Depraved Indifference (14 page)

“Guma, goddamn! You got a helluva nerve coming in here an hour late looking like shit,” said Karp, relieved to have a less tricky outlet for his annoyance.

Guma's face fell and he looked down at his outfit. His suit was unpressed, his tie untied, his shirt unbuttoned, a day's growth of beard stood out on his swarthy face, and his curly black hair stuck out in oily disorder. “Shit? Hey, it's Monday, I had a great weekend. Give me a break.” Everybody knew that after twenty minutes in the men's room he would emerge, as always, a reasonably presentable greasy Italian lawyer.

Karp looked at his watch. It was almost time to dismiss the meeting and let the ADAs go off to court. Karp was not anxious to pursue the Doyle case in greater detail, given the reception it had already received. He waved his hand, yielding the floor to Guma. “OK, Goom,” he said. “Spit it out. And make it snappy.”

Guma paused to tuck in a shirttail and pull up the zipper on his fly before plunging into a rapid-fire outline of his case. He spoke, as always, without notes, in a Brooklyn accent that Fordham Law had done little to improve. Guma's memory was legendary; he never forgot a face, name, or citation.

“The victim, girl named Elvira Melendez, attests her boyfriend, Alejandro Sorriendas, attempted to kill her by beating her with a kitchen chair and then throttling her with his hands. Who the hell knows how she survived, but she did, and she's in Bellevue and pissed off and willing to press. They picked up Sorriendas the day after, where he works out in Queens. Scratches all over his face, nice prints on the chair, it's a lock. So what I want to do is—”

Karp cut in, annoyed again. “Guma, what is this
bupkes
? We're trying to keep fucking cutthroats from walking here, you're selling a domestic assault?”

Guma held up his hands in protest. “Butch, for chrissakes, let me finish? This guy Sorriendas, he's a Cuban. OK, you know Pinky Billman?”

“No, is he a Cuban too? What are you talking about, Guma?”

“Pinky Billman. I know him from when he used to be a detective in Chinatown. A good guy. Now he's a sergeant in Queens narco. He says this particular mutt, Sorriendas, is tight with Sergio Ruiz. You know who
he
is, right?”

“No, I don't. Should I? Look, Goom, we got like five minutes. These guys got to make court, so—”

“Wait, wait! Sergio Ruiz. They call him ‘The Serpent.'
The
big-time Cuban heroin and cocaine importer.
Really
big time.”

“I know him,” V.T. said mildly.

“You do?” Karp exclaimed.

“Well, not personally. I get my smack from an Episcopalian bishop. But I've been working with the federal strike force on money-laundering operations connected with narcotics traffic. Ruiz's name comes up in a bunch of places. Import-export joints in Miami and Tampa, a couple of brass-plate banks in the Caymans, Bahamas, the usual. He came here about five years ago and set up an outfit called—what is it? Tel something?”

“Tel-Air Shipping, out in Queens,” Guma put in.

“Yeah, right. Tel-Air. Anyway, he's big and he's smart. Nasty too, from what I hear.”

“Right!” Guma agreed. “We're talking a serious scumbag. The other thing is, the Feds have clamped the lid on Tel-Air. They're building some kind of megacase, and Pinky can't get near it. So what I want to do is squeeze this Sorriendas, try to get a hook into Ruiz. I figure, go forward on the attempted murder. They'll try to cop to simple assault, but I want to wave a serious threat of trial for the attempted in their face. Whaddya say?”

Karp squirmed. He knew Guma was, quite properly, proposing the oldest trick in the prosecutor's book: squeezing a suspect for a lesser offense in hopes that he would turn his pals over for a bigger crime. But such strategies depended on a credible threat of going to trial, and the pressure on Karp to produce clearances had almost eliminated his ability to do this.

“Sorry, Goom, no can do,” he said at last.

“Aww, Butch, come on!” Guma yelled, slamming his hand on the table.

