The Court

by William J. Coughlin

  “They’re coming to us a bit late, aren’t they? I understand that case is up for briefs.”

  “Well, yes, it is late. But we’ll be working with Laritz Loring of Chicago, Marchall’s usual counsel. They’ve done most of the work. They’ll do the brief. The oral argument before the Supreme Court will be up to us.”

  “So? Do you want me to handle it? I thought Fred Casey was our Supreme Court man?”

  A chuckle greeted his question. “Oh, he is. Fred will handle it. The justices are quite used to him and he knows them. As a matter of fact, it was Fred who suggested that I call you.”

  “Why?”

  “Jerry, we know why you’re out there.”

  “You understand, of course, that I really can’t divulge what I’m doing.”

  “Certainly,” Haywood Cross said quickly. “The President is your client, and he is entitled to the protection of the lawyer-client privilege the same as anyone else.”

  “Why did Fred ask you to call?”

  “Well, this Marchall case is a tough one, all sorts of political complications as well as legal. Fred believes the court will split again, four to four. If Howell gets well and can sit, his vote will make the difference. But if something should happen to Howell, then it is his successor’s vote that will decide the issue.”

  “So?”

  “Jerry, I’ve never been one to mix in political matters. But Fred seems to think you might be able to sound out the dean on how he might hold in the Marchall case. That is, if he is selected.”

  “And if he’s opposed to Marchall’s side I should block his recommendation, or push it if he’s for our new client, is that it?” Jerry Green spoke openly despite Deering’s warning about tapped phones. The possibility of bugged telephones was something Haywood Cross just wouldn’t understand.

  “Well, that’s very blunt, Jerry. I’m sure Fred didn’t have anything quite that blunt in mind. Naturally, we don’t wish to misuse your position, but Fred thought the knowledge might be helpful.”

  “Haywood, I am Special Counsel to the President of the United States. I can’t be part of any scheme to put someone on the Supreme Court just to win a case. It’s a question of ethics and also possible criminality.”

  “Well, of course, but this isn’t anything like that at all, Jerry. It’s just that Fred thought the information might prove useful.…”

  Jerry Green understood perfectly. A win in the Marchall case would bring in law business by the millions. And anyone in the firm who was reluctant to assist in that worthy endeavor wouldn’t be with the firm very long, no matter what other course ethics might dictate.

  Green wondered if all this was being piped into a tape recorder. After all, in Washington friends recorded friends. Who knows what others might do? In any event, Haywood Cross, in his bumbling way, was putting it on the line. Green’s future with the firm would very much depend on how he handled this matter.

  He began delicately. “Haywood, within the limits of ethical considerations, I may be able to do something. I obviously can’t ask the man how he might vote. He probably isn’t familiar with the Marchall case. But I’m sure the President also would be interested in the man’s attitude toward suits involving anti-trust issues. I can follow it up from that aspect.”

  There was a pause. “This is important, Jerry. I don’t know if you fully realize just how important.…”

  “Listen,” Green said. “Let me say this just once, Haywood. In the event this conversation is being recorded, don’t you think you should exercise just a bit more circumspection?”

  “You can’t mean that this is.…”

  “I see you can appreciate the possibilities.” He paused to allow his words to have the desired dramatic effect. “You can be assured, Haywood, that I will carry out my ethical duties. All my duties. I trust you understand exactly what I mean?”

  Cross coughed, it was an embarrassed sound. “I hope I haven’t compromised you.”

  “I don’t think so. However, I should be back in Washington soon. We can talk then. Is that agreeable?”

  Another pause. “Certainly. I’ll look forward to it.”

  “Anything else on your mind, Haywood?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll see you shortly then.” Green hung up the telephone.

  He lay back on the bed and considered his position. It was illegal to tap a telephone without a warrant. To get a warrant, reasonable cause had to be shown. There would be no way such a recording could be used against him in a legal proceeding. No judge could possibly find cause to tap his telephone. But he knew that phones were tapped often, illegally, just for informational purposes. So there was a possibility that somewhere this short conversation had been preserved. And that could prove dangerous for a number of reasons, and to a number of people.

