Allegiance (39 page)

I frown, thinking. “What about the man who followed Clara at Dupont Circle? He wasn't yours. He was going to hurt her.”

“He was not mine, it is true,” says Frankfurter. “But do we know what he intended?”

“He left quick enough when I told him the FBI was there.”

“I might do that too if a stranger accosted me. But it is a point. And there are the deaths. Still . . .” He hesitates. “The mind craves patterns; it craves reasons. For misfortune most of all.” He is looking at me in a kindly way.
“Many things go on and many can be strung together on threads of theory. But that does not mean they are connected in reality. What interest would the Anti-Federalists have in the Japanese?” I am silent. “I am sure that they have tried to influence the Court,” he continues. “But they failed. Would they really think that killing Mr. Gressman would make a difference? Enough to drive them to murder? We may have leapt too quickly at that answer. There was a history of arrhythmia.”

“I know he had a bad heart,” I say. My hand is massaging a watermark on the silk cushion. “That's why the poison worked.” Frankfurter's face shows sympathy tinged with concern. “The original Farmer,” I say. “The man from 1788. Who was he?”

“No one knows. Cato was the governor of New York. Brutus was a judge. The Farmer . . . it is a matter of speculation.”

“What if this one's really a farmer? What if he's got a stake in California land? That would explain their interest in the renunciations.”

Frankfurter sighs. “Perhaps. A well-chosen hypothesis can explain any fact. But we should be sure first that there is indeed something to explain. And as I said, I am growing less sure that anyone would see enough gain to justify murder.”

I shake my head.
Nothing to worry about
, Richards said.
We're on your side
. John Hall, too. And Haynes, now that I think of it.
It's your imagination
, he said when I asked him about the tails—a lie, of course, since he knew those were Frankfurter's men. And in the hallway, after Gene's death.
Don't be silly, pal, we're all on the same side.
Maybe they were. Suddenly I am wondering whether Gene could have been right about Haynes after all.

Frankfurter is still talking. “We are left with speculation,” he says. “It is unfortunate that there is no direct proof to hand.”

But perhaps there is. “Justice,” I say. “Do you have something Phil Haynes touched?”

Frankfurter's eyes narrow. “Why?”

“I can settle this,” I tell him. “Maybe. There was a fingerprint on Gene's coffee can. You give me something he touched, and we can see if they match.”

“Who took that print?” His voice is sharp.

“I did.”

“At whose behest? Who did you give it to?”

“I was working with the FBI.”

“Hoover.” The word is a hiss.

“I took the prints, that's all. No agent went into Murphy's chambers. No one took anything else out.”

Frankfurter shakes his head. “You are playing a dangerous game. I am not sure you know how dangerous.”

“Do you have something he touched?”

“Of course I do.” He looks at me a moment, considering. “I do not think Mr. Haynes is a suspect. You know I hired him myself.”

“Still,” I say. “It's possible, right? What's the harm in trying?”

“Maybe nothing,” says Frankfurter. “Or maybe you will learn that J. Edgar Hoover is not a man to trifle with.” He pulls out his handkerchief and uses it to remove something from the desk. “You may try this.” It is a framed photograph of the two of them. At the sight of Haynes's face I feel a surge of hatred. “The glass should be an excellent surface.”

• • • • 

The next day, I take the photograph to the lab myself. We will find out, one way or the other. “Dust this,” I tell the technicians. “I want to know if there's a match for the foreign print from the Supreme Court.” It is my last shot, and if it does not pay off, perhaps I will give up. Perhaps they are right; perhaps this is nothing but my imagination.

In the meantime, it is back to work. My draft of the
Korematsu
brief has returned. The changes are few, but Fahy has instructed me to remove my footnote disavowing the Final Report and replace it with one of his own.
With respect to the recital of the circumstances justifying the evacuation, the views of this Department differ.
“That could mean anything,” I complain to Ennis. “It could mean we don't agree that we hampered their operation and endangered the West Coast. We need something more.”

“Yeah.”

“So what do we do? Write another memo?”

“No,” he says. “This time we'll go see him.”

