Robert Tanenbaum - Resolved

"What's the alternative? The Star Chamber?"

"Yes, that's what you guys always say, although we have no evidence at all that the Star Chamber was any less unjust than trial by jury. The reason they invented juries in the first place was so that the English barons could do what they damn well pleased and be tried by their pals instead of having to face the king's justice. It's designed to give the rich a better break than the poor- that's what it's fucking for."

"Commie pinko atheist slut," said Guma. "I guess the way they do it in Red China is better."

"No, but the Euros get by without juries very well, thank you, and their crime rates are a tenth what ours are."

"That's a non sequitur," said Karp. "The crime rate has nothing to do with juries."

"No, but it's got to have something to do with your fucked-up system. Hey, you want to warehouse a third of the black male population? Go right ahead! But don't dress it up like it's justice."

"Oh," said Guma, "now she's gonna go with the oppressed minorities. Wait a second, let me get out my towel."

"Asshole! Tell him he's an asshole, Karp."

Karp, who had occasionally entertained private flashes of the type the reporter was expressing, said nothing, but took refuge in aphorism: "The law is born from despair about human nature: Ortega y Gasset," he intoned, which put a temporary stopper on the conversation. After a moment, Karp said to Murrow, "Listen, go find that woman from the governor's office and get a straight answer out of her about if and when this thing is going to start."

Marlene spent a reasonably pleasant hour watching Zak conquer Asia on the computer, and listening to Giancarlo play some new songs and watching him demonstrate a device that read pages in a book and spoke the text in a creaky mechanical voice. As she had promised, she did not break down. Around noon, Lucy and Dan emerged from the guest room, hand in hand. Marlene observed that her daughter's mouth, already generous, seemed puffed across half her face and that her normally dull skin shone with a milky light, except for the numerous red marks. Lucy engineered a lunch: cold shrimp quiche, salad, and white wine for the big people, zapped frozen tacos and lemonade for the boys. Giancarlo valiantly charmed and, Marlene noted with pleasure, Dan Heeney stepped up to the plate and batted a few long balls in that department, too. An excellent addition to the Karp family, she thought, and would get along fine with whichever respectable woman Karp would next take up with.

After that it was time to get ready. Marlene bathed in the big tub she had made long ago out of a black rubber electroplating bath she had found onsite when she'd first taken this loft. What a long time ago it seemed, before SoHo, before Karp and the children, before the first killing. She stayed in the bath for a long time, not long enough to wash her sins away, but long enough to have a good silent weep, and to prompt her daughter to tap discreetly on the door.

She dressed in baggy slacks of heavy, braided black silk, tucked into knee boots and a long wool tunic that buttoned down the front. By the time she emerged from the bedroom, the family was dressed and ready, the boys looking strangely unformed in jacket and tie, Lucy surprisingly elegant in the little black number.

"Don't rush," said Lucy. "I called. Flynn said the whole thing's been delayed for a couple of hours."

Murrow returned five minutes later. "They're setting up the cameras again," said Murrow. "The man is entering the building as we speak. They're saying half an hour."

Stupenagel slid out of Karp's chair and turned toward the window. "And the snow seems to be letting up. I can see across the square now." She stepped back and checked her reflection in the glass. She hiked her skirt up and around and tucked in her shirt, then reached into her bag and brought out a compact, which she flipped open.

Guma said. "If you're gonna shave your legs, Stupenagel, I believe I'll ask to be excused."

"I never shave my legs," she replied, examining herself critically in the mirror. She wielded a hairbrush. "I have a Moldavian who likes to yank the hairs out with his teeth, one by one."

The three men watched as she whipped through a quick and efficient toilette, finishing with a blast of breath spray. She looked as though she had been supping tea and ladyfingers for the past three hours, rather than guzzling large quantities of assorted alcohols.

"Well, boys, I think I'll circulate and collect lies. Thanks for the drinks and the philosophy." She hoisted her bag onto her shoulder.

"Aren't you going to take your underpants?" Murrow asked grumpily.

She fixed him with a look down her long nose, one that made Murrow acutely aware of how much taller she was than he. "And what underpants would those be, sir?"

"The ones on the sprinkler head."

She made a show of peering at them. "Lovely. What makes you think I tossed them up there?"

"What makes me think…? Jesus, Stupenagel, I saw you yank them off and throw them."

"Yet another demonstration of the unreliability of the eyewitness. In an alcohol-driven sex fantasy, you imagined me removing my underwear and tossing it up there, but in fact I am wearing the pair I set out with this morning. Would you like to check?"

"Yes!"

"Care to put some money on it, sonny? Say a hundred bucks my loins are enclosed in a pair of chaste and hygienic Hanes cottons, in black?"

Murrow looked desperately at Guma and Karp; the former was intently examining the damp tip of his cigar, the latter made an almost imperceptible negative motion of his head.

"I've been set up," said Murrow.

"I don't know what you're talking about, dear boy," she said, "but clearly you're not about to put your money where your mouth is, so I will bid you all a temporary adieu. Butch, if your lovely bride shows up, tell her I said hi, and to give me a call sometime. Guma, let me know when you die, okay? I'll send a wreath."

She left. Both Guma and Murrow blew kisses at the door. Karp sat down behind his desk and said, "Listen, both of you: speaking of being set up, why am I getting these weird looks whenever any of the big boys mentions me being the DA?"

"Weird looks?" asked Murrow.

"Yeah. Like they all know something I don't know. What is it, I'm going to be standing up there being sworn in and a big bucket of blood is going to come down on my head like in Carrie? What?"

"That must be about the pool," said Murrow after a nervous silence.

"What pool?"

"The one about how long you'll last before fucking up so bad politically that the governor can ask you to resign with no shit sticking to him."

"Oh," said Karp. "Why didn't you tell me about this before?"

"I thought you'd disapprove. I mean, of my involvement."

"In the pool? You're betting I'm going to get canned?"

"No, I'm running the pool. I'm taking the bets. The line is fifteen to one you won't last the year, and forty to one you won't win election if you run."

"I'll take some of that action," said Guma and laughed, and then Murrow joined him and finally Karp, who said, "Tell me, does Jack Keegan have any money in the pool?"

"Yeah, but he's picking up some of my risk. Like me, he thinks you'll hang in there."

"That's a surprise."

"No it ain't," said Guma confidently. "Keegan knows he's a twisty, ambitious prick, but he also knows that you're the closest thing to a reincarnation of Francis Phillip Garrahy that he's likely to see in this life. And he loved Phil. As long as it doesn't hurt his ambitions he'd like to see one like him in the DA. Which is why he's kept you around all these years, and protected you, when it would've been a lot better for him to have given you the boot. And why he used a bunch of chips with the party of evil to get you the appointment. You didn't realize this?"