to a word I say. Lucia di Messina, a sprig of the old aristocracy, which is where I get my classy bearing, if you noticed. She ran off with the gardener's boy, around 1890 this is, ran off to Naples. Her father sent heavies after her, and she scooted all over Italy with the guy, hiding. They caught up with them in a hill town in the Abruzzi. By that time, my grandfather Paolo was around, a little kid, I guess."
"Oh, right, now it's coming back. They killed the gardener."
"Uh-huh, the handsome Lorenzo, and as the family legend has it, she stood in the doorway of her house, in her blood-spattered shift, over the dead body of her husband, and blew them both away with a shotgun. Split to America with the cops on her heels, and the rest is history. Pazza Lucia to the family, a real character. I'm sorry I never knew her."
"Look in the mirror," said Karp.
"Oh, yeah, it's been noted." Marlene laughed. "But really, blood will tell, don't you think? I've tried to be respectable, you can't say I haven't, but au fond, when all is said and done, I'm just a thug. I can't imagine where Lucy comes from. Were there any really good people on your side?"
"I doubt it. Maybe a tzaddik slipped in on my mom's side way back in Bessarabia. As a matter of fact, she was the only person in my family no one had a bad word to say about."
"Anyway, Lucy was moping so much that I dragged her out of the house and took her grocery shopping."
"What about the little elves who kept the refrigerator stocked with overpriced food?"
"Things of the past, my dear. While I yield to no one in my ability to lounge about all day in a silk peignoir, there is something about walking d
own Grand Street with a net bag breaking my shoulder that's really kind of terrific. The rich have no idea."
"Did she perk?"
"Yeah, she did. And then we had lunch out, at Heavenly Sanitary Noodle Company, and Lucy spotted one of Tran's henchmen and got to talking to him, and he said Tran was practically suicidal with shame, and so we went to see him in this tacky place he stays at on Bayard."
"And did the magic work?"
"Of course. She said something to the effect that we loved him because he was human, because he had failings, and it wasn't his fault, and we knew he wasn't perfect all the time. I thought he was going to burst out crying, the poor old bastard. And I said more or less the same. I do love him so, and how weird is that? My fatal weakness for heroic, brilliant, perfectionist, self-flagellating men."
"Ahem," said Karp. "Although I don't feel particularly heroic."
"No, really, anyone would have picked up a sparking bomb and put it out with their tongue! Jesus, Butch, give yourself some credit once."
"Well, I am a lawyer. My tongue is highly trained. Speaking of lawyers, I have Solotoff on hold."
"Waiting for his new asshole to be reamed, I assume."
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