Decision

by Allen Drury

  “It never stops,” Ray Ullstein said. “Never. So be prepared, Tay.”

  “I am,” he said, “… I think. Although, do you know, I haven’t even had time to fully organize my staff yet. I’ve got interviews with two more would-be law clerks for later this afternoon before I go home. I’ve really got to get going.”

  “Nobody’s complaining,” the Chief pointed out with a kindly smile. “You’ve had reason.”

  They fell silent again, contemplating the reason and the point to which it had brought them at this moment: about to be condemned at a public rally in Washington, D.C.; about to be put under enormous popular pressure to rule for vengeance, whatever the law; about to be faced with a testing from which, whatever they might decide, none of them or the institution they served, revered, and fiercely defended, could emerge unscathed. This, among other things, Earle Holgren had accomplished. Earle’s thinking had probably not gone this far in the beginning, Tay reflected, but he knew he must be pleased with their discomfiture now.

  Later he found time to hire his prospective law clerks, told them that he expected them to report for work in one week’s time. They could not say enough in praise of him, their great hopes for his work on the Court and their deep admiration, amounting almost to reverence, for his “disinterested, compassionate and unblemished liberalism,” as the young woman put it.

  If you only knew what I hold in my heart for Earle Holgren, he thought, and how hard I am going to have to fight myself to keep from giving in to it—and how easy it would be to give in to it—you might not be so fulsome.

  But he congratulated them, praised them, encouraged them and sent them on their way, floating on air. Why trouble them with all that? They would realize it soon enough.

  As he drove out of the garage onto Second Street he thought for a moment of turning right at the corner and heading for Stanton Square. Some delicacy, some uncertainty—some cowardice, really, he told himself, despising himself for it—held him back. He had not spoken to Cathy since he had told her of Janie’s permanent disability. Their talk, hasty, gloom-ridden, inadequate, had depressed him even further, loving and sympathetic and trying to be helpful though she was.

  “It isn’t the same as having you here,” he had protested bitterly and she had sighed.

  “Or you here. But soon, I hope.”

  “Soon,” he had promised fervently. “Oh yes, soon.”

  And now here he was, five blocks away and too timorous to venture. But she might not be home—the kids might be there—the neighbors would notice—and it wouldn’t be dark until almost 9 p.m.

  Still too light for that sort of thing, he told himself with a sudden self-contempt. Too bright. Too honest.

  Well, he promised himself grimly as he turned left and started down the Hill toward the Potomac and the quickest route home to Georgetown, that would change before much longer. Mary might not want to let him go, though as he saw it she had finally destroyed all reason for staying; but he would go, nonetheless. He would have to wait a decent interval after Janie came home, a decent interval after he had settled in on the Court. Possibly it would not be until a year from now, until the end of the next term that would start the first Monday in October: but it would happen. Somewhere in the last few days, amid all the terrible tension of Janie’s deterioration, the trial, the steadily growing power of Justice NOW! and its triumphal advance upon the last citadel of the law, the conviction had come to rest in his mind and heart and could not be shaken now. His first marriage was over—he was committed to the second—and there would be no turning back.

  The conviction was not shaken, only strengthened every time he talked to her, as it was now when he reached home and Julia told him with a sniff, “Mrs. Barbour wants you to call, Mr. Justice. She’s soundin’ upset.”

  “Really upset, do you think, Julia?” he asked; and they exchanged a glance to which Julia did not reply but only sniffed again.

  Dutifully—his duty to his daughter, now, not his wife—he went to his study, shut the door and put through a person-to-person call to Richland Memorial Hospital. He had only been away from it twenty-four hours but already all that seemed like another world.

  “Yes?” he asked sharply when Mary came on the line. “What is it?”

  “I want Janie home and they won’t let her come home!” she said on a rising note. “I asked them to meet with me this morning and see if we couldn’t speed it up and all they would say was, ‘Mrs. Barbour, we’ll do our best. Mrs. Barbour, we’ll do our best.’ Their best! She’s improving steadily, physically all the signs are good, she’s obviously able to be moved. But they just keep repeating, ‘In about two weeks. In about two weeks.’ They’re like little white-suited wind-up mechanical toys. I don’t think they’ve ever intended to deviate from their timetable one little bit.”

  “Probably not,” he said. “But that’s their job.”

  “You won’t call and insist, then,” she said in a flat tone of voice.

  “No,” he said, drawing a deep breath. “I won’t call and insist. Actually, it may be better this way—allow more time to make arrangements here.”

  “And cause less inconvenience to you while you make up your mind about the precious rights of your daughter’s destroyer! That’s one of the main reasons I want her there—so you’ll be reminded every single second while you make your great decision. Will you vote to reverse his conviction, Tay? It would probably suit your concept of yourself.”

  “I don’t know,” he said, fighting down the savage answer that almost escaped his lips. “I just don’t know, yet.”

  “You’ve said that before so many times, it’s getting to sound rehearsed. You’d know if you were any kind of a father.” And suddenly she said what he had been expecting to hear her say for many days now. “Are you seeing someone else, Tay? Is that why you don’t want us to come home right away?”

