November 20, 1961

The offices of Stevenson & Stetinius occupied the twenty-fourth, twenty-fifth, and half of the twenty-sixth floors of a Wall Street tower overlooking Broad Street and the New York Stock Exchange. At the main entrance, on the twenty-sixth floor, a receptionist sat before a small console switchboard from which she could announce calls and clients. A large glass wall behind the reception desk revealed a two-storied library with a wide wooden staircase winding down to the main reading and research area.

One hundred and fifty-eight lawyers staffed Stevenson & Stetinius. It was one of the largest law firms in the United States. Most of the offices of the young lawyers who were not partners or members were small, cramped squares on the twenty-fourth floor. These cubicles were large enough to accommodate a desk and a chair. On the wall outside each office were small horizontal tracks in which a plastic name plaque was inserted. The plaques, of course, could be easily removed. So, too, the occupants. When the standards for starting salaries in the legal profession were set, they were set against the mythical salaries paid to the young men who sat in these small rooms at Stevenson & Stetinius and other prestigious Wall Street firms. The 1961 starting salary on Wall Street was ten thousand dollars, and young law-school graduates attacked the bar exam with visions of such salaries in mind. The figure was misleading, of course. That salary was paid to perhaps twenty-five or fifty of the top people out of many thousands of graduates in the entire country. And no one said that the Wall Street firms were above hiring several of the potentially top men, maintaining them on payroll for a year or so, and then, after testing the crop, weeding out the excess baggage. So, in reality, a mere handful of young people out of the entire United States were paid the high salary, and the rest of the young legal fraternity were deluded into dreams of grandeur.

Of course, none of that had anything to do with J.T. Wright. He neither had one of the cubbyhole offices on the twenty-fourth floor, nor was he paid the salary of a neophyte out of law school. If one thought about it, which no one had so far, J.T. Wright was a neophyte out of law school. True, he had had one previous position as a lawyer, that of deputy counsel to the Judiciary Committee, where he had shown that he was a dogged pursuer who could run down the sleekest and fleetest enemy. Yet, in truth, he had obtained no real or practical legal experience on the committee. Hadn’t his interrogations been exercises in asking questions of witnesses who gave no answers? The hearings weren’t struggles in which truth was the quest. They were staged productions, where every question and answer had been ground and reground into a fine paté. If truth were important rather than trouble, then it would be known that J.T. Wright had never been in a courtroom in any official capacity, not even to drop off papers for a clerk to file. He had never even drawn pleadings—not even a stipulation for a two-week adjournment in an actual court case. But no one spoke of that. In fact, no one even thought of that. For when J.T. Wright came onto the law-office scene, there was a special aura about him that derived, of course, from his co-workers having first seen him on the magical television screen—that enchanted glass which transports individuals from the realm of the merely mortal to a special category of humankind. And when J.T. had appeared on the magic glass, he had been seen grappling, or so it seemed, with all sorts of sinister, frightening characters out of the netherworld. As in days of yore, when what was seen in print was revered and accepted as the primal truth, in the age of television, the medium of truth had changed; and what was seen on the magic glass was truth, more acceptable and revered than print. For didn’t the viewer see reality with his own eyes? Surely, if J.T. could cope, as he had appeared to, with such denizens of perdition and abomination as he did on television, he could go into court on a breach of contract, an infringement of patent, a corporate merger, and tackle the vested, eyeglassed lawyer-adversaries sent in by the opposition. And so it was that in the world of the Wall Street lawyer, most of whom never have seen, never shall see, and never want to see a courtroom—although court is the sometimes unavoidable arbiter of their labors—J.T. was a warlord, a samurai, a champion. Of course, such was not a truly respected lot, not in peacetime. Only if the level of negotiations was so reduced as to be totally fruitless, was the leg chain of the champion pulled. For the courtroom practitioners seemed as barroom brawlers to the cool, calm negotiators of the conference room.

Because he didn’t fit into any of the normal pigeonhole categories of the firm, and because Chauncey Delafield—and, inferentially, RBM—had personally sponsored his joining the firm, J.T. was made a Member. That was the middle of the hierarchy, higher than an associate of the firm, lower than an august partner. And J.T.’s salary wasn’t bad, he thought: twenty-two thousand five hundred a year.

J.T. was behind the desk of his new office when Joan Hines, his secretary, entered.

“Mr. Wright, would you like some coffee?” she asked.

On the members’ and lesser partners’ floor, the twenty-fifth, the offices were commodious and the corridors were wide. Secretaries were posted at desks just outside the attorneys’ doors. On the executive floor, the twenty-sixth, the lordly senior partners were ensconced in ornate, huge offices. Delafield’s office was on twenty-six.

“No, thanks,” J.T. said curtly.

God, Joan thought, what a sourpuss. She was going to ask Personnel for a change.

J.T. knew he was not the model of a pleasant, affable boss. So what? he thought. He displayed exactly the kind of personality people expected of him, one for which he was hired. Besides, he didn’t want to enter the Boss of the Year contest.

