Decision (63 page)
Authors: Allen Drury
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Contemporary, #Genre Fiction, #Political, #Contemporary Fiction
It had been hard enough to come to terms with his own actions in the matter. He had finally done so; had reached serenity; and had no desire to be troubled further now by what he regarded as exaggerated, if loving, fears.
For the first few hours after his confrontation with Debbie following the decision, the epithet
Clever coward!
had hung in the air, a malignant presence. He was honest enough to acknowledge that there was some truth in it—not a great deal, but enough at first to make him uneasy and far from being at peace with himself. The memory of Ray Ullstein’s advice had proved invaluable then.
Ray had told him in a pre-decision telephone conversation that on the Court there was nothing to be gained by looking back. He had made no comment on the merits or demerits of Tay’s decision, only expressed regret that they would not be together. And he had admonished, in his usual gentle, non-judgmental way, that Tay himself should neither regret nor brood upon his decision.
Some brooding, as Cathy had perceived in their first conversation after the decision, had perhaps been inevitable. Criticism of his stand, balanced so ironically between Justice NOW! and his fellow liberals, had been made even sharper and more stinging by the letters, phone calls and telegrams he had received from many old associates and many unknown countrymen. Approval had come from those he least respected: denunciation from those whose opinion he most valued and whose admiration he had always had. For a while, this had not been easy.
He had taken the middle ground, for reasons humanly understandable—and to him legally valid—and neither side ever valued the middle ground. You had to go to extremes to please one or the other. And his nature had never been extreme. To that he had been true.
It was this perhaps more than anything that had at last brought him peace of mind. In a sense it could be said that he
had
sidestepped the issues of the death penalty and television, but there would be other cases and other opportunities for them arising in this hectic age, of that he was very sure. And then, when the issues were clear-cut and free from personal emotion, he could take the stand so automatically expected of him in all cases but not so simple in this.
In the Holgren case he had made a ruling consistent, as he saw it, with the commands of the law and the necessities of a stable society. He had managed to conquer his personal hatred for the defendant and render justice that he was convinced would someday, after present passions passed, be seen to be fair and evenhanded. He had been fair to Janie, constructive to his country and just to Earle Holgren.
He had been consistent with himself.
He went into his bathroom, sloshed hot and cold water alternately on his face, dried it, suddenly felt completely at peace. Cathy was waiting. The future was waiting. He was ready to welcome it. He felt amazingly happy.
On a sudden impulse he picked up the phone and called his parents in California to tell them of his divorce and of Cathy. Then he called his brother Carl and his sister Anne and told them, too. Then he called Erma Tillson and told
her.
Everything seemed to have come full circle. The pain of Janie would never end but so much other unhappiness had rolled away. He felt suddenly very close to his family, very humbly grateful to Cathy.
In mind’s eye he could see the beautiful valley of his youth stretched out before him in the gentle lovely light of California evening. The fertile earth conferred its old familiar solace. To it an infinite blessing had been added.
He forced himself to remain at his desk another fifteen minutes. Then it became too much. He said, “Oh, hell!” in a laughing voice, slapped his books shut, turned off his desk light, went into the outer office, snapped off the lamps and overheads, stepped into the corridor, back to it.
He locked his door and started to turn.
Just behind him, someone moved.
***
Chapter 5
Here he had been wondering how to find his old pal Tay, Earle told himself with disbelieving glee as the elevator rose slowly upward, and suddenly Tay had been delivered into his hands. Suddenly the major problems were solved. He was confident now that what he had to do could be completed without much further trouble. The final details were a little hazy at the moment but he knew they would come to him. It was like a miracle. It was obviously meant to be. Earle Holgren rides again! he told himself, laughing aloud in the little cubicle. What made anybody in the world think that it was possible to stand against
him?
He had arrived in the District on a late flight yesterday afternoon, having slipped easily across the state line into Georgia not too long after his date with Boomer, and then driven like hell for Atlanta. Security seemed to be lax along the way. The hue and cry for Regard’s assassin was apparently still centered in the Columbia area, and the DO NOT DISTURB sign he had left on the motel door was apparently still successfully delaying the discovery of Debbie. He had only been stopped once and then rather lackadaisically, he thought; it had occurred because at one point he had been forced to leave back roads for half an hour and use a main highway. The officers at the roadblock had glanced quickly at the driver’s license he had thoughtfully lifted from the back pocket of the motel manager and waved him on his way.
The fellow, who did resemble the clean-shaven Earle in a quick-glance sort of way, had responded to his call to come check the air conditioner, right after he and Debbie arrived. It was working fine, actually, but when he turned his back on Earle to check it, with Debbie’s voluble assistance, his half-out billfold was removed from his pocket and skillfully reinserted ten seconds later minus license. This was enough to get Earle through the roadblock now, and after that it was clear sailing. No particular interest was shown at the Atlanta airport. Armored in self-righteous confidence he walked through security without a hitch and was on his way.
