Deadlock (4 page)

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.”

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6

“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?”

“Some good names. We have a couple of stealth candidates who are probably unbeatable.”

“Nobody’s unbeatable,” Francis said.

“John,” said Levering in his best schoolteacher tone of voice, “let me remind you how it’s done. Pavel retires, you move Hollander into the chair, and then you appoint a good liberal law professor. Like Larry Graebner.”

“Graebner? He’d never get by. His paper trail is too long.”

“Exactly. It’s like the picador. Ever seen a bullfight?”

“Only in the movies.”

“The picadors soften up the bull, using long spears to slice up the bull’s neck muscles. Then the matador comes in and finishes him off. Graebner is our picador; we drop his name and the conservatives go crazy. We get a big fight, and Graebner steps aside. And then you appoint the right judge. We’ll find him — or her. Someone in their forties. All the fight will be gone from the other side. They’ve fired their big guns. And then you know what you’ll have?”

“What?”

“A solid 5–4 majority. For years.”

The table lamp reflected in Francis’s eyes, and Levering knew the president understood.

“It sounds perfect,” Francis said. “Just one thing, though. Hollander.”

“What about her?”

“I just have a feeling about her. Are you absolutely sure she’s the one we want?”

“Sure as I can drink you under the table, Mr. President.”

“What makes you so sure?”

Levering leaned over the table to address the leader of the free world face-to-face. “Because I know women,” Levering said. “And I’m about to get to know Millicent Mannings Hollander in a very special way.”

Francis’s smile was of the locker room variety. “You old dog,” the president said.

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7

On Tuesday morning Millie spoke to a group of fourth graders at a public school in D.C. Sharing her love of law and learning with children was one of the things she enjoyed most. She hoped a seed would be planted in those who might otherwise have considered dropping out by the time high school rolled around. And maybe, just maybe, she’d be talking to a future Supreme Court justice.

Today’s appearance was different. Millie’s closest friend in town, Helen Forbes Kensington, had prevailed upon Millie to allow a camera to videotape the session for future public relations use. Helen, having reached a seventy-million-dollar divorce settlement from publishing tycoon Richard Kensington eight years ago, could support whichever causes she chose. Women’s reproductive rights were at the top of her list. She served on the board of the National Parental Planning Group, and often appeared as a media spokesperson.

At lunch, over Pelegrino water with lime, Helen congratulated Millie on her answer to a delicate question from a little girl who asked why she could not pray in school. “You handled that brilliantly, kiddo,” Helen said. She was Millie’s age, but the best plastic surgeons in the country had made her look twenty years younger, especially in the soft lighting of the upscale restaurant Helen had chosen.

“I wasn’t handling anything,” Millie said. “I was merely trying to explain to them why separation of church and state is a good thing. That’s hard for a fourth grader to understand.”

“I don’t think she wanted to understand. It was like she was planted just to make you look bad. Wouldn’t put it past them.”

Them.
Millie knew exactly to whom Helen was referring. She often referred to conservative Christians as
them
.

“You’re a little paranoid,” Millie said.

“It’s not paranoia if it’s true.” Helen reached for another jicama-date canapé from the appetizer plate. “There are fronts opening up all over the place now, and frankly I’m getting a little frustrated. I just heard this morning about an informed consent case down south.”

Millie said nothing. In conversations with friends she had to walk a fine line between innocuous opinions and subtle politicking. Helen usually respected that line.

“It is an insult to women,” Helen said. “These laws assume we don’t know what’s going on, we’re stupid or incompetent to make decisions. When is this country going to grow up?”

“When you are elected president,” Millie joked, trying to change the subject. Talking with a friend who was so issue driven had to be done delicately. Millie wanted no undue influence on matters destined for the Court.

Helen understood and smiled. “Okay. So why don’t you tell me about this super secret meeting you had the other day.”

“Not super secret.”

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing much. Just a meeting with Senator Sam Levering.”

Helen let her jaw drop melodramatically. “You stinker! You didn’t tell me!”

“It was an informal meeting,” Millie said. “He just asked me if I wanted to be chief justice.”

Helen let out a celebratory howl. “Now we’re talking! Oh, honey, I knew this day would come.”

“It hasn’t come just yet,” Millie cautioned. “But it may.”

“And Sam Levering is on your side? You cannot miss, girlfriend. Do you want it?”

Millie took a sip of water. “Of course I want it.”

“This is great. This is wonderful. We have to celebrate. How about you and I dress to the nines and hit Antonio’s tonight?”

“Sorry,” Millie said.

“You don’t want to go out with your nearest and dearest friend?”

“I have other plans.”

Helen put her elbows on the table. “What aren’t you telling me?”

Millie couldn’t keep it in any longer. “Sam Levering called me last night and asked me to dinner.”

Again, Helen’s mouth opened like an automatic door. “You. Are. Kidding. Me.”

Millie smiled.

“Stop the presses! When was the last time you went on a date?”

Millie thought a moment. “Thirty-five years ago, I think.”

“Sam Levering,” Helen said, “is a notorious ladies man.”

“I’m a big girl,” Millie said.

“You’re a lamb in sheep’s clothing.”

“Don’t be silly,” Millie said, but she felt a little heat rising on the back of her neck.

Helen looked at Millie. “The truth now,” she said. “What on earth made you say yes?”