Robert Tanenbaum: Enemy within

"That's crazy," blurted Fuller. "He tracked the victim-that's lying in wait. And murder for profit. Two special circumstances. And no mitigation. The fucker's a career criminal. Also, and I can't stress this enough, Jack, the Jewish community is ballistic on this case. And business. The whole diamond trade depends on guys walking around with fucking millions in their pockets, and nobody bothers them. And emotionally, look at the picture-a guy's going home for the Sabbath, and this little piece of shit kills him. I mean, if you're not going to go for fucking death on this one, when are you?"

Keegan listened to this rant in silence. He turned to Karp. "Well?"

"I can't help you, boss," said Karp. "I got no experience with death-qualified juries, and we haven't had a likely case since they reinstituted the penalty. You're the only person in this building who's ever won a death-penalty murder case."

Keegan nodded. "Yeah, I guess I am. Twenty-eight years ago, just before they banned it, that was the last one. Before that, I sent four guys to the chair."

"That's a big selling point, too," said Fuller. "In the election. But it won't help if you wimp on this one. Our polls are running three to one to give him the needle."

Karp stared at the man, his eyes widening. "You're taking polls?" He looked over at Keegan. "Jack… polls? To influence your decision on a criminal case?"

Keegan said, "Nah, for crying out loud, it's just part of the campaign. Everybody takes polls, Butch. And, you know, I opposed the death penalty, I spoke against it up in Albany. But now we've got it. We represent the People, and the People, for whatever reason, have concluded that executing murderers is a good thing. And this case, Benson, is exactly what the public had in mind when they pushed to change the law, a stranger killing for profit. So Norton's right-if not this, when the hell?"

"Jack, you're the district attorney," said Karp, and got the cigar pointed at him.

"I love when you tell me I'm the district attorney in that tone of voice. You think I'm violating my principles for political expediency?"

"I would never say that, Jack."

"You're thinking it, though. Just tell me one thing: Are you ethically opposed to death under any and all circumstances?"

Karp gave this question some thought. "No. Not under any and all. Probably there are a few, a very few people, your Ted Bundy, your John Wayne Gacy, your Ed Gein, Eichmann, who shouldn't be allowed to breathe the same air as the rest of us. Where the guilt is so manifest that a trial is a formality, and the guy admits it and says he'll gladly do it again. Like that. Maybe. But a semimoron like Benson, who denies it, where we have nothing but circumstantial evidence, a weak eyewitness, no weapon, no forensics? No, then I think not. Life in the can? Yeah. Execution? I'm not comfortable. Obviously, the people I put away for murder, they all did it. The people you put away I'm not so sure of."

A frosty smile here. "Funny, that's just how I feel. About your cases, I mean."

"Right. My point being is that we both know about how trials work and how little things throw them one way or the other. It's good enough for the usual kind of case, because in the back of the mind you're thinking, 'I know this guy did it beyond a reasonable doubt, but still, if it turns out he didn't, if I missed something, the cops screwed up, then we get off with an apology and compensation.' We kill the guy, though, that's a whole other moral universe. I think I'm pretty good at this work, but I have qualms about my ability to function in that environment. And the state, hell, this office is full of prosecutors who got no more business trying a capital case than they do starting for the Yankees."

Karp looked at Fuller as he said this, but Fuller did not pick up the look. Looking down, he was shaking his head from side to side, like a goat searching for a choicer patch of clover.

"No, Butch," Fuller said, "you're not focused on the real problem. The real problem is that Jack stands a good chance of losing the Jewish vote if he gets all squishy about this prick. McBright is a strong deathpenalty guy, which is why he's a viable candidate in the first place. I mean a black guy practically has to be if he's going to run for DA in this state. And against McBright, you absolutely have to have that vote, all of it. I mean, fuck it, moral scruples and all are fine, but after the election."

Karp closed his ledger and stood. "Terrific! Look, if you're actually going to bring political considerations into this kind of decision, or any prosecutorial decision, then there's no point in me sitting here. You know what I think of shit like that."

"Sit down, Butch," said the DA. After a minute pause, he did so. The DA continued, "And I do know what you think, since you've never been shy about comparing your unsullied purity with my base corruption. In any event, I will come to a decision in re Benson on the merits, as I always do. Now, can we move on?"

Karp moved on, summarizing the reports of the various bureau chiefs.

"Oh, some good news," said the DA. "I assume this Marino prosecution is going to go down with no problems?"

"Apparently so. Police Plaza seems to have washed its hands. The guy is a baddie, with a record of petty corruption. Of course, they should have bounced him ten years ago, but who's complaining."

"And Cooley, no problems there?" A long pause. "Butch?"

"A white-on-black cop shooting?" said Karp, pursing his lips in a manner that could have been either judicious or the response to an unpleasant taste. "You're not going to avoid some controversy. Catafalco seems to be moving with uncharacteristic speed."

"That's good," said Fuller. "Speed is good here. We want the thing locked up before we get into serious campaigning. It drags on, McBright is going to make an issue of it. Our position is a simple case of police selfdefense. Only one cop with his gun shooting, too, that always plays well. The perp is a known felon. The perp turned his monster truck around, this huge Cherokee SUV, a fucking tank, and charged the police car on a highway. What could Cooley do but shoot? It's a no-brainer."

Karp said, "Vic, Norton."

Fuller stared at him. "What?"

"Vic. If you're going to use that salty cop talk, technically Lomax is the victim here. The perp is Cooley. Technically."

"Oh, please," said Fuller, bridling, and then Keegan said, "What I want to know is, Catafalco thinks it's a clean shooting and he expects a no-bill?"

"So he tells me," said Karp, now in a tired voice. It was, he knew, one of his moral failings, to let the exhaustion get to him, to sink into passivity in the presence of people who did not get it, who would never get it, even if he screamed or pounded on desks. He sat back into his chair and observed the other two men through half-closed eyes. Fuller would never get it. Ambition and the hallucination of control had rendered him permanently blind. A man like that should be selling cigarettes at an ad agency or brokering shady bond issues. Keegan was another story. Keegan got it. Keegan had, in fact, taught Karp to get it, years and years ago. Now he got it unreliably, like an old-fashioned radio in a thunderstorm, the message only coming through amid static and howls. Was it mere age, Karp wondered, or the effects of office that eroded the decent man and left the hollow politician, a core of cheap eternal plastic? Or ambition? A term at DA and now he saw higher office as a possibility, maybe follow Tom Dewey into the state house, maybe something beyond even that. Or the times? The dreadful seventies, when public order in New York had nearly collapsed, or the eighties with their twelve hundred murders each year and lesser crimes almost beyond counting, battering the DA's operation into a kind of moral pulp, the natural food of people like Fuller and Catafalco. Now they were in the nineties, hooray, the new gilded age-crime was down, way down, everyone was rich, except the poor, who were suitably cowed now, not at all like the threatening, hostile poor of twenty years ago. The cops ruled the streets again. He wondered why this victory did not taste sweet to him.