Fury

11

Friday, December 17

"Did you get a load of some of the looks we got when we came in?" Murrow said, peering back anxiously over his shoulder as if he expected an assassin to come running up from behind them. "You'd have thought we were attending a convention for the guys you've sent to Attica instead of a meet-and-greet at the Police Benevolent Association."

"Yeah, boss, you're not very popular with these guys right now," Clay Fulton said, only he was smiling. His boss had never been the sort who worried about his popularity; in fact, there were times when those closest to him wondered if he went out of his way to be unpopular. Fulton was handpicked by Karp to be chief of the NYPD detectives who were assigned to the DAO as investigators.

"Gots 'em right where I wants 'em," Karp said, returning the smile while clapping Murrow on the shoulder. The event had been set up months before as a "meet the candidate." The night before, however, Dick Torrisi had called and warned him to expect a cool, even hostile, reception.

"The word making the rounds is that you're letting the actions of a few bad apples slant the way you view the NYPD as a whole," Torrisi said. "It seems pretty orchestrated, but I'm not sure who's throwing the wood on the fire and it's pervasive from the union leadership on down."

Butch had thanked him for the heads-up but assured him that he was still planning on attending. The "few bad apples" was a reference to two fairly recent, but separate, cases against cops that he'd been directly involved in. The first had been the successful prosecution of two cops who'd gunned down a Jamaican immigrant they'd believed to be selling drugs. They'd tried to justify the shooting by claiming that the deceased grappled with them and seized one of their guns. But with the help of a forensic gunshot-wound expert, Karp proved that the killing couldn't have happened the way the cops had described it, and they'd been convicted of murder.

The second wasn't about one or two bad apples but a whole bushel-Andrew Kane's so-called Irish Gang. They were a half-dozen or so Irish-Catholic cops who'd been recruited by Kane to do some of his dirty work-such as killing a drug dealer-under the pretext that the orders came from the archbishop, who was using them to do "God's work." However, in reality, they were helping Kane expand and control his criminal empire through the coercion and murder of rivals.

Some of them were now dead, killed in a Central Park gunfight that still played out in Karp's head like a scene from one of the favorite movies of his Brooklyn childhood, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, with Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas. In some ways, it didn't seem real, as if he'd been acting out a part in a play, except for the dead bodies and the fear that still haunted his sleep that Marlene had been killed.

Arriving at the PBA building, they'd walked into the main meeting room and all conversations had stopped. Eyes followed them to the corner where several minor union officials were conferring with the union president, Edward Ewen. They returned his handshake as perfunctorily as possible.

Personally, Karp had the utmost respect for the NYPD, especially after 9/11. They worked a hard, dangerous job, and he believed that it was the best big-city police force in the world. By and large, its members were fine, upstanding men who carried the torch of justice like latter-day knights. But it never ceased to amaze him the way they circled the wagons if one of their number was threatened, even if they personally thought the cop was a scumbag. It was always the NYPD on one side, everybody else on the other.

"Now remember," Murrow said a few minutes later as they stood in the wings offstage waiting for Karp to be introduced. "We're here to win their hearts and minds. You have your speech?"

Karp held up the set of notecards prepared for him by his assistant. It was what Murrow called his "law and order" speech, meant to appeal to any cop's heart. More support for the police. More officers. Better technology.

Ewen finally walked to the podium and with little in the way of an introduction asked Karp to take the stage. There was a smattering of applause but the boos and hisses were louder. He handed the notecards to a startled Murrow. "Here," he said, "I've changed my mind."

"Butch?" Murrow pleaded as Karp walked out onto the stage. "Butch, let's talk. What are you going to say, Butch?"

"I don't think he's listening," Fulton said, positioning himself where he could reach Karp if something went wrong. He had his own handpicked guys in the audience, even though it was unlikely that someone would go so far as to try to hurt his boss-at least in a public place. But he wasn't the sort to take chances, and heck, the PBA was probably the most heavily armed group Butch would talk to before the election.

"No," Murrow shook his head sadly. "He never does."

Out at the podium, Karp looked over the crowd-a lot of guys sitting with their arms crossed and slouched in their seats.

"Okay, let me propose a compromise," he began. "I left my notecards for the planned dog-and-pony show over there with my colleague, so you're not going to have to listen to political bullshit."

"We already are," came a voice with a thick Bronx accent from the back of the auditorium.

"Yeah, maybe," Karp agreed, "but in exchange for not throwing a bunch of campaign rhetoric at you-though I think some of the issues I was going to talk about are pretty important to you guys-I'm asking you to hear me out and make up your minds as men and women of integrity. The New York Police Department and the New York District Attorney's Office are like a married couple-"

"I want a divorce," a woman officer shouted, to general laughter.

