J.T.

by John Nicholas Iannuzzi

  “The Times poll shows you with only about seven percent of the vote.”

  “The attitude of the Times shows that I have very little popularity at the editorial offices of the Times, so I wouldn’t doubt that their poll reflects poorly on me. As I said, it depends on whom the pollsters poll.”

  “Are you saying the New York Times poll is rigged?” asked the Times reporter.

  “I’m saying that there are a lot of polls and many have differing results. That speaks for itself.”

  “The poll from the Daily News indicates you’ve declined just as much as the Times poll does. Are you saying they are both wrong and do not reflect the true picture?” pressed the Times reporter with as much indignation as he could muster for the cameras.

  “Squirm, you son of a bitch,” Reynolds hissed through clenched teeth at the television screen.

  “I believe I’ve already answered that question,” said J.T.

  “I don’t believe you have,” the Times reporter shot back.

  “Shall we take a poll to find out if I answered the question or not?” J.T. asked acidly. There was some laughter.

  Delafield was seated in his chair now, sipping his drink, watching the TV impassively. He still had to admire J.T. He could fend off twenty hostile questioners and still not look like he was having his brains kicked out.

  “Mr. Geofrion, please,” Archie Reynolds said into the telephone as he absently watched the sports newscast giving the early season baseball scores. “Jeff,” he said happily into the phone, “I just watched that reporter of yours at Wright’s throat. It was great.” Pause. “Oh, absolutely. Keep up the good work. Yes, how about Thursday for drinks? You’re on. Keep up the pressure, Jeff. He’s going down for the third time,” Reynolds said with delight.

  “Mr. Boxer, this is Judge Tauber,” said the voice on the other end of the phone. Marty was speechless. “I realize that you’re probably surprised to get a call from me. I wanted to thank you personally for what you did for me.”

  “I did what every lawyer should have done under the circumstances.”

  “Mr. Boxer, you and I both know that under many circumstances not all lawyers go out of their way to help the opposition—regardless of the morality. I realize now, however, that it does happen occasionally. My case brought that point home very poignantly.”

  “Yes, sir,” Marty said, not knowing what else to say.

  “I admire how you stood up for your principles under circumstances when other people”—the judge paused meaningfully—“probably did not agree with your decision. I know our dear colleague, Judge Moriarty, did not.”

  “I just did what I had to do, Your Honor. I couldn’t let you or your son suffer when you hadn’t done anything.”

  “That’s exactly the point, Mr. Boxer. There are some people, regardless of the equities of the situation, who might have permitted the case to continue to the very end, to squeeze the last moment of personal glory out of it for themselves. You did not. I admire that greatly. So does my entire family.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’m sure Mr. Wright’s bid for the mayoralty is going to be terminated any moment now,” the judge continued.

  “I don’t know about that, judge,” Marty said, trying to keep J.T. afloat.

  “I was just looking at the television coverage, Mr. Boxer. As an old politician, seeing Mr. Wright falling further in the polls every day, I know his campaign is rapidly losing steam. The sunshine friends are already looking for safer horses.”

  Marty could not reply to that.

  “I understand from Mr. Sabbatino that when the campaign is over you will not continue practicing law with Mr. Wright?” the judge probed.

  “I’m not sure what I’ll do, judge.”

  “I’m not trying to pry, Mr. Boxer, but I would consider it a privilege, in the event that you are looking to relocate professionally, if you would allow me to recommend you to my old firm. They can always use a man of integrity and intelligence. And if that firm doesn’t interest you, perhaps I can recommend you to another in which I have some friendships and contacts.”

  “That’s kind of you, Your Honor.”

  “No, Mr. Boxer. I’m just passing on the good turn.”

  “I’d be honored if you’d recommend me to your old firm. It’s a fine firm.”

  “I see you did your homework on me, Mr. Boxer.”

  “Of course.”

  “Thanks to you, I’m in my chambers every day now. Please call upon me when you decide what you want to do.”

  A joyful feeling welled up inside Marty. He felt as though someone had just pinned a medal on him, made him Man of the Year, put his picture on the cover of Time.

