Robert Tanenbaum - Enemy within

"Shit!" said Marlene. "Oh, shut it off!"

Karp did. "It's a dangerous place."

"Yeah, but, not to be self-centered, he's also a client of ours. I think we're providing security for that trip. Oleg must be throwing up. Christ, they'll probably delay this goddamn IPO now, and we'll have to go through the whole thing again from scratch."

"Well, now that you're in such a good mood," Karp said, "I should tell you that Zak got into another fight today."

"Oh, for the love of Christ! Is he okay?"

"A shiner. I spoke to him sternly. He was protecting Giancarlo, which I thought was at least mildly exculpatory, but I suggested to him that a quick trigger for violence was not a successful life strategy in the long run."

"Is that a sly dig, my sweet?"

"Not at all, my angel," replied Karp with a straight face. "You're a responsible corporate executive and a model of civility. Who was the woman, by the way?"

"What woman?"

"The one who kept you from the bosom of your family until the middle of the night."

"Oh, that one. It was Sybil Marshak, as a matter of fact."

"No kidding? What did she want?"

"She…" But at that moment the boys arrived and swarmed their mother, full of the news, questions, arguments, stupid riddles, and small-boy presence, demanding and tender. She dispensed maternal being for half an hour and then rousted them off to bath and bed, at which time they both regressed five years, as they usually did, and she indulged herself in the hidden romance, her chief joy nowadays, truth to tell, and all the sweeter for the knowledge that it would not last much longer. She stroked, she talked, she read from the current favorite (The Hobbit), she answered the questions that baffled the great thinkers, about death, heaven, God, and kissed them good-night, whispering into their ears her secret name for each, which, she thought, they had not ever shared, not even with each other.

By the time she was through, Karp was in bed. She undressed and climbed in with him.

"You were saying?"

"Was I? Oh, right: Sybil Marshak. You know who she is, obviously."

"Runs the West Side Dems."

"Yeah. The last person I expected to see. You ever meet her?"

"Just to handshake, and to receive compliments on my extraordinary physical beauty. Jack and she are fairly close. It's hard to get on a state ticket under the D. column without Sybil. What did she want?"

"She says she's being stalked."

"Stalked, huh? Those damn Republicans!"

"Hot flashes, more likely."

"It's not legit?"

"I don't know yet, but it doesn't look like a serious case. There's no specific guy involved, just feelings, doors slamming in the parking garage, phone calls that hang up, seeing the same person on the street at the same time every day. No letters, no recordings, no physical evidence at all…"

"What, she's nuts?"

"I wouldn't go that far. If you rub my back, I'll be your friend for life… Oh, thank you. Great." After silence interrupted by sighs of pleasure, talking into the pillow. "Anyway we get people in there a lot, in VIP, mostly women, I'm sorry to say, but some men, too. Famous, right? Rich. They're not supposed to have any problems. But actually they're under a lot of stress. Okay, they got the pills, they got the therapist, they got the sex and the toys. But still there's this panic-'Oh, am I worthy, oh, will I lose it all?' And eventually it comes out. They go agoraphobic, or they can't fly in planes anymore, or they get all compulsive. Sometimes it comes out in paranoia, which is what I think we got here."

"So what did you tell her?"

"I said we'd watch her for a couple of days, a week, see if anything jumped out. I also advised her to get rid of her gun."

"Sybil Marshak packs heat?"

"Unfortunately, yes. Got a license and everything, which is no surprise: she could get a city license to do pedophilia in public. I tried to convey to her the downsides of firearms, accidents and so forth, but she's a hardhead. She really thinks someone's after her. She insisted I take care of her personally."

"Which you refused."

"Which I accepted. It struck me today that if I don't get out of the office once in a while, I am going to go batshit."

"No guns, right?"

"Oh, put a cork in it! No, all's I'm going to do is watch her back for a day or so, with a light team, see if I see any characters hanging around her I don't like. I'll put a trace on her phone, too, talk to her building-the usual. Min Dykstra can run the place perfectly well for a couple of days, I mean the bureaucratic stuff, and it'll make Lou happy. He likes me to mingle with the great and near great."

"Speaking of greatness, when is this stock thing coming off?"

"Oh, I don't want to talk about it!" Marlene groaned. "In fact, technically, I'm not allowed to talk about any of it. Ha! I love when the law demands behavior I would do anyway. Virtue without pain." Some silence here.

"Is that still my back you're rubbing?" she asked with a small gasp.

"Not technically, no."

The following morning, whatever good mood Karp had brought to the day from the high jinks of the previous night was dissipated by the news Murrow brought.

"He can't be serious," said Karp.

"Apparently he is. The grand jury is scheduled for tomorrow. My new friend Flatow intends to waltz in there, call Cooley, call Nash, call the guy from the ME, and that's it. No homicide investigators."

"Did you ask him why?"

"In a roundabout way. He said Catafalco told him that it would be a waste of time because it would just confirm the testimony of the two officers."

"Oh, Christ! Did you get the report?"

"No, Flatow just had the precis from headquarters. Apparently he handed it over to Catafalco and hasn't seen it since."

"And he didn't think it was important enough to ask for?"

"Um, not really. George is a follow-orders kind of guy. A stamp collector, by the way. He has a nearly complete set of British Empire Trinidad and Tobago." Murrow vamped extreme ennui. "Tell me I don't have to keep hanging out with him."

"If you didn't want to be bored shitless, you shouldn't have become a lawyer."

"I'm sorry-everything I know I learned from TV. Who are you calling?"

"Catafalco," said Karp, punching a speed-dial button. He waited. Murrow heard: "Butch Karp. Is Lou in?… Yes, I would… Lou?… Yeah, fine. Look, Lou, on that Cooley thing, do you think you could shoot the homicide report on that over to me?… Because I want to read it, Lou… Uh-huh… Fuller is handling it? What does that mean, Fuller is handling it?… Uh-huh. Yeah, I see. Okay, Lou, right. I understand… Uh-huh. Right, talk to you later." Slam of the phone. "Fuck!"

"Uh-oh," said Murrow.

"Uh-oh is right." Karp knitted his hands behind his head and leaned back in his tall judge's chair. After a minute or so of silence, during which his assistant could practically see the gears whirling behind his eyes, Karp said, "Murrow, this is an interesting situation. My colleague Mr. Fuller has informed one of our fine bureau chiefs that all matters to do with the appearance of Detective Cooley before the grand jury are to be referred to him and to no one else. The question I put to you is, what is my play in response?"

Murrow waited a beat to see whether this was a rhetorical question. Karp's gaze told him it was not. He answered, "Well, in the first place, it's a big incursion on your authority. You're chief for operations, he's chief for admin. This is clearly part of an operation, so-"

"But is it? Public relations comes under admin. Cooley's is a case that might have a major impact on the office's public image. And the DA's political future. Not a bright line, at least not to Fuller."

"Then you should go to the DA, grab up Fuller, and duke it out."