Joe Steele (14 page)

Military policemen, shore patrolmen, and U.S. marshals from the Justice Department stood ready to do whatever he told them to do. Charlie intended to keep his trap shut. He wouldn't have been surprised if somebody raised a ruckus, though.

At ten o'clock on the dot, Captain Spruance said, “Let the tribunal be sealed.” The doors were closed and locked. A late-arriving reporter banged on them in vain. Through the banging, Spruance continued, “Let the accused be brought before the tribunal.”

He looked to the left. Charlie's gaze, and everyone else's, followed his.
A door opened. The newsreel cameras swung towards it. This would be the first time anyone but their jailers had set eyes on the Supreme Court Four since their spectacular arrest.

Out they came, Justices McReynolds, Butler, Sutherland, and Van Deventer. They all wore suits of good cut and somber gray or blue or black wool. Charlie thought they looked thinner than they had when they were taken away, but he wasn't sure. They'd worn robes then, which might have expanded their outline. He was pretty sure they were paler than they had been. Wherever Joe Steele had stowed them, they hadn't got to sunbathe there. He saw no lumps or bruises that might have shown rough treatment, though.

MPs with Tommy guns shepherded the accused men to their table. As they sat, the ACLU lawyer in the horrible clothes whispered something to Justice McReynolds. Whatever answer he got, it made him do a double take Harpo Marx would have been proud of. He whispered again.

After a moment, Captain Spruance said, “The accused will rise.” The men obeyed. “State your names for the record,” he told them.

“James McReynolds.”

“Pierce Butler.”

“Associate Justice George Sutherland.”

“Willis Van Deventer.”

To the chief petty officer transcribing the testimony, Spruance said, “Yeoman, you will disregard the title claimed by the accused, Sutherland.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” the yeoman replied.

“Be seated,” Spruance told the Supreme Court Four. They sat once more. He went on, “You are all accused of treason against the United States, of collusion with a foreign power, and of perverting your high office to the detriment of the American people. Mr. McReynolds, how say you to these charges?”

“May it please your Honor—” Justice McReynolds began.

Captain Spruance held up a hand. “This is a military proceeding, not a court of law in the strict sense of the words. You will address me as
sir
.”

“Yes, sir.” McReynolds licked his lips, then went on with no
expression in his voice: “May it please you, sir, I wish to plead guilty and to throw myself on the mercy of the court—uh, the tribunal.”

Both ACLU lawyers sprang into the air as if they'd just sat on long, sharp tacks. Several reporters and cameramen exclaimed as well. Charlie wouldn't have sworn that he wasn't one of them. Of all the things he and everybody else had looked for, a guilty plea was the last one. Or maybe somebody had looked for it—at the prosecutors' table, Attorney General Wyszynski leaned back in his chair and looked like a cat blowing a couple of feathers off its nose.

Spruance might not have presided over a court of law per se, but they'd issued him a gavel anyhow. He used it vigorously. “We will have order here,” he said. “Remember my earlier warning. Disruptive persons will be ejected.” Still, he made no move to signal to his enforcers.

“Sir,” said the ACLU man in the dreadful suit, “I object to this so-called confession. It's obviously coerced, and—”

“It's no such thing.” Andy Wyszynski spoke for the first time. He sounded amused, and didn't bother leaning forward.

Bang!
Spruance used the gavel again. “That will be enough of that from both of you. We can get to the bottom of this. Mr. McReynolds, are you admitting your guilt of your own free will?”

McReynolds licked his lips again. “Yes, sir,” he said quietly.

“Has anyone coerced you into doing so?”

“No, sir,” McReynolds said.

“After your arrest, have you received adequate treatment, given the understanding that incarceration is not and cannot be a rest cure?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Very well.” Spruance turned to the yeoman. “You will record that Mr. McReynolds has admitted his guilt to the charges raised against him, has done so freely and without coercion, has been treated acceptably while imprisoned, and has asked mercy of the tribunal.”

“Aye, aye, sir.” The yeoman's pencil flashed across the page.

“All right, then.” Captain Spruance sounded satisfied with the way things were going, if not exactly pleased. Charlie got the feeling Spruance
seldom sounded pleased about anything. The Navy four-striper looked back to the table where the Supreme Court Four sat. “Mr. Butler, how say you to these charges?”

