Karp didn’t mind. He was happy to do Marlene a favor: anything to distract her from the Armenians.
On the following morning when Karp held his weekly trial meeting, the Armenians were much on his mind. At the trial meeting the assistant district attorneys who were planning trials laid the cases they had prepared before their peers, and Karp, who attempted to shoot them down: a sort of legal scrimmage. Such discussion was possible because trials were much rarer than murders. Of the thousand or so homicides brought to attention of the law in Manhattan, fewer than one in ten would get before a jury, the remainder being otherwise disposed of, usually by plea bargaining. Or the guy would walk because somebody forgot to do something important.
Karp looked around the table, the seats at which were reserved for presenters. There were four of them this morning. The rest of the staff sat along the walls in chairs they had wheeled into the room, or they were perched on Karp’s desk or on windowsills. He nodded to the man seated to his right and said, “Okay, Guma, let’s get started.”
The man so addressed was short and squat and looked enough like Yogi Berra to turn heads on the street, the main differences being that he was not quite as handsome as Berra and could not hit a high inside curve ball, for which reason he had been denied a career in the majors. Besides that, he was a very good athlete, as were almost all the men (and the two women) crowding the room. Karp had found, or imagined he had found, that people who played high-level competitive sports made the best trial lawyers. They had thick skins and a certain casual brutality without which survival at Centre Street could be measured in weeks; they lived to win; they played hurt; they could work as part of a team. It was not a job for the legal intellectual: let them work on Wall Street or teach at Harvard, was Karp’s thinking.
Ray Guma was a good example. It was not entirely clear that he could read. It was a fact that no one had ever seen him writing anything down. Yet he never forgot a face, or a name, or an incident from any case he had ever handled. Nobody in the D.A.’s office was more magisterial on the subject of the mob, its politics, its personalities, its plans. It had rubbed off; Guma was mildly corrupt in what he considered a good cause. He consorted with known criminals. He was an astonishing and indefatigable lecher. And though he shared no point of habit or moral standard with his boss, the Mad Dog of Centre Street, as he was known, was one of Karp’s favorite people.
Guma began his presentation. “This is People v. Cavetti. Okay, Jimmy Cavetti was part of a gang that’s been ripping things off from air freight out at Kennedy for years now. They did high-value stuff: wines, furs, art, antiques. Needless to say, the goombahs are in it heavy. It’s under the Bollano family, a capo regime name of Guissepe Castelmaggiore.
“So, a cozy arrangement. They bought enough of the shipping clerks and expediters to get them the word on where the good stuff is. Joey Castles handles protection, plus fencing the stuff, plus divvying the cut for the families. The other two main guys in the gang were the Viacchenza brothers, Carl and Lou, solid Bollano guys. The vics in this case.
“To make a long story short, Joey finds out the Viacchenza boys are skimming the take, holding out. Joey has a short fuse. One night last November, the Viacchenzas are leaving the Domino Lounge on Ninth. They walk past an alley, and somebody takes them out with a twelve-gauge. There’s snow in the alley, and we pick up a perfect heel print, which we match to Jimmy’s shoe. That’s the case. The shoe and the situation.”
There was a brief silence. “How did we get the shoe?” asked Karp.
“Search warrant based on reliable informant. The usual horseshit. This time the cops really got a reliable informant. One of the shipping clerks in on the theft deal. They nailed him on a dope thing and he gave them Jimmy C.—I mean that Jimmy fingered the Viacchenzas for the hit. He didn’t name Joey Castles, needless to say—he wasn’t that stupid. They’ll move to suppress the shoe, but we shouldn’t have any trouble.”
Roland Hrcany, who was at the table, spoke up. “Did he do it?”
Guma snorted. “You mean, was he the trigger on the hit? Fuck, no! Jimmy’s no killer. He’s a thief. Nah, Joey Castles probably got a contract out. Jimmy was just there to finger, maybe drive. Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention. We got an eyeball says Jimmy was cruising around the Domino earlier on the night of, asking about the brothers, were they there yet, anybody seen them—like that.”
“But he’ll stand up on it?” asked Karp. “To murder deuce?”
