MALCOLM WAINER entered my life by sticking his business card in the crack between the frame and the locked door into my office. This is a common practice which does not impress me much. It is popular among persons who wish to take just a few minutes of my valuable time, as they always put it, to explain to me how much I need complete sets of decisions by the Alaska Supreme Court, or other costly merchandise equally certain to cause me to wonder greatly, once I’ve used it for a while, how I ever managed to perform my work without it. People selling photographs in plastic driftwood frames; people selling stationery “just as good as what Shreve’s sells”; people who want contributions for sick, tired, and wounded cops; people who intend to share their close friendship with Jesus; it is not just wealthy clients who arrive to find us out, and everyone thus disappointed always makes sure to return. Therefore my customary action, on receipt of calling cards, is to collect them and drop them onto Gretchen’s desk blotter, on the off chance that there is one from someone she wants to see. I did notice, I admit, Internal Revenue Service, Department of the Treasury, on Malcolm Wainer’s dropping, and those hateful words did cause me to make mental note of his name. But that was all I did, as I told Mack that night.
“Did it say that you should call him?” she said, looking worried.
“Might’ve,” I said, “I’m not sure. That was not why I was there. I went back in town from lunch to get my calls off the machine. I did not haul my ass in there to spend what was left of my fool day calling up the IRS to ask for trouble, damnit. There were three calls from Jack Rowley on that goddamned magic box. First one was supercilious; the second one was snide. The third one sounded quite a lot like a small threat to me. ‘This is my third try to reach you, Mister Kennedy. I am doing my best to give you a chance to comment. Judge Dawes and his supporters have been very candid with us. They claim his rejection was in large part due to you. If you do not wish to comment, that is your privilege. But if you do, you’ve got to call me, or I’ll have to say you didn’t.’ ”
“Oh my God,” Mack said, “this too? I think I’ll have some wine. I was thinking I’d go on a diet, but I’ll wait another night.”
“What you mean: ‘this too’?” I said. “Ace started banging Diane too, did you find out?”
“No, no,” Mack said, at the refrigerator, “I go second tonight. Start with what went on with you. Then we’ll get to me.”
“Rowley was straightforward,” I said. “He has got Frank’s list. He reads just as well as I do, if it’s something that simple. He looked at all those eighteen names that dislike Luther Dawes, and so did Luther, I guess. Frank’s and my name were familiar, or at least the most familiar. ‘I called Frank Macdonald’s office,’ Rowley said when I called back. ‘They told me he was not in, and they did not expect him. I asked where I could call him and they refused to tell me. I was able to reach David Reed and this Attorney Reo, as he’s called, but neither of them seems to know much about the specifics of Judge Dawes’s nomination. Mister Reo said he’s never even been in Massachusetts, when we talked.’ ”
“What did you say?” Mack said, looking very worried.
“I gave him some lip,” I said, feeling very tired. “Told him: far as I knew, that is probably the truth.”
“Was that smart?” she said.
“No,” I said, drinking vodka, “that was probably not smart. But his attitude annoyed me, you know? Attitude, and tone. Sounded like he’d caught me flashing on the Common. Here he’d called me, hadn’t he? And I called him back. I admit, he called three times, and that probably irritated him. But am I supposed to sit there in my office all day, waiting for Jack Rowley’s call? And where the hell does he get his authority, trying to bully me? Nothing but a law school dud that didn’t pass the bar. Who the fuck does he think he is, sounding like a prosecutor?”
“He thinks he is someone with a television camera,” she said. “One that he thinks he can use to make a fool of you.”
“Well,” I said, “he is that, and he’s very likely right. But that does not mean I’ll kowtow while he does it. ‘All right,’ he says, very prissy, ‘then let’s hear your statement on this. We have from the governor the statement that’s in question. His office has declined comment on it beyond that it was influential in the governor’s decision. Sixteen of the eighteen names are not from Massachusetts. Frank Macdonald can’t be reached. What have you got to say on this?’
“ ‘On what?’ I said. ‘Where the listed people live? How the governor reacted? How come His Excellency won’t comment? Statement about what, Mister Rowley, if you please?’
“ ‘Tell us,’ he says, and he’s getting mad by now, ‘whether you in fact did sign the statement that the governor released.’
“ ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘just that? Well, that is pretty easy, and no cause to get upset. Yes, I did permit my name to be used on that statement.’
