Stephen Carter - Emperor of Ocean Park

And who was the most prominent black Communist?

Angela Davis. Angela Davis.

I move a rolled-up carpet, and, suddenly, there it is.

I straighten up.

I am looking down at the stuffed animal that Abby won at the fair so many years ago: the deteriorating panda my late sister named after George Jackson, who was shot dead trying to escape from San Quentin Prison. At the time, every black woman in America of a certain age seemed to be in love with him, as well as some who, like Abby, were way too young. George Jackson, the handsome, dynamic revolutionary. George Jackson, Angela Davis’s supposed lover.

Angela’s boyfriend.

I am downstairs in the kitchen, thinking. The storm continues to shake the house. A few minutes ago, I took my portable searchlight outside again, braving wind and rain and lightning, all nature’s summer fury, to be sure I am not being watched. For an eerie instant, shining the beam toward the bandstand, now clouded with rain, I almost caught that whiff of a shadow once more, so I raced across Ocean Avenue and hunted around to be sure.

Nothing. Nobody. But now I am sopping and my searchlight is showing definite signs of exhaustion. Too late to shop for fresh batteries.

I have a portable indoor lamp, which I now use to illuminate George.

The bear is on the butcher-block island, lying inert as though awaiting dissection. I am touching it lightly with my fingers, not missing an inch, carefully parting the fur, looking for evidence of a tear or cut that has been sewn up by hand. I find nothing. I lift the animal and shake it, waiting for a secret message to spill out, but none does. I scrape the plastic eyes with my fingernails, but nothing comes off. I pull the panda’s little blue tee shirt (it once fit Abby) inside out, but I find no hidden missive. So I turn my attention to where, in truth, it has been from the moment that I moved the rug and discovered it: the seam where the right leg meets the torso, and from which some sort of hideous pink stuffing has been dribbling for thirty years. I insert a finger, then two, into the tear, but all I encounter is more stuffing. Slowly, carefully, not wanting to disturb whatever I am going to discover, I pull the filler out and spread it on the counter.

And, without going very much deeper, my fingers catch hold of something. It feels flat and hard, three or four inches wide.

Pulling, pulling, gently, don’t break it…

… it feels almost like… like…

… like a diskette for a computer.

Which is exactly what it is.

I lift the disk up, using two fingers, holding it close to the light, checking for damage. I am furious at the Judge. All this searching, all the clues, all the death and mayhem, for this! A disk! In the heat of that attic for almost two years! What could he have been thinking? Maybe it never occurred to him that high temperatures could cause a problem. He was never technically inclined, my father; the digital revolution was, in his oft-repeated judgment, a gigantic mistake. Trying to calm down, I set the disk on the counter. It has warped a little, and I do not dare try to force it into the slot on the right-hand side of my laptop.

Unbelievable. What a waste.

But maybe there is something left. Who do I know who might have some expertise at retrieving data from a damaged diskette? Only one name comes to mind: my old college friend John Brown, professor of electrical engineering at Ohio State. The last time I was with John, he spotted Lionel Eldridge in the woods behind my house-not that either of us knew it was Lionel at the time. That same innocent afternoon, Mariah told me the private detective’s report was missing, and my father’s arrangements seemed infinitely distant. Now, at last, I hold the arrangements in my hand, and I need John again to help me unpack them.

Why wait? I can call him right now, unless the storm has knocked out the phones along with the power.

I first take the precaution of sliding the disk back into my little sister’s bear. With the storm blasting the windows, that might be the safest place. I have just turned around to look for my address book in the family room when the kitchen door smashes open.

I spin around, expecting to discover that it is the wind.

It isn’t.

Standing just over the threshold as rain sheets into the house, a small gun glittering in his hand, is Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Wallace Warrenton Wainwright.

“Hello, Mr. Justice,” I say as calmly as I can.

“You don’t seem terribly surprised.”

“I’m not.” Although I am, really. I watch his gun hand. I am tired of watching gun hands, but there is little else to do.

He closes the door firmly behind him, purses his thin lips. “Is that it?” He points with the gun. I was holding the bear when he broke in, and I am still clutching it in both hands. When I say nothing, Wainwright sighs. “Don’t play games, Misha. It’s too late for that. Your father obviously hid something inside the teddy bear. What is it?”

“A computer disk.”

He rubs his neck with his free hand. His dark blue rain slicker, which would be hard to see in the middle of the storm, is dribbling water all over the floor. “He told me there was something. He didn’t tell me what. He didn’t tell me where.” His voice is vague, distant, dreamy. I realize that the Justice is as exhausted, both physically and emotionally, as I am. “Everybody knew there was… something. But nobody was looking for a bear. And nobody thought there might be a disk. Not from your low-tech father. People were looking for papers. That was very clever. A disk.” A long exhalation as he pulls himself together again. “So, how long have you been on to me?”

“Ever since I realized the obvious. That my father couldn’t swing all those cases by himself. The federal court of appeals sits in three-judge panels. So, if he was fixing cases, he needed two votes, not one.”

Wainwright moves farther into the room, winding up near the arched entryway into the hall. It occurs to me that his line of fire now covers both me and the back door, as though he is expecting a surprise. He seems to know what he is doing with the gun, so I am determined to make no sudden moves. My plan has succeeded, but it has also failed. I was sure nobody would be out in this storm, and I therefore have no serious hope of rescue.

“So what? It could have been any of a dozen judges. It didn’t have to be me.” He sounds worried, and it occurs to me that he is wondering whether he has done enough to cover his tracks. If I was on to him, who else might be?

“True. But you practically told me yourself. When I came to see you. You said my father was no more likely to fix cases than you were.”

He offers me his famous twisted smile, which I now see is more sardonic than amused. Were all of us so badly fooled for all those years? Did we really mistake his moral arrogance for compassion? He probably enjoyed telling me the literal truth while also lying. Wallace Wainwright, like the Judge, has always known he is smarter than most people. He is not accustomed to having anybody keep up. “I suppose I was being too clever,” he says.

“I suppose.” No reason not to tell him the rest. After all, as long as we are talking, he is not shooting, and I have come to like not being shot. “I also suppose that Cassie Meadows kept you up to date on what was happening.”

Perhaps it is my imagination. The gun seems to waver, just slightly. “What makes you think that?”

“I should have realized it from the start. Mallory Corcoran handed me off to Cassie because he didn’t have time for my problems. He tried to impress me by telling me she was a former Supreme Court law clerk. It was clear to me that everything Cassie learned, somebody else was learning, too. I assumed it was Mallory Corcoran. But then it occurred to me she could just be keeping in touch with her former employer. The Justice whose law clerk she was. So I looked up Cassie in Martindale-Hubbell, and, sure enough, she clerked for Justice Wallace Wainwright. Probably just a coincidence that she was the associate assigned to the matter, but you still reaped the advantage.” He has not told me to put up my hands. I am still holding George Jackson. I want to keep the conversation going. “So was she just a blabbermouth, gossiping with you, or was she part of it, too?”