I looked her up and down. She was dressed like quite the career woman, so long as the career was taking place in the early 1960s, bright green faux-Chanel business suit, matching heels, and small clutch.
"You look like a bowl of Jell-O in that getup," I said.
"We're visiting a judge, right? This is my government outfit. Mint green, get it?"
She gave a little smile, but the way she bit her lower lip with nervousness made me feel like a jerk. She had that way, did Kimberly.
"Okay," I said. "Ask what you want. But my advice would be to say as little as possible to this guy. He's not your usual drunken frat boy."
Just as I said that a tall man in a black suit came into the waiting room. "Mr. Carl, Ms. Blue," he said, his voice gilded with an Island lilt. "My name is Curtis Lobban," said the man. "I am Justice Straczynski's file clerk."
Curtis Lobban stood straight and tall, with the deep voice and dignified manner of a dignitary, his dark suit, broad shoulders, and the gray at his temples all added mightily to the effect. He held in himself the same hush of serious purpose that pervaded the entire suite of offices and he looked down at me with a gaze of thinly veiled contempt that made me feel every inch the two-bit hustler invading some grand temple of the law. I jumped to standing at the sight of him, fighting the urge to salute.
"Pleased to meet you, Curtis," I said. "We talked on the phone, I believe."
"Yes, we did," he said slowly.
I reached out a hand to shake, but Curtis Lobban, his face as somber as his outfit, refused the proffer. Pleased to meet me too, obviously.
"The justice, he is sorry to have kept you both waiting and is ready to see you now. Follow me, please."
He turned and led us out of the waiting area into a large library, its walls lined with huge sets of law books. State reporters, federal reporters, U.S. Supreme Court reporters, digests of all sorts. Two young lawyers, a man and a woman, were hard at work at a conference table, books piled around them, legal pads thick with notes. Gnawing at the pylons supporting the Bill of Rights like hungry termites, I figured. They both gave Kimberly a long look. Kimberly always drew long looks, especially dressed in mint green, but the clerks barely noticed my presence, and why should they? Only the best and brightest clerked for Justice Jackson Straczynski, and I was neither. They only paid me enough notice to wonder what the hell I was doing there. What the hell indeed?
It's not so easy to get close to a Supreme Court justice, even a State Supreme Court justice, so I hadn't expected much when I called that morning before running off to seize Manley's Eldorado. I mentioned my name, I mentioned Tommy Greeley, I waited on the phone a bit. And then it was this Curtis Lobban who came on the line. "What is the purpose of the inquiry?" he asked in his deep somber voice. "It is personal and I can't say anymore," I said. "Hold on for a moment please," he said. I waited, and when he came back on the phone I was told, shockingly, that the justice would see me that very afternoon.
So here we were, Kimberly and I, passing by the serious young law clerks, headed for a visit with their august boss, Tommy Greeley's old college pal.
"Right through here," said Curtis Lobban, courteously holding open a door at the far end of the library. We stepped through the doorway and into a Moorish fantasy.
Most judges go for the tree and tome look for their offices, you know what I mean, dark wood paneling, bookshelves filled with thick legal texts, tree and tome, all designed to give the office a sheen of serious scholarship so often lacking in the robe's wearer. But Justice Straczynski's office was nothing of the kind. The walls were a rich red, pillars of golden fabric fell from iron pikes, the ceiling was patterned with octagonal indentations painted in a riot of colors. Ornate arches rose above each window, the arches covered with intricate paintings of vines and flowers, and the wooden floor was covered with piles of oriental carpets. Dark wooden furniture scattered across the room was accessorized with plush pillows, maroon and gold, intricate geometric shapes in the weave. The justice's desk was less a workplace than a fantastically carved piece of oriental sculpture straight from the Ottoman Empire. The whole place, scented lightly with sandalwood, was like the official chamber of a pasha's grand vizier.
The justice was hunched over at his desk, his back turned, on the phone, and so I took the opportunity to examine his strangely exotic office. I walked around, dazed by the beauty and strangeness of the room. There was no ego wall in the office, no pictures of the justice with presidents and senators and movie stars. But there was, carved into one corner, a series of shelves with ceremonial objects. Tiny Japanese statuettes carved of ivory and jade, fertility fetishes from India, masks from Africa. There was a frame made out of Mayan slate surrounding a picture of a very young woman taken from the neck up, a lovely woman with a heart-shaped face, downcast eyes, and shy smile, her shoulders bare, her head held in an overly dramatic pose. And something out of place among the splendors of the distant world, a garish and tall fencing trophy with a golden swordsman on top captured in the midst of a lunge.
"When was this?" said the justice, still on the phone. His voice was deep, sharp, and slow. Like, well, like an aardvark on Quaaludes. "And what did he take?"
