No Lesser Plea (23 page)

The party was scheduled for twelve o’clock on Monday. At a quarter to, Karp entered the DA’s outer office. Ida, Garrahy’s secretary, who had been with him for thirty years and was one of the last Ida’s in New York, looked up and smiled.

“So early, Butch? You must really love chicken salad.”

“Ida, I could say that I came up here to bask in your youthful beauty, but the fact is I’m in a jam and I need five minutes with Mister G.”

“Oh? Nothing serious, I hope.”

“No, just a personal matter.”

Ida nodded and spoke briefly into her intercom. Then she gestured Karp into the inner office.

Garrahy was sitting behind his desk in an office that was a large and airier version of Conlin’s, with even more impressive memorabilia. A good proportion of the photographs covering one wall antedated Karp’s birth; the man had been the Manhattan District Attorney since before Pearl Harbor.

He was starting to look it. Garrahy had aged visibly during the past year and grown smaller than his clothes, in the way of old men.

“Sit down, Butch, sit. What a season, hey? What is this now, four, five in a row for the Bullets? If the Yanks could do the same this year, oh boy!”

Karp allowed as how that would be a good thing, and the two men spoke about baseball for a few minutes, as any strangers might do. Karp was nervous, not because he was speaking to one of the most powerful men in the city, but because he could not take his eyes off the inch of space between Garrahy’s neck and the collar of his shirt, or take his mind away from the thought that he was about to ask for something that could not be delivered.

They reached the end of baseball talk and there was a silence. Garrahy glanced at his watch. Karp plunged in.

“Mister Garrahy, I hope you won’t think I’m sticking my nose in where it doesn’t belong, but I, I mean I and the other attorneys in the office are, well, concerned is the word, I guess about what your plans are for running for another term.”

Garrahy drew on his pipe and looked bleakly at Karp through the woody smoke. “Well, well. Are you concerned that I’ll run or concerned that I won’t?”

“That you won’t, of course. Everybody I know wants you to continue as DA.”

Garrahy leaned back in his tall swivel chair and appeared to consider this. “That’s very interesting. But that’s not what I’m being told. I’m being told that there’s a mighty yearning for a fresh face at the top of this office. I’m also being told that if I run, I’ll split the party vote. What do you think of that?”

“I think it’s nonsense, sir. If you announced, you’d win the primary and the election both, in a walk.”

“In a walk, hey? It’d have to be. I don’t have the energy to do anything else. No, Butch, I’ve just about decided to let it slip away. Mary’s got her heart set on spending half the year at our place in Florida, and I tell you the thought of another winter in the city …” He waved his hand.

“Mister Garrahy, look, I’m just a kid, wet behind the ears, what do I know? I’ve got some nerve coming in here presuming to tell you how to run your life, but Florida? I mean, that’s for, for
appliance salesmen.
You’re the DA! You stand for something in this city and we need you to keep on standing for it.”

Garrahy grinned around his pipe. “That’s quite a speech, Butch. I hope you’re that good in court.” But like all politicians, he liked to be wooed, and wooing had been scarce for some time. “So you don’t think I’m too old?”

Karp felt himself blushing. “No, I don’t,” he said in as firm a voice as he could muster. Which was a lie. Of course you’re too old, he thought. You’re old and weak and probably ill, and you’ve let the office go down the drain. But it’ll go down the drain about ten times faster if you’re not around.

“I don’t know,” Garrahy mused. “But in any case, this discussion is probably moot. With the time left I couldn’t possibly put together the organization to get the signatures for a nominating petition.”

Gotcha, thought Karp. “Forgive me, sir, but there you’re wrong. There are about two hundred attorneys in this office. I will personally guarantee that if you give the word, every one of them will be out on the street pulling in signatures. We could get five thousand signatures in a week. I’ll organize the whole thing myself.”

“Hah! You will, will you? A children’s crusade for Phil Garrahy? You almost make me want to run, just to see that.”

There was a discreet knock at the door, and Ida entered, carrying sandwiches on a huge caterer’s tray wrapped in yellow plastic. Behind her trooped the Bullets. Before turning to greet the team, Garrahy said to Karp, “I’m glad we had this talk, Butch, and I’ll keep what you said in mind. And I’ll get back to you.”

“What was that all about?”

Karp and Joe Lerner were loading their paper plates with delicatessen. “What was what all about, Joe?”

“I got big ears, Butch. What is the boss going to let you know?”