Karp chuckled, too. "How about after the children are grown?" he replied. "Anyway, we need each other to achieve a common goal, which is to serve and protect the people of New York City. But it's obvious this relationship is not going to get better until we clear the air."

"The air will clear when you leave," the guy with the Bronx accent shouted. Some laughed, but a few also demanded that their fellow officers "pipe down, let him speak."

Karp used the break to launch into what Murrow called-and not always very happily-his "one bad apple only spoils the bunch if they let it" speech. Essentially, it boiled down to: It's not enough to be an honest cop if you know that the guy next to you is corrupt, not unless you do something about it.

"I believe that the New York City Police Department is the best in the world and that the press concentrates on the few bad apples."

"So do you, Karp." The Bronx guy again.

"But at the same time, those of you who hate that kind of press, if you tolerate the bad apples just because they wear the same badge, you're no better."

The last comment brought a fresh chorus of boos but he noticed there was also some applause. Karp looked over to the wings and saw Murrow with his hand clamped over his mouth as if he was about to throw up. "I KNOW most of you have never taken a bribe in your lives, not so much as a free coffee on a cold morning. I KNOW most of you have done your job day in and day out without stepping over the line. But that's not enough…"

"Take a hike, Karp," the guy from the Bronx yelled again.

"Shaddup, Archie, I think he's talking about you," someone else shouted, which stirred more laughter.

"I don't care if you're pissed at me for convicting scumbags who happen to also wear that uniform," Karp said. "But who you should really be pissed at are the guys who sully their badges and yours with their greed or their laziness or their corruption. If you have a stain on your house, you're the ones who need to clean it up."

"Yeah, what about your house?" the female heckler said.

Karp knew what she was driving at. Everybody in the law enforcement business in New York knew that Marlene had a reputation for working in some pretty gray areas of the law. In general, the cops liked her even better than him; they understood her vigilante sense of justice. But it certainly made it difficult to point fingers.

"What about the DA's office?" one of the union officials yelled from his seat in the front. "It seems to me that for all this talk about the so-called Irish Gang, which as an Irish-American I find personally offensive, there was some complicity in the DA's office. But I don't see anybody there in jail."

The audience liked that one and cheered. It took a minute before they quieted down enough for Karp to speak. The question was a good one, but not one he knew the answer to yet. He suspected that the No Prosecution files forwarded by Kane and others to the DA's office had been ignored because Bloom, and certainly Keegan, had trusted their opinion and because it was easier. So far there was no indication, as in evidence of bribes or kickbacks, that would establish that a crime of malfeasance had been committed.

"All I can say in that regard," Karp replied, "is that the investigation begun this past summer is continuing. We are following all leads, up to and including any that would point to wrongdoing by anyone in my office past or present."

"Yeah, whaddya bet only cops will take the heat on this," the union official grumbled.

"If a cop commits a crime that we can prove, he or she will be prosecuted," Karp said. "And if someone in my office commits a crime that we can prove, he or she will be prosecuted. You'll just have to take it-or not-on faith."

"Not," shouted several. Another added, "We have faith in our own."

Karp nodded. "Which is how it should be. I have always admired your loyalty to one another. But I think you have to ask yourself, what if a thief or rapist or murderer is one of your own, does he deserve to wear that uniform? I don't hire or fire anyone at the New York Police Department. My job is to prosecute criminals who commit crimes in New York County and that's what I do whether they're doctors or truck drivers or lawyers or police officers. Justice is blind, and justice can be slow. But anybody who tells you I'm anticop is not serving you, they're serving their own interests…you'll have to decide why that is."

The crowd was silent after that last comment. "Thank you for your time," Karp said. "I hope there's a next time when you and I can talk about the stuff that matters, like working together toward a common goal."

Karp turned to go and found himself almost face-to-face with Clay Fulton, who had walked out and stood with his hand extended. Fulton was well respected in the PBA, one of the guys who'd worked his way up through the ranks. Karp knew that his appearance onstage was his way of making a statement to the members.

"More of them heard you than you think," Fulton said as they shook hands. "It's just tough for them to break ranks."

Karp patted him on the shoulder. "Thanks. I understand."

At that moment, one of the union flunkies walked up to Karp. "Mr. Ewen would like to speak to you, if you have a minute."

Karp and his entourage followed the young man off the stage and through a door leading to a hallway. At the end of the hallway, Karp paused in front of a car-size photograph of the burning World Trade Center buildings in a frame, and around its edges were the names of the police officers who'd died that morning trying to save others.

"Quite a list, eh, Mr. Karp," said a voice from the office to the left.

