No Lesser Plea (30 page)

He turned facing her, pulling away, his eyes blazing. “I
know
he was old, Marlene. You don’t have to tell me he was
old.
Guy that old should be sitting on the beach in Florida, playing with grandchildren. But, oh no! Butch couldn’t do without his fucking hero. He had to keep him around one more term. And it killed him.”

“Come on, Butch …”

“No, it’s true. I am a total piece of shit.”

“No, you are not a total piece of shit. What you are is a self-centered, perfectionist, workaholic asshole with a tendency to overdramatize. I’m sorry he’s dead, too, but he was an old man, and old men also die on the beach in Florida. He died with his boots on, and that was the kind of person he was anyway. And he didn’t have any grandchildren.

“OK, you convinced him to run. He was a grown-up. He knew how to call a doctor and get a physical. You want to mourn him? Fine. God knows he’s worth mourning for. But make sure it’s him you’re mourning and not something to do with your self-image and the failure of your little schemes.”

“Thank you, Marlene, dear. That was quite a little speech. I’m glad I can count on you for support …”

“SHIT!” Marlene yelled at the top of her voice. “You won’t listen and you won’t stop! You’re not thinking about Garrahy. You’re just thinking about yourself and your fucking guilt. Now snap out of it! Get drunk or go to church or take me home and pull my pants off, but stop this goddamned
whining.
”

“Hey, I didn’t start this fight,” said Karp weakly.

“FIGHT! You think this is a fight? This isn’t a fight.
This
is a fight.” With that she slammed her fist into him just above the belt buckle. Then she dropped her shoulder bag to the pavement, snapped into a fighter’s crouch and started to pound him with quick, sharp punches in the midsection.

Karp was driven back against a building, shielding himself with his forearms. “Hey, damn it, stop it, Marlene! Cut it out! I mean it, cut it out!”

But she kept at it, bobbing and weaving, ducking her head, landing punches. “Come on, you wanna fight? Come on, you big bastard, fight!”

A small crowd of half a dozen or so had gathered to watch. Somebody laughed and said, “Two bucks on the chick.”

Karp shouted, “OK, you asked for it,” and lashed out with his right, an openhanded blow to her head. To his amazement, she blocked with her left, ducked under the punch and threw a right cross to his mouth that rocked his head back and split his lip. He let out a yell and charged forward. He grabbed her at the shoulders and pulled her to him in a tight clinch. She was trying to work her arms up between them and break his hold, when something wet dropped on her face. She looked up and saw that Karp’s chin was covered with blood.

“Oh, Butch, you’re bleeding. Oh, no, I’m sorry. Oh, let me go, I’ll get you a hankie.”

She squirmed out of his grasp, picked up her bag, extracted a handkerchief and pressed it tenderly to his cut lip. “Please, don’t be mad at me, Butch. It just drives me crazy when you act all schmucky like that.” She kissed his cheek and hugged him. The crowd drifted away. The joker said, “I tol’ya. The chick by a TKO.”

Karp, still a bit stunned, wiped at his lip and chin. “That’s OK, Marlene. It was a little unexpected, that’s all.” He grinned bloodily. “I don’t intend to press charges for assault.”

“Thank God! I thought I was looking at six in the House of D.”

“Where did you learn to box like that?” Karp asked as they walked north again, holding hands.

“Oh, from my old man. We all used to watch the Friday night fights together, and then we would all roughhouse. Girls, boys, it didn’t make any difference, until the girls grew tits. Then we had to ref.”

“Smart daddy.”

“Yeah, really. But I guess it was the whole scene at home. My mom and dad are both really physical people, you know? Lots of hugs, kisses, and smacks in the head. They would get to fighting over something and start swinging punches. I mean he didn’t beat up on her or anything, they just used to whale away at each other in the kitchen or wherever. Then they used to cry and clean each other up and jump into bed and ball. It wasn’t scary or anything, the fighting, because we knew they loved each other a lot. Still do, in fact. I bet you think that’s pretty primitive, huh?”

“Not the jumping-into-bed part.”

“Ooh, goody. I’m hot as a pistol. Let’s take a cab.”

