Enemy within kac-13

by Robert K. Tanenbaum

  "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 t
ossed the paper away, as disgusted with himself as he had ever been.

  But it got worse. On arriving at the courthouse he was summoned to the DA's office. Keegan was at his desk, flanked by Fuller. The DA's face was dark with anger. Fuller's bore its usual bland look, but it seemed to Karp to be a little too self-contained, as if the man were holding back an expression more pleased, even triumphant. Through his mind there flashed the thought that they'd found out about the homicide report, and that this was curtains. He sat down, opened his ledger, and asked, "What's up?"

  "Wait," said Keegan in a dead voice. Karp noticed that the tip of Keegan's prop cigar was crushed as if he had pounded it on the table. A tape recorder was on his desk, and his fingers danced close to it, as if eager to mash PLAY. Hrcany walked in. Whatever the problem was, Hrcany clearly did not know about it. He was his ordinary cocky self. He pulled a chair away from the conference table and sat.

  "Somebody die?" he asked.

  "Listen to this!" snapped the DA, and started the tape.

  It was scratchy and muffled, but the words were perfectly clear, as was the identity of the speaker. The screaming voice was silent at last, and Keegan stopped the tape.

  "Where in hell did you get that?" Hrcany demanded.

  "It came up through the mail room in an interoffice pouch, with a note saying copies had been sent to the networks and the papers. How could you have been so stupid, Roland? On top of what's been going on,"-Keegan flung up his hands in disgust-"it's a total disaster."

  "Hey, I lost my temper in a goddamn elevator, with no one but staff around. Is that a crime now?"

  "He still doesn't get it," said Fuller.

  Hrcany sprang to his feet. "Oh, go fuck yourself, you mealymouthed little putz!"

  "Sit down, Roland, goddammit!" After a frightening pause, when for an instant it seemed to Karp that Roland would not, that he would spring across the intervening distance and tear Fuller to pieces, the man slumped back into his chair.

  "I'd like to know who the fuck recorded that tape," Hrcany snarled. "There were six people in that elevator car-me, Butch, Pincus, a cop named Bradley, Meghan Lacy, and another assistant… Christ, I bet it was Lacy, that little bitch!"

  "It wasn't Lacy," said Karp tiredly. "Lacy came to me later to complain about it. I talked her out of writing you up."

  "So who was it? You?" The glitter of paranoia flicked on in Hrcany's blue eyes.

  "Of course it wasn't me, Roland, and I hardly think it was Dave Pincus. Did you know the other guy… Peter something?"

  "No, I thought you did."

  "Right, and I thought he was a pal of Dave's or Meghan's from the office. He was wearing a lawyer suit, and he had the top edge of a plastic ID card showing in his breast pocket. A ringer."

  "What? You think I was set up?"

  "I don't know. The guy might've just hung around hoping to pick up something rich. It was pretty confused, as you recall. He must've had a mini-recorder in his pocket and turned it on when you started your rant."

  "Listen to me, now!" the DA broke in, rapping hard on his desk. "I don't give a rat's ass how it happened. It happened, Roland, and it's on you. And I don't want to hear any horseshit about what's a crime and what's free speech. We've had cabinet officers dismissed in this country for telling a dirty joke. People have had their political careers wrecked for a chance remark, and let me tell you, buster, what's on that tape is no chance remark. It's sick! I have had twelve phone calls from the press this morning, asking me what action I'm going to take. I've put them off because I wanted to talk to you first."

  Karp watched the DA's face form itself into a mash of righteous hypocrisy. "Look, Roland, I want you to know this isn't about the election or politics. It's simply unacceptable behavior, I mean the indication of attitudes that we simply cannot tolerate in a public organization like this. I think you need help, and I suggest you find some. And I think we should make this painful situation as brief as we possibly can, so… let's make it immediate, as of close of business today."

  "You're firing me?" Hrcany was stunned. He turned and looked at Karp openmouthed, as if to say, this is some kind of joke, right?

  "Is this really necessary, Jack?" Karp offered. "A leave of absence…"

  "Dammit, Butch, I canned you for a lot less. I was able to hide you for a while-what you did, it could've been an accident. You got no history in that area, unlike Roland unfortunately, and people forget. But not this."

  Roland was staring at Keegan. From where he sat, Karp could see a vein bulging dangerously in the man's temple. "You're firing me? After eighteen years? For this shit?"

  "You can resign," said Keegan in a dull voice.

  "Fucking right I resign, and fuck the bunch of you!"

