Decision

by Allen Drury

  “Well,” he said triumphantly, turning his back upon her with a sudden frightening dismissal of interest, “I don’t care either, so that makes two of us… Now,” he said, taking up the paper again, holding it out in front of him, examining it with a critical but approving eye, “where was I? Oh, yes. ‘Whereas we live in a corrupt capitalist society bereft of hope and of the humanity, kindness and true compassion which decent people everywhere ought to show to one another—’”

  “You are crazy,” she whispered, holding John Lennon Peacechild tight as his sobs gradually subsided. “You really are crazy.”

  So, too, possibly, was the attorney general of South Carolina, although probably no one would ever formally certify him as such. He was, after all, doin’ nothin’ more, he said, than jes’ respondin’ to the public will. And what could anybody say was crazy about that? Wasn’t that what a public official ought to do? Seemed that way to him, he said, and if a few people got hurt in the process, well, they’d asked for it, hadn’t they? And they’d hurt other people first, hadn’t they? So what did the damned crazies expect? He wasn’t a vengeful man, but society’s safety came first with him, and if the law wasn’t a help to society, then he guessed society had to help itself. That, as he conceived it, was his job and nobody, no, sir, not nobody, was tellin’ him he wasn’t right about it. The people liked it, didn’t they? He was gettin’ mail and telegrams and phone calls from as far away as California, wasn’t he? All over the country they were tellin’ him to go to it, boy, weren’t they? So what were those damned northern liberals and that damned human-rights bunch worryin’ about? They weren’t gettin’ hurt by the crazies. Wait until they were, and then see what they’d say about it! They’d holler a different tune then, he’d wager! He’d bet his bottom dollar they’d be glad he was leadin’ the country in the right direction then, by God!

  Thus spoke, upon the right occasions, Regard Stinnet, a dark-eyed, dark-haired, dark-minded, well-set-up thirty-six, just then concluding a mutually congratulatory conversation with his equally strong-minded think-alike, thirty-five-year-old Attorney General Ted Phillips of California. Like his opposite number across an uneasy continent, the attorney general of South Carolina did not, as he expressed it privately, “talk corn pone” to his intimates. It was only when he took to radio or television or got out in the back hollers that he really let fly with the redneck stuff. That was for the folks back home. Actually in his office—and sometimes, also, on the air, because a lot of high-class people lived in South Carolina, too—he was a well-dressed, well-groomed, soft-talking, highly intelligent graduate of The Citadel and Yale Law School who used perfectly good English and held his accent and his temper under reasonable control. Outwardly he could be, and often was, one of the mildest and most civilized men around. This of course made him doubly effective when he did let fly, and doubly dangerous to his state and country in a tense and difficult time.

  He had his eyes on several places higher up the political ladder, and hoped by a combination of skillfully applied guile and bombast to get there. Moss Pomeroy, who knew exactly the game he was playing, might be his only obstacle; and he didn’t think Moss would be all that much of a problem. Moss was on the Court, and as Regard could tell from a shrewd analysis of some of his recent opinions, his national position was giving him the opportunity to see too many sides of too many things. Moss was beginning to have Doubts, of a kind that Regard always capitalized in his own mind. Regard did not have Doubts, and that gave him a great advantage. Regard was that type of demagogue who genuinely believes his own demagoguery. This made him an almost invulnerable politician for this particular moment in his nation’s history—a man of dynamic persuasion to a rapidly growing number of his countrymen—and a genuine danger to the lumbering processes of a democratic but now increasingly inadequate system of justice.

  Whether he wooed them softly or shouted from the stump, whether they were rednecks or bluestockings, more and more were paying attention and expressing agreement. Crime and violence were bringing their inevitable reaction in an era in which the courts had made retribution increasingly uncertain and, when it was attempted, either impossible to achieve, ponderously slow or almost laughably (had laughter been possible) light.

  Regard was convinced that in himself and his fellow avengers, crime and violence were about to meet their match. He knew as surely as he knew anything—because letters, telegrams, telephone calls and an increasing number of editorials, columns and commentaries were telling him so—that he was riding a rising tide of popular feeling. “The hour has come!” he solemnly assured his listeners on every possible occasion; and the man for the hour—or one of them, for they were becoming many—had arisen.

  Already Regard had proposed, as Moss had reminded the Court this morning with disbelief and distaste—that a whole range of moderate crimes be punished by public flogging, and that the death penalty also be made public. Being a child of his time, he had quite inevitably and without a moment’s second thought proposed the logical next step: that these events be put on television. In prime time.

  His proposals had been greeted with horror, outcry and scorn by human-rights organizations, the American Civil Liberties Union, the earnest, the idealistic, the decent, and the more staid and solid elements of the press and television itself.

  And yet—and yet.

  Even while they loudly protested and denounced, a secret, sneaking, awful but insistently tantalizing thought was beginning to creep into the minds of network executives and their advertisers.

  What could possibly draw more viewers?

  What could possibly assure an advertiser wider exposure and bring more money into network coffers?

  DEATH IN PRIME TIME.

  Deny it as they would, try to push back its horrid fascinations as they might, they knew it was a natural.

