Escape by Robert K. Tanenbaum Read Free Book Online Page A

been overheard discussing V. T.'s possible "defection" in terms that were borderline insulting—and unexpected, given the longtime friendship between the two men.
    The friendship was not very apparent now as Newbury stalked over to the door leading out to the hallway. He grabbed the doorknob just as Karp appeared from his office.
    "I just want you to reconsider before you do something you'll regret," Karp said to his colleague's back.
    Newbury set his jaw and replied, "Shall I announce this at the meeting on Monday, or are you going to save me the trouble?"
    Karp shrugged. "Fine. Never thought I'd see the day when you'd let a couple of punks chase you out of this office for a Fifth Avenue day spa, but money talks and bullshit walks I guess. I'll let the others know and save you the ... embarrassment."
    Newbury paused at the insult, then flung open the door. He stomped out, slamming the door behind him so that the glass pane rattled dangerously.
    After a long pause, Karp turned toward the ADAs. Reluctantly, like prisoners ordered to look into the eyes of the firing squad, they raised their heads to meet the infamous Karp glare. It was worse than they'd heard. He was a big man—six-foot-five and 240 pounds—which made the fire in his gold-flecked gray eyes all the more imposing. A sound like steam from a tea kettle escaped his pursed lips.
    Gazing down at them, Karp knew that the latest episode of the rift between himself and V. T. would now become the buzz of the office. It was sure to inspire wonder in those who knew how far he and V. T. went back. He would never have believed it himself.
    They'd been friends and colleagues for thirty years, ever since they both arrived fresh out of law school to work at the New York DAO when the office was run by the legendary, seemingly immortal Francis Garrahy. V. T. came from a family of wealth and social prominence. His mother traced her ancestry back to the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony, while his father's side had been knocking around since the Revolutionary War. From the moment he'd graduated from Harvard Law, V. T. had seemed destined to eventually take over his paternal family's two-hundred-year-old law firm, but to everyone's surprise and consternation, he'd joined the DAO instead. Ever since, his family had waited for him to "get it out of his system," but except for a brief stint with the, U.S. Attorney General's Office, he'd remained at 100 Centre Street.
    Karp, on the other hand, was a Brooklyn Jew whose predecessors had emigrated from Poland fleeing Cossacks and pogroms. His mother had been an elementary school teacher, and while his father, Julius, had graduated from law school, he'd made his living as a businessman manufacturing and selling women's hair products. Their son, "Butch," had attended the University of Califomia-Berkeley on a basketball scholarship until a knee injury ended the possibility of an athletic career and put him on the path to law school. After graduating, he'd applied to one place and one place only, the New York District Attorney's Office, with the aim of making it to the homicide bureau.
    In between then and now, Karp had dabbled in private practice, but he'd hated it and returned to the DAO. He still took on the occasional off-the-clock case to help a friend—in one recent trial, he'd helped a coach in Idaho, the brother of an old basketball friend, defend himself against charges trumped up to get him fired. But he was where he wanted to be, though it was still hard to imagine that he was now the duly elected district attorney, the heir to Garrahy's legacy.
    Their family backgrounds were not the only differences between Karp and Newbury. In a court of law, V. T. was the meticulous, low-key technician who prosecuted cases like an engineer building a bridge. The more complex the crime, the more he enjoyed the challenge of piecing it together so quietly and efficiently that defendants hardly knew that he'd made a case against them until the jury