Karp turned, and in the near dark of the room he saw the union president, Edward Ewen, a large, florid man, sitting behind a desk. With his bulging cheeks and bulging eyes, Ewen reminded him of a bullfrog. It would not have surprised him to see a long, pink tongue dart out from between the thin purple lips to snatch an insect, which was how he was looking at Karp.

Karp glanced again at the photograph and names. "Yes, quite a list," he said. "I can't imagine the courage it took to go back into those buildings."

"Ya know, Karp," Ewen said. "Sometimes ya sound like you was on our side. Then others, it's like ya got a hard-on for cops and think that the boys are a bunch of crooks."

"I don't think of it as taking sides," Karp said. "I get paid by the people to prosecute criminals; it doesn't matter if they're wearing blue jeans or blue uniforms. If the NYPD doesn't like the black eyes from these cases, maybe the membership and the union ought to work harder to ferret the bad ones out."

"None of the boys want to work with bad cops," Ewen said. "But it seems that every time one of you guys runs for office, you feel like you need to make a big splash in the newspapers by bustin' cops for ticky-tacky stuff."

"Murder, criminal conspiracy, extortion…a little more than ticky-tacky," Karp noted.

"No doubt. No doubt," Ewen agreed. "It's just that the boys don't see no one in the DA's office going down on this one, and you can't tell me…them…that Keegan and that other idiot, what was his name, Bloom, were squeaky clean and didn't know what was going on."

"As I told 'the boys,' this investigation isn't over," Karp said. "If crimes were committed by anyone in the district attorney's office, we will pursue those charges as vigorously as we do the others. Now, was there something in particular that you wanted to talk to me about?"

"I just wanted a little face time, Karp," Ewen said. "Personally, I think you're a good guy…heart in the right place and all that. I just thought that as one old campaigner to another I'd let you know that there's a perception out there that you're anticop. You need to do something about it, or even a supporter like me won't be able to persuade the membership to back you in the election."

Karp rankled at the implied threat: play ball with the union or jump to the back of the unemployment line. "I guess I'll just have to trust that most of the membership can think for themselves and don't need to be persuaded by someone else," he replied.

"Careful, Karp," the union boss said, narrowing his frog eyes into slits, "I'm not someone you want as an enemy."

"Neither am I, Ewen," Karp shot back.

Murrow, who'd started to feel nauseated as the situation deteriorated, jumped in. "Hey, hey, in the immortal words of Rodney King, 'Can't we all just get along?'"

Ewen looked at Murrow as if he were a fly he was about to snap up, but then he laughed. "Yeah, yeah, young man…sometimes a coupla bull-headed guys like your boss here and me, we gotta butt heads. But we all want the same thing, a safe city. Them guys out there, they pay me to look after 'em. I'm just trying to give your boss a friendly reminder that sometimes you get more with honey than a stick."

"And we certainly appreciate that, Mr. Ewen," Murrow said before Karp could reply. He looked at his watch. "Oops, we got to go, Butch. You're supposed to pick up your sons in less than an hour."

Karp had locked eyes with Ewen, but neither of them flinched. A tough old bastard, he thought, been around since Garrahy's days. "Yes, I believe Mr. Ewen and I have said what needs to be said."

Most of the members had left by the time they were escorted back out to the auditorium. A few stragglers gave them dark looks, but there was one reasonably friendly face, that of Richard Torrisi.

"Hi, Butch, good speech," Torrisi said, holding out his hand.

"Yeah, I really wowed them," Karp replied, shaking it.

Torrisi laughed. "Yeah, well, tough crowd but they're not as sheeplike as some people might want you to believe. I think most of them are waiting and watching. They won't be afraid to break from the leadership if there's a good reason."

"Aren't you talking ill of your bosses?"

Torrisi grimaced. "I suppose I am, technically. But to be honest, I think of the rank and file as my real bosses. I was hired by the leadership but to represent the members' interests."

"I think a lot of us have been in the same boat," Karp said.

"Yeah…hey, if you have a minute, there's someone else I'd like you to meet," Torrisi said.

Murrow answered. "Sorry, but not really. He has to be somewhere in…," he looked at his watch, "forty-seven-and-a-half minutes."

"That's okay," Karp said, "we've got time." He'd caught some sense of urgency in the union lawyer's voice and was curious as to what it might be about.

Torrisi led the way to the back of the auditorium and an exit door that opened into yet another hallway. "This place has more secret passages than a Scottish castle," Murrow muttered. "If these walls could talk."

"Just an old building with lots of cheap remodeling," Torrisi replied. "But you're right about the walls." He reached a door and grabbed the knob, but before opening it he said, "I'm sorry but Clay and Mr. Murrow will have to stay here."

