«I’m afraid that’s your problem, Mr. President, or should I say the combined responsibilities of the Executive and the Legislative branches.» The Chief Justice paused, then added, stifling a giggle. «It’s in your lap, baby—tee hee.»
«Reebock, I heard that!»
«Terribly sorry, sir, an insect in my nose… I’m merely trying to explain that we are not an activist Court. We do not make the laws, we uphold them in the grand tradition of strict constructionists. And as you know, several members of the Court feel strongly that the Wopotami case may be built on a firm foundation of constitutional law, although they certainly haven’t rendered any final decisions, and they better not. However, to keep the hearings closed would be construed as interpreting that great document like those dirty liberals do, not reflecting its true intent.»
«Golly, I know that,» said the President, drawing out his words plaintively, «and that’s what’s got Vincent upset. All your individual opinions will be studied by scholars, and newspaper editors and columnists and, well, darn it to doo-doo-ville, everybody! And you could be in trouble, Reebock.»
«Me?… I don’t support the goddamn thing! My correct-thinking colleagues and I will argue until we bury those sanctimonious idiots who keep throwing that garbage of ‘collective conscience’ at us. We’ll run them out of the Court before we give in, and they know it. Good Christ, you think I’d give those arrow-happy aborigines a nickel’s worth of muleshit? They’re no better than the Negroes!»
«That’s what Vincent figured—»
«Figured what?»
«It seems that when you were a young assistant prosecutor there was a definite pattern in your indictments and the cases you tried—»
«With a record of convictions that was the envy of the office!»
«Almost exclusively black and Hispanic,» completed the President.
«Hell, yes, and I got those mothers! They were the ones committing all the crimes, you know.»
«All of them?»
«Let’s put it this way … the ones I wanted to go after for the good of the country. With felonies on their records, they couldn’t vote!»
«Vincent figured that, too.»
«What are you driving at, Mr. President?»
«Frankly, Vincent’s trying to protect you, protect your place in history.»
«What?»
«Although you’re the strictest of the strict constructionists, you’re against the Wopotamis, yet I’m told you even refuse to read the brief. Is that because they’re ‘no better than the Negroes’? Do you really want to go down in the books as the racist Chief Justice who’s going to vote against the purported evidence because of the color of the plaintiff’s skin in a landmark decision?»
«Who could think that?» asked the flustered champion of constitutional law. «My interrogations will be filled with compassion ultimately overridden by the practical realities, which I’m firmly convinced will be the Court’s finding by at least three votes. The country will understand. The hearings must be open.»
«Would that mule ca-ca stand up against the published record of your excessive convictions of darker-skinned minorities as an assistant prosecutor—especially if that record revealed that you frequently chose the public defenders, most of whom had rarely tried a case?»
«Oh, my God …! Those records could surface?»
«Not if you give Vincent time to expunge them. National security concerns, of course.»
«He could do that?»
«He says he can manage it.»
«The time?… I don’t know what my colleagues would say if I delay the public hearings. I can’t appear to be recalcitrant, it might look … heaven forbid … suspicious.»
«Vincent understands that, too. He knows that there are several members of the Court who can’t stand your ‘apricots’—I believe it’s a pejorative term, Reebock.»
«Christ, I’m being compromised for doing the right thing!»
«For the wrong reasons, Mr. Chief Justice. Vincent counted on it. What shall I tell him?»
«How long does he think it would take to … shall we say, remove the misunderstood materials that could lead to erroneous conclusions?»
«To do a thorough job, he says a year—»
«The Court would revolt!»
«He’ll settle for a week.»
«It’s yours.»
«He’ll manage it.»
Mangecavallo leaned back in his chair and relit his Monte Cristo cigar, a temporarily satisfied man. He had seen the light when everyone else, including Hymie the Hurricane, saw only the dark clouds of confusion. So the gumballs on the Supreme Court who were maybe leaning toward the vicious Wopotami savages were whistle-clean, there had to be another way to buy some time to catch this Thunder Head phony and either blow him full of holes or mess his head up so bad he’d be happy to call the whole thing off, labeling it for what it was: a very major scam. The suspicious five or six frutti got them nowhere, so why not look in the other direction, say with the big banana himself? That fascista couldn’t possibly vote for the Wopotamis; it just wasn’t in his heart. And since it wasn’t, what kind of rotten heart was in his bigoted chest that made him immediately turn off his big brain? Maybe someone should inquire.
Now they had an extra week, which was about all they could hope for, what with the big banana’s popularity rating among his colleagues at zip-minus. And a week should be enough, since Little Joey the Shroud had cornered the Section-Eight General Lasagna with the Wopotami feathers hanging down to his ass in Boston, where, as everyone knew, accidents happened with alarming frequency. Maybe not in the New York-L.A.-Miami league, but it wasn’t small-time, either. Mangecavallo blew three perfect smoke rings and looked at his diamond-rimmed watch. The Shroud had two minutes left in the prescribed morning’s timespan to call; the unseen telephone buzzed in the lower right-hand section of the director’s desk. He reached down, opened the drawer, and picked it up. «Yes?»
«It’s Little Joey, Vin.»
«You always gotta wait until the last second to call? I told you, I got a high-level conference at ten o’clock and you make me nervous. Suppose this phone rang when the guys in suits were here in the office?»
«So you tell ’em it’s a wrong number.»
«Pazzo-head, they don’t see the phone!»
«You hire blind spies, Vinnie?»
«Basta. What’ve you got? Quick!»
«Hoo-hay, a bundle, Bam-Bam—»
«I told you—»
«Sorry, Vincenzo… Anyway, quick, I gotta room at this fancy hotel like I mentioned before.»
«No long stories, Joey. I know you got a room last night down the hall from the yarmulke, so?»
«So much activity, Vin! The big General Indian Chief is here with the yarmulke, only they left for a couple of hours last night. Then the chief’s soldiers came back and they left after talkin’ to somebody else inside before the chief and the yarmulke came back. Then the old Jewish guy left, leavin’ the chief with whoever it was inside, but before that there was a lot of yellin’—I mean real stridore—and then the yarmulke left and everything was silenzio.»