Juice (12 page)

That no one shall invite another to drink under penalty of 3 sous.…

That taverns shall be closed during the sermon, under penalty that the tavern-keeper shall pay 3 sous, and whoever may be found therein shall pay the same amount.

If anyone be found intoxicated he shall pay for the first offense 3 sous and shall be remanded to the consistory; for the second offense he shall be held to pay the sum of 6 sous, and for the third 10 sous and be put in prison.…

That no one shall make festivals under penalty of 10 sous.…

If anyone sing immoral, dissolute, or outrageous songs, or dance the
virollet
or other dance, he shall be put in prison for three days and then sent to the consistory.…

That no one shall take upon interest or profit more than five per cent, upon penalty of confiscation of the principal and of being condemned to make restitution as the case may demand.…

That no one shall play at any dissolute game or at any game whatsoever it may be, neither for gold or silver nor for any excessive stake, upon penalty of 5 sous and forfeiture of stake played for.…

These moral zoning ordinances, or articles of public health and safety, were promulgated in 1547 by John Calvin, considered by some a messiah and by others a hanging judge. They are Protestant rules; that is, righteous and fanatical, as all good protestors, rebels, and disinherited elder sons must be. In essence these rules are the saintly reaction to evil; by abhorring it and keeping it far from our doors, we starve it out of existence, or at least into impotence. The Devil's reaction to evil is, naturally, one of unalloyed glee and vigorous evangelism. For those who cannot be saints or devils there is a third, or human, reaction, which is historically more Catholic and Jewish than Protestant. (The major religions have, of course, borrowed so freely one from another—usually to guard against potential heresy by legitimizing it beforehand—that the distinctions are no longer sharp, or even valid, and the conscientious student of these matters finds himself traduced by rampant eclecticism.) This third reaction is in the nature of a cordial though distant curtsy to evil, an acknowledgment of its presence but not of its importance, an awareness that without a
modus vivendi
—mutual respect and mutual concessions, with the negotiations usually conducted by an ecclesiast—humanity and evil will destroy each other.

None of these reflections had ever passed through the mind of Frank Farrow; yet, born of a Jewish mother and an Irish father, he had become not an ecclesiast (his world was too secular for that) but a lay negotiator between man, pure in the singular, and evil, the effluvium inevitably cast by man in the plural. His ancestors, taken collectively as the creators of a Western morality, and not individually as peat diggers, marriage brokers, poteen runners, Talmudic scholars, bog poets, murderers, rapists, thieves, mayors, and practitioners of the homeopathic art, would, in short, have approved of his station in life.

Frank Farrow was a fixer. In the epithet there is no implication of scoundrel,
débrouillard,
or municipal immoralist. Frank Farrow was a nexus: when the eternally obsolescent moral and legal codes blocked and were blocked by man's eternally premature desire for peace, quiet, and hegemony over his fellow man, traffic was routed through Frank Farrow's roundhouse. If he had been a crook he could not have become a fixer, and might instead have become a politician. But the essential quality of the fixer is trustworthiness: civilization is held together by a number of small fixes (most of them agreements to honor the most arrant rubbish as revealed truth), and without the constant assurance that the fix is in (the job safe, the wife loyal, the bills paid, the immediate neighbors sharing our illusions) society would disintegrate, and mere anarchy (to paraphrase one of Farrow's distant relatives) would be loosed upon the world.

As a fixer Farrow was often called upon to transmit juice, which is the power generated by wealth and influence. It was therefore essential that Farrow be a citizen of some substance, which he was. He had been, until instinct prompted him to more suitable work, an alderman in one of the city's complicated (geographically, ethnically, and economically) wards. He had been an honest alderman within the loose human definition of honesty, and his ability to survive with honor had brought him to the attention of successful politicians, who envied him that ability and acknowledged him a rare man. He was consequently friend to governors, senators, representatives, madams, state officials, county officials, city officials, gamblers, police chiefs, sheriffs, cops on the beat, private citizens, fraternal organizations, labor unions, religious leaders, lawyers, judges, executives, and newspaper people, whose lives were more bound up with his than they knew. It was not true, as some said, that he could rouse the governor at three in the morning. But it was true that he could ask a secretary to “have the governor call me back, please,” and be sure of communication within forty-eight hours. He was the only man in the state who collected campaign contributions for both major parties. He was, therefore, necessarily discreet, and could be trusted with juice.

