Someday the Rabbi Will Leave Page 3

  “You bet. Especially for your own sake.”

  “How do you mean?”

  Mulcahey looked at the crestfallen young man sitting across the desk. What was wrong with him? What was lacking? A good-looking guy like that. He felt sorry for him and tried to explain. “Look, these Puerto Ricans have big families. Everyone has a bunch of brothers and sisters and more cousins and aunts and uncles than you can count. You would have had a sizable gallery in the courtroom if you’d pleaded. If they see a lawyer fighting for his client, getting up and making objections, bearing down on cross-examination, making an impassioned summation to the jury, they’re going to think he’s pretty good even if he loses the case. What happens if your client does get three to five? You don’t have to serve it. But his family, they think a trial’s a game—you win some, you lose some. What counts with them is whether you put up a good fight or not. And if they like you, there’s business to be gained. Civil business as well as criminal. A lease, a contract, a title search—they’ll come to you because they saw you fighting for your client and you seemed to care. But if you cop a plea, sooner or later the idea is going to occur to them that, maybe, if you’d gone to trial, you might have won.”

  “So you think I blew it?”

  “You sure did,” said Mulcahey. He was on the point of offering the usual words of solace and consolation, but catching sight of their reflections in the dusty office window, he could not help comparing his own appearance—his squat and shapeless body, his puffy face and bulbous nose—with that of the nice-looking young man on the other side of the desk. Scofield had everything, where as he had had nothing to start with, and yet … Suddenly he was annoyed and angry with him. It was not merely his mishandling of the Gonzales case, but his general complacency. However, he showed no sign of his annoyance as he pulled out the bottom drawer of his desk and fished out a bottle and a glass. Automatically, he made an offering motion with the bottle.

  Scofield shook his head.

  Mulcahey poured himself a drink, took a sip, and then, glass in hand, tilted back in his chair and jammed his foot against the side of the extended drawer for balance. “Have you ever thought,” he asked lazily, “that you might be in the wrong profession?”

  “You think I’m that bad, huh?”

  The older man spread his arms in resignation. “You don’t think things through. You’re impulsive. You get an idea, and sometimes it’s a very good idea, but you act on it without considering the long-range effects. Like the case today, or that contract you drew up a couple of days ago. You think quick, but you don’t think long. Well, that’s what a lawyer is supposed to do for his client, take the long view. The client does something, or wants to do something, is all hot for it, but his lawyer is the guy that asks, ‘But what if …?’ Get it? Your mind doesn’t seem to work that way.”

  “So what should I do?”

  Mulcahey considered. “You’ve been out three, four years?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And you’re not making it, are you? You dress nice and you got that place in Waterfront Towers. On the other hand, you drive that crazy second-hand car. Tell me, are you making any money?”

  “Not much.”

  The older man laughed coarsely. “Well, you could marry a rich girl. That would take care of your problem.”

  “Aw, rich girls don’t get married these days. They have careers. They become doctors and lawyers and college professors.”

  “Maybe you could team up with some smart young Jew or Italian. You’d work at bringing in the business and he’d handle it. You’ve got the looks and with your background and all, you must know a lot of people. Any clients you brought in, you’d hand over to him—Nah.” With a sweep of the hand he dismissed the idea. “He’d drop you as soon as you built up a clientele. I’ll tell you what you can do. Go into politics. There, if you goof up, it doesn’t matter. You get to be a representative or a state senator, and you’ve got it made. In addition to the salary, it brings in business. See, people think you’ve got an in with—well, with the D.A. and the judges and the court clerks. What’s more, they don’t expect you to handle their cases personally because you’re busy down at the statehouse. They expect you to pass it on to someone in your office.”

  Scofield again showed his square white teeth. “Some Jew or Italian.”

