Robert Tanenbaum: Resolved

The governor was late. No governor, no ceremony; the distinguished people gathered in the private office of the district attorney muttered to themselves and to their pals. They brought out their cell phones and their Date Minders and juggled their schedules. The office buzzed with talk, quiet or annoyingly loud, directed at people not physically present, so that the place took on the appearance of a day room in a mental institution. The DA himself, John X. Keegan, did not talk on either a cell or a regular phone, but simply relaxed, smiling, a drink in his big fist, and chatted quietly to a small group of men who were too big to bother about their own schedules. Keegan wore a wide white smile on his broad red face. It had hardly been off that face (not even in slumber) since he had gotten the news of his appointment some months ago. Today was his last day as district attorney after nearly a decade on the job. He was going to become a federal judge, a lifetime's ambition, or rather an important step toward his real ambition. It had never escaped Jack Keegan's notice that Chief Justice Earl Warren had started as a DA.

One other person in the room, now slouched against a corner of the long conference table in the center of the office, was equally unconcerned with schedules. His own smile was thin and a little false, because he disliked events of this kind. Even slouching, he was the tallest person in the room (at six-five), well-knit, and still athletic in these, his middle years. He had a peculiar flat, sallow face, close-cropped brown hair just starting to show gray on the sides, and eyes set slightly aslant over strong cheekbones. These eyes were his signal feature apart from his hugeness: bright, inquisitive, don't-fuck-with-me eyes, gray in color, shot with flecks of gold. An ethnologist observing the room as if it contained a herd of beasts would have noted that this tall man, like the DA, occupied the center of a circulation, a node of power. People came up to him, said a few words, smiled harder at him than he did at them, and were gently pressed away by others. The man's name was Roger Karp, called Butch by everyone, and he was the chief assistant district attorney, the operational leader of the six hundred or so lawyers who prosecuted criminal cases in the County of New York.

Taking advantage of an interval in which no one was in his face, Karp walked over to a window and peered out into the gathering gloom. It was snowing harder. Fat white flakes descended from the dust bunny-colored sky, obscuring the dun buildings across the street. This was why the governor was late.

Karp checked his watch. Clearly the goddamn thing would not begin at two, as scheduled. As if answering his unspoken desire to know when it would start, someone dinged on a glass. The governor's advance person, a thin redhead in a bright red suit, announced that both Teterboro and La Guardia Airports were socked, JFK was iffy, and so the governor's plane had been cleared for MacArthur Field, farther out on the island. He'd be landing shortly and would then come into the city by car. Regrets. The weather. If you'd all reassemble at four…

Murmurs and sighs from the crowd, which began to move toward the door, the juniors swiftly, the elders with more stately pace.

"He'd better use the Batmobile," said a voice at Karp's elbow: Murrow, his special assistant. "Can you imagine what the express-way's going to be like in this weather?"

"He's the governor, he'll find a way," said Karp, casting an eye over the man's outfit and frowning. "What is that you're wearing, Murrow?"

"This? A Harris tweed jacket, whipcord slacks, a Brooks shirt and tie. Why?"

"I mean that," said Karp, pointing.

"Oh, you mean this plum-colored velvet waistcoat, with gilt buttons. It's seasonal."

"So is a Santa suit, but we don't usually wear them in the courthouse."

"I could rush home through the freezing snow and change into something more funereal. Have I made you ashamed of me? Again?"

"A little. Look, I'm going to go hide in my office. Spread the word that I'm out of the building. Tell Flynn to hold the calls, too. Except from my family."

Karp glowered in a friendly way and vanished more easily than you would have thought possible for someone that large. His office was across the hall from the DA's, and its door had a jolly wreath on it, like all the others in the suite. Karp frowned at the wreath, went in, took off his sufficiently funereal navy pin-striped jacket, and sat down in his big black judge's chair. He swiveled and faced the window.

For a while he amused himself by seeing how long he could keep a single snowflake in focus. The burble of voices outside declined in volume. Karp knew that there would be a coven of old pols gathered around Keegan, sipping discreetly at his scotch, glad of the unscheduled demiholiday. They would be stroking or stinging one another in the ancient old-pol way. When pressed, Karp knew he could slip into that style and stroke and sting with the best of them, establishing himself as an in-guy, as he would clearly have to do now that Keegan was going. The difference was that, unlike Jack Keegan, he didn't love it. He sucked no nectar from the schmoozefests. They left him drained and irritable, as now. If he were a little more paranoid than he was (which was more paranoid than most people not actually on lithium), he would have imagined that Jack had done it for just that reason: to make him writhe. He leaned forward and pressed his nose against the glass. The streetlights were already on, made into haloes by the snow. The glass was cold. A chill ran across his shoulders, and he got up to put on his jacket. It was colder in his office than it had been this morning, and he recalled something, a memo, about the building's boilers being replaced over the Christmas break. They must have already started the work.

A sharp rap on the door. "Go away!" he said, too low to be heard. Murrow appeared. He whipped neatly through the doorway and pulled it closed in one motion, like a character in a farce. He was holding an irregularly shaped object draped in a bar towel. This he deposited on Karp's credenza, and drew away the draping with a flourish, revealing a plastic tray with a bottle and two snifter glasses on it.

"What's that?"

"It's cognac," said Murrow. "It's a kind of liquor made from wine."

"I know what cognac is. You know I don't drink."

"You can learn how. In exchange for everything you've taught me over the years. It's only fair." He shivered. "My God, it's freezing in here! Can't you turn up the heat?"

"They're fixing the boilers."

"Well, we'll certainly be perfectly Dickensian by the time the gov gets here." He uncorked the cognac and poured a generous slug into each glass. "Aren't you sorry now you don't have a cozy plum-colored waistcoat?"

Murrow sat on the worn leather couch across from Karp's desk and raised his glass. "To the future, or at least to an end to this horrible year!"

"Oh, I'll drink to that," said Karp, sipping. A surprise: the liquor was stingingly warm, and seemed to expand like a gas into his sinuses. He held the glass balloon up to the light. "This isn't bad. It doesn't have that boozy taste."

"No. Mr. Hennessy has it removed when he puts the XO on the bottle. It's the beverage of the ruling class. You should get used to it."

"I can live without it," said Karp, taking another small sip. His face became warm. The roiling in his gut, which had begun with his awakening that morning, diminished.

"Again?" asked Murrow, holding out the bottle, grinning.

"Sure. Why not? Jack and his pals are hitting the scotch in there. We might as well all get loaded. When the governor gets here we can all lean against each other and sway."