“You weren’t supposed to beat him,” Herb Franklin growled.
Rick Gorton looked embarrassed. “I didn’t mean to, by golly. He just ran onto my lance.”
The two lawyers were sitting in a corner of the Men’s Bar. Franklin was scowling like a Santa Claus confronting a naughty boy.
“Now he’ll never vote in favor of making duels legally binding. Never.”
Gorton shrugged helplessly and ordered another scotch.
As the waiter brought his drink, John Nottingham entered the bar, scanned the mostly empty tables, and made straight for them.
“How’s the Sword of Justice this morning?” Franklin asked dismally.
“He’s busy persuading the other members of the board to turn down the women’s petition,” Nottingham said as he slid into the chair between the two men.
“What about the dueling machine?”
Nottingham shrugged elaborately. “I think that’s a hopeless cause. He fought a duel and lost. Got himself killed.”
Franklin shot a scowl toward Gorton.
“He’s certainly not going to decide in favor of allowing duels to be legally valid,” Nottingham concluded.
“Well, don’t blame me,” Gorton said. “I didn’t expect him to charge right into my lance.”
Franklin sank back in his chair, his normally jolly face clouded with thought. Nottingham ordered his usual rye and ginger ale while Gorton sat staring into his scotch like a little boy who’d been caught poaching cookies.
At last Franklin straightened up and asked, “When does the board vote on the women’s petition?”
“First of the month,” said Nottingham. “Monday.”
“And when does the supreme court hand down its decision about the dueling machine?”
“The fifteenth.”
Franklin nodded. His old smile returned to his bearded face, but this time there was something just the slightest bit crafty about it.
A chilly wind was driving brittle leaves down the street as Justice Halpern left the Carleton Club. He bundled his topcoat around his body and peered down toward the taxi stand on the corner. No cabs, of course: during the rush hour they were all busy.
Standing at the top of the club’s entryway steps, wishing he hadn’t given his chauffeur the afternoon off, Halpern thought he might as well go back inside and have the doorman phone for a taxi. It would take at least a half hour, he knew. I’ll wait in the Men’s Bar, he thought.
But as he stepped through the glass front door and into the club’s foyer a tiny slip of a woman accosted him.
“Justice Halpern,” she said, as if she was pronouncing sentence over him.
Suppressing a frown, Halpern said frostily, “You have the advantage over me, miss.”
“Roxanne Harte, Esquire,” she said. “Ms. Roxanne Harte.” She pronounced the Ms. like a colony of bees swarming.
“How do you do?” Halpern noticed that Ms. Harte couldn’t have been out of law school for very long. She was a petite redhead, rather pretty, although her china-blue eyes seemed to be blazing with some inner fury.
“You are a member here?” he asked, feeling nettled.
“As much a member as you are, sir. And I’m very unhappy with you, your honor.”
“With me?”
“With you, sir.”
Halpern looked around the foyer. The uniformed doorman was standing by the cloakroom, chatting quietly with the attendant there. No one else in sight. Or earshot.
“I don’t understand,” he said to Ms. Harte. “Why should you be unhappy with me? What have I done—”
“You’re trying to convince the board to reject our petition.”
Halpern’s eyes went wide. “You’re one of—of those?”
“One of the women who want to end the chauvinistic monopoly you maintain over the Men’s Bar, yes, that’s me.”
Feeling almost embarrassed at this little snip of a woman’s arrogance, Halpern said, “This isn’t the place to discuss club matters, young lady.”
“I agree,” she snapped. “I know a much better way to settle this issue, once and for all.”
“How do you propose—”
She never let him finish his question. “I challenge you to a duel, sir.”
