Deadlock

by James Scott Bell

  “Today, after so many years,” Bonassi said, “I stand upon desecrated ground. I will say no more than that. As counsel for the chief justice, whom I was proud to serve with, I will step aside and allow her to speak for herself. But I want two things made clear. The first is, the charges leveled against Chief Justice Hollander that are the basis for this indictment are false. Second, I want the word to go out loud and clear that what is happening in our legislative halls is an atrocity. It is the antithesis of the ideals this country was founded on. It has to stop. Fairness and justice, which know no party, must once again be pursued, or we can just wrap up this experiment in democracy right now.”

  Bill Bonassi, standing tall and proud, took a step away from the microphones.

  That was Millie’s cue. Silently, she prayed.

  She looked down at her notes. She could hear the relentless clicking of the cameras.

  When she looked up again she saw a girl. She was around eight years old, and was toward the back of the large crowd. How was she so visible?

  And then Millie knew. She was on a man’s shoulders, looking perhaps for the first time at the great temple of justice. Feelings rushed back to Millie, fresh and alive, of the first time she was here. Feelings of sacredness, of spotlessness. The majesty of this place.

  The reporters were looking at her expectantly. She was not speaking. Bill Bonassi put his hand on her arm, as if to ask if she was all right.

  Millie looked into the eyes of the Old Lion. “All things for good,” she whispered to him.

  Then she handed him her notes.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” she said into the microphones. “The proudest moment of my life was when I was named to serve as a justice of the United States Supreme Court. To come and join men like William T. Bonassi, Thomas Riley, and all the rest, was more than a dream come true. It was as if I had gone to heaven.”

  She cleared her throat; it was like moving sand. “But I know now that this institution is not heaven. It is a very human institution. That is its reality but also its glory. What we have is indeed an experiment in democracy. But it is more. It is a glorious testimony to the finest instincts in man. There have been those who have disparaged this Court, found it wanting, cast it in political terms. And yes, because we are human beings we make human decisions. No one is going to agree with every opinion that is rendered, even when the vote is 9-0. But I know in my heart that every justice whom I have been privileged to serve with – everyone who puts on those robes – has tried to do the very best that he or she can.”

  The whir and click of cameras reminded Millie that what she was about to say would be memorialized for all time, and become fodder for endless analysis by pundits, students, and the politically curious. Yes, her moment had truly come. And far from feeling hesitant, she felt a boldness rush in.

  “I have made a human decision,” she said. “It is one that I am entitled to make under the greatest document for human freedom ever penned. The Constitution gives every one of us the right to worship as we so choose. This past summer I decided that I would worship the God of the Bible. I have come to believe in the truth and the principles of Christianity. I will not take back that decision for any reason.”

  She paused, and looked again at the little girl on top of the man’s shoulders. She was smiling.

  “It has become clear, however, that my personal decision has resulted in something I never wished to see happen. I won’t pretend that the lies spread about me don’t hurt. They do. But in the end what is said about the Supreme Court itself matters more. The Court is the guardian of freedom and dignity for all citizens, and must remain above distraction.”

  Millie paused for a deep breath.

  “That is why I am stepping down, effective immediately, as a justice of the United States Supreme Court. And as I leave this institution, which I love, I have only these final words to say. Each time we begin a session of the Court, the marshal calls all to draw nigh and give their attention. And then he says these words, that I now adopt with all my heart: ‘God save the United States and this honorable Court.’ ”

  2

  For the first time in as many years as he could remember, Sam Levering did not crave a drink.

  Watching what he once would have termed his ultimate political triumph, he only barely noticed his lack of craving.

  Millicent Mannings Hollander was gone. Resigned. The strings had been pulled, by himself and others. Everything was just as it was supposed to be.

  He watched it all happen on the TV in the hotel room. He barely remembered checking in, and the hangover was still gripping his temples. Normally he would have hunted a little hair of the dog. And the Oramor Hotel had a great bar.

  But the bar was not the reason he was here. He wanted to be where no one could contact him.

  The voices were louder in his head. He was passing over the edge, certainly. Drink used to be the way out. That hadn’t worked last night. The voices remained.

  Tad. Is that you?

  One voice sounded distantly familiar. When he was eight his parents had taken him to a tent meeting in Tulsa. Revival fire, they called it. Sam was excited to go, it was the talk of the town in those days.

  What he heard scared him to death. An old fire-and-brimstone preacher spoke, he couldn’t remember the man’s name, but he had a voice like an avenging angel and held his Bible like a club, high over his head, when he wanted to make a point.

  Sam was scared of the man and what he said. But there was one moment when the man spoke softly, when he offered up the invitation. That odd rustic ritual was something Sam knew about from his parents and church. It always seemed a little awkward, walking up there in front of people to be “saved.”

  But the very contrast of the voices this evangelist used – the harshness of fire and the cool balm of invitation – was striking.

  Funny, Sam mused now in the opulent hotel room. He hadn’t thought about that softer voice in maybe fifty years. But that was the voice he seemed to be hearing in the clamor of his own head.

