Enemy within

19

The NYPD does not stint on resources when one of their own is in trouble, especially when one of their own happens to be Brendan Cooley. They sent SWAT teams and bomb squads, and detective chief inspectors and crime scene units and paramedics and canine teams and generators, and thousand-candlepower lighting rigs, and there were guys from Public Works with hard hats, yellow slickers, and rolled-up maps, and others with pneumatic drills, and they would have brought in the helicopters had they figured out how to get them down in the tunnels. Fulton was there, too, and on Karp's insistence took charge of John Carey Williams, the artist formerly known as Canman, not before informing Karp, with some satisfaction, that Brendan Cooley had alibis for every one of the bum slashings. Which Karp already knew. Fulton was short with Karp, and the police brass were even shorter, but it was also the case that the district attorney is formally in charge of every police investigation. The actual ADAs almost never pressed this point, but it was there to be pressed, and Karp knew it, and so did they. Fulton's career was probably damaged by it-another doleful burden for Karp to carry.

Father Dugan was rushed off to the hospital along with Lucy, who did not want to go, but Karp insisted with a ferocity that surprised even him, and Marlene went along with her. Karp was happy to observe that an assaulted and beat-up daughter trumped the lost dog. You could never tell with Marlene. The cops had sequestered a pier and brought in a trailer for their operations center, and Karp hung around drinking bad coffee and being treated with correct frostiness by the cops. They were bringing out bags now, stretchers with the dead, and bags of remains. Cooley had apparently killed four men outright, and one had died later of wounds received. There were also two corpses with their throats torn out. What there wasn't was live people. No cannibal moles, no David Grale. And no large dog, dead or alive. Karp assembled a picture of what was happening below as reports filtered back to the command trailer. The old sewer, it turned out, had numerous unmapped branchings, and there were any number of passages broken into subways, real sewers, utility tunnels. Tracking through all of it would take weeks, and by that time the fugitives could be scattered anywhere in the thousands of miles of the city's catacombs.

Toward evening, there was a sense of anticlimax among the command cops. The press was avid for a statement, and there were no perps to parade except for a bunch of homeless, whose major crime was being poor. There were grisly human remains (some of them cooked, but they weren't anxious to let that out) and a new prime suspect in the bum slashings, but that was not going to advance anyone's career. Karp didn't feel he had to be present while they concocted their plausible untruths, so he left and ran right into Brendan Cooley, about to come in.

They looked at each other for a moment, and Karp thought that Cooley was thinking of pushing right by without a word, so he stuck his hand out and said, "Look, Cooley, I didn't get to thank you for saving me and my family. I mean it-thanks."

Cooley took the hand and gave it a brief, reluctant shake. He said, "No problem. I should say the same. That was a fancy piece of work there with that bomb. With your tongue. I got to say, you got a pair on you, man. I thought that was fucking farewell and adieu for sure. And that's quite a girl you got there. I never saw anything like it. Fucking guy's holding a bomb, and she just goes right up to him and gives him hell. Hypnotized the bastard like a goddamn chicken."

"Yeah, I don't know whether to be proud of her or lock her in her room forever." Karp shook his head ruefully. "I'll tell you, it never for one minute occurred to me that I would have a daughter like that. My heart's up around my collar half the time. Yours are still young-you got time to prepare, but the day will come."

Their eyes met, and a certain understanding passed between them. Cooley said, "I got to go in there and talk to the chief."

"Yeah. Look, we got stuff we need to discuss. Why don't you come by my office tomorrow, say around ten? We'll talk."

"Should I bring my lawyer?"

"That's your right, of course. But I thought it would be good if we just talked informally, just a couple of heroes shooting the shit. You know how fucked up lawyers can be."

"I'll think about it," said Cooley, and went into the trailer.

Past the cops on guard, and the yellow tape and the gabbling barrier of reporters, Karp was gratified to see his driver and Murrow leaning against a dark sedan. In the car, to Karp's relief, Murrow did not ask for a thrilling replay of the tunnel adventures, but instead conveyed information.

"The thing went down about two hours ago. Paxton's in custody at the One-six."

"Good. Any problems?"

"No. They called your office as arranged when they scooped him up."

"The bust was legit?"

"Oh, yeah. Half the people on that block are snitches. Three Mob-looking guys carrying a duffel bag into a building, the lines were humming half an hour later. Meanwhile, everyone's glued to the tube back at the office. Your exploits. The DA wants to see you as soon as you get in."

"He can wait." Karp looked out the window at the city. It looked the same-people, cars, buildings, all oblivious to what they walked, drove, and stood over. It seemed wrong somehow that only hours had passed since he had descended into the underworld. Like all people who have experienced the remarkable and terrifying, Karp wanted the world to have been changed and was irrationally annoyed that it was going on in its accustomed way, like ants in a child's ant farm.

"What's wrong with your face, Murrow?"

"My face?"

"Yeah, you look like you stepped in dog shit. I stink, don't I?"