Fahy has Roosevelt's photo on his desk. The wall above holds the
Department's seal, an eagle atop a shield, arrows and olive branch in its talons. About the room are the usual accoutrements of scales and blindfolds. There is one bit of additional color, a Navy Cross he earned in the Great War. When this one is over, I think, we will have to change that name.

Fahy is sitting at his desk, a newspaper open in front of him. Herbert Wechsler stands at his left elbow. I remember Wechsler pacing in front of the blackboard at Columbia, chalk in hand, asking us to identify principles. At Justice he must be pacing less; three years have laid their flesh on him, drawn new lines on his face. “What is it?” Fahy asks.

“The footnote,” Ennis says.

“The Final Report,” I say.

There is a soft rustle as Fahy turns the page. “What about it?”

“It's lies,” I say. “We need to disavow it.”

Fahy sets the paper down. I glimpse the headline as he folds it over:
Polish Home Army Surrenders
. The Warsaw uprising is over and the Russians only watched. Fahy shakes his head. “I know there are some statements about disloyalty that we haven't been able to verify.”

“We've proved they're false,” Ennis says.

Fahy ignores him. “But doubt about loyalty is all that's needed to justify the evacuation. There was uncertainty; there was limited time.”

“That's not true, either,” I put in.

Wechsler steps forward. “You are not the judge here, Mr. Harrison. Nor am I. We are lawyers. We are the President's lawyers. We are working with the War Department, and I can tell you they were not happy with your footnote.”

“We are not the President's lawyers,” Ennis says. “We represent the United States. We don't defend something just because the President says to. And all he wants is to put off release past the election.”

“The politics are not our concern,” says Fahy quietly. “Only the legal justification.”

“Would you trust a Republican to finish this war?” Wechsler's voice is louder. “Thomas Dewey, with all of two years as a governor?”

“So that's the reason?” I ask. I strain to remember the phrase he used in class. “The principle that transcends the result in this particular case?”

Wechsler smiles, and something in his face chills me. He opens the paper to
a new page, folds it into neat quarters. “Have you heard of a place called Majdanek?” There is death in his eyes, though his voice is calm. “It's in Poland. The Red Army took it in July. Our reporters are there now.”

He passes the paper across. A line of Russian soldiers stands in front of a warehouse. The entire foreground of the photo is filled with a pile of small dark objects. I cannot recognize them. “What are those?”

“Shoes,” Wechsler says. “Those are the eight hundred thousand empty shoes of people who went to the gas chambers.” He looks at me with the expression he reserved for the exceptionally slow students. “Do you understand now? That's who we're fighting. That's why we have to win. And that's why I want Roosevelt in charge, not the little man from the top of the wedding cake.”

The magnitude of the number stuns me to silence. But not Ennis. “That's the whole point,” he says. “Not that anything we do to beat them is justified. It's that we don't do things like that. Not to innocent people, our own citizens. Never.”

“I am familiar with the principle, thank you,” Wechsler says. “
Ye'horeg v'al ya'avor,
as the owners of those shoes would have put it. Even under threat of death, some transgressions must be avoided. And I believe it, as a lawyer and as an American. I am doing nothing wrong here.” He looks at Fahy, and Ennis and I do too.

Fahy clears his throat. He takes the paper from my hands and spreads it out again. “I will argue the case as we have prepared it,” he says. I have to lean in to hear the words. “We will file the brief as it is written.”

IN THE HALLWAY,
Ennis looks at me. “Maybe a memo next time,” he says.

“Maybe no next time,” I say. “Did I tell you Rowe left me a resignation letter? For when my continued representation of the government was inconsistent with the interests of Justice.”

“He had a sense of humor,” Ennis says. He pauses. “Look, Rowe didn't resign. He got drafted.”

“He was thinking about it. After the meeting when Biddle signed off on evacuation. It's in his files.”

“Right,” says Ennis. “But I told him something. You're an American, I said. This is your country, the one that exists in the real world, not some idealized version in your mind. You're thinking about resigning now because you don't want to be in the real America anymore. It doesn't match your vision of what it should be, and you won't stand for that. But guess what? Karl Bendetsen has an America in his mind too, that doesn't match this one, and he's working very hard to make it real. If you don't want that, the real world is the only place to meet him. You can win all the battles in your mind, but the ones that count are here. This is where you can still do some good.”

