Decision (10 page)

“If I ever heard a quibbling, evasive, pettifogging, question-dodging answer,” he said with a humorous indignation, “that’s it. You ought to be a lawyer.”

“Oh, heavens,” she said, tapping him lightly on the cheek. “It’s bad enough being married to one—and the most famous one of all, at that. Anyway, dear, the children and I love you. Your face has
character,
and that’s good enough for us.”

“A truly flattering and ego-building commendation,” he remarked. “I shall treasure it.”

And, he thought, he probably did, because he had to admit he wasn’t the handsomest man in the world. Sometimes he rather wished he were a little more so, particularly when the Court had its annual picture taken and here stood this wizened—yes, at seventy he supposed he could be honest and say “wizened,” at least to himself—little figure in the middle, flanked by eight taller associates. But he had dignity, he would say that; nobody could summon up the awe of the law more effectively than he when he wanted to, as many an incompetent pleader, called sternly to task for rambling on too long before the Bench, could testify.

“When the Chief lays down the law,” they said around the Court, “everybody snaps to.”

And everybody did, he thought with some satisfaction, though he didn’t mean to be too arbitrary about it. But he did respect the procedures of the Court, and he desired others to; and since he had the authority, he exercised it.

“Large certainty resideth in that small frame,” Mary-Hannah once remarked in a humorous imitation of Shakespeare; and they all recognized the fact and accepted it without much chafing.

He ruled the building with an iron, if comfortable, hand, being sometimes more concerned, some outsiders charged, with housekeeping details than he was with cases. This was deceptive, for he had a mind that missed nothing and was “on top of every case before the Court, all the time,” as Clement Wallenberg had admitted grudgingly not too long ago. When he became C.J. he found in the history and accoutrements of the Court a pleasant diversion from the legal problems that often involved him in sharp contention—although, in general, he tried to play an ameliorating part in the constantly shifting alliances that had of late produced some of the most closely decided verdicts in the country’s history.

Back in his office as his soup came to a boil, the hamburgers sizzled to exactly the right point (he was not such a bad cook himself, if truth were known), he reflected on what he referred to privately to Birdie as “my little brood.” He was disturbed by their frequent lack of unanimity, but as characters and colleagues he liked them all. There was his senior Associate, Richard Waldo Flyte of Illinois. Heavy—in fact, as he himself put it bluntly, fat—with a round, owllike face and a portentous manner broken by frequent gleams of humor, he never took himself quite as seriously as his outward aspect might indicate to the uninitiated, and was always a help in smoothing over personal animosities. His appointment, as Seab Cooley had remarked one day in the Senate Majority cloakroom, had made him as happy as a whale in aspic. His whole instinct from Senate days was to work with people as harmoniously as possible, and he could always be counted on for the friendly comment that encouraged the reluctant, the jest that eased the way. The Chief had been grateful for this on many occasions.

Clement Wallenberg of Michigan was a different matter; the Chief sometimes wondered, with a puzzled shake of the head, whether it would ever be possible to blend Clem smoothly into anything. He rather doubted it, not because he and the others didn’t try, and not because Clem was really such an ogre, but just that he fancied himself to be so, and carefully cultivated the reputation whenever he could. He too was slight of build, though somewhat taller than The Elph; shrewd but casual of intellect; given to occasional free-swinging interpretations of the law but on the whole staying fairly consistently on the liberal side. He had a temper, as the Chief described it once with an upward-spiraling index finger, “that goes
zoooom
like that!” But underneath it, aside from Justice Ullstein and quite a long list of other things in the world that he professed to abominate, he was a generally amiable, if prickly, man.

Raymond Ullstein of New York had indeed been, as Justice Wallenberg often liked to point out, a corporation lawyer. But far from being “smart-assed,” as Clem also liked to put it, he was one of the mildest and most polite, and also one of the most respected and universally beloved—which was perhaps what galled Clem the most—of gentlemen. On the Court he was generally liberal but considered himself, perhaps in slightly greater degree than his associates, who also shared the feeling, “the guardian of the Constitution.” Clem Wallenberg fancied the title for himself and resented the media’s conferring it on Ray; which also accounted for a good deal of their sometimes rocky relationship.