"You might want to change your clothes," said Murrow delicately.

They went to the loft on Crosby Street, and Karp stripped and tossed the sewer gear into a trash bag and took a long, hot shower. Bruises he had not felt at the time were blossoming like flowers after a rain, blue and purple. Dressing, he found he had to sit on the bed to get into his trousers. I am getting too old for this shit, he thought.

At the precinct, Karp found Ralphie Paxton in an interview room, looking gray and frightened. Karp gave him a smile.

"So, Mr. Paxton, we meet again. You've got yourself in some trouble now, haven't you? Have you been read your rights?"

"Yeah. Look, I don't know nothing about any bag of dope. Someone must've laid it on me, in my place, while I was out."

"Yes, and I see here on this paper that you have waived your rights. Are you absolutely sure you don't want to talk to an attorney?"

"I don't need no attorney. I didn't do nothing. I told you, they dumped that shit in there when I was out. How do I know what's in the back of some damn closet?"

"I see. The problem with that story, Mr. Paxton, is we have witnesses say you were there when the package was delivered. We even have a witness who says you set up the whole thing for money."

"He's a goddamn liar!"

"Uh-huh. Mr. Paxton, are you aware of the penalties this state provides for possession of narcotic drugs? Under Section 220.21, possession of more than four ounces of narcotic drugs is a class A-one felony. That carries with it a mandatory fifteen-year minimum sentence upon conviction, and then sentences can go as high as twenty-five years. We don't like drug lords in the state of New York."

"I ain't no drug lord, for God's sake! Do I look like a damn drug lord?"

Karp ignored this and went on calmly, still smiling. "On the other hand, we often make allowances for people caught in a squeeze. You don't have to be charged with anything. I can't make you any promises, but sometimes when a person comes forward of their own volition and helps us out, we can help them out. You know how the system works."

"You mean like I tell you who gave me the stuff?"

Karp pretended to think this over. "Well, yes, sometimes that's possible. But in this case, we know very well who gave you the stuff. So we don't need you for that. Can you think of anything else?"

Paxton thought. He knew nickel-dime dealers he would be glad to sell, but he sensed that these would not lift the load for a major-quantity dope bust. It was unfair. He had never even had a taste of the stuff, he had been good as gold, had taken the warnings seriously, and now this. The guy was staring at him with those funny eyes. He remembered them from court, how he could hardly stand looking at them while he told the story of Des and that woman. Really, that was all he could think of, and he didn't think it would be enough. Despairingly he said, "I got that thing, that thing I was in court for?"

"Yes?" Karp exhibited the mildest interest.

"Yeah, what went down with Des and that Marshak. That wasn't exactly what happened."

"I see. And you would be willing to tell us what did happen?"

"Yeah, if I can get a little help off of this dope beef."

"Well, that's certainly possible, but first I'd have to hear your story."

Paxton nodded. Possible was a good word just now, a lot better than fifteen mandatory.

Karp made a gesture to the one-way glass, and a police technician walked in with a video camera on a tripod. A clerk came in and placed a typed paper on the table and left. Karp said, "Okay, Mr. Paxton, this document here reiterates your waiver of your rights and expresses your willingness to freely give a statement without legal counsel, and it also expresses your willingness to be videotaped doing it. If you'll just sign there at the bottom."

Paxton signed without reading. The camera whined into action. Paxton looked into the camera like a good American and told the truth. With very little prompting from Karp, he described how Des Ramsey had approached Sybil Marshak. He had been using a knife to cut twine, but he did not have it with him when he approached her. He had been polite. He had said, "Excuse me, lady. Do you have the right time?" And she had pulled out a gun and shot him, just like that. Paxton had run. He hadn't even checked to see how Ramsey was, he had grabbed up the knife and run. Then later, he'd seen the flyers about five grand for any information about the case, called the number, spoken with a guy named Peter Walsh, and told him the story, the truth, just how it happened, and mentioned what they were doing when the thing went down, and the knife business, which seemed to interest Walsh a lot. And then Walsh had taken him to see Mr. Solotoff, and he had shown Mr. Solotoff the knife, and Mr. Solotoff had said that he must have been mistaken, that his client had told him that Ramsey had come at her with a knife, and he had said, no, Ramsey just asked her the time. And Solotoff had said that wasn't a $5,000 story. The five-grand story was Ramsey had the knife. And Paxton had agreed to tell it that way. Ramsey was dead, it wouldn't hurt him any. And Solotoff had rehearsed Paxton, over and over, and Solotoff had told him he was connected, and if Paxton told anyone, he was going to get whacked. Paxton looked at the camera, and then at Karp, imploringly. "So… am I gonna get protection?"

"You won't need protection," said Karp. "He was bullshitting you."

Paxton looked doubtful for a second, and then he relaxed and tried on a smile. "I guess. He must've been bullshitting about you all, too."

"In what way?"

"He said the whole thing was wired with the DA. He said you all wanted it like that, on account of Marshak being such a big fucking deal, politics and shit."