  “Look, don’t let it get you down,” DeValen said to J.T. in the huge living room of DeValen’s elegant Fifth Avenue apartment. A television set inside a Louis XV chest was tuned to a late news program carrying J.T.’s conference. “So the mayoral thing didn’t work out. You still have five months of a legal retainer that will carry you while you set up your practice in earnest now.”

  “I’m not concerned about that,” said J.T. “Hell, the publicity in the papers, good, bad, or indifferent, didn’t do me any harm. People forget what they read about you in the papers in four or five weeks. They remember you, though. I’m not worried about that.”

  “Is it because Marty left your office?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe that’s it. We’ve been together a long time. College, law school, Washington. A long time.”

  “That’s understandable. Perhaps another vacation would do you good. What about Capri, Italy? It’s wonderful this time of year. We can wash the dust of the campaign off in the Mediterranean.”

  “More like mud.”

  “Okay, mud then. Wash off the campaign mud in the blue Mediterranean.”

  “That sounds fabulous,” said J.T. Inwardly, however, he felt no enthusiasm. If it made DeValen happy, he’d go. Maybe he’d feel better when they got there. He had nothing holding him in New York right now, no pressing cases, no really pressing emotional ties. Now that Marty and he had split up, he had no other close friends, nothing, no one, nowhere.

  “We’ll have a terrific time.”

  When I get back, J.T. thought, I’ll have to start an entire new life. That was going to be hard without Marty. Come on, J.T., he urged himself, there are plenty of new worlds to conquer, new mountains to climb.

  December 23, 1969

  The mayoral campaign ended, not ignominiously—or at least not as ignominiously as it could have, had J.T. been hacked to pieces by a hail of flying ballots intended for his opponents. Rather than face that inevitability, J.T. deftly removed himself from the race before the balloting, hinting to his media friends that his actions were prompted by an altruistic desire not to split the Republican Party and fragment any chance it might have to succeed in the general election.

  Old Deveraux, shortly after J.T.’s mayoral retreat, resigned from the law firm, leaving the irascible young man with the puffy eyes and vaulting ambition to run the place himself. Deveraux was supposed to receive a check from the firm each week, but he always had to call twice before it was mailed.

  J.T. kept Deveraux’s old furniture. It was expensive to buy new furniture, and now that J.T. was spending his own money, he found it rather difficult to be lavish. Thus, although some chairs were wobbly and not in any sense commodious, J.T. still used them. After all, his clients didn’t come to see W. & J. Sloane, they came to see J.T. Wright.

  And clients did come, all kinds of clients: corporations, socialites, big name criminals, the entire fabric of humanity—well-heeled humanity, that is.

  To give the appearance of being tremendously busy, however, J.T. never saw anyone who sought his legal assistance. Not at first, anyway. Levine would interview all new clients. Levine had joined J.T.’s firm as soon as the hubbub about the Tauber affair died down. When clients finally did enter J.T.’s sanctum sanctorum, they found that J.T. had even less time and mon
ey to waste on furniture than he spent on clothes.

  Levine invariably did the research in J.T.’s office, drew the legal papers, and put together the arguments, which he hurriedly whispered to J.T. as they ran up the stairs of the courthouse, just in time for J.T. to repeat what he could remember to the court or jury.

  J.T. missed Marty. True, Levine was useful, but theirs was nothing more than a business relationship. It had been different with Marty. At the end of their relationship, there was not much left of them in an emotional sense. But they had had their days. He would never be that close with Levine; probably not ever again with anyone. He had no time for such things. There was too much to do, too much to take care of, too far to go. He had no time to rest.

  DeValen was still involved in acquisitions, still expanding, and J.T. was still on retainer with DeValen, although the guaranteed retainer had expired. J.T. saw DeValen rarely now, either socially or as his attorney. He had new clients to pursue.