The middle member of the Court, fifth in seniority, brought as always a gentle and kindly gleam to the Chief’s eye as he consumed his modest meal. With her short-cropped gray hair severely brushed back, her pince-nez gleaming and her dark eyes snapping angrily at some challenge to her strongly held ideas, Mary-Hannah McIntosh of California could look every inch the formidable dean of the Stanford Law School which she had been at the time of her appointment to the Court. But underneath, as she had once told the Chief with a laugh, “beats the heart of a softie.” “A very
nice
softie,” he had pleased her by saying, “and one we all love dearly.” A lifelong spinster, the law had been her favorite, and often only, companion; and never more demanding, she had found, than when she sat on the nation’s highest bench. Few, the Chief had once remarked to Wally Flyte, had ever brought to it a greater service and dedication.

And next came, The Elph thought with the amused smile with which they all thought of him, Number Six. “Old Rupe” they called him in Washington, and with a determined and not to be deflected air he went about living up to it—“Old Rupe-ing,” as Wally, his former Senate colleague, put it, “all over the place.” Yet under the carefully created image, Rupert Hemmelsford of Texas possessed a very sharp, very shrewd and very well-informed mind that could very quickly demolish anyone who didn’t realize it. He was quick to spot pretense in lawyers coming before the Bench and quick to puncture it; and, like Wally, often contributed leavening humor, usually stories that began, “You remind me of the feller who—” The eyes would peer sideways with their exaggerated, slightly lascivious glance, the slow-as-
mo
lasses drawl would ooze over the broadly grinning lips, and the poor fellow would become completely discombobulated and have to start all over again. Both his humor and intellect had been welcome additions to the Court.

Seventh in seniority—and for both him and Number Eight the Chief’s eyes held the same fond, indulgent expression that they did for Mary-Hannah McIntosh—was Hughie Dubose Demsted of the District of Columbia, a big and gentle man of forty-eight who still possessed a lingering youthful earnestness that endeared him to his colleagues and made him, next to Moss Pomeroy, probably the most publicly popular of all the Justices. He had loved the Court from the first day he came on it, and since then he had become one of the most reliable, most gentlemanly, most soft-spoken and most determined members of the “liberal bloc” of the Elphinstone Court.

He, Ray Ullstein, Clement Wallenberg and Mary-Hannah McIntosh almost consistently voted together. The Chief Justice, Rupert Hemmelsford and Moss Pomeroy generally stood together on the conservative side, with Wally Flyte occasionally on the liberal side, but, when he considered constitutional fundamentals too much threatened, moving back to the conservative. Presumably, given his past activities and general reputation, Taylor Barbour would join the liberals and be as firm in that cause as his longtime friend from South Carolina was in his.

If anybody could persuade Tay to become a conservative, the Chief reflected with a fond smile for his lively young colleague, it would be the one known up to now as “the baby of the Court,” a media cliché which Tay, though six months older, would no doubt inherit.

Stanley Mossiter Pomeroy had been on the Court three years and, as The Elph had once explained in informal remarks when they were giving a reception for the members of the D.C. bar,

“Does anybody think of the Supreme Court as waterskiing? It’s Moss. Do they have a mind’s-eye picture of us scuba diving in the Bahamas? It’s Moss again. Do they imagine us getting up every morning to jog, playing volleyball with the law clerks in the gym on the fourth floor, racing our sailboats on the Potomac? Well, it’s Moss. Do we all have wives who could model for
Vogue?
There’s Moss again. Thank goodness we have
him
around! Otherwise they’d think we’re a bunch of old fuddy-duddies instead of the dashing group we are!”

To which Moss could only grin and say rather defensively, “Well, it’s true. I’m sorry I like to do all those things, but it’s true.”