I think of Bill Fitch and Vern Countryman, crossing the skies on their nation's business, of Gene Gressman promising to wait as long as it took to undo the evacuation. “Maybe.”

Ennis nods encouragement. “We'll talk to Charles Horsky again. Tell him
to attack the Final Report as hard as he can. Fahy's not going to disavow it, but he can't defend it either. The Court may go our way.”

“Maybe,” I say again. And I go to my office to think about the good I can still do.

I am waiting for a phone call from the FBI lab technicians, but it does not come. Instead there is a knock at the door and the burly figure of Clyde Tolson enters my office.

He says nothing by way of greeting, and I do not stand. “Whose fingerprint is that?” he asks.

I try not to betray my excitement. “I take it there was a match?”

Tolson steps closer to my desk. “Obstruction of justice is a felony, Mr. Harrison. Whose fingerprint?”

“I'm not obstructing anything. Find your own fingerprints. No one's stopping you.”

“Is it Frankfurter's? If you are covering for him, you are making a serious mistake.” I say nothing. “He cannot protect you,” Tolson continues.

“From you?” I remember the visit to Hoover's office. The massive flags, the raised desk. “Maybe not, but I think Francis Biddle can.”

Tolson stares at me for a long moment, unblinking. “We shall see about that, Mr. Harrison.”

• • • • 

When he leaves, I take Gene Gressman's papers out of my desk and look at them. The circled names, the cases, the connecting lines. Haynes is there. Frankfurter too, of course, but Gene was right to see Frankfurter pulling strings. He was just wrong to think they were working together, wrong to suppose that all the distortions in the picture flowed from a single source. Finally it is coming clear to me. The War Department, the Anti-Federalists, Frankfurter too, each with a different design. They are like radio signals interfering with each other, patterns blending together into meaningless noise.

I put the papers away and walk outside. Somewhere in the static is a message, if I can isolate it. Haynes was a plant, who managed to get hired by Frankfurter. And he killed Gene. But why? And for whom? Humid air fills my lungs. Someone thought Gene dangerous enough to kill him, and then John Hall too.

And if them, surely me. Richards's reassurances mean nothing, I realize. Maybe he was telling the truth; maybe the Anti-Federalists have no desire to hurt me. But if he was no party to the murders already committed, that only means he has no way of knowing what else is planned. The ice splits; the trapdoor swings open. I look at the pavement as I walk, hearing the creak of hinges, looking for a starburst of cracks at my feet.

I have to find them first.

• • • • 

“I got the results,” I tell Frankfurter. “A print on the picture frame you gave me matches the one from Gene Gressman's coffee can.”

“Phil Haynes,” he says. The smile with which he greeted me is entirely gone. “He worked with me. Dined at my house.” He collects himself. “So,” he says. “I have kept my friends close and my enemies closer.” He polishes his pince-nez. “The tactic is less effective if you do not know which is which.”

“Where is he now?”

“New York,” says Frankfurter. “Commercial litigation. But he is not beyond my reach, you may be sure.”

“We need to find out who he was working for,” I say. “Make him tell us before they come for me.” I hesitate. “But Justice . . .”

“What?”

“Don't just use Haynes for information. Don't tell him it's okay if he talks. He killed my friend. I want him punished.”

Frankfurter is smiling again, but there is nothing twinkly or avuncular about it. Haynes has sinned against him as well, I realize, and in his eyes that is perhaps more grave. “You need have no fear on that score,” he says.

• • • • 

The Supreme Court holds the oral argument in
Korematsu
on October 11.
Americans Blast 38 Ships off Japan
, reads the
Post
's morning headline. The war news is all good now. The strange names we learned as the Japanese moved west in the early days are back in the paper, each bloody battle reduced to a few columns of newsprint, another landing on another little island. They are running out of men and machines; their planes are old and their pilots
young. Air combat is a turkey shoot for our Hellcats. In the Marianas we down more than two hundred in an afternoon.