Solomon & Lord Drop Anchor (28 page)

She gave him a half smile and cocked her
head. In another setting, it would have been flirtatious. Here, in
the midst of a polemical quarrel that Cromwell and Charles the
First might have had, if they spoke at all, it was an intellectual
challenge.

“I think you have it backward,” he said.
“‘We, the people—’“

“To coin a phrase,” she interrupted,
beginning to feel more comfortable in the ebb and flow of a
dialectic debate she was prepared to win or lose, as the situation
required.

He laughed and continued. “The people give
the government its rules, but those rules arise from natural laws.
Take the Decalogue of Exodus. Thou shall not kill. Thou shall not
bear false witness …”

Thou shall not commit adultery.

Funny how that popped into her head as she
watched the judge—her judge—stalk around the perimeter of his
chambers, a smaller stage than in Cambridge. He had the enthusiasm
of a young boy and the wisdom of philosopher. Not to mention the
body of an athlete and the easy grin of a man who finds the world
amusing.

A damned intoxicating combination in the
person of Samuel Adams Truitt. If only you weren’t married, if only
this weren’t a job.

Truitt carried on for a while, attacking
Hobbes for his view that government could prescribe an official
religion and ban all others, which she admitted was a mistake.

“A mistake this Court unanimously followed in
1892,” he said, shaking his head sadly, “when it held that the
government can prohibit the exercise of religions other than
Christianity. Four years later, the Court upheld laws prohibiting
blacks from riding in the same railroad cars with whites. The
decisions were wrong because they violated the natural law, as
codified in our Constitution. Under Calvin, citizens can resist
immoral laws because the sovereign is beholden to the natural
law.”

“But who determines what the natural law
encompasses?” she asked. “In the 1870s, the Supreme Court said it
was the ‘law of the creator’ that women be barred from becoming
lawyers. These days, a lunatic in Florida says God tells him to
kill a doctor who performs abortions. Does he have the right to
ignore the lesser law of the government?”

“No, because the most basic natural law of
all is not to kill.”

And so it went, teacher and student, judge
and clerk, man and woman, traveling through the centuries on the
magic carpet of their mutual knowledge, Truitt noting that being
“endowed with certain rights by their Creator” came from Calvin,
Lisa responding that the “pursuit of happiness” came from
Hobbes.

She was focused now and ready to impress the
justice with her erudition on a number of subjects, all of which
interested him, she knew from her research.

I’m rallying. I think he likes me.

Truitt sat down again, and they spoke easily
for another forty minutes, Lisa working into the conversation a
cross section of popular culture. She mentioned novels that moved
her, films that resonated, and rock music she loved, the songs
invariably stemming from Truitt’s era. She moved the conversation
toward the American musical theater and why didn’t they write shows
like 
Guys and Dolls
 anymore? He agreed, telling
her he had acted, though not very well, in a college production of
the show about a thousand years ago.

“You must have been a wonderful Sky
Masterson,” she said.

“Actually, I was Big Jule.”

“No!” she said, feigning surprise. She’d
already seen the yearbook photo of young Sam, brawny in a
gangster’s pinstriped double-breasted suit with exaggerated lapels
and enough shoulder padding for an offensive lineman. He was
hoisting Sky Masterson up by his somewhat narrower lapels, holding
him two feet off the stage floor with one hand. “I really would
have thought you’d have the romantic lead.” She blushed, her face
seeming as red as her hair. “Oh … I didn’t mean …” The more she
stammered, the redder she became, a trick that required holding her
breath, or at least not inhaling while she spoke. “I’m sorry, I
mean … If I said anything inappropriate …”

“No. That’s all right. I was just the biggest
guy in the University Thespians. It was either play the heavy or
haul the scenery around.”

She quickly regained the composure she had
really never lost. The blushing, stuttering episode had bee i
rehearsed in front of a mirror just as Sam Truitt had rehearsed
“Luck Be a Lady” so many years ago. It had seemed to her that being
too polished, too poised, might come off as artificial and, well …
rehearsed. So the momentary slip had the dual purpose of making her
seem human and letting him know she found him attractive. I like
her, Sam Truitt thought. She’s bright and beautiful, articulate and
interesting, but beyond all that … I 
like
 her.
Obviously, she can do the work. And she’d be fun to have
around.