In Washington he had grabbed a quick hamburger at the airport and then taken a taxi into town where he found a cheap boardinghouse on Ninth Street N.W. and holed up for the night. He had spent today haunting the Court and trying without success to find out where Tay Barbour lived. He had taken a couple of public tours of the building. (It was an odd feeling to stand in the chamber and think, This is the place where they did it to me. If he had needed any strengthening of his resolve, which he did not, that would have done it.) He had picked up the handy booklet, “The Supreme Court of the United States,” at the bookstand on the ground floor, finding in it which floor—the first—housed Tay’s chambers. He had then eaten lunch in the cafeteria along with other tourists and some younger, more-at-home characters who he assumed must be law clerks.
He had tried unsuccessfully to pump a couple of these as to Tay’s whereabouts; had shied away when they suddenly looked a little suspicious and had gone over to the Capitol for a while, where he roamed about and saw a few things, playing Mr. Average Tourist. Finally he had plopped himself down under one of the giant oaks on the Capitol Plaza lawn and gone peacefully to sleep for a couple of hours.
When he awoke he sat for a while thinking before going back once more to the Court. A young black couple lay entwined nearby, oblivious to the world. A transistor radio blared at their side:
“The hunt for Earle Holgren, the escaped killer who is suspected of gunning down Attorney General Regard Stinnet of South Carolina, leader of Justice NOW!, spread throughout the South today as the pro-law-and-order group turned to its new chairman, Attorney General Ted Phillips of California, for guidance in a stepped-up drive to enforce the nation’s anti-crime laws. Stinnet was largely responsible for Holgren’s conviction on earlier murder charges. His assassination is believed likely to draw even more Americans into the ranks of the vigilante-type organization. Meanwhile Holgren’s lawyer and presumed girl friend, Debbie Donnelson, who is believed to have assisted his escape, continues missing and is believed to be with the convicted killer somewhere in the Carolinas…”
Well, he thought with a wry grimace, she’s somewhere in the Carolinas, all right, and you’ll find her soon enough. But you won’t find your “escaped killer,” you bastards, because your “escaped killer” is just too damned smart for you. He’s a long way from where you think he is and he’s got a job to do. You think Yahoo’s death was a sensation! You wait and see what your “escaped killer’s” going to do next, you damned goofballs!
For just a moment, a split second that passed so swiftly he was able to persuade himself that it had never happened, there clamped upon his being an unexpected and inexplicable thought that sickened him so that he almost literally swayed with its impact:
Suppose it all meant nothing, when all was said and done? Suppose his Purpose, his Manifesto, his lifelong pretense that he represented some kind of valid social justice and reasoned challenge to the social system were only that—pretenses? Suppose it was all just empty blood lust, prompted always by pointless rebellion, spurred on now by nothing more than blind revenge? Suppose he
was
psychotic, insane, forever and eternally twisted, deranged and damned, just as Yahoo and Debbie and the rest had said.
Suppose there really was nothing to Earle Holgren at all?
The abyss opened for an instant at his feet, was as instantaneously forced shut.
A shudder shook his body for one awful, searing second.
Then it was gone.
His world was back in place.
A smile, arrogant, contemptuous and as always superior, crossed his lips.
The only damned problem at that point was, how was he to achieve his final objective? For the moment he felt himself stymied. It wasn’t a feeling he liked and after a while—it was by now almost 6 p.m.—he got up, hailed a cab and went downtown to the Capitol Hilton at K and Sixteenth streets N.W. He had a couple of drinks in the bar, ate a leisurely meal in the Twigs restaurant—the clothes Debbie had bought for him were quite respectable and anyway it was summer, he looked no more casual than any other sports-shirted tourist—and then decided, restlessly, to go back up to the Court. No particular reason. It just kept drawing him, somehow. And suddenly, as he stood on the street looking for another cab, the idea hit him.
Somewhere out of the two tours he had taken—he hadn’t dared take any more because a couple of the guards (they would recall him the next day, but it would be pointless, he would be gone by then) were beginning to look at him a little funny—some words came back about the Supreme Court Library. Brief tribute was paid to its beauty and excellence, his group was told regretfully that they couldn’t see it because it was only open to “Justices, their staffs, specially qualified lawyers and occasional researchers from Congressional committees or staffs.” The guide had been one such researcher herself, she said, checking on some legal point for her Senator, and that was what had started her interest in the law. Now she did guide work just as a part-time thing while she studied law at Howard University Law School and hoped to be a clerk to Justice Demsted someday. Everybody had smiled encouragingly but probably only Earle remembered.
He spun around abruptly, walked along K Street until he came to a stationery store, went in and bought himself a couple of yellow legal pads and a couple of ball-point pens. Then he found a cab and went back up to the Court. At least he could give it a test and find out how easy it would be to get in. If he succeeded he could scout around a little and get the lay of the land, maybe even pinpoint exactly where Tay’s chambers were. He knew they were on the first floor, all of the Justices were. If he got in he might even do the same thing several nights running, that way everybody would get used to him. Hell, he might even come back a lot of times, if that’s what it took to find Tay. He had plenty of time and plenty of money, both the defense fund money he had removed from Debbie and what he was sure Harry Aboud would get him from the trust if he asked him for it (Harry would be startled to hear from him, but not surprised: he ran a lot of errands like that, for the right people). He could spend the whole summer waiting for Tay, if he had to.