  “Sure. Why not?” A sudden thought struck him. “Sa-ay, did you notice the guy who was in my office yesterday afternoon? Well, that was Jim Tulley. He’s an orderly or a male nurse or whatever at the Lynn hospital. He was telling me that Joe Bradley, the senator from this district, was in the hospital with a bad heart attack. They gave it out that he went in for a checkup, but it was a heart attack, and a serious one.”

  “So?”

  “So, the chances are he won’t run for reelection. Nobody knows about it yet, so if you were to declare for it—”

  “State senator? That’s ridiculous. How could I hope to run for state senator first crack out of the barrel? You have to work up to something like that. I might run for Barnard’s Crossing selectman, maybe, but—”

  “Selectman wouldn’t get you anything except maybe a bunch of phone calls complaining about the garbage collection. And it don’t pay nothing. How many selectmen do you know who’ve got anywhere in politics? You want to get out of the local scene; you want to get to the statehouse. You can maneuver there.” He made zigzag motions with both hands. “Afterwards, you can become a member of a commission of some sort, or you can make judge, if you like that kind of thing. Or you could stay with it and move up to congressman and go to Washington. And once there, the opportunities are …” He waved his hands above his head to indicate infinity.

  “Yeah, but all this takes money.”

  “The first rule of politics,” said Mulcahey portentously, “is not to use your own money. You use other people’s money, campaign contributions.”

  “But you need some money to get started.”

  Mulcahey nodded. “Sure, seed money. But you must have that. The way you dress and that apartment of yours in Waterfront Towers …”

  “I have a little,” Scofield admitted. “My share from the sale of the house after Dad died. It’s just a few thousand.”

  “Look, boy, you don’t need much to get started. And you’re not throwing it away. It’s advertising. Don’t you see? Win or lose, you’re getting all this advertising free. Say you hold a rally. You begin by introducing yourself. ‘I’m John Scofield, a practicing attorney with offices in Salem.’ Get it? There’s a shnook in your audience who’s got a little legal problem. Somebody owes him some money and won’t pay. Or he’s got to draw up a contract of some kind. He doesn’t have a lawyer. Well, here’s a nice young fellow who talks sense and he’s a lawyer in Salem. Why not go to him? Get the idea? Now what happens if you should win?”

  “What happens?”

  Mulcahey raised his arms as if he were about to embrace the heavens. “You’ll be getting the big cases. We’ll set up a law firm: Scofield, Mulcahey, Cohen, and Mastrangelo.” He made motions with his hands to indicate the sign on the door.

  “Who are Cohen and Mastrangelo?”

  “The smart Jew and Italian we’d get. Might as well have them both.”

  “Maybe Venturo of the D.A.’s office for the Italian slot,” suggested Scofield.

  Mulcahey nodded. “Possible.”

  Scofield flashed his teeth in delight at the thought of the man who had outfoxed him working for him. Then his sense of reality asserted itself. “Oh, this is silly. I can’t run for state senator.”

  “Why not? It’s your best shot. You’d run as a Republican, and you’d be running in the primary for the nomination. The Republican nominee is sure to win the election in these parts, no matter who he is. So it’s the primary you’re interested in. How many people vote in the primary? Twenty percent? Twenty-five, tops. You get a hard core of Barnard’s Crossers behind you, and you’ve got it made. Now here’s the beauty part of it. You’d be alone. You�
�d be the only one running for the Republican nomination.”

  “Why would I be the only one?”

  “Because no one, no one in his right mind is going to challenge Joe Bradley for the nomination. He’s been senator for the district for the last I don’t know how many years. So you declare for it. Then when he finally gets around to announcing that he’s not seeking reelection, you’re the only one in the field.”

  “Yeah, and the minute he does, half a dozen others jump in.”

  “So what? You were the first in the field. You’ll be known before the others can get rolling.”

  “And if your friend the orderly is wrong, and Bradley runs again?”

  “So you’ll get beat. But you will have had all that free advertising, all that exposure.”

