Robert Tanenbaum - No Lesser Plea

Karp was shuffling papers, looking again for a file that obviously was not there, when Ray Guma tapped his shoulder.

“Hey, Butch,” he said with a grin, “what’s with all these rumors I’m hearing about you moving up to the big time?”

“What rumors are those, Ray?”

McFarley said, “The People versus Lasser. Defendant Adrienne Lasser, please step forward. Charged with possession of marijuana.”

Guma said, “Cut the crap, Butchie. They picked you for one of the new slots in Homicide.”

The judge asked, “What is the defendant’s motion?”

The Legal Aid lawyer, a chubby blonde kid about six weeks out of law school, scanned the bleachers for his client, then turned to Yergin in embarrassment. “Ah … Your Honor, Your Honor … my client, ah, the defendant was here just a minute ago.”

Karp said, “The People are ready, Your Honor.”

“Thank you, Mister Karp,” replied Yergin. He peered down at the defense attorney. “Do we have a defendant yet?”

“No, Your Honor, ah … I believe she may have gone to the bathroom.”

“I see. Would the clerk kindly find the defendant?” Before McFarley could move, however, the Legal Aid man had dashed full-speed down the center aisle, crying: “No, I’ll get her, I’ll get her.”

Guma cupped his hands around his mouth to imitate a crowd’s chanting: “DE-fense, DE-fense, DE-fense.” The courtroom rippled with giggles.

Two sharp raps came from Yergin’s gavel. “Mister Guma, do you have any business in this court? Part Two A of the Criminal Court? Of New York?”

“Your Honor, my colleague has solicited my advice on a fine point of criminal law,” Guma replied.

“I find that most unlikely, Mr. Guma,” and then, turning to McFarley, “It appears that our defendant has released herself on her own recognizance. Bench warrant issued. Next case.”

Karp said, “Look, Ray, I’m working …”

“OK, Butch, just two things: first, Conlin wants to see you after court today-hey, hey, hey!” He raised his elbow and swung his hand vigorously from the wrist-the classic New Yorker’s gesture for striking it rich. “Second thing is, we are all going out for dinner at Cella’s tonight, to celebrate.” He flung a salute at Karp, and at the frowning Yergin, then trotted off.

John Conlin was the Homicide Bureau chief, and a reputed ball-buster. That was OK. Karp wasn’t afraid of work and knew he was good. He looked forward to the interview.

McFarley called the next case and Karp slipped back into gear. Assault, no priors, steady job, released on own recognizance. Maybe the guy would show for the trial, maybe not. You had to play the odds if you were a judge. You had to keep the jail space free for the real bastards, which meant that the average lawbreaker was in small jeopardy of spending any time locked up. Each year tens of thousands of people were released on their own recognizance; thousands were never heard from again, unless they were arrested on another charge. It was every judge’s secret fear that he would walk some bozo who would later turn up on the front page of the Daily News as a gently smiling mass murderer. It happened, but there was nothing you could do about it. ROR was the Drano of the criminal justice system.

Thirty-two cases later it was noon, and Yergin recessed the court for two hours. Karp gathered his stack of papers and left the courtroom. It was lunch-time in the Streets of Calcutta. People were eating snack-bar specials out of greasy paper containers. An immense Puerto Rican woman was feeding her three children on Twinkies and Pepsi. Karp steered through the mob to a bank of pay phones and called a couple of witnesses who hadn’t shown that morning. One of them was the woman who had appeared five times and had been sent home five times when the defense had asked for an adjournment. Karp convinced her that this time she would get to testify, and arranged for a cop to pick her up at her office. The other one had left town; they didn’t know when he would be back. Scratch that case.

After dumping his papers in his cubicle, Karp took the elevator down to the ground floor and walked out of the courthouse into the real world. It was still spring. Foley Square was full of lunchtime strollers.

Karp walked across the square to a food vendor and joined the line of customers. He was something of a connoisseur of New York street food, since he bought most of his weekday meals off wheeled vehicles of one kind or another. He knew that all Sabrett carts were not equal. He sought out the ones that grilled the hot dogs before putting them in the steam box, so that the skin became crisp and chewy; the ones that had fresh, steam-soft buns, and crisp hot sauerkraut, and real deli mustard. He knew one guy who sold real potato knishes with paper-thin layers of pastry over peppery filling, not the usual hard square kind that looked and tasted like brake pads for a heavy truck.

Today he ordered three hot dogs, mustard and kraut, a salted pretzel, also with mustard, and a can of orange soda. He ate standing at the curb, his fellow citizens flowing past him like breakers around a jetty. Karp ate the hot dogs with four chomps each. Garbage, but good garbage. He drank his soda and walked back up to the courthouse chewing on the pretzel. Elapsed time for lunch: fifteen minutes.

He went back to his office to familiarize himself with the afternoon’s cases. The offices given to assistant district attorneys in the Criminal Courts Bureau were not elegant; strictly speaking, they were not offices either, just glassed-in cubicles, each containing a file cabinet, a gray metal desk, a swivel chair designed to produce hemorrhoids as quickly as possible, and a wooden chair for visitors. Karp had just begun reading when a knock on the frosted glass made him look up. It was Tom Pagano, the Legal Aid bureau chief for the Criminal Court and responsible for the hundred-odd public defenders who were Karp’s usual adversaries. Karp tried to think of what case on the day’s calendar would merit a personal visit from the captain of the opposing team.

“Hello, Tom. Hey, if this is about the Rankin mugging, I told your boy we’re going for trial on the armed charge. No copping to larceny anymore for this baby …”

Pagano waved his hands to shut Karp off. “Stop, stop, this has nothing to do with any defense case. Can I sit down for a sec?”

“Sure, what’s it about?”

Pagano sat down in the hard wooden chair. He was a stocky, well-groomed man of about forty, with short dark hair, swarthy skin, and high cheekbones. He stared at Karp for a moment with large, intelligent eyes, as if undecided about whether to proceed. Finally he said, “I’ve got a case for you.”

Karp grinned. “Sure. You have a hundred and fifty cases for me every day. So what else is new?”

Pagano didn’t return the smile. “No, this is serious, and frankly I’m coming to you personally, rather than going through the system, because you seem like somebody who cares about people getting fucked over, which is what we have here.”

“I’m listening,” said Karp.

The other man took a folded sheet-from a yellow legal pad-out of his breast pocket and consulted it.

“Four kids-Sheldon Goldstein, Victor Cruz, Willie Martinez, and Tony Ocha-were remanded to the Narcotics Addiction Control Commission Center in West Harlem in December of last year. Two weeks ago they tried to escape, unsuccessfully. They want to press charges against the guards who captured them.”

“Brutality? Against guards in the course of an escape attempt? Tom, give me a break.”

“Yeah, I know, but this is a real one. Look, do one thing for me. I’ve got them in a pen on the fourth floor. Come down and listen to their story.”

A few minutes later, Karp, feeling like a sucker, was sitting in a questioning room across a battered oak table from Sheldon Goldstein. Pagano was leaning against the wall near the door. In a corner sat Hal Dooley, a detective assigned to the DA’s office for investigations. Karp had worked with Dooley before; the two men respected one another, but Dooley was the kind of cop who trusted only cops, preferably those over forty-five. He thought the country was going to the dogs. It was obvious from the expression on his face that he thought Goldstein was one of the dogs.