He was fifty-five years old, with a sallow, wrinkled face, lively blue eyes, and a full head of muddy graying hair. He was short and slight but had a good voice, a quiet sense of humor, and a firm belief that his work was worth while. These qualities, with an ability to echo great orators of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, many of whom he had read, enabled him to deal with people of all kinds. He was not educated, but spread a smattering very thin, and was wise enough to confine his reading and speculation to the area of classical politics, whence he drew occasional and useful inspiration. (He had been puzzled, for example, by Edmund Burke. Why should a man be against the French Revolution and for the American? He had worked out a theory. The French Revolution was a blow at nobility, at the aristocracy; the American was a blow at the monarchy. Burke was an aristocrat who must have believed in reducing the power of the monarch and augmenting that of the peerage. Farrow had never tried to verify his speculations; but he had drawn learned parallels for more than one state official, and was known in some quarters as a sage, or elder statesman.) This reading occupied him very little; he was primarily a man of the people—that is, one who expressed himself best in direct intercourse and had little truck with the abstract.

He dressed well and was soft-spoken among his political superiors, knowing that they were not truly his superiors but simply outranked him. He had a four-room apartment in a quiet residential area; both the neighborhood and the apartment were suitable for nocturnal conferences. He had two telephones, one of them a private number. Unmarried, he was cared for by a housekeeper, a distant cousin who was plain, maddeningly clean, and entirely discreet.

“Well now,” he said when Arthur Rhein telephoned (it was the listed number), “I'm quite flattered that you call me. I'd hardly expected you to remember me.”

He smiled elfinly at Rhein's answer. “You do me too much honor,” he said casually. “Can I be of service to you?”

He listened as Rhein went on. After a moment he said, “Excuse me. I'll need pencil and paper.” Equipped, he returned to the telephone. “Go on.” Rhein went on. Farrow interrupted him with a variety of unintelligible acknowledgments, and then said, “Yes. I know who he is. I've met him.” As he listened, his eyes skipped from one to another of the objects he had accumulated during a lifetime of service: solid mahogany furniture, several bowls and vases, four paintings, of which two were pastoral, one religious, and one daring, several scrolls, a few books, a four-hundred-dollar carpet, an adjustable dining table (food or cards for four to eight), a spacious desk with three votive (so to speak) inkstands, all engraved. Cached in various drawers were enough honorific crucifixes, mezuzahs, saintly medals, prayer books, and religious calendars to have bought salvation for many lesser men. In one file box were forty-two membership cards, ranging from B'nai B'rith to the Kerry Light Opera and Snooker Society, or alphabetically from the American Hellenes to the Young Garibaldis.

Farrow took careful notes, and spelled back a few names. “I don't know Pearson,” he said. “But the Ashford police are assigned from Los Pinos, and I know Biedermann. Yes. Chief of Police.” He listened. “No,” he said, “I can't see why we'd have to bother anybody that high up. I don't like to use up credit unless it's absolutely necessary. The soul of politics is self-sacrifice, you know.” He grinned. “No. It's too hypocritical even for Franklin. It was some British lord. You don't expect trouble?”

Apparently Rhein did not expect trouble. “There are some things I'd like to know,” Farrow said. “For instance, the widow.” He listened again, nodding. “Fine. And the publicity? Good. Who's his lawyer?”

Rhein told him, and Farrow's eyes widened in respect. “You hardly need me. What? Of course. All right. I think I have all I need. I'll keep Davis and Harrison out of it, but tell Davis what to expect. Hmm? Don't be silly. No trouble at all. I wish all the requests I got were as simple. Besides, I'll come back at you one of these days. I may want free tickets to a show.” Rhein said something, and Farrow laughed aloud. “All right, Mr. Rhein. A pleasure. Call me again any time.”