“Yeah, maybe,” said Guma, shrugging. “Jimmy was always a stand-up guy. On the other hand, he’s never looked at twenty-five to life. But what you’re asking is, will he rat out Joey Castles and whoever was the shotgun artist? I’d say no. Which is why we got the tap and the bugs on Joey.”
“Let me get this straight,” said Hrcany. “He didn’t do the hit, but we’re trying him for it?”
Guma turned himself and leaned forward so that he could look directly at Hrcany, who was sitting on the same side of the long table. “What kind of remark is that, Roland? The fuckin’ guy was there. He was holding the shotgun’s hand, for chrissake. He’ll go down for it too, unless he deals.”
Karp didn’t like the way the conversation was drifting, and he knew very well why Roland had raised that silly point. Karp asked, “But will he deal when it comes down to it?”
Guma said, “No. He’s saying, ‘Convict my ass.’ He figures we got a weak case, or that’s what his lawyer’s telling him. One heel print against his alibi. He got some bitch to say he was with her. (Sorry, ladies.) We shouldn’t have much trouble impeaching her. They’ll try to impeach our shipping clerk and our bar-flies. They’ll get shoe experts. You know the routine.”
Karp did indeed. He said, “Okay, good job, Goom. Tony?”
Tony Harris, a bright young left-handed pitcher from Syracuse whom Karp had raised from a pup into a competent and aggressive prosecutor, told his story: People v. Devers—a man, a woman, drugs, a gun. The D. had a record of atrocious violence, and had shot down the woman in front of three shrieking children. It was therefore one of the cases on which Karp had decided to hang tough. The defendant had done likewise, making the state work for it.
As usual, Karp questioned Harris closely about the details, and, following his example, so did the other lawyers. The M.E. evidence, the testimony of witnesses, the fact that all potential witnesses were sought out and interviewed, the defendant’s alibi, the lab work, what the cops found.
After the questions were exhausted, Karp summed up the case. “The problem here is that the direct witnesses to the crime are minor children aged three to seven. Not convincing to most juries, easily confused on cross. So we build the case on indirect evidence, which is convincing. We have a neighbor who came out in the hall after hearing shots and made an ID. We have two young women outside the apartment, saw the defendant enter, heard the shots, saw the defendant exit. We have physical evidence in the form of nynhydrin tests that show the defendant had fired a gun recently. We have the murder weapon found in a sewer located on the direct route between the victim’s apartment and the defendant’s apartment three blocks away. It’s a story. Anything wrong with it that we haven’t brought up?” He looked around the room. Silence. “No? Okay, good job, Tony. Next.”
Next was an A.D.A. named Lennie Bergman, and the case was People v. Morales. Bergman had just begun his account when Karp interrupted him. “Did you get my note on this?”
The attorney hesitated. “Yeah, I did.”
“And you still want to go to trial on it?” Karp stared hard at the man, who met his gaze levelly. Bergman was a stocky, blunt-featured man, a defensive lineman out of Adelphi. Not an inspired mind, or particularly perceptive, but competent, tough, and certainly not a man to be moved by a disapproving stare from his boss. “Okay, make your pitch,” said Karp.
Bergman presented his case, after which Karp tore into it, pointing out the absurdities in Morales’s supposed behavior after the crime, the lack of direct witnesses to a crime that had
supposedly taken place on the street, the fact that Morales’s grandmother persisted in her story that the incriminating evidence had been planted. But nobody else seemed to smell a police scam, and Karp was left with the choice of either directly overruling a good attorney or letting him go to trial under a cloud based not on any direct knowledge but on Karp’s experience and instinct.
Karp tapped on the table and looked at the faces sitting around it: Guma bored; Harris interested, inclined to be sympathetic, but confused; Bergman, pugnacious, defensive; and Hrcany. What was that expression in Hrcany’s eyes? Challenging? Contemptuous, a little? What was he thinking? That Karp was afraid to try the tough ones anymore? That he had become too nice about the provenance of evidence?