“Oh, nothing much. We were just discussing his political plans. Hey, is there any pastrami on that side?”

“Yeah, here’s a pastrami with Swiss cheese. So tell me, when did you get to be Phil Garrahy’s political adviser?”

Karp looked up and met Lerner’s gaze. The older man looked worried.

“Oh, crap, Joe. I just told him that everybody in the office wanted him to stay DA and … uh …”

“And what?”

“And I said I would organize the ADAs to hit the streets and campaign for him.”

Lerner’s chicken salad sandwich halted halfway to his mouth, which hung open for a long moment and then snapped shut in a grim line.

“Goddamn, Butch, why in hell did you want to do something like that?”

“Because nobody else wanted to. Our great boss, Jack Conlin, was feeding him a line of bullshit about how nobody wanted him, and how he couldn’t win, et cetera. I just told him the truth.”

“Oh, you did, did you? Well, good for you. But let me tell you something you might not have thought of in your pursuit of truth. Let’s say Garrahy runs. If he runs, he wins, we all know that. That gives us at best four more years of the half-assed leadership we’ve got now. At worst … ah shit, Butch, look at the man! He’s a walking corpse. You think he’s going to last four years? And when he goes, the governor gets to appoint his replacement, which means sure as hell we’re going to get some Republican dickhead in there, instead of Jack Conlin, who whatever you think about him, at least knows his way around a fucking courtroom.”

“Conlin can’t fill Garrahy’s shoes.”

“Did I say he could? Do you know
anybody
who could? But Jack’s the best we got, and you might have taken away his chance to get the office and maybe grow in it. Fill his shoes! We’ll be lucky to get somebody fit to
kiss
his shoes. Wake up, Butch! It’s Nineteen Seventy-one and there aren’t any heroes anymore. Why the hell didn’t you come to me and talk about it instead of weaseling around like this?”

“I wasn’t weaseling! I’m going to go down and see Jack and tell him what I did.”

“Oh, that’s sweet of you. Hey, Jack, I just put twenty-five years of your life in the shit can—just thought you’d like to know.”

“Dammit, Joe, I figured you of all people would understand. I mean Jack lied to him. He lied!”

“So he lied. In his place, I would have done exactly the same thing. What do you think we’re running here, a convent? God, Butch, you’re a damn fine lawyer and you’ve got—you
had—
a hell of a career in front of you, but you sure can be an insufferable, self-righteous prick!”

Lerner turned on his heel and strode away. Karp put his plate down. He wasn’t hungry and he had a cold feeling in his belly. He thought, Joe’s full of shit. I did the right thing. Then he walked out of the party and down the stairs to see Jack Conlin.

Chapter 12

“M
ister Bloom, please. Chip Wharton here. Thank you. Sandy? I’ve got some good news for you. The old man is definitely going to run. Of course I’m sure. Yeah, Conlin must have gone through the roof. No, Sandy, I can assure you, there’s absolutely no possibility that he’ll survive until the end of this next term. If I had any doubts about that, I wouldn’t have urged you not to run, and I wouldn’t have pushed him
to
run. No, Conlin won’t do a thing, I guarantee, he’ll be out of here in a month. Look, you just work on the governor and his people and I’ll nail down things around here. Karp? Don’t make me laugh! He’s a nobody, a Boy Scout. Yeah, it’s ironic alright. Yeah, it might be a nice gesture if you called Phil and offered him your warm support. Thanks, Sandy. And, Sandy? Just sit tight, I’ll be in touch.”

“Susan, it’s me. I just wanted to call you and let you know. Remember I told you about the primary and what I was doing? Yeah, well, I’m sitting here in the Hilton, election headquarters, it’s a madhouse. I think we’re going to win big, twenty-five, thirty points. Well, yeah, it’s no big surprise, but still … he probably wouldn’t have run it if wasn’t for me and the rest of the gang in the office, so I guess I feel personally responsible, you know? Susan, it was incredible, I mean just about every attorney in the office, the secretaries, the whole staff practically, out on the street, getting signatures for the petition, and then getting the election committee set up, then back on the streets, putting up posters, talking to groups. I still can’t believe it—Garrahy let me run the whole thing. God, I’ve got so much to tell you.

