Karp began to clear the table, stacking the dirty dishes neatly by the side of the steel sink. He had just started to run hot water into the basin when Marlene let out a cry of anguish.
"What is it?" asked Karp in alarm.
"The fuckers! They're firing me!"
"What!" Karp dried his hands and went to her side. She thrust the letter at him and flung herself down on the couch.
The letter was from the director of the Administrative Bureau, Conrad Wharton. It said:
It has come to my attention that you are planning to marry a member of the district attorney's staff who currently occupies a supervisory position on that staff. This is to inform you that New York State antinepotism regulations [NYSAC 32-5436(e)] prohibit spousal, or other close familial connections, between persons at different supervisory levels in the same department or office.
Therefore, be advised that your employment with the District Attorney's Office, County of New York, will terminate fourteen (14) days after the date of such marriage, unless, by that time, your spouse shall have left the District Attorney's Office or is no longer in a supervisory position.
"Ain't that some shit?" said Marlene when Karp had done reading.
"Yeah," answered Karp, "especially since we were just planning a little nepotism ourselves."
"You call catching a serial rapist nepotism!" cried Marlene.
"No, I'd like to think I'd go out of my way and use up chips with the cops for any ADA who came to me with a good theory and no solid evidence-but try to prove it in an administrative hearing. Look, I'll check the regs tomorrow, but I think they got us, kid. I recall a case when I first got to the office. An ADA-Frank Hobart his name was-married a secretary and she had to quit. I never thought about it until now."
"She had to quit, huh? They never make the man quit. You're not getting fired."
"That has nothing to do with it, Marlene. I have seniority. The junior spouse is the one who goes. Christ! Listen to me-he's got us talking like a couple of bureaucrats. OK, look, how bad could it be? You have to leave anyway, for the baby. What's a couple of months?"
Marlene stood up in a combative posture, tense, with her hands clenched at her hips. "It's not just a couple of months. It's my career! And what about the rapist? The tracking system? That's going to go out the window too. And that shithead is going to keep raping women until he checks into the geriatric ward, not to mention any other rapists who are bouncing around doing the same kind of thing."
"But, Marlene," said Karp, "you said you wanted to relax and take care of yourself. And the baby. So how come you're generating what could be a major investigation? Hey, roll with it. Wharton's doing you a favor."
This was the wrong thing to say, which Karp discovered when Marlene crumpled up the letter and threw it at him, screaming curses, and then followed it with her stack of printouts, a couch pillow, and an ashtray. She then raced out of the living area and up the stairs to the sleeping loft. He could hear her strangled sobs and honking nose-blows continuing as he glumly finished the dishes. "Roland, I don't understand," said Karp. "You gave me all this shit about doing this task force, and now that I'm getting you off, you're bitching and complaining."
This was the next morning, in Karp's office. Roland Hrcany was pacing back and forth before Karp's desk like an overdeveloped puma. "Yeah, but that was when I thought it was horseshit. I didn't realize Reedy and Fane were in on it. That's heavy muscle and heavy exposure."
"I didn't know you had political ambitions, Roland," said Karp diffidently.
Hrcany flushed. "Yeah, well, I don't intend to cop robbers to larceny fifty times a day for the rest of my life either. There's a world beyond this horseshit, boy. What's the matter, don't tell me you never thought about it!"
The words took Karp aback. In fact, he hadn't, but now, for the first time, he began to think of this lack of ambition as a defect rather than as a point of pride. Grubbing for power sucked, but watching assholes who had it fuck over you and your friends (not to mention your one true love) was getting less and less attractive.
Karp shrugged and went on. "The main thing is, I need you on Petrossi. We're going to trial this week."
"Petrossi? That's Guma's."
"Not anymore it isn't. It's our hottest case, speaking of visibility. I figured you'd lap it up."
Hrcany smiled crookedly. "Yeah, if I can learn the case. Fucking Guma keeps it all in his head or on little scraps of paper. By the way, why'd you can him off the case?"
"He was fucking the judge."
Hrcany laughed. "Yeah, right! No, really, why did you?"
"Ah, it's complicated-he wanted to dive into something else, there was a conflict- and, between you and me… I'd rather have you in there. It's a major case, and Guma…" Karp waggled his hand like a plane in an air pocket.
Hrcany nodded in agreement. "No kidding. OK, I'll see what I can do. Give my love to the big shots."
"Good-bye, Roland," said Karp.
Ten minutes later, Peter Schick was standing in Karp's office saying, "Why me?"
"Because I think you can do it. Because I haven't got anybody else," Karp replied.
Schick laughed. "Is that an insult or a compliment?"
Karp leaned back and considered the younger man for a moment. He seemed to be doing well. According to Harris, who was minding him, he was hardworking and cheerful. Karp felt a vague twinge of guilt.
"A little of both," Karp said. "Mostly it's going to meetings and listening to what the great ones say. You'll be taking notes, writing up memos-crap like that. Also, catching the legal work that's associated with these cases."
"What, the murder cases?" Schick asked nervously.
"Well, obviously, any really big cases, I'll be there personally, or one of the other senior people. But there's a lot of other stuff that a big investigation like this generates, and you'll be catching all of that. Just use your judgment; handle what you can handle, and if you can't, let me know."
What Karp did not say was that the assignment of his most junior attorney to the drug task force was a clear signal that Karp cared little about what went on there. And Karp didn't. Bloom, he knew, was incapable of running a serious investigation. Whatever was going on in the drug task force was important only as politics.
There was something deep running underneath the conventional assertions of concern about drugs in Harlem, which was why Reedy and Fane were involved. But Karp now had a direct line into that, outside the machinations of Bloom and Wharton, and he intended to pursue it, starting at lunch, that very day. The Bankers' Club occupied the penthouse floor of a seventy-story tower on Manhattan's southern tip. Through the great windows that stretched from floor to ceiling one could look out on sky and harbor as from the pilothouse of an immense and barely moving vessel. Once, New York's bankers had clubbed together in red leather chairs in paneled rooms, shielded from the un-elect by thick Florentine walls and plush draperies. Now, however, in the mid-seventies, they spent their last years as the world's undisputed financial lords, in such mortgaged aeries, flaunting it proudly to the ants below.
Karp and Reedy sat at one of the select window tables. The waiter stopped by for their drink order and Reedy ordered a Tanqueray martini. Karp ordered a Coke. Reedy raised an eyebrow and the waiter almost did too.
"Don't you drink, Butch?" asked Reedy.
"No," said Karp. "It's my Indian blood. I go crazy and take scalps."
Reedy laughed, perhaps a trifle more than the joke was worth. He had a good laugh, hearty and loud, with lots of air expelled. The laugh reminded Karp of the crusty Irish homicide D.A.'s of Garrahy's generation, the men who had taught him his trade, and of Garrahy himself. They had laughed like that. He found himself being charmed, and not minding it.