  With his seemingly boundless store of energy, J.T. was able to maintain the public image of a dynamic man on the go. But secretly he wasn’t satisfied with anything, particularly himself. There was always something just beyond his grasp. If he could only go fast enough and run hard enough, he’d catch up to it. He knew he’d get there if he concentrated only on going fast, and let nothing get in his way.

  “Merry Christmas,” said his secretary as she stood in the doorway of J.T.’s office. She had her coat on, and a pile of brightly wrapped packages in her hand.

  “Merry Christmas,” J.T. said, a momentary smile on his face.

  The girl turned happily and disappeared.

  Good thing I’m going to Acapulco, J.T. said to himself. This town is going to be absolutely deadsville for the next week and a half. No one’s going to be doing anything. He straightened out some of the papers on his desk. Won’t be able to get anything done here. At least I can meet some new clients in Acapulco.

  June 15, 1970

  “Hello, Marty,” J.T. said hesitantly into the phone.

  “J.T.,” Marty said happily. “How the hell have you been?”

  “Terrific. And you, and Courtnay, and Muffy? And the new baby?”

  “They’re all doing fine.”

  “Now that we’ve gotten all the small talk out of the way,” joshed J.T., “where’ve you been keeping yourself? I haven’t seen or heard from you in twelve months.”

  “I’ve been keeping up with you in the papers, J.T.”

  “You don’t believe everything you read in the papers, do you?”

  “After working with you, of course not.”

  “You could believe a little of it, you know,” J.T. laughed tightly.

  “I doubt it.”

  “Very funny, Otto, very funny. How’s the new firm? Are you having fun?”

  “It’s different, J.T. Very straight, very proper, low-key.”

  “Sounds boring.”

  “In one way, it is, J.T., very pleasantly so. No mad panic ripping the office in two, no holding the ship together with string and paste. How about you?”

  “You have any string or paste you can spare?” said J.T. lightly.

  They both laughed.

  “Listen, I’m having a party and I’d like you and Court-nay to come. I might as well have a couple of old friends at a bash where there’ll be a hundred and fifty people.”

  “What’s the occasion?”

  “My birthday. Nobody has given me a birthday party in years, so I decided to give one to myself. It’ll be on my yacht.”

  “A yacht? For a hundred and fifty people?”

  “It’s a hundred twenty feet long. A woman I represent got it in a divorce settlement. She couldn’t use it, so she gave it to me, just to burn her husband’s ass.”

  “I shouldn’t have expected you to have anything less than a hundred-twenty-foot yacht. When is the party?”

  “A week from Saturday. Can you make it?”

  “Sure. Where?”

  “The Seventy-ninth Street Boat Basin. The name of the boat is the Enterprise. We’re leaving the dock about six thirty in the evening.”

  “We’ll be there.”

  “Great. I” look forward to seeing you. Say hello to Muffy for me.”

  “I will. She’ll be happy to hear from you. She asks about you all the time, asks when we’re going to see you.”

  “Tell her I’ve been awfully busy. I’ll be calling her real soon.”

  As he hung up the phone, Marty suddenly felt sad for J.T., having to throw himself a birthday party. Courtnay wouldn’t be too enthusiastic about going, but how could you turn down a guy inviting his only friends to his own birthday party?

  Courtnay and Marty strolled along the pier of the marina on West Seventy-ninth Street, in a crowd of other people who were heading in the same direction. Music emanated from an enormous, brightly lit yacht at the end of the pier. A crowd of people had already boarded and were standing in knots at the bow and stern, drinking, chattering, watching the arriving crowd.

  “J.T. can get anything for himself with that scheming brain of his, can’t he?” sighed Courtnay. They walked up the gangplank. “But he ought to spend a little time conniving some maintenance for this boat,” she whispered. “It looks a little frayed around the collar.”

  Marty had noticed the same thing. There was none of the spit-and-polish that the true yachtsman would require his crew to lavish on a yacht like this one. The varnish on the woodwork had worn thin in places, and the bright-work wasn’t polished. As they walked past the wheel-house, they saw the captain’s cockpit strewn with unfolded maps, a shirt one of the crew had thrown down, empty Coke cans, and sandwich wrappings that had been rolled into paper balls.