Something moved beside me. I backed away. There was a long dark divan covered with pillows by the shelves and in the space beneath the divan crouched a cat, purely white. It stared at me for a long moment and then stepped arrogantly past me. In the darkness behind the first cat, two green eyes glittered.
"Yes. I see. I will do what I can. But you knew this could happen."
In front of his desk were two chairs with brilliant golden upholstery. I joined Kimberly standing behind them and waited.
"Be patient. I will talk to him and try to find out what is happening, but calm down. Getting so upset doesn't help anything."
He turned around, saw us, startled for a moment at the sight of Kimberly, and then smoothed the features of his face back to his basic bland. He motioned us to sit in the chairs and we did. He was a thin, elegant man, wearing his suit coat even in his office. His hair was blond and wispy, his face was round and youthful, though slightly askew.
"I know you're angry and scared," he said, still on the phone. "So am I. But we have to deal with this the right way. Now I have some people in my office. Yes. Of course. I'll talk to you later. Don't do anything hasty that you will later regret. Yes. Bye now."
He hung up the phone and gave us an awkward, almost embarrassed smile, as if he had been caught at something. "My mother," he said. "She's been complaining of dizziness so she went to the doctor. Now she's complaining about all the tests the doctor has taken and about his communication skills. And when he tells her she is perfectly healthy she'll be complaining about that too."
"This office is like, oh my God," said Kimberly.
"My wife designed it." He raised his brows, the time-honored dismissal of a wife's eccentricities. "I gave her carte blanche and as usual she exceeded her limit. I believe I recognize you, Mr. Carl. Have you been before the Court?"
"I've never had the honor, no. But some of my cases have been notorious. Maybe you've seen me on the local news."
"I don't watch television," he said. "Do you perhaps have artistic talent?"
"None," I said, cheerfully. "Not a lick. I am as artistic as a brick."
"That's a relief. My wife seems to collect artists. I am inundated with artists. So we haven't met?"
"Not that I recall."
"Just as well. And you, Miss Blue" - he paused and examined her closely for a moment - "are you a lawyer too?"
"No. Please. I'm a vice president."
"Really? Excellent. Is there perhaps a school for vice presidents at the University of Pennsylvania? I didn't know. Did you get a graduate degree in vice presidenting?"
"Not really. They just sort of hired me."
"Who hired you?"
Kimberly didn't answer.
"What's the matter, Miss Blue? You're suddenly silent."
Just then the white cat jumped atop an ash can and then the desk. It strolled across the desktop and dropped into the justice's lap. The justice curled one of his arms around it and bowed his neck as he stroked its head. The cat stretched its back and gave me a victorious sneer.
"Did you eat Miss Blue's tongue, Marshall," he said to the cat. "Naughty boy. Give it back." He laughed a high, ugly laugh.
Kimberly blushed. I wondered how he had known she had gone to Penn.
"Miss Blue works for a client, which wishes to remain anonymous at this point," I said.
"Of course it does," said the justice. "Do you like cats, Mr. Carl?"
"Not especially."
"You're a dog person then."
"I prefer fish. With a beurre blanc and a glass of Chablis."
He glanced up at me in disapproval and then back to his cat. "I like cats. I like their softness, their independence. Their discretion. I like that they don't crap all over the place. Shall we now discuss the weather, or maybe sports? Do you want to discuss baseball, Mr. Carl?"
"Let's assume that the formalities have been completed," I said.
"Grand." He turned his attention from the cat and stared at me for a long moment. "On the phone you mentioned Tommy Greeley."
"Yes," I said. "Right. I did. I'm trying to learn what I can about what happened to him twenty years ago. I was told that you were his closest friend in both college and law school."
"We were friends, yes."
"Close friends?"
"For a time. We were on the fencing team together. But eventually we drifted apart. We had different interests."
"Such as?"
"I'm curious from where this interest in Tommy Greeley arrives. Tell me, Miss Blue, why does your employer care about ancient history?"
"It's kind of a long story," said Kimberly.
"I have time. I like stories."
He scratched the cat's neck for a long moment and then pushed it off his lap. The cat jumped down and stalked back to the divan. The justice arched his hands on the desk, leaned forward.
"No story, Miss Blue? What a shame. I took the liberty of looking you up in Martindale-Hubble, Mr. Carl. And I asked around. I hope you don't mind. It's not often I get a query about Tommy Greeley. You do criminal work, isn't that right?"
"Primarily."
"And you have no obvious political affiliations."
"Not anymore. I used to take it more seriously but then I stopped seeing the humor in the jokes that kept getting elected."
"Including me?"
"I wouldn't presume-"
"But you just did. So, if this isn't a cause of the heart, then you are a hired gun, isn't that right, Mr. Carl?"
"That's what a lawyer is, Mr. Justice."
"And so who has done the hiring? Which organization has asked you to dig into my past."
"Excuse me?"