  He brought himself back to the TV, to the talking heads on the news channel discussing the Hollander situation. Where would the Court go? Was she guilty of the charges leveled against her? Will we ever really know?

  Idiots. Complete, clueless idiots. They knew absolutely nothing.

  Soon, they would know everything, because telling all, Sam decided, was the only way to make the voices stop.

  3

  Ambrosi Gallo stepped out of the Carnegie Deli on Seventh Avenue and wiped a spot of mustard from his cheek.

  It was his last act as a free man.

  He knew they were feds the moment he saw them. And when he did, it was too late to make a move.

  They had a gun in his back before he could say John Gotti.

  Play it cool, Ambrosi thought as they cuffed his hands behind him. Call the lawyer as soon as possible. Say nothing. And…

  Anne. Oh yeah, Anne had given him up. He should have known. He should have stuck with Italian women.

  She’d get hers, though. Even if he was put away. Anne would get hers, all right. He’d see to it.

  4

  “What made you do it?” Bill Bonassi asked.

  “I’ll probably ask myself that for years,” Millie said. They were in Bonassi’s library, the room that had become an island of comfort in a sea of chaos. This was where they had discussed strategy and tactics. Everything had gone according to plan, until the press conference.

  “When one justice becomes the center of debate,” Millie said, “it diminishes the Court as a whole. I hope I did the right thing.”

  Bonassi did not seem upset with her, as she thought he might be. In fact, he looked rather rested.

  “It would have been a good scrap,” he said. “I feel ten years younger because of you.”

  “That makes it even. I feel ten years older.”

  After a short silence, Bonassi said, “Ever heard of a man named Telemachus?”

  “I don’t
think so.”

  “He was a Christian hermit who had come to Rome, toward the end of the Empire, when it was falling into decadence. He felt called to do something about the scandal of the gladiators. To celebrate a military victory, they were fighting to the death in the Coliseum for the amusement of the citizens.”

  Bonassi paused, his face becoming radiant with the telling. “So Telemachus went to the Coliseum, walked right into the arena where two gladiators were fighting. He put his hand on one of them and told him to stop shedding innocent blood. The crowd roared at him. They shouted in outrage. Telemachus put up his hand for silence.

  “Then he said, ‘Do not repay God’s mercy, in turning away the swords of your enemies, by murdering each other.’ The crowd shouted him down, shouted for more blood. The gladiators pushed Telemachus into the dust and resumed their fighting.

  “Telemachus got up and placed himself between the combatants. The gladiators seemed to react as one. They killed Telemachus with their swords. And suddenly, realizing that a holy man had been killed, the crowd fell silent. There was no more combat that day. Nor ever again in Rome. His death brought an end to mortal combat.”

  Bonassi fell silent himself, for a long moment. “Maybe you’re a Telemachus. Maybe because of what you did the country will look at what politics has done to the Court.”

  If only she could believe that. Perhaps, in time, she would.

  The door opened. Dorothy, out of breath, said, “You need to come.”

  “What is it?” Bill said, rising.

  “The news. They said Sam Levering shot himself.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  1

  New York Times

  Friday, November 21

  In a stunning recorded interview with the D.C. police, the late Senator Sam Levering gave full details of abuses of power and conspiracies of corruption. According to sources, Levering names names and does not spare himself.

  Sources say many of the admissions relate to the impeachment of Chief Justice Millicent Mannings Hollander, who resigned from the Court two weeks ago. Levering and his chief aide, Anne Deveraux, orchestrated a pattern of lies designed to drive Hollander from her position. Others were involved as well, including the recently named president of the National Parental Planning Group, Helen Forbes Kensington.

  The major accusations against Hollander were false, according to the statement. One charge, that Hollander was under the influence of alcohol when she stumbled into the street and nearly died last June, was false according to Levering. It was he who was drunk, he states in the document, and made unwanted advances on Hollander, who attempted to get away from him.

  Also named as co-conspirator was a reporter for the National Exposure. Daniel Ricks, the statement claims, was hired to collect dirt on Hollander during her recuperation from the accident in Santa Lucia, California.

  Calls to the National Exposure went unreturned.

  But perhaps the most stunning admission from Levering was that the Hollander campaign was tacitly approved by President John W. Francis.

  Arnold Rutledge, chief legal counsel to the president, issued a statement late last night denying the allegation.

  2

  “You probably hate me, don’t you?” Helen said.

  Millie shook her head. “I couldn’t hate you, Helen. Not after all these years.”

  “That’s funny.”

  “What is?”

  “I hated you.”

  They were standing at the perimeter of the Jefferson Memorial. It was where Helen had wanted to meet. For Millie it was like a scene out of a political thriller. She made sure she wasn’t followed by reporters. She had even told the taxi driver to make sure they were free and clear.

  “Why?” Millie asked, as surprised by Helen’s admission as anything else in the last five months.

