15.
“Now wait a minute.” The judge looks me over, up and down, quizzical, curious, pleased. “I know you. We’ve met—yes? Tell me. Where have we met?”
“I don’t think so. My name is Laszlo Ratesic. I’m a Speculator, your honor.”
“Oh, you needn’t tell me that. That, I can see. And what a rare treat it is, to have one of you mysterious bats come to roost in my courtroom.” He offers Aysa a smile. “One or two. No, but”—the welcoming, slightly puzzled smile returns—“I know I know you, though.” He wags a finger at me. “Well, that’s all right. Let’s talk. It’ll come to me.”Judge Sampson settles back, fully at his ease. His chambers are as shabby as the courtroom, only darker, lined with thick carpeting and heavy curtains that cover the windows onto Grand Avenue, curtains so long the fabric pools along the floor. There are framed photographs, a tacky little Bear and Stars flag in a stand on the desk; there is a portable bar cart now docked snugly at the side of the desk, within the judge’s easy reach. The cart is not his only indulgence; there’s a small wall-mounted on the wall opposite the windows, and I wonder what sorts of themed streams Judge Sampson enjoys, after hours, when the last defendant has been dealt with.
There is something disorienting, something half anomalous, about a judge in chambers— especially a judge of the ANP. A man both small and large at once, still wearing his black robes but with his shirt collar unbuttoned beneath them and his tie loosened. An avatar of the State’s great power sitting with his ass half on and half off of his chintzy little desk, lifting his wry eyebrows, fetching a short glass from his bar cart and filling it with three ice cubes before popping the cork on a crystal decanter.
“Okay. So.” He enjoys a long sip of the drink and sets it down. “What can I do for you?”
I draw breath to speak and find that Ms. Paige, standing behind the chair where I’m sitting, has already begun.
“Why did you do it?”
The judge looks at her, eyebrows raised. “Why did I do what, exactly?”
“Send her away.”
Judge Sampson examines my partner with amusement. “You mean the poor woman in the courtroom? Just now? Today’s defendant?”
“Her name was Ms. Wells.”
“I know her name, young lady. I know all their names. I wonder what you think I am.”
I have craned all the way around, turned my large midsection as far as it will turn, trying to catch Ms. Paige’s eye and stop her from doing whatever it is she thinks she’s doing. What I told her was to wait, to watch and wait. That’s what I told her to do.
“I passed the sentence I did upon that particular defendant because it was what the facts required of me. Based on her history and current presentation, Ms. Wells showed no likelihood of reform. She would continue to commit daily, even hourly, assaults, on the Objectively So. She inhabits her own truth and is unable to step free from it. Such a person can not be allowed to continue inside the Golden State.”
“So you condemned her.”
“Her own mind condemned her. I only acknowledged that reality, on behalf of the State. If you think I enjoy making such decisions, you are incorrect.” But he smiles, and sips contentedly at his drink.
Paige is not satisfied. “You know what will happen to her out there.”
“No, young lady.” The judge sets the glass on the desk with a clink, a sharp and decisive sound like the gavel coming down. “I do not know. And you do not know. The fate of the exiled is unknown and unknowable, and any unconditional expression of that fate, any statement such as, for example, ‘You know what will happen to her out there,’ is by definition not true.”
We are in a moment now. Judge Sampson has just called Ms. Paige a liar, more or less, and he is not smiling any longer, and she for her part stands seething. What she wants to say is, Of course I know. Of course she knows what will happen to Ms. Wells, out there, over the wall, behind the curtain. But she can’t say it and she won’t say it and she wouldn’t and neither would I. She knows and we all know and it’s unknown and unknowable.
I raise one hand from my lap. This is supposed to be my show, after all.
“Hello. Excuse me. We’re going to move on.”
“Yeah,” says Aysa. “But—”
I look at her. “Ms. Paige,” I say. “We’re moving on. Okay?”
But Judge Sampson isn’t done. He tilts his head to one side, smiles with what looks like warmth.
“Have you,” he says to Ms. Paige, “perhaps lost someone to exile?”
“Yes,” she says, and he says “Ah,” and I recall her saying “Fuck my parents,” and the room fills with a brooding silence. I saw a lecture once, delivered by Our Acknowledged Expert on Geology and Geography, explaining how the Golden State, the whole thing, is built on movable plates, vast tracts that move, that push and scrape against other plates. The same is true inside Aysa Paige; the same is true inside me.
The judge takes a sip of his drink, licks his lips, and says, “Now. Please. What can I help you with?”
“We are working on a case, your honor,” I say. “A death.”
“A murder?”
“We don’t know what it is. It is a death. We are seeking the full and final truth of a recent death.”
“The death of whom?”
A mild playful tone accompanies the question, and I ignore it. I take out a picture of the dead man and lay it on the judge’s desk. He peers over the rim of his whiskey glass to inspect it.
“The gentleman’s name,” I say, “was Mose Crane.”
The judge sniffs, draws another sip. “If you’ll excuse an idiom, it rings no bell. Has he been in my courtroom?”
“No, sir. He died at your
