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.