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.”
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?”