"Oh, let's treat it like a game. Let me guess. Is it the ACLU? Or is it perhaps the AFL-CIO? Or maybe the NAACP? What about the ADL? That might be up your alley. Or the AARP? Greenpeace? The Sierra Club? Have you gone to work for the UFW or the Teamsters? Public Citizen? Common Cause? Corporate Watch? The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force? Americans United for Affirmative Action? Or maybe the harridans at NOW? Is that it, Miss Blue, are you an aspiring Gloria Steinem? Which of the instruments of the left have hired you as their Torquemada, Mr. Carl?"
"I think you have a wrong-"
"Isn't it a little unseemly to wallow in the mire of the distant past in order to scuttle a nomination while the nine Justices in Washington are still hale and hearty?"
"I have no intention of-"
"You should be made aware, Mr. Carl, that I will not sit idly by while you attempt to ruin my reputation. I am not without means. The great right wing conspiracy almost took down a president. Think of what it can do to a milquetoast like you."
"You are under a misapprehension, Mr. Justice."
He tilted his head, surprised, I think, at the amusement that I let twist the edges of my mouth. "Then educate me, Mr. Carl."
"This might shock you, Mr. Justice, but I don't give a whit about your chances to rise to the U.S. Supreme Court. I'm like the rest of America, more concerned with my own bowel movements than the lofty progress of your career. But I had hoped you'd be able to tell me about Tommy Greeley's college life, his other friends, his girlfriend. I had hoped you'd be able to help me figure out what happened to him in the end. In fact, being a friend, I expected you'd be anxious to help. But we come here in good faith and suddenly you give us the third degree and start laying on threats. Now is that polite, Mr. Justice?"
"What do you want?"
"I want to know who set up Tommy Greeley's murder?"
"We don't know Tommy was murdered," said the justice. "He only disappeared. He might have run away."
"He was murdered."
"Have they found his body?"
"No."
"Then how are you so sure?"
"One of the killers told me."
"Jesus, God. Who?"
"He's dead also, Mr. Justice, his throat slashed and his body dumped beside a shipping container on one of the piers along the riverfront."
The justice's face tightened and grew more lopsided. "When was this?"
"A few weeks ago."
"Why?"
"The police don't yet know. It could be anything. But twenty years ago he had been hired to beat up Tommy Greeley. He got carried away. That's why Tommy disappeared. The man with the slit throat was a client of mine; I'm now representing his mother in a wrongful death action. To that end, I'm trying to learn who hired him to beat up your friend Tommy Greeley in the first place."
The justice stood from his desk, placed his arms behind his back, and strolled around me toward the shelves above the divan. He reached for the fencing trophy, held it with one hand as he tested the tip of the statuette's foil with his thumb.
"Do you remember a nominee to the court named Douglas Ginsburg," he said. "A stellar judge, nominated by Reagan. Reports came out that, while a professor at Harvard, he was at parties where marihuana was smoked. Can you imagine parties at Harvard where marihuana wasn't smoked in those days? Still, it was enough to scuttle his nomination."
"And that's the danger for you represented by Tommy Greeley?"
"He was my friend. He was a drug dealer. It won't take much for the Neanderthals on the left, sitting back stoned on their couches, to make their insinuations."
Even as he said it I thought of an organization the justice missed in his litany of opponents, TPAC, the Telushkin Political Action Committee, membership one. I could see him now, Jeffrey Telushkin, sitting on his chair, clapping his hands with glee as I sat here asking Jackson Straczynski about his former friend, now dead, who might be used to sully his reputation and sink his chance for the big seat. The image turned my stomach.
"I really am not here to hurt you or your chances, Mr. Justice. I just want to learn what you can tell me about Tommy."
"I entered college in the seventies," he said, without the venom his voice had carried before. "Drugs were everywhere, at every party, in every dormitory hallway. It was impossible to avoid, and many had no desire to avoid it. Tommy Greeley was one of those. We both went out for the fencing team. I liked him from the first. He was smart, rebellious, entrepreneurial, an innovative young man and a brilliant fencer. We both started with the sport at Penn, were well behind the rest who had fenced in prep school, but Tommy was a natural. Other than fencing, I was interested in art, literature, culture. I was something of an aesthete. Dorian Gray. An embarrassment now, but the way it was. Tommy, other than fencing, was like the rest of my generation, interested only in getting high and getting laid. I told you we had divergent interests. That was where we diverged."
"You didn't use drugs at all?" said Kimberly.
"What's next, Miss Blue, boxers or briefs? Let's just say it is an improper question and leave it at that. I won't answer it here, or in the Senate if I get the opportunity. But I will tell you this. I had a younger brother named Benjamin who lost his way. Speed turned him crazy, truly, and his craziness got him killed. I saw first hand with my brother a drug's insidious power to destroy."