Occasionally, in the next years, Abrahams had his reunions with Dilman, often going out of his way to enjoy one. After an initial constraint, Dilman had always accepted him as an old friend. Abrahams had become aware of Dilman’s work for Negro organizations and great labor unions. He had not been surprised when he read that Dilman had agreed to run for the House of Representatives, and he had been thrilled when Dilman won. Since Abrahams’ cases had often taken him to Washington, D.C., he had been able to see his old friend more frequently.
In these meetings, during which almost every subject was covered, Abrahams had learned to avoid one area, although he perceived much about it. He had silently understood Aldora’s refusing to accompany her Congressman husband to Washington. He had been pleased to learn, indirectly, that Aldora had given Dilman a son some years before. And it had come to him as no shock, somehow, when Aldora died at the age of forty. He offered Dilman no words of sympathy. He had always known that this dark area of personal life was one that Dilman did not like to discuss.
The years that had made them older had given each of them, in different ways, national identity. Abrahams’ name had become known for his successful intervention in cases involving legal oppressions of minorities. Dilman’s name had become even more widely known for his four terms in the House of Representatives, his appointment to a vacancy in the United States Senate, his election to the Senate, and finally his widely heralded election as President pro tempore of the Senate in the Vice-President’s absence. And now, overnight, this improbable upheaval in Dilman’s life, and the life and history of the United States.
Abrahams had been jounced out of memory by the dining car waiter staring at him, and he realized that he was shaking his head over the turn of events and the waiter was worried that he was shaking his head over the breakfast that lay before him.
“Is everything all right, sir?” the waiter was asking.
“Perfectly fine, looks excellent, thanks.”
He ate his cereal hastily, so that the French toast would not be cold. Eating, he realized that he must remove the problem of Doug Dilman from his mind. His immediate concern must be the personal business that was bringing him to Washington, D.C. In forty minutes they would be arriving at the Union Station, and not long after they would be in a taxi entering Massachusetts Avenue and heading for the Mayflower Hotel. Sue would be calling the children and her mother, and unpacking, while he would be making arrangements to meet with Oliver, the veteran lobbyist empowered by Avery Emmich, chairman of Eagles Industries Corporation, to negotiate with him. What would result from these meetings could be crucial to the future years of his life-and conscience.
Putting down knife and fork, Abrahams snapped open his attaché case and extracted the most recent proposals submitted by Emmich’s legal advisers. As he sipped his tea, reviewing the already familiar proposals, Abrahams was amused at how the formal legal language had bent to Emmich’s imperious personality. One could almost visualize the cowering corporation lawyers listening to Emmich’s flat commands on the Dictabelt, and then trying to couch them ever so little more in corporate phraseology. Every paragraph gave evidence of being pure Emmich. Straight declarations, bombastic imperatives, the highly limited and inflexible linguistics of millionaire patrons, the power elite, who had almost forgotten the sounds of reply that used words like possibly and compromise and suggest. In their lofty towers, protected by the magic weapons of money that brought all opposition to its knees, the Emmichs had made the word no, spoken to them, virtually obsolete.
He had met Avery Emmich but once, less than a year ago, and their conversation, or rather Emmich’s monologue, had been short and pointed. Emmich had been in Chicago to conclude the acquisition of several chemical plants. The millionaire had summoned Nat Abrahams to his suite, and Abrahams, surprised that he was even known to Emmich, had gone out of wonder and curiosity.
Avery Emmich, the son of a German immigrant, had proved to be a dyspeptic, glaring, squat man in his late sixties. In their twenty minutes together he had been as humorless and efficient as an imported calculating machine.
“I wanted to see what you look like,” Emmich had said at once. “You don’t look like a bleeding heart.”
“I’m an attorney,” Abrahams had said, “a hard-working one.”
“Yes. Recently some of your trial cases were brought to my attention. I was impressed.”
“Impressed?”
“You appear surprised,” Emmich had said.
“I guess I am,” Abrahams had said. “From what I’ve heard about you, and read, I wouldn’t have imagined you’d be impressed by someone who has defended Mexicans, Negroes, small unions.”
“Young man, I don’t give a hoot in hell whom you defend. I’m impressed because you took on tough cases and won them. I’m impressed by skill and toughness. What do you make a year?”
Abrahams had told him. Emmich had grunted with self-satisfaction, and revealed a slip of paper on which he had surmised what Abrahams’ income would be. Without further interrogation, Emmich had told Abrahams what he was after. He was, he had stated, after Nat Abrahams himself. He wanted Nat Abrahams in Washington, D.C. He made it clear that Eagles Industries and its multiple interests-cotton production, textile factories, chemical plants, brass and copper mills, insurance companies, shipping lines-had a vast network of legal representation, even in the nation’s capital. He made it clear that he was never satisfied with what he had, that he always demanded the best help, and that he was ready to pay for it. He made it clear that Washington, D.C., was a sore spot for him. Even under a sensible President like T. C., the government was putting its nose more and more into private enterprise. Emmich wanted the best there, the best minds, voices, legal lookouts.
Abrahams had heard all of this with detached fascination, but without interest. Even as he had listened, he could not conceive of himself abandoning the desperate and wretched people who needed him, for a more lucrative job with a mammoth combine. The Emmichs of the world, he had always known, advocated free enterprise for themselves and not a free economic society-less laudable. The Emmichs, he had always known, wanted competitors, consumers, workers, the government itself, controlled by their own definitions of freedom.
Abrahams had begun to shake his head, when Avery Emmich had announced Abrahams’ worth to the corporation in dollars and cents. Abrahams had been taken aback by the sum announced. The annual salary offered had been more than he had made in the last four years of exhausting work. After that, dazed, he had not shaken his head again. He had listened attentively, and with interest. It had amazed him the way Emmich had anticipated his unspoken reservations. He was being asked to represent the corporation as an attorney, no more, no less. He was being asked to speak for the corporation on legal matters and legislative matters, and to inform and advise the corporation on activities pertaining to its business. He was not being asked to compromise his ideals or attitudes. He was not being asked to perform contrary to his good conscience. He was not being asked to forfeit any part of his freedom as an individual. Eagles Industries would be his employer. Nat Abrahams would be its employee. He would not be lobotomized. He would be himself. Emmich wanted him.