Pierce Butler took a deep breath. “Sir, I plead guilty and throw myself on the tribunal's mercy.”

Again, the defense lawyers tried to object. Again, Captain Spruance overrode them. Again, he asked the justice whether his confession was voluntary and whether he'd been treated all right while behind bars. Like McReynolds, Butler affirmed that it was and that he had been. Attorney General Wyszynski looked even more smug than he had before.

Spruance asked Justice Sutherland and Justice Van Deventer how they answered the charges leveled against them. Each in turn confessed his guilt and begged the tribunal for mercy. Each said he confessed of his own free will and that he hadn't been mistreated since his arrest. The yeoman recorded the guilty pleas one by one.

The ACLU lawyer with the bad taste in clothes said, “Sir, I find these confessions utterly unbelievable.”

“Do you?” Spruance said. “The men deny coercion. By their appearance, they have not been abused. I find myself compelled to credit them.” He pointed to the reporters and to the newsreel cameras. “The American people will see them soon enough. I think their view of the matter will accord with mine, Mr. Levine.”

“It's
Le-veen
, sir, not
Le-vine
,” the lawyer said.

“Pardon me.” Spruance tossed him the tiny victory, then went on to more important things: “Mr. McReynolds, would you care to explain to the tribunal why you chose to betray your country and your oath? You are not obliged to do so, but you may if you desire to. Perhaps you will offer mitigating circumstances.”

“Thank you, sir,” McReynolds said. “Yes, I would like to speak. We did what we did because we felt we had to stop Joe Steele at any cost and wreck everything he was doing. We thought—we think—Joe Steele is the American Trotsky.”

Butler, Sutherland, and Van Deventer nodded almost in unison. McReynolds' words caused a fresh stir and buzz among the onlookers.
Captain Spruance gaveled it down. Charlie had all he could do to keep from giggling. If the Supreme Court Four really believed that, they were a lot dumber than he'd given them credit for. Joe Steele hated Trotsky even more than he hated Hitler. His beef with Hitler was political. With Trotsky, it was personal. If Joe Steele could have bashed out the boss Red's brains with an ice axe, Charlie was convinced he would have done it.

Spruance might have been talking about the weather when he asked, “So you felt you had to stop him by any means necessary, whether legitimate or illegitimate?”

“Yes, sir,” McReynolds repeated. “We could see that his programs were going to build up the country. He would get reelected, and reelected, and reelected again. He would be able to set up a tyranny over the United States.”

“And so you conspired with a foreign tyrant against him?”

“Yes, sir. We wanted to keep the United States a democracy no matter what.” If James McReynolds tried to sound proud of himself, he could have done better.

Justice Sutherland did do pride better. “We weren't the only ones, either,” he put in, as smoothly as if responding to a cue.

“I beg your pardon?” Captain Spruance said.

“We weren't the only ones,” Sutherland said once more. “Plenty of good, loyal Americans helped us try to put Joe Steele's head on the wall.”

“Good, loyal Americans, you say?” Spruance rubbed his impeccably shaved chin. “Will you name those good, loyal Americans for me?” He didn't sound like someone putting quotation marks around the phrase. He said it the same way Sutherland had.

“Yes, sir,” said the justice—ex-justice now, Charlie supposed—and confessed traitor. Levine and the other ACLU lawyer tried to stop him. He waved them away. Charlie heard him say, “What difference does it make now?” He wasn't sure the newsreel recordings would pick that up.

“Will you name them?” Spruance asked once more when Sutherland didn't go on right away.

“Yes, sir. One was Senator Long, from Louisiana. Another was Father Coughlin.”

That loosed a hawk, or a whole flock of hawks, among the pigeons. Captain Spruance had to rap loudly for order. It didn't help much. Huey Long had been sniping at Joe Steele ever since Steele got the nomination the Kingfish wanted. Father Coughlin was a radio preacher from Michigan. Politically, he stood a little to the right of Attila the Hun, but millions of people listened to him. You could see how he might like
der Führer
better than the President.

“You've taken that down?” Spruance asked the yeoman.