  “Mary—” he said, in spite of anticipation taken aback, fighting for a few seconds to gather his defenses.

  “Well, is it? It seems to me it’s a simple question, needing only a simple answer. Yes or no, Tay? You pride yourself on honesty. Tell me!”

  “Mary—” he began again, and stopped. In for a dime, in for a dollar, he thought crazily, and said what he had to say in a voice he forced to stay level and calm. “Mary, I don’t know what has put this nonsense into your head.”

  “It isn’t true, then,” she remarked in a voice heavy with disbelief.

  “It isn’t true,” he said, his voice becoming stronger as the lie became more practiced. Yet it was impossible to be honest now. It couldn’t be done over the telephone. He would have to tell her, but in what he considered her present unstable condition it had to be done face to face, otherwise there was no telling what wild things she might do.

  Or so he justified himself to himself, hating the lie even as he spoke it. Even Taylor Barbour was human after all, he thought bitterly. And maybe Mary was right in her other accusation too. Maybe he didn’t want the “inconvenience” of his daughter’s presence while he was deciding what he would soon have to decide.

  “You’re very silent, Tay,” Mary noted dryly. “Doesn’t the lie sit well?”

  “It isn’t a lie!” he burst out angrily; and as abruptly forced his voice back to its normal calm level. “I shan’t dignify this with any further discussion. I’m sorry the doctors won’t release Janie as soon as you want them to, but they know best. You’ll just have to reconcile yourself to being patient.”

  “I won’t leave my daughter,” she promised grimly. “My duty is here with her.”

  “Yes,” he said, too emotionally drained to argue that one further. “All right, then. Take care and I’ll call you in a couple of days.”

  “Only if it’s convenient, Tay,” she said, and hung up before he could frame an answer.

  He sat for a long time staring out into the thick green trees, the lush azaleas and camellias that bordered the small lawn off the den. As in so many southern gardens there
was a feeling of the jungle looming, ready to spring, ready to swallow up: gorgeous but overwhelming. Julia fed him cold cuts and salad; he returned to the den. Later he heard her turn off the air-conditioning and open the upstairs windows to the gradually receding but still breathless heat, as Mary had taught her to do. Soon she would leave to catch the bus across town to her home in Northeast. She lived only a couple of blocks from Stanton Square, a little farther beyond Cathy where the neighborhoods became mixed, then gave way to solid color. Another reason for caution there, although he suspected she would not censure, report, or be anything but happy for him if she knew. A momentary sadness for Mary touched his heart: she defeated the world, and so the world defeated her. It was a draw but she, he knew, suffered the more.

  Presently, in the silent house, the phone rang. He knew who it would be before he picked it up. Julia was off for the weekend, the time until the gathering of the Court to watch the rally at noon Sunday stretched ahead with relatively little to do. He had no excuse and wanted none. Five minutes later, doubts and hesitations finally resolved by the sound of her voice, he was in the car and on his way.

  “How did you know I was home?” he asked after the door had been shut, the world banished, and they had kissed for a long time with a desperate hunger.

  “I checked,” she said with a smile. “I’m a good reporter. It just took one phone call to your chambers. Very difficult.”

  “I was going to call you earlier, but—”

  “You lost your nerve.”

  “Yes,” he admitted with an almost boyish grin. “How did you know that?”

  “I know you pretty well, I think,” she said, serious for a moment, taking his face in her hands, studying it carefully.

  “Where are the kids?”

  “Gone with friends for the weekend,” she said, and smiled again. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t have had the nerve. Or the opportunity.”

  “Thank God you did.”

  “Yes,” she said gravely.

  He took her hand and led her, in a dream from which neither wished to waken, up the narrow stairs.

  So Friday night passed into Saturday, and Saturday, in time, into Sunday, sometimes tempestuously, sometimes gently, always as in a dream.

  At 5 a.m. on Sunday morning he dressed fully for the first time in thirty-three hours, kissed her softly as she lay smiling up at him from the bed and went quietly out. First light flushed the east, the tall thick trees stirred gently in the little breeze that would soon give way to heat. Down the green-tunneled streets with their charming old high-stooped houses and lovely old worn-brick sidewalks no cars or people passed. He saw no one, thought no one saw him, as he walked swiftly to his car, started it up and drove quickly away.

  The city lay before him stately and white, just touched with pink, as he started down the Hill. Already, he noted as he passed the Mall, the first few faithful were beginning to gather for the rally. He shivered and drove on; reached home, let himself in, set the alarm for 11 a.m. and fell instantly, heavily, happily to sleep.

  ***

  Chapter 2

  By eleven-twenty, when the Chief became the first to arrive at the Court, the crowd along the Mall was so dense that traffic had to be diverted to Independence Avenue on the south side. He decided when he came down along the river to Lincoln Memorial that he would exercise his prerogative and use jammed-up Constitution Avenue on the north. He had decided to eschew the limousine and drive Birdie’s small black Buick, to be less conspicuous for just such a contingency. He was determined to test the mood of things for himself.

