“No,” Lois said. “You don’t.”
“I guess I really haven’t made up my mind where I stand,” he said. “There are too many tangential things I don’t know about yet.”
“Like what?”
Harker shook his head. “I’m trying not to think about them. This is my day off, remember?”
On Monday he polished off his routine work early, by half-past-ten, and stepped out of his office. He walked down the beige corridor to the door inscribed WILLIAM F. KELLY and knocked.
“Bill? Me, Jim.”
“Come on in, boy.”
Kelly was sitting back of an impeccably clear mahogany desk, looking well-barbered, well-manicured, well-fed. He was the senior partner of the law firm that now called itself Kelly, Harker, Portobello, and Klein. In his late fifties, ruddy-faced, quick-witted, Kelly was by religion a loyal Catholic and by politics a determined maverick.
He said, “How’s the ex-Governor this morning?”
Harker grinned. Kelly was the one man who could not offend him with those words. “A washed-up has-been, as usual. Bill, I’ve got a big offer to do some work for a Jersey outfit. I think it’s going to tie me up for the next few months. I thought I’d let you know.”
Kelly blinked, then grinned, showing even white teeth. “Full-time?”
“Pretty near.”
“How about your pending cases?”
Marker said, “I’m keeping the Bryant case. Fuller and Heidell will have to be handed over to someone else, I’m afraid.”
“I guess you know what you’re doing, Jim. Who’s the big client?”
“Hush-hush. Nice pay, though.”
“Can’t even tell old Bill, eh? Well, I know better than to pry. But how come you’re telling me all this, anyway? I don’t give a damn what work you take on, Jim. You’re a free agent here.”
Calmly Harker said, “I thought I’d let you know because the account’s a controversial one. I want you to realize that I’m doing it on my own hook and not as a member of K.H.P. & K. When and if the boomerang comes around and hits me in the face, I don’t want you and Mike and Phil to get black eyes too.”
Dead seriousness replaced the amiable grin on Kelly’s pink face. “Have I ever backed off a hot item, Jim?”
“You might back off this one.”
Kelly leaned forward and turned on all his considerable personal charm. “Look here, son, I’m a decade older than you are and a damned sight cagier. Maybe you better talk this thing out with me. If you’re free for lunch—”
“I’m not,” Harker said doggedly. “Bill, let’s drop the whole thing. I know what I’m getting into and I didn’t come here for advice. Okay?”
Kelly began to chuckle. “You said the same damn thing the night you were elected Governor. Remember, when you started telling me about how you were going to turn the whole State machine upside-down? I warned you, and I warn you again, but you don’t learn. The only thing that got turned upside-down was you.”
“So I’m a fool. But at least I’m a dedicated fool.”
“That’s the worst kind,” Kelly drawled amiably. As Harker started to leave the older man’s office Kelly added, “Good luck, anyway, on whatever you’re getting your fool feet tangled up in.”
“Thanks, Bill. Sorry I have to be so tight-mouthed.”
On his way back to his office he passed the reception-desk; Joan looked up at him and said, “Oh, Mr. Harker—call just came in for you. Mr. Jonathan Bryant’s on the phone. He’s waiting.”
“Switch it into my office,” Harker told her. His brows contracted. Jonathan? What does that particular vulture want? Harker cut round the desks in the outer office and let himself into his sanctum. He activated the phone. There was the usual three-second circuit-lag, and then the gray haze of electronic “noise” gave way to the fishbelly face of Jonathan Bryant.
“Hello, Harker,” he said abruptly. “Just thought I’d call you up to let you know that I’ve obtained a stay of the hearing on my father’s will. It’s being pushed up from the 16th to the 23rd.”
Harker scowled. “I don’t have any official notice of that fact yet.”
“It’s on its way via court messenger. Just thought I’d let you know about it.”
“Go ahead,” Harker said. “Gloat all you want, if it gives you pleasure. Your father’s will is unbreakable, and you know it damn well. All this stalling—”
“Legal delay,” Jonathan corrected.
“All this stalling is just a waste of everybody’s time. Sure, I know you’re hoping the old man will die before the hearing, but I assure you that can’t influence the outcome. If you’re that anxious to collect, stop obtaining postponements and just pull the old man’s feeding-plugs out. It’ll save a lot of heartache for all of us, him included.”
“Harker, you lousy politico, you should have been debarred twenty years ago.”
“The word you want to use is disbarred,” Harker said coldly. “Suppose you get off my line and stop bothering me now? I’d call you a filthy jackal except that I’m too busy for slander suits just now, even suits that I’d win.”
Angrily he snapped off contact and the screen blanked. Nuisance, he thought, referring both to Jonathan and to the postponement of the hearing. He didn’t seriously believe that the Bryant heirs were going to upset the old man’s will, and the quicker he got the case off his personal docket the faster he would be free for full-time work on the Beller Labs account.
He took a doodlepad from his desk and scrawled three names on it:
Winstead.
Thurman.
Msgnr. Carteret.
Leo Winstead was the man who had succeeded him in the Governor’s mansion in Albany—a steady, reliable National Liberal party-line man, flexible and open in his views but loyal to the good old machine. He would be one of the first men Barker would have to see; Winstead would give him the probable Nat-Lib party-line on the resurrection gimmick, and he could be trusted to keep things to himself until given the official release.
Clyde Thurman was New York’s senior Senator, a formidable old ogre of a man with incalculable influence in Washington. Harker had been a Thurman protege, fifteen years ago; publicly old Clyde had soured on Harker since his futile attempt at political independence, but Harker had no idea where the old man stood privately. If he could win Thurman over to his side, Senate approval of revivification legislation was a good bet. The Nat-Libs controlled 53 seats in the 123rd Congress; the American-Conservatives held only 45, with the other two seats held down by self-proclaimed Independents. In the House, it was even better: 297 to 223, with twenty Independents of variable predictability.
Harker’s third key man was Monseigneur Carteret. The Father was a highly-respected member of New York’s Catholic hierarchy, shrewd and liberal in his beliefs, and already (at the age of 38) considered a likely candidate for an Archepiscopacy and beyond that the red hat.
Harker had met Father Carteret through Kelly. While he was no Catholic himself, nor currently a member of any other organized group, Harker had struck up a close friendship with the priest. He could rely on Carteret to give him an accurate and confidential appraisal of the possible Church reaction to announcement of a successful technique for resuscitating the dead.
Harker ripped the sheet off the doodlepad and pocketed it. He hung poised over his desk, deep in thought, his active mind already picturing the interviews he might be having with these people.
After a moment he reached for his phone and punched out the coordinates of Father Carteret’s private number. Might as well begin with him, Harker thought.
A pleasantly monkish face appeared on the screen after several rings. “Yes? May I help you?”