‘ that wasn’t the answer i expected . do you have reasonable cause ? ’
a lawyer with his briefcase can steal more than a hundred men with guns. that was what vito corleone had said once to santino and what young tom hagen, then only sixteen, had overheard from a room away. afterwards, he had gone to that corner room in their home which housed the law library — which, in the years previous and until then, had been of very little interest to him. but that night, in the low yellow light cast in steep angles across the shelves and walls by the singular lamp he lit on a nearby table, he sat in one of the armchairs ( near slipped off the plush leather seat ), closed his eyes, and inhaled the scent of the old texts stacked high in the shelves and up to the ceiling. it was then he knew how he would make himself of use to the don.
he kept his personal studies sequestered within the privacy of his own room until he finished college. in the months that followed, as he began attendance at a nearby law school, hagen was permitted to establish for himself a corner of study in the library. it was not a long drive from newark to long island, and so tom still spent his evenings and weekends ( excepting those rare days he put aside to make the lengthier travel to new brunswick, and the occasional nights he would spend there after a day's pursuit of the young sicilian woman he had recently met ) in the corleone home.
when the room was not used for conference between the don and his visitors, tom studied here. it afforded him slightly more comfort than the desk in his bedroom and the stiff chair he had long outgrown, and the separation between leisure and academics it offered was a welcome change, too — though the old space had only become storage for more texts, the bedroom's desk made into a cramped study away from this study.
and this was a spot in the house that most of the young corleone children who visited the home, who trickled constantly through every room and every hall that they deemed suitable as lanes for giddily chasing one another through, left alone. the solemnity of the room alone seemed to have the power to repel them.... well. most of them.
it had never been in tom's nature to be loud or particularly verbose. but, surrounded by brothers and a sister ( all of whom demanded to know his innermost thoughts, or else insisted on causing endless racket of their own ) he had spent the rest of his childhood after eleven immersed in chatter and noise. sometimes, in the absence of conversation, he spoke aloud to himself still, quietly, while he worked through his thoughts — to fill the silence that would so often be filled by sonny's fast comebacks or connie's playful churlishness.
he thought he had squashed the habit entirely, but evidently not. and so he cringed for a moment at michael's unexpected comment. but the tension washed away quickly, amusement rising in its place.
" i never knew you had an interest in law, mike. " michael had indeed been one of those few small children that could not be repelled by the sight of a large and heavy book; there were few things at all, tom thought, that could repel or frighten that boy.
sonny had made clear his distaste at the idea of another four years spent book-learning, though that had been long evident to anyone who had eyes and ears; opinion of freddie's academic potential, despite all his intent on joining santino alongside their father in the business, had somewhat wavered in those final months before graduation. it could have been one way or another. but it was clear ultimately to tom, and likely to fredo himself, that college might eventually disinterest freddie or that it might turn out too ill-suited for his steadily changing temperament. even in the waning of his young teenage brusqueness, his amicable and increasingly mild nature did not strike tom in any way as scholarly.
but michael ... he always had about him a quiet but quick wittedness that would serve him very well in academics. if he wanted. ( that was their father's wish, tom believed, though don corleone had never voiced it to him. )
tom picked his reading from off the side table where he had laid it, before he had then leaned back in his seat and contemplated aloud what he had read. " reasonable suspicion, in this example. yes. probable cause — no. " these were simple concepts. but, as with most the topics discussed in his first-year courses, tom's interests of course extended beyond the conceptual. he had formulated a structure for personal study of material in addition to his regular coursework: a system of specialised reading and of trawling through old court cases and records and of scouring through even the morning papers for anything novel or otherwise sensational. of finding the crux of all these legal fights, or the lack of ... that point of failing, a lawyer's botching after which his case and his defendant could no longer be saved. it was excessive, perhaps — but if tom hoped to work for the don, there could be no weakness in his legal capability or expertise. " good eye. ear. that's what i would have fought first. a little tricky in the details, it would be a tough case to turn ... but if i knew more, i think i could do it. "
he cast the papers aside and looked at michael. " seriously, are you interested in it? ... whatever you do, just don't let santino hear about this. having two lawyers for brothers — i don't think he could live with the idea. "
