Deadlock

by James Scott Bell

  With a great sigh, Millie put on a smile and waved for the cameras once more. The reporters began shuffling to give way. But the little man stayed close, staring at her, until security finally nudged him out.

  She got a very strange feeling in her stomach. “I need to go home,” she told Dr. Cross, “as soon as possible.”

  “I’ll have a car brought around.”

  “No,” she said. “I mean to California. Would it be all right if I flew out tomorrow or the next day?”

  Dr. Cross folded his arms. “I want to check up on you. I can’t very well do that if you’re three thousand miles away.”

  “I promise to be good.”

  He smiled. “I have an associate out that way, in Bakersfield. Would you mind if I had him on call for you?”

  “Not at all,” Millie said. “God forbid I should need a doctor. What could possibly happen?”

  Dr. Cross patted her shoulder. “You just never know.”

  4

  Sam Levering woke up with a fuzzy feeling on his tongue. As he got older, the drinking seemed to do that. When he was a young buck, he could put away twice the amount and wake up fit and ready to run.

  Those days were gone. A lot of things were gone for Sam Levering. His wife had divorced him fifteen years ago. That had actually been a career boost. Marla could not handle her liquor and was developing into a liability.

  Sure, a divorced politician was suspect in those days, but Levering managed to charm the people again. He won the governorship and left early to run for the Senate.

  He and Marla had shared custody of their son, Tad. That was another thing Sam had lost.

  Each morning when he awoke, Levering felt a small hole inside him. It could not be filled. It was shaped like his son, the one he had once envisioned taking the governor’s mansion and then joining him in the Senate. And then the presidency. A dynasty.

  But Tad had turned away from everything, every value, Sam Levering ever had.

  It started with teenage antics. Levering thought that was normal and would play itself out. Tad liked cars, liked girls, and liked them both fast. A chip off the old block. Levering had even felt a little pride when Tad stole a cheerleader from the football team captain and spent a weekend with her in a Tulsa motel.

  Then in his late teens, Tad had become progressively odd and distant. All because of a preacher.

  Levering had grown up in the Bible belt but renounced the faith of his youth when he was in the Army. He did attend church services when the political weather vane pointed in that direction. But on fishing or camping trips with Tad, Levering taught him the value of self-reliance and skepticism of all things religious.

  “Use the religious folks to get yourself elected,” he counseled his son. “But don’t fall into it yourself. The American religion is finishing first.”

  Tad, he thought, soaked up every word.

  But then that preacher got hold of his son, and Tad got “saved.” How Levering despised that word. As much as he despised the preacher, a man named Doty.

  When Tad announced that he was a Christian, Levering almost went nuts. There had been huge arguments. Levering called Tad names he had never used before, even for political opponents. Tad took off.

  That was eight years ago. Levering did manage to locate his son once through a private investigator. But Tad’s only response was to send his father a Bible with a note pleading for him to “turn to Christ.”

  Levering sauntered to the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face, trying to put the past out of his mind. He heard his cell phone bleeping on the bed and went to answer it.

  “Who’s your Huckleberry?” Anne Deveraux asked.

  “Why do you keep saying that?” Levering asked.

  “Heard it in a movie once. Now tell me who your Huckleberry is.”

  “You, Anne.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re the best.”

  “And do you know why?”

  “Is this a personal call? Because I’ve got a ton – ”

  “I’ll tell you why. Because I see things before they happen. I anticipate trouble.”

  “Yes, you do, Anne.” It was true. She was the best in the business at not only getting out of a crisis, but steering clear of those that did not yet exist.

  “Well,” Anne asked, “when can I see you?”

  Levering went through his mental checklist. “I have several short meetings today.”

  “Work me in.”

  “When?”

  “Now.”

  “Why?”

  “Let’s just say I see something coming.”

  “What’s it about?”

  “Madame Justice Millicent Mannings Hollander.”

  Levering met Anne near Independence Avenue. The day was overcast but hot, making him sweat almost immediately. He felt like he was in detox.

  She was waiting for him on a bench that offered a view of the Supreme Court building. She was eating a Power Bar and sipping a Starbucks.

  “Breakfast?” Levering said, sitting next to her.

  “And lunch and dinner,” she said. “This will take me to eleven o’clock tonight.”

  The senator shook his head. “Aren’t you afraid of burnout, Anne?”

  “No. Spontaneous combustion. If I’m not moving forward, I’m afraid I’ll explode.”

  “What about your personal life?”

  She looked at him. At least he assumed she was looking at him through her dark glasses. “Why the sudden interest in my personal life?”

  Levering shrugged. “I was just thinking. You haven’t got a family. Maybe you should think about it.”

  “Don’t go family values on me, Senator. I could not handle that paradigm shift.”

  “Hey, you’re free to live your life.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence. But it’s your life we should be talking about.”

  “Go.”

  Anne finished her Power Bar, tossing the wrapper into a trash can. Then she took a sip of coffee to wash it down. “Hollander,” she said. “Caution.”

  “Why?”

  “How much is Francis behind her for chief?”

  “All the way. I made sure of that.”

  “Tell him not to say anything yet.”