“Guma, look, you can wave anything you want, go ahead. But unless your Cuban's lawyer can't read a court calendar it ain't going to get you much, because I'm not going to push Bloom for a trial slot on this one, which I would have to do because right now I'm tapped. I'm not going to let a New York County murder case, of which I got about six hundred pending, fly out the window to try a domestic in the hope that it'll help out a Queens drug bust, which according to you the Feds have got locked up.
Capisce?
”

Guma gave Karp an eloquently disgusted look and walked out, slamming the door. After a brief embarrassed silence, Karp sighed and said, “OK, that's it, gang. Time to fight crime.” The attorneys rose and drifted out of the room, murmuring and upset. Karp looked at Marlene, hoping for some support, but she just shrugged and started to pack her files away in a leather attaché case. The loneliness of command, Karp thought. He touched her arm.

“Say, Marlene, you'll draw up those indictments? I want to get them to Bloom today.”

“They're almost drafted. I'll have them around noon. See you later.”

Karp went back to his own office and began gathering up the case folders for the day's sessions. For the next six or so hours Karp would be constantly on the move, appearing at arraignments, racing upstairs to one of the six continuous grand juries to present indictments, then picking up on preliminary hearings for any of his troops that were out sick or busy with trials. This was in addition to trying to supervise two dozen inexperienced ADAs.

He arranged the folders in ordered stacks tagged with strips of foolscap and began listing exactly where he had to be at what particular moment of the day. On several occasions he noticed that he had to be in two places at once. He made a note to talk to a couple of the court clerks and get them to adjust their calendars so he could cover everything. Karp remembered birthdays and bought a lot of good scotch at Christmas so that they would do such things when he needed them, which was almost daily.

He was just packing his files in his briefcase when his door opened and a woman entered. “You're supposed to knock, Rhoda,” Karp said tiredly.

“Yeah, and you're supposed to return calls from the front office.”

“Is this going to take a long time?” he asked. “I'm going to be late for court.”

She looked at him aggressively, her head cocked and her dark eyes narrowed under the lavender eyeshadow. A smile close to a sneer showed on her generous mouth. Rhoda Klepp was also an ADA, but not the sort who would ever attend Karp's meetings. On arriving at the DA's office eighteen months ago, she had shrewdly observed where the power lay and had attached herself to Conrad Wharton, serving him in much the same manner as he served Bloom. As a result, she was relieved of most courtroom duties, while still continuing on the roster of the Criminal Courts Bureau, thus adding to Karp's coverage problems. It was one of the ways Wharton got back at him for failing to meet his clearance quotas.

“The boss wants to see you, Karp.”

“Mr. Bloom wants to see me? That's funny, I don't have a message slip from him.”

“I mean Chip.” Wharton liked people to call him “Chip,” but most people agreed with Ray Guma's observation that he walked like he had a corncob up his ass, and called him “Corncob.”

“Oh,
Chip
.
Chip
is not my boss. See you later, Rhoda,” Karp said, and, grabbing his briefcase, made to leave his office. Klepp blocked his way. This she could do well, since she was built, as they say in New York, like a brick shithouse. She had a figure of overwhelming lushness, mounting immense, perfectly conical breasts, which she enclosed in steel-girded brassieres, mighty structures that could have passed the midtown building code. As she favored frilly, semi-transparent blouses, these were literally her salient feature.

“I'd see him if I were you, Karp. He wants to talk about the Weaver thing, one. And you were supposed to get in touch with Monsignor Keene on the Brannon case last Friday. He called Bloom and he's pissed. You get the Powerhouse down on you and you're dead in this town.”

Karp vaguely remembered having to call somebody from the Archdiocese of New York about a nice Catholic boy from an upstanding family who had been caught supplementing his clothing allowance with a string of B and E's on the Upper East Side. He looked down at Rhoda and for a mad instant wondered what would happen if he honked her cones, one, two. Then he turned sideways and squeezed past her overhang. “I'll make the call, Rhoda,” he said, “but tell Corncob if he wants to see me, he can make an appointment. I don't work for him yet. And no deal on Weaver.”

As Karp trotted down the hall to court he reflected mildly on the fact that in three short days he had managed to piss off the Federal Bureau of Investigation, his own staff, his boss, and the Catholic Church. I must be doing something right, he thought.

8

T
HEY ARRAIGNED THE
hijackers on the murder complaint Monday afternoon. The media were out in force. The hijackers were big news and Karp wasn't the only one who bought scotch for court clerks. Also present in the hallway, watched by two bored security guards, was a cheering section of Croatian supporters. The priest with them, a strongly built man in his fifties, scowled at Karp and Marlene as they entered the courtroom, and Karp recognized him as the one who had been at the FBI building.

