The Parsifal Pursuit Read online

  Today he had only the sharp clicks of the bailiff‘s shoes echoing off the high ceiling of the court room to accompany his thoughts as he waited to face the three-man firing squad of the New York state appellate bench. His odds of success were better in the trenches. Still, at least the courtroom was dry and warm. His feet weren‘t in water and there was no wall of mud.

  He checked his watch: Five minutes to go. Oral argument started at 1:30 p.m. precisely.

  Cockran heard the door to the court room open. He turned his head and stole a glance at the benches behind the bar where members of the public were seated, disappointed when he saw that Mattie McGary still had not arrived. She had promised to come. But that had been before their row the night before. He checked his watch again, out of habit, knowing he had at least five more minutes left before the judges arrived

  Ordinarily, Cockran liked the intellectual challenge of appellate oral arguments. But not today. Not a case like this. He was too emotionally involved, having taken up the fight against sterilization laws after his father, U.S. Congressman W. Bourke Cockran, Sr., had passed away in 1923. He had lost Judy Dill‘s trial five days ago. The State of New York had declared her an imbecile and ordered that she be sterilized within the week. He had filed an emergency appeal. Cockran had taken Judy‘s case and others like it as a tribute to his father‘s memory. It was a matter of principle, individual rights. Governments had no business deciding who could and who could not reproduce. He learned that from his father.

  But after today‘s argument, it would all be over, for better or worse, and he could concentrate on repairing relations with Mattie. They had the rest of the week together before they were to sail to England on the Euro pa this Sunday. They had plenty of time.

  Cockran took another glance behind him. Still no sign of Mattie. He checked his watch again. The judges were late. Judges could do that. They were judges.

  After landing in England, it would be a working holiday for Mattie who had a week of interviews scheduled in Berlin. For Cockran, it was a real holiday, first a week in Kent at Chartwell, the country estate of their mutual friend, Winston Churchill. After that, Cockran‘s young son Patrick would accompany Churchill on his research tour through the battlefields of Germany and Austria, where his famous ancestor the first Duke of Marlborough had first brought glory to the Churchill name. Meanwhile, Mattie would join him for two weeks in Venice in their own palazetto he had leased off the Grand Canal where Cockran hoped to find a diamond ring for her as well as the courage to propose marriage.

  Churchill‘s cable was a sudden dark cloud in the otherwise sunny sky before him after the Dill case. The cable was ambiguous. Typical Winston. U.S. COMPANY IN TROUBLE IN GERMANY. STOP. SITUATION URGENT. STOP. YOUR CUP OF TEA. STOP. TRAVEL REQUIRED. STOP. DETAILS TO ARRIVE BY COURIER. STOP. Your cup of tea. He often suspected that “his cup of tea” tended to be whatever Winston wanted it to be. Winston was shameless that way. But his friends loved him nonetheless. Whatever Churchill had in mind, however, would have to wait a month. Two weeks with Mattie in Venice took precedence. As did revising the proofs of the biography of his father. Judy Dill‘s trial had put him off schedule and his editor Simon Mason in Oxford was becoming more nervous by the day.

  Simon notwithstanding, Churchill had a strong hold on Cockran and always would. He had known Winston since he was six years old and the then 26 year old soldier, war hero and newly-elected Member of Parliament had sat with him for hours on the floor of his father‘s study and patiently arranged and rearranged miniature die-cast metal soldiers and cannons with him, complete with running commentary and sound effects. Winston had done the same with Cockran‘s own son, Patrick, nearly two years ago and promised to do so again at Chartwell..

  Churchill was, in a word, charming, as well as sentimental, loyal to a fault but also ruthless in using his friends to accomplish his goals of the moment. Still, how could Cockran say no to a man to whom his own father had been a mentor? To a man who had once said to Cockran, “Your father was a great man, Bourke. He had the biggest and most original mind I have ever met. I feel I owe the best things in my career to him. He taught me to use every note of the human voice like an organ. I learned from him how to hold thousands in thrall.”