  “We-el …”

  5

  When asked what he did for a living, Tony D’Angelo was apt to be evasive, saying only that he was in politics. But he never ran for office, nor did he campaign for anyone else’s election. Instead, he made deals. His stock-in-trade was knowing the pressure points of various key members of the state legislature and the administration. Recently, he had devoted himself almost exclusively to the needs of the Majority Whip, and the connection had not gone unnoticed, which was why he was meeting the administrative assistant in an obscure café in the South End rather than in the usual restaurant on the Hill.

  “Right now, Tony, you’re poison,” said the administrative assistant. “His Nibs would be sore if he knew I was even talking to you.”

  Tony D’Angelo nodded. He wasn’t bitter, not even offended. The Majority Whip was simply notifying him through his administrative assistant that he did not want him seen around. There was nothing personal in it. It was merely politics, at least that aspect of politics in which Tony was involved. “So what do I do?” he asked.

  The administrative assistant spread his fat, fleshy hands. He was a heavy, pinkish young man in his thirties, very aware of his power and importance. “You’ve been seen around too much, Tony. The reporter for the Globe has begun to snoop. Word got back to us that he’s lining up the other statehouse reporters, including the TV guys, to watch for you, what offices you come out of and what offices you go into. So His Nibs thinks you ought to take a vacation for a while. Two, three months, then after the election things will cool down a little. Get yourself a girl and take a trip to Florida.”

  “I got a girl.”

  “All the better, so you can start earlier.”

  “You telling me I’m hot?”

  “Maybe just lukewarm. But why take chances? Even if you just stick close to home—where is it? Lynn? Revere?”

  “Revere.”

  “So Revere. Take it easy for a while. Walk along the promenade there and get some of the good salt air in your lungs, or go to the racetrack, or to one of those bingo parlors—”

  “Yeah, and what do I do for eating money?”

  “Live on capital.”

  “And where do I get this capital?”

  The administrative assistant smiled as though Tony were pulling his leg. “With all the deals you’ve been on? What happened to that money?”

  “Ask the bookies.”

  “Oh? Well, you ought to be able to get some kind of job. I’m sure with your connections—”

  “I don’t have any connections in Revere. I’m careful not to mess with local politics. Nobody knows me there.”

  “How about Atlantic Dredging? Didn’t you have something to do with Cash voting against the Harbor Bill?”

  “I never got anywhere with Cash. He plays it close to the chest.”

  The administrative assistant didn’t believe him, but, of course, it wouldn’t be polite to say so. He nodded.

  “And anyway, the bill went through,” said Tony gloomily. He was a tall, thin man with a handsome albeit saturnine face. He had a curious sardonic smile that started out as a grimace. He displayed it now, to show that he knew more than he was telling. It also implied that his financial situation was not so dire, but that he was owed one next time they had to do business together.

  As he reached for the check, he said, “You people know anyone at Atlantic Dredging?”

  “Well, there’s always Fowler.”

  “Yeah, that’s right, there’s always Fowler.” Hell, everyone knew Fowler. He was president of the company. You could get his name from the telephone book. As he slid out of the booth and headed toward the cashier, he looked back over his shoulder. “All right. I’ll be hanging around home awhile.”

  “If His Nibs wants to get in touch with you …”

  Again the sardonic smile. “I’ll get in touch with him. It’s better that way.” As the administrative assistant set off, Tony called to him, “Hey, you folks got anything on Fowler?”

  “What kind of thing?”

  “You know, something like if he knew I knew, he might be interested in talking to me.”

  The other shook his head. “Nothing like that. If I hear of anything …”

  “Sure.”

  6

  Belle Halperin, flamboyant with reddish blond hair, was determined not to be overawed by the opulence of the Magnuson home, but all through dinner, indeed from the moment they had arrived, she couldn’t stop thinking about how she would tell “the girls” about it. “We had dinner at the Magnusons’—he’s a client of Morrie’s, you know—”

  The lamb chops and baked potato were disappointing only because she had assumed the main course would be something fancy and French. On the other hand, it would underline her description of Mrs. Magnuson: “She’s so simple and gracious and down-to-earth.”