They were waiting. Across Karp’s mind passed the sudden wish that he had never gotten into the business of supervising other people’s cases. Then he said, “Okay, fuck it, go for it. Roland, you’re up.”
6
The shoot-out between Karp and Hrcany over People v. Tomasian became the stuff of legend before the afternoon was well begun. In the outer office the secretaries were the first to know, as most of the discussion was carried on at such a volume that all work ceased and the women muttered nervously and fingered their telephones. After lunch the tale spread throughout the building, growing in drama and violence. They had come to blows. Hrcany had pulled a knife. The police had been called. Karp was in the hospital. Gunshots had been heard by reliable witnesses. The news floated up to the eighth floor, where the district attorney heard it and was glad, though less so when it was explained to him that Karp had not really been stabbed by one of his own attorneys. Farther down the hall from the D.A.’s office, the story reached the ears of Conrad Wharton, the chief administrative officer, who understood what it meant, and considered how it might fit in with his perpetually evolving and lovingly maintained plan to ruin Karp.
Marlene heard the news late in the day, having been with the grand jury, and immediately sought out Ray Guma for the straight poop.
“Nah, the part about the knife is bullshit, and they didn’t call the cops,” said Guma confidently. “What it was, Connie stuck her head in when Roland kicked over his chair. She scoped the situation out and said, ‘Should I call the cops?’ After that they both calmed down. But Roland did throw the case file at Butch’s head. That part’s true.”
“Did it hit him?”
“Nah, he was at the other end of the table. Lucky thing too. Roland gets up and kicks his chair across the room and he yells, ‘You want the fuckin’ case? Take it!’ and he heaves the whole box. He would’ve gone for Butch too, but me and Tony stood up and stood in his way. Not that we could’ve stopped him. But it slowed him down and then Connie came in. It was like a schoolteacher breaking up a fight at recess in the schoolyard. Hell of a thing.”
“How’d it start?” asked Marlene.
“It was when Roland had just finished doing his thing on the Tomasian case. It sounded okay to me, nothing special. But I see Karp is getting that look. You know what I mean? The Chinese warlord eyes? After Roland finishes, Butch stares at him like he just cut a fart. He says, ‘What about the money, Roland. You didn’t mention the money.’
“Roland gets all red and he says, ‘The money’s horseshit. It’s not relevant to the case, it’s extraneous, et cetera.’
“Butch says, ‘You don’t fuckin’ know that, Roland. You haven’t bothered to find out either. You haven’t lifted a finger to investigate the victim’s background. And what about the documents, they’re irrelevant too?’
“Meanwhile everybody’s looking at each other. Money? Documents? Nobody knows what the fuck’s happening. Then Roland, he’s yelling now, he says, ‘Yeah, they’re irrelevant. They’re letters from his brother, in Turkey—just bullshit.’
“And Butch says, ‘Oh, yeah? How come he keeps letters from his brother in a fucking safe-deposit box?’ Then he turns around to all of us—I mean we’re fucking … confused ain’t the word, believe me—and he says, ‘This is an example of a fucked investigation. This isn’t even an investigation. It’s a goddamn romance. He fell in love with this guy and that was it. It’s not a case, it’s not an indictment—it’s a valentine.’ Then some more shit about when the defense gets this stuff about the safe deposit on discovery, you can kiss this guy good-bye. They’ll do a serious investigation, and then they’ll know shit we don’t know and so on. He was really wailing, dancing on Roland’s head, and Roland’s getting redder and redder, he’s like a fuckin’ Coke sign, and finally he breaks in, he yells, ‘Well, fuck it, I’m not gonna give it to them! It’s not part of the case, they got no right to see it. I checked it with Bloom and he agrees.’”
“Good God!” exclaimed Marlene.
“Yeah, right. You coulda heard a pin drop. Okay, Butch goes dead white. He says, ‘Bloom? You checked it with Bloom?’ Then he points his finger at Roland, and he goes, ‘If I find out that the defense doesn’t have every single scrap of information you’ve assembled on this case, I will personally deliver it to defense counsel, and I will inform the judge of your conspiracy to suppress evidence.’ That’s when Roland threw the case file. Shit, it was like the movies!”