Clay started to protest. He was responsible for Karp's safety and his boss had a way of ending up in more jams than ants at a picnic, as his grandmother used to say. Murrow, worried about some unknown political ramification of all the secrecy, began to voice his concern, too. But Karp waved them both to silence.

"Clay, I'm sure I'm quite safe. Even if the PBA wanted to shoot me, I think they'd plan it better than to do it in their own building," he said. "If you guys wouldn't mind getting the car and pulling it up to the curb, I'll just be a few minutes."

Clay Fulton and Murrow stalked off, muttering under their collective breath. Torrisi turned the knob and led the way into a room. Again the lights were low, leading Karp to wonder, What's with these union types. Is it for mood or are they too cheap to buy more lightbulbs? It took a moment for his eyes to adjust; only then did he notice the dark figure of a woman sitting in a chair on the far side of the room. He glanced sideways at Torrisi, who spoke as the woman stood up.

"Butch Karp, I'd like you to meet Liz Tyler. Liz, this is the district attorney of Manhattan."

The woman said hello but, Karp noticed, made no attempt to shake his hand or approach too closely. It was Torrisi who spoke again. "Sorry about the surprise, Butch; I wasn't sure Liz wanted to do this until just before the meeting. But I think it would be good for you two to talk." He stepped back through the door and said, "I'll wait in the hallway."

When the door closed, Karp was thinking how he would have liked to shoot Torrisi. What was he supposed to say to a woman who'd been through what she'd been through? No, I can't help you. He'd met thousands of victims, seen all sorts of injustices perpetrated on them not just by the criminals but also the system. If what Torrisi had told him at the meeting a week ago with mayor-elect Denton was true, she had been raped by both and was still being assaulted.

"Sorry…about what happened," he said, immediately regretting it as insufficient. But she seemed to appreciate the sentiment.

"Thank you, Mr. Karp," she replied. "Would you mind if we sat? I'm not real steady on my feet and, well, to be honest, looking up at you hurts my neck." She tried a half-smile at the joke, and he smiled broadly back.

"Of course not," he said, taking a seat on the couch while she sat back down in the chair.

As she adjusted herself, Karp used the time to observe. He knew she was in her forties, but she looked haggard and much older because of the dull gray hair and dowdy clothing. However, when she looked up and fixed him with eyes as green as a cat's, even in the dark, he realized that she had once been a beautiful young woman. But there was a slightly crushed look to the right side of her face, and the eye on that side wandered in its orbit sightless. She quickly lowered her head so he couldn't see her face.

"So Mr. Torrisi tells me you might represent the city in the lawsuit," she said, "brought by those…those men," Tyler said, still looking down.

"I…well, I don't know," Karp replied. "Ms. Tyler, please, there's no need to be ashamed. My wife lost her eye in an accident, and I haven't believed for one day that it ever detracted from her beauty. Like you, she is still beautiful."

Liz Tyler looked up, her eyes wet with tears. She didn't say anything, but the way her lip was trembling in a smile, she didn't have to.

Karp pushed on so as not to embarrass her. "I'm not sure it's the right thing to do…the district attorney representing the city in a civil lawsuit. It does sound to me like the city has an excellent chance of winning without my help."

"Do you think so?" Tyler asked. Her voice held hope but fear ruled her face.

"Well, yes, the truth is a pretty powerful defense…um, forgive me, but is it still Mrs. Tyler?"

The question appeared to slam into the woman like a wrecking ball. She blinked several times and seemed to take several deep breaths before she could answer. "No. Just Miss Tyler, or better yet, Liz. I'm…I'm divorced."

Karp blasted himself for not thinking quickly enough to have maneuvered around the question. He smiled and said, "Liz it is. And I'd appreciate you calling me Butch. Mr. Karp was my dad." It was an old joke, but it did seem to take some of the embarrassment out of the air.

"Have you read the files?" Tyler asked.

Now it was Karp's turn to be embarrassed. The boxes remained sealed in his office. In fact, he'd about decided to call Denton and tell him to have them picked up…that he just didn't feel he should get involved. "No," he said. "I haven't. To be honest, Liz, my forte is not civil law. The city would be wise to use someone else."

Karp's answer seemed to deflate Tyler. "Oh."

"What would you recommend that I do in this situation, Liz?"

His question seemed to take her by surprise. She looked up and this time held his gaze. "Since we're being honest, I don't know. After the first trial, I tried to put it all behind me…and failed miserably. It cost me my family. But over the past four or five years, I've found a place where sometimes I can pretend that I don't even have a past. None of it. Not the good things, not the bad things. I have no memory of that…that day, except random snapshots in my head…"

"You remember faces?" Karp asked.

