Enemy within kac-13

by Robert K. Tanenbaum

"Oh, no, not another one!" she wailed.

  "No, just old Jingles," said Grale. "We found him down on the tracks. He's comatose."

  "He's comatose and his other toes are frozen," said Lila. "It was too cold on the tracks in the sky, and the pain came through at once, puff puff, said the rain train. Let me tell you my story, Lucy."

  "Not right now, Lila," said Lucy. She grabbed one of Jingles's arms, Benz grabbed the other, and David heaved up the bottom half. Jingles, a person of complex ethnicity, was dressed in the usual multiple layers, the top one of which was an army field jacket of extraordinary filthiness. It was covered, as were the equally foul trousers, with dozens of small metal objects-pop tops, squashed cans, gears, fragments of automobiles thrown from street crashes, broken tools, parts from a TV, pieces of a toaster-necessary to keep the CIA from tracking him by means of the beacon they had implanted in his body. These accessories gave him his street name. As she carried, Lucy tried not to think about the grime under her hands, or the smell, a compound of wine stink, unwashed human, and something sharp, sweet, and chemical. Hideous, but one was not supposed to mind those things in the service of the afflicted. She tried (and failed) to imagine St. Catherine licking the sores of the lepers and for inspiration looked back at David, who gave her his angelic grin and said, "He sure stinks, doesn't he? Wine and huffing glue, the famous death-wish cocktail. If Benz hadn't've found him, he would've puked up and strangled in the vomit. And what a loss to the world that would be."

  "The boss of the world likes me," said Lila Sue. "I bring her flowers and balloon pickles, and you know what?"

  "What, honey?" said David. They were at the incline now, and David was supporting most of the dead weight.

  "She has every color, even green and purple chocolate! Now I have a different story."

  "Later, Lila Sue," Benz grunted as they lay Jingles down at the top of the slope. As they did so, the man jerked violently, and his face turned slaty blue while appalling noises issued from his mouth. Benz shrieked.

  "Christ, he's choking," David cried. "Lucy! Benz! Flip him over. Pry his mouth open. Do it!"

  They heaved Jingles over, slipping on the littered ground. David straddled the man, locked his hands under Jingles's midriff, and heaved several times. Cringing, Lucy pried open Jingles's clenched jaws and was rewarded by a spasmodic series of coughs and a gush of foul-smelling yellow fluid all over her hands.

  Jingles coughed some more, shook, pissed on himself, and settled again into oblivious slumber, snoring. Lucy held her hands out in front of her like a zombie.

  David laughed. "You should see your face, Lucy."

  "Oh, shut up! What am I supposed to do now?"

  He put an arm around her shoulder. "It's all part of the saint biz, kid. You'll get used to it. Or you won't. Meanwhile, I can only baptize you with water."

  He led her across the street and down an alley, where they found a standpipe and faucet without a handle. He took one from his jacket pocket and turned on the water. She washed her hands and dabbed with a handkerchief at the splatters on her skirt and stockings. She sank once more into shame.

  "What are we going to do with Jingles?"

  "Oh, I'll get him over to the VA. They'll keep him for a week until he dries out and then toss him back. And in a couple of weeks, if he doesn't get hit by a car or fall asleep on the tracks, I'll have to do it again. The poor ye have always with you. And the stupid, and the miserable, and the hopelessly damaged."

  "Why do you do it then?"

  "Why? It's my calling. And I don't have many other skills." He shut off the water, pocketed the handle. "Not like you, for example. Why do you do it? And why aren't you in school?"

  She shrugged. "I don't know. It just seems like the right thing to do, helping people. The middle-class life, you know, school and having stuff, and buying stuff… it gives me the willies sometimes. I want all of that"-she gestured widely, taking in the armies of the destitute of New York-"to go away. I want things to be different. So people like Jingles and Benz and Ali can have real lives. How much would it cost? And this city has so much money, it makes me sick, and it's the poor old Church that has to take up the slack, people like you…" She stopped, embarrassed again. "I mean, it can't go on, can it?"

