Robert Tanenbaum - Enemy within

"Okay, but think how that would play. I go in there whining that Catafalco's keeping the homicide report to himself because Fuller told him to. Fuller smiles his rat smile and says, 'Oh, Butch, I didn't mean you. Of course, you can read it. I just didn't want to read about it in the papers until the legal process is complete. I mean, grand jury proceedings are supposed to be secret, aren't they? I'm trying to control copies,' and so on and so forth. So I look like a turf-covering whiner, and I wasted the DA's time, one; and, two, suppose I do look at the homicide report and I say, 'Whoa, this is a fishy shooting.' What happens then?"

"You pull the case off the schedule until we figure out how to handle it."

"Uh-huh, but that lands us back in the DA's office again. Now we have to look at the DA's motivation."

"Which is…?"

"Ah, now you have me. What is, in fact, going on in the tortured soul of Jack Keegan? Here we have a confident and talented public figure, a man who aspires to greatness. Unfortunately, he spent his formative years under the influence of a man who was undeniably great, and who had what was basically a very simple soul. Francis P. Garrahy just knew what was right and just did it. He wasn't perfect, of course; maybe sometimes he wasn't even right. But when he did decide that something was right, he had absolutely no doubt about what to do. Jack isn't like that. He lives in a world that's a lot more complex than the one Garrahy lived in, and it worries him. And he's ambitious in a way that Garrahy never was. Garrahy thought that just being the best district attorney in the history of the world was a pretty good deal. Jack wants to sit on the Supreme Court someday, and it colors his every decision. Be warned, Murrow: if you want a pure heart, eschew ambition."

"Like you?"

"We're not talking about me, though," said Karp a little sharply. "So… Jack is serving two masters-his sense of decency that he learned at Phil Garrahy's knee, and the demon ambition. As we're in an election year, the demon has got a lot more power, which is why Norton Fuller is being jacked up to his present influence. Jack wants to think that because he's got me in there, the great traditions of the office are being maintained, and meanwhile Fuller will handle the dirty jobs, with Jack sort of not knowing what's going on."

"You think Mr. Keegan is in on this business with Cooley?"

"Good question. He's in but not in. Fuller would never throw his weight around with Catafalco like he's doing unless he thought he had backing from Jack. But Jack hasn't actually told him to do anything. He doesn't need to. Fuller's skill is knowing when Jack needs faintly stinky stuff done on his behalf without having to be told. Okay, now let's say I go in there and say, 'Jack, this grand jury case is fucked-the shooting stinks.' Fuller then says, 'That's a matter of opinion, Jack, but what's sure as God's green apples is that if we come down hard on Cooley, we will lose the police unions, and the election.' Jack turns his noble head and looks at me. Now, what's my play?"

"I have no idea."

"Then listen and be enlightened. I have two alternatives. One, I can let Fuller roll me, which would mean he could roll me at will in the future, which means that my usefulness to Jack and this office would be at an end. Or I could say, 'Jack, if you do this, I will resign in protest, go to the press, make a stink.' In which case, I'm out of a job I can do better than anyone else on the horizon, and which Jack and the office badly needs. So for me, and for what I still pretend are the higher values of the New York DA, it's lose-lose. This was a conclusion also arrived at by the nuclear powers. I have the H-bomb, but I don't use it. It gives me status and leverage, but not control. And therefore…?"

"And therefore you will avoid such a confrontation."

Karp grinned. "Very good, Murrow. We'll make a conspirator of you yet."

"My boyhood dream. Meanwhile, what do we do?"

"Oh, I'll think of something. But before I get any further into it, I need to get my hands on that report. Make it happen."

Sybil Marshak lived in the Wyoming, a famous pile of rococo white limestone on Central Park West in the Eighties. Marlene picked up the surveillance a little after four, having spent the day flashing false smiles at a covey of investment bankers, literally on Wall Street. The Osborne agent was Wayne Segovia, a sharp, dark, wiry man with a neat spade beard. When Marlene walked up to his car, he was smoking a cigarillo and doing crossword puzzles in a pulp crossword magazine.

"What's a five-letter word meaning 'black,' starts with an s?" he asked when she slipped into the car, an anonymous gray Honda. On the front seat was a big Nikon with a Polaroid back and a 500mm lens on it.

"Try sable," said Marlene. "Anything doing?"

"Just snapping citizens." He indicated an envelope full of Polaroid photos on the dashboard. "So far nothing stands out. I was hoping for a guy with long hair and fangs carrying a 'Death to Marshak' sign, but no."

"She go out?"

"Once. Hopped a cab to a hair salon on Sixty-third and Madison, got a rinse and set. I would've gone with a lighter color, bring out her eyes a little."

"We'll put that in the report. Anything interesting?"

"Not that I could see. But this is a damn stupid way to check for stalkers."

"Yeah, it is, but humor me for a couple of days. Anything on the phone?"

A black electronic device was on the backseat, with a coiled lead that ran into a plug in Segovia's ear. "Just the usual. She gets a lot of calls. Makes a lot, too. If I was her, I wouldn't be so casual about using a cordless to make them, considering the kind of political stuff she's into."

"I could mention that, too. Most people don't realize how easy it is to steal off a cordless." Marlene popped the door. "I think I'll go up and talk to the building staff."

She did so. The doorman on duty said he had noticed nothing, heard nothing about any stalker. He assured Marlene that no one could get into the building without being checked out. Every visitor had to be announced. It was a good building. Marlene thought it was a good building and, like all buildings, was about as secure as Central Park if anyone really wanted to get in. Kelsie Solette's building was a good building, too. She did not say that, however, but went into the bowels of the basement to interview the janitorial staff and the super, who also assured her of the goodness, etc.

When she emerged into daylight again, she found that Wayne was standing outside the car waving wildly. She trotted across Central Park West.

"What's up?"

"She's in her car, heading south."

They both jumped into the Honda, and Wayne screeched into a U-turn.

"Why the car? Why not a cab?"

"Maybe she wants to park and neck," he said. "Maybe she's going out of town. There she is, the Lexus."

By running a light at Seventy-seventh, Wayne had slid into convenient trailing range of the black Lexus. They followed it down to Broadway and Fifty-fifth, where the car hung a right and disappeared into an underground parking garage.

They pulled into a loading zone across the street. A building was being renovated two doors down. The sound of riveters and metal bashing made it hard to converse. "What now?" shouted Wayne.

"Use our highly trained mental powers to intuit where she's going and whether anyone there is plotting to harass her."

Wayne chuckled. "Ah, boss, I wish I had you along every day. Meanwhile, what's a Siberian river, two letters?"

"Ob," she replied as her phone warbled. She thumbed it, announced herself, stuck a finger in the other ear, listened.

"Doesn't fit," said Wayne. "I think it ends with k."

"Agh!" Marlene cried.

"Ag? Nah, no good. I said it ends with…" He stopped because she was talking rapidly into the phone, snapping out directions to someone, promising to arrive at a place.