"I don't take any offense, Gilbert," Karp said. "I've said and thought many of the same things and you deserve to hear the reason that tipped the scales for me when I was considering whether to accept this job. I was saving this speech for the trial, but I'll run it by you first."
Karp stuck his hands in his pockets and gathered himself as if giving the jury his trial summation. "This isn't just about Liz Tyler, though she deserves our protection and justice," he said. "Nor is it just about trying to keep these animals from winning millions from the city.
"What truly troubles me is that by acting as she has, the Brooklyn DA has destabilized and delegitimized the credibility of our justice system. She's placed in jeopardy law enforcement practices, methods, procedures, and techniques utilized in solving crime. To wit, she's exonerated guilty, puny, punk predators who committed vicious, unimaginable outrages against several innocent individuals, including Ms. Tyler. She's fractured the moral high ground and credibility of key and essential crime-solving methods. And she's enabled the guilty to turn the justice system upside down by illegitimately providing these assholes and their asshole lawyer the grounds to sue the city, my city, and those sworn to uphold the law for substantial money damages. Someone has got to stand up for the system, Gilbert, or we're all lost."
Karp looked at Murrow as if he were the last juror he knew he needed to convince. "They said it was fun, Gil. They laughed about it. And now they want to be paid for it."
When he stopped talking the room was so quiet that Mrs. Milquetost, who had been standing at the office threshold, made the most dominant sound when she crossed herself and whispered, "May God have mercy."
It stayed that way until at last Murrow sighed and nodded his head. "Okay. How can I help?"
18
Tuesday, December 21
"Say, if it ain't Zak The Hack and G-dawg. You boys up for a little balling?" Khalif Mohammed arced a fifteen-foot jumper at the basket-nothing but net-then picked up his ball and walked over to the twins, who'd just arrived at the courts.
Exchanging high fives and homeboy handshakes, Giancarlo looked up at the tall, young black man. "We heard the good news from our dad. You guys don't have to worry about prison anymore."
"Yeah." Mohammed smiled. "Now I can get on with it."
Zak furrowed his dark eyebrows. "Aren't you mad? Like Rashad? I'd be mad if someone lied about something I'd done and I had to go to prison."
"And got kicked out of college and lost my scholarship," Giancarlo added.
Mohammed reflected for a moment. Sometimes these kids seemed a lot older to him than twelve-year-olds. Maybe old souls, he thought. "I won't kid you," he said. "I've been plenty mad over this. When I was lying on my bed in that prison staring up at a steel ceiling, listening to all the crazy bullshit you hear at night on a cell-block, I wanted to kill somebody. Kill that woman who lied. Kill the prosecutor. Kill just anybody to take the anger out of me."
As he spoke, the boys were surprised to see that he had tears in his eyes. "But I placed myself in the hands of Allah and said 'His will be done,' and then I wasn't so mad anymore. I believe that Allah has it all planned out and that I just had to accept it, and try to be a better man than the people who wronged me. It helped me realize that I lost that part of my life, but I didn't lose my life…and for a young black man coming from my neighborhood that's saying something. I still got my health, I got my faith, and I can still play ball."
He dribbled rapid-fire, then once between his legs and back in front of the twins and laughed. "You two Jethros think you can hang with Black Magic?"
The twins laughed back and tried to get the ball, which he kept easily out of their reach. Zak pulled up and asked, "Where's Rashad?"
The question broke Mohammed's concentration, which allowed Giancarlo to steal the ball and take off for the basket. Mohammed bit his lip and looked down the street. "He'll be along here in just a minute. To be honest, he and I haven't been hangin' quite as tight lately."
"Are you guys still friends?" Giancarlo asked, dribbling back after missing a layup.
"Sure. Sure. He's just been spending a lot of time with some people I don't particularly care for…but we're brothers, have been since we were both in diapers, and always will be."
"What are you going to do now?" Zak asked. "With your life, I mean."
Mohammed shrugged his broad shoulders. "Not entirely sure. There's still some legal things to clear up, but I want to go back to school. Maybe find someplace where I can still play ball and get my degree."
A nondescript sedan pulled up to the curb in front of the gate and Rashad Salaam got out of the passenger side. He scowled when he saw the twins, leaned back into the car, and said something to the driver, who sped away. Salaam entered the gate and pointed at Zak and Giancarlo. "Shit, K, why are you talking to them little muthafuckas?"
"Watch your mouth, Rashad," Mohammed replied. "They're just kids. They had nothing to do with what happened to us. You might remember, our lawyer said it was their daddy who signed the papers to drop the charges."
"Well, ain't that nice since we didn't do the crime, but we already did the time. You might remember that it was their daddy whose bitch brought the charges against us in the first place," Salaam replied. "And their daddy's bitch who put us in prison even when she knew that other ho had lied."
"It still wasn't the kids' fault. It's over, brother, time to move on."
Salaam turned and spit at the fence. "It ain't never going to be over. Our lives are ruined; all part of the white man's master plan to keep the brothers, especially Muslim brothers, down. Nits make lice, man. Those two may be innocent little kids now, but they'll grow up to be just like their daddy and all the rest of the white muthafuckas-especially Jews like these two here and their daddy-that live off the sweat and blood of brown people all over the world. Unless we put a stop to it."
Mohammed scoffed. "We put a stop to it? You've been hanging out too much with the Arab brothers at the mosque, man. Everything's a Jewish conspiracy to them with Americans just following along like dumb sheep. They never bother to ask Arab leaders where'd all that oil money go besides them fancy palaces and fine cars. How come 'we' ain't helping all them Palestinians in the refugee camps with that oil money?"
"Man, you starting to sound like The Man," Salaam said. "Or maybe you just his nigger."
Mohammed dropped the ball and started to walk toward his friend. "Who you calling a nigger, niggah?"
Giancarlo tugged on Mohammed's arm. "That's okay. Zak and I will just go shoot on the other court." He turned and started to walk away.
"No, you hold on G-man." Mohammed looked back at his friend. "Come on, Rashad. I'm going to shoot hoops with these kids. Let's play a little hoop."
"Hell, no," Salaam said and turned to leave the way he'd come.
"See you tonight?" Mohammed called after his friend, who just kept walking without turning to indicate he'd heard.
Mohammed watched him go, and the twins could see he was hurt. But then he stopped watching and dribbled toward the basket, pulling up to shoot a ten-foot brick that bounced off the rim. Retrieving the ball, he looked back at the twins. "Hey, we going to play or what?"
After an hour, a dark Lincoln town car pulled up at the curb and the boys' father got out from the rear seat. He waved them over. The twins high-fived Mohammed and sauntered off the court to show that they were going, but on their own terms.
"Hi, Dad," they said. Then bending over to look at the driver, they added, "Hi, Clay."