"Why the dust-covered man?" Karp asked.
"An allusion to the fact that he wasn't the sort of leader who hung back and expected his troops to do all the dangerous stuff," Kipman said. "Even at the end of a long day on horseback, he'd push ahead to get the lay of the land and scout the enemy's position. His troops would see him covered with dust and if they didn't love him the way Robert E. Lee's men loved him, they respected him and fought for him like they'd fought for none of the other Union generals. They came up with the nickname the Dust-Covered Man." The conversation was interrupted by a knock on the door, which only briefly preceded the appearance of V.T. Newbury, Ray Guma, and Gilbert Murrow.
Blond-haired and still boyish-looking, V.T. was the aristocrat of the bunch, a genuine descendant of the Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth Rock. His great grandfather-or maybe great-great, Karp couldn't remember-had started what was now one of the largest and most prestigious law firms in Manhattan. V.T. had shocked his father and set his illustrious ancestors rolling in their graves when, after graduating from Harvard Law School at the top of his class, he'd eschewed the family business and applied for a job at the New York District Attorney's Office, where he and another recent graduate, Butch Karp, became close friends.
Disenchanted when Francis Garrahy died in office and was replaced by a crook, Sanford Bloom, V.T. had gone to work for the U.S. Attorney General's Office. However, when Karp was appointed to complete the term of Bloom's successor, Jack X. Keegan, V.T. had been lured back to run the office's Special Investigations Unit, which was charged with rooting out and prosecuting corruption and malfeasance in city government, including its police department.
Bushy-browed and thick-featured, Ray Guma came from the other end of the social strata. Born and raised in an Italian neighborhood, he'd spent the first part of high school trying to decide whether to pursue a career in the mob or with the New York Yankees as the next great shortstop. Then "something snapped," he liked to say; he went to college on a baseball scholarship, even got scouted by the big leagues, but decided to go to law school. He surprised himself as well as his pals from the old neighborhood, several of whom were "made" men, by joining the New York District Attorney's Office, where he'd earned a reputation as a tough, no-holds-barred prosecutor not afraid to take on the mob, even his friends, if they messed up and got caught for something. He also had a reputation for cheap cigars, cheaper whiskey, and women cheap or not.
However, in recent years, a bout with colon cancer had forced him into retirement. The once-muscular, apelike body had aged almost overnight and his thick Sicilian hair had turned as white as bedsheets. But inside he was still the same old Guma-"minus a yard or so of my guts that the quacks hacked out of me"-and Karp had been only too happy to hire him to work part-time on special cases.
The last of the three new arrivals was also the youngest by twenty years. Gilbert Murrow was a short, slightly pudgy fellow who favored bow ties, plaid vests, and horn-rim glasses. He was a good lawyer-nothing flashy, just thorough-but had proved more valuable as Karp's aide-de-camp and office manager who kept the calendar and the staff in order.
Since that past spring, he'd also served as the de facto campaign manager for Karp's election bid. The party had recently made him accept a "professional" campaign manager in order to receive party funding, which had sent Murrow into a sulk for days. Only when Karp brought the new campaign manager into his office and told him that everything political needed to be run through "my chief political adviser, Gilbert Murrow" did the little man perk up. Ever since he'd happily filled his time by overseeing press releases and the efforts to reach out to the media and community.
Upon entering the office, V.T. gravitated over to Kipman. The two came from different backgrounds, but they shared a love for classical music and books, as well as the fine points and subtleties of the law. Guma plopped himself down in a big easy chair by the window and pulled out a cigar to chew on while grousing about the doctors who forbade him to smoke.
Murrow spotted the boxes that Karp had stacked in a corner of the office and wandered over to spin one around and read the filing labeclass="underline" "People vs. Sykes, Davis, Wilson, and Jones," before turning to Karp with a question mark stamped on his face. But Karp held up his hand and waved him to a chair next to Guma; his questions were going to have to wait.
Karp sometimes thought of this crew in basketball terms. Each man was a great player in his own way, and none was afraid to accept a challenge and take the ball to the hoop. But they all also understood that their main role was to support the big man in the center as a team.
Monday mornings he met with his bureau chiefs. But he liked to bring this particular group of friends and colleagues together an hour earlier to discuss the issues in a setting where they could talk freely, without having to worry about being politically correct, knowing that what was said in the room would stay in the room.
"V.T., you ready?" Karp asked. The main topic he'd wanted to address this morning was Newbury's continuing probe into allegations of police malfeasance.
Newbury quit thumbing through Kipman's book and leaned forward in his seat. "As you all know, we've been looking into years of allegations of police misconduct, including acts that rise to the level of felonies, which were reviewed either by Corporation Counsel or one of a handful of large, private law firms hired for the purpose of making recommendations on settling cases and whether this office should pursue criminal charges against the officers involved. We also all know that one of these firms was that of our "friend" Andrew Kane.
"So far, we've uncovered a pattern in which the Corporation Counsel and a handful of these firms almost automatically recommended that cases be settled with the complaining parties-for more than a hundred million dollars in taxpayer funds, I might add-and then marked the files No Prosecution. The files were then handed over to this office-although I hasten to point out not while our current el jefe was running the show. Anyway, at least two of Butch's predecessors apparently accepted the recommendations at face value and filed them away, never to be seen again, except that the files were subsequently rediscovered by this office.
"In some cases, we've concurred that the allegations were without merit or would now for reasons of the expiration on the statutes of limitations or other difficulties, such as witnesses who have passed, would be impossible to pursue. In those cases, I believe our recommendation will be to keep a close eye on certain officers who seem to have developed a habit of shooting, beating, coercing, or blackmailing the good citizens of this city. We've, however, devoted our primary attention to those cases in which criminal charges were warranted and can still be pursued. In point of fact, we're ready to file on some of these but have been holding off for now at the command of our fearless leader."
Newbury paused and looked meaningfully at Karp, who finished the thought for him. "I think there's more to all of this than lazy lawyers not deserving the high fees they charged for recommending that some of these cases be settled and forgotten." Newbury nodded and continued with his explanation. "We've noted that Corporation Counsel Sam Lindahl has, over the course of a dozen years, steered the big enchilada cases to several chosen law firms. Three caught our attention because of their high-profile senior partners and the fact that they all have a history of being anticop, yet here they were recommending that the New York District Attorney's Office turn a blind eye to obvious misconduct. Something didn't wash."
V.T., who occasionally delved into community theater and could ham up a role with the best of them, enjoyed watching Guma, who wasn't exactly known for his patience, squirm as he built toward the climactic scene. "The three notables are Hugh Louis, who I think we would all be familiar with even if he wasn't the current media darling due to the Coney Island rape case…"