Robert Tanenbaum - Enemy within

But it got worse. On arriving at the courthouse he was summoned to the DA's office. Keegan was at his desk, flanked by Fuller. The DA's face was dark with anger. Fuller's bore its usual bland look, but it seemed to Karp to be a little too self-contained, as if the man were holding back an expression more pleased, even triumphant. Through his mind there flashed the thought that they'd found out about the homicide report, and that this was curtains. He sat down, opened his ledger, and asked, "What's up?"

"Wait," said Keegan in a dead voice. Karp noticed that the tip of Keegan's prop cigar was crushed as if he had pounded it on the table. A tape recorder was on his desk, and his fingers danced close to it, as if eager to mash PLAY. Hrcany walked in. Whatever the problem was, Hrcany clearly did not know about it. He was his ordinary cocky self. He pulled a chair away from the conference table and sat.

"Somebody die?" he asked.

"Listen to this!" snapped the DA, and started the tape.

It was scratchy and muffled, but the words were perfectly clear, as was the identity of the speaker. The screaming voice was silent at last, and Keegan stopped the tape.

"Where in hell did you get that?" Hrcany demanded.

"It came up through the mail room in an interoffice pouch, with a note saying copies had been sent to the networks and the papers. How could you have been so stupid, Roland? On top of what's been going on,"-Keegan flung up his hands in disgust-"it's a total disaster."

"Hey, I lost my temper in a goddamn elevator, with no one but staff around. Is that a crime now?"

"He still doesn't get it," said Fuller.

Hrcany sprang to his feet. "Oh, go fuck yourself, you mealymouthed little putz!"

"Sit down, Roland, goddammit!" After a frightening pause, when for an instant it seemed to Karp that Roland would not, that he would spring across the intervening distance and tear Fuller to pieces, the man slumped back into his chair.

"I'd like to know who the fuck recorded that tape," Hrcany snarled. "There were six people in that elevator car-me, Butch, Pincus, a cop named Bradley, Meghan Lacy, and another assistant… Christ, I bet it was Lacy, that little bitch!"

"It wasn't Lacy," said Karp tiredly. "Lacy came to me later to complain about it. I talked her out of writing you up."

"So who was it? You?" The glitter of paranoia flicked on in Hrcany's blue eyes.

"Of course it wasn't me, Roland, and I hardly think it was Dave Pincus. Did you know the other guy… Peter something?"

"No, I thought you did."

"Right, and I thought he was a pal of Dave's or Meghan's from the office. He was wearing a lawyer suit, and he had the top edge of a plastic ID card showing in his breast pocket. A ringer."

"What? You think I was set up?"

"I don't know. The guy might've just hung around hoping to pick up something rich. It was pretty confused, as you recall. He must've had a mini-recorder in his pocket and turned it on when you started your rant."

"Listen to me, now!" the DA broke in, rapping hard on his desk. "I don't give a rat's ass how it happened. It happened, Roland, and it's on you. And I don't want to hear any horseshit about what's a crime and what's free speech. We've had cabinet officers dismissed in this country for telling a dirty joke. People have had their political careers wrecked for a chance remark, and let me tell you, buster, what's on that tape is no chance remark. It's sick! I have had twelve phone calls from the press this morning, asking me what action I'm going to take. I've put them off because I wanted to talk to you first."

Karp watched the DA's face form itself into a mash of righteous hypocrisy. "Look, Roland, I want you to know this isn't about the election or politics. It's simply unacceptable behavior, I mean the indication of attitudes that we simply cannot tolerate in a public organization like this. I think you need help, and I suggest you find some. And I think we should make this painful situation as brief as we possibly can, so… let's make it immediate, as of close of business today."

"You're firing me?" Hrcany was stunned. He turned and looked at Karp openmouthed, as if to say, this is some kind of joke, right?

"Is this really necessary, Jack?" Karp offered. "A leave of absence…"

"Dammit, Butch, I canned you for a lot less. I was able to hide you for a while-what you did, it could've been an accident. You got no history in that area, unlike Roland unfortunately, and people forget. But not this."

Roland was staring at Keegan. From where he sat, Karp could see a vein bulging dangerously in the man's temple. "You're firing me? After eighteen years? For this shit?"

"You can resign," said Keegan in a dull voice.

"Fucking right I resign, and fuck the bunch of you!"

Hrcany got up and stalked out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

There was a silence, which Karp broke by saying, "I can't believe this. I can't believe you're doing this."

"I have no choice. There's going to be a firestorm tonight and tomorrow… you saw the way the press is…"

Karp wasn't listening. "This whole thing sucks. It stinks of political expediency."

"Oh?" Keegan's voice rose. "The last time I checked, this was a political office, and let me tell you something, boyo: when you do the shit-work, and you kiss the fannies necessary to run for a political office, then you can pontificate to me about what the hell is necessary to run one." Keegan had turned dark pink in the face and was now jabbing in Karp's direction with his damaged cigar.

"You want my resignation, too, Jack? You can have it."

"Oh, pipe down! Don't get more noble on me than I can stomach! I don't want your resignation. I want you to take up where Roland left off, clean out this mess."

"Mess?" Karp goggled.

"Yeah, dammit! This mess in homicide. Benson, Marshak, the cop killing, what's-his-name, this Lomax thing, the bum slasher. It's wrecking us. I need you to fix it."

"What, you want me to take over homicide?"

"Right, homicide."

"You're making me bureau chief?"

Was that a little cloud that passed over the big pink face? Karp could usually read the DA pretty well, and he thought the man was burning a little too much coal in the sincerity engine. Karp snapped a quick look at Fuller. Fuller met his gaze levelly, but could not help showing a little tightness around the eyes, a lick of the lips, like a lizard practicing a go at a beetle. They were up to something. Karp felt his belly hollow out. There was no trust here. Had there ever been any? It didn't matter.

Keegan said, "Not officially. You can pick anyone you want as deputy, let him deal with the routine stuff. I want you to handle the high-profile cases. Get us out of this right, and we'll see about making it permanent." The DA brought a big politician's grin up from his collection of smiles. "Hell, it's what you always wanted, getting back there. You know you've been mooning after it like a damn kid in a toy store for the last five years. It used to drive Roland crazy."

Which was true, and so it took a good deal of resolve for Karp to say, "I need to think about it. For starters, I need to talk to my wife."

He went back to his office and sat for a while, feeling faintly nauseated. He had thought that by this time he had become utterly void of personal ambition, and it shocked him badly to find that it was not true. He wanted homicide badly, and the knowledge that Keegan knew that and was using the promise of a permanent appointment thereto as a manipulative tool did not entirely still his lust for the job. They wanted to keep him on the reservation until after the election, to saddle him with the political messes they had made, after which… who knew? The irony, of course, was that this leak had made the mess far worse, although building political pressure had been an essential part of his plan. But he had not expected this turn, he had really not expected Roland to ruin himself and leave Karp with the great soggy tar baby of homicide. He had imagined that he could stand off more, a gray eminence on staff, skillfully tweaking the system. Staff people did it all the time, leaking and lying-it was practically in the job description. But if he took homicide now, he'd be right in the center of it, having to fix what he himself had broken, with the prize he shamefully lusted for dangling from the hands of the DA and his nasty little…