If only she weren’t so damned sexy.

“Is there anything you want to ask me?”
Truitt said.

“I was looking at the football you were
holding. Did I read somewhere that you were captain of your college
team?”

“No, I wasn’t good enough for that. I was
captain of the special teams.”

“What made them so special?”

He laughed. At least she wasn’t an expert on
everything. “At Wake Forest, nothing, I assure you. I was the long
snapper.”

“Sounds like a fish,” she said with a
feminine shrug.

“I spent all my playing time looking between
my legs, snapping the ball to the punter or field goal kicker. It’s
a knack, seeing the world upside down and putting a tight spiral on
the ball, getting it to the punter, nose up, in seven-tenths of a
second, thigh high, so he can think just about the kick. A good
snapper gets the ball to the punter faster than the quarterback can
throw it the same distance.”

“Really? I guess it’s much more complicated
than most people realize,” she said, encouraging him.

“It sure is. You fire the ball with the right
hand, guide it with the left. Before the snap, if you squeeze the
ball, or cock your wrist, the defensive linemen will time their
rush and get a jump on your linemen. So no hitches, no nerves, and
most important, you’ve got to have the perfect stance. You’ve got
to keep your ass down.” He laughed and went on, “Which, come to
think of it, was the president’s advice when he appointed me to
this scorpions’ nest. ‘Keep your ass down until you get the lay of
the land.’“

“Sounds smart. You’re here for life. Why be
impatient to make your mark?”

“I’ve never been good at laying low,” he
said, then walked to the credenza and picked up the partially
inflated football. Although he didn’t ask her to, she rose from the
chair and joined him there, putting her hands on the cracked
leather. It was, in its way, an intimate gesture, each of them
touching the other, through an intermediary, the old football. She
ran her fingers across the chipped white paint that spelled
out, WAKE FOREST 16 – FURMAN 10.

She has beautiful hands. What’s happening?
Jesus, Sam, act like a judge, not a schoolboy.

“It was my last game, my only game ball. A
reward for playing three years without a bad snap. That and some
tackles on the kickoff team. Unfortunately we didn’t kick off
much.”

“I know enough about the game to understand
that. You didn’t score often, right?”

“Often? The Demon Deacons were scoreless in
October.”

‘“Scoreless in October,’“ she repeated with a
laugh that trilled like a pine warbler in the Carolina woods.
“Sounds like a movie tide.”

“Or a lonely fraternity boy’s lament,” he
said, chuckling.

“Or the number of opinions the junior justice
writes his first month on the bench,” she said, keeping the ball in
the air.

“I’m afraid the C.J. would agree with that,”
Truitt said. “It’s going to take me a while to get used to being
the new kid on the block. I was playing basketball with Justice
Braxton yesterday, and he started calling me ‘Junior’ just to mess
up my jump shot. Did you know there’s a basketball court above the
courtroom?”

She nodded. “The highest court in the
land.”

“Right again. You seem to have a feel for
this place.”

And for me. What am I going to do? She’s
almost too good to be true.

* * *

Lisa watched him squeeze the old football,
seemingly lost in a private thought. “You speak very fondly of your
football team,” she said, “even though …”

“We were really abysmal,” he said, finishing
her sentence.

“But winning wasn’t everything to you, was
it?”

“I haven’t thought about it much, but you’re
right. We lost ten games in a row before beating Furman. I loved
the game and I loved my teammates, even though we were probably the
worst team in the history of college football.”

“No,” she said in mock disbelief.

“You can look it up,” he said, but of course
she already had.

“In 1974, we were shut out five games in a
row by a combined score of two hundred and ten to zero,” Truitt
said. “North Carolina, Oklahoma, Penn State, Maryland, Virginia,
and Clemson.”

“Wow, is that some kind of record?”

“Maybe. We even lost to William and Mary, and
I suspect Mary could have done it all by herself.”

She laughed, knowing he’d used the line many
times before. She was turning the tables on him, becoming the
interrogator. “What did you learn from all the losses? About life,
I mean.”

