Robert Tanenbaum - No Lesser Plea

“I don’t know, and to be perfectly honest, I don’t care. I am out of here in two weeks.”

“Oh, when did this happen?”

“I gave him my notice today. I’m going over to work for Judge Calabrese in Appeals.”

“Good for you. You get a better class of people over there.”

She regarded him coldly. “I’ll say. It wouldn’t be hard either. You’d better go in.”

Cheeseborough was sitting behind a massive wooden desk as Karp entered. As usual, he made the visitor wait while he shuffled papers. He had a round head perched on a round body, with skinny arms and legs and white, papery skin. He was nearly bald, but kept a patch of graying hair combed up over his dome, which, by day’s end, was usually pointing straight up, specked with dandruff. Because of this appearance and his personality, he was universally known around 10 °Centre Street as the Mad Onion.

Karp was not invited to sit down. Eventually, the Onion looked up, took in Karp’s unpleasant height with his small and malevolent blue eyes, and said, “Who do you think you are?”

“What do you mean?”

Color began to rise in the Onion’s papery cheeks. “You know damn well what I mean. All of you. Who do you think you are, seducing my secretary? She’s leaving. Quitting, and she was just learning where everything was. I won’t have it!”

“Um … Mister Cheeseborough, have you spoken to Miss Kimple about this?”

“Of course I’ve spoken with Miss Kimple. She won’t say anything. Oh, no! She’s leaving for ‘personal reasons.’ My Aunt Fanny! One of you seduced her and then you dumped her, she’s probably knocked up in the bargain, and that’s why she’s leaving.” The Onion was on a roll now, waggling his roots about and filling the air above his head with tiny white flakes. “And I’ll tell you something else. One of you seduced my last secretary, too. She left. Oh, you think I don’t know what goes on. I’ve seen you all making goo-goo eyes at her, and filthy remarks.” He glared at Karp and clenched his tiny fists.

“Mister Cheeseborough, when you say ‘you,’ to whom are you referring? Me, personally, or some larger group?”

“Don’t give me that! You’re all in it together. You, and that clown, Guma, and that wise-ass Newbury, and that what’s-his-name, that goddam Hungarian …”

“Hrcany?”

“Yeah, him.”

“Well, Mister Cheeseborough, I don’t know what to say. As you point out, we have no evidence that Miss Kimple is pregnant, still less that any staff attorneys have, ah, interfered with her. I can only give you my personal assurances …”

The Onion interrupted with a snarl, “Oh cut out this legalistic bullshit! I know what I know. I been around a long time, and let me warn all of you-I don’t get mad, I get even.”

More jiggling, more dandruff. The shoulders of the Onion’s blue serge suit were covered with a dusting of it, like the windowsills of a building being sandblasted. Karp glanced discreetly at his watch.

“I’m sorry you feel that way, Mister Cheeseborough. Perhaps you could file a complaint of statutory rape on the grounds that Miss Kimple has the mind of a four-year-old girl. And now, I have to go. I have an appointment with Mister Conlin in five minutes.”

The Onion gaped like a fish. Karp nodded curtly and left at a fair rate of speed. Through the closed door he heard the Onion’s cry, “Hey, wait you, wait … ”As Karp took the stairs to the sixth floor two at a time, he considered that he had substantially singed his bridges behind him. The Onion could make things nasty for him. If the fix was in for the homicide job, there wasn’t a hell of a lot he could do, except screw up paperwork and delay things a bit. If it wasn’t, Karp was dead meat.

“You must be Roger Karp,” said John Conlin’s secretary. “Mister Conlin is expecting you. I’ll tell him you’re here.” She picked up her phone and did so, then smiled and motioned Karp through the anteroom. “Down the hall, first left, then to the end of the hallway. Good luck.” Friendly. Efficient. Not pregnant by attorney or attorneys unknown. Class.

John Conlin’s office was not quite as large or luxurious as the offices of officials are in the movies, but it was a good start. The desk was made of dark wood, as was the long boardroom table. There were two large windows, with blinds and curtains. If you looked out, you could see Chinatown. One wall had built-in bookcases filled with law books and bound transcripts of trials. The other wall was almost solid with framed plaques and letters commemorating twenty-five years of good deeds and useful connections; also pictures of Conlin at various stages of his life, in association with the great or notorious. There was one newspaper picture of Conlin-looking about as old as Karp now was-in the company of two uniformed cops and a gentleman who was trying hard not to be photographed. With a shock, Karp recognized him as one of the founders of Murder, Incorporated.

The present-day Conlin was moving around his big desk, hand outstretched. “Hi. I’m Jack Conlin. They call you Butch, right? Thanks for coming by. Sit.”

They shook hands and sat at opposite ends of a black Chesterfield couch set along the wall under the frames. Conlin was a large man with high coloring and longish silvery hair swept back from a broad forehead. He had pale-blue eyes that crinkled when he smiled and perfect small white teeth, which he flashed a lot. He looked like a movie version of a slick Irish pol. In fact, he was a slick Irish pol, but he also was one of the smartest prosecuting attorneys in the United States.

He gestured to the news photograph. “You know who that is?” he asked. Karp nodded. “My first big one,” Conlin said. “He used to put them under the asphalt while they were building the Belt Parkway. I think about him every time I drive to Brooklyn.” He gave Karp an appraising stare. “I hear you used to play some ball.”

“Some.”

“That’s good. You’ll find a lot of the best DAs are former athletes. The competitive instinct.” He smiled some teeth.

Karp knew he was supposed to ask if Conlin had played ball and where, and he did, and got Conlin’s version of what football was like at Fordham back in the forties. Then the conversation got around to sports in general and how the Knicks were doing great that year, and whether the Yankees had a chance, and what was wrong with college basketball in the city, and then drifted imperceptibly from winning games to winning cases.

Somewhere in the middle of the conversation Conlin started using phrases like, “now that you’re part of the team here,” and “after you’ve been working homicide awhile.” Karp began to realize, with some irritation creeping into his original delight, that everything had been arranged on the unseen levels of power. He was not sure he liked being moved around like a piece on a game board.

“Umm … Mister Conlin, are you telling me that you want me to work in Homicide?”

Conlin seemed surprised. “Hell, yes. It’s all set up. You do want the job, don’t you?”

“Oh, sure, of course. I just wanted to know the details, and all.”

“Nothing to worry about, we’ll take care of the paper shuffling from this end. We’ll be having our regular meeting next Thursday; that’ll be a good time for you to start.” Conlin stood up. Karp stood up. They shook hands. Conlin said he looked forward to working with Karp. Karp made an appropriate parting mumble and found himself once more in the outer office.

Karp said to no one in particular, “Holy Shit, I’m in.” A stifled laugh made him turn around. Conlin’s secretary said, “Congratulations. However, it seems your former boss is not so anxious to let you go. He called while you were in there and said for you to report to the Complaint Room for duty tonight.”