Again, fear on Tyler's face. She shook her head. "No, no…not like that. I meant the beach. Waking up in the hospital. That sort of thing." She moved quickly on. "My point is that I don't know that I really want to go through all of this again."

Karp looked puzzled. "I don't understand," he said. "Why are you here then?"

"I guess because Mr. Torrisi asked me," she replied. "He and his partner were so good to me following my…my…problem. So were the two assistant district attorneys, Robin and Pam. I would never have gotten through the trial without them going above and beyond to protect and support me as best they could. Do you know that Robin let me sleep on her sofa when I couldn't go home? They took some of the defense attorney attacks on me personally…like friends would."

Tyler looked down at her hands and he saw the tears fall and splash on her fingers. "I wasn't a perfect person before my problem, Mr. Karp. I had an affair outside of my marriage. It was meaningless and short-lived; nonetheless, the defense attorneys found out about it and tried to introduce it at my trial. They tried to say that it showed that I was promiscuous and that explained why I was running by myself on a beach in the morning and maybe didn't try as hard as I could have to avoid being gang-raped."

Karp noted the flash of anger. Good, he thought, she isn't completely beaten and will make a good witness…for somebody else.

"Pam and Robin stopped them with the shield laws, so at least I didn't have to put my husband through that twice, a second time in front of a jury and a full courtroom. But, of course, the motion hearing where the defense lawyers brought it up was open, and so the press had all sorts of fun with it anyway. Between the defense lawyers and the press, they wouldn't let the wounds close and heal. They just kept tearing and tearing until I didn't want to go forward with it. I wanted to drop the charges so that I could run away-find some hole, crawl in it, and pull the dirt back in over the top of me. But Robin and Pam wouldn't let me give up. I needed them to be strong for me. Now they need me."

Karp decided to play a little devil's advocate. "You told me that you don't remember the attack. What if the wrong men were convicted? What if the only one involved was Enrique Villalobos? Wouldn't you want those other men exonerated?"

Tyler leaned forward so that her face moved back into the light. She touched the side that had been crushed. "There was no mistake, Mr. Karp," she said. "The men who did this have now made a mockery of everything those police officers and detectives, and Robin and Pam, stand for. If you knew these people like I came to know them, you'd know that I'm telling you the truth. Mr. Villalobos might have been there, too, I truly do not know. But the right men were sent to prison."

Tyler stood up and walked over to where a small mirror hung on the wall. "I'm not asking you to do this so that I can have my life back or so I can 'move on.' That's not going to happen. I'm asking you to do this, Mr. Karp, because those other good people, who still have lives, need you."

Karp felt the wall crumbling. You can't do this, he told himself. "I'm sorry, Liz…"

Tyler turned away from the mirror and faced him. "Please, just read the files. Maybe you can just advise whoever takes the case. Please?"

"But there are other lawyers…"

"Yes, but it's your integrity that matters." As if someone had taken control of his body, Karp heard himself agreeing to read the files. Then he was shaking Liz Tyler's hand as she thanked him. Then he was out in the Lincoln sitting next to Murrow, who started peppering him with questions.

"What? What was that all about?" Murrow asked. "What did I miss? You didn't agree to do anything…dumb…I mean politically sensitive, did you? What's going on?"

Karp looked into the genuinely worried face of his aide-de-camp. "All in good time, Gilbert," he said.

"You've been saying that a lot lately," Murrow groused. "It's not nice to keep secrets from your adviser."

"Just for the moment," Karp replied. "I need to do something, but nothing to worry about. Now, let's move. We've got to run if I'm going to pick up the boys and get to class on time."

A half hour later, Fulton pulled the Lincoln up to the curb at Crosby outside the loft. Karp was disappointed to see Marlene emerge from the building, obviously headed for the Yellow Cab that was waiting across the street. He'd hoped to have a minute alone to talk to her before he had to leave with the twins, but now she was leaving first.

Karp felt drained by the long day and would just as soon have "left the office" back at 100 Centre Street and forgot about it for a few pleasant hours with his family. But he also felt compelled to warn his wife about getting involved in the Michalik case. The evidence looked pretty damning, and Rachman seemed pretty sure of winning a conviction despite Kipman's questions.

Of course, what he said wouldn't really matter; Marlene would make up her own mind. It was just that life around the loft had been so much better since she'd returned from New Mexico. Regardless of the little spat earlier, the uncomfortable, brooding feeling that had wedged itself between them over the past few years as their philosophies about the administration of justice took divergent paths had lifted. She seemed so much more at peace with herself than she had in ages. Even the near-death experience at the hands of Kane's men in Central Park, as well as Hans Lichner's attempted murder of their son, had not sent her spiraling back down. Still, he worried that some perceived injustice would set her off again as the avenging angel of the downtrodden. He liked the new Marlene and didn't want to let her go.

