“Yeah? And you won’t yell out, ‘Guma, stop mashing my tits!’ anymore?”
“You got it. I’ll pretend it was an accident and back away.”
Guma looked at his wristwatch. “When’s the goddam meeting?” he said.
Outside Guma’s office Ciampi spoke to Karp with some heat, “OK, I owed you one, and I consider us even, with interest.” She began to walk off.
Karp said, “Hey Champ, it’s all for the cause. Where you going? Aren’t you going to wait around for the payoff?”
“Sorry fellas, I got to get into my hot pants and get down to Times Square. Leroy gonna whup my ass if I be late.”
At 5:30 that afternoon, Karp and Newbury entered Guma’s office to get the dirt. They found him seated at his desk, smoking a White Owl and reading the Post. The office coat rack was propped up against the sill of the wide-open window. A pair of navy-blue trousers and a pair of jockey shorts fluttered in the breeze like ignoble flags over Foley Square.
“Guma, what’s going on?” asked V.T. “You know, you don’t really have to undress in order to jerk off, but let me say I admire your delicacy.”
Guma dropped his paper and gave the two other men a sour look. “Shut the fuck up, Newbury. I swear I’ll never forgive you guys for this. I was in that goddam closet for two and a half hours. It was like a fucking bad dream.”
“What happened,” said Karp, “what did you hear?”
“I should’ve gone before I went in there, but who knew the meeting was gonna take so long?”
“What are you talking about, Goom?”
“I peed in my pants, for Chrissake, a fucking drop at a time. It was murder. Then I had to wash my stuff out in the men’s room and come back here buck naked. Hey, V.T., feel that stuff and see if it’s dry, will ya? Jesus, talk about embarrassment …”
V.T. said, “Anything, Guma. I will be your personal laundress, but for God’s sake tell us what happened!”
“What happened was that Conlin did a big bullshit number about how while he, Conlin, supported the old man to the limit, the support just wasn’t there in the office. He said the younger attorneys respected Garrahy, but wanted new leadership. Oh, he was rare, made you want to cry.”
Karp was astounded. “And nobody else said anything?”
“Nope. It was Conlin’s show. Oh yeah, he brought out a poll he said he had done, that showed Garrahy splitting the Democratic vote with Vierick thirty points apiece. If Vierick runs as an independent, which he says he’s going to do, that means a turnover in the general election. He had all the figures.”
“What a piece of crap, that bastard!” cried Karp. “How the hell can Garrahy believe that?”
“Maybe he wants to believe it, Butch,” said V.T. “Maybe he’s tired and looking for an excuse to quit.”
“He can’t quit. I need, I mean the office needs him.”
“Then what do you intend to do about it?”
“I’ll think of something,” said Karp.
That weekend the Bullets clinched the city-wide Lawyer’s League title for the fifth straight year. Which meant a party for the team in Garrahy’s office, which meant that Karp could sneak in for five minutes with Garrahy alone, when the DA was likely to be in as good a mood as he would attain at any time-and without having to get on his official calendar, of which Conrad Wharton had become the virtual master.
The party was scheduled for twelve o’clock on Monday. At a quarter to, Karp entered the DA’s outer office. Ida, Garrahy’s secretary, who had been with him for thirty years and was one of the last Ida’s in New York, looked up and smiled.
“So early, Butch? You must really love chicken salad.”
“Ida, I could say that I came up here to bask in your youthful beauty, but the fact is I’m in a jam and I need five minutes with Mister G.”
“Oh? Nothing serious, I hope.”
“No, just a personal matter.”
Ida nodded and spoke briefly into her intercom. Then she gestured Karp into the inner office.
Garrahy was sitting behind his desk in an office that was a large and airier version of Conlin’s, with even more impressive memorabilia. A good proportion of the photographs covering one wall antedated Karp’s birth; the man had been the Manhattan District Attorney since before Pearl Harbor.
He was starting to look it. Garrahy had aged visibly during the past year and grown smaller than his clothes, in the way of old men.
“Sit down, Butch, sit. What a season, hey? What is this now, four, five in a row for the Bullets? If the Yanks could do the same this year, oh boy!”
Karp allowed as how that would be a good thing, and the two men spoke about baseball for a few minutes, as any strangers might do. Karp was nervous, not because he was speaking to one of the most powerful men in the city, but because he could not take his eyes off the inch of space between Garrahy’s neck and the collar of his shirt, or take his mind away from the thought that he was about to ask for something that could not be delivered.
They reached the end of baseball talk and there was a silence. Garrahy glanced at his watch. Karp plunged in.
“Mister Garrahy, I hope you won’t think I’m sticking my nose in where it doesn’t belong, but I, I mean I and the other attorneys in the office are, well, concerned is the word, I guess about what your plans are for running for another term.”
Garrahy drew on his pipe and looked bleakly at Karp through the woody smoke. “Well, well. Are you concerned that I’ll run or concerned that I won’t?”
“That you won’t, of course. Everybody I know wants you to continue as DA.”
Garrahy leaned back in his tall swivel chair and appeared to consider this. “That’s very interesting. But that’s not what I’m being told. I’m being told that there’s a mighty yearning for a fresh face at the top of this office. I’m also being told that if I run, I’ll split the party vote. What do you think of that?”
“I think it’s nonsense, sir. If you announced, you’d win the primary and the election both, in a walk.”
“In a walk, hey? It’d have to be. I don’t have the energy to do anything else. No, Butch, I’ve just about decided to let it slip away. Mary’s got her heart set on spending half the year at our place in Florida, and I tell you the thought of another winter in the city …” He waved his hand.
“Mister Garrahy, look, I’m just a kid, wet behind the ears, what do I know? I’ve got some nerve coming in here presuming to tell you how to run your life, but Florida? I mean, that’s for, for appliance salesmen. You’re the DA! You stand for something in this city and we need you to keep on standing for it.”
Garrahy grinned around his pipe. “That’s quite a speech, Butch. I hope you’re that good in court.” But like all politicians, he liked to be wooed, and wooing had been scarce for some time. “So you don’t think I’m too old?”
Karp felt himself blushing. “No, I don’t,” he said in as firm a voice as he could muster. Which was a lie. Of course you’re too old, he thought. You’re old and weak and probably ill, and you’ve let the office go down the drain. But it’ll go down the drain about ten times faster if you’re not around.
“I don’t know,” Garrahy mused. “But in any case, this discussion is probably moot. With the time left I couldn’t possibly put together the organization to get the signatures for a nominating petition.”
Gotcha, thought Karp. “Forgive me, sir, but there you’re wrong. There are about two hundred attorneys in this office. I will personally guarantee that if you give the word, every one of them will be out on the street pulling in signatures. We could get five thousand signatures in a week. I’ll organize the whole thing myself.”
“Hah! You will, will you? A children’s crusade for Phil Garrahy? You almost make me want to run, just to see that.”
There was a discreet knock at the door, and Ida entered, carrying sandwiches on a huge caterer’s tray wrapped in yellow plastic. Behind her trooped the Bullets. Before turning to greet the team, Garrahy said to Karp, “I’m glad we had this talk, Butch, and I’ll keep what you said in mind. And I’ll get back to you.”