  Well, so long as he could finalize his father‘s biography and then spend two weeks in Venice with Mattie, the short answer was Cockran couldn‘t say no. Not without having the ghost of his father nagging his conscience, the very same ghost that had brought him here today to defend Judy Dill‘s right to keep the state from making her reproductive decisions for her.

  Cockran only hoped he could manage to match half of his father‘s eloquence during the forthcoming argument. He also hoped none of the judges would quote Oliver Wendell Holmes, that ancient ninety year old walking advertisement for a mandatory Supreme Court retirement age. He hated it when that happened. And it happened a lot in sterilization cases.

  A door opened off to one side of the bench and the bailiff stood up. Cockran rose immediately at the bailiff‘s “All rise”, unconsciously buttoning his pin-striped suit coat over his vest while the three judges entered the courtroom. Cockran stood erect, unsmiling and alert.

  Cockran was a big man with his father‘s broad shoulders and large head, softened by his mother‘s hazel eyes. Several inches over six feet tall, he almost looked the judges in their eyes despite their elevated positions on the bench. A reporter had once described his father‘s face as being hewn rather than chiseled but Cockran‘s mother had done much to soften that effect in their son. Cockran‘s own face was more finely drawn, chiseled rather than hewn, topped by light brown hair where his father‘s had been dark. But he was unmistakably his father‘s son.

  If the judges looked expectantly at him––and they did––it was not because of his face or hair. They were waiting to hear his voice, his father‘s voice, the silver tongue, the golden throat and the Irish baritone of Bourke Cockran‘s son, the son of the greatest orator of his generation as everyone had said only eight years ago at his father‘s funeral mass.

  If any of the judges had heard his father speak, however, they were about to be disappointed with the son. The Cockran voice was there, deep and resonant. But untrained. And undisciplined. For Cockran‘s temper sometimes made words into weapons and adversaries into enemies, something his even-keeled father had never done. But Cockran‘s father, a nineteen-century gentleman and statesman, had never fired a weapon in combat nor taken a human life. The same could not be said of his son.

  WESLEY Waterman III was an important man. He did not like to be kept waiting. That was the problem with trans-Atlantic telephone calls. You could never tell when problems would arise and cause a delay. Like the call he had been expecting at 12:45 p.m. He looked up at the clock on the mantel above the fireplace in his office. 1:00 p.m. Only 30 minutes left. The Chairman and President of International Calculating Equipment, or “I.C.E.” as it was known around the world, had to leave for the Court of Appeals on Madison Square in 15 minutes and he didn‘t want to miss either that or this long-scheduled telephone call. He glared at the phone as if he could will it to ring.

  Which, at that precise moment, it did and he picked up the receiver, his voice booming out “Waterman here.”

  There was a click on the other end. “Ja?”

  “Has our competitor accepted our offer?” Waterman asked.

  “Nein,” said the man on the other end of the line. “The Englishman continues to insist his German interests are not for sale,” the man said in a heavy German accent.

  “Not to anyone, or simply not to I.C.E.?” Waterman asked, pronouncing each letter of his company‘s acronym.

  “Not to anyone,” the German answered. “Though he has not said so, it is my belief that the Englishman is especially hostile to I.C.E.”

  “And well he should be,” Waterman said. He leaned forward in his chair. “Here is what I need you to do, Reinhard. First, hire some people to talk to his solicitors in Britain. Have them
deliver the message that it is not in their best interest to represent Sir Archibald Hampton.”

  “Intimidate them?”

  “Use your imagination,” Waterman said. “Hire away his German lawyers as well. Make him another offer and change none of the terms. Tell this Englishman that he should be grateful because there will be no more offers. After that, we‘ll deal with his estate or his heirs.”

  “There has been one new development,” the German said, “which we learned from our tap on his telephone. Herr Himmler informed me of it only this morning.”

  “And?”

  “He‘s hired a new American lawyer. From New York.”

  “Here in New York City?”

  “Ja,” the German said. “How should we handle him?”

  “Don‘t worry,” Waterman said. “Give me his name.”

  “Cockran. Bourke Cockran.”