But the miracle happened; and he didn’t have to.
He hadn’t gone right into the building when he got back to the Hill. Possibly it was because for the first time he felt a little afraid that he might be challenged and denied entry: not because of who he was—nobody up here, he was confident, would have the slightest inkling—but just because the guide might have been wrong about the relative ease of access. That soon passed. He had learned long ago that if you approached people with an easy air, a show of certainty and a reasonable amount of charm, you could crack most places. So he couldn’t say exactly why he lingered for a while outside in the hot, oppressive night air, but linger he did. And there, amazingly, came Tay, for some reason not going into the garage but instead parking his car alongside and coming up the steps like any tourist.
It did not occur to Earle that this might be because Tay simply wanted to see the building against the night sky, that he might consider it beautiful and moving and still be in considerable awe of it. Earle wasn’t constructed to be touched or moved by beauty and he wasn’t in awe of anything. If he had any thought about the building at all, it was to calculate idly how many pounds of explosives it would take to blow it up; but blowing it up wasn’t his thing, tonight. His thing was good old half-assed wishy-washy Tay.
And here he was.
Instinctively Earle started to shrink back a little toward one of the trees along the sidewalk. And then he thought scornfully, Hell! Why hide? I don’t have my beard anymore, this is the last place he’d be expecting me. Why worry?
And straightening up, he had walked quietly along the street as Tay went up the steps. He had even whistled a bit in a thoughtful, unconcerned way, not looking at him.
Tay had not even noticed him.
So, presently, he had followed, walking meanwhile along to the Library of Congress, going in casually for a few moments to look at the exhibit of photographs from the annual White House Correspondents dinner for the President, acting like a tourist, killing time. After what he considered a decent interval, about twenty minutes, he had walked back, made sure that Tay’s car was still there, and gone on in. The stupid dope on the door had let him by without a quibble, further confirming Tay’s presence by his blatant lying about it, and had sent him along up to the library, virtually on his own. There was only one thing missing now, he thought as the elevator came to a halt and the doors opened.
He didn’t have a weapon.
He hadn’t dared bring the gun this first day, not knowing what the security would be.
But one miracle had happened and maybe another would. He smiled at the third-floor guard, asked, “Library?” received a nod of the head, saw the entrance and stepped through. For just a moment he was really impressed.
Stacks and stacks and stacks of books; an enormous high ceiling; dark wood paneling everywhere; soft lights glowing over long desks piled with tumbled volumes; a librarian or two moving quietly through the silence, perhaps ten people at work, scattered through stately rooms opening one upon another; painted medallions of famous lawgivers whom he didn’t know, decorating the paneled ceiling above; a hush of study, concentration, devotion—majesty.
For just one split second Earle Holgren was in awe and across his mind shot again the frightful conundrum that he had to banish again and forever, since to try to solve it would be to destroy himself:
Who am I
,
what have I done and what am I doing here?
He shook his head to clear it of such nonsense, smiled at one of the librarians, an older lady with an earnest face and gray hair; went to an isolated table and sat down, opened a book at random and pretended to read.
“Is there something particular you want, sir?” the librarian whispered in his ear, making him jump. He laughed deprecatingly, shook his head.
“No ma’am, thanks. I know where to find what I want. I’ll get to it in a few minutes.”
“Good,” she said. “Just make yourself at home.”
“Thanks,” he said with a sudden sunny smile that quite touched her, he looked so young—well, not really, but at least a lot younger than she was—so serious and so handsome. “I will.”
For perhaps ten minutes, surreptitiously but with a fierce intensity that fortunately for him remained unsensed by anyone around, he studied the library and its occupants. Weapon—weapon—weapon. There must be one, but what? Where?
His fearsome concentration was broken for a moment when he heard a laugh, quickly stifled, and looked up at the librarian’s desk to see her chatting discreetly but with obvious enjoyment with a friend. In her hand she held the weapon.
A couple of minutes later when the friend left he closed his book and his notepads, sauntered up casually, engaged her in conversation, diverted her attention, bade her a pleasant good-bye and walked out with it.
The elevator reached the first floor. He got out, glanced quickly to right and left. A gleaming wooden barrier marked “Private” barred the way to the Justices’ corridor. No one was in sight. He stepped over swiftly, shifted the barrier, which was not anchored, enough to get by, and moved swiftly on tiptoe, almost running, down the empty marble hallway. Just as he turned the corner he ran into a guard, walking toward him with a cup of coffee in his hand.
“Hey!” the guard said, startled. “Can I help you, mister?”
“I’m a friend of Justice Barbour,” he said quickly, pleasantly, firmly. “He’s expecting me.”
“Oh,” the guard said, accepting as people always did when Earle Holgren commanded them for his special purpose. “On down the hall a bit.”
“Thank you,” he said, smiled again pleasantly and moved on. He heard the guard’s footsteps die away, glanced back quickly, saw the corridor empty, kept going.
Justice McIntosh… Justice Demsted… Chief Justice… Justice Wallenberg… Justice Hemmelsford… Justice—He had found it.