Karp felt a peculiar chill at this statement, but kept his face blank and his voice neutral.

"Did he mention anyone specifically? In the DA's office?"

"All you all, he said. The DA, Keegan. And his main guy, what's his face?"

"You don't happen to recall his name, do you?"

"Feller? Or Puller, something like that. But his first name was Norton. I remember that because he had him on the phone while I was there to impress me or some shit. Norton this, Norton that, like they were buddies. He even showed me he had a tape recorder of them talking, make sure the guy didn't back away from it. He said it was a done deal. But it must've been a scam. I mean, like you say, the man's a bullshitter."

"Why do you think it was a scam?"

"Because he also said you was in on it, too. Matter of fact, he said it was all your idea."

Karp closed off the interview by having Paxton recount the various dates involved and was not surprised at how good he was at this. Scavengers, he knew, typically have a keen appreciation of calendrical time since their livelihood depends on knowing when different neighborhoods have trash picked up. Paxton would make an even better witness than he had as a perjurer.

Karp had the technician turn off the camera and leave. "Mr. Paxton, I want to thank you for being so forthcoming. I'm going to have your statement transcribed and have you sign it, and then we'll be done."

"What about me? What about my case?"

"Well, there's the matter of your perjury before the grand jury. That's a serious matter, and we're going to hang on to you until it's resolved. What we do about it will depend on your testifying truthfully when we reindict Ms. Marshak."

"No, I mean what about the dope? The fifteen years?"

"Oh, that. I think we can go easy on you there. I just want to say that I hope your baby recovers from its constipation."

Paxton goggled. "What the fuck you talking about, man? I ain't got no baby."

"You don't?" said Karp, miming vast wonder. "Then why did you have twenty-two pounds of baby laxative in your apartment?"

Karp called the DA's office and was connected immediately.

"We need to talk," said the DA.

"We do, but not today. I'm beat and I'm going home."

The DA didn't acknowledge this. "The press is going crazy. What the hell were you doing down in those tunnels? And whatever possessed you to take along your family and that priest?"

"It's a long story, Jack. There was an important witness hiding down there, and for a number of reasons I didn't want to involve regular channels."

"Regular channels? What the devil are you talking about? Why do you think we have a DA squad?"

"I'll talk to you tomorrow, I promise. But I can't even think straight right now."

"And why was Cooley down there? Jesus, Butch, if you're fucking with that case after I warned you off…"

"Jack, really, I'm practically falling off my feet. I'll see you in your office tomorrow."

"With good news, I hope."

"The best, Jack."

Karp was, in fact, falling off his feet, and hurting besides, but he did not go home. Instead, he went to Bellevue with Murrow in tow. After checking in on his daughter, he went to the locked ward, where he found a large, black detective sitting outside a room. This was Mack Jeffers, one of Clay Fulton's people from his days as a Harlem lieutenant. Clay had been true to his word. No one who shouldn't was going to get past Mack Jeffers. Karp exchanged a few words with the cop, and they went into the room.

Bellevue had washed John "Canman" Williams and trimmed off some of his hair. He had been battered by his struggle with Cooley, but he looked more like an undernourished professor than anything resembling the fire-faced demon of Rat Alley. Karp wondered whether the transformation was due to the hospital's cleanup or to something his daughter had accomplished. Canman was thirty-something, Karp estimated, although his skin had the thickened look common to those who lived rough. His eyes were blue, intelligent, wary, proud.

"How's Lucy?" were his first words when Karp entered, which Karp took as a good sign.

"She's not badly hurt. Her body, anyway. They're checking her over. You seem okay."

"Are you charging me with a crime?" Light on the pleasantries was the Canman.

"Well, I guess I could charge you with any number of crimes, but just now we're holding you as a material witness."

"Witness to what?"

"To the relationship between Detective Brendan Cooley and Shawn Lomax. Cisco Lomax."

"What if I don't know anything material about that?"

"If I think you're lying, which I do, you would be in serious legal trouble."

"And if I tell you what you want to know?"

"Then I can be accommodating."

"Great. Just write out a statement of what you want me to say, and I'll sign it."

"Don't be a wiseass, Mr. Williams. I just want you to tell the truth."

"Oh, the truth. Excuse me, I thought you were a lawyer."

Karp had few real prejudices, but one of them was against lawbreakers with brains and education. He had far more sympathy for the Ralphie Paxtons of the world. So when Karp spoke, he turned the lasers to stun and put an edge in his voice.

"Yes, and we could sit here all day and trade brittle one-liners about the corruption of society. But, frankly, I am bruised and tired, and so is my whole family, which is more or less your fault, nor do I forget that you nearly murdered me and my daughter this afternoon. So you'll forgive me if I cut to the chase. It is not often that I lead Leviathan out of his cave and let him feed freely on a citizen, but I am inclined to do so in your case. If you play with me, Mr. Williams, I promise you that I will indict you on three counts of attempted murder, which is a class A-one felony, and I will convict you, and I will use every chip I have to get you the maximum sentence the law allows and make sure you are placed in the toughest cell block in the nastiest prison in this state. You think you're a tough guy, but, believe me, inside of two weeks you'll be wearing frilly nightgowns and eye shadow, and I will personally attend every parole hearing you get to make sure that it goes on and on and on. Have I made myself absolutely clear?"