  Greed, the ratchet wheel that turned far too many Americans in the closing years of a sick and savage century, was beginning to impose its own self-destructing logic in this area as well.

  Surely many enterprising Romans must have advertised on the walls of the Coliseum.

  It was not only for a worried Chief Justice in Washington that the ghost of Nero stirred.

  It grinned, more kindly, on Regard Stinnet too.

  “You know, Ted,” he had just told his fellow attorney general out in Sacramento, “I think you and I may be riding something a lot bigger than we realize. I mean, man, the people are fed up!”

  “All over the country,” Ted Phillips agreed.

  “Got any vigilantes out there?”

  “A few. The impulse is spreading.”

  “You encouraging them?”

  Ted uttered a dry little laugh.

  “Officially I’m still expressing horror and repugnance at the whole idea. But how much pressure can a public servant take without yielding to the wishes of his people?”

  “Exactly my point,” Regard Stinnet said promptly. “Exactly my point. Some of these do-gooders seem to think you and I are causing all this rumpus. They act as though the God damned criminals and terrorists have nothing to do with it. I haven’t started this parade. But,” he added with an equally knowing laugh, “I sure as hell don’t intend to let it go by without me, that’s for sure.”

  “Me, either,” the attorney general of California concurred. “After all, it seems to be what the people want—and more and more of them seem to want it. It’s our job to channel it into areas as law-abiding as possible, but the movement is growing so fast that I don’t think we can stop it. God knows I’m against vigilantism—”

  “Oh, me too!” Regard agreed fervently.

  “—but if it’s going to go on anyway, to the point where it would take real police action to stop it—then what’s the choice?”

  “The choice is,” Regard said crisply, “that you only have a limited police power anyway, right? And if you pull it off the criminals to go after the good people who only want to fight the criminals, then the criminals are going to
get even worse than they are already, because the police and the law-abiding public will be busy fightin’ each other instead of fightin’ the criminals. Right?”

  “Absolutely right,” Ted Phillips agreed.

  “You meet yourself coming back on that argument,” Regard observed. “It’s a damn circle with no way out. What you’ve got to do is get the police power and the people movin’ in the same direction, and that’s what I’m tryin’ to do down here.”

  “We’ve been hearing quite a bit about your ideas, lately. A lot of favorable comment.”

  “I’m gettin’ calls from as far away as North Dakota pledgin’ support,” Regard said, “even though they don’t have such a huge problem there as I do, and particularly you do. It’s just a general conclusion all over the country, I think, that enough is enough, that’s all. Enough is enough.”

  “A good slogan.”

  “Be my guest,” Regard Stinnet said. “I’ll use it—you use it—we’ll spread it all over this damned country. Enough is enough. Next time we have an excuse to let go with it, we’ll go. I’ll bet you in ten days’ time it’ll be on every bumper from here to Alaska and back.”

  “Let’s consult often on this,” Ted suggested. “In fact, how about trying to set up a regular round of calls about once a week with all the attorneys general all over the country?”

  “Might even have a meetin’,” Regard said thoughtfully. “An annual meetin’—semiannual—every month, even. Hell, the problem sure as hell isn’t goin’ to go away anytime soon.”

  “That’s certain,” the attorney general of California agreed. “Okay, let’s get organized. Why don’t we just split the states in two, you take twenty-five, I’ll take twenty-five, and we’ll call everyone in the next week or two—”

  “Let’s say two, give ourselves enough time,” Regard suggested. “And let me think about the list a little bit.” He chuckled. “Some places, you know, they think a southern accent means you’re kind of dumb. California culture might go over better.”

  “If they think a southern accent means you’re dumb,” Ted Phillips said, “they’re dumb. Do you think they’ll go along?”

  Regard sniffed.

  “Oh, there’ll be some of ’em who’ll shy away and keep on cryin’ for law and order. But hell, man! Don’t they realize we’re tryin’ to re-establish real law and order after too many years of coddlin’ criminals and lettin’ our cities and towns be turned into damned jungles? You take care, now. We’ll talk soon, hear?”

  “We certainly will,” Ted Phillips agreed, and added, half-humorously but seriously too, “Enough is enough.”

  “You’re damned right,” Regard Stinnet said with satisfaction. “Enough is sure as hell e-nough.”

  After his new friend—they had never even met before, the call had come out of the blue from Sacramento, apparently prompted by a genuine interest in and respect for his own efforts—had hung up, Regard had remained at his desk saying “Enough is e-nough” quietly to himself several times with complacent emphasis. Then he had jumped up, as was his custom, and begun to pace up and down in front of the big window in his office that looked down on dim night-shapes of trees and level lawns. He was a restless soul possessed of a great energy that rarely allowed him to settle long in any one chair, room, place. And he was always thinking, as his mother had remarked when he was still a solemn-eyed baby who rarely smiled: always thinkin’.

  What he was thinking now was that when Moss Pomeroy came down to dedicate the Pomeroy Station atomic energy plant, he must try to have a real talk with him.