  “It isn’t maintained like your father’s yacht, that’s for sure,” Marty said.

  “My father would burn his boat before he would leave it in this condition.”

  “Marty! Courtnay!” J.T. said, spying them making their way along the deck. They waved and walked toward him. A woman, dressed in a concoction obviously just off the designer’s drawing board, with tightly bound silk leggings and a diaphanous flowing silk top that let her breasts practically fall out, intercepted J.T. and kissed him on both cheeks. He looked at Marty and Courtnay over her shoulder, and raised his eyebrows.

  “Your ship is just marvelous, darling,” the woman said, gushing enthusiasm. “And you look so nautical.”

  J.T. wagged his head boyishly. He was wearing a blue blazer, white pants, and brown penny loafers—unshined, of course.

  He made his way to Marty and Courtnay. He kissed Courtnay on the cheek. She in turn leaned forward and kissed his other cheek. “How Continental you’ve become,” he chided her.

  Marty shook J.T.’s hand. They stared at each other, smiling.

  “How the hell have you been?” J.T. asked, genuinely happy to see Marty.

  “Great,” Marty replied, equally happy. They kept shaking hands, smiling.

  “This is some birthday party,” said Courtnay, looking around. The crowd was splashed with people whose names and faces constantly filled the society pages, sports pages, and scandal sheets. Anybody who seemed to be somebody in New York was on board. It was another J.T. Wright promotion, Marty thought. He had made his own birthday party into a New York “happening,” and no one wanted to be left out.

  A man in dungarees, sports shirt, and soiled captain’s hat walked up to them. “Mr. Wright, the dockmaster wants to see you for a minute.”

  “What about, Captain?”

  “He didn’t say.”

  Courtnay gave the captain a fast once-over, which ended in an exchange of glances with Marty. If this was the captain of the yacht, Courtnay hoped they would stay tied to the slip all night.

  “Tell him I’m too busy.”

  “I think it’s important, Mr. Wright,” the captain said urgently.

  “Oh, well, tell him to come to the bridge. Come on, Marty.”

  Marty and Courtnay followed J.T. to the untidy,
littered wheelhouse. He shut the door behind them. Clothes were strewn on the bench against the wall, and the navigation desk was covered with nuts, bolts, and an old plumber’s wrench.

  “This is the dockmaster, Mr. Wright,” said the captain.

  A bald man with a puffy face looked around, hesitating to speak in front of the others.

  “What is it, Portmaster, if that’s how you’re called.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Wright, but I can’t open the gas pump until you take care of the bill that’s outstanding. It’s two months overdue.”

  J.T., unflustered, said, “Just send the bill to my office. I’m sure they’ll pay it the moment they get it. I don’t own the boat,” he explained to Marty and Courtnay. “It’s owned by the office.”

  “They’ve already sent two bills to the office. I called personally. Your secretary said she had to wait until you told her to pay it.”

  “Well, I’ll tell them first thing Monday.”

  “No good, Mr. Wright. I don’t mean to upset your party, but I got orders.”

  Courtnay looked at Marty, amused.

  “I understand, I understand,” J.T. said. “I don’t have a check with me, though. I don’t think I can pay you now.”

  Marty smiled. He was sure J.T. would salvage the situation somehow.

  “I can’t open the pumps. That’s orders.”

  “How much is the bill?”

  “Two thousand fifty.”

  “I don’t have that kind of cash on me.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Wright.”

  “Yes, yes. All right. I’ll send someone over to you in a few minutes. You’ll get your money.”

  “Very good, Mr. Wright.” The dockmaster left.

  “Find Mr. DeValen and ask him to come here a minute, will you?” J.T. told the captain.

  “Okay.”

  “Some things never change,” said Marty, when the three of them were alone in the wheelhouse.

  J.T. shrugged. “We have a professional corporation now. I’m just an employee. I don’t even draw a salary. The office pays my expenses.” J.T. grinned. “This way, if anyone wants to sue me, they have to get in line with the others. I don’t have any money.” His grin widened. He loved that.