“Element of intent?”
“Exactly, Murrow,” Karp agreed, after a brief pause to determine whether the kid was cracking wise again. “The element of intent. We’re corrupt, but not vile. I don’t know about you, but it keeps me going. Now, scram and do that stuff. Let me know how it goes.”
Murrow went off, and Karp had to restrain his impulse to call him back, to forget the whole thing. He screwed around with minor stuff all morning, wrote a set of blistering memos to ADAs whose case preparation was not up to his standards, had a couple of brief meetings, spent a good deal of time resisting the temptation to make himself feel more useful by creating work for others. In fact, much of what he used to do had been taken over by Fuller. It was all the administrative stuff he disliked doing, but had recently found that it was just this stuff that had allowed him to get anything important done. It turned out that a threat to delay a load of new furniture was a greater goad to right action than a lawsuit that might cost the state millions or throw some poor sucker unjustly into prison. Fuller had those threats in his pocket now, and Karp, as a result, found himself a lot less potent bureaucrat. The good side of this was that it gave him much more time to poke around the office, visiting courtrooms and making a nuisance of himself to the sloppy and unprepared. He also had time to drop by press conferences.
This was a big one: the area outside the elevator bank on the eighth floor was jammed with TV crews and print reporters and lit with the glare of many lamps. Karp went to the back of the room. A little group of ADAs was back there already. Karp knew a few of them, all ridiculously young-looking. He traded a few wisecracks with Dave Pincus, a homicide guy, and chatted briefly with a few others whose faces he did not immediately know, a thin dark woman in her first few months at homicide, named Meghan Lacy, and a slim, bespectacled blond guy in a good blue suit, Peter something, whose job Karp could not immediately place. He recalled that he used to pride himself on knowing all the more senior ADAs, those who had been there more than a year or so, but it seemed that faces had lost their bite on his consciousness, or maybe it was just that these young, unformed faces had too little bite, like the interchangeable ones who populate TV sitcoms. Or maybe it was the mental decrepitude of age.
Karp was tall enough to see over the heads of the crowd, and he had a good view when Keegan emerged from the DA suite with Fuller and Hrcany in tow. All the TV lights went on now, and the three of them all got that bleached look, like earthlings being levitated on a light beam to a flying saucer. Keegan stepped up to the thrusting mikes and read a short statement. He said that his office had always followed the law without fear or favor, that it would continue to do so, despite claims to the contrary from irresponsible political opponents intent on increasing racial tension to their own selfish advantage. It was not his usual policy to comment on cases before charges were filed. In view of the substantial public interest in a number of current cases, he thought it responsible to make an exception. He introduced Roland as homicide bureau chief and then prepared to take questions.
The journalists shouted all at once; this was not the White House. Keegan restored some order and picked up a question about Marshak. No, charges had not been decided upon. The investigation was ongoing. The DA was not aware of who had leaked Ramsey’s juvenile record. It was not this office. He deplored it and said it would have no effect on the charges brought, if any. No, no charge had been ruled out. Murder? No, no indication that such a charge was justified at present. No, nothing was ruled out.
Peter, who was standing close to Karp, murmured, “Headline: ‘DA Considering Murder Charge for Marshak.’”
Karp smiled and replied, “Subhead: ‘I’m No Racist Nazi, DA Claims.’”
“It’s a shame he has to do this,” said Peter. “The election, I guess.”
“You guess right. It’s still a no-win for him.”
The press had exhausted Marshak. Now they turned to Benson. Was the DA going for the death penalty? With such a weak case? It wasn’t weak, said the DA, and turned to Roland, who stepped forward and gave a rundown on the strengths of Benson, referencing a bunch of other cases where the DA had convicted on the same sort of evidence. They had an eyewitness; they had the loot. Would they be asking for death if the victim hadn’t been a Hasidic Jew? That had nothing to do with it, said Roland, straight-faced. Karp knew in his deepest heart that making such a cynically false statement in public was as entirely beyond him as winning the New York marathon and wondered briefly whether this was a defect or a virtue in a public official. So much for Benson. Karp saw a thin brown arm go up. She said her name, he didn’t catch it. But he caught the name of her paper.