The gateway to the judicial system for criminal cases, arraignments have the gravity and ambiance of the turnstiles on the Seventh Avenue IRT. The accused hear why they were arrested and the magistrate sees that the complaint has been drawn up in due form and that the arrest has not been arbitrary or capricious. The magistrate usually also sets bail. Five minutes is long for an arraignment.

This one was even shorter. “Who's the pinstripe on defense?” asked Marlene, motioning to the youngish man conferring with the five prisoners at the defense table. Karp looked over and saw a pink-cheeked person in a beautifully made blue suit and a blow-dried razor cut. “Never saw him before,” Karp answered, which was odd because he thought he knew every prosperous criminal lawyer in Manhattan by sight. He consulted his papers. “Name's John Evans. An oddly unethnic name for a New York criminal lawyer, and he didn't get that suit at the Legal Aid thrift shop. Could be a corporate firm's convenience guy, in which case he is out of his league. Or maybe out-of-town muscle?”

“Could be,” Marlene said. “I heard Karavitch's church was taking up a collection for legal defense. Maybe they had a big contributor. I'll check it out—uh-oh, we're on.”

Karp asked for half a million dollars congregate bail, on the grounds that the accused were dangerous terrorists, had killed a police officer, and had stolen an airplane, all of which might lead the court to a strong presumption that they would skip before trial. John Evans rose to object that the accused were all gainfully employed and that they had strong roots in the community. The judge was not impressed with the argument. Cop killers don't make bail in New York when the cameras are rolling. Karp got his bail and the five hijackers were bundled off back to Riker's Island.

Marlene left for an arraignment hearing on another case, and Karp ducked into his office to call Monsignor Keene. When he came on, his voice was hearty and smooth.

“Ah, yes, the Brannon boy. A terrible tragedy. I've known the family for years. A prominent family, very close to His Eminence. The father is a papal knight, and they've got any number of distinguished members of the bar. Perhaps you know Michael Bailey, the boy's uncle?”

“Yes, I believe I've heard the name.” Mike Bailey owned zoning law in Manhattan and was necessarily free with political contributions.

Keene rolled on. “I've spoken to Sandy Bloom about it personally, and he assures me that we can handle the matter with no, ah, permanent damage to the reputation of the family, or stain on Billy's record.”

“Yes, I bet he did, but the problem is, Monsignor, that the Brannon family also seems to have added a professional burglar to their ranks. There are seventeen counts of burglary on the indictment. Also, there's the matter of Mrs. Lepach.”

“Mrs. who?”

“Mrs. Sarah Lepach. She caught little Billy on his last job and made a grab for her sable, and Billy cold-cocked her. Seventy-six years old, spent six weeks in the hospital.”

“Dear God! I wasn't told. How dreadful!”

Maybe you weren't, but for damn sure Sandy Bloom knew about it, Karp thought.

“Yes. Look, Monsignor, I don't want to be a hard a—I mean, my major concern is that we don't treat this like Billy pushed a kid off a slide in the playground. Between you and me, I'm not sure that five in Attica is the right solution, but he's got to get his lumps. I tell you what. I'm willing to drop the aggravated assault and accept a lesser on the other break-ins if he pleads guilty on the Lepach burglary. He'll get six months in a youth camp upstate. And I want full restitution on all the burglaries, and the medical expenses, and I want him out of town. Military school, in Wyoming. And I want him out of trouble, forever. He gets a traffic ticket in New York, he's meat.”

“I see. And his record? The publicity?”

“We can fix that if the family will guarantee the rest.”

“I'll make sure of it. Thank you, Mr. Karp. I'm grateful to you and I'm sure the family will be too.”

After he had hung up, Karp thought about equal justice under law for about three seconds, which was all he could stand. His stomach had gone queasy, which was unusual. He had a digestive system made of Teflon over lab grade ceramic. He'd grabbed a potato knish and a Pepsi off a cancer wagon at lunchtime, and this was clanking around in his vitals like a brick in ammonia. Maybe he was getting old. He was struggling to remember the five basic food groups essential to good nutrition when Connie Trask buzzed him.