The Court Read Free Page B

question of whether it was a criminal act to assist a suicide was a legitimate issue. There was nothing to be ashamed of in representing a side in a legitimate legal controversy. If Herbert Mennen wanted to pick up the tab—how had Sister Murphy put it about such persons—that was his choice. Still, the association with Mennen caused Wright to feel demeaned and tarnished.
    He knew Mennen’s background. Mennen’s method may have been as crude as the man himself, but like him, they were always legal. Starting from nothing, he had made a fortune, all in the very best American tradition.
    He had started his climb from ownership of a single poultry store where he killed and dressed the chickens himself. He had branched out, ending up with a national net of slaughterhouses. Then came his abortion clinics. Despite the battle over Medicaid funding, Mennen made millions before selling his interests in that business.
    There was a definite pattern—Herbert Mennen liked to kill things.
    Wright took the Scotch from the bartender and sipped. He thought about the upcoming case in the Supreme Court. The oral arguments would be made with calm dignity in that palacelike setting of the high court. The lawyers and the justices would speak evenly of case precedents, logic, and soaring principles of law. Meanwhile, Mennen would have things set up and ready to go.
    If they won, Mennen’s “hospices” would spring up like May flowers, and a parade of sick, depressed, and defeated people would line up and pay huge sums of money to sip a pleasantly flavored poison that would ease them quickly and painlessly from beneath the crushing weight of their own particular cross. Mennen’s public relations people planned to call it “self-deliverance.”
    He wondered if the Supreme Court justices ever considered the flesh and blood consequences of their actions, or whether they saw everything merely in abstract legal terms. He wondered if Justice Howell knew he literally held the lives of thousands of people in his hands.
    Michael Wright sipped his drink. He formed a mental picture of an ancient Roman emperor. The high court’s swing man and the emperor weren’t so different. The fallen gladiator lived or died as signaled by the emperor’s thumb. Thousands of modern lives would be decided on the stroke of one justice’s pen. That would be the signal, just a scrawled signature.
    But the swing man wouldn’t hear the roar of the crowd, nor would he see the death agony. At least the old Romans had to look at the results of their decisions.
    Wright left some money on the bar and walked out. He had a lot to do.
    *   *   *
    Justice Brian Howell eased his car around a slow-moving minivan packed with clothes and children. The children were gawking at the lighted Washington Monument. As he passed he noticed the woman, presumably the mother, her face illuminated by the street lights. She was young, but she looked as worn as the battered minivan. He thought they were tourists until he saw the woman. He decided they were more likely a family migrating to a southern state and to a new life. He put them out of his mind as he increased his speed and left them behind.
    It was late and traffic was light.
    He enjoyed driving in nighttime Washington. It always had a special fascination, a special aura created by its many illuminated monuments and the massive government buildings; structures that surpassed the awesome fortresses of Europe. And like their European counterparts these giant citadels seemed to proclaim impregnability and mighty power. He wondered if the architecture of ancient Rome had spoken so eloquently of its place in the world and history as did these huge limestone houses of American government.
    Road repairs forced him to use the Arlington Memorial Bridge. He guided his car past the monuments at the foot of the bridge. The dark Potomac River reflected lights from the opposite shore.