Max had seen many of them only a few days ago at his engagement party. They asked solicitously about his fiancée – had she gone back to New York?
“She’s fine, just saw her – she’s taking it like one of the family.”
Artie’s father was no longer in the room; his Uncle Gerald had taken charge. The gloom and shame had been brushed aside; there was work to be done, a campaign to organize.
The question had two parts: what was best for the families? And what could be best for the boys?
Who could say in so many words what stood darkly in every mind: best for all might be the quickest, the quietest end. If the boys had to hang, then let it be got over with; there was no need for a spectacular trial with the family names in the headlines for months to come.
It was Ferdinand Feldscher who finally suggested, “Plead guilty, then there’s no jury trial, only a quick hearing. Ordinarily on a guilty plea you would get a deal, a life sentence, but in this case-”
But Uncle Gerald Straus spoke up. Was it a foregone conclusion that there could be no other verdict? What about insanity?
Edgar Feldscher spread his palms. “Of course they’re sick, the crime itself shows it. But if you plead insanity you automatically go before a jury, that’s the law. And in a case like this, I can’t imagine any jury letting them live.”
Gerald said, “There is no such thing as being sure of what a jury will do.” He would get the best help there was, he said, even if it cost a million dollars! And if the case remained in the headlines, let it! The harm had already been done. At least, let the world see that their families stood by these two brainsick children!
The younger Feldscher the bald-domed Edgar, had been listening as though gathering up all that was valuable; his voice was soft, in contrast to Uncle Gerald’s. “We could do something more than merely defend them. We could spare nothing to try to find out, as far as modern science can, what made them do it.” They all looked at him with the respect owed a man who worried over the deeper elements in things. All of them knew how close Edgar had been to the cousin who had become mentally troubled. Now Edgar ended, rather tentatively, “Suppose we get the best men, even from Vienna. Make a full study. Perhaps it could prove of some use to humanity, too.”
Uncle Gerald said that was a real point. Especially if it was going to be an insanity defence. But right now strategy was the problem. First, as to legal counsel. Ferdinand Feldscher was certainly one of the biggest trial lawyers in the whole country -
“No, no, you don’t have to watch out for my feelings, Gerry,” Ferdinand interrupted. “We all know there is only one man to go to.”
“My father always believes in getting the best,” Max Steiner said.
James Straus said, “The question is, would Wilk take it? I understand he only defends the poor.”
“He’ll take it, he’ll take it,” Ferdinand Feldscher said, “out of vanity if for nothing else.”
Even though it was past midnight, Gerald was for going directly to Wilk’s house.
“Go home, go home,” Judah Steiner kept telling his sister-in-law and her husband, until at last she said, “You’ll be all right?” and he promised her he would go right up to bed.
He went through the motions of undressing, and then he drew on a robe and returned downstairs.
Unaccountably there had come into his mind the thought, Maybe it was because for the last baby they had wanted a girl.
He was uncomfortable with it. He had never let his mind go into such things, these complicated psychological things that people brought into the conversation nowadays. He had not even wanted to know, exactly, that story about the boys a couple of years ago, in Charlevoix; Max had brought him the story – well, you know, a couple of young boys horsing around. Such things, the dirty things in life, had to be shut out.
Still, it came to his mind again, Judd’s going to school that first time when they had lived on Michigan Avenue, and the only decent school nearby was Miss Spencer’s where they had only girls.
The unending arguments! Mother Dear, can’t you see the boy is miserable, everybody teases him, a sissy with all those girls. Finally he had taken Judd out and sent him to the public school. But that had lasted only a few months. Until that day when the stupid nurse had been late to fetch him, and Judd had come running home himself with the bloody nose.
No, no, even so, a bloody nose, every boy has to go through it, he had argued, but his wife and her sister had talked him down. The boy was weak and frail even for his age. So Mother Dear insisted it was better to send him back to Miss Spencer’s – at least the girls didn’t beat him up and call him sheenie.
Judah Steiner had been sitting in the dark in the large leather chair where he usually smoked. Now he leaned over and switched on the lamp.
He went to the back of the library and uncovered a projector he had bought especially because of Judd’s little film last summer. Taking out the film, he managed to thread it, though this was something he had usually asked Judd to do. To set up the screen, he moved almost stealthily; he did not want servants to come. Then he sat on the high-backed chair by the carved-legged library table, watching the picture.
There was the boy, crouching, alert, his eyes so bright. It was on the dunes, the high weeds, the sand. Now the camera picked out the birds, hopping on the branches of a high bush – a special lens had been used to enlarge them from that distance.
Now Judd came out, standing near the bush. He held out his hand, with some bird seed, or crumbs, whatever he used for them. A bird hopped close. It was thought these warblers were gone altogether, migrated for ever, or maybe died out, until Judd discovered them there on the dunes. The State of Michigan had sent the cameraman to make a record of the discovery. An ornithology magazine had printed an article Judd wrote. Perhaps the boy was right, perhaps he should have been a scientist…
The tears came to his eyes.
Mistily, he saw the bird hopping up onto Judd’s forearm – and Judd was smiling now, his serious, dignified smile, people said like his father’s.
Judah Steiner’s eyes were so filled with tears that he couldn’t see any more. He felt the tears roll down his face.
By then already a legendary figure, Jonathan Wilk devoted more time to lecturing, writing, philosophizing than to the law. In a courtroom, he was purely and simply a great plea-maker. None like him has since arisen. Though from a technical point of view he was an amazing cross-examiner, dogged, devious, even cunning when necessary, his spectacular qualities emerged on the simplest level of pleading for human compassion. He spoke of himself as a materialist, but I suppose what came through was the heart of a mystic, a man of great soul who sought to open the souls of other men.
He had become famous as a labour lawyer in a great railway strike. For an entire generation he had defended labour leaders accused of violence. In a frame-up, Wilk had been completely broken and nearly disbarred; he had then regained his career in an endless series of trials, defending criminals, defending underdogs, defending Negroes, defending; defending. He was a reformer, sometimes an iconoclast, an awakener, and he had lived long enough to become a legend.
His body was beginning to show weariness – rheumatic spells sometimes kept him bedridden for weeks. Wilk resided in a third-floor walk-up overlooking the university and the park. The stairs were too much, but he would not abandon the apartment, with its magnificent view.
Gerald Straus led the way up the stairs. James Straus and Max Steiner had come with him.
Mrs. Wilk herself came to the door, a compact woman, with a humorous mouth, quick eyes. They told her who they were.
Wilk had heard the bell; he was sitting up in bed. Gerald Straus said, “We’ve come to you as the only man who can save our boys.”