  Taped or not, he fully understood Haywood Cross’s message. He was regarded as a “political” partner, the outsider who had valuable connections. It was simple enough. Harley Dingell, although a silk-stocking law firm, obviously followed the old Irish adage that it is better to know the judge than to know the law. They merely wanted him to put in the “fix” with the prospective new member of the Supreme Court. It was simple indeed. The Chicago firm must have gotten wind of his assignment for the President. Green felt demeaned. Not only did his own partners think he would approach Pentecost on a pending case, but unknown lawyers from Chicago obviously thought the same thing. It didn’t say much for his reputation.

  The Marchall case, it was every bit as important as Cross said. He knew he would be expected to come through, ethics or not. There would be no room in the firm for a “political” partner who couldn’t deliver when it counted. They weren’t interested in abstracts like courage or honor. He remembered his father’s story about the fierce courage of Mattathias whose actions in ancient Jerusalem had inspired a national revolt against oppression. No, Harley Dingell definitely had no interest in that sort of thing.

  It seemed that his own future had suddenly become entwined with Dean Roy Pentecost’s prospects.

  All his feelings of security had vanished. This time the title wasn’t going to be everything. This time only the results would count.

  * * *

  Malcolm Whittle had arrived at Gim Ling’s before Green. He sat alone in a far corner at a table well removed from the others. An immense man, Whittle was vastly overweight. A crown of reddish hair, like a gamecock’s plume, ran across his head from ear to ear. The front of his head was bald. His fleshy jowls seemed permanently flushed. His suit was wrinkled and his tie askew, but he had daintily tucked a linen napkin into the top of his vest. He waved as Jerry Green entered the restaurant.

  “Sit down, Mr. Green,” he said without getting up. “I hope you don’t mind, I was famished so I started without you. They create fiendishly good egg rolls here and I am an absolute addict to them.”

  Green pulled up a chair.

  “Have a drink. This is all on me, by the way,” Whittle said, sending forth a spray of rice.

  “Well, I think I would rather pick up the.…”

  “Nonsense.” Whittle habitually spoke with his teeth clamped together, giving his words a sharp, clipped sound. “I was instrumental in bringing over the owner’s family from China. I put the arm on a congressman who owed me. And I am responsible for obtaining the liquor license here. So, as you can imagine, none of this is coming out of my pocket. I could eat here free forever, if I chose to do so. However, I make it a point never to abuse gratitude.”

  A young Chinese girl hurried to the table. Her lithe form was revealed by a clinging silk dress with a slit up the side. She put a glass of water before Green and handed him a menu.

  “He’ll have a drink, Ah Sue. And tell Sam to make it a good one. This guy could mean a lot of money to the university.”

  She giggled. “What you want?”

  Green smiled up at her. “Scotch and soda.”

  The girl made a little bow, her almond eyes fixed inquisitively on Gr
een’s. She turned and walked away with animal-like grace.

  “That little broad would still be making radios back in Hong Kong if it wasn’t for me.” Whittle slurped his tea noisily, spilling some on his bib. “Nice little thing, but she has a hell of a time with the English language. Her uncle is the cook here. They try to keep him sober. But drunk or sober, he’s the best damned cook to come out of Canton in fifty years. I got him in here, too.”

  “You make it sound as if these people are your slaves.”

  Whittle chuckled and put the teacup down. “It’s nothing like that at all. I like ’em, and I like their food. I do them favors, they do me favors. I know you are a blue-blooded Washington lawyer, but believe me that’s how the rest of the world works, my friend—it’s favor for favor.”

  Green glanced at the menu. It was standard Chinese fare. “That’s exactly what makes Washington work, too, only it’s done on a truly grand scale there.”

  “It’s done all over. The trick is to get a bigger favor in exchange for the one you’re doing.” Whittle’s bushy eyebrows overshadowed small eyes, deeply set. His face seemed to have an almost sinister appearance. “You want to know all the dirt about Roy Pentecost, right?”