Marlene shook her head in amazement. “So what’s the upshot?”
“Damned if I know,” said Guma. “You oughta go talk to Butch. He might not bite your head off.”
But late that day in his office, he seemed not biter but bitten, wan, and depressed.
“So, are you going to kiss and make up or what?”
Karp grimaced at this question, but left Marlene’s head attached. “I don’t know, kid,” he replied. “I must be losing it. I still can’t believe it happened. Me and Roland—for chrissake, we go back years. It was him going to Bloom that did it. Bloom! He hates Bloom. And on a sneaky deal like this. And I blame myself for it. If I was a hundred percent, I would’ve played Roland different. The last thing you want to do with him is get into a pissing contest.” He slammed the desk in frustration and looked at her with eyes that were dark-rimmed and full of pain.
“I hurt all the time. It makes me irritable. Running a staff isn’t like playing ball, or even trying cases. Irritable is good in those. Now I got to be a fucking therapist.”
“You do it, though.”
“Yeah, but I don’t love it. It’s not my real thing. I’m trying to build a homicide bureau like we used to have, but I don’t have the material and I don’t have the support. Can you imagine what Garrahy would’ve said if Roland had delivered a case like Tomasian? I saw Garrahy make a guy cry once, and not a kid either, an old homicide prosecutor—reduced him to tears in front of a roomful of people because the guy had prepared an incompetent case. I’ll never have that kind of authority, not over guys like Roland anyway.”
“Maybe he should quit, then.”
“But he’s good,” Karp protested. “I don’t want him to quit. I wouldn’t give two shits about him if he wasn’t a terrific prosecutor. The pity of it is that he doesn’t get the point, and I sense that a lot of the best guys were on his side. Bergman. Guma even. They didn’t get the point, and if they didn’t get the point, how the hell am I going to get the kids to get it?”
“The point being he picked the wrong guy?”
Karp sighed. “No, he may have the right guy. Christ, you don’t get it either. Look, over on Mulberry Street around where we live, there used to be the old police headquarters, back in the eighteen-nineties. And in that building somebody got the bright idea of taking photographs of all the people they arrested and filing them according to crime. Very useful.
“And then it occurred to some other bright boy that when they had a mystery, they could reach into the drawer and pull out a photo of someone they were interested in getting off the street, and what they did was they put it in a frame on the wall, and then all the cops would lean on informants to come up with testimony that, yeah, this guy did the crime. That’s how they built cases back then. That’s where the word comes from, frame
. It’s still the easiest way to clear cases.
“But not to win cases. People talk about lenient judges and juries. That’s bullshit. Scumbags get out on the street nine times out of ten because of prosecutorial incompetence. They’re lazy: they buy the cops’ story, like Bergman just did. Or they get entranced, like Roland. They forget that they have to learn everything about the case, not just the stuff that supports their indictment. Because if they have a halfway capable defense, it’ll all come out in trial. The jury doesn’t automatically believe the state and the cops anymore. Maybe the opposite.”
“Gosh, this is just like being in law school,” said Marlene, rolling her eyes. “But back to the matter at hand. What are you going to do?”
“I’ve been thinking about it. What I’d like to do is find out who did the murder. If it was Tomasian, fine. I’m an asshole, but at least we’ll have a case that makes sense. If it wasn’t Tomasian …” Karp grinned unpleasantly. “Then I’ll have made my point. To Roland. To the homicide staff. And to Bloom.”
“Are you going to make Roland cry?”
Karp laughed, a welcome release from tension. “Right now I kind of hope so.”
“I hope so too. You could sell tickets,” said Marlene. “And I can’t fail to note that I told you so on this.”
“Yes, dear,” said Karp flatly.
“Ah, the Olympic passive-aggression team takes the field. Time for me to get small. You coming?”
“In a minute. I need to make a call.”
She left, and he looked in his Rolodex to find a number that he called as infrequently as he could manage. It was late, but he figured the FBI’s New York office would still be open, fighting crime.
The man who answered was about as unhappy to hear from Karp as he was to have to call. They wasted no time on pleasantries.
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