January 23, 1969
The law office of Meserve, Deveraux, and Pelham had occupied the nineteenth floor of the Woolworth Building for forty-seven years. The chambers themselves were large by today’s standards, particularly since only William Deveraux, a man seventy-five years of age—although he carried himself as if he were much older—remained in active practice, with one spinster secretary. In days gone by, the firm had thrived with three partners, five associates, and assorted secretaries, clerks, and other personnel. The other partners had long since dissolved their earthly associations and gone on to represent ethereal clients, and the firm’s corporate contacts had also joined the ranks of the sublime. There was little happening in the spacious, antiquated offices on the Broadway side of the building—that is, until J.T. Wright entered the picture. J.T. wanted to take over a well-established, old-line firm, the better to jump into the middle of the lists of legal battle without delay or hesitation. Old Deveraux’s firm was perfect for that purpose. Almost moribund, with a grand name and tradition, J.T. could get the firm he wanted at the price he wanted.
J.T., at several lunches, breathed some fire back into old Deveraux, convinced him that the grand old firm could rise once more; that its respected name, typed onto legal documents, could once more be tossed across court clerks’ desks, added to calendars; that the old leather couches could once again support impatient clients. Deveraux looked as antique as the office, but was always well dressed and agile, if occasionally forgetful. He was familiar with J.T.’s publicized activities over the last dozen years. He caught a glimpse of J.T.’s infectious vision of youth again, of once again being needed by clients in straits beyond their understanding. And not unwelcome was the arrangement that Deveraux would share in all fees J.T. generated, in return for J.T.’s being allowed to operate under the firm’s revered banner.
Marty had quickly resigned from the Special Prosecutor’s office one week after J.T. called a sprawling press conference and announced both his resignation as Special Prosecutor and his candidacy for mayor. Marty agreed to run the Woolworth Building law offices during—only during—the campaign.
Marty’s first act after putting his new desk in order was to take the elevator down to the twelfth floor and make his way directly to the law offices of Peter L. F. Sabbatino.
A few minutes after the receptionist had announced Marty, Peter Sabbatino, in his shirtsleeves, a law book in his hand, appeared at the doorway of the reception room. He was looking at Marty with surprise.
“How are you, Mr. Boxer?” asked Sabbatino, extending his hand. “Come in, won’t you?”
Marty followed Sabbatino through a corridor to a corner office cluttered with open law books, piles of documents, and research notes. Marty was certain the furniture was under there somewhere.
“I’m just in the middle of writing a brief,” Sabbatino explained.
“Then I’ll only take a minute,” said Marty. “I’ve wound up my affairs in the special prosecutor’s office, and J.T. Wright and I have joined a firm here in the building.”
“Oh, really? Which one?”
“Meserve, Deveraux, and Pelham.”
“Christ, is old Deveraux still practicing? That’s a real old-line corporate firm.”
“I don’t anticipate being with them long,” Marty said.
“Oh? Have something on the fire?”
“While J.T. is running his campaign, I’ll be with him. After that, I’m going to find something else.”
The two men were silent. Sabbatino wondered if, perhaps, Marty wanted an interview for a job.
“As I said,” Marty began, realizing Sabbatino was waiting for him to start, “I’ve just about wound up all my affairs in the special prosecutor’s office. Before I left, I wrote a letter to you in connection with the Tauber case, and I enclosed the tapes you wanted.”
“I didn’t get it,” Sabbatino said with concern.
“Instead of mailing it, I decided to deliver it by hand.” Marty opened his briefcase and produced a manila envelope.
Sabbatino could hardly conceal his surprise. He took the envelope, his eyes still fixed on Marty.
“I’m a little surprised, frankly,” said Sabbatino. “Pleasantly, but still surprised.”
“You shouldn’t be. There are people, even prosecutors, who keep their word.”
“I’m delighted. I had given up on getting these tapes much before trial. Particularly when we heard that you were no longer going to be handling the case.”