“He apparently believed this was a big admission. Really started boring in, now that he had that. ‘And did you, in fact, Mister Kennedy, endorse the views in it?’ ‘That Judge Dawes is unfit, Mister Rowley? Yes, I did.’ ‘And do you in fact, Mister Kennedy, think that he’s unfit?’ ‘You mean, Mister Rowley,’ I said, ‘am I going to back down now? No, I haven’t changed my mind. I thought Luther Dawes was unfit for the place on the Appeals Court when I subscribed to that statement, and I doubt that he’s improved much since it became public knowledge.’
“That sort of slowed him down,” I said. “Wasn’t what he wanted, or maybe what he expected? ‘Mister Kennedy,’ he said, ‘let me ask you this: you seem like an unusually forthright person, with the courage of your convictions. I am doing a special report on the entire Dawes nomination, getting statements from him and a number of other people who are willing to adopt positions on this public issue. I wonder if you’d be willing to come by the studio. Sit down with us and say what you think about it, with the cameras running. Because so far in this whole investigation, you’re the only person who’s been willing to be quoted on his opposition to the judge.’ ”
“Dear sweet Jesus,” Mack said, “what did you say, Jerry?”
“Told him that I wouldn’t, naturally,” I said. “ ‘I’m not a performer, Jack, and I have witnesses. Not that kind of a performer, at least, and I know it. I’ve got no objection to your quoting what I say. Go ahead and use it, for whatever it is worth. But go in to the studio and beat my gums about it? I don’t think I want to do that, though I do appreciate you asking.’
“Then he starts to beg and plead,” I said with some satisfaction. “Much crap about my civic duty, make sure all sides are heard. This is an important story. Has far-reaching implications. Is the governor a weakling? Was he swayed by women’s groups? What does this say about the way that we select our judges? ‘Nothing doing,’ I say, ‘I’m not going to get involved. When I signed that thing, I thought it was a confidential paper. My name would be one of several that opposed Judge Dawes’s candidacy, and that’s all I had in mind. If you’re asking, I regret that the statement was made public. I don’t think it should have been, but I wasn’t asked.’
“ ‘Oh,’ he says, and acts surprised, ‘you didn’t expect this? That your name would become public, with the other names?’ ‘No,’ I said, ‘I really didn’t, and I’m sorry that it did. I regarded this as a purely private matter. I was making my opinion known to the governor. What influence it might have on him, that was up to him. If it had some, that was fine, and if it didn’t, same thing. I had no desire to embarrass Judge Dawes publicly, and I am sorry that that has occurred. If it has occurred in fact.’ And that was it,” I said.
“Did Rowley say when this report would be on?” Mack said. “I think you should watch it.”
“Yeah,” I said, “tomorrow night. Starting at six o’clock. On the six o’clock news, I mean. Sometime during that.” Then I told her about Teddy, his good trial and that he paid me. “On balance, I think,” I said, “a passably good day. I’ve grossed nineteen K this month, and that is eating money. Haven’t quite accomplished what I wanted for my clients, but I did come close with Teddy and Lou isn’t mad at me. Now if my druggie friend turns up, gets hooked for jumping bail, I’ll relieve him of another grand and make it an even twenty. Ten months out of twelve like this? I could stand that duty. This keeps up until October, I might buy one of those condo shares.”
“Yeah,” she said grimly, “that would be great, all right.”
“Mack,” I said, “for Christ sake, all right? Let me out of jail. I realize you’re still pissed off, and so am I, for that matter. But isn’t three days long enough to sniff at one another? Can’t we at least pretend we’re friends, even though I’m mad at Heather?”
She let out this great big sigh and shook her head a few times. “Jerry, Jerry,” she said, “it’s just not that simple.
“Heather’s called me three times since you talked the other night. It was six a.m. out there when she called the first time, and you know just as well as I do how she hates to wake up early. Poor kid said she hadn’t slept a single wink all night. She broke down a couple times while she was talking to me. ‘What is it with Dad?’ she said, time and time again. ‘What’s Dad doing, acting like this? Why does he hate me?’ ”
“I don’t hate the kid, for Christ sake,” I said. “What is all this crap? I’m not pissed off ’cause I hate her—I’m mad because I love her. Love her, and I’m upset at the way that she is living. Upset also at myself, because I don’t know how to stop her. This is hatred, for God’s sake? Something’s backwards here, I think, and I don’t think it’s me.”