A sullen nod. "Yeah."

"Good. The alternative is to pretend for a few minutes that you're the mensch my daughter apparently sees in you, and forget your epic battle against bourgeois America, and tell me the fucking truth."

Which Canman now did, concisely and articulately, with little prompting, and, to Karp's immense relief, the story was the one Karp had constructed over the past months, out of hints and guesswork. Cisco Lomax had been the fence Firmo's man. Lomax had arranged for packages to be transported by the more responsible class of street merchants, including Canman. Canman had seen Lomax with Cooley many times, and Cooley had seen Canman, because Lomax had also been a snitch for Cooley, cultivated slowly over a year. Lomax had helped set up a bust at a site where Firmo would actually take personal possession of a looted shipping container.

"And what went wrong?" Karp asked. This was the crux.

"I don't have the details, but what I heard was that Cisco was just, like, stringing him along. Cooley was paying out serious money, maybe some of it his own, to keep Cisco on board. It could be that Cisco made the whole thing up, the big deal in the warehouse. He was that kind of guy. Anyway, the night it was supposed to have gone down, Cooley gets to the warehouse with a whole army of cops, and nothing's there but a crate of Taiwan watches. He came down later to the yards and routed everyone, looking for Cisco. And me. As it happens, I wasn't there. He must've thought I was in with Cisco on it or something."

"Were you? Where were you that night?"

"At Cannes for the festival. I don't know, man-somewhere across town, negotiating for bags of empties. That's what I do. I'm a fucking homeless. I don't check in at night, all right? The next night was when Cisco got it. Then Cooley started to come around looking for me. So I got small. That's it, that's all I know."

"Okay, you got all that Murrow?"

Murrow looked up from his pad. "Got it."

"We'll have you sign a transcript," Karp said, pausing at the door.

"Can Lucy come by and see me?" asked Williams.

"No," said Karp, looking down at the man with distaste. "Let me ask you something. How can you settle for the kind of life you're leading, living on the street in cardboard boxes? You're smart, you're skillful, you're educated. You could have a real life…"

"I had a real life once. I was an engineer. First, I made toys for people to kill with, and then I made toys to keep rich people from being bored. And I had to take pills to help me forget what I was doing. And after a while the pills made it impossible for me to do that stuff anymore. A self-correcting system. What I wonder, though, is how a bastard like you ever produced someone like Lucy."

"A question I ask myself all the time," said Karp, and shut the door. He sent Murrow back downtown and went to find his wife.

Who was with Father Dugan, just back from surgery.

"Marlene," said Dugan groggily, "was it a figment of my fevered imagination, or did you tell me down there that you gave me an obscene amount of money?"

"Not a figment. Forty-six mil."

He groaned. "Why would you want to do a thing like that for? I thought I was always so nice to you."

"It's tainted gold, Father. I couldn't think of anything else to do with it. Besides, I discovered I wasn't cut out to be quite that rich. It wasn't good for my liver."

"You do realize I'm under a vow of poverty."

"Not a problem. The arch was very understanding. There's a foundation being erected as we speak, the Lucia Foundation, to dispose of the income. I'm the chairman of the board, you're the executive director."

"I see. And what is this foundation supposed to do with its money?"

"To be decided. Good works. Righting wrongs. We'll think of something."

"I'm sure. Could I have a long white limo with darkened windows?"

She laughed. "Only if you take to wearing green spectacles, a Charlie Chan panama hat, and to carrying a malacca."

"Done. Well, well. So the arch swallowed the black sheep getting out from under?"

"Yes. When you give someone forty-six million dollars, your suggestions tend to be treated with respect, I find. Tell me what happened after I left the sewer. Butch was excessively brief."

"I wish I could. Canman had a bomb, and Butch managed to put it out. All I saw were moving shadows. But I heard snatches of what Lucy said to him, some trick of acoustics in the vault. It was quite remarkable. You don't need the actual words, although for an impromptu sermon I wish I could do as good on my best day. No, it was the tone. We say we hate the sin but love the sinner, but we hardly ever bring that into the light. It's so hard to make the distinction so that it's clear to the sinner. But she did that. I've never heard such a combination of wrath and love. It raised the hair on my neck. The Holy Spirit, or I'm a Methodist."

"My poor baby!" said Marlene.

And after he had drifted off, she went outside and saw her husband walking toward her in the hallway, looked toward him expectantly, and saw how it was by his face before he even said, "I'm sorry, baby, he's gone."