“Do you want me to do anything?” she asked.

J.T. perused a document on his desk. Yes, he thought to himself, get the hell out of here. “No, not right now,” he answered, not looking up.

Miss Hines went back to her desk, shared a frown with the secretary at the next desk, then began rereading Catch-22. She had run out of books in her desk, and had forgotten to bring something new from home. J.T. gave her so little work, and dictated so rarely, that she was bored to death.

Paul Cooper, another member of the firm, came into J.T.’s office. Cooper’s office was directly next to J.T.’s. He, too, specialized in handling suits, or potential suits, relating to RBM products.

“J.T.,” he said, “I’m going to have a conference this afternoon with the lawyer from Poughkeepsie who represents the several plaintiffs who claim that the design defects in RBM typewriters injured each of their plaintiffs at one time or another—even one girl whose fingers were severed.”

“Yes?”

“Well, inasmuch as it is a potential court case, and that would be in your ballpark, I thought it would be a good idea if you were present. Besides, it would really strike them where they breathe, psychologically, to see you involved in this case, to realize that this isn’t a kid’s game we’re playing.”

The contrast between Cooper and J.T. was striking. Cooper was the epitome of how a Wall Street lawyer should look: dark blue pinstriped suit, metal-frame glasses, rep tie, plain brown shoes. And the coat and hat Cooper wore in the street were superb examples of eclat: a black Chesterfield with velvet collar and an aged, wrinkled fedora. Those battered fedoras were really the badge, the panache of the Wall Street law-firm denizens. If you could handle wearing a hat that didn’t match your coat, and appeared literally to have been run over by a car, then you passed the first test. You really looked Wall Street. J.T., on the other hand, didn’t look Wall Street at all. He wore no-style, odd-colored suits, penny loafers that he never shined from date of purchase, and a trench coat in winter snow or summer rain, belted with a knot around his waist.

In addition to the sartorial difference, J.T. and Cooper were a physical contrast. Cooper had pale, almost transparent skin, slicked-down hair parted close to the center of his head, thin slices of lips. He would have looked a Wall Streeter in the nude. J.T. never could resolve, in his own mind, whether Wall Street lawyers looked as they did because they thought this appearance marked them apart from everyone else, or because they were so out of touch with the real world that they didn’t realize how other people looked and behaved. Either way, J.T. figured, they were pure phony. He learned in a very short while that he didn’t much enjoy the company or style on Wall Street.

“Can you sit in on the conference?” Cooper asked.

J.T. shrugged. “I’m working on this other matter, the one out of Syracuse. The infringement of a dictating-equipment patent.”

This work was tedious bullshit, J.T. thought. Contracts, patents, claims against RBM, all requiring him to read masses of paper. That was another thing J.T. discovered. Law firms here on Wall Street buried each other in paper like pigs burying each other in mud. Not all the work the young lawyers produced was brilliant or even clever, but there was a lot of it, all heavily documented. Everything that happened had a memo and a time bill attached to it. And this procedure was slow, ponderous. The pace was entirely too slow for J.T. He wanted action, not papers, not memos.

“Perhaps you could sit in for a minute or two,” suggested Cooper. “It would really be stunning. If the other side realizes that you are going to try the case against them, they’ll choke.”

“What time?”

“About two thirty.”

“I’ll try to make it,” J.T. said to Cooper.

“Splendid.”

J.T. watched the empty door frame after Cooper left. He wondered how, in so short a time, he could find this work so totally bland and boring. He just had to get used to it, he said to himself, looking down and beginning to read a memo for the fourth time, a memo by one of the junior members of the firm about a meeting with attorneys from Cadwallader, Wickersham & Taft, who represented Taylor Aluminum. The two companies had an ongoing disagreement over a contract that required Taylor to supply metals for RBM’s manufacturing needs. The cost of manufacturing and raw material had risen dramatically, and Taylor wanted to pass the increase on to RBM. Naturally, RBM didn’t want to pay the increase.

J.T. yawned and stretched as he rose to his feet. He walked out of his office, along the corridor that led to the elevator to heaven, as the twenty-sixth floor was known.

The decor became noticeably plusher as J.T. walked past the more expensive secretaries at more expensive desks, past larger, more impressive offices. He was walking through the private preserve of the senior partners, the ones who shared the substantial booty remaining after all the members, associates, lawyers, clerks, secretaries, and librarians were paid. J.T. stopped at Chauncey Delafield’s office. Delafield’s secretary, an older woman with glasses, buzzed Delafield, then told J.T. he could go in.

“Hello, J.T.,” said Delafield. He had a copy of The New York Times spread before him on the desk. “What brings you to these parts?”

“Had to take a break from the reading.”

“Got you poring over many a volume of forgotten law, eh?”

“I wish somebody had forgotten some of these contracts,” said J.T. “I’ve been here a couple of months and have yet to get off the chair at my desk except to go to the men’s room. My eyes, my rear end, and my brain are all going soft.”