“Yes, sir, I have.” The CPO looked and sounded a little flabbergasted himself.

“I'm sure that will be the subject of further investigation,” Spruance said. “I now declare a recess until two o'clock this afternoon so that the gentlemen of the press can file their stories and eat and so the members of this tribunal can consider the fate of the four men sitting at the defendants' table.” Down came the gavel one more time.

Charlie sprinted for a telephone booth. As soon as someone picked up the other end of the line, he started dictating. Half a dozen other men in cheap suits and fedoras were doing the same thing along the bank of phones. The doors for most of the booths were open. That let Charlie hear how the rest of the reporters, like him, sounded more coherent and better organized than they did in ordinary conversation. They'd all had to do this before, a great many times. Like writing, it was a skill that improved with practice.

When Charlie stopped shoving in nickels and hung up, two guys behind him got into a wrestling match over who'd use the phone next. He grabbed Louie and headed for the cafeteria in the basement. He'd eaten there only once before. As soon as he bit into his turkey sandwich, he remembered why.

Louie'd got roast beef, and didn't look any happier with it. “Holy Jesus, Charlie!” he said with his mouth full. “I mean, holy jumping Jesus!” He swallowed heroically.

“That's about the size of it,” Charlie agreed.

“They confessed,” the photographer said. “I mean, they
confessed
. I knew they'd tell Joe Steele to piss up a rope. I
knew
it. Only they didn't.”

“They sure didn't. They fingered some other big shots who can't stand him, either.” Charlie kept eating the sandwich even if it was lousy. “And they didn't look like J. Edgar Hoover was giving 'em the third degree. They just decided to sing.”

“Like canaries.” Louie lowered his voice: “You believe 'em? You believe all that treason malarkey's legit?”

“I believe anybody who sets out to prove it isn't will have a tough time doing it unless the justices take back their confessions,” Charlie said.

Louie chewed on that, literally and metaphorically. Then he nodded. “Yeah, that's about the size of it. I bet Father Coughlin's spitting rivets right now.” Well, he might have said
spitting
.

Charlie didn't get such a good seat when the tribunal reconvened. Other reporters had either eaten faster or skipped lunch. He'd made it to a phone in a hurry. He wouldn't complain about this.

At two o'clock straight up, Captain Spruance gaveled the proceedings back into session. “We have reached a decision in this case,” he said. “Are the defendants ready to hear it?”

If any of the four Associate Justices wasn't ready, he didn't say so.

“Very well,” Spruance continued. “Because of their confessions earlier today and because of the evidence against them, evidence they did not seek to contest, we find them guilty of the crime of treason against the United States of America.” He turned to the Army officers sitting at his left hand. “Is that not our unanimous decision, gentlemen?”

“It is,” chorused Colonel Marshall, Major Bradley, and Major Eisenhower.

“Furthermore,” Spruance said, “we sentence the defendants to death, the sentence to be carried out by firing squad.” Willis Van Deventer slumped in his seat. The other three sat unmoving. Captain Spruance looked at the other officers again. “Is
that
not our unanimous decision, gentlemen?”

“It is,” they said together.

Levine bounced to his feet. “This is a kangaroo court, nothing else but! We'll appeal this outrageous verdict!”

“Who to? The Supreme Court?” Over at the prosecutors' table, Andy
Wyszynski went into gales of laughter. The ACLU lawyer stared at him, popeyed. Wyszynski rubbed it in some more: “Or maybe you'll appeal to the President?” Oh, how he laughed!

He laughed until Captain Spruance brought down the gavel. “Mr. Attorney General, your display is unseemly.”

“Sorry, sir.” Wyszynski didn't sound sorry. He didn't look sorry, either. But he did stop openly gloating.

Soldiers, sailors, and U.S. marshals took the convicted traitors away. The reporters scrambled to file their new stories. Charlie wondered how many late editions would sport a one-word headline: D
EATH
!

He wondered some other things, too. But that didn't matter, or not very much. If the accused men admitted that they'd done what they were accused of, and if you couldn't prove they'd been forced to admit it, what could anybody do? Not much, not that Charlie could see. And questions without good answers seemed all too much like questions better left unasked.