November 23, 1967

Muffy was a happy child at her fifth birthday party. And since this was the second party she had had that day, the first in nursery school, this one with her parents, grandparents, uncles, and aunts, she was socially exhausted but happy.

“Where does the time go?” asked Mrs. Crawford, turning to J.T. “Remember, it seems just yesterday that we had her first birthday party. That was when Kennedy was shot. That was in the Crawford’s apartment, wasn’t it, Courtnay?”

“Yes, Mother.”

Courtnay and Marty had moved from the little three-room apartment they had rented when they came up from Washington to a luxurious six-room duplex cooperative that Courtnay’s parents had purchased for them on Park Avenue and Eighty-third Street. Marty hadn’t been too happy about his in-laws buying them the apartment; but Courtnay wasn’t happy living in cramped quarters. On state salary, it was hard for Marty to afford anything larger. So when Courtnay came home with the news that her mother and father wanted to give her an apartment as a fifth-anniversary gift, he resisted—but not vehemently. After all, it was one thing to want to be independent, but, he thought, it was yet another thing to let that quest for independence stand in the way of Courtnay’s family being able to do for their daughter what they ordinarily would have, what gave them pleasure, what made her happy. Since Courtnay was now expecting their second child, Marty wanted to do everything possible to make her happy.

In the meantime, J.T., too, had found new living quarters. The little flat in Greenwich Village had been all right when he first came to New York, first began working on Wall Street. But now he had a certain image to project. He arranged, through DeValen, to take a lease—with an option to buy later—on a small brownstone in the Chelsea area. It was a lovely house on a charming street—but it didn’t change J.T.’s slovenly living habits. Now, however, with a larger apartment, there was more to be unkempt.

“Been reading about you in the papers, J.T.,” said Mrs. Crawford.

“We have been rather busy,” J.T. crowed softly.

“Who are you after these days?”

“The usual,” he shrugged. “Nothing outstanding. We’ve pretty much decimated the grafters. The remaining ones are too scared to make a move.”

“Do you want a big piece or a little piece, Uncle J.T.?” asked dark-haired Muffy.

“A little piece, Muffy.”

Muffy very seriously cut the cake and Courtnay helped place it on the plate. Later, when all the guests had departed, Marty and J.T. sat in the library having a nightcap—a beer for Marty and a ginger ale for J.T.

“I’m not sure that’s a sound idea, J.T.,” said Marty. “I realize we’ve been on the trail of Judge Tauber for quite some time now without result, but I think your idea is a little off the wall.”

“Why?”

“Because you want to manufacture a case where none exists. Frankly, what you’re proposing is illegal.”

“Look, all we do is have one of our undercover men indicted by the grand jury. We won’t even let the DA know he’s undercover. Let him go through the system as if it’s a real case. Then he’ll retain Tauber’s son—what’s his name?”

“Randolph Tauber.”

“Randolph Tauber! What kind of a name is that anyway? The undercover man will retain young Tauber and tell him he’s looking for a fix, a guarantee, for which he’s willing to pay exceptionally well. We’ll see if Randolph asks his father to influence the judge before whom the case is tried. What’s wrong with that?”

“For starters,” said Marty, “you’d have to get a phony complainant to swear in front of a grand jury that he or she has been the victim of a fictitious crime perpetrated by our undercover investigator. Now, to have our undercover man indicted for a phony crime is to subvert the entire function of the grand jury—not to mention that our office will be suborning perjury. Our investigator—the alleged victim—will have to swear he was the victim of a crime that never actually took place, won’t he?”

J.T. nodded.

“So far you have the following crimes: the phony complainant, perjury, a class D felony punishable by seven years. We put him up to it. Subornation of perjury. Another D felony, subjecting us to seven years. Not to mention, of course, obstruction of, or interference with, governmental function. You can’t abuse the legal process to catch people who are abusing the legal process, J.T. We’ve been over this ground before.”

“We’re not actually abusing the legal process. We don’t intend to commit a criminal act. We’re doing this specifically to uncover people who have violated their oaths of office.”

“But we’d be violating the law ourselves.”

“We are the law.”

“No, we’re not. We’re just administering the law. We’re just people. We’re not the law. We’re torch-bearers, conduits.”

“Can you figure another way that we can catch Judge Tauber?”

“We’ve been trying for years now. Maybe he’s really straight.”

“Horseshit. I’ve seen the smoke myself. Now I want the fire.”

“What smoke, Seymour Fine?”

“Let’s not talk about that,” J.T. said. He never liked discussing what had happened to Fine.

“What smoke has there been about Judge Tauber?”

“It’s a hunch, all right? A hunch. I know we can get this guy. And God damn it, Marty, whose side are you on, anyway? We need some big cases. All we’ve been getting lately are cops taking bribes for not giving traffic tickets. We’re putting ourselves out of business.”

“Maybe it’s about time. This was only supposed to be temporary.”

“That’s true. The time has come to move. But we can’t just yet. We’ve got to go out in a blaze of glory. One big case, publicity week after week for, say, six months, so when we go out we’ll have to beat clients away with a stick.”

“Where are we going to get these phenomenal cases?”

“That’s exactly what I’m trying to tell you,” said J.T. emphatically. “We need a sitting Supreme Court judge on the griddle. Maybe a lot of them.” J.T. leaned back pensively. “Maybe we could go after DiFalco again.”

“Again? They threw out our first case against him. I told you not to—”

“Don’t tell me you told me, okay?”

Marty nodded unhappily. This was another area about which he and J.T. constantly disagreed. “I don’t mind trying to indict a Supreme Court judge if he’s done something wrong. But let’s not manufacture a case just to keep up publicity.”

“I don’t intend to manufacture a case. We’re just putting all the ingredients together to see if we can have someone make a cake. Let’s see what kind of baker Judge Tauber is.”

“What makes you think young Tauber would involve his father?”

“If he doesn’t, and goes out and does something on his own, we’ll still nail him. The newspapers will beat the drums almost as big when we have the lawyer son of a Supreme Court judge on the fire. If young Tauber goes around bribing people, I’m going to get him. If his father helps him, I’ll get him too. That’s the way it is, Marty. This isn’t necessarily a job for the fainthearted.”

“Let me ask you this. If someone went into one of our grand juries and perjured himself about a phony case, would we prosecute?”

“Damn right.”

“Then what’s the difference when we send someone in to perjure himself? Just because we know in advance that it’s going to happen doesn’t change the fact that a person who takes an oath and lies in front of the grand jury is guilty of perjury. You know, in ancient times the punishment for perjury was death.”

“When we know about it and it’s for a specific purpose, it isn’t perjury.”

“Will the witness have his fingers crossed?”

“Stop busting my onions, Marty.”