Robert Tanenbaum: Irresistible Impulse

Karp came in and sat in a leather chair across from his boss’s desk. The furniture was as close a match as possible to the decrepit City-issued suites favored by the late Garrahy, and as far as possible in style from the slick modern stuff with which the awful Bloom had surrounded himself. “What now?” Karp asked.

“Ah, nothing, I just wanted to blow steam at someone,” said Keegan. “Political crap. I just received a call from our esteemed Manhattan borough president, a credit to his race, as we used to say, who informed me that he would take it very much amiss if we agreed to a change of venue.”

“And you informed him …”

“I informed him, politely, that we had just nailed the little shit and his lawyer had not yet asked for one, but if he did there was no way we would go for it; nor was there a conceivable reason for any judge to grant it, this being New fucking York, and if you couldn’t pick a fair jury from that pool, good night, Irene.”

“This is the race thing.”

“This is. The black community is concerned. They see this nice rich white boy from the North Shore with a funny hobby that involves killing elderly black ladies. It makes them irate. They’re worried about what the esteemed gentleman called ‘legal tomfoolery.’ They want this guy dangling from a lamp post, and failing that, they want his white butt upstate forever.” Keegan took a Bering cigar from his desk drawer, pulled it from its silver tube, and stuck it in his mouth, unlit. “So. Anything new?”

“Not much,” said Karp. “We ordered a psychiatric evaluation and Bellevue says he’s competent. Grand jury should start next week sometime. I think we want to expedite this-”

“No joke. Red ball on this one.”

“Okay, it’s the beginning of November. Five counts of murder are going to take some time to present, so let’s say we arraign on the indictment before the end of the month, and then motions-say forty-five days?”

“Say ninety days, if you’re lucky. This is Lionel Waley you got here on defense, the Duke of Delay.”

“Okay, that rolls us well into next year. So we’ll figure jury selection to start up in March.”

“Yeah, that’ll be a delightful experience too. It took a full month to select a jury for Bobby Seale. Count on at least that. Roland is going to do it, I presume. The actual trial.”

Karp had been waiting for this. He met Keegan’s gaze and answered, “No. I’m going to take it.”

Keegan’s eyes narrowed, and they stared at each other for an unlikely length of time. Then Keegan pursed his lips and examined the pale green wrapper of his cigar. He said, “You know, Butch, when I got to be D.A., I fondly imagined that my subordinates would do what I told them to do. I was mistaken, although I recall that when Phil Garrahy was in this chair, we all tried to do pretty much what he told us. Now, I think I’ve mentioned a time or two that as a bureau chief you can’t take trials-”

“You used to take trials.”

“May I finish? Thank you. And especially you can’t take a horrendous long trial like Rohbling is going to be, and rebuild the Homicide Bureau, and run it, and keep on top of everything else you have to do. And have a life. You’ve got three kids.”

“You had four kids and you did it.”

Keegan’s face dropped a shade into the red zone. “Yes, damn it, back in the sixties, when we had half as many homicides, and a dozen men in the bureau with twenty, twenty-five years’ experience, who didn’t need their noses wiped like your people do, and, frankly, before Warren and the Supremes got into the act, when we could do things to move cases through that we can’t do now. There’s no comparison.” He held up a meaty hand to check the expostulation he could see forming on Karp’s face. “Look, there’s no point in discussing it. I think I’ve made myself clear on this. On the other hand, you’re the bureau chief; I don’t intend to second-guess you. But here’s something to think about: if this case goes sour, there will be a shit storm of uncontrollable fury directed at both you and me. I have to face an election in a year’s time in a city where nearly half the electorate is non-white. So all the things we’re trying to do to bring this office back from perdition will be at risk. You need to understand that aspect.”

“I do,” said Karp. “I can handle it.”

Keegan replaced the cigar in his mouth and stared at Karp down its length, as along a gun barrel. “You ever go up against Lionel T. Waley?” he asked.

“No. You?”

“I did. In 1963. This is before he became the nation’s greatest criminal lawyer, as I believe he actually calls himself.”

“Is he?”

Keegan grinned. “Well, he wins a lot of cases. He’s up there with Lee Bailey and Nizer. You know what they say: if you can’t get Bailey, get Waley. Of course, Lionel says it’s the other way around.”

“Did you win?”

“I did not. He whipped my young ass. This was the Sutton case, a classic society killing. Is that a blank look? Babs Sutton, department store heiress? No? How soon they forget. Jesus, that whole world is gone. Cafe society, so called. In any case, Babs, or as the society columns used to say, the Princess Radetsky, was married to this playboy, Prince Ladislas Radetsky, and of course the prince continued to play, and Babs found him in their suite at the Waldorf, on top of a sixteen-year-old whore. She took out, if you can believe it, her pearl-handled.32 and gave him five through the chest.”

“She walked on this?”

“Oh, yeah. Waley gave them the defending the sanctity of the home horseshit. Driven to madness by the violation of the nuptial bed was how he put it. Had a jury full of decent Catholic women too, and he dressed the defendant like an understudy for the Little Flower. Oh, it was rare! My mistake was thinking that the facts spoke for themselves. Wrong, at least with Waley. You’re sure you don’t want to think it over?” He shot Karp another gunsight look over the cigar.

“No, and this is going to be a team thing too. I don’t intend to do it all myself.”

“Oh, well, that’s a relief,” said Keegan and laughed. “Jesus! Well, I knew you were a stubborn Jew son of a bitch when I hired you. I have only myself to blame. What I should do is call Marlene and get her to bang on your head. How is she, by the way?”

“Fine, I guess. We tend to pass in the night.”

“I presume she’s still … you know.” He made a shooting gesture with his hand.

“Uh-huh. Apparently the business is flourishing.”

Keegan shook his head. “What a world! And her a mother with three children!”

“What can I say, Jack? It’s important to her. I’m married to her. I love her. Case closed.”

“Well, yes,” said Keegan. “I didn’t mean to pry. Except, if there’s any mercy left in the world, the next time she shoots someone, it’ll be in Brooklyn. Outside the fucking County of New York.”

“It’s my daily prayer,” said Karp.

Marlene Ciampi, wife of Karp, was at that moment standing in a shop in Chinatown buying a dozen pork kidneys for her dog, with any thoughts of shooting, in Manhattan or elsewhere, far from her mind. The dog, a Neapolitan mastiff only somewhat smaller than a Shetland pony, was outside on the sidewalk, slavering. Marlene’s daughter, Lucy, aged eight, was wandering through the rear of the store, where the butcher shop faded into a dusty sundries emporium. Marlene watched the counterman wrap her dog food, feeling, as ever, the pang of guilt that came from purchasing for this purpose meat meant for Chinese humans. And she knew the counterman knew it, although the hostile glare with which he greeted her was no different from the same expression worn by nearly all of the merchants in the little Mott Street shops when they had to deal with the guai lo , the white ghosts.