Marlene whirled and slammed her fist into the hard plaster wall, and once again, hard enough to leave a smear of blood, and he grabbed her before she could break her knuckles. She wailed then, a long, crooning cry, loud, too, so that hospital staff came out of their stations, and a neuropsych team was discreetly marshaled. But not used, for Karp carried her away and picked up Lucy, who, when she heard, howled, too, in a slightly higher key. Karp wisely made no effort to stop this duet, nor did the words It's only a dog approach his lips as he escorted his very own Italian opera to a waiting cab.

•

•

•

"Are you all recovered now?" asked Karp. It was later. They were in bed.

"Oh, I guess. He was eleven. That's old for a dog. And he went out fighting instead of in a vet's office. I guess I should be happy for him. You think this is dumb, right?"

"Not at all. Man's best friend. The emotion does you credit, I guess. We never got into pets in my family. I don't have the feeling for them."

"Yes, and I love you anyway. Isn't that strange?" A pause here. "I gave away all my money. To the Church. Well, actually to a foundation Mike Dugan's going to run. Forty-six million. Easy come, easy go. Do you think I'm crazy?"

"A nice question. It should be put, 'Do you think I'm crazier than you already did,' and the answer is no, not really. I didn't like the way you behaved when you had all that money, and it wasn't in any way real to me when you had it. What did you do with the rest of it?"

"Oh, well, I'm crazy, but I'm not stupid," answered Marlene with a sniff. "The rest will take care of the kids' education and a stake in life and so forth, and to tide me over until I decide what I'm going to do with the remains of my miserable life. I'm thinking vaguely of getting some acreage, maybe breed and train mastiffs. I seem not to be able to get along with people very well, poor or rich."

"Was that why you were always drunk?"

"You noticed? Yes, well, there was that business at Solette's, that didn't help. And I also recall noticing that the rich guys my age all had girls with them fifteen years younger than me, and I realized I was not a babe anymore, and that the only guys who were ever going to hit on me were ones who wanted me to help them get rich, like Peter Walsh. I realize that I have faithfully toed the feminist line all these years-don't make me a sex object and so forth-which is a lot easier if you have a face and you wear a six, so I felt like a hypocrite in the bargain…"

"Peter Walsh? The PI?"

"You know him?"

"His name came up. What's your connection?"

"He came on to me for a job at Osborne. Came in for an interview, too. Apparently he worked for your old pal Shelly Solotoff. He was the one who set up that sting on Roland. Talked about it quite cheerfully. It's all on tape."

"Is it?"

"Yeah, Osborne tapes all their interviews."

"I'm surprised he admitted it. Doesn't he know in some of the jurisdictions Osborne has offices it's illegal to record conversations without other-party consent?"

"Well, he's a cocky little bastard. Maybe he thought it would be louche and impressive." Marlene pouted. "But we were talking about me. Why is it every time I start to pour my heart out, we wind up discussing felonies?"

"You want me to say that despite our advanced age and disabilities, I still consider you the most desirable of women?"

"It would be a start."

Karp rose early the next day and arrived at an almost empty office. On his desk, from Murrow, were two copies of the Canman transcript. He walked upstairs to the DA's office and laid one of them on Keegan's desk. At a little past nine, Karp called the general counsel's office at Osborne and had a brief conversation with William Bell, at which Bell agreed to send over a copy of Peter Walsh's interview tape. Karp did not have to threaten to subpoena the tape as evidence of a crime. Osborne wanted to keep Karp, and any other of Marlene Ciampi's relatives, very happy. A courier brought it in forty minutes later. After checking it out in the AV suite, Karp walked down to the chambers of Judge Marvin Peoples, the hardest-working and earliest-arriving and only black Republican judge on the Supreme Court in and for the County of New York, and gave him a condensed version of the tale of Marshak and Solotoff, and the judge duly issued a warrant for the search of the offices of Sheldon Solotoff and the seizure of certain recorded telephonic communications.

Ten minutes after he returned from handing the warrant to a couple of DA squad cops, his secretary buzzed him and said that the DA wanted to see him right away. He went up and found, not to his surprise, that Norton Fuller was there. Both he and the DA were looking grim.

The DA flipped the pages of the Canman transcript. "Would you mind telling me what this is all about?"

"Not at all," said Karp. "This statement demonstrates that Cooley knew Lomax, and that he had a serious grudge against him. His story that he was in pursuit of a stolen vehicle that just happened to contain Shawn Lomax is therefore false. This is confirmed by the fact that Cooley didn't know the vehicle was stolen when he set off in pursuit. The stolen-car call didn't come in until after Lomax was dead. A simple examination of police records will bear that out. A similar examination of the crime-scene analysis will demonstrate that the chase did not go down as Cooley and the other police witnesses testified. I refer to the complete analysis, not the mere excerpt on which our grand jury presentation was based. The complete analysis is quite competent. It shows that at no time was Cooley in danger of being rammed by Lomax's vehicle. The tire marks and damage to the vehicles don't add up to that at all. In fact, Lomax was so incapacitated by gunfire that he couldn't have threatened the detectives at all. Incapacitated by fire from the rear, by the way, and he was shot through the head by Cooley while Cooley was on the ground less than ten feet away."