“Mr. Hrcany,” she said. “You seem to be taking your time investigating the murder of a black man shot by Ms. Marshak, and yet the shooting of Shawn Lomax was whipped through the grand jury in record time, despite a number of unexplained details about the shooting and the behavior of the police officers involved, Brendan Cooley and Willie Nash. Could you explain why that happened?”
The volume in the room went up two notches. Cooley’s was a familiar name to city beat reporters. Roland was clearly taken aback by the question. He made the mistake of glancing at Keegan, which would look terrific on tape—a sneaky subordinate checking the coming lie with his boss. Then he rolled his great shoulders, squared his jaw, and said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Miss Umm. Although I’m not intimately familiar with that case, I understand that the officers involved shot Mr. Lomax to defend their lives. The . . . Mr. Lomax tried to ram their car with the stolen car he was driving.”
“Did he? Well, could you tell us then why all the bullets that struck him came from the back? He was shot ten times in the back, Mr. Hrcany. How could he be shot ten times in the back while he was allegedly driving head-on toward the police in their car?”
Uproar, actual baying. Roland’s face became immobile, its faint smile fixed like a slug in formalin. “I have no information as to, in reference to, the details of the case. The grand jury obviously has made a decision not to indict . . . to consider this a justified shooting, and . . .”
“Did the grand jury see this autopsy report? Did the district attorney tell the grand jurors that Shawn Lomax was shot in the back ten times?” She had a carrying, mellow, cultivated voice, unexcited, each syllable evenly stressed, like an elementary-school teacher asking Johnny whether he had done his homework.
Karp saw the warning front of red appear on Roland’s cheeks and sent an urgent thought message: Just say we’ll look into it, be gracious, and get the hell out of there! But no; Hrcany was an iceberg in the courtroom, absolutely unflappable, but he was not in one now, and he was being embarrassed in front of his boss and Fuller. By a woman. By a black woman.
He said, “This is not the place to split hairs about what the grand jury did or did not see, miss! Grand jury testimony is secret by law—I don’t know where you got hold of that information . . .”
“I have a copy of the police report.”
“Which I’m sure you’re not authorized to have. Can we move on?”
Roland pointed to a man. But, of course, the man wanted to know the same thing the woman wanted to know. Blood in the water. Was the DA running a cover-up? If the report was correct, would the DA reindict? Would the police report be generally released? Was Cooley getting a special deal? All the sorts of questions that weren’t meant to obtain answers as much as to make public officials look like prevaricating saps on television. Roland’s voice grew harsher, until he was practically screaming answers at the reporters. Karp saw Keegan grip Roland’s arm and speak into his ear. The DA stepped forward, promised a full investigation of the Lomax affair, and closed the conference. He attempted a dignified exit toward the DA suite door, but he and Roland and Fuller were mobbed by shouting reporters. A couple of cops from the DA squad moved forward to try to clear a lane to the door, but there were too many people, and the TV cameramen, seeing actual conflict, were drawn forward by blood lust. The
boom mikes swayed over the press like the pikes of the villagers attacking Frankenstein’s lab. Karp thought to himself, why not? And, signaling Peter Whoever and Dave Pincus to follow him, they surged like icebreakers into the throng, using their hips and elbows with abandon.
No one, it turned out, was injured, except in their dignity. Karp managed to shoehorn Roland into an elevator, along with Peter, Pincus, a couple of other ADAs, including Meghan, and a lone cop. Roland’s face was brick red by now, and the negative aspects of his personality were in full spate. The elevators in the DA wing are notoriously slow, and during the descent from eight to six Roland had ample time to vent, and he did so in the most vile and obscene terms, concentrating upon the sex of his tormentor and her race, too. Karp was silent during this outburst, not from shock, for he understood something of the demonic forces rolling free beneath the conscious surface of Hrcany’s mind, but because he honestly thought that, failing some verbal release, apoplexy was a real possibility. When the car stopped, Meghan Lacy rushed out as if to escape a contagion. Her face was bleached of color.
