“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.”