“I hope they’ll be helpful to you,” Marty said. “J.T. and I, both of us, agreed you should have them now. He is fully aware of my being here, and approves of it. So if you get something of value out of them, it comes through the good graces of J.T. Wright.”
“What are you trying to tell me, Mr. Boxer?”
“Simply that J.T. is running for mayor now, and he doesn’t need any controversy coming back to haunt him about things that happened while he was the special prosecutor.”
“If you’re saying that you don’t want me to run to the newspaper with anything that might be in these tapes, you needn’t worry. I’m a lawyer, not a newspaper personality. I’ll use these in court, if there’s anything in them that’s helpful. Is that what you were concerned about?”
“Precisely.” Marty rose and reached to shake Sabbatino’s hand.
“I appreciate what you’ve done,” said Sabbatino. “Tell Mr. Wright the same. Although I doubt he was the moving force behind this.”
For a few moments, Sabbatino stood still, looking at the door through which Marty had left. Then he picked up his phone and dialed Joe Brill’s number.
“Come on, Marty, let’s get a move on,” urged J.T. as Marty entered the office. “We have to get uptown for a mini-debate and the press conference at the Roosevelt Hotel. I have a car waiting downstairs for us.”
“A car? You didn’t hire Stern to come over here to work, did you?”
“No, it’s DeValen’s car, the limousine. He’s put it at our disposal for the campaign.”
The two men took the elevator down to the front entrance and got into the limousine.
“When did the mini-debate come about?” Marty asked as they rode uptown. “I didn’t see it on the schedule.”
“I challenged the other Republican candidates to meet in a forum. Both the regular candidate and the other challenger accepted. We’re going to have an open interview with all the media. The regular candidate accepted when he heard all the media would be there,” J.T. laughed. “I made it short notice so the opposition wouldn’t have much time to prepare.”
“Did you study the position papers we drew up for you on the issues?”
“I have them with me. I didn’t get a chance to read them yet, I’ve been so busy. Tell me about them.”
“Christmas, J.T. I can’t fill you in on the issues on one auto ride uptown.”
“You’d better try. We’re already at Canal Street and I’m going to be on the firing line in a few minutes.”
“How can you run a campaign and not know what you’re talking about?”
“Why should I be different from anyone else?”
“Very clever. The main issues are fiscal reform and safety in the streets. They’re the issues on people’s minds.”
“That’s easy enough. Fiscal reform—eliminate wasteful programs, overemployment by governmental agencies, cut the fat out of agencies, cut taxes. Safety in the streets—start throwing the crumbs in jails, permanently. You know,” J.T. mused as the car passed through Little Italy, “I wonder if we should contact some of Bedardo’s people. Maybe they could help us with the Italian vote.”
“You’d let them campaign for you?”
“Not openly. But they have a lot of influence in certain areas. Italians are the biggest voting block in the city.”
“I think you’re crazy.”
“If it weren’t for being crazy, I’d have gone mad years ago,” J.T. wisecracked. “Besides, I’m too clever to get my hand caugh
t in any cookie jar.”
Thinking about what J.T. had said, Marty realized that J.T. was becoming more and more reckless. His plans lately had little to do with reality. Something was driving him to higher heights, regardless of the solidity of the foothold below.
“Where is this interview supposed to take place?” Marty asked as the car pulled up to the Roosevelt Hotel.
“In one of the small conference rooms, I think. I’m not sure. We’ll have to go to the Republican County Committee office, they’ve got their offices here.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Albanese’s not here,” said a woman official of the Republican County Committee. “Unfortunately, the joint press conference has been called off, Mr. Wright. We tried to call your office, but you had already left.”
“Where are the reporters?”
“The media people were advised that it was called off. There’s no one here.”
“That’s a hell of a thing,” J.T. said angrily. “I called the press conference! Your candidate accepted. What happened, did he get cold feet?”
