No Lesser Plea (13 page)

Garrahy was there. He came to the ball field in the bottom of the first, during the Bullet’s at-bat and watched the game intently, like a major-league owner in his private box. Karp thought he looked ill and shrunken, and mentioned this to Guma on the bench. “Him?” Guma retorted. “He’s made of rock. He’ll last forever. I guarantee you, he’ll bury us all.”

“No, really, Goom. You ever think of what’ll happen to the DA’s office when he goes?”

“I don’t know, but it’ll be a helluva wake. We’ll all be drunk for a month.” A bat cracked and Guma leaped to his feet. “Way ta sock it, Jamesy baby! No pitcher, no pitcher!”

Karp glanced again at Garrahy. The old man was sitting in the small set of bleachers behind the players’ bench, hunched in a camel hair coat, his thin white hair covered by a grayish green loden hat. His nose was red and he looked cold, but his eyes were clear.

Karp did not see much of Garrahy in the normal course of work and it was always a thrill to be in his presence. Karp was an unashamed hero-worshipper. As a schoolboy athlete, he had once sat next to Mickey Mantle at an awards dinner and been speechless with awe. (He eats! He drinks! He wipes his mouth with a napkin.) Karp stole the napkin afterward; he thought he still had it somewhere. The iconoclasm of the sixties—“don’t follow leaders, avoid parking meters”—had barely touched him. In his soul Karp loved being coached. Besides his obvious physical skills, that was the one thing that made him an extraordinary player, his willingness to make himself an instrument of a larger, grander design. As they say in basketball circles—and this is a high compliment—he moved well without the ball.

Garrahy caught him staring, smiled, and gave a nod and a little wave of his gloved hand. Karp smiled back. The Bullets had a little rally going—two men on—and when Karp came up to bat, his head was full of the kind of romantic hero drivel usually found only in the kind of sports books written for ten-year-old boys. Karp was not that great a hitter, having too much of a strike zone and the wrong kind of body and reflexes, but this time he whacked the second pitch into deep center field and made it to third standing up. He scored on the next play and—as it turned out—that was the winning margin, as the Bullets took it, six to four. Garrahy shook his hand. Lerner shook his hand and said if he needed any thing when he got to homicide to be sure and look him up. After the game the whole team went as usual to McGonnigle’s on Third Avenue. They drank beer and ate corned beef and told lies and watched the Knicks win another on their march to the playoffs. A perfect day.

Sunday he went to the NYU law library and read, and didn’t think of Susan until he was in bed that night. He called, but her mother answered and he hung up without saying anything. He was hyped for the new job and didn’t want anything bringing him down.

Which was why another day in Yergin’s courtroom amid the petty miseries of New York was too much to bear. At the lunch recess he called John Conlin, and the smiling secretary told him he was out. He called Lerner, a triple ought to be good for a little information, but Lerner was out too. Or maybe they were just saying that. Not ordinarily paranoid, Karp started to get antsy. Friday the fix was on; maybe it was off again. Standing in Calcutta at lunch time he had a horrifying vision of permanent entrapment. What did he know, after all, of the deals that went down at the upper reaches of the DA’s office. Maybe he should call Garrahy? He shook himself. Don’t be an asshole, Karp. This joint is Kafkaesque, right on, but not actually Kafka itself. He went to find V.T., who usually had the inside poop, or if not, some words of what passed for wisdom on Centre Street.

A man touched his arm. “Mister Karp? I’d like to introduce myself. I’m Mervyn Stein. Representing DeLillo, Brant, Billings, and Coker? Could we talk for a moment?”

Karp had his hand taken and shaken vigorously by a large man in a three-piece banker’s gray pinstripe. The man had frizzy pepper-and-salt hair, thick tortoiseshell glasses, and the ingratiating hand-rubbing manner of a maitre d’ or an undertaker.

“What about? What’s Delilla et cetera, a law firm?”

Stein gave a little giggle. “DeLillo, Brant, Billings, and Coker are the four correctional officers at the Drug Center against whom you filed assault charges. You recall, do you not?”

“Yeah, I recall. You their lawyer?”

“I am indeed. I am also counsel to and cochairman of the Narcotic Addiction Control Center. Now, Mister Karp, or Butch, isn’t it? I thought we might have a little talk, if it’s convenient, to see if we can clear this matter up.”

“Clear what up, Mister Stein?”

“This case, Butch. You know this kind of case isn’t the kind of case that gets taken to trial, so why kid around?” He smiled broadly, except around the eyes.