“Anyway, I’ve been running off my feet the past three weeks and it looks like we did it, and, well, the reason I called is, I thought I’d take a couple of weeks off and fly out, and, I thought we could go up the coast to Monterey and stay at that place on the beach we used to go to. You don’t? Why not? I don’t understand, what kind of plans? You’re what? What do you mean you’re
seeing
somebody? What the fuck does that mean? A
relationship!
You mean you’re
fucking
somebody! You’re goddam right I wouldn’t understand.

“Listen, this is bullshit, Susan. I’m flying out there tonight … don’t tell me you’re leaving, uh-uh, baby, we’re going to have this right out, you, me and your bozo, whoever he is. What? It’s not a
he?
What are you, kidding me? Susan, this is sick. I can’t believe I’m hearing this. OK, OK, I’ll listen, go ahead, tell me.

“Great, Susan, what can I say? You told your parents? No, why should I? No, I realize you don’t want to hurt me, it just takes a little getting used to, you know? No, I’m fine, really. Listen, I got to do some thinking, so, ah, I’ll see you, whenever, right? Right. Good-bye, Susan.”

Karp hung up the pay phone. He walked down the hallway in a daze and went into the Hilton Hotel ballroom that served as primary-night headquarters for the Garrahy campaign. People were clapping and cheering, which probably meant that Vierick had conceded, which meant Garrahy had the Democratic nomination, which meant that unless he was found naked in the Bryant Park public toilet with a thirteen-year-old Republican male prostitute, he had another term as DA locked up.

People surrounded Karp and clapped him on the back and said nice things. An elderly man was pumping his hand; vaguely Karp recognized him as Garrahy’s campaign manager. Karp felt a smile appear on his face spontaneously, like the twitching of a dead frog’s leg or the rictus of recent death. The cheering increased. Garrahy had entered the room. The old man stood before a microphone and made a short speech. Karp couldn’t focus his mind on the words. He felt as if his head was about to explode. He couldn’t catch his breath. Something slammed into his shoulder, rocking him. He turned toward the blow and saw Guma, pop-eyed, sweating, wearing a huge tricorn hat made of a Garrahy poster. The picture of Garrahy contrasted weirdly with the actual face below it, which looked depraved.

“Butchie baby! We did it!
L’chaim!
” He took a deep drink from a plastic cup full of Scotch and ice. “Hey, where’s your drink. Hey, get a drink for my man here!” A plastic cup was pressed into Karp’s hand.

Karp said, “Guma, my wife is a lesbian.”

“No shit? Will she let you watch?”

“Guma! I’m not kidding. This is serious.”

“What serious, it’s California. OK, it’s serious. Your wife is a dyke. My wife is an asshole. We both got problems. Luckily our problems are easily solved by two easily available items, booze, one, and two, pussy.”

“Goom, be serious! What am I gonna do?”

Guma looked at him hard and popped him in the chest with a stubby finger. “Serious? What’re you talkin’ about? I’m serious. Booze is real. Pussy is real. You’re in fuckin’ Oz, in comparison. Wise up, Butch! Start living, for Chrissake. Now listen! What you need is to get drunk and laid, which is going to be easy where we’re going, because you are the man of the hour, and the bitches’ll be crawling all over you. I’m going to get my car from the garage here and I’ll meet you on the Sixth Avenue side in ten minutes. It’s bring your own, so hit the joint across the street and pick something up. See you.”

Guma trotted off. People were leaving the ballroom now and Karp drifted with them. He knew he was losing his mind. My life is falling apart, he thought, and I’m blabbing the intimate details of my married life to Ray Guma, drunk, wearing a funny hat. He walked through the crowded lobby, out into the summer night. The air was soft, and smelled of roasted peanuts for some reason, the way air in New York will often carry odd and unexplained smells. In the food market he bought a six-pack of Schaeffer’s; that amount of beer represented approximately one half of his annual intake of alcohol.

“What did you get, a
whole six-pack?
” asked Guma, when Karp slid into the front seat of his car outside the Hilton. Guma had half a case of Teacher’s in the trunk. “Jesus, Karp, we’re talking oblivion here. What’s wrong with you?”

“Come on, Goom, you know I can’t stand the taste.”

“Who can? Schmuck! You drink it
in spite of
the taste.”

“Fine, fine, stop hocking me!” snarled Karp. Then, after a while: “Where’re you driving? What’s this party we’re going to?”

“You’re joking! This is not just a party. This is a classic, guaranteed. We’re having a Dance at the Gym.”

“Oh,” said Karp glumly, and thought about oblivion, heretofore a scarce commodity in his life, but looking better.