“You want to talk about this, Roland?” Karp offered, but this was rejected with a snarl as the man stalked away to his office. Karp went back to his own room, feeling traitorous and low. He twiddled a pencil and otherwise wasted public funds. He stared out a dirty window. He thought about touring courtrooms, which generally got his blood pumping, but just now he lacked the energy. A little tap at the door. He grunted assent, and Meghan Lacy came in. Her face looked damp, as if she had been crying and had splashed water on it. Her large, dark eyes were pinkly puffy. She came right to the point.
“I want a transfer. I don’t want to work for that man anymore.”
“A little extreme, don’t you think? He just had a bad day.”
She sniffed. “If you had a bad day, would you spew out sexist, racist crap like that?”
“No, but I’m not a tormented Hungarian genius like Roland Hrcany.” Karp said it lightly, but she did not smile. She was one of the ones who came to prosecution out of a desire to make the world tidy, to mete out punishment with a fair hand, to work for justice. That type tended to become chronically angry when they finally realized that this was not what public prosecution was all about.
“And what Bateson was saying? Is it true?”
“Was that Bateson? C. Melville? Of the Times ?”
She nodded.
“True? I guess partly. She obviously had the police report. Like the DA said, we’ll look into it. About transferring, why don’t you think about it for a while? You’re a good prosecutor. You should stay in homicide.”
“Not while he’s there. I’ve noticed it a lot before this, you know. With women. Sly digs, snickers with the boys. Okay, that’s like par for the course, right? He never actually, you know, did anything actionable. As for just now: God knows, I hear a lot of ripe language, but this was”—she cast about for words to describe it, failed, settled on—“over the line.”
Karp cleared his throat. This was not the first of this sort of conversation he’d had with sharp, young female attorneys in re Roland.
“Look, Meghan—Roland has a problem with women, and with African-Americans, true, but in almost twenty years of working with him, I’ve never known it to affect his substantive judgment on the job. He has a problem with women because when he was ten, his family was escaping from Hungary during the revolt there when a big Russian bullet went through his mother’s head and splashed her brains all over him. I think he just froze up then, some way, in the understanding and tenderness department, and he never got around to unfreezing. I hate psychologizing anyone, but I’d say that Roland finds it hard to trust anyone female. Given that, the fact that he’s never, as far as I know, blocked any woman from advancement is significant. And, as you point out, he keeps sex out of the office—no pinching, no hustling. Okay, that’s one thing. Then he came to America, where he started in a school in Brownsville that was eighty percent black kids, and he was a skinny white kid with a funny name, who talked funny English. It was not pleasant, and it went on for a long, long time, which is why he made himself into the moose he now is. Is he a racist? I can only say he’s kept that out of his work here, too.” Karp spread his hands. “They say to understand all is to forgive all. Meanwhile, he’s a great prosecutor, and you can learn a lot working for him.”
She looked sulky, as the self-righteous often do when called upon to forgive. “A lot of people have had hard lives. That doesn’t excuse it.”
“No, I guess not.” Karp took in a big breath, let it out. “Do you intend to take action, as having been damaged under the equal opportunity laws?”
Her mouth opened, but she thought again and shook her head. “No. I don’t need that on my record. The boys don’t like it, unless the guy’s run his hand up your dress and promised you a fucking pay raise if you let him touch it. He’ll dig his own grave, eventually.” She got up and left.
All afternoon Karp waited for a call from Keegan, to meet, to strategize the catastrophe, but none came. Apparently, on this issue he was out of the loop. Maybe Jack didn’t trust him anymore. That made them even.
He went home early, not as early as a judge, but early for him. He was surprised to find Marlene there before him, on the old couch in front of the TV, remote in her hand, flipping between NBC, ABC, and CNN.
He hung up his raincoat and sat down next to her. She offered a cheek, and he kissed it. “Where is everyone?” he asked.
“The boys are in their room playing with matches. I paged Lucy, but she hasn’t called back yet.”
