“Fortunately, there are ways around both these problems. It turns out there are some objective standards for doing this job, about how to prepare a case for prosecution, and you will find that preparing a case in this way is a source of real satisfaction. Once again, sports: it’s great to win, but sometimes the other guys are just better, so you have to be content with just playing your best. Justice and success are not defined by the vagaries of jury deliberations. The only issue for you is whether each case is a legitimate case to prosecute. Are you convinced a thousand percent that the defendant is guilty and that you had legally admissible evidence to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt? It’s a gem of a system, folks, but it can be corrupted by the people in it. Don’t become one of those people! Now, we will ensure that you prepare cases in the proper manner, and that you play your best, by yelling at you when you don’t. We have a large number of expert yellers on staff, and you’ll meet all of them as time goes on. If you really push at it, and you can take the yelling, you will learn how to prepare cases in such a way that the likelihood of screwing up is reduced to near zero. One final thing: it’s never personal. You’re doing the law, you’re not trying to get some guy. You start eating your liver on these cases, in a month you won’t have enough liver to make a decent chopped-liver sandwich. Oh, yeah, one final, final thing. You think what I just said is cynical. It’s not, it’s just hard-boiled. This is a hard-boiled outfit here. It’s also the best prosecutorial organization in the free world, because, by and large, it’s not cynical. I’ll tell you what cynical is. Cynical is saying, rules are made to be broken, and then breaking them. Cynical is drilling some poor bastard because you think it looks good in the press. Cynical is letting politics into your legal decisions. Cynical is rolling over for the cops because it’s popular and it makes your job nicer if the cops like you. Cynical is not trying because the Supreme Court has tied your hands with all these crime-coddling decisions. Don’t be cynical, guys. It’s not part of the job, and it’s not nice.”
Karp looked up as a short brown woman in a dark blue suit came through the door.
“Ah, here she is,” said Karp. “Folks, this is Rita Mehta, one of our fine assistant bureau chiefs. Rita helps run the Criminal Courts Bureau, where you’ll start your work here at the D.A. Criminal Courts handles the misdemeanors we cop felonies down to when we’re feeling cranky, and Rita here is going to teach you how to slap the wrists of hardened criminals.”
“Softened criminals, too, don’t forget those, Butch,” said Ms. Mehta.
The usual relief of nervous laughter. He had noticed some of the kids really listening, not being embarrassed, or just taking notes, as in law school. He turned the group over to Ms. Mehta, got the (also usual) nice round of applause, some worshipful stares, most of them from the women, and left the courtroom.
She was curled up on a couch in his office, reading a small blue book, and when he saw her face, he cried out, “Good God!” and felt a clench around his heart. He knelt down beside her, his face close, examining the bruises. “Lucy, what happened to you?”
“Nothing, I, like, got mugged,” said the daughter blandly.
“Mugged? Where? Did you report it? Did the cops bring you here? What-”
“Dad, settle down. I’m not hurt. It looks a lot worse than it is. But I have to talk to you, now. I think I’m in trouble.”
Karp drew up a straight chair and sat down on it, his heart pounding. There was an instant of ice-cold, ignoble rage against his wife (why isn’t she watching this child?), which he suppressed, and a cacophony of head voices suggesting modes of trouble-drugs, thefts, sex, diseases-which he could not. He swallowed hard and asked, “Felony or misdemeanor trouble?”
“Um, well, I didn’t do anything bad, but there’s like a big felony involved.”
“You want to tell me about it?”
She looked away from him. “I can’t, Daddy, that’s the problem. I swore an oath I wouldn’t and there are other people involved, and they’d get in giant trouble if I told and they didn’t do anything wrong either.”
Karp resisted the impulse to switch from Daddy mode into interrogator mode. This was hard on him because he had no doubts about his skills in the latter and considerable doubts about his skills in the former. He made himself say, gently, “That’s quite a problem, Luce. How are you going to handle it?”
“I don’t kno-o-o-w,” she wailed, and started to cry. Karp moved next to her on the couch and swept her into his arms. Lucy was startled by the difference between being hugged by her father and being hugged by Tran, so much so that she stopped crying. She totted up the differences, fascinated. The smell. Daddy was regular American, like the air, a little soap, a little aftershave, clean cotton and wool, Home. Tran was fish sauce, lilac hair oil, motorcycle oil, leather, foreign, Other. The feel. Daddy was large, comforting, deep, summoning thoughts of babyhood, absolute security, the moments before sleep. Tran was hard, protective, too, but like an iron shield, something you had to use, not just sink into, and a wild heat came off him, in her imagination like hugging a leopard. It then occurred to her that once Tran had hugged his own daughter, and that he had not been like that to her, no, he must have been to that girl the same as her father was to her. She tried to imagine Tran different, softer, and then the Asian thing struck her again, the suffering. She was sobbed out by now; still, thick tears trickled down her cheeks. And a last thought, more of a wordless feeling: this sinking safety, delightful as it was, belonged to her past, she was going away from it even now, but Tran, or something Tran-like, was her future. She recalled how she had acted the spoiled baby and threatened him and felt deep, blushing shame.
Karp held his daughter away from him, at arm’s length, saw the agony in her face, said as gently as he could, “Lucy, listen to me. You are a kid. This is over your head. You can’t handle this yourself. You have to tell me about this, now, the whole story.”
“I can’t, Daddy.”
“Well, then let me tell you what I think I know already,” he said, his voice growing sterner. “You witnessed a crime. What crime? A good guess would be the double murder at the Asia Mall. Why? It went down in a place you hang out in all the time. I know you and your pals like to play hide in that storeroom; maybe you were there when it happened and saw who did it. I know you got beat up today, and I doubt it was a random mugging. Somebody was sending you a message. They were telling you to keep your mouth shut. And you’re doing just what they want, just what the bad guys want.”
“That’s not why I’m not telling. I told you, I swore I wouldn’t.”
“Lucy! Listen to me! This isn’t a kid thing anymore. You have to tell me.”
As soon as this was out, he knew it was the wrong thing to say. She stiffened, and on her face appeared the very tintype of her mother’s mulish expression. He changed tack.
“All right, Lucy. You came to me for help. What do you expect me to do? Huh? Hey, great, you’re concealing evidence of a felony, here’s a dollar for ice cream, run along and play? You know, I swore an oath, too, to uphold the law. I’m not allowed to ignore stuff like this. If you weren’t my daughter, I could get a judge to hold you as a material witness, and then you’d be put under guard, and when it came to a trial you would have to tell what you knew and if you didn’t you could be jailed for contempt and kept in jail until you talked. That’s the law.”