"A police cover-up," said Fuller, trying the phrase out for the first time.

"No. The police report is complete and accurate. The grand jury verdict was the result of incompetence encouraged by political expediency. They guessed correctly that we would give Cooley a pass, and we did. It's our bad."

"Wait on that-" began the DA, but Karp said, "No. There's only one way out of this now, and that's to take our lumps and move on. Speaking of which, I want you to look at this videotape. It concerns a different but curiously related case."

Karp went to the large television in the corner, switched it on, and slipped the videotape into the VCR on top of it.

They watched the interview in silence.

When the tape ended, Fuller said, "What a load of bullshit. What did you threaten him with to get him to say that?"

"Quite a lot, as it happens, but it's true nevertheless," said Karp.

Fuller turned to the DA. "This is ridiculous, Jack. He concocted this whole thing to get back at me. It's palace politics pure and simple. I mean really! The idea that anyone would take the word of some piss bum against the word of me and Sybil Marshak…"

"And we have confirmation, or will have before long, from Peter Walsh, Solotoff's PI, the man who found Mr. Paxton there. He will testify that the original story Paxton told him is the same in every respect as the one you just saw. Solotoff made the whole thing up and conspired with you to suborn perjury. And it would have worked if there hadn't been that watch. No one carrying a watch that expensive would have gone for a cheap mugging. That's how I knew that Paxton's story had to be phony. And you did your part, Norton, by releasing Ramsey's juvenile record, making him out to be a violent criminal. And you got Jack to push through a grand jury whitewash, which worked out okay, by the way, because now I have a perjury charge to hang over Paxton's head, to make sure he behaves when we bring Marshak up again."

"I can't believe you're listening to this… this vile conspiracy, Jack. I would never dream of conspiring to suborn perjury."

The DA maintained a stony silence, but Karp could see a faint grimace of disgust blossom on the noble face. Karp said, "You weren't paying attention. Shelly taped you, just like Nixon. The conspiracy is an open book."

"It's not! There is absolutely nothing incriminating in any conversation I ever had with Solotoff…" Fuller froze and stared at Karp, then at the DA. The disgust was in full flower now.

"I rest my case," said Karp, wishing more than anything that he knew for sure whether that look was born out of revulsion for the act, for Fuller's compromising the integrity of his office, or because the weasel had been so stupid as to get caught.

Fuller was pale now, sweating, and his words came out in a highpitched jabber quite different from his normal voice. "Jack, I swear there is nothing there, nothing they can prove. Of course, I talked to Solotoff. It's our most politically sensitive case. But at no time did I say or do anything even remotely suggested by these charges. Solotoff will back me up on this a hundred percent."

Karp laughed and said, "Oh, Norton! The absolute index of your incompetence for this kind of work is the fact that you still don't understand that when I put the hooks to Shelly Solotoff, you will be the very first bit of meat he throws me."

The DA said, "If you'll excuse us, Norton."

Fuller said, "Jack, you want to be very careful now. The primary is nine weeks away and-"

"I said, if you'll excuse us, Norton. I will attend to you in a few minutes."

Fuller left. Karp had read about people slinking out of a room, but he had never seen it actually done until then.

The DA's lips had disappeared into a rigid horizontal line. "So," he said after a long time. "Where are we?"

"He has to go, immediately. I have no great interest in prosecuting either him or Solotoff, but at a minimum both Fuller and Solotoff get disbarred. I'll let you decide what should be done with both of them beyond that. I can indict Marshak behind this new material, and I intend to go forward with it. Cooley is a little more problematic, but I intend to give the grand jury another crack at him, too."

The DA was shaking his head from side to side like an old clock's slow pendulum, and his expression was the kind that rare and spiny fish see from the other side of the glass.

He said, "I can't believe it. You still, at your age, want to be the white knight. It's preposterous. It's like still wanting to be a cowboy. I should have gotten rid of you years ago. I don't know, it must be a brain lesion. You simply never learned how things get done."

"I guess not."

"Then let me give you some advice. The problem with the white knight is he comes to the castle and they send him off to slay the dragon. And he slays the dragon. Then there's another dragon, and he slays that, too. And another. Sooner or later, though, there'll be a dragon so big that the white knight's going to get chewed up and fried, you can put money on that. So the moral of the story is, when you grow up, you don't want to be the white knight. You want to be the guy that sends the white knight out to kill the dragon. Get it?"

"Is that you, Jack?"

"Yes, it is. Or was. This little drama you produced just lost me everything I worked for my whole life."

"Well, you know, I don't know about that. People might like to see a DA who's not afraid to clean his own house and take some political risks. McBright is the pol in this race, and he's good. I might even say he's better than you at working a crowd. In a political race, an ethnic race, a special-interest race, he's going to whip you. But if you demonstrate integrity and courage, maybe people will decide they like that better than having someone in here who's always telling them what they want to hear. If not, maybe the office isn't worth having."