And so it was, and he supposed he did lend a note of rather surprising youth and agility to his associates, because every summer he did seem to pop up regularly in the magazines and newspapers doing something dashing. But damn it, he supposed he
was
dashing, though he did not try deliberately to create the image. He just liked to be active—always had—had always possessed the money to indulge it—and had also married Sue-Ann Lacey, which was a great extra in itself. He and Sue-Ann had been the darlings of Charleston in their early married years, and still were, as a matter of fact.

Since he combined all his many attractive attributes with a very astute mind and a great application to his chosen profession of the law, he had gone very far very fast, first following his father into the family law practice established by his grandfather Mossiter, then at thirty into the state attorney generalship now held (and disgraced, in Moss’ opinion) by Regard Stinnet, then into the lieutenant-governorship at thirty-four, the governorship at thirty-eight and then to the Supreme Court of the United States at forty-three.

It was a nomination that had astounded a lot of people, including himself, but aided by his youthful good looks, charming demeanor and undeniable grasp of the law, he had sailed triumphantly through the Senate on a vote of 89‒6.

It had meant relinquishing, at least for a time, presidential ambitions, which he and Sue-Ann did “nurse quietly in their bosoms with all the soft deception of the suckling dove,” as Justice Hemmelsford put it once to Justice Wallenberg when they were discussing their newest associate. But that could wait. Others before him had clambered off the Bench to indulge other ambitions, and there would be no reason why he should hesitate if the opportunity came.

Meanwhile he was a faithful and dedicated Justice, one, he told himself proudly and with some truth, of the best; and he felt that was a fair enough bargain. With Rupe and the Chief he formed an alliance that sometimes became the basis for some of the 5‒4 decisions that the Chief deplored yet to which he himself contributed. Quite often they had been able to swing Wally Flyte and Homer Dean their way. He was not so sure that they could swing Tay Barbour. Over almost a quarter century of friendship he had acquired many more diverse impressions of Tay than their associates had; and if there was one thing that sometimes stopped Moss, it was Tay’s adherence to his principles and convictions. He was not impervious to reasoned argument, nor was he by any means completely immovable, but as long ago as their first year in law school Moss could remember shouting in exasperation, “Sometimes I think it would take a damned earthquake or some other catastrophe to get you to budge one little inch when you’ve got your mind made up about something!”

Tay had just smiled patiently, looked up from his books and replied in a mild voice, “We ride out earthquakes all the time, in California.” His mind, Moss knew, had long ago become set in the liberal pattern for which the President presumably had chosen him. He could be swayed, but short of “an earthquake or some other catastrophe,” he was going to be a pretty predictable vote when he took his place on the highest Bench.

This, too, was the Chief’s impression as he finished his snack, cleaned off his desk, rinsed his dishes and left them in the sink for his messenger to wash in the morning. He closed the door of his little kitchen and returned to his massive desk to resume his study of
Steiner
v.
Oregon.
It involved public utilities, which the Chief generally found a bore, but their rate-setting practices were more important than ever these days to an economy lurching from one crisis to another. He told himself with a sigh that he must get to it.

He could not help, however, letting his mind wander off before he did so to the new member who would soon join them. There was one area in which he knew they were in alliance already, and that was the area of rapidly growing crime and violence of all kinds.

Inevitably, demagogues were rising to profit from this. Attorney General Regard
(Ree
gard
,
as Moss had translated it into Carolinian for them) Stinnet of South Carolina and Attorney General Ted Phillips of California were the most active so far, but they would be hearing from many more soon. It needed only some frightfulness in one state or the other, and one demagogue or the other, both or all, would be leading the pack full-cry. Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord. At the rate things were going, He would have a great many volunteer helpers, very soon.

And then would come the testing of the Court that they all anticipated with such apprehension. The Executive Branch would try to stand against the surge, but its leader was political too, and another term was coming up. He would not go over to the vendors of vengeance, but he would bend and he would waver; he would cry out against, but he would subtly and equivocally incline for. And the Congress? It, too, might not break, but it, too, would bend and it would answer. Election day—always another election day—was coming; and the pressures would be enormous, and almost impossible for any but the strongest to resist.