As Guma had predicted, it was a helluva wake. Flags flew at half-mast throughout the city as the mortal remains of Francis Garrahy lay in state for three days in a funeral home, guarded by spit-and-polished cops from the Emerald Society, while the great and famous and the ordinary people whose lives he had touched filed past. Then came the state funeral with its police bands, the eulogy by the governor himself, the tributes by anyone of any consequence connected to the criminal justice business, the City of New York, or Ireland.

They buried him on a sunny Saturday in June in Queens, the Borough of the Dead and the Might As Well Be, as they say in Manhattan. Karp went, as did the rest of the office, and did not cry. He was amazed to see Ray Guma wiping tears and blowing his nose like a bereaved widow.

Chapter 15

O
n the Monday after Garrahy’s funeral, Sanford L. Bloom held his first senior staff meeting as district attorney. Karp’s name had been entered as an assistant bureau chief, in what was probably one of Garrahy’s last official acts, so he was on the list and he attended.

The nine bureau chiefs and their deputies took their places around the long oak table in the DA’s conference room. Conlin and Joe Lerner were up toward the head of the table next to the door to the new DA’s office. Conlin looked dyspeptic while Lerner looked nervous and uncomfortable. The other chiefs—all Garrahy’s men, some of whom had served him for decades—appeared similarly uncomfortable, like the leaders of a nation defeated in war, waiting upon the commander of the occupying forces.

Karp sat next to his new boss, Frank Gelb, whom he barely knew. Gelb was a quiet man, heavy set, balding, with a ginger mustache. As head of Criminal Courts, he had the most frustrating and thankless job in the justice system; after only a few months in the post he looked worn.

“What’s happening, Frank?” said Karp.

Gelb regarded him bleakly. “Damned if I know. They told me to show up, so I showed up. There’s no agenda. The rumor is, no reorganization, and he’s sticking with the bureau chiefs he’s got, for the time being. I guess this’ll be a pep talk, the great traditions of the New York DA’s office, et cetera. Shit, Garrahy’s not even cold. What is he going to do, tell the world the old man didn’t know what he was doing? On the other hand …”

“What, on the other hand?”

“Apparently, he’s been closeted with Conrad Wharton ever since the funeral. Also, I hear stirrings from my buddies in personnel and budget. There’s forty new attorney positions in the budget for the next fiscal year. I hear Conrad is carving out a little empire from those.”

“No way! Those are courtroom slots. They’d have to be crazy to use them anyplace else. How’s he going to move cases without attorneys?”

Gelb sighed and ran his hand across the top of his scalp. “There are ways and ways. In any case we will soon see. Oh, by the way, you might as well move into the Assistant Bureau Chief Office. It’s always a mistake to have empty office space when a change in regime is going on. One of the eternal verities of bureaucratic life.”

Karp was about to ask what an assistant bureau chief actually did for a living, when the door to the DA’s office swung open and Bloom strode vigorously into the room, with a pink and shiny Wharton trailing behind him, as if he were a painted pull toy.

Sanford Bloom was a medium-sized man with large moist eyes, a full mouth and a thin, prominent nose. He was forty-four and looked much younger. He was tanned with his brown hair coiffed over his ears in a politician’s blowdry. His face was unmarked by lines of worry, which was not surprising, since he had enjoyed ease and wealth and the right contacts since the cradle. He had a softness of expression about his eyes and mouth, the suggestion being that, if seriously crossed, his lip would begin to tremble and his face might dissolve into petulance.

Bloom sat at the head of the table. There was no room at the table for Wharton, who waited politely for one of the seated men to make room for him. No one moved. After a minute he pulled up one of the straight-backed chairs lined against one wall and settled himself to Bloom’s right rear, like a translator behind a diplomat.

“I suppose you’re wondering why I asked you all here,” Bloom began with a boyish smile, and got a chuckle in response. “Let me say, first of all,” he continued, “that I had and retain the greatest admiration for the late Phil Garrahy and for this office. But as I look around at the conditions we now find ourselves in, I have to say, and believe me, it is painful for me to say it, that the current methods and procedures of the New York District Attorney’s Office are totally inadequate for the modern age. Gentlemen, we are losing the war on crime in this city!”

Here he paused for effect and looked around the table. Silence and blank faces. He cleared his throat and resumed.

