Deadlock Read Online Free Page B

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?”
    “Sure as I can drink you under the table, Mr. President.”
    “What makes you so sure?”
    Levering leaned over the table to address the leader of the free world face-to-face. “Because I know women,” Levering said. “And I’m about to get to know