“I know exactly what you mean,” Delafield laughed.

“I’m starting to feel like I’m a copy editor instead of a lawyer. I’m just reading RBM contracts.”

“Don’t bite the hand that feeds us,” Delafield said mockingly.

“I know, I know. But any law-school student could do what I’m doing. Remember what Mr. Reynolds told me?”

“What’s that?”

“‘Men think, machines work.’”

“Ah, yes. I get it.” Delafield looked at his watch. “To tell you the truth, the reading bores the bejesus out of me too. How about an early lunch?”

“I have to be back about two fifteen to pound my chest like King Kong in front of some adversaries.”

“We’ll make it,” Delafield said. “Let’s go to the Lawyers Club. This way we won’t have to fight the traffic all the way to ‘21.’ We’ll drink fast.” They walked toward the door. “Of course, I should know better than to talk drinking to you. I have to tell you honestly, J.T., you are the most boring drinking partner I ever met in my life.”

J.T. laughed.

“I’m going to lunch,” Delafield said to his secretary.

“Yes, sir. Don’t forget that you have an appointment at two thirty with Mr. DeValen.”

“Very well.” They walked toward the elevators. “DeValen was asking for you, J.T. Do you know him?”

“Don’t you remember? We met the night of the dinner party at the Reynoldses.”

“Of course. How could I forget?” Delafield laughed. “The woman with the …” Delafield made a discreet motion toward his own bosom. “Archie and I got a little smashed,” he said just as an empty elevator arrived. “DeValen was asking for you, saying how delighted he was that you were with the firm now, and that if possible, he’d like you to work on his matters.”

“That was kind of him.”

“He’s involved in some new corporate machination, taking over other companies, paying them with their own stock. I don’t know exactly how he does it, but whatever it is, it works.”

The elevator reached the ground level.

“Perhaps it might be more interesting for you to work on some of his matters. It isn’t court work, but it might be a change of pace.”

“Sounds interesting. I’d like to try it,” said J.T.

“I think we can arrange to have some of his work transferred to you.”

They walked along Broad Street, past the old Treasury Building with the bronze statue of George Washington on its steps, in the spot where he had taken the oath of office as president. At Broadway, St. Paul’s dark bell-tower overlooked an ancient graveyard; Alexander Hamilton was buried there.

The Lawyers Club was just north of St. Paul’s.

“Do you think there’ll be much court work for me, sir?” J.T. asked as the elevator rose toward the dining room.

“I’m sure there will be. Fact is. ” The elevator door opened and they were greeted by a maitre d’ who escorted them to a table. Delafield ordered his usual drink. J.T. ordered a vermouth cassis.

“Vermouth cassis? By God, J.T., you’re a pisser.”

J.T. just grinned, with a little shrug. “You were saying about the court cases.”

“Oh, yes. You have already saved us from a couple of cases in court. You didn’t even know about it. But our adversaries know that you’re with the firm. And threatening them, with you as our tomahawk, has worked quite well.”

The drinks arrived, and J.T. and Delafield placed their lunch orders.

“Cheers,” said Delafield, hoisting his glass. J.T. sipped at the vermouth cassis. It wasn’t too bad, he thought.

“Of course, that probably doesn’t satisfy your thirst for blood, I know. But you’ve only been here two months. We’ll have some court for you.”

“Does DeValen’s work have to do with court?”

“Not at the moment. It’s mostly stock … I guess the word is ‘manipulation,’ but I don’t want it to sound sinister. He thinks up high-finance schemes that put ten or twelve companies together under one roof—his, of course. That’s what he’s doing now. Getting more companies.”

Delafield ordered another drink. He looked to see if J.T. wanted another, saw J.T.’s glass practically untouched, and frowned.

“I never asked this before,” said J.T., “but if I were to get some cases, clients who came to me because they know me or know of me, would I be able to handle them in the office?”

“Perhaps. It would depend.”

“Depend on what?”

“On how much the fee was. If the fee was substantial, then I imagine you could. Of course, the fee would be paid to the firm. You would be recompensed for having brought the business to the firm by way of a bonus or raise in salary.”

J.T. nodded.

“You have some prospective clients?”

“No. Just wondering. Now that I’m out in private practice, perhaps people who saw me and were impressed might look me up.”

“Sounds reasonable.”

Delafield had two more drinks. By the end of lunch, he was robust, red-cheeked, and quite affable. They walked back to the office.

The lunch crowds were gone, but the sidewalks were still quite crowded with messengers, salesmen, brokers, buyers, sellers, all kinds of people hustling and bustling to get somewhere before the market closed. Lawyers, clients, and clerks rushing to get to or from court. This area was always filled with people during the work day.

“When you finish pounding your chest, J.T.,” said Delafield as they rode up in the elevator, “come to my office. DeValen will be there.”

“Great,” said J.T., envisioning corporate empires as the elevator door closed. His vision disappeared as he walked back to his office. All those dreary documents were still piled on his desk.