“The productivity of this office has not significantly increased in thirty years, while crime has increased tenfold. Our record-keeping systems are a disaster. We have no way of centrally tracking a case through the system, to find out where the worst delays are, and get these cases moving again. This is the twentieth century, men! We’ve got to modernize. I need new ideas. I want this office to become a leader in criminal justice system innovation.”

He stared around the table again. No one came up with any new ideas. Conlin stared off into space.

“I don’t intend to make any massive changes in personnel or organization, right off. I believe in giving all of you a chance to see if you can play in a new ball game. On the other hand, I have to start exerting some control over the way this office is run, and I need, that is, the Office needs, an administrative bureau on a par with the operational bureaus. I have chosen Chip Wharton here, who I think you all know, to head up that new organization. I know I can count on all of you to give him your strong support. Well, any comments? Suggestions?”

Bloom looked around brightly. After a long pause, Joe Lerner said, “Ah … Chief, how are we going to staff this new bureau? Is it going to be a tap on the existing resources?”

“Not at all, Carl … Joe? Is it Joe? Sorry. Not at all, Joe. The existing units will be held harmless. It so happens that we are expecting an increase in positions in the upcoming fiscal year, which we will use to establish the new bureau.”

Jaws dropped all around the table and half a dozen bureau chiefs all started talking at once. Everybody had been expecting a share of the new recruits, so that maybe they would be only up to their necks in the shit rather than nostril-deep. Bloom raised his hands for silence and scowled until the grumbling died away.

“I am not,” he said, “going to keep pouring resources down a rathole. The legal staff you have now is working at about a tenth of the efficiency it could have with a decent system. I need the new slots to set up such a system, and enforce it. I hope that all of you will help me do that. If not …”

He let the statement hang. No one said a word. There was some discussion of minor administrative details after that, and ten minutes later the chiefs were dispersing to their posts.

In the hallway outside Karp shook his head in disbelief, then said to Gelb, “You were right. I can’t believe it. More lawyers is throwing resources down a rathole? A rathole? He should know from ratholes, right?”

Gelb sighed and glanced around to check for big ears. “Right, and Wharton seems to have fixed himself a nice little nest. On the other hand, Bloom is a pretty bright guy, I hear. I mean, he’s right, in a way, things
are
pretty fucked up.”

“Come on, anybody who talks to Wharton more than ten minutes has got to be an asshole. And giving Corncob our lawyer slots for admin.? I still can’t believe it. What are we going to do?”

“What’s the choice? We do our jobs, the best we can. Or get the fuck out, like Jack Conlin.”

“Conlin’s leaving?”

“Are you serious? He had a job lined up with Whitman Brady about twenty minutes after the governor announced Bloom. I figure a quintupling of his current salary the first year. He’ll cry all the way to the bank.”

“Yeah, but Jack Conlin defending skells? Yecch!”

“But very high-class skells. Hey, Jack was always out for number one. If he can’t have the power, he’ll have the coins. Oh, well, if I had Jack’s rep, I’d be off too. Christ, if I had his
hair
I would. What about you? You figure to stay?”

“Me? I hadn’t thought about it much. I guess I’ll stick around. It might be interesting.”

“I can guarantee that, kid,” said Gelb.

They agreed to meet later in the day to discuss the details of Karp’s new job. Gelb left and Karp rode down to the snack bar for a coffee and a greasy doughnut to go. He entered the elevator to ride up to six and begin cleaning out his Homicide Bureau office. Someone said, “Hold it!” Karp pushed the button like a good citizen and Joe Lerner got in.

“How did you like your new boy, Karp?” Lerner asked.

“He’s not
my
new boy, Joe.”

“Oh, no? I would think he might be favorably disposed to the guy who iced the competition. I’m sure that will be brought to his attention. I mean Wharton and Mr. Twentieth Century there are going to need a fucking lawyer on the team, and you, whatever else you are, are a lawyer.”

The elevator doors opened. Lerner moved to get out, but Karp blocked his way. The automatic door went ka-chunk, ka-chunk against his shoulder.

“Piss on all that, Lerner! I don’t give a damn what you think about me or what I did. I presume you’re acting bureau chief now that Conlin is out. Congratulations. I would like to see the acting bureau chief sometime today to discuss a number of cases I have been working on, since despite the recent tragic events I believe we are still in the business of putting asses in jail, ever more efficiently, of course. Now, how about it Mister Lerner?”