  Levering used one of Anne’s favorite lines. “Detail me,” he said.

  “The last thing you need is an unstable chief of the Supreme Court.”

  “You talking because of the accident?”

  “Of course.”

  “But Millie Hollander has always been steady as a rock.”

  “Accidents do things to people.”

  “Yeah, but she’s been given a clean bill of health.”

  “Physically, yes.”

  Levering said, “Just tell me what you’re driving at.”

  “They allowed her to go home yesterday. You may have seen the news.”

  “I did.”

  “Well, it may interest you to know that Madame Justice did not go straight to her home.”

  Levering was duly impressed. “Are you telling me you tailed a justice of the highest court in the land?”

  Anne fetched a cigarette from her purse. “Just doing my job. There’s a Barnes & Noble in a mall just over the Virginia line. Hollander’s car pulled up in front and the driver got out. He went into the bookstore and came out a few minutes later.”

  “Big deal,” Levering said. “Maybe he wanted a magazine.”

  Anne looked at him with mock disdain. “Would I be telling you this if I didn’t know what he came out with?”

  “You know?”

  “Of course I know.”

  “Mind telling me how?”

  “Let’s just say you can do a lot with a computer and a little money given to the right people.”

  That was a political truth Levering had long been aware of. “So?”

  “Ever hear of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross?”

  “She a judge?”

  “No, an author. She wrote
about death.”

  “Sounds like the life of the party.”

  Anne ignored him. “Her most famous book is On Death and Dying. That’s one of the books the driver bought. The other was one called On Life After Death.”

  Levering thought about this for a moment. “What do you make of it?”

  “Red flag, Senator,” Anne said. “You’ve got a middle-aged woman who is almost killed by a car. She just happens to be a Supreme Court justice, but let that pass. She is suddenly very aware of her mortality. She wants to read books about death. On life after death. Now what would you say was going on?”

  “Maybe she bought them for a friend?”

  Anne blew an angry breath into the Washington, D.C., air. “Don’t avoid the obvious. She got shaken up. Not just physically, but mentally. When somebody starts thinking about death, things happen. Who knows what?”

  Levering shook his head. “I can’t see it making a big difference.”

  “Oh, you can’t. Well, do you believe in life after death?”

  That one hit him like a question from O’Reilly. “No,” he said, wondering at that moment if he really believed it himself.

  “Right. Now who does believe we pass into some heavenly reward? Or get reprocessed as something else? Answer: religious folks. What would happen if Justice Hollander got a sudden dose of religion?”

  A bus rumbled by, belching exhaust. Levering watched it for a moment, sensing things getting cloudy. “I’m not worried,” he said.

  “That makes one of us.”

  “Besides, we have our little backup plan if we ever need it.”

  Anne shook her head. “Only as a last resort.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “Whatever I say,” she said. “Agreed?”

  Levering felt oddly secure. “Darlin’, you da man.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  1

  Walking gingerly up the ramp at LAX, Millie felt remarkably good. She did have a cane, one of those aluminum jobs that were standard hospital issue, but didn’t need to use it. Residual pain, for the moment, was muted. Dr. Cross would be pleased.

  She hoped Mom was feeling well. Millie knew her accident, and the aftermath, had been hard on Ethel Hollander. The last time they had talked on the phone, her mother’s voice sounded a little slower than normal. As Millie hobbled through the gate, she was anxious to see her mother’s face.

  What she saw, however, was a chaos of reporters. Only this time Dr. Cross was not there to intervene. She had been offered a secret service escort, but declined. She had never been one for governmental intrusion – into the lives of citizens or on behalf of justices. When she was off the bench she wanted to be an ordinary citizen herself. And she couldn’t imagine a secret service agent hovering around her in Santa Lucia. It would simply draw more attention.

  Security was everywhere. Men in blue coats and Los Angeles police officers kept order. Lights glared and microphones bobbed at her face. A few questions were shouted simultaneously. Millie put up her hands.

  “Thank you for your concern,” she said. “I am feeling pretty well. Much better than I was a week ago, I can assure you. I’ve come out here for some rest and will be thankful if I can avoid answering questions at this time.” She looked around the crowd for her mother. No sign.

  “Have you had any word on becoming chief justice?” a female reporter shouted.

  “No word. Thank you.” She made an attempt to move forward but the reporters, like a giant amoeba, moved with her.

  “Madame Justice, do you feel you can handle the job?” a male reporter asked.

  “My only job now is to rest,” Millie said, wondering if her face was giving her away. “I just need to…” And then she saw her mother waving behind the reporters.

  “If you’ll excuse me,” she said, trying to move on through. An airport guard told the reporters to clear a path.

  “Can you tell us anything else about the accident?” a voice shouted. Another asked, “Was it really an accident?”

  The question jarred her, even as she reached her mother. Millie hugged her as cameras whirred and clicked. Her mother felt a little thinner than Millie remembered, but with the same tough hide.

  The slick reporter shoved his microphone toward Ethel Hollander. “Is it good to see your daughter?”

  Ethel scowled at him. “That’s about the dumbest question I ever heard from a grown man.”

  Slick stood up as if slapped. Millie could not help enjoying his look. “Case closed,” she said.