“No one’s ever asked me that,” he said,
seeming to think it over.

C’mon, Sam. Every man I’ve ever known loves
to talk about himself.

“The value of hard work, patience, and
discipline,” he said after a moment. “That to win you have to sweat
and sacrifice and put the team first and even if you do all of
those things, you may still lose, but that it’s no disgrace to lose
with honor. Most of all, I learned that you’ve got to play the game
within the rules, and that surely goes for life, too.”

The rules. Max Wanaker makes his up as he
goes along. Sam Truitt follows the ones engraved in the marble.

The phone buzzed just as Truitt was telling
how he got the nickname “Scrap” and how the little-used kickoff
team was called the “Scrap Pack.”

“The chief says you’re to come to his
chambers right away,” Eloise said over the speaker.

“Tell the chief I don’t work for him,” Truitt
replied.

“No, sir!” Eloise screeched over the
intercom. “We’re not going to start off seeing who’s got the
biggest bulge in his briefs. I’ll tell him you’re in conference and
will be there the instant you’re free.”

The intercom went dead, and there was a
moment of silence as interviewer and interviewee tried to remember
exactly where their conversation had ended.

“That’s probably the only time anyone will
catch you quoting Justice McReynolds,” Lisa said.

“You picked up on that?” Truitt asked,
astonished. “That’s a really arcane bit of Court trivia.”

He looked at her with something approaching
awe, and Lisa smiled.

“Back in the 1930s,” she said, “Chief Justice
Hughes left a message with McReynolds’s secretary. ‘Tell the
justice to come to my chambers at once, and wear his robes.’
McReynolds responded with … well, just what you said. ‘Tell the
Chief I don’t work for him/”

“McReynolds was a real misanthrope, a racist,
and a bigot,” Truitt said. “But you probably know that, don’t
you?”

“I know he wouldn’t appear for the Court
photo because he didn’t want to be in a picture with a Hebrew.
That’s what he called Brandeis.”

Showing off now. Put a lid on it, Lisa.

“That was him. And you’re right. It’s the
only time I’ll quote the bastard.” Truitt glanced at his watch.
“Whoa. We’ve been at it for nearly two hours.”

Sensing that was her cue, Lisa said, “I want
to thank you so much for your time, Justice Truitt.”

“I’ve enjoyed this. I really have,” Truitt
said. He paused a moment, as if she shouldn’t leave just yet.

Sam Truitt couldn’t pinpoint the moment he
changed his mind about Lisa Fremont, couldn’t even say exactly why
he had. She was smart and savvy, and they seemed to have great
synergy, and he was tired of interviewing candidates. There was
such a relaxed nature to their conversation, he felt as if he had
known her forever. So without ever actually consciously deciding,
Truitt reached the conclusion that she’d be perfect. He would hire
her 
despite
 her great looks, though he didn’t
think his wife would buy that for a second.

What is he thinking? Lisa wondered. Am I
overstaying my welcome? Should I curtsy and head for the door?

“Once the session begins,” Truitt said,
breaking the silence, “I’m afraid there won’t be time for what Elly
would call ‘high-falutin’ gabfests.’”

As if I already had the job.

“And from now on,” he continued, “it’s just
plain ‘Judge.’ That’s what Vic and Jerry call me. Ask Elly for the
forms you’ll need to fill out, then get ready to roll up your
sleeves.”

Omigod! What did he say?

“You mean I’m hired?”

“Didn’t I say that? No, I guess I didn’t. I
must have thought you could read my mind.”

“That would be a pretty good attribute for a
law clerk,” she said, beaming. “I’ll work on it.”

“Along with about a thousand cert petitions.”
He stood and extended a hand. “Welcome aboard.”

For the second time that day, Lisa Fremont
shook his hand, and their eyes locked. This time his expression
seemed to come from a deeper place, and for a moment, she felt he
was trying to look deep inside her. At the same time, he clasped
both hands over hers. There was nothing inappropriate about it,
nothing sexual, overt or otherwise. It seemed to be a gesture of
comradeship, a recognition that they were about to spend the next
year together embarked on a great adventure.