by Chris Bauer
“Don’t you wanna know about the book?”
“You ordered the same book the bounty had. You’ve got a hard-on for this as a news story. What else is there? We’re done here, partner. I’m heading home.” Into the phone: “Geenie. Hi. Judge. Hey yourself. Miss you too.”
“Fine,” Owen said. “Screw the book then. I didn’t really need to buy it to know why our bounty has it.”
“Hold on a minute,” Judge said to Geenie. He covered the phone with his hand. Owen’s smug smile said he’d figured something out. Judge didn’t have the patience to pull it out of him. “Tell me, Owen, fucking now, why does she have the book?”
The smile widened showing glistening white teeth in a mouth too big for his face, his face too big for his braided head, his braided head too big for his body. “Naomi Coolsummer, the new associate justice, is why.”
“Geenie,” Judge said to his girlfriend, “let me call you back.”
EIGHTEEN
Naomi peered out her living room window at the gated community’s private street. A newly planted small maple lay uprooted next to her transportation. The street was littered with leaves and tree limbs. Severe late night storms had pounded the District into the early morning, and a tornado watch that just ended had pushed back the White House breakfast originally scheduled for seven. Edward waited inside the front door of her condo while she gathered her things.
“Marshal Abelson’s truck again, I see,” she said, and closed a briefcase.
“Still available for this assignment, Your Honor.”
“Slight overkill, wouldn’t you say, Edward?”
“Before, maybe, ma’am. In my opinion, now it’s necessary.”
She had no choice. The truck itself was fine, a kick-ass Texas ranch hand’s dream machine that was better than fine, armor-plated and with bulletproof glass and bullet-resistant tires, but the fact it was needed at all was what bothered her. The heightened risk facing all the justices, the security measures the U.S. Marshal’s office was taking, it was all very bothersome. Not solely because of last night’s abortion clinic bombing. That might have only been a coincidence. It was because of Babineau v Turbin, the case she hadn’t wanted to discuss with Senator Folsom. Controversial, regardless of whatever the ruling would be. With Naomi replacing a conservative, the case would be a baptism of fire for her. The target on her back might be larger than the one on the other justices.
“I’d offer you something, Edward, but all I have is coffee or tea.”
“I’m fine, Your Honor, thank you.”
To her, Edward was unflappable, a bit like a Buckingham Palace guard. After a serious discussion regarding her protection going forward, where he’d become atypically conversant and demanding. “You will follow my orders, you will stay behind me unless I tell you otherwise, you will move when I tell you to, you will stay alert, and there will be no texting or phone usage while walking, and no glad-handing any well-wishers,” the rest of his instructions suffixed by “Your Honor,” he had retreated inside his professional shell.
“Why don’t you sit, Edward? We still have a bit of a wait before we go.”
“I’m fine, ma’am.”
The pickup truck entered the White House grounds and was met at the North Portico entrance, where Edward, as her chauffeur, bodyguard and plus-one, relinquished the keys. The truck received the once-over by Secret Service types and their dogs and other investigative instruments. When they entered the White House, they were escorted to the Family Dining Room on the State Floor.
“Justice Coolsummer, this way please.” The White House aide stepped aside, her open hand directing Naomi to proceed to the dining room entrance, the door ajar. “Deputy Marshal Trenton, this way please.” The aide pointed to an adjacent room where a place setting for one had been arranged at a small dining room table.
“No,” Naomi told her. “He’s my plus-one.”
“But Madam Justice…”
“If you didn’t want me to bring a guest, you shouldn’t have offered it. He’s not going to eat alone. Edward?” She wiggled her upturned fingers at him.
“Ma’am, I’ll be fine.” Edward remained expressionless, his hands folded in front of him, waiting for his charge to leave his protection before he followed the aide’s directive.
“Nonsense.” She reached out, grabbed his elbow. “The president intends to meet with me privately after we eat. No state secrets will be discussed over our pancakes and sausage, I assure you. I know you’d like to meet her, and you will. She’s a charming woman.”
