The Sandler Inquiry Part 5

"Ah," the old man would opine, throwing back his curly head of graying hair, 'all my clients are innocent. Check the court records" Thomas reached to the restored telephone. He dialed Andrea's number at work.

It was Tuesday evening, seven thirty, but she would be at her desk in the New York Times building, retyping a feature article not due until Wednesday, the copy spread neatly on her desk.

"Andrea Parker," she answered.

"Want a story you can't print yet?"

"Sure," she said.

"Give it to me in confidence tonight, read it in the Times tomorrow."

"This is serious" he said.

"Can you tell me over the telephone?"

"I know why my offices got torched," he said simply.

"I think I know what they were after."

"Who are 'they'?"

"I can show you everything. It's a story."

"Now?"

"If you're interested "I am" she said.

"Twenty minutes?"

"Twenty minutes" She hung up, straightened the copy on her desk and locked it into the desk's bottom drawer. She left the Times building, walked out onto Forty-fourth Street, found a yellow cab which had just discharged theatergoers and arrived at 457 Park Avenue South fifteen minutes later.

Thomas was waiting in the locked lobby. Jacobus, the night custodian, unlocked the plate-gla.s.s doors, admitted her without speaking, then cautiously relocked the doors. Jacobus remained in the lobby watching their elevator, making sure that the young Daniels kid and the girl went to the right floor. Jacobus was even-natured: He trusted no one at any time.

Thomas led Andrea through the front doors of his offices. It was her second look at the destruction.

Do I still need hip boots to walk through here?" she asked.

"Just a clothespin for that reporter's nose of yours. Itll be months before the next tenants get the stench out of here" "Next tenants?" she asked.

It was too late to retract his words. He stammered slightly.

"It's not-ah-what I called you down here for," he explained slowly, 'but, yes, I'm giving thought to closing the offices. For good."

They arrived at his cleared working area. It was adjacent to the filing room, the flash point of the blaze.

" Quitting law?" she asked.

"Is that what you're talking about "I guess it is" he said without emotion, his hands in his pockets.

"I don't understand people who quit things' she said flatly.

"I know you don't. But you show me the @temative. My two a.s.sociate attorneys need work at a steady salary. They've already contacted other firms. Take a look around here." He held his hand aloft, indicating the scene of ruin.

"d.a.m.ned little that can be salvaged. And the insurance company isn't going to pay. I've got to drag them kicking and screaming into court.

That'll be my big case for the year."

"What did you bring me down here for?" she asked.

"To give you a pep talk on why you should stay in law?"

He sat down on the rim of his desk and looked at her.

"No," he answered.

"That's just what I don't want. The proper circ.u.mstances have been presented for making an exit. It's time for me to get out."

"Ridiculous. Quit your only livelihood?"

"My only livelihood?" he scoffed.

"My only livelihood has been killing me all my life' He stared at her.

"Christ" he said, 'if your father had been the great Willaim Ward Daniels and if you'd been shoved along in his footsteps, you'd have been a lawyer, too, by now. But that doesn't mean your old man's shoes would have fit you, either."

Andrea looked at him, half with contempt, half with understanding as she thought of her own father, who had worked for United Press.

"And you'd hate it, too," he said, "just as I do. You would have been seduced along the way with the summer jobs in law firms, the clerking for important judges, the tricky legalese draft deferments, and the silver-platter offer to join the firm that bore your name.

Ah, yes. My ordained future. But no one knew I wasn't going to be brilliant like the old man. And no one knew that once he was gone the clients wouldn't flock to me' Thomas paused. In the mind's eye of the son, William Ward Daniels stood in the center of a silenced courtroom, a somber expression on his craggy face, his hands thrust into jacket pockets, his graying head lowered and gazing absently at the floor. He would seem to be contemplating the process of justice, all eyes on him the virtuoso. Then the trained voice would rise and fall as the large, square-shouldered, fastidiously dressed attorney launched into defense arguments that could draw tears from a jury -of granite blocks.

Opposing attorneys wondered what had hit them.

Thomas looked up.

"Do you remember the Luther Adley case?"

"The black militant?"

He nodded. '1970," he said.

"Adley was up on charges of armed robbery and possession of narcotics.

He'd been a militant in the civil-rights movement and-' "-and claimed he was being framed," she, recalled

He nodded again.

"My father brought the case into the firm" Thomas said.

"Good practice for you," he said to me. And he dumped it in my lap.

"Here," he said.