James Bell - Deadlock

Millie recalled those feelings at the end of every term. Today was no exception. Official Court business was wrapping up. She gave her clerks her traditional sendoff – her famous cheesecake – along with a gold watch with the Supreme Court symbol on the face.

Other than her mother in California, Millie’s clerks were her only family. Each year she grew close to each of them before they left to make their way in the world of law. Of course they sent cards, letters, e-mails; but they had, in a sense, left the nest. Though that was the way it should be, Millie always felt more than a pinch of sadness about it.

Now she was alone in her chambers, getting ready to leave for the summer recess. And she began the little ceremony she’d started ten years ago.

First, she paused to look at her judicial hero. From the start of her legal career she’d kept a portrait of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in her office. Beneath the famous face – the sweeping white mustache and Yankee patrician nose – were his words: “Every calling is great when greatly pursued.”

Then she walked through the Great Hall, passing the marble busts of the former chief justices, and exited into the late D.C. afternoon.

Finally, descending the magnificent steps, she paused to look back at the Supreme Court building itself. It seemed as if she were on holy ground. She drew strength from the thought, knowing she had been given the greatest privilege in the law – to serve on the Supreme Court.

“Never gets old, does it?” Thomas J. Riley had come up to join her. He was dressed in his usual manner – a suit about ten years out of fashion – and carried his favorite walking stick.

“Did you follow me out?” Millie asked.

“We all know this is what you do. Sort of your ritual.”

“You might call it that.”

“You bet I do,” Riley said. His eyes, sharp blue, were the most intelligent she had ever known. Behind them was a legal mind that had become legend. Millie could hardly believe that a little girl from rural California could call such a man her colleague – and friend.

“This is our temple,” Riley said. “And ritual is an important part of our practice. When we don the robes, shake hands before taking the bench, listen to the oyez – it is all part and parcel of our religion.”

Millie laughed. “We wouldn’t want our friends at the ACLU hearing that word now, would we?”

The old justice smiled. “A purely secular religion, my dear, that flows from our allegiance to the Great Paper.” That was Riley’s name for the Constitution, which he always carried with him in small paperback form. He’d gone through roughly twenty copies in the ten years she had known him.

“I suppose that’s true,” Millie said.

“’Course it’s true. Walk with me.” He began his descent of the steps, his cane clicking briskly. The town was beginning to light up as evening slipped in. Riley headed toward Maryland Avenue. Millie had to move fast to keep up with him.

“Ed’s making noise about retiring again,” Riley said. Edward Ellis Pavel, the chief justice, was a spring chicken at seventy-five.

“Do you really think he will?” Millie asked.

“If it looks like President Francis will be reelected.”

Millie nodded. “People seem to think it’s a lock.”

“That’s the trouble. Everybody thinks about what everybody else thinks. Nobody thinks for himself. Millie, you’re going to get the nod.”

He stopped and turned to her. She felt his knowing gaze bore into her. “It just makes sense,” Riley added. “Anybody approached you yet?”

“I had a meeting with Senator Levering a couple of days ago.”

Riley’s eyes narrowed. “Levering’s a good man to have on your side. If he’s for it, it’s a done deal. I just want you to know I’ll support you all the way.”

“Thank you, Tom,” Millie said, feeling the warmth she always did when speaking to the man who was like a second father to her. “I wish it was you.”

“Ah.” Riley waved his cane. “I’m too crotchety. Too old. Though I do plan to serve till I’m a hundred. Then I’ll go out singing, if I remember any words.”

He stopped at the corner and faced her. “Millie, I’ve been around a good long time. You get a feel for things. Back when I was a trial lawyer in Wyoming, during the Bronze Age, I learned to get a feel for what a jury was thinking. You know how I did it?”

“Tell me.”

“By walking around. By getting out in the city and the country and reading newspapers and listening to folks. It’s a wide world out there, and the good lawyers know how to get to it.”

Millie wished she could have seen Riley in action back then, defending mostly poor people accused of crimes.

“Now I’ve got a feeling,” Riley continued, “that we’re in for some rough times in this country. Terrible times. And this time it’s not because of terrorists or anthrax or anything you can touch. It’s more insidious. And if you get tapped to be court justice, the barbarian hordes are going to come after you. They may say some nasty things.”

“My only concern is for the Court. I don’t care what they say about me.”

“That’s the ticket. We’ll take ’em all on.” He extended his hand, his grip firm with energy. “See you in a few months. Vincit omnia veritas.”

“Truth conquers all things,” Millie said. It was Riley’s favorite quotation, and Millie had often heard him say it from the bench, confusing lawyers with the Latin phrase.

Riley winked at her. “Don’t ever stop believing that, Justice Hollander.”

“What’s your read?” President John W. Francis asked.

“She’s a slam dunk, Mr. President,” Senator Levering answered.

It was near midnight in the presidential study. The lights in the wood-paneled room were low. A bottle of A. H. Hirsch bourbon sat open on the table – a detail, Levering mused, that would have sent the religious right to the thesaurus to find new definitions for outrage. Especially since the topic of discussion was control of the Supreme Court.

Next to the bottle, a small replica of the Declaration of Independence in a paperweight cube hugged the edge of the table, as if it might fall off at the slightest bump. Every now and again Francis would reach out and tap the cube with his index finger.

“Think she’ll get through the committee?” Francis asked.

“In a New York minute,” Levering said. “Think they’re gonna turn down the first woman CJ? We’ve got a majority, and everybody loves her. And having her as CJ will help you enormously.”

Francis shot him a look. “You poll watching again, Sam?”

Levering smiled, enjoying the slight tinge of uncertainty in the president’s voice. The balance of power in the conversation had shifted his way. His interior gauge for such transfers of power had served him almost infallibly for over thirty hard-fought political years.

Francis took a swig from his drink, another sign of nerves. Levering had seen the president lose control like this once before, when they had haggled over a pocket veto that Levering opposed. Levering had prevailed over the president’s inner circle, just as he planned to now.

“And she’ll be consistent for us?” Francis said.

“As she has been.”

The president tapped the Declaration of Independence again. “Sam, I’ve decided to hang my legacy on the domestic partnership act.”

Levering nodded. “Good choice. It will be the civil rights act of our time.”

“If it’s not declared unconstitutional.”

“Relax. The way the Court’s made up now, it’ll pass.”

“So we name Hollander chief justice. Who’s on our short list to fill the other chair?”