  “I thought you were a traitor,” Helen said. “I thought you had gone off the deep end and that you would start rolling back everything I believed in.”

  “I gathered that much.”

  “And I hated your – I don’t know – integrity.”

  “Why didn’t you talk to me about this?”

  “I didn’t know how.”

  “But you talked to that reporter for the Exposure?”

  Helen nodded. “Levering convinced me I had to do it. He and that Gestapo agent of his, Anne Deveraux. We ruined you.”

  “I don’t feel ruined.”

  “How can you not?”

  Thinking of Bill Bonassi, Millie had to smile. “I’m a reverse paranoid.”

  “A what?”

  “Let’s just say I’m ready to start a new chapter. I’m moving back to Santa Lucia.”

  “No.”

  “My clerk, Rosalind Wilkes, and I are going to open an office.”

  “A lawyer? You’re going to be a lawyer?”

  “Why not? Maybe even be a TV star. Fox has been calling. They want me to be a commentator on national legal news. I don’t know what God has in store.”

  They were near the portico now, the majestic figure of Thomas Jefferson deep in thought inside. Millie watched a group of children being led toward Jefferson by a woman who was obviously a teacher. Hope for the future, went the cliché. But she couldn’t think of a better place to start than with the author of the Declaration of Independence. Millie thought of the stirring final words of that document. “With a firm reliance on Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.”

  When she looked back she saw Helen with her face in her hands.

  “What is it?” Millie said.

  “Can you forgive me?”

  Millie put her arms around Helen. It was not a natural gesture for Millie. Or maybe it was. Now.

  3

  Rosalind was waiting for Millie back at Millie’s house in Fairfax County. Who was it Rosalind had wanted her to meet?

  It was a young, rather slight, but confident-looking African American woman who shook Millie’s hand with gusto.

  “Meet Charlene Moore,” Rosalind said.

  Over tea, Charlene Moore told Millie her story, up to the filing of the certiorari petition by Larry Graebner.

  “He’s formidable,” Millie said. “And your case sounds like one the Court may grant cert on.”

  “Which is why I came here,” Charlene said. “I’ve been asking God who would be the right person to help me with this. I kept flashing on you.”

  “I’ve never been flashed before,” Millie said.

  Charlene Moore laughed. “But will you do it?”

  “You don’t waste time, do you, Miss Moore?”

  “So I’ve been told.”

  “I’ll really have to think about this,” Millie said.

  “You know,” said Charlene Moore, “sometimes God kicks thinkin’ in the pants.”

  Millie laughed. “The strange thing is, I think I understand exactly what you mean. Why don’t we pray, right now, and whatever God wants, we’ll do.”

  “Right on,” Charlene said.

  “Roz,” Millie said. “Do you mind?”

  The young woman shook her head. “I’d like to join you, if I may.”

  “This is very cool,” Charlene said.

  Three women joined hands. And sought God.

  Part Three

  *

  Upon these two foundations,

  the law of nature and the law of revelation,

  depend all human laws.

  SIR WILLIAM BLACKSTONE

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  1

  “Oyez, oyez, oyez.”

  The Supreme Court marshal solemnly intoned the medieval French words handed down from more than a thousand years of English common law. Though Millie had heard them countless times before, she now felt them entering into her like trumpet blasts.

  “The honorable, the chief justice and associate justices of the Supreme Court of the United States,” the marshal continued. “All persons having business before this honorable C
ourt are admonished to draw nigh and give their attention, for the Court is now sitting. God save the United States and this honorable Court.”

  And there they stood, her former colleagues – Byrne, Facconi, Johnson, Parsons, Weiss, Velarde, and Chief Justice Atkins, along with the judge who had replaced her, Walter Saxon. And, finally, Thomas J. Riley. His face, as far as Millie could tell, was a mask of impassivity.

  The justices sat in their high-backed leather swivel chairs as Millie’s knees trembled. That she was here at all was still unbelievable to her.

  It was June again, the time when she would have been wrapping up her Court matters before the summer break. Instead, she was about to argue for the first time as an advocate in front of the Supreme Court.

  She had spent the last six months going over and over the case, researching precedent, scanning the transcripts from the lower court for every nuance of legal reasoning. In that time, through e-mails and phone calls, Charlene Moore had come to be something of a little sister to her, more than just in a spiritual way. She was a support, a sharp legal mind, and full of energy.

  But as Millie sat at the Respondent’s table, she realized that after all that work, she still did not know how her argument would do. It was, she and Charlene had decided, to be directed at the newest justice, Saxon. Millie knew she would have the four conservatives with her. Riley, of course, would oppose her, as would the three other liberal-moderates. Saxon, even though he was a Francis appointee, was at least new enough not to have set himself permanently in any coalition.

  If she had any hope of winning, it would be in convincing Saxon. From her research on his opinions from the Ninth Circuit, she got the impression that he was a logical technician. He liked his arguments tight, to the point, and without fluff. So, for the last month, Millie had practiced her presentation with Saxon in mind.