  Waterman laughed. “I know him. He‘ll fold under a little pressure. Academic types usually do. I‘ll take care of him. You take care of those English and German lawyers.”

  “Ja, Herr Waterman. I will see to it.

  “Good,” he replied. “Please extend my thanks to Herr Himmler on the thoroughness of his intelligence sources. Tell him I look forward to our meeting next week and to showing him our latest machines. Once in use, they will make preserving racial purity that much easier.”

  Waterman, in fact, had never seen Cockran in action as a lawyer. That would come later today. But he knew the man‘s father and had heard him speak. A golden voice but nothing more. A Tammany Hall hack. An Irishman with the gift of the gab. Let that self-righteous English peer try to hire Cockran. What did he care? If Cockran were like most lawyers he knew, there would be no problem. Toss him a bone or two and he would sit up on his hind legs and beg for more. And if not, Wesley Waterman had other and more permanent means at his disposal as well. Sons of hollow Irish political hacks were one thing. Irish mob bosses like Owney Madden with hired muscle for sale were something else entirely. One way or another, Cockran was not going to become Sir Archie Hampton‘s lawyer.

  4.

  The Chief

  The Cedars

  Sands Point, Long Island

  Monday, 25 May 1931

  HEARST’S phone call put a spanner in her plans. Before it, Mattie McGary was looking forward to an ocean crossing followed by a fortnight on holiday in Venice with her lover, that big beautiful Irish bastard Bourke Cockran. A few hours later back at Cockran‘s country home “The Cedars”, the voyage was abandoned and she was packing her bags with an adrenalin rush fueled by landing an exclusive interview with a leading European statesman and the prospect of an exciting new adventure which would have made her father proud. The Venice holiday had been relegated to a pleasant interlude between two more big steps up the ladder in her rising career. But she would phrase that differently when she gave her man the bad news.

  Mattie and her boss William Randolph Hearst, known to his staff as “The Chief”, had been walking in the garden of the old Belmont Mansion on Sands Point—Hearst‘s new Ivanhoe castle of a home on Long Island‘s Gold Coast—when he reached inside his tan Harris tweed sport coat and pulled out a long brown envelope and handed it to Mattie.

  “What‘s this?” she asked.

  “A one-way ticket on the Graf Zeppelin which leaves tomorrow morning from Lakehurst, New Jersey for its home base in Friedrichschafen. The day after you land, you have an appointment in Berchtesgaden with the leader of Germany‘s second-largest political party.

  “Adolf Hitler?”

  “Yes. I understand you interviewed him twice prior to his Beer Hall putsch in 1923.”

  “Not many people know that, Chief. Where did you hear about it?”

  “From Hitler himself. Through Ted Hudson, my chief resident correspondent in Europe. He‘s been negotiating with Hitler to sign an exclusive contract to write for my newspapers but so far unsuccessfully. Mussolini writes for me. So does Churchill. I want Hitler too.”

  “But why me?” Mattie asked.

  “Hitler refuses to negotiate further with Hudson. He demands twice what we pay Mussolini and Churchill and he says he will only consider a lesser amount if we send you as a representative, the one he refers to as ‘that beautiful and talented young Englishwoman.‘”

  “I‘m not English,” Mattie said as if it were an insult. “I‘m a Scot.”

  “A distinction which is lost on Hitler.” Hearst put his hand on Mattie‘s back and gently directed her out of the garden and towards the beach. “Hitler is important to me, Mattie. He may well become Germany‘s leader just as I am certain Winston will one day lead England. I want him to write for my papers and you‘re the person he wants to see. Please do this for me.”

  Hearst was a gentleman. He wouldn‘t think of ordering Mattie to go. She knew that. But she also knew that Hearst never took no for an answer. He paid well, far more than his competitors, and all he demanded in return was absolute loyalty and total obedience to his every request, which he was always careful to couch in the most polite and reasonable way.

  Mattie adored Hearst because he was the first man she had ever worked for who didn‘t look on her as a woman journalist. He was a topflight journalist himself and didn‘t care whether you wore a skirt or a pair of trousers, as long as you got him the story he wanted. It also didn‘t matter to him that Mattie wore trousers more often than a skirt on the job.

