Next was an A.D.A. named Lennie Bergman, and the case was People v. Morales. Bergman had just begun his account when Karp interrupted him. “Did you get my note on this?”
The attorney hesitated. “Yeah, I did.”
“And you still want to go to trial on it?” Karp stared hard at the man, who met his gaze levelly. Bergman was a stocky, blunt-featured man, a defensive lineman out of Adelphi. Not an inspired mind, or particularly perceptive, but competent, tough, and certainly not a man to be moved by a disapproving stare from his boss. “Okay, make your pitch,” said Karp.
Bergman presented his case, after which Karp tore into it, pointing out the absurdities in Morales’s supposed behavior after the crime, the lack of direct witnesses to a crime that had supposedly taken place on the street, the fact that Morales’s grandmother persisted in her story that the incriminating evidence had been planted. But nobody else seemed to smell a police scam, and Karp was left with the choice of either directly overruling a good attorney or letting him go to trial under a cloud based not on any direct knowledge but on Karp’s experience and instinct.
Karp tapped on the table and looked at the faces sitting around it: Guma bored; Harris interested, inclined to be sympathetic, but confused; Bergman, pugnacious, defensive; and Hrcany. What was that expression in Hrcany’s eyes? Challenging? Contemptuous, a little? What was he thinking? That Karp was afraid to try the tough ones anymore? That he had become too nice about the provenance of evidence?
They were waiting. Across Karp’s mind passed the sudden wish that he had never gotten into the business of supervising other people’s cases. Then he said, “Okay, fuck it, go for it. Roland, you’re up.”
6
The shoot-out between Karp and Hrcany over People v. Tomasian became the stuff of legend before the afternoon was well begun. In the outer office the secretaries were the first to know, as most of the discussion was carried on at such a volume that all work ceased and the women muttered nervously and fingered their telephones. After lunch the tale spread throughout the building, growing in drama and violence. They had come to blows. Hrcany had pulled a knife. The police had been called. Karp was in the hospital. Gunshots had been heard by reliable witnesses. The news floated up to the eighth floor, where the district attorney heard it and was glad, though less so when it was explained to him that Karp had not really been stabbed by one of his own attorneys. Farther down the hall from the D.A.’s office, the story reached the ears of Conrad Wharton, the chief administrative officer, who understood what it meant, and considered how it might fit in with his perpetually evolving and lovingly maintained plan to ruin Karp.
Marlene heard the news late in the day, having been with the grand jury, and immediately sought out Ray Guma for the straight poop.
“Nah, the part about the knife is bullshit, and they didn’t call the cops,” said Guma confidently. “What it was, Connie stuck her head in when Roland kicked over his chair. She scoped the situation out and said, ‘Should I call the cops?’ After that they both calmed down. But Roland did throw the case file at Butch’s head. That part’s true.”
“Did it hit him?”
“Nah, he was at the other end of the table. Lucky thing too. Roland gets up and kicks his chair across the room and he yells, ‘You want the fuckin’ case? Take it!’ and he heaves the whole box. He would’ve gone for Butch too, but me and Tony stood up and stood in his way. Not that we could’ve stopped him. But it slowed him down and then Connie came in. It was like a schoolteacher breaking up a fight at recess in the schoolyard. Hell of a thing.”
“How’d it start?” asked Marlene.
“It was when Roland had just finished doing his thing on the Tomasian case. It sounded okay to me, nothing special. But I see Karp is getting that look. You know what I mean? The Chinese warlord eyes? After Roland finishes, Butch stares at him like he just cut a fart. He says, ‘What about the money, Roland. You didn’t mention the money.’
“Roland gets all red and he says, ‘The money’s horseshit. It’s not relevant to the case, it’s extraneous, et cetera.’
“Butch says, ‘You don’t fuckin’ know that, Roland. You haven’t bothered to find out either. You haven’t lifted a finger to investigate the victim’s background. And what about the documents, they’re irrelevant too?’
“Meanwhile everybody’s looking at each other. Money? Documents? Nobody knows what the fuck’s happening. Then Roland, he’s yelling now, he says, ‘Yeah, they’re irrelevant. They’re letters from his brother, in Turkey-just bullshit.’
“And Butch says, ‘Oh, yeah? How come he keeps letters from his brother in a fucking safe-deposit box?’ Then he turns around to all of us-I mean we’re fucking … confused ain’t the word, believe me-and he says, ‘This is an example of a fucked investigation. This isn’t even an investigation. It’s a goddamn romance. He fell in love with this guy and that was it. It’s not a case, it’s not an indictment-it’s a valentine.’ Then some more shit about when the defense gets this stuff about the safe deposit on discovery, you can kiss this guy good-bye. They’ll do a serious investigation, and then they’ll know shit we don’t know and so on. He was really wailing, dancing on Roland’s head, and Roland’s getting redder and redder, he’s like a fuckin’ Coke sign, and finally he breaks in, he yells, ‘Well, fuck it, I’m not gonna give it to them! It’s not part of the case, they got no right to see it. I checked it with Bloom and he agrees.’”
“Good God!” exclaimed Marlene.
“Yeah, right. You coulda heard a pin drop. Okay, Butch goes dead white. He says, ‘Bloom? You checked it with Bloom?’ Then he points his finger at Roland, and he goes, ‘If I find out that the defense doesn’t have every single scrap of information you’ve assembled on this case, I will personally deliver it to defense counsel, and I will inform the judge of your conspiracy to suppress evidence.’ That’s when Roland threw the case file. Shit, it was like the movies!”
Marlene shook her head in amazement. “So what’s the upshot?”
“Damned if I know,” said Guma. “You oughta go talk to Butch. He might not bite your head off.”
But late that day in his office, he seemed not biter but bitten, wan, and depressed.
“So, are you going to kiss and make up or what?”
Karp grimaced at this question, but left Marlene’s head attached. “I don’t know, kid,” he replied. “I must be losing it. I still can’t believe it happened. Me and Roland-for chrissake, we go back years. It was him going to Bloom that did it. Bloom! He hates Bloom. And on a sneaky deal like this. And I blame myself for it. If I was a hundred percent, I would’ve played Roland different. The last thing you want to do with him is get into a pissing contest.” He slammed the desk in frustration and looked at her with eyes that were dark-rimmed and full of pain.
“I hurt all the time. It makes me irritable. Running a staff isn’t like playing ball, or even trying cases. Irritable is good in those. Now I got to be a fucking therapist.”