Farrow hung up. His first thought was that Rhein was one of these queer rich men who remained politically independent, declaring or affiliating only the day before the election, and usually for a reason incomprehensible to politicians. There was one good reason for declaring late, and it might have been Rhein's: campaign funds were raised early. Strange; there were a good many rich men who came through after the election, and made up the deficit. Banker's insurance: why back a loser? Well, a funny one, Rhein, all that money and he'd rather fix a traffic ticket than pay the five dollars. This was not exactly a traffic ticket, though. No. Not at all. They could get sticky when there was manslaughter. Still, three quarters of the man-slaughters were dismissed or nol-prossed or acquitted. Not much to worry about. And Rhein's a good man to have on the books. Harrison, now. I remember Harrison. A tough one, with a good-looking wife. Riding high, he was, but he isn't now. They all come to Frank Farrow in the end.

He remembered then that Arthur Rhein was chairman of the board, and presumably the major stockholder, of Pacific American Insurance. He smiled and shook his head compassionately.

Farrow looked at his watch, a gift of the county Young Republicans. It was four-thirty. At five, cocktails with Winkelmann. Winkelmann. The old ass. There was a judge for you. An ass big enough to sit on both sides of the fence at once. Still, it was the inflexible judges that sent a good man to jail for a mistake and let off the hoodlum on some fine-print technicality.

Well, there was work to do. Biedermann first, and then that Lieber. Lieber was peanuts; he made a living marrying drunks and setting high fines for speeding. All right. Davis, hey? They were taking no chances. Davis was a boy to watch. Davis had the silver tongue, and Davis gave not one goddamn for the opinion of anybody. He will die upon the gallows or of some loathsome disease, Farrow decided, and smiled, remembering Disraeli, who was also a distant relative.

5

John James Davis emerged from an elevator graced by an imitation Currier & Ives—“The Skate-Sharpener,” it was, and edifying—into a corridor that almost took his breath away. The walls were a mosaic of blue, coral, and pink tiles, the lighting was ethereally fluorescent, and the silence was total, so that Davis was reminded first of Giotto and then of the men's room in a mosque. There was only one door, at the end of the corridor; he walked to it, pushed a button, and was rewarded with a distant but vibrant rendition of “In the Gloaming.” His eyes widened, and he expelled a deep breath. The door opened.

“I'm John James Davis,” he said to Robert. “I think Mr. Rhein is expecting me.”

“He is,” Robert said. “Please come in.”

Davis followed him. Davis followed him for some time and through several rooms. Davis lost his bearings, thought of Minos, Knossos, Floyd Collins, the ball of red twine he should be unwinding, the trail of confetti scattered discreetly through the Roman room, the French room—no Egyptian? Where was the Egyptian? The Scarab room? Ah; Early American, the muskets; Davis felt a surge of vigorous patriotism. Then the library, genuine, walled by books. Aha, he thought affectionately, the Jewish room. He looked back, and estimated four thousand volumes. He felt avarice: the unread book, the unpublished sonata, the nubile woman. Davis, the Giovanni of the Public Library, book after book, preferably first editions; or the gramophonic lust, Jayjay the insatiable auditor, the biped with the augmented third, the octopus with the augmented ninth—silent hilarity took him by the throat. A sudden vision of Mrs. Newbery sharpened his pleasure and was momentarily replaced by a sudden vision of Mrs. Harrison, but Robert was knocking at a door.

Rhein mumbled from within. Robert opened the door, and Davis entered.

“Hello, hello,” Rhein said, rising from his swivel chair behind a rolltop desk. “So you're Davis.”

Davis took in the desk, the dusty bookcases, the file cabinets, the Oxford English Dictionary (all of it), the in-and-out box; no eye shade, he thought, no spittoon. He restrained his baser nature and said, “Hello. So you're Rhein.” They shook hands.

In complacent silence they exchanged admiration. Davis admired a six-figure income—income, mind you. Rhein admired Davis almost as much as he did his own astuteness in hiring the man. Rhein knew immediately—he flattered himself on his instincts, and he was right to do so—that Davis was a man to whom money was important but who would enjoy rejecting it, in the proper circumstances and before the proper audience, as much as making it. He knew that Davis hated to lose a case. He did not know that what Davis hated was not defeat—law and justice being what they were, lawyers could barely hope for victory when in the right, and Davis was fascinated by the wrong, or at least the anarchic. What Davis hated was defeat by the Philistines. Davis was not William Tell, tucking a spare arrow into his girdle; Davis was Quixote, for whom the art and the intent were all, and the form, the accidents of event, meaningless.