  When he came to the first police line and identified himself quietly to the officers, one white, one black, who stood guard, he was waved through with a somewhat dubious “Well, Mr. Chief Justice, if you really want to take a chance—”

  “I do,” he said calmly and drove on. Behind him he heard one of them communicating to his next colleague down the avenue. “Legal Eagle”—which was the way the Secret Service and the police presently referred to him, somewhat frivolously, he thought—“is coming through. Watch for him and extend all assistance required. Pass it on.” “Roger,” he heard the recipient respond, and to himself said firmly, “Nonsense!”

  Nonetheless he could not deny that he was glad to have the protection, for the crowd was intimidating both in temper and in size. He estimated that close to half a million people were converging on a large flag-draped platform set up midway between the Lincoln and Washington memorials. It took all his concentration to get safely through without hitting any of the individuals and family groups, many complete with children on down to babes in arms, who surged along the avenue toward their goal, many walking in the street. There were many state and city banners, some from as far away as Hawaii and Alaska. The crowd seemed to be mostly young, with a fairly even mix of black and white. Apparently Regard had struck a universal note: the nation’s blacks, victimized too often by their own people, seemed to be as anxious as anyone for Justice NOW! The capital’s population, not always easy with one another, seemed united and aggressive on this.

  “Aggressive,” in fact, was the word he felt he might apply more aptly than any other. Excited—united—and aggressive. Expressions were festive to some degree but basically they were determined. There was an underlying grimness, a single-minded purposefulness that seemed to emanate with an almost physical impact from all who trudged along. He sensed that these were people with a mission; and like Tay, he too shivered at the thought of what they might be whipped into by sufficiently impassioned oratory playing on their fears and their disgust.

  He could only hope, he thought uneasily as he came to the last police line and was passed on through with a relieved smile and a “Glad you made it, Chief!” that Regard Stinnet would be as restrained and responsible as he had been when confronted by the potential lynch mob in South Carolina. Of course there had been a different motivation then: Regard wanted to convict his culprit by law, not rope, and he was working in the shadow of the Court and the appeal he was convinced would be forthcoming. Now the matter was about to come to the Court and he might have a different motivation that would cause him to inflame rather than restrain. Now was the time to put all possible public pressure on the Court; and while The Elph did not feel that he and his sister and brethren would actually be hanged from a sour-apple tree if they did not perform as Justice NOW! desired, still he felt it best to take some precautions.

  The minute he reached his chambers he put in a call for both the chief of the metropolitan police and the head of the Secret Service. Both, he was told, were at the rally, but would call back as soon as they could be reached. Within fifteen minutes both did. They agreed immediately that the Court might need additional protection, at least today and possibly for the next few days, and promised to send extra men as soon as the rally concluded.

  Feeling somewhat more secure, he called the kitchen and ordered up refreshments. Then he went into the empty Conference Room, snapped on the lights, closed the blinds, checked the big-screen television set that had been installed yesterday. Then he took his place at the head of the table and sat for a few quiet moments awaiting his colleagues. Inevitably his eyes strayed to those of John Marshall, calmly dominating the room. As always the man who was referred to around the Court without other identification as “the Great Chief Justice” returned his usual strong and challenging look.

  “You expect so much of us, Chief,” Duncan Elphinstone said aloud. Then he smiled and added with a wry grimness, “Well, we’re going to do our duty. It ain’t gonna be easy, but we’re going to do it.”

  The Great Chief Justice, impassive as ever, made no comment. He simply expected. And with very few lapses over the years, his heirs had lived up to his expectations—in large measure simply because they were his.

  Such was the strength of an individual whose physical being had been dead almost 150 years. The personality, Duncan Elphinstone knew, would never die as long as there existed a United States and a Supreme Court to ho
use it.

  There was a resounding rat-tat-a-tat-tat-tat!-tat! on the oaken doors; they popped open and Justice Flyte bounced in with a cheerful, “Hi, Dunc!” He was followed in the next few moments, more sedately, by Justices Wallenberg and Demsted, Ullstein and Hemmelsford, Pomeroy and McIntosh. Soon after, five minutes before noon, Justice Barbour came in. He looked, the Chief thought, somewhat tired; but, then, he had many problems.

  “May,” the Chief said, “my brethren—welcome to Regard Stinnet’s Justice Hour. Draw near, because the Hour is about to begin. Oyez, oyez, oyez and you betcha!”

  It turned out they had all done exactly as he had on the way up, which provoked a general wry amusement around the table.

  “I wonder what those D.C. cops made of us,” Rupert Hemmelsford remarked, “this parade of Supreme Court Justices coming through one by one. ‘Oops, who’s that? Another Justice, by God! Is there no end to them?’”

  “I wanted to get the feel of it,” Hughie Demsted said, “as obviously we all did. I wouldn’t say it was exactly encouraging to law and order. At least, as we see them.”

  “They’re not unruly,” Mary-Hannah observed.

  “Yet,” Clem Wallenberg amended.

  “The potential’s there, all right,” Wally Flyte said. “Most of them looked pretty grim to me.”

  “But orderly,” Ray Ullstein said.

  “So far,” Tay remarked.

  “They won’t get too far out of hand,” Moss predicted. “Don’t underestimate Regard. He’s a smart boy and he knows all the potentials. He’ll keep it down to a reasonable level.”