  Ethel had a car, a giant Cadillac – circa 1970 and covered with desert dust – waiting in the short-term parking. Behind the wheel sat a stout, friendly looking man. Ethel introduced him as Royal King.

  “That’s my real name, too,” he said.

  But he drove like a joker. The trip was an adventure in near misses that finally got them to the 405 freeway, heading north. Millie, reclining in the passenger seat, at least felt relieved to finally be heading for some peace.

  “How are things in town?” Millie asked her mother.

  “Same as always,” Ethel said. “Only more so.”

  “Ah,” Millie said, enjoying one of her mother’s famous non-sequiturs. She usually made sense once you unpacked the verbiage.

  Royal King said, “We got some reporters in town.”

  “Oh, no,” Millie said.

  “Yep. You can tell ’cause they have them fifty-dollar haircuts.”

  “I’m sorry, Mom. I didn’t want to bring trouble to town.”

  “Oh, fudge bumps,” Ethel said. “We can handle ’em.”

  “That’s right,” Royal said. “Like a brush fire.”

  “Royal’s the fire chief,” Ethel said. “He moved up from Santa Clarita a couple of years ago. He drives me to church on Sundays and Wednesday nights.”

  It had been a long time since Millie had thought about her mother’s church. Ethel had attended it faithfully for fifty years now. There was something magnificent in that, even if Millie did not share the beliefs she had been taught there many years ago.

  “How is the church doing, Mom?”

  “She just keeps rolling along, like that song about the river and the old man who lives in it.”

  “Old Man River?” Millie said.

  “No, but there’s a song like it with the same title,” Ethel said.

  Millie smiled.

  “I think you’re going to like our pastor,” Ethel added.

  So it begins, Millie thought.

  “He’s a real good preacher,” Royal volunteered. “I like his style.”

  “Oh?” Millie said casually, being polite about the conversation. In her mind she pictured an older man, perhaps a few years short of retirement, who was making one last stop at the church before his dotage. He’d be full of the old bromides and warnings of hellfire, damnation, and the wages of sins such as dancing and drink. She hoped, if she did meet him, that it would be a short meeting.

  “He’s not the kind of preacher you might think,” Ethel said. “He’s had a lot of tragedy in his life.”

  “A ton,” Royal said.

  “And he received mercy,” Ethel said, “so he gives it out. He ministers to runaway teenagers down in Lancaster. For nothing.”

  “Because of what happened with his own daughter,” Royal added.

  Millie felt a vague interest in knowing the story, but said nothing.

  “And can he pray!” Ethel said. “You should have heard him the night of your accident.”

  “What?”

  “Yep. That very night, at prayer meeting, I asked for prayer for you. I felt troubled about you for some reason. It was heavy upon me.”

  “I remember,” Royal said. “She was almost crying.”

  This was odd. “What kind of trouble did you think I was in?”

  “I didn’t know, exactly. But I remember the time. I surely do. I felt the Lord leading and looked at the big clock. It was 10:35.”

  Millie said, “You were up late.”
>
  “We pray long sometimes,” Royal said. “Pastor really believes in prayer.”

  Sure he does, Millie thought. He’s supposed to. So are church people. When she was a little girl, she had, too. But now…

  Millie’s mind suddenly snapped to attention. “What time did you say, Mom?”

  “What time what?”

  “When you looked at the clock.”

  “I said 10:35. Yes, sir.”

  “Are you absolutely sure?”

  “’Course I am. I can still see. Why are you asking?”

  Millie did not say, but began to feel cold all over. If it was 10:35 on the west coast, it was 1:35 on the east.

  The very time Dr. Cross said she’d flatlined.

  The very time she’d had her vision.

  “You all right, dear?” Ethel asked.

  “Sorry, Mom. I just got a headache.”

  “Don’t let’s talk anymore. Royal, you drive nice and smooth now. Let my daughter rest.”

  Oh, yes. Sweet rest. She needed that.

  But she knew she could not rest. Not now.

  2

  It felt like a time warp when Millie saw the old house. Her mother still lived here, would never think of leaving. Wouldn’t even consider changing the basic look of the place. Adobe style on the outside with a flagstone walkway. Cactus plants in the garden under the front window. The lone oak tree that stood like a sentry guarding the ghosts of the past. She’d read books under it as a little girl. Desert shade for an inquiring mind.

  The house, built by her father and a group of locals when Millie was ten (she helped dig out the tiny portion of sandy dirt that became the back steps), looked just as it did in the sixties. The capricious weather of California’s high desert (though the townspeople hated high desert as a designation; not good for tourism) seemed to have paid it respect and treated it gently over the years. There was a solidity about it that provided comfort.

  Royal scurried around to the passenger side of the car and opened the door for Millie. She swung her legs out carefully, remembering what Dr. Cross said about her ribs – no sudden movements or turns.

  A rivulet of warm desert air caressed her face, bringing with it the scent of sage and wildflowers. It was soothing and familiar. There was nothing quite like the breezes here, and she’d loved them growing up. The air was simple, unpretentious. Above all, clean. Not filled with the waste of busses and cars and industry. The act of breathing here was unpressured.