“I’m sure that’s not the case. I don’t know why the conference was called off. I was just advised of it by Mr. Albanese on the phone. I didn’t have a thing to do with it. I’m sorry.”
“Tell Mr. Albanese I’ll be in touch with him,” said J.T. angrily, turning to leave.
“Very well.”
“Can you imagine this?” J.T. asked Marty as they made their way down to the lobby. “They probably were afraid to let their pantywaist candidate get on the same floor with me. I’d talk him through the wall.”
One thing was certain, J.T. had enough gall to be mayor, Marty thought to himself.
Chauncey Delafield stood at the Reynoldses’ library window, looking down at the ice floes in the river, sliding ponderously seaward on the tide. He could hear the rustling of a newspaper behind him as Archie Reynolds studied each page.
“Grand, grand,” chortled Reynolds.
“What’s that, Archie?”
A servant came in with a silver pot of coffee on a silver tray.
“Sure you won’t have anything, Chauncey? Tea, coffee?”
“On second thought, perhaps I’ll have a Bloody Mary, not too spicy.”
The servant nodded and left the room.
“Not a word on this page either about that little twerp Wright,” Reynolds said gleefully, turning the page.
Delafield shrugged slightly to himself, thinking that Archie was taking this nonsense of trying to block Wright’s campaign a little too seriously.
“Albanese and I had cocktails day before yesterday. He told me about a joint conference Wright had put together for yesterday. I told Joe to scotch it.” Reynolds laughed. “Nothing here either. Told him to let Wright go ahead and spend his money on posters, brochures, whatever. But no debates, no conferences, no opportunities for free publicity. Let the bastard go broke buying coverage.” Reynolds kept turning pages. “That candidate Joe is backing is nothing to write home about. Otherwise he wouldn’t have agreed to the damn press conference to begin with. Wright’d probably kick the stuffing out of him and come off looking good. He isn’t going to look good anytime I can help it.”
“Aren’t you spending a little too much time on this? None of those Republican primary candidates are going to beat Livingston, anyway.”
“Ah, but it’s the way Wright loses, not just his defeat. I want him humiliated.”
The servant entered with a large Bloody Mary.
“Thank you,” said Delafield, seeking some solace.
Reynolds pored over the paper, laughing gleefully from time to time.
“The newspapers are doing a pretty good job of burying Wright’s stories, too.”
“You talked to the newspaper publishers, no doubt.”
“Everyone I could get to,” Reynolds laughed. “And buying as much advertising space as I do, I got to a lot of them. Wright bit off a bit more than he could chew when he trifled with Reynolds. I’ll make sure he never has any kind of career in politics.”
February 3, 1969
“Can you explain to me how a son of a bitch like Wright could live with himself?” demanded Sabbatino. A small tape recorder on Joe Brill’s desk played—for the second time—the tapes Marty had turned over to them. Judge Tauber’s gaze was fixed on the tape player, his head shaking slowly in disbelief. “These tapes confirm just what your son said all along, Judge. He never put together a phony defense for Rainone. He told him he couldn’t take the stand.”
“It’s outright subornation of perjury,” Brill said gravely.
“No question about that,” agreed Sabbatino. “It’s unbelievable that a lawyer could do something like this, jeopardize a judge’s career, another lawyer’s license.”
“I’m just glad that Boxer is a man who still has some conscience,” said Judge Tauber.
“What do you think about Boxer’s part in this?” Brill asked Sabbatino.
“I go along with the judge. He wanted us to have these tapes all along. Wright was the one who held the whole thing up.”
“What do you want to do now?”
“My opinion,” said Sabbatino, “is that we should be very calm, do nothing precipitous. We make our motions. When this indictment is thrown out—as it must be—Wright’s going to look like one hell of a fool.”
“More than a fool,” added Brill. “A dishonest, treacherous creature, capable of anything for his own glory. He takes the world’s fame and glory as if it’s real.”