“I don’t see why not.”

“Look, Butch, I used to work here, yeah, seven years. I could tell you stories you wouldn’t believe. So take my advice: save yourself a lot of trouble, because as sure as we’re standing here, the Supreme Court will never hear this case.”

“Well, you could be right, Mister Stein—”

“Please, Mervyn …”

“—Mister Stein, in that there won’t be a trial if your clients plead guilty to the top count of the indictment. If not, the case will be tried. I’m taking it to the Grand Jury myself.”

“You must be joking. Young man, you’re stirring up a hornet’s nest here, and I expect you will get more than your share of stings. All I ask is that you reconsider this precipitous action. Look at this case! Four decent young men, working under considerable pressure at a job that is vital to this city. They are brutally assaulted by a gang of depraved drug fiends, and then, before their wounds are even healed, you charge them with assault. How do you expect the city to run narcotics centers …”

“Without maiming prisoners is how. Look Mister Stein, we could stand out here and bullshit all day about how sad, how sad, but the fact is that these guys, your clients, are going to trial. If the jury thinks that three guys holding a seventeen-year-old kid down while a fourth guy kicks his eye out of its socket is a legitimate part of narcotics rehab, that’s fine with me. Meanwhile …” Karp moved to leave, but Stein placed a hand on his arm. He had stopped smiling.

“Wait just one minute, you. Look, Butch, you’re a young man. You have a fine career in front of you. What you don’t need is the kind of trouble this case is going to stir up. You know the kind, the caliber, of the people who sit on the Narcotics Control Commission? These are people you want as friends, not enemies. Now are you absolutely sure that Phil wants you to go ahead with this case?”

Karp knew that there was a small circle of intimates who called Francis P. Garrahy “Phil.” He doubted that this bozo was included in it though.

“I haven’t spoken with Mr. Garrahy about this case, Mister Stein, but as usual his name will be on the indictment.” Karp broke away and started for the stairs.

“Well, perhaps
I
should,” boomed Stein.

“His office is still on the eighth floor,
Mervyn.
Ask anybody for directions,” Karp snapped over his shoulder.

It was raining outside, so Karp bought two jelly doughnuts and a pint of coffee at the ground floor snack bar. He went back to his cubicle to eat and ran into Guma in the hallway.

“Hey, Butch, what’s happening?” Guma was wearing a dripping dark-blue raincoat and a plastic cap and was carrying a large, damp paper bag.

“Not much, Goom. You know, making powerful enemies. The usual.”

“Great! Hey, you want some lo mein? I just went over to Chinatown, I got a ton.” So they went into Karp’s cubicle and divided the quart of greasy noodles between them, with the jelly doughnuts for dessert. “I see you’re still here,” said Guma around a mouthful. “I thought you’d be up on the sixth floor today. What’s happening?”

“Damn if I know. They scheduled me for Criminal Court this morning, as usual. My guess is the Onion’s behind it, or maybe Wharton.” He ran his big hand over his eyes. “At this point I don’t particularly give a shit.”

“Ah cut it out, you’d trade your left nut to get Homicide. But meanwhile don’t worry, it’s just the usual sand in the gears—I guarantee you’ll be there this week. Hey, look at this, this’ll cheer you up.” Guma reached across the desk to the paper bag and spread it open. “Fireworks! I picked them up in Chinatown from a guy I know. I got ten packs of ladyfingers, cherry bombs, M-Eighties, Whiz-Bang Flying Bomb Rockets. Hey, I got a Triple Royal Star Salute too, the whole schmeer. All illegal, of course.”

“Of course. What’re you going to do with them?”

“I’ll think of something. Right now I got to go to court. I got a victim—marone!—got a set of jugs that won’t quit.”

“Are you going to impound them as evidence?”

“I wish, any kind of pounding. I’m gone, see ya.”

Guma breezed out with his fireworks and, after cleaning up the debris, Karp went to court. It was not a good court in which to be a petty felon that day. The Legal Aid attorneys were dumbfounded as Karp held out for trial—on what were ordinarily bargainable offenses—in case after case. Finally, Yergin called him to the bench. “Butch, what’s wrong with you? This is a domestic. You really want to try this man for aggravated assault?”

“He used a pipe wrench. It’s a deadly weapon, Judge. The law makes it clear …”

“I know the law, Counselor,” said the judge, his voice rising, “and I’m telling you to lighten up. I don’t know what put the hair up your ass today, but don’t take it out on my calendar. Let’s just get through today in an expeditious manner, and save the trial slots for the bad guys. Understood?”