"Going out?" he asked as he got out of the Lincoln.

"Yeah, sorry, but there's spaghetti on the stove and a nice surprise waiting for you," she said. "The boys are already eating and ready to go to class."

"Where's the fire?" he said as he walked up to her.

"Ariadne called and asked me over for dinner," she said a little nervously. She was never quite sure how he would take hearing the reporter's name. "Apparently there's something very mysterious and very important she wants to talk about."

Karp's heart skipped a beat. As Marlene suspected, the mere mention of Ariadne Stupenagel was enough to make him tense. The two women had been friends since their days as college roommates at Smith, but Ariadne was trouble even when she was asleep. Attaching words to her name like mysterious and important was like throwing gasoline and dynamite on a fire. He happily accepted Marlene's good-bye kiss (pleased that she had initiated it after the chill of the morning). "Be careful," he said, opening the door of the cab for her.

Marlene sat down and looked up. "I will," she said. "My new middle name is Careful. Careful Ciampi, that's me."

Yeah, he thought as he closed the door and watched the cab pull away from the curb. The only problem is your old first name is Notvery.

"I'll be right out," he called to Fulton, who'd offered to drive him and the twins to the synagogue before he headed for home. Karp and the boys would catch a cab back later.

Karp hurried up to the loft where a surprise was, indeed, waiting for him. "Daddy!" Lucy squealed, springing off the couch where she'd been petting Gilgamesh, who bounded around like a 150-pound puppy at the unexpected party atmosphere. The sauce-mouthed twins jumped up from their plates of spaghetti and joined in the family hug.

With his arms around his daughter, Karp could feel that she'd gained weight and muscle. He held her away so that he could see her better. He'd always loved her and couldn't have cared less what she looked like, but this was the first time that he could recall thinking that Lucy had become a beautiful young woman. "Wow!" he said. "You're looking good, baby."

Lucy blushed and hugged him again. "It's all the tortillas and beans," she said with her head against his chest. At last she pushed off and said, "Come on, sit down and have a plate of spaghetti. You and Mom must have had a fight because she rushed to whip this up before leaving."

Karp looked longingly at the pot containing Marlene's famous spaghetti marinara, a recipe she'd learned from her mother, who'd learned from her mother and so on back through the generations apparently to the founding of Rome. But then he glanced at his watch and remembered Fulton was waiting.

"It will have to wait," he sighed. "We're going to be late to class."

"Ah, Dad, do we have to," Zak complained. "Lucy just got home and John's here…"

Karp looked puzzled. "John?" He about jumped out of his skin when a man spoke behind him. "Hi, there, chief. Remember me?"

Karp's look of surprise turned to one of delight as he spun to face the voice's owner. "John Jojola! You nearly gave me a heart attack."

"We Indians are sneaky like that," Jojola said, smiling. "Hey, sounds like you need to get going, I'll be here when you get back…if you don't mind."

"Ah, jeez," Zak whined. "It's just a stupid bar mitzvah class."

"Hey," Jojola said to him with a half-serious scowl. "Don't neglect your spiritual side or when you need it most the spirits may not be there for you."

"Is that an Indian saying?" Giancarlo asked.

"Um, no, not that I know of…I just made it up, but I believe it," Jojola said. "Now get going or I won't tell you that story later of how Brother Bear lost his tail."

When the twins had grumbled their way out the door, Karp looked back. "So what brings you to New York?" he asked, not sure that he wanted to hear the answer.

"A dream," Jojola said. He laughed when he saw the confused look on Karp's face. "Go on. It's no big deal. We'll talk when you get back."

Why are these things always no big deal, Karp thought as he headed down the stairs, until they are a big deal.

That past spring, the twins had suddenly expressed an interest in going through their bar mitzvah. The request had taken him somewhat by surprise as the boys had been brought up in the Catholic heritage of their mother. However, the more he thought about it, the more pleased he was that his sons were so open to exploring their other half. Then that summer he'd been approached by the rabbi at the synagogue where the twins were taking classes. The rabbi was asking prominent Jewish men to teach classes, which would also contain girls who were studying for their bat mitzvah. Karp had agreed, in large part because of the lure of spending more time with his sons.

The meeting with Liz Tyler and the lesson about integrity were on his mind when he began that night's lesson by setting up a slide show and then turning to the class. "I'm going to talk to you today about a Jew who changed the world. Can anybody guess who?"