  She was William Randolph Hearst‘s number one photojournalist and went all over the world, covering riots, wars and insurrections in pursuit of exposés on Hearst‘s and her own bete noire: The international arms dealers who had helped foment the Great War and from which they had reaped obscene profits. They were still there and she was going to find them, drag them from their hiding places and hold them up to the sunlight. It was an endless adventure. It often put her in peril but she didn‘t mind. As her father‘s friend—her godfather Winston Churchill—had written, “there is nothing more exhilarating in life than being shot at without result.”

  In fact, it was Winston who gave her the idea of becoming a journalist. Her father‘s library contained all of Winston‘s books. As a teenage girl, she found the political ones boring but she devoured the adventures. Subduing rebels in North-West India; riding in the last British cavalry charge in the Sudan; and, best of all, escaping from a Boer prisoner of war camp in South Africa. He had been a soldier and a war correspondent at the same time. Once she learned the Morning Post had paid Winston £250 a month in South Africa, she was hooked. That‘s what she wanted to do and that‘s what she did. Her mother was aghast, as were all her relatives. Except for Winston who encouraged her and her own father who supported her. And that was all she needed.

  Deciding between an ocean voyage with the man she loved and an interview with a politician she didn‘t like was not difficult. After all, the last time they met, Hitler had threatened her. She hadn‘t published the Parsifal segments of her Hitler interview but not because of Herr Hitler‘s threats. The greater events of the Beer Hall putsch were a much bigger story and didn‘t leave space for the superstitious scribblings of a younger Hitler. She hadn‘t liked the Nazis then and she felt no differently now. True, Hitler was a far bigger figure today as leader of the second-largest party in Germany but Mattie wasn‘t tempted by that. When she was younger, she might have been but she was older and more experienced now. Besides, she hadn‘t been in love then and right now an Atlantic crossing with Cockran was a lot more appealing than once more meeting that pasty-faced man with his striking blue eyes and surprisingly bad breath.

  Mattie was still torn, in a sense, between two men she loved, each in his own way, and having to disappoint one or the other—Cockran or Hearst. She decided to press the Chief on the need to meet so quickly with Hitler.

  “Why must I leave tomorrow?” she asked. “Bourke and I will be sailing on the Europa this Sunday. Once we arrive, I can fly to Germany.”

  Hearst frowned. “We don‘t have the luxury of time, my dea
r. Scripps-Howard is sitting on Hitler‘s doorstep like a vulture waiting to swoop in if we fail. I‘ll be damned if I‘m going to let Roy Howard best me again. It was bad enough when he bought out Pulitzer‘s New York papers. This is most important to me, Mattie. Please say you‘ll go.”

  Mattie sighed. She was licked and Cockran had lost. Hearst was disarmingly direct. He was incapable of dissembling. When he said “please” and asked twice, it really was that important to him and she knew she couldn‘t turn him down.

  “Okay, Chief, I‘m your girl,” she said and gave him a hug and a kiss.

  “Wait a moment,” Hearst said as Mattie turned to depart. “There‘s more.”

  “More?” Mattie said, turning back, raising her eyebrows at Hearst.

  “Yes, my dear. I had a long telephone call from Churchill this morning and he presented an interesting proposition. It may cost £10,000 but, if you agree, I‘m inclined to accept.”

  “Winston?” Mattie said, frowning, looking at her watch. “Will this take long, Chief? I‘ve got to leave for court. I promised Cockran I‘d be there to watch his oral argument in the state court of appeals. It‘s a big case for him. Those damn eugenics zealots are trying to sterilize another young girl. What has my dear godfather proposed this time?”

  5.

  Science and the State

  The Court of Appeals

  New York City

  Monday, 25 May 1931

  COCKRAN gripped the podium. “May it please the court, this case is about––”

  “We know what the case is about, Counselor,” the presiding judge said. “We‘ve read your briefs. All seventy-five pages. The Supreme Court disagrees with you. Twenty-seven states already have sterilization laws on the books. Don‘t you agree Buck v. Bell controls here?”