She pulled him along a few steps but he stopped short, suddenly paralyzed. Inside the dining room, standing at the head of the set table with her family by her side, was President Lindsay. The angle of the president’s head and her amused smile said she’d witnessed the exchange. Naomi dropped Edward’s elbow and shook off the start the president’s presence had given them. Naomi advanced to shake hands. “Madam President. Good morning. I brought as my guest…”
“Yes, Madam Justice. So glad the two of you could make it. Good Sunday morning to you, Deputy Marshal Trenton. We’re happy to have you join us. Have a seat, folks.”
President Alfreda Lindsay, in the flesh, again. Her collar-length, tousled black hair boasted red highlights that weren’t natural, this same soft, attractive look in evidence her entire twenty-year political career. A slim face with a dark cocoa complexion. Bi-racial, her African American father’s genes much more prominent. Red blazer and skirt, white blouse, pearl necklace. Radiant and photogenic, with round, caring brown eyes that had bought her a lot of votes from all ethnicities. For Naomi this was, what, the third time she’d met with her? The fourth? For Edward it was his first, and Naomi was keen to his reaction.
The introductions with the First Family finished up, releasing some of the tension. First Husband Wesley Lindsay, a former South Dakota corporate lawyer with prematurely gray sideburns, was in a suit and tie today as most days, a dark church-going one with a three-point madras hanky in his breast pocket. And First Daughter Iris, age five, their coiled spring of an only child, with her mother’s ebony hair and her father’s Germanic-English blue eyes, wore an orange blouse and a black skirt because, Iris said to Edward, “These are Halloween colors. I’m going pumpkin picking with my daddy today. You look like a bear. You ever wrestle a bear?”
“Er…”
The president excused herself from Naomi.
“Let me rescue Mister Trenton.” She stepped in, laid her hands on her daughter’s shoulders. “Iris honey, let’s leave Mister Trenton alone so he can have some breakfast, shall we? Go help your daddy cut up your waffles, sweetie.”
“Okay, Mommy. Right, after, this!” She spun out of her mother’s hold, sprinted across the room and face-planted herself into a couch cushion. She popped back up, all smiles, skipped back over to the adults and grabbed her father’s hand. “Let’s eat, Daddy!”
“Well,” the president said to Edward, “that should take a little of the edge off. Shall we eat, Mister Trenton?”
“After you, Madam President.”
“No, Mister Trenton, after you. You are my guest.”
Edward complied without protest, his work face relaxed enough for a smile to form on the way to his seat. To Naomi, this was wonderful.
Fresh fruit, juices, specialty waffles, eggs, breakfast meats, multi-grain toast and muffins; a standard issue American breakfast. Naomi ate more than she should have, even more than the self-conscious deputy marshal Mr. Trenton. With breakfast over, President Lindsay, Naomi and Edward entered the West Colonnade for the walk to the West Wing. Once inside the Oval Office, the president gave them a quick spin.
“The Resolute Desk, carved from the timbers of British Arctic explorer ship Resolute. A gift from Queen Victoria in 1880.
“Portraits of presidents Washington and Lincoln. This commissioned bust of Reverend Martin Luther King. This next piece is of Lakota holy man and leader Sitting Bull…”
Naomi needed no introduction to
it. It was a marvelous sculpture carved from red Verona marble, the tribal chief in his braids. She read the inscription to herself. “I am here by the will of the Great Spirit, and by his will I am chief.”
“This quote. It’s one of my favorites, Madam President.”
“Mine, too.”
They were bonding, but for a fleeting moment Naomi was skeptical she was being manipulated. “Madam President…”
“This isn’t staged, Justice Coolsummer, so let me put that thought to rest. I identify with those words, as does my genealogy. One of the great chief’s two graves is in South Dakota, where my family relocated when I was young. My constituency.”
Sitting Bull’s remains had been exhumed, to some, they were considered stolen, from Fort Yates by his family in what was now North Dakota, and reburied near where he was born, now South Dakota. North Dakota said the bones taken were those of a horse or a white man, not Sitting Bull. Naomi was aware of the history. All indigenous Americans were.
“He died in one state,” Naomi said, thinking aloud, “and sixty years later returned to his place of birth. Or so the debate goes.”