"That's your opinion, is it?"

"Yes, it is. And while you're soliciting my opinion, you should cut your losses on Benson. As I pointed out earlier, he's not convictable on capital murder. I mean while you're starting to do the right thing without fear or favor…"

"Oh, terrific. The police vote, the West Side liberal vote, and now you want me to dump the Jewish vote, too. You think I can get elected by the Ukrainians?"

"I'm Jewish, and I'll vote for you."

"Oh, get out of here!" Keegan growled. "I'm sick of the sight of you."

Karp bristled at Keegan's tone and leaned over Keagan's desk, placing his face inches away from his boss's. "Don't you ever talk to me like that! If you can't handle truth anymore, and want to break faith with everything we're really all about, just tell me and I'm gone for good." Karp pulled back.

Keegan peered into Karp's eyes and suddenly slumped in his chair, now appearing like a half-filled laundry bag set on a subway seat by a seasoned strap hanger. While staring down at his desk, Keegan spoke in a depressed, steady monotone. "OK, OK, you're right. Maybe I'm the only prick around here, but it's tough. It's tough sledding. I just want to be DA."

Karp went out. He found Brendan Cooley waiting for him in the hallway outside his office, alone.

Karp ushered him in, sat him down, settled himself into his chair, and gave the detective a long, searching look. "What are we going to do with you, Cooley? It's not very often I get to jam up someone who saved my life. Read this!" Karp tossed over the transcript of Canman's Q amp;A and waited as Cooley paged through it.

Cooley flipped it back across the desk. "It's just talk. He doesn't know anything. You got nothing solid."

"Actually I do. The problem with a scam is that it might look good on the surface, but it never stands up to serious poking. The simple fact is that you lied, and your partner backed your play, about chasing a stolen car. We can absolutely prove that wasn't the case. That knocks the blocks out from under your testimony. Then we have the crime-scene analysis, and the medical forensics, neither of which confirms your story. Then you have the witnesses, the patrol cops, and your partner. They're caught in a lie. Okay, cops stretch it all the time, especially to cover an excess of zeal by a brother officer, but when we put it to them that they're covering up an assassination, will they hold up? When they're looking at dismissal and prosecution for perjury? I don't think so. I know I can indict, and I'm pretty sure I can convict you, if not for murder, then for manslaughter one." Karp waited. Cooley stared at him, his face stiff. He said nothing. A smart guy.

Karp continued, "I actually think you're guilty of murder. You might be thinking, in a trial who knows how it would go? A popular heroic cop, the victim a lowlife. The right jury might give you a pass. You know and I know that we don't ever really try the crime that's in the statute books. We try a particular defendant against a particular victim, which is why you're always better off killing a black person, God help us. Or maybe that's changed. The jury pool isn't what it was when we were coming up. You might get convicted, which would be twenty-five to life, hard time. On the other hand, while I'm not corrupt enough to give you a pass, like some of my colleagues here, I am corrupt enough to recognize that you're basically a decent man stuck in a job he hates."

Cooley snapped out of his trance. "What? What're you talking about?"

Karp held up a meliorative hand. "Cooley, I'm not going to insult you by trying to psychologize here. But I met your wife. I know your story. Your dad, your brother, the whole cop thing. What you should do now is look at where you are and where your whole life is going. Right now, you got Dad and the cops and nothing else. You lost your wife and kids. It's not what you wanted out of life. You're never going to be able to replace your brother, or show your father that you could bring down the bad guy that got away from him."

"Goddamn it, leave my family out of this!"

"Right. But just look at it, is all I ask. Now, like I just said, I'm twisted enough to take into account what you did down in the tunnel and the kind of person you really are. You're not someone who needs to be off the streets forever. So your choice is, what I'm giving you here is, on the one hand, a trial for murder, a huge scandal, incredible heartbreak for your family, and the real possibility that your life could be completely gone. I will try that case myself, and I am very, very good at prosecuting homicides. The other thing to keep in mind is that we could have a guy in here next year who wants to make his rep by showing that white cops don't get to blow away African-Americans whenever it strikes their fancy. He will want to drop the jailhouse on your head. Or, on the other hand, I will offer you a plea: manslaughter in the second degree. That means you will have to stand up in front of a judge and admit that you were reckless in pursuit of a fleeing felon and killed a man. That's not a lie, even you'd have to admit that. You'd serve the minimum in a low-security facility along with crooked accountants and corrupt assistant district attorneys and lawyers, eighteen months, twenty months, something like that. Don't answer me now. Talk to your lawyers, talk to your family. But don't take too long, okay? I don't know how long I'm going to be in a deal-making position myself."

Cooley sat frozen for a full minute. That was good, Karp thought. He was thinking seriously, not going in for histrionic denials. And for an instant there Karp thought he had seen relief on the man's face. Then Cooley snapped his head down once and rose to his feet. "I'll be in touch," he said, and walked out.