Karp mumbled assent and walked away. Yergin had never dressed him down before, and he felt his face burning. He tightened his jaw and tried to ignore the smirks from the defense table. He finished the calendar in an expeditious manner.

Then he went back to his cubicle and kicked his desk a couple of times, hard, so that the tin walls of the cubicle rattled like the cage of a psychotic hamster. He called Conlin, but the smiling secretary said he was in a meeting. He slammed down the phone, which immediately rang. He picked it back up and Lannie Kimple’s South Brooklyn soprano sang into his ear, “Hello. Guess who’s in trouble again?”

“Lannie, why don’t you tell the Onion it was Guma who porked you so he’ll get off my case?” A pause.

“He doesn’t need an excuse, Mister Karp. Nobody likes a wise-ass. I think you’d better get down here right away. He has Mister Wharton in with him and they’re both waiting to see you.”

“Great! That makes my day. OK, Lannie, tell them I’ll be over as soon as I’ve filled my enema bag.”

When Karp got to Cheeseborough’s office, he walked right past Lannie, gave a perfunctory knock on the frosted glass of the inner office door, and entered without being asked. The Onion and Conrad Wharton were sitting with their heads together; the Onion planted behind his large wooden desk as usual, Wharton in the green, studded-leather visitors’ chair to the right of the desk. They both looked up sharply when Karp came in, like startled geese.

“You wanted to see me, Mister Cheeseborough?”

The Onion frowned. “Yes, Karp, we did. You know Chip Wharton here, of course.” Nobody but the Onion and a few sycophants called Conrad Wharton “Chip,” a name he was trying to cultivate because of its clean-cut, horsey-set, masculine connotations. Everybody else referred to him as “Corncob” because of his peculiar walk, a sort of rapid waddle with the thighs of his short legs pressed close together, which suggested that he had secreted such an object in an intimate recess, and was trying to keep it from falling out.

Wharton was about thirty-five, plump, with a round face, wide-set blue eyes, and a red cupid-bow mouth. He had fine, almost white-blond hair, which he wore long, razor cut, and blow-dried. He looked like a mean, animated Kewpie doll in a three-piece suit.

Wharton shifted his chair so he could look directly at Karp. Cheeseborough went on. “Chip has brought something to my attention that requires an explanation from you. Chip?”

Wharton consulted a folder on his lap. He spoke in a rich, fruity voice, of the type that was popular among radio announcers in the forties. “This case you’ve filed, Butch, against these four guards at the Narcotics Center? I’m afraid it is in serious violation of our Trial Screening Profile. Not only that, we, that is the district attorney and I, have received numerous complaints from several highly placed …”

Karp broke in. “What the hell is this, Wharton? Since when are you reviewing Criminal Court actions? I thought you were supposed to be chasing jerk-off movies.”

Wharton glanced at the Onion and the two men traded supercilious smiles. “Ah … the Pornography Campaign is just one of my duties. I’m also responsible for seeing that our resources are appropriately targeted so as to produce the maximum benefit to the taxpayer.”

“Very noble, Wharton. What has this got to do with my case?”

“Well, to gain maximum efficiency, we have to view the entire criminal justice system as a whole, and adjust the inputs of resources at each node so as to optimize throughput. Now, as you know, Butch, trial time is one of our scarcest resources. It hardly makes sense for one part of the criminal justice system—us—to spend that resource trying to penalize representatives of the Drug Center, which is another part of the same system. So we have developed a Trial Screening Profile that assigns priorities to different sorts of cases and generates scores. Then we can observe the trial dispositions of various ADAs and bureaus and see whose scores diverge from the optimum, and take corrective action. Am I making myself clear?”

“Um, I’m not sure, Conrad. This is a little new to me. You seem to be saying that people who work for the criminal justice system, if they break the law, well, they can get a sort of special deal from the DA’s office, maybe cop an easier plea because the whatsit, the Trial Screening Profile, gives a low score to those particular crimes.”

“I wouldn’t say a ‘special deal,’ actually. It’s a … more subtle ordering of priorities type of thing …”

“No, I think I got it now. So it would mean that, if I were a cop sitting here, and you were to go over to Mister Cheeseborough there and start sucking his cock, and he said, ‘Let go of my hose, you little faggot,’ and then I arrested you for sexual battery, in such a case, because you were part of the criminal justice system, the Honorable Francis P. Garrahy or his representatives would be more inclined to let you plead to say, consensual sodomy. Is that how it would work, Conrad?”