"Solomon!" Giancarlo shouted. "Our legal system is based on his court."

"Bob Dylan!" Zak shouted louder. "He rocks!" He didn't really like Dylan-that was more his mother's music-but it was the only Jewish rock musician he could think of quickly and it got the desired laugh from the class. All except Rachel Levine, the thorn in the side of his twelve-year-old maledom and the class know-it-all.

"Try not to be so silly if you can possibly help it, Zak," Rachel said and turned her attention back to Karp. "I believe Mr. Karp must be speaking of Abraham, the father of three great religions-the oldest, Judaism; Christianity; and Islam, which calls him Ibrahim." A look of concern crossed the girl's face. "Of course, the answer depends, Mr. Karp, on whether you're speaking about actual people. As I'm sure you know, Abraham may have been more myth than man."

"What makes you think he wasn't real?" Karp asked. "Isn't he buried with his wife, Sarah, in the Cave of Machpelah near Hebron?"

Rachel rolled her eyes. "Yes, there was probably a historical figure named Abraham, hard to prove scientifically, but really, Mr. Karp, I was talking about the man who spoke to God and all that nonsense."

"My sister talks to a saint who's been dead for five hundred years," Giancarlo said matter-of-factly.

"Yeah, some dudes shot her full of arrows-the saint, not my sister," said Zak, always one to dig into the bloodier side of any story.

"My mother says your sister is crazy," Rachel retorted. "I guess talking to dead saints proves it."

"My sister is not crazy-at least not legally," Giancarlo replied thoughtfully. "She definitely knows the difference between right and wrong. Besides, it could just be the manifestation of post-traumatic stress syndrome after nearly being slaughtered by a homicidal maniac and then almost murdered by a sheriff in New Mexico. Other than that, she's as normal as you are."

Zak, having run out of anything clever to say himself, backed up his brother. "Yeah, and take that back or I'll-"

"You'll what? Physically assault me? I'd call the cops and you'd be locked up and then your dad would have to prosecute you and send you off to prison," Rachel said and stuck her tongue out.

"And she speaks about sixty or something languages," Giancarlo continued in the defense of his sister.

"Speaking in tongues is demonic," said Ira, a timid boy but acknowledged by all but Rachel as the class's religious scholar.

"She doesn't speak in tongues, you idiot, she knows other languages-French, Chinese, Samoan," Zak shouted and then stuck his tongue out at the girl.

While this was going on, Karp had looked on with slack-jawed amazement at how quickly things had deteriorated. Just like my staff meeting, he thought. "Okay, okay, enough, this debate has veered off into the spectacularly ridiculous," he said. "I wasn't talking about Solomon or Abraham or even Bob Dylan, although they were all good answers and great Jews. Did you know that Positively 4th Street was written just a few blocks from my home? Never mind." He turned on the slide projector. "The Jew I was talking about was…"

The first slide appeared on the screen. It was El Greco's painting of Jesus upsetting the tables of the money changers in front of the temple in Jerusalem. "…Jesus of Nazareth," he said.

"Jesus!" Ira exclaimed in something near to a panic.

"Isn't he a Christian?" Zak asked.

"He was a Jew first…everyone knows that," Rachel said. "Mr. Karp, are you sure this is appropriate for this class?"

"Sure, why not?" Karp replied. "He never stopped being a Jew. He was born a Jew and died a Jew and somewhere in between being born and dying, he delivered a powerful enough message that a lot of Jews, as well as a lot of other folks, came to believe that he was the Messiah. But as Jews, we considered him a rabbi-like Rabbi Yakowitz-and a great scholar of the Torah. That's all he is in this painting by El Greco called Purification of the Temple, a Jewish carpenter and rabbi."

"What's he doing?" Zak asked, hoping for a good riot story.

"Well, this is during Pesach, or Passover-which, as we know from our studies, is the eight days in the spring when we celebrate the freedom and exodus of the Israelites from Egypt-and Jesus was upset that the money changers were conducting business in the Temple of Herod, which was supposed to be a place to go to pray. He was also upset that sacrificial animals were being sold there-'the blood of innocents,' he said-and the money changers were part of that business.

"The point is that this attack on the establishment was one in a series of acts of civil disobedience by Jesus that would put him in conflict with the people in charge," Karp said.

"The Romans," Zak said helpfully.

"Yes, but almost more so the Jewish leaders-the old rabbis and holy men," Karp said. "These acts frightened them because they knew he was morally right."

"Bet he wouldn't have done it if he knew he was going to get nailed to a cross," Zak said.

