Final Appeal

death warrant expires in a week.” Her words hang in the air for a moment.

“Oh, no.” I sink deeper into the leather chair next to Artie’s desk. I better not get this case. I’m a working mother now; I have enough guilt for an entire hemisphere.

“A week?” Ben says, shaking his neat head. “Of course Hightower waited until the last minute. Wait till the bitter end to file and hope the warrant expires. It’s a game with them.”

Sarah looks over sharply. “It’s only his first appeal.”

“Fine. Let’s make it his last.”

“Ben, he even tried to kill himself. He thought he deserved to die.”

“He did.”

Eletha’s soft brown eyes linger on Ben’s face, but her thoughts are clearly elsewhere. “This case is gonna be a real bitch. The law clerk’s gonna be up all night, Armen’s gonna be up all night, and I’ll be up all night. Last time, I didn’t tell Malcolm why.” Malcolm is Eletha’s son, whose picture she keeps on her desk; he’s an intelligent-looking boy with lightish skin and glasses. “Some things kids don’t have to know.”

I wonder how I’d tell Maddie. What would I say? Honey, Mommy works for a man who decides whether another man should live or die. No, Mommy’s boss is not God, he just looks like him.

“Has Armen served on many death panels?” Sarah asks.

Eletha rubs her forehead. “Too many.”

“Three,” Ben says. “All dissents. The proverbial voice in the wilderness.”

Eletha glances at him. “They were from Delaware, I think. None from Jersey. And we haven’t executed in Pennsylvania since I don’t know when.”

“About thirty years.” Ben pops the SAVE button with an index finger. “Elmo Smith, for the rape-murder of a Catholic high school girl. But I can’t recall the method.” He pauses just a nanosecond, his mind working as rapidly as the microprocessor. “Pennsylvania executes by lethal injection now, but then—”

“Christ, what difference does it make?” Sarah says, making tea on the spare desk. “Move to Texas, you can watch it on pay-per-view.”

Ben snaps his fingers. “Electrocution, that’s right!”

“Death penalty for twenty, Alex,” Artie says, and Eletha starts to breathe in and out, in and out.

“The death penalty is revenge masquerading as justice,” Sarah says, unwilling to let the grisly subject go. I like Sarah but am coming to understand that not letting anything go is an avocation of hers. It served her well last November; she worked on Armen’s wife’s campaign for the Senate, in which the feminist lawyer came from behind to win by a turned-up nose.

“When we talk about justice,” Ben says, “we shirk thinking in legal terms.”

“I’m impressed, Ben. Did you make that up all by yourself?”

“No. Oliver Wendell Holmes said it.”

Sarah looks nonplussed.

“Played for the Knicks,” Artie says. He launches the Magic Eight Ball on an imaginary trajectory through that great basketball hoop in the sky, that one all men can find when they don’t have a real ball. The air guitar principle.

“It’s irrelevant what happens at this level anyway,” Ben says. “It’s going up to the Court.”

“And what’ll that do to your chances, Safer?” Artie says.

Ben hits a key but says nothing.

“Chances for what?” I say.

“Didn’t you know, Grace? Ben is waiting for a phone call from Justice Scalia. He’s this close to a Supreme Court clerkship.” Artie squints at his forefinger and thumb, held a half-inch apart. “Maybe even this close, am I right, Ben? This close?” He makes his fingers touch.

“Ask the Eight Ball,” Sarah says.

“The Eight Ball! Excellent!” Artie shakes the ball and turns it upside down to read it. “Oh, my God, Ben,” he says in mock horror. “‘Better not tell you now.’ Very mysterious.”

I look at Ben, reading his monitor screen. “Ben, did you really get an interview with Scalia?”

“Yes,” Ben replies, without looking away from the monitor.

“But Grace, Ben has a big problem,” Artie says ominously. “If Armen decides Hightower and the guy don’t fry, we got trouble. Big trouble, right, Ben?”

Ben types away. “Of course not, Weiss. I still have the credentials.”

“You mean like clerking for Armen the Armenian? Husband of Senator Susan, another flamer?” Artie winks slyly at Sarah, and she smiles back. I wonder if they’re sleeping together, and how Sarah squares it with her lust for Armen. Not to mention her alleged allegiance to Armen’s wife.

“The chief has sent clerks to the Court,” Ben says. “He’s very well regarded by the Justices.”

“By the conservative Justices?”

“Depends on what you mean by conservative.”

“Anybody not on life support.”

Ben’s mouth twitches, and I can tell Artie’s hit a nerve. I hold up my hand like a traffic cop. “That’s enough outta you, Weiss. Don’t make me come over there.”

“Who else is on the panel in Hightower?” Sarah says.

Eletha looks at a piece of paper in her hands. She doesn’t notice Ben reading the paper upside down, but I do; Ben spends more time reading upside down than right side up. “Here it is. Gregorian, Robbins, and Galanter.”

“Awesome!” Artie says. “That means Hightower walks. Armen writes the opinion, Robbins joins it, and Galanter pounds sand. Two to one.”

Sarah looks less certain. “Galanter’s a Federalist, but Robbins can go either way on this one.”

“What’s a Federalist?” I ask.

“Fascists. Nazis.”

“Republicans with boners,” Artie adds.

Ben clears his throat. “It’s a conservative organization, Grace. Of which I was an officer in law school, as a matter of fact.”

Suddenly, the door to Armen’s office opens and men talk in low, governmental tones as Armen walks them to the main door of chambers. Artie strains to listen and Ben inhales what’s left of his coffee. Eletha turns around just in time to catch Bernice.

“Roarf! Roarf!” Bernice, a huge Bernese mountain dog, bounds through the door. Yes, Armen brings his shaggy black doggie to work, all hundred pounds of her. He’s the chief judge, so who’s gonna tell him he can’t? Me? You? “Roarf!”

“No! Don’t jump up!” Eletha barks back. The sharp noise stops Bernice in her tracks. Her bushy black tail, white at the tip, switches back and forth; she sneezes with the vigor of a Clydesdale.

“Sit, Bernice. Sit!” Armen says, coming up behind the dog.

Bernice wiggles her wavy hindquarters in response. Her eyes roll around in a white mask that ends in rust- colored markings on her muzzle. Bushy rust eyebrows give her a permanently confused look; appearances are not always deceiving.

“She never sits, Armen,” Eletha says. “I don’t know why you even bother.”

“She used to, she just forgets,” Armen says. “Right, girl?” He scratches the plume of raggy hair behind Bernice’s ears and looks at Artie. “So, Weiss, you shitting bricks?”

Artie sets the Eight Ball down. “Enough to build a house, coach. I’m really sorry.”

“Can’t you grovel better than that? I’m disappointed.”

“Really sorry, coach. I am not worthy.” Artie bends over and touches his forehead to the briefs on his desk. “It’ll never happen again,” he says, his voice muffled.

Armen smiles. “Good enough. Shake and Bake can come to the games, but he has to stay away from the courthouse. If he doesn’t, the marshals will shoot him on sight. Plus I got you out of jail free, so you owe me a beer.”

Artie looks up, relieved. “After the game next week. At Keeton’s.”

“Fine.” Armen’s gaze falls on the papers in Eletha’s hands and his smile fades. “Is that