  "Oh, yeah. You'd be surprised what people can take and how long horrible things can go on. Meanwhile"-he jabbed a thumb in the direction they had come from-"this is paradise. Jingles's life would be pure heaven to two-thirds of the people on the planet. We have to believe in ultimate mercy, you know."

  "Ultimate mercy? You mean grace?"

  "I mean death." He had for just a second that look on his face, the stranger she sometimes saw there, and then the lovely smile was back, and he said, "I tell you what-lend me your fancy cell phone, and I'll get old Mr. J. picked up, and then I'll run you across on my bike and we'll distribute charity for a while, and then we'll have lunch. I can tell you need cheering up, my little saintlet. Let's see if we can't generate a few moments of joy."

  Thinking of something, Karp called for Murrow and told him what to do. Murrow wrote it down with his small golden pencil in the little leather-bound notebook he always carried.

  "Is that legal?" he asked.

  "Barely. It's also one of the large number of barely legal things you would not like known that you've done."

  "Check. Are you going to the big press conference?"

  "I might drop by. I might stand in the back and sob because my words aren't being taken down by newsies to decorate the Bloomingdale's ads."

  "Yes, it's sad. I assume this conference is to respond to McBright's speech. What did you think of it?"

  Karp picked a thin sheaf of paper from his cluttered desk and flipped through it casually. "An impassioned cry for justice. Unfortunate for Marshak that Desmondo Ramsey had a photogenic, middle-class, grieving family. Basically a decent kid with a few problems, not unlike yourself, Murrow. My daughter knew him slightly, as a matter of fact. Did you catch the reference in the Times to his juvie record?"

  "Yeah. Character assassination of the victim. He was in on a stickup as a kid, so, therefore, okay to blast him. But what you asked me to do… that's on another case."

  "Yes, it is, but you notice McBright mentions Lomax, too, and also our old pal Jorell Benson, accused killer of a politically significant group member. The picture he's painting is of a DA's office that skews justice according to skin color and politics. A black guy gets shot, they give the white fellow that shot him a pass, just like they're getting ready to give Sybil a pass. A black guy is accused of killing a white, they put him up for the death penalty." Karp thumbed through the transcript pages. "Here's a good part: 'That beautiful lady Justice has a blindfold on. And the job of district attorney demands that her blindfold be tight across her eyes, so that skin color and class and how much money or political influence you have and whether you're homeless or not doesn't matter. But Jack Keegan has tugged that blindfold down so far you can't call it Justice anymore. Another one of those little tugs, Jack, and we might as well call her Ms. Lynch.' Pretty powerful stuff."

  "But untrue," said Murrow in a tone tinged with hope.

  Karp gave him a hard look, then smiled and tossed the transcript down. "Of course, untrue. And also somewhat true. In fact, Justice is unequal. It's the case that almost everyone on death row in this country got there by killing white people. It's the case that most black defendants are poor and are defended by public defenders with no resources and less than adequate time to prepare cases. It's the case that the cops and us tend to pay more attention when a lowlife kills a citizen, black or white, than when a lowlife kills another lowlife, and it's a fact that a really high proportion of mutts in this town are black or Hispanic. It's the case that the system depends on those inequities, because if every accused felon we got in here could afford to mount a case like Sybil Marshak is going to mount, we would have to expand the courts and prosecutorial systems a hundredfold. But I also think that the inequities are the result of cl
ass and poverty. It used to be Irish, Jews, and Italians-now it's blacks and Hispanics. There's no specific racism involved here like there was in the Jim Crow South. Out on the street, with cops, it might be different, but not here. Okay, I'll give you that if Benson had killed his cousin the crack dealer, we would not even be thinking about seeking death. On the other hand, given the vic, I think Roland would come down just as hard on Benson if Benson was a nice Jewish boy." Karp grimaced. "Hell, harder probably, and his instinct is to cream Marshak, too. So, in that sense, McBright is demagoguing. There's no…" Karp moved his hands, searched for a phrase.

  "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.