“You know, Joe,” the judge said thoughtfully, “since the indictment, I’ve had plenty of time on my hands. I watched and listened as my life, my son’s life, slowly disintegrated in the poisonous atmosphere of the indictment. I’d rather my leisure hadn’t been forced upon me so violently. That part of it has been a nightmare. But I guess without it I wouldn’t have taken the time to think, to reflect. You get so tied up in work, getting ahead, prestige, you don’t realize certain things.”
“Like?” Sabbatino asked. The binding pressure of the case having been eased, the three lawyers were relaxed.
“Like the fact that we’re just people,” the judge said. “That may not sound too profound, but it’s something people in demanding, responsible positions tend to lose sight of. As judges, and trial lawyers, we get so involved in our day-in, day-out activities, they become the important force in our lives. And that constant work, those activities, a little at a time, build a shell up around us, until our work is all we’re involved in. We lose touch with the reality that our so-called important tasks are so meaningless in the crucible of time. Take me, for instance, a Supreme Court judge …”
“And a good judge,” Brill added.
“Good or bad, suddenly I’m indicted, I’m suspended from the bench. Who am I now? A leper. People I’ve known for years see me in the street and walk the other way, friends avoid me. Who am I? Who had I thought I was? Oh, the black robes surround you with a feeling of power and importance. But that’s so fleeting, so ephemeral. In the face of nature, reality, eternity, it’s nothing. We’re all just nothing.”
“That’s not a very positive note” said Sabbatino.
“It really is, Peter. Because when you get past this fantasy you’ve been feeding yourself about how important you are, how important your work is, you suddenly see yourself clearly in reference to the rest of the world, the rest of humanity.”
“And?” wondered Brill.
“And maybe that’s when a person can get back his compassion.” The judge lit a cigar, the flame at the end of the match leaping high as he puffed. He sat back, crossing one leg over the other. “There was a time when I was full of piss and vinegar. When I was young, first starting out. There was only black and white, no gray. And I was going to lick the world.”
“We all were.”
“True enough,” the judge smiled. “And then we get a little older and a little jaded, too taken up with all our tasks to take much notice of things. And we get to thinking that when we were you
ng, full of those grand ideals, we were just unrealistic, too inexperienced to realize what the real world is like.”
Brill and Sabbatino were listening attentively.
“Well, with this indictment, I’ve had time to realize that our petty careers, our twenty years on the bench, our pensions, are nothing. Babylon, a city of a million people, disappeared, along with everything that was in it, into the desert sands. All that remains of it are a couple of stone tablets. Who knows if there were twenty Babylons before Babylon, that have disappeared into the same desert, that were literally wiped from the face of the earth? There were rich men in those cultures, and judges, and lawyers. And they all might have thought their lives, their functions were important beyond measure. But what do all their pretensions mean now?”
The judge blew out a plume of smoke, which drifted silently toward the ceiling.
“And when that worldly importance is lost, maybe the only thing that’s really important is an awareness of the next person’s frailty and humanity. We should look at the next person we see on the street and realize he’s in the same boat, struggling just to get through the world. Stepping over people, on people, to get ahead, that’s ridiculous. In the crucible of time, there’s no place to go, nothing to accomplish that can’t or won’t disappear. So we might as well be compassionate to each other. That’s where J.T. Wright comes in. He’s a classic example of someone whose values are totally warped. He still thinks this game, all the trappings of worldly gain and glory, are for real. He doesn’t realize how ridiculous, how transient, all his treachery is.”
“Sic transit gloria mundi,” said Sabbatino abstractly.
The three of them were silent, wistful.
“Speaking of treachery, we still have this indictment to deal with,” said Brill lightly, bringing them back into focus.
“Boxer said that Wright agreed to turn over the tapes,” Sabbatino said.
“I don’t believe that for a moment,” said Brill. “He’s probably just trying to save Wright’s election chances, hoping that we won’t make waves at a press conference.”
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