"Really, Zak?" Karp asked. "It's an interesting question. Christians say that Jesus knew what lay ahead of him and chose his path anyway. But let's say for the sake of argument that he didn't know. He was a carpenter, he could have settled down, married, had children, and lived happily ever after. But there was something inside of him-some say it was God-that made him do the things that would get him crucified. Whether it came from God or was just part of who he was, what it amounted to was that he had integrity."

Karp paused. He hadn't intended to use that word, but now that it was out, it seemed right. Jesus had integrity. He pressed the button on the slide projector and the next image appeared on the screen, El Greco's painting The Crucifixion.

"Sometimes having integrity can cost you everything you have, even your life."

The class sat in silence, until Giancarlo asked, "What does INRI mean?"

Pleased that his son noticed, Karp pointed for everyone else to the inscription on the top of the cross. "It's short for the Latin Iesvs Nazarenvs Rex Ivdaeorvm, which is the title a guy named Pontius Pilate, who was sort of the Roman judge for that region, gave Jesus."

"What's it mean?" Rachel asked, now as intrigued as the others.

"Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. The Romans lacked the letter J and used I instead. They also used V instead of U. It's an interesting part of the story. Pilate had the inscription placed on the cross after he allowed the rabble-a Jewish rabble I might add-to take Jesus to be crucified. One of the Jewish leaders asked Pilate to change the inscription to 'He said, "I am King of the Jews." ' But Pilate replied, 'What I have written, I have written,' which was a way of him saying that he believed it to be true."

"But why did the Jewish leaders want to kill Jesus," Ira said; he seemed about to cry.

"Because they were afraid, Ira," he said. "Afraid of how a man of integrity made them examine their own conduct."

"What about Pontius Pilate?" Giancarlo said. "In the Bible, he didn't think Jesus had committed any crimes. He told them that, but in the end he let them have him."

Good point, Karp thought, but old PP was just the most famous judge who gave into popular sentiment rather than doing the right thing. There would be many others.

"You're right," Karp replied. "Pontius Pilate wasn't a good fellow. He was supposed to keep the peace and watch out for rebels who popped up from time to time, like the Maccabees, whose rebellion we just finished celebrating at Hanukkah. His job would have been easier if Jesus had just preached against Roman law, but Jesus didn't. All he talked about was living in peace and people loving their neighbors and praising God for all the good things in life."

"Then why'd he do it?" Ira wailed.

Ira's emotional outburst got the rest of the class tittering until Karp brought up his hand to silence them. "Actually, Ira, that's the best question of the night-and the answer is the whole point of tonight's lesson," he said. "Pontius Pilate gave in to the mob and the Jewish leaders because he lacked integrity. Jesus, on the other hand…," he said, turning toward the painting on the screen, "in those times, just a Jewish carpenter and scholar, had integrity."

"Look where it got him," Zak pointed out.

"Ah, yes, but look how he's remembered today by an awful lot of people," Karp replied. "To some, he's the Son of God. And even others, including Jews and Muslims, see him as a great man. But how is Pontius Pilate remembered? As a corrupt coward who wouldn't stand up for justice, a man who washed his hands of a murder."

The class was silent for a minute until Giancarlo quietly said, "It must have hurt."

Karp looked up at the painting, letting his eyes wander to the nails that protruded from the hands and feet. "Yes, it hurt," he said. "Whether he was just a Jewish carpenter with a different way of looking at the world, or the Son of God, he had to go through the pain and suffering. He could have backed out at the last minute, you know. Pontius Pilate gave him the opportunity to renounce his claims to being the Messiah. But he told them, 'I am what I am,' and sealed his fate."

Hitting the lights and turning off the projector, Karp added, "My dad used to put it another way, sometimes, quoting William Shakespeare. It's from the play Hamlet and is basically the advice of a father, Polonius, to his son, Laertes, when he tells him, 'This above all: to thine own self be true.' I think if you follow that one piece of wisdom, you will find that you are people of integrity, too."

"And end up like Jesus?" Zak asked.

Karp looked at his son. Sometimes he wondered what would become of this boy. Like Marlene, he sometimes seemed to have a foot on one path that led to trouble, and other times one foot on a path that led away from trouble. "Maybe," he said. "But there are worse ways to end up. You could end up as a heroin junkie. Or people may know you as a liar and a cheat and want nothing to do with you. Or you could be a judge who sends an innocent man to the gallows, all because you lacked integrity. You could be the next Pontius Pilate. Or you can choose to live your life with integrity, like Jesus, and make a real difference in this world."

The class was quieter than normal when they filed out a few minutes later. Karp was certain he'd hear from their parents about his choice of topics. But he thought that, as Christmas approached, it didn't hurt for Jewish kids to learn that all the fuss was being made about one of their own.