  Hrcany got up and stalked out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

  There was a silence, which Karp broke by saying, "I can't believe this. I can't believe you're doing this."

  "I have no choice. There's going to be a firestorm tonight and tomorrow… you saw the way the press is…"

  Karp wasn't listening. "This whole thing sucks. It stinks of political expediency."

  "Oh?" Keegan's voice rose. "The last time I checked, this was a political office, and let me tell you something, boyo: when you do the shit-work, and you kiss the fannies necessary to run for a political office, then you can pontificate to me about what the hell is necessary to run one." Keegan had turned dark pink in the face and was now jabbing in Karp's direction with his damaged cigar.

  "You want my resignation, too, Jack? You can have it."

  "Oh, pipe down! Don't get more noble on me than I can stomach! I don't want your resignation. I want you to take up where Roland left off, clean out this mess."

  "Mess?" Karp goggled.

  "Yeah, dammit! This mess in homicide. Benson, Marshak, the cop killing, what's-his-name, this Lomax thing, the bum slasher. It's wrecking us. I need you to fix it."

  "What, you want me to take over homicide?"

  "Right, homicide."

  "You're making me bureau chief?"

  Was that a little cloud that passed over the big pink face? Karp could usually read the DA pretty well, and he thought the man was burning a little too much coal in the sincerity engine. Karp snapped a quick look at Fuller. Fuller met his gaze levelly, but could not help showing a little tightness around the eyes, a lick of the lips, like a lizard practicing a go at a beetle. They were up to something. Karp felt his belly hollow out. There was no trust here. Had there ever been any? It didn't matter.

  Keegan said, "Not officially. You can pick anyone you want as deputy, let him deal with the routine stuff. I want you to handle the high-profile cases. Get us out of this right, and we'll see about making it permanent." The DA brought a big politician's grin up from his collection of smiles. "Hell, it's what you always wanted, getting back there. You know you've been mooning after it like a damn kid in a toy store for the last five years. It used to drive Roland crazy."

  Which was true, and so it took a good deal of resolve for Karp to say, "I need to think about it. For starters, I need to talk to my wife."

  He went back to his office and sat for a while, feeling faintly nauseated. He had thought that by this time he had become utterly void of personal ambition, and it shocked him badly to find that it was not true. He wanted homicide badly, and the knowledge that Keegan knew that and was using the promise of a permanent appointment thereto as a manipulative tool did not entirely still his lust for the job. They wanted to keep him on the reservation until after the election, to saddle him with the political messes they had made, after which… who knew? The irony, of course, was that this leak had made the mess far worse, although building political pressure had been an essential part of his plan. But he had not expected this turn, he had really not expected Roland to ruin himself and leave Karp with the great soggy tar baby of homicide. He had imagined that he could stand off more, a gray eminence on staff, skillfully tweaking the system. Staff people did it all the time, l
eaking and lying-it was practically in the job description. But if he took homicide now, he'd be right in the center of it, having to fix what he himself had broken, with the prize he shamefully lusted for dangling from the hands of the DA and his nasty little…

  Karp picked up the phone and pushed the speed button for Marlene's private line. It rang a long time before someone, not Marlene, picked it up, a man in fact, whose voice was loud and seemed slurred. There were peculiar noises in the background, thumping music, many voices, punctuated by shouts and whistles. The man said that it was crazy in there, but he'd try to find her. A clunk as the receiver was tossed down.

  Shortly, he heard his wife's voice.

  "What's going on? It sounds like a party."

  "It is a party. We started drinking champoo this morning. You should come over and drink some. You could see distinguished corporate security personnel dancing on the desks in various states of undress. There is someone's tie hanging from my desk lamp. I expect panties to follow."

  "This is about Perry?"

  "Oh, Perry! Foo on Perry! He is rescued. We is rescued by his rescue. Perry is old news. The IPO went off today. Opened at eight, went to sixty and a quarter, and is hovering at fifty-five and a half. Fifty-five and a half. Fifty fucking five. And a half."

  "Is that good or bad for the Jews?" Karp asked. She was clearly drunk, and he felt vexed about it because what he needed now was the calm, sensible, no-bullshit Marlene to succor him and support him and say, sure, take a job that involves no home life to speak of and eighteen-hour days, and I will pick up the emotional slack for you, darling…

  "Oh, definitely good, especially those married to Osborne principals who have one point two million options at eight. Listen, Butchie, we're all going out to eat and carouse the night away. Could you do the boys and all?"

  "Sure," in a flat voice.

  "You're so mahvelous. Lovie love. See you later. Bye."