  “That’s putting it a bit strongly, but that’s the general idea.”

  Whittle signaled and their tea pot was instantly replaced with a fresh one. “Allow me a small demonstration of my awesome powers.” There was no smile, his shaded eyes seemed fixed on Green’s. “You are Jerome Green. You’re a University of Michigan man, a graduate of their law school, with honors. Your old man was an associate professor of anthropology here. You’re Jewish, although I must say you don’t look it. And I suppose you’ve heard that old wheeze before, eh? You grew up here. You’ve been divorced and have a teenage son by your first marriage. You remarried, this time to a lady accountant. You’re a senior partner in Harley Dingell, a silk-stocking firm in Washington, D.C. And for some damn reason you just took on the job as a special counsel to the White House. I suppose it was to check out our boy, Pentecost. And it’s my guess that as soon as you’ve done that, you’ll hotfoot it back to the big firm and the big bucks.” Whittle smiled, exhibiting large tobacco-stained teeth. “How’m I doing so far?”

  Green lit a cigarette. “Who did you talk to?”

  Whittle grinned. “A few people here and there. Believe me, nobody can keep secrets from steely-eyed old Malcolm Whittle.”

  “So it seems.”

  Whittle swirled a forkful of egg roll around in a saucer of mustard sauce. He brought the dripping concoction up to his mouth and slurped it in, quickly washing it down with tea. “Some people prefer the plum sauce, sweet you know. But I like the hot stuff, clears the sinuses.” He licked away a trace of mustard from his lower lip. “Actually, I already knew a bit. I merely called a Washington reporter and a political type and asked about you. Checked the Internet. Looked through Nexis/Lexis. Then I talked to your brother. See, just simple stuff.”

  The girl returned and served Green’s drink. He took a sip before continuing. “You sound rather experienced at this sort of thing.”

  “I am. I damn well have to be.” Whittle snorted. “It’s my job to look after the faculty. Oh, other people take care of their pension plans, their little administrative problems, and the spats that develop between teacher and management. I have an entirely different assignment. What I do is to keep the sons-of-bitches out of trouble. It’s just as simple as that. And it’s a big job. We have over forty thousand students up here. That’s a lot of ignorance on the hoof. We need over two thousand teachers to pound some knowledge into the little darlings.”

  Whittle demolished another egg roll. “I suppose you could consider me the resident ‘fixer.’ They call me that, but not to my face. If one of our wonderful professors gets caught flashing at Girl Scouts, or if one of our department heads get loaded and starts shooting out car headlights, I’m the one the cops call. That’s my job. I know every judge, I know every cop. Hell, I know every drunk treatment center and every drug abuse clinic in this state. I have to. God knows, I certainly send them plenty of customers.”

  “I presume that keeps you busy.”

  His main course was served and Whittle dished out a steaming mound of rice, then covered it with a thick orange sauce. “Ah Sue,” he said to the waitress, “bring this gentleman some of that good sweet-and-sour beef.” He grinned at Green. “You’ll love it, that’s the specialty of the house.”

  Green shrugged and the waitress hurried away.

  Whittle went to work on his food, again with gusto and noise. He continued to talk, spraying small particles about, delicately picking at them with the edge of his napkin-bib. “Most of these academic types are quiet people; deep thinkers who take themselves and the world very seriously. Outside of an occasional suicide I seldom have any trouble there. But we got a few very wild folks up here too. All kinds. Listen, we got some sexual things going on up here that would make an old Roman throw up. But what the hell, that’s their business. I don’t care so long as the university doesn’t get splashed in the mud. But if it looks like trouble’s brewing, or that there might be some adverse publicity, then I go to work.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve been doing this job for thirty years and I’ve found most crap can be prevented if you get to it quickly. So you have to keep your eyes and ears open and keep a good line of communication going with a lot of people.”

  “You mean like a detective with informers?”