Karp sighed and looked out the window for a while, twiddling a pencil against his teeth. The phone rang. His secretary said it was Sheldon Solotoff, and it was urgent.

Karp told her to hold the call. Then he dialed his home.

"How did it go?" his wife asked.

"Terrific. Can I have a job on the dog farm?"

"Send me a resume. Really, though. Did you smite the evildoers, as always?"

"I smited, but I think my smiter is wearing out." He gave her a rundown on the events just passed, including the interview with Cooley.

"Do you think he'll go for it?" she asked.

"I have no idea. I like to think of him a few years out, back with his family and flying around in little airplanes or talking in jetliners. I shouldn't be thinking that, the guy killed a man and all, but there it is, I'm being honest. For a change."

"Oh, don't be silly. You have innumerable faults, as I know to my cost, but dishonesty is not one of them. I say that as an accomplished liar."

"Then how do I know you're telling the truth?"

A raspberry sound over the phone. He asked, "How's Lucy holding up?"

"Oh, shattered, shattered. She cares so much and sees the good in people. It knocks her down when it turns out they're all too human. What she needs is a nice kid with piercings and blue hair and a heavy coke habit. Then we could be real parents."

"Well, she's got a do-good foundation named after her. That should take some of the sting out."

"Oh, the Lucia Foundation isn't named after Lucy, or not directly. It's named after the person she was named after. You know, Nonna Lucia, my mother's grandmother."

"I don't know."

"You do! I've told you that story a million times."

"Nope."

"Yes, but you never listen to a word I say. Lucia di Messina, a sprig of the old aristocracy, which is where I get my classy bearing, if you noticed. She ran off with the gardener's boy, around 1890 this is, ran off to Naples. Her father sent heavies after her, and she scooted all over Italy with the guy, hiding. They caught up with them in a hill town in the Abruzzi. By that time, my grandfather Paolo was around, a little kid, I guess."

"Oh, right, now it's coming back. They killed the gardener."

"Uh-huh, the handsome Lorenzo, and as the family legend has it, she stood in the doorway of her house, in her blood-spattered shift, over the dead body of her husband, and blew them both away with a shotgun. Split to America with the cops on her heels, and the rest is history. Pazza Lucia to the family, a real character. I'm sorry I never knew her."

"Look in the mirror," said Karp.

"Oh, yeah, it's been noted." Marlene laughed. "But really, blood will tell, don't you think? I've tried to be respectable, you can't say I haven't, but au fond, when all is said and done, I'm just a thug. I can't imagine where Lucy comes from. Were there any really good people on your side?"

"I doubt it. Maybe a tzaddik slipped in on my mom's side way back in Bessarabia. As a matter of fact, she was the only person in my family no one had a bad word to say about."

"Anyway, Lucy was moping so much that I dragged her out of the house and took her grocery shopping."

"What about the little elves who kept the refrigerator stocked with overpriced food?"

"Things of the past, my dear. While I yield to no one in my ability to lounge about all day in a silk peignoir, there is something about walking down Grand Street with a net bag breaking my shoulder that's really kind of terrific. The rich have no idea."

"Did she perk?"

"Yeah, she did. And then we had lunch out, at Heavenly Sanitary Noodle Company, and Lucy spotted one of Tran's henchmen and got to talking to him, and he said Tran was practically suicidal with shame, and so we went to see him in this tacky place he stays at on Bayard."

"And did the magic work?"

"Of course. She said something to the effect that we loved him because he was human, because he had failings, and it wasn't his fault, and we knew he wasn't perfect all the time. I thought he was going to burst out crying, the poor old bastard. And I said more or less the same. I do love him so, and how weird is that? My fatal weakness for heroic, brilliant, perfectionist, self-flagellating men."

"Ahem," said Karp. "Although I don't feel particularly heroic."

"No, really, anyone would have picked up a sparking bomb and put it out with their tongue! Jesus, Butch, give yourself some credit once."

"Well, I am a lawyer. My tongue is highly trained. Speaking of lawyers, I have Solotoff on hold."

"Waiting for his new asshole to be reamed, I assume."

"Yeah. You know, I still can't figure it out. Cooley is like an open book to me. I actually like the guy. I sympathize with him even while I'm holding him responsible for what he did. But Shelly…? This whole ridiculous business, the thing with Roland, the perjury. It makes no sense."

"To you, no, because you're not like that. I think he wanted to somehow involve you in corruption, to show that, yeah, he left the DA not because he got kicked out, but because it's all a big scam anyway. If he'd pulled it off, he would have waved it in our face, ha ha, the outfit you worked for is shit, and you're a jerk for believing in it."

"I don't know. There are some sewers I won't go into, I guess. Maybe a career as a kennel person would brighten my outlook. Do you think there's really a place for me?"

"I intend to be very selective in my staff. Tell me, do you have any experience shoveling piles of dog shit?" said Marlene.

"I worked for the New York criminal justice system for twenty years."

"You're hired."