Mack nodded two or three times and exhaled very loudly. “Jerry,” she said, “spare me, all right? I know all you’re going to say. I know also all the things that Heather’s got to say. I have heard you on the subject and I’ve heard her on it too. I don’t know what to tell the kid, and I don’t know what to say to you. Until I think of something, I guess, that’s how things will stand. But I will tell you, Jerry, it is perfect hell for me. When I’m home, you’re sulking at me. Go to work, and she calls up. Day and night I’m getting it. I don’t get any rest. I can’t tell her you are wrong—I know you’re sincere. I can’t tell you she is wrong—that just isn’t what I think.” Mack put her head way back and closed her eyes for a moment. Then she brought it forward again, shaking it as her eyes opened. “I don’t know what to do about this,” she said like a puzzled child. She chewed at her lower lip. “I’ve thought about it and I’ve thought about it, and I’ve had three headaches which I think I will remember always, if I live till I am ninety. But I have not come up with anything that I think might really help.” She looked at me sadly. “This is coming out of my hide, Jerry. I hope you can understand that.”
“Well,” I said, ever the soul of Christian compassion, “that certainly takes the wind out of my sails. For several minutes there I was actually feeling reasonably good about the way things had been going. Little friction with the daughter, maybe, but I’m convinced I’m right on that, just as you have said. Little sand between the sheets of the old marriage bed, perhaps, but nothing that an oyster could make a decent pearl from. Made a little money; got a good result for Teddy: Lou Schwartz isn’t pissed at me even though he’s doing time: you got to forgive me, sweetheart, but I thought things were looking up. Must be getting overconfident, in my twilight years.”
Mack just sat and stared at me. Her shoulders were slumping. She cleared her throat twice but did not dispel her huskiness. “Jerry,” she said, “listen to me. I know this is hard for you, but you have got to listen.”
“I am listening,” I said.
“Francine came in from Accounting this morning,” she said. “She had my records with her. This came as a surprise to me. We’d blocked out an hour next week for my taxes. Not much to do on them anyway, of course—we did all the scut work back in January, when I brought my estimated payments for last year up to the eighty percent requirement. Just a matter next week of going over the completed returns and signing about four more checks to cover everything. Painful as hell, maybe, but not complicated.
“ ‘Francine,’ I said, ‘what is this? You are coming in a week early to remind me that I’m getting murdered? This I knew.’ ”
“You are getting murdered?” I said. “You are getting murdered? You’ve got the real estate taxes and the mortgage interest on both houses to deduct, and you tell me that you are catching it in the throat? My heart goes out to you, Mack. It really, truly does.”
“Jerry,” she said levelly, “I asked you to listen. I do not have overhead, office, and salary to Gretchen that I can deduct. I am paying this year, for the year I just went through, almost thirty thousand dollars, once they add on that goddamned self-employment tax. I call that getting murdered. I bet you’re not paying that much, and anyway, goddamnit, I thought we were partners.”
“I don’t know yet what I am paying,” I said, but she didn’t seem to hear me.
“ ‘Murdered,’ Francine says, ‘that is what they all say. You can say something from now on that is much worse than being murdered. You are being audited.’ ”
“Oh good Lord,” I said.
“ ‘Oh good Lord’ is right,” she said. “ ‘Books and records, all receipts, anything that will support the statements you have made. Get them all together and get your ass down to our office.’ That was Francine’s tidy way of putting it. So, a week from Monday, I am going in to chat. I am not going to like this, Jerry. I’m sure it will cost me money.”
“Is Francine going with you?” I said.
“Yes,” Mack said, “of course. She prepared the damned return. She is on it, Jerry. You don’t think I’d go in there by myself, do you, lover?”
“Look, Mack,” I said, “no offense, but the sarcasm isn’t needed. Is Francine a lawyer these days? Passed a bar exam?”
“You don’t need it,” she said. “I don’t need it either. Francine’s a tax accountant, Jerry. She has taken courses. She has her B.S. in this crap. She knows what she is doing.”
“Okay, okay,” I said, “pardon me for breathing. I think you’d be better off if you had a lawyer. Accountants are good with figures, putting things on paper. Lawyers are the ones that get trained to conduct negotiations. You should have a lawyer with you to protect your gorgeous ass.”
“Uh-huh,” she said, “sure I should. Why, does Lou Schwartz need company?”
We did not speak one word to each other for the rest of the evening.