“Yes,” the president said. “Which underscores that we’re all nomads, with destinations sometimes thousands of miles and decades apart from our origins. It’s fitting,” she added, “to assume his wandering continued even after his death. Here, let me show you one more thing before we have a quick business chat and call it a morning.”
Edward was a few steps ahead of the president’s personal Oval Office tour, and standing on the other side of the Resolute Desk. “Ah. It seems Mister Trenton has already found it.”
He was engrossed in the contents of a built-in bookcase but gave the two women a wide berth on their approach. Engraved pewter plates, colorful display dishes, law books, and smaller sculptures, plus one very charming photograph on a stand that impressed Naomi so much she felt herself choking up: Buffy Sainte-Marie, the Canadian-American Cree singer-songwriter-composer.
A Massachusetts family had adopted Ms. Sainte-Marie. Before graduating from college she’d returned to the Cree reserve where she may have been born, and was formally adopted by Emile Piapot, son of the famous Chief Piapot. Buffy to this day remained a Native American icon, especially for young Indian girls. Rejecting any ideas that she come on like “Pocahontas with a guitar,” here she was, a very real person, with Big Bird in an autographed still from one of her appearances on Sesame Street. Scrawled across the bottom was her handwritten message in bold, black strokes: “Thank you for your work, now and in the future, Madam President. Continue to make us proud. Your friend, Buffy.”
Naomi remembered this image from Buffy’s first appearance on the children’s program. A hero from her childhood in the seventies captured right here, vivid and breathtaking for her as a child then, and no less an inspiration for her as an adult now. Edward offered her his handkerchief. She dabbed her eyes, surprised at the impact this was having on her.
“It had the same effect on me,” President Lindsay said before a pat on Naomi’s shoulder. “Still does.”
Their trip around the room ended at the door to the president’s secretary’s office. Edward took his cue and stepped inside. President Lindsay turned to Naomi and gestured that they should sit.
They drifted into superficial Supreme Court talk. How were her law clerks faring, were all four on board yet, did she like her office, any funny stories about meeting each of the justices, etc.? The president, thankfully, was dodging the obvious: the fall term Supreme Court docket.
“Well then. A big day for you tomorrow, Madam Justice.” A presidential smile. “I know, that’s an understatement. Would you mind if I call you Naomi?”
“As you wish, Madam President.”
“I’d offer you the same familiarity, but something tells me you won’t avail yourself of it.”
“It’s better if I’m forced to utter all the syllables, Madam President. It keeps me from drifting into any bad habits.”
An acknowledging smile from her hostess. “Yes. No blurred lines. But remember this, Naomi.” She leaned forward, laid her elbows onto her skirted knees and folded her hands, closing the distance between them. “You have one of the best young legal minds in the country. You are here because you deserve to be here. So don’t let the old farts push you around.”
“Not a chance, Madam President.”
“I didn’t think so. Two final things I must bring up. Occasionally,” her tone was apologetic, “the elephants need to be acknowledged.”
Naomi wasn’t sure what her own face registered but inside, her stomach stirred in anticipation. The Belgian waffle, specialty coffee and spicy Andouille sausage she’d consumed weren’t helping.
“Stare Decisis. Do you believe it holds? That legal precedents would require Roe to be reaffirmed?”
“Madam President, I’m not comfortable with the question, but I’ll be polite. I’d merely be speculating that the decision, if the Texas ruling is upheld, would impact Roe. Respectfully, ma’am, that’s all I’m willing to say about it.”
The president shook her head in agreement, assessing Naomi’s determination at giving a non-answer. “Fair enough.”
The presidential secretary entered the Oval Office and tapped her watch. President Lindsay nodded.
“Naomi. There is one more thing. The attack on Planned Parenthood on Friday is being heavily worked by the security agencies. It’s unclear at this point, but they’re proceeding as if it’s related to the Babineau motion. If it’s a Court bellwether, or a warning, then the message might be for you more than for anyone else, because of your background, and because you’re the most recent appointee. Judiciary tells me that security has been increased for all the justices until they can get their arms around this. Judiciary also tells me the U.S. Marshal’s Service has authorized Deputy Marshal Trenton to remain assigned to you until further notice.”
“I understand, Madam President.”
