Irresistible Impulse by Robert K. Tanenbaum

beautifully cut blue suit. Something of a dude, Fulton. He wore custom shoes too, but since his wife was well off, an executive with a restaurant chain, he did not take bribes.
    “Can’t keep anything from a big-time dick like you,” said Karp lightly. And then, noting Fulton’s dour expression, added, “You don’t approve?”
    “Approve ain’t the point, son. You’re going to get creamed on this one.”
    “Why? It’s a solid case.”
    “Case ain’t the point neither. Unless you got a jury from a Black Muslim mosque, which you are definitely not going to get, this fucker going to fly away on an NGI.”
    “Race isn’t going to be an issue here,” said Karp stiffly, thinking in passing of his conversation with Roland.
    Fulton gaped theatrically and wiggled his finger vigorously in an ear. “Sorry, son, I must be getting deef. I thought I heard you say race don’t count in this one.”
    “It doesn’t.”
    Fulton’s face broke into a broad smile, and he started to laugh, short bursts of low chuckle that went on for some time, an infectious merriment in which Karp was hard pressed not to join.
    “What?” he exclaimed at last.
    “Son, listen good here,” Fulton said. “Look at it the other way. What if a black boy’d whacked five white grannies? They put him under the fuckin’ jail, man. They put him so deep under, he be oil . You want to talk to that boy, you got to drive into the Texaco, say, gimme a quart of thirty-weight. Hey, how you doin’, Leroy? Leroy say, glug, glug, glug… ”
    Karp, laughing, said, “That was a good imitation of a Negro, Clay. You’re getting better at it.”
    “Yeah, well, I get a lot of practice.”
    “No, but seriously, what’s your point? The system’s so racist we nail a black kid for the same crime we give a pass to a white kid on?”
    “This is a surprise to you?”
    “It’s a surprise you think I’d let it go down like that,” said Karp sharply.
    “It ain’t you, son,” replied Fulton, turning sober. “It’s just the fact that nine times out of ten, your crazy nigger goes to the slams, and a rich white kid with a good voodoo head shrinker is going to walk. Now, if he happen to have killed a quinella of cute little blondie girls, that’s one thing. Jury might say, he’s crazy, but hang his white ass anyway. Now, a bunch of old black ladies, all but one of them on welfare?” He shook his head. “You might win it, ’cause you’re that good, but it’s going to be uphill, son. Way uphill. Steep.”
    Karp was shaking his head doggedly. “Say what you want,” he said, “if the case is presented right, the jury will do the right thing. Meanwhile, what about this guy Featherstone? You know him?”
    “Uh-huh,” said Fulton, happy to change the subject. One of the reasons he liked Karp was that he had rarely met a person of either race so devoid of race prejudice. On the other hand, that may have made it hard for him to understand how deeply that particular poison was etched into the bone of the society. “Gordy Featherstone. He just got his gold tin when I was in the Two-Eight, in ’76 or so. Wasn’t on my squad, but I heard he was a pretty good cop. Smart. Didn’t take. Didn’t kick ass that much. The collar on Rohbling was a nice piece of work too.”
    “Yeah, it was. I need to talk to him about it in the next couple days. But as far as you know, there’s nothing in there that might come up to his disadvantage?”
    Fulton grinned again. “Well, he’s black. That’s usually enough.”
    They finished their conversation, Fulton promising to look into the affairs of Dr. Vincent Robinson, and then the detective left, leaving Karp with the burden of Rohbling lying embodied in the thick files on his desk and on the wire cart nearby. He had already gone through it all once, enough to follow the case’s presentation to the grand jury. That was coming up in a few days, and Roland Hrcany would bear the brunt of that task. Karp had no doubt that an