  Whittle shrugged. “Yes, in a way. I’ll give you an example. Let’s say some menopausal woman professor starts giving head to our young leaders of the future, you know, she starts making a spectacle of herself. Now if I can find out about it in time, then I can usually do something before the shit hits the fan. I use her clergyman, family, medical people, whatever it takes. Usually I can put out the fire.

  “Same thing with drunks. If we start picking up beefs from the students that some young assistant professor is missing his classes, we check with his pals, or even his enemies in the department. If it turns out that he’s hitting the sauce, I go to see him. Most of them bitch like hell, but I usually have enough on them to force them into a drunk hospital for the cure, if they’re really bad. It depends.”

  “And if they don’t do what you ask, what then?”

  Whittle gulped down a mouthful of food and patted his lips with his bib. “Like I said, I usually have quite a bit on them to begin with. But if that doesn’t work, then I try a little peer pressure. I have their pals reason with ’em. And, finally, if that doesn’t work then I usually frame their ass and force ’em to resign.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “Does that shock you? Look, take the example of the old lady who is going down on half the campus. I use the clergy, family, whatever. It’s done to help her at that point. But if she doesn’t have the brains to jump at the chance I give her, then I have to protect the school. I set it up with the campus cops. They catch her on her knees. The students gets the shit scared out of him, and the woman, caught in the act, quietly resigns. I don’t deal in abstracts, Green, I deal in results.” He jammed some more food in his mouth. “And I deal in facts. Hell, I know more about the private lives of the people on this campus than the recording angel. And that knowledge is both my armor and my weapon.”

  “Armor?”

  “You bet your ass. I don’t have any tenure here, my job isn’t protected. I can be fired anytime. And in a job like this you make enemies, believe me.” He laughed. “Every new guy who comes in here as university president does the same thing. As soon as he finds out about me, he makes me number one on his ‘to be removed’ list. But within a couple of months he knows he can’t do his job without my help. He needs me, or someone like me. Besides, by that time I usually know a few things about him that he would prefer to keep quiet. It’s a rough world, Green.”

  “What do you know about Dean Pentecost?” Green asked.

  Whitt
le wiped his mouth with the tip of his napkin and leaned back in his chair. His small, deeply set eyes seemed to glitter with something akin to malevolence. “You understand that I wouldn’t be talking to you at all except that I have been commanded to do so by our president. He’s new.”

  “And you don’t have anything on him as yet.”

  Whittle laughed heartily, the loud rasping sound caused other diners to look around to find the source of the disturbance. “Blunt, but correct. You see, I use my inside information only for the benefit of the university. The new man should know that, but he doesn’t. Not yet. But he will soon. So be it. Because of this accident of timing I am forced to let you see under the rock, as it were. Usually I’m the only one who looks.”

  The waitress brought Green’s food. He waited until she had served the hot covered dishes and departed before he spoke. “Fortune smiles on me then. What do you know about Dean Roy Pentecost?”

  Whittle had finished his meal. His bib bore a number of stains to attest to his poor marksmanship. He pulled out a long thin cigar from inside his coat and struck a wooden match. “I presume you people have had him investigated by the FBI, right? Security clearances, that sort of thing?”

  “That’s correct.”

  The billowing cigar smoke formed a cloud about the top of Whittle’s head. “Then you know his basic background. He is forty-six years old. He is a graduate of Harvard and Harvard’s law school. He served as a clerk to a Supreme Court justice after graduation. After that, as you know, he went into the teaching business. He’s a miracle worker when it comes to law schools. He did a hell of a good job at two of them before he came here. He took our second-tier law school and made it first-rate. But that took money. There was a big political fight. When the legislature finally approved the funds, by one vote, some folks wanted to see the school fail.”

  Whittle sipped some tea. “I have to admire Pentecost’s guts, he beat the critics and the odds. I know I don’t have to go over the details, you must know them already. But he won. And now we have one of the most prestigious law schools in the nation. We have a lineup of genius types trying to break their ass to get admitted here. The dean has written some legal crap, and like most legal crap nobody reads it but everybody says it’s wonderful.”