“Good luck, Naomi.”
Larinda followed the instructions that accompanied her online purchase.
You must ‘tie up’ the amount of ethanol in the flamethrower fuel with the equivalent amount of fresh water. Quick method: To produce a thirty-gallon-diesel, twenty-gallon five-percent-ethanol-unleaded-gasoline mixture, you are going to add one gallon of fresh water to it AFTER adding the Flash 21. Add Flash 21-A to the fuel mix. Allow the mixer to run ten to twenty seconds. Add Flash 21-B to the mixer, run ten to twenty seconds. Add fresh water (tap water is fine, bottled water better). Allow mixer to run until you have a consistent gelled product. Finished product viscosity varies from honey-like to a thicker, jelly-like fluid. The Flash 21 mixed product will retain its consistency even after two weeks of aging. Some separation is normal. Remix if necessary.
Simple enough for Larinda to follow. She worked inside her motel room, the windows cracked open, and she was being careful with the mixing. A tap on her door startled her.
“Who is it?”
“Enterprise Rent-A-Car, for Sabrina Norbert.”
“Sure. Gimme a second.”
Larinda finished loading up her burgundy Chevy Tahoe, larger than the silver Durango and a more comfortable ride, and with an excellent audio system. She popped in a CD from a set she’d acquired at a nearby Walmart and left for Falls Church.
“Abraham begot Isaac, and Isaac begot Jacob, and Jacob begot…”
The first lines of the New Testament were delivered in a rich, deep-throated baritone, unmistakable as James Earl Jones.
A wonderful voice, but no, no, no, not now, not this, it’s all wrong…
She ejected the CD, tried another. “In the beginning…”
Ahhh. Genesis. On these Old Testament pages were God’s words, straight from His mouth, with Mr. Jones’ voice most excellently suited for them. Lovely. Four hours, five CDs of inspirational listening ahead.
“God’s greatest hits,” she said aloud. Events of biblical proportions. Perfect for her frame of mind.
N
INETEEN
“You’re making me regret this, Owen.”
His attitude, his tantrums, his two-fisted assault of the van’s glove box. And the beer. Lone Star. Right up there with Schlitz, Pabst and Piels. Texas goat piss. And Owen with an open bottle of it while they coasted out of Little Rock in the van, him raising it for a gulp whenever he wasn’t pounding the dash.
“How…can they be losing…to the fucking Titans!”
Beer gulp, fist-pound.
It was Sunday, two-thirty p.m., with the Dallas Cowboys visiting the Tennessee Titans in Nashville, the game in the middle of the second quarter. They were now headed east, about to leave Arkansas and enter Tennessee. They’d make Blacksburg, Virginia by midnight. Owen had his phone plugged into the van’s dash, live-streaming the game from a Dallas affiliate.
Like most Philly guys, Judge’s two favorite pro football teams were the Eagles and any other team playing Dallas. Owen’s team was down by two touchdowns. For Judge, this was hilarious. For Owen, he was about to swallow his tongue. They were in Shearerville, Arkansas, just off I-40 on State Hwy 70, twenty minutes outside Memphis and the Tennessee border.
Gulp, fist pound. “Fucking fuckers…” A general comment directed at the Cowboys and the Titans both. Frustrated, Owen looked over his shoulder at the van’s cargo area again.
“You really need all this shit back here, Judge? I mean, Christ, chains, leashes, vests, flashlights, it makes you look like you’re into some really kinky shit. How about we get rid of some of it to reduce the weight? Maybe let this van clock in at something like, oh, I don’t know, over forty miles an hour?”
They were cruising a state highway in the south with a black man riding shotgun, and said black man was a midget in Rastafarian dreads drinking beer from an open container. The speed limit plus five mph was the most Judge was going to chance, considering where they were. “You know, you’re right, Owen. How about we do this?”
He steered onto the road’s shoulder, held a sleeping Maeby in place by her collar and jammed the brakes. The tires screeched and Owen’s seat belt nearly choked him. “A coupla things I don’t need in here are you and your fucking overnight bag.” He pressed the button for the locks and they clicked open. Judge nodded in the direction of the passenger door. “Get the fuck out.”