Robert Tanenbaum - Enemy within

"And what's the moral of all this, Clay? That he saved four so he gets to cap one for free?"

Fulton waved a finger in Karp's face, a finger like the barrel of a.38. "Hey! Don't be a jerk! The moral is, number one, Brendan Cooley is a good cop, and not just with white people, and two, the status of Ray Cooley in the department is such that his son, his one remaining son, is about as untouchable as anyone has ever been in the department. He could be dealing smack out of a whorehouse across from City Hall and he'd never see a courtroom. You may not like it, but there it is. If you think the job is going to go after him because he shot a mutt like Cisco Lomax, in a halfway plausible self-defense situation, you are nuts."

Karp had been breaking a lump of bread into small pieces and lining them up neatly in front of his plate, as if to shield him from what he was hearing. He said, "Look, we know each other for what? Getting to be twenty years now. You know I'm not a cop-baiter. If you recall, some years ago a rogue detective was doing assassinations to order for a dope king, and you found out about it, and he snatched you up and tortured you to find out what you knew and if you had told anyone yet. And when that trio of thugs you used to run out of the Thirty-second Precinct broke you loose, you arranged for them to whack him."

"That would be hard to prove."

"I don't have to prove it," Karp snapped, and in a milder tone said, "I'm talking to an old and trusted friend here. With whom I am unfailingly honest. To resume, these guys also took care of any witnesses to that particular cop's felonies, all justifiable shoots, of course, and you covered up the guy's evil empire, and he got an inspector's funeral, and his widow got the pension. This was in the interest of protecting the rep of the department and maybe also the rep of the bad detective, who happened to be black and was also a pretty good guy before he jumped into the shit. And, if you recall, I sat down for all of that. Hey, I know it's rough justice."

"What's your point here, Butch?"

"That I know how the game is played, which I shouldn't even have to demonstrate to you. But since you've gotten so puffy now you're a boss, I thought I would anyway. But I also know there are lines, and you know that as well as I do. We don't do frames, that's one line. We kick out cases that don't pass the laugh test. We like it when the guy who actually did the crime is the one the cops bring in, not just a guy who did some similar crimes and they want to get his ass off the street. And, especially, while I'd like the line here to be pushed back in the direction of a little less tendency to violence, I believe we still draw the line at assassination."

"What are you talking 'assassination'? Where the hell did that come from?"

Karp tapped the report. "From here. Look, I have no question it's a bad shooting. But you know and I know that I would never ever be able to make that case, not against that copy anyway, for reasons you've just eloquently laid out for me. And you know that if I spent energy worrying about evil shit that went down on the island of Manhattan where I don't have a decent case, I wouldn't have the strength to take a good piss. But this one worries me. I want to know why two perfectly rational, competent cops took off on a high-speed chase, with guns blazing, to rescue some dentist's sport utility vehicle from a car thief. Hah! I can see by your face that it worries you, too. You saw the same goddamn thing I did when I read that report."

"Bullshit!"

"I know you too long, Clay."

Fulton slammed the table, drawing looks. It was not a table-slamming sort of place. In a controlled hiss, veins bulging on his forehead, he said, "Well, what exactly do you expect me to do about it, pal? Call in the snakes on Ray Cooley's kid?"

"Of course not. Start an IAD beef on this guy and the snakes would be falling all over themselves, deep-sixing unpleasant evidence. It'd be son of Warren Commission. But it should be pretty easy to find out if that really was a chase of a stolen vehicle, if it was reported and sent out, if Cooley reported himself in pursuit. You're the guy who has all those crime pattern reports. And if it was that, well… all you got to do is tell me it was just a boyish outburst, a mistake in judgment. They were bored, say, middle of the night, a hot car goes by, they figure on a quick collar just to pass the time. But the guy runs, and it gets out of hand, the adrenaline shoots up, the bullets fly… Honestly, hell, I'd love a story like that. Just bring me that story and you'll never hear anything more about it from me. It's not like I got nothing better to do."

"And say it's not that story?"

"If it's not… ah, shit… well, then, I'll have to decide how to go forward with it, depending on the available evidence and the nature of the case, just like I always do. But in any case you're out of it. Your name'll never come up."

"It better not, Stretch. I don't intend to spend the rest of my time on the job running a motor pool out on the ass end of Staten Island." Fulton stood up abruptly, threw some bills on the table, and walked out. Karp caught up with him on the sidewalk, under the restaurant's pink and pale green awning.

"You hate me now, right?"

"Ah, fuck, I don't know," said Fulton, a disgusted look on his face. "The old days when we were working together and I didn't give a rat's ass about what the bosses thought, I would've gone into this with you, no problem. Now we got a crew up there in the Plaza, they're falling all over each other to show they're not a bunch of Paddy racist motherfuckers, they got to have some more black faces up on the top floors. I mean I know I'm good, but I'd be kidding myself if I pretended that wasn't a part of it. Meanwhile, I am there, and I can do a lot of good, not just for myself-shit, you know I'm not into that crap-but for the job, and providing a little counterbalance for boss types who think that walking while black is a major felony. But the downside is, now I am a boss, I have to think like one, and even though it pisses me off to see how I slipped into that thinking, there it is. I bought it, now I have to pay for it." Fulton smiled bleakly and shook Karp's hand as his official car drew to the curb. "You keep me honest, Stretch. But not too honest, hear?"

"Deal," said Karp, and then as an aside, "You almost might want to have a talk with the partner, Nash."

"Why would I want to do that? Because he's black?"

"No, but what you said, about doing some good, about counterbalance. You always kept pretty good track of rising black detectives. There could be trouble for him, if I'm right. I mean if I'm right, he told a couple of fibs there to cover his partner. Do you know him?"

"As a matter of fact, I do: one of my boys, as you guessed. A good guy, wife and kids, a solid cop. There is no way, I mean no way, I'm going to involve him in this crap."

"Not even a friendly heads-up?"

"Nothing, because this conversation never took place."

"But you will look at those calls?"

"Yeah. Give me a couple of days. I'll call you," said Fulton out the rear window, and the car drove off.

Murrow reported back to Karp late in the day. "Well?" asked Karp. He was comfortably seated with a pile of case files on his lap, feet up on the desk.

"As expected. No indictment, smooth as silk. Cooley and Nash are back in harness as we speak." Karp just nodded and returned to his reading. "What are you going to do, boss?"

"What can I do? The wheels have ground, and the ham sandwich has not been indicted. Did you see this? Shawn Cisco Lomax's epitaph. An inch and a half on page A20 of the newspaper of record."

Murrow picked up the tiny clipping and saw it was from the one-column digest of regional news that the Times ran daily on one of its back pages. He read, "Police Shoot Car Thief on Henry Hudson Highway. Police officers in pursuit of a car thief opened fire when the fugitive turned the SUV he was driving around on the northbound West Side Highway and attempted to ram the unmarked police vehicle pursuing him. Shawn Lomax, 23, of 312 W. 127th Street, was pronounced dead at the scene. Police sources said that Mr. Lomax had a long criminal record. The two police officers involved were not injured." Murrow put the clipping down on the desk. "Gosh, it's in the papers, so it must be true." Karp ignored the remark and kept reading. Murrow, usually sensitive to his boss's moods, ignored the snub. He was oddly reluctant to leave, without… without what? Some assurance that the good guys were going to win? He was very young.