Karp looked at the screen. There was an inset still photograph of a familiar face: Richard Perry, in happier days. The rest of the screen was taken up with a shot of a road, at night, in some town, damp from rain, tatty, trash-strewn, not America. In the background, groups of soldiers were standing around a few vehicles, drab Humvees and Land Rovers painted white, the kind of Balkan scene that had over the past decade become as familiar to television audiences as Letterman’s grin. In the foreground, an earnest young woman in a rain parka was talking at them.
“Perry’s dead?” asked Karp.
“No, he’s alive. They got him out.”
“No kidding! Who, the army?”
“No, Osborne. Shh! Watch this!”
The scene changed—a taped segment, obviously recorded earlier—it was daylight there in the Balkan village. Several tan Toyota SUVs pulled up to what seemed to be the same soldiers. A door opened and out stepped a tough-looking man in a black jumpsuit. He turned around to open a back door, and Karp saw that OSBORNE INTL. was written in white across his back. Then Richard Perry stepped out of the Toyota, and all the soldiers applauded. Cut to Perry, a close-up; he was unshaven, looking wan and exhausted, saying that it was good to be alive and that he couldn’t thank enough the team that had extracted him from captivity. More tough guys in black jumpsuits got out and grinned at the cameras. The announcer came back on and gave a brief description of where Perry and his party were now—en route to a hospital in Germany—and then back to the anchorperson with a split-screen, and Lou Osborne was there, in his office, talking about how great it all was and how Osborne never gave up on its clients.
“How did Osborne get them out?” Karp asked.
“Oleg did it, him and a bunch of ex-Soviet antiterrorist hard guys he has on retainer. It was the Serbs who snatched Perry, apparently, a splinter group, pissed off about Kosovo. The news broke just as I came in with the boys. Lou called me and told me to turn on the tube. I’ve been riveted ever since.”
“I didn’t know Osborne could do that—run rescue missions.”
“Oh, Oleg has a pretty free hand in that area. Drag enough dollars through those places and rats come out of the woodwork. Lou, of course, is ecstatic.”
“It’s a good thing. Hard to lose someone like that.”
“Oh, not about Perry as such. It’s the IPO. It goes out tomorrow under the best possible conditions.”
“So you’ll be rich,” said Karp neutrally.
“I guess. Rich enough to afford to eat at Paoletti’s tonight. Why don’t you grab up the monsters and I’ll smear some makeup over my raddled face. My treat.”
“What about Lucy?”
“I’ll leave a note. But she doesn’t eat anyway.”
The next day, a Thursday, the last one in March, Karp saw that Shawn Lomax had finally made it into history in the Newspaper of Record, front page above the fold. There was a picture of Mrs. Martha Lomax, the mother, standing with the usual liberal dignitaries in front of a church. McBright was right next to her, holding an arm. The story was bylined C. Melville Bateson. It had never occurred to Karp that C. Melville was a black woman when he had told Murrow to fax the Times city desk, anonymously, the police report on the Lomax shooting. Maybe that was racism and sexism in him, too, but it didn’t matter at this point. For twenty years Karp had been married to his idea of public law, trying to build something fine, or at least to keep the memory of something fine alive, against the slow water-drip erosion of stupidity and moral rot. And now he was down in it, too. Ten, even five years ago, it would never have occurred to him to leak a document to the press, and now he had done it, in a good cause, naturally, but wasn’t that what they all said? It was like the first adultery. The first time you talk yourself into thinking it’s true love, and before you know it, you’re taking stone-faced whores to hot-sheet hotels. He thought yet again about what V.T. had said. Karp was stuck between unsavory choices. He was not going to somehow convert Jack Keegan into the man Garrahy was, the man he needed to work for, and for some reason he did not have it in him to turn into Garrahy himself. And maybe Solotoff had been right—maybe Garrahy wasn’t even Garrahy. So he had thrown a bomb. He was a fanatic, after all, everyone said so, and that’s what fanatics do. He tossed the paper away, as disgusted with himself as he had ever been.
Enemy Within Page 17