  Later as they sipped coffee, she said to her hostess, “You have some lovely paintings.”

  “Belle is crazy about art,” her husband volunteered.

  “Oh, then let me show you around,” said Sophia Magnuson. “We have some things you might like to see on the second floor.”

  “I’d love to.”

  Mrs. Magnuson rose. “Will you excuse us?”

  Alone with Morris Halperin, Magnuson refilled their coffee cups and said, “You’re really involved with the temple, aren’t you?”

  Halperin nodded. “That’s right. Not that I’m particularly religious, you understand, but I guess I’m the kind of guy that gets involved if he’s at all interested in something.”

  “I’m a little that way myself,” said Magnuson. “At least I like to know all about anything I find myself connected with. Take the temple organization. As long as I’m a member of the Board of Directors, I want to know what’s what. Of course, I’ve attended only a couple of meetings, the last one about a month ago, but it seems to me that we’re not really moving in any direction. I don’t get the impression of a program, if you know what I mean.”

  “Well—”

  “Our president seems a very decent sort, and he does a good job of running the meeting, but I don’t get the impression that he’s directing policy. I have the feeling that he’s more intent on maintaining the status quo.”

  “Ah, you noticed.”

  Magnuson smiled. “I’ve attended enough board meetings to catch whatever signals were flying. Feinberg is what I’d call an interim president.”

  “Marvelous,” said Halperin. “You’re absolutely right. You see, we are a Conservative temple, because Conservatism is a kind of compromise between Orthodoxy and Reform. Since the community isn’t big enough to support more than one temple, it pretty much has to be Conservative. And while some of our presidents have leaned towards Reform, and others have tended towards Orthodoxy, all of them have been basically Conservative. Except one. A couple of years back Chester Kaplan managed to get elected, and he’s out-and-out Orthodox.”

  “Kaplan? That fat, little chap with the skullcap who sits down at the end of the table? Lawyer, isn’t he?”

  “That’s right. And a successful one. He wears the yarmulkeh because the meeting is held in the temple. He also wears it at home. He’d wear it in court, I’m sure, i
f he thought the judge wouldn’t object or that it might not have a bad effect on the jury. And he goes to the minyan every day, morning and evening. The year he was president, he all but split the congregation.”

  “So Feinberg was elected to heal the wounds, eh?”

  “More or less. Anyway, to steer a middle course. And he did a very creditable job, which is why he was reelected twice.”

  “And next year?”

  “Ah, that’s the problem, Mr. Magnuson. At the last meeting of the board, Feinberg announced that he was resigning, effective next month. His wife is sick and they’re moving to Arizona.”

  “So it’s the vice-president then—”

  “We have no vice-president. Abe Kahn died less than a month after he took office. It was not unexpected. He was a sick old man.” In response to Magnuson’s raised eyebrow, he explained. “He’d been a member from the beginning and contributed a lot of money. Folks thought some sort of recognition was due him. You know how it is on the High Holy Days. The president and the rabbi sit on one side of the Ark, and the vice-president and the cantor—when he’s not actually leading the prayers—sit on the other. So they thought having Kahn sit up there beside the Ark would make him feel he was appreciated.”

  “I see. So with no vice-president and the president resigning, there will be another election?”

  “That’s right. A special election. And Kaplan is planning to run again.”

  “If his administration was such a fiasco, I shouldn’t think he’d have much of a chance,” Magnuson observed.

  “That’s where you’re wrong. The election is held at a meeting of the general membership. We have about three hundred and fifty members, but I don’t suppose more than a couple of hundred will show up. Of those two hundred, maybe fifty know what’s going on. Now Kaplan has a tight group of true believers. And they’ll go to work. Some members will vote for him because his name is familiar. Others will vote for him because he’s observant and they feel that the president of a synagogue should be. Oh, I’d say he’s got a damn good chance.”

  “And who would you be running against him? I take it you’re part of his opposition?”