  Moss had just been up there too long in the rarefied atmosphere of the Court, Regard suspected. It was all very fine to be high and mighty and remote and above it all, as he had told Carolyn just the other day when the Justice’s name had come up, but it did put you out of touch with what the ordinary folks were thinking. Regard doubted if Moss and his fellow Justices even knew there was an explosive unrest growing in the country; he doubted they even knew how deep-seated and uneasy was the popular feeling, how frustrated and how ready to explode into counter-violence. Moss should know these things, then he would understand better what was going on. They should all know these things. Maybe Moss could tell them, after Regard explained it to him.

  He decided he would call Moss tomorrow and see if he couldn’t set up a definite appointment, maybe after the dedication ceremony. Moss needed to know—they all needed to know because, Regard suspected, the day might not be far off when a case or cases growing out of this would go right on up to the Supreme Court. If they were as out of touch with the country as they sometimes appeared to be, then they might not render a fair judgment at all. They might listen to a lot of this liberal human-rights crap and make the wrong kind of decision. And they just couldn’t afford to do that anymore. They just had to help put down the criminal and the violent, otherwise the country might well turn on the Court itself. And even Regard didn’t think that would be right.

  He might go along with it if that seemed to be the popular will and there was no way to restore genuine law and order otherwise; but he certainly didn’t think it would be right. Actually, in a detached sort of way, he felt that it would really be kind of sad.

  ***

  Chapter 6

  “You come to us, of course,” the Chief said, “at a difficult time, Tay—if I may be so familiar.”

  “Please.”

  “Good. You can call me Chief or Dunc, whichever seems easiest.”

  “Chief, I suspect, for a while at least.”

  “Well, I keep an informal Court, as you’ll find. Public dignity at all times, because I think that’s important for the image, and I think the image is important—”

  “Certainly.”

  “—but otherwise, reasonably informal.” He laughed. “Many, including our brethren and May McIntosh, call me The Elph behind my back. I don’t encourage this to my face.”

  “Never,” Tay said gravely. The Chief laughed again.

  “You sound suitably impressed with the Court already. It is a great honor.”

  “And a great responsibility. I am very well aware of that, Mr. Chief Justice.”

  “I know you are,” the Chief said. “I didn’t call to lecture you about it, just to congratulate you and warn you of the obvious, which is that, as you know, we don’t face any easy decisions these days. The whole crime situation is growing much worse, the potential much more explosive.”

  “And our responsibility—the Court’s responsibility, I should say, since I’m not confirmed yet—that much greater.”

  “No worry, you will be. Yes, it is. I only hope the issue comes up to us in some form in which we can stand together—some form in which it doesn’t get all tangled up in Bill of Rights, human rights, grays and blues and browns and yellows and everything except simple black and white. That’s so often the way.” He sighed. “Things aren’t clear-cut. It complicates the job so.”

  Taylor Barbour laughed sympathetically.

  “It does indeed. And of course you know I’m one who always sees the grays and blues and browns and yellows. I almost never see the blacks and whites.”

  “I was afraid of that,” The Elph said with a rueful humor. “I was afraid of that! More five-to-fours!”

  “Yes, I expect so. I’m sorry, but—”

  “Oh, no, not at all,” The Elph said, more cheerily. “That’s the way you see things, that’s the way you’ll vote. I wouldn’t expect you to be inconsistent with what you believe… By the way, while I have you—I’m going to host a little party at the Court next Friday evening, if you and Mrs. Barbour would be free—”

  “Now, just what else,” he asked with a laugh, “could we possibly be doing that would take precedence over that?”

  “Well, I didn’t know,” the Chief said. “You birds in the Executive Branch are always buzzing around the social circuit, a lot more than we do. Partly this is something I like to do each year toward the end of the term, just to send everybody off to
recess on an amicable note. But it’s got an added importance this time with a new member coming on. You can consider it a formal welcome for you. Eight o’clock—black tie—the dining room up here. It will be a good get-acquainted time.”

  “That’s very kind. We do appreciate it, very much. You’re again assuming, of course, that I’ll be confirmed.”

  “My dear boy!” the Chief Justice exclaimed. “Are you kidding? You’ll get two or three young loudmouths on the Senate Judiciary Committee who may look for a few headlines at your expense—may try to bounce you around a bit in the hearings—but Rupe Hemmelsford and Wally Flyte tell me the Senate is overwhelmingly on your side. They’re now estimating no less than eighty-six or eighty-seven, perhaps even more, for you. I wouldn’t worry, if I were you. For a man of your known—and perhaps even rigid, might I say?—views, you have surprisingly few enemies in this town.”

  “A somewhat backhanded compliment,” Tay said with a laugh, “but I appreciate it.”

  “Meant,” The Elph said. “Meant. Please give Mrs. Barbour my best regards and congratulations also, and tell her Birdie and the others are looking forward to having her join them. And now I’ve got to get back to work. You haven’t heard of Steiner v. Oregon yet, but you will—you will.”

  “Are you still working? Isn’t it getting rather late?”

  “Not for us up here, my boy. We work. I’m in my office and Clem, Wally, Rupe and Moss are still in theirs, I believe. This building stays alive to all hours and Justices are often right here with it. You’ll find out.”