While Justice Sleeps

by Stacey Abrams

  “That’s it,” Noah exclaimed. “But won’t you need to wait for Ani?”

  “I don’t think Ani is coming back. Which means I should be able to move his pieces too.” She quickly ran through the next moves, exactly as prescribed.

  It took nineteen minutes. She matched the game Wynn had recorded move for move, while no one in the office spoke. Because she played both parts, the game proceeded quickly. The final position had Avery’s pawn at g7. The screen then signaled an incoming message: Meet me in the square.

  Jared pointed to a tiny box that hovered at the top of the screen. “That icon.” Avery followed his finger to a blue box that allowed players to chat live. “Click there.”

  At the click of her mouse, a new box opened. Reaching around her, Jared scrolled through the chat menu. “Nothing.”

  “What are you looking for?” Avery asked quietly.

  “I’m not sure.” He drummed his fingers on the keyboard. “Gamers use the chat functions of these games to communicate.”

  “That sounds a bit tech-savvy for a man who used a BlackBerry,” Noah offered. “But maybe the person he played with picked the method.”

  Jared opened a new screen and snagged the chat room’s URL. “I wonder.” His fingers began to fly over the keys. In less than a minute, the screen flashed blue, then white.

  Then it flooded with text that had been jumbled into continuous lines.

  “What is that?” Noah asked.

  “Archives. Archived chats between WHTW5730 and TigrisLost.” He performed another command, and a single name flashed in highlight. Satisfied, he stepped back. “Avery, meet Ani.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  “Major Vance?”

  Ignoring the summons, Vance flipped through the dossier spread in front of him, a condensed treatise on the lives of Avery Keene, Jared Wynn, and Noah Fox.

  “Major Vance?”

  Impatient, he lifted his head to check the clock above the door, which read a quarter past eight in the evening. Focusing on the woman who’d interrupted his reading, he prompted, “Yes, Johnson?”

  His executive assistant entered the office. “A while ago, you asked to be notified if I received any calls about research grants authorized by the undersecretary. A staffer from Budget came to see me this afternoon.”

  “And?”

  “He’s in Betty Papaleo’s shop. She’s slated to deliver an S&T report to the House Budget Committee on Friday.” Camille flipped through her notes. “As per the undersecretary’s instructions, we redacted the mention of the CRGs for this year, and Dr. Papaleo has requested a reason for doing so.”

  Instructions the undersecretary had no idea he’d issued. “Tell Dr. Papaleo that her discretion is required because the undersecretary made it so,” Vance said coldly.

  “Yes, sir,” Camille replied. “The staffer also mentioned that Justice Wynn recently requested similar information. Do you want me to contact the chief justice?”

  “No. I’ll take care of it.”

  * * *

  —

  Night settled lightly on Pennsylvania Avenue. In the State Dining Room, President Stokes nibbled on Brie and sipped at a glass of Château d’Yquem, a gift from an ambitious French ambassador who expected a private audience during his visit. Sequined, sculpted gowns twirled around the room, the incandescent colors interrupted only by the muted black and white of tailored tuxedos that improved even the most rotund form. In the midst of the frantic chatter about the latest scandal in DC, Major Vance held post near the president’s elbow.

  “Such a shame about poor Howard,” offered an eggplant-attired matron of impeccable breeding and questionable chromatic theory. She hovered near President Stokes as she did at each ceremonial function where American royalty made itself present. Aware that her family ties to the White House faded with each president, she had made ingratiation her blood sport.

  A beringed hand gripped a wine stem while the other fluttered to her breast. “I feel sick to my stomach about how they are treating poor Celeste. My son tells me she’s been blocked from visiting her own husband’s bedside.”

  President Stokes favored her with a look of mild interest. “Your son? That would be Garrett?”

  Astonished that he remembered, she preened. “Yes, Mr. President. Dr. Garrett Forster. He’s in cardiology, but word travels quickly in hospitals. Apparently, that girl has denied everyone access without her prior authorization. Celeste had to hear about it from the hospital’s lawyer. Can you imagine?”

  “Well, that is an outrage,” offered First Lady Fontaine Stokes, a sturdy, equine woman who’d been with her husband since he’d run for student body president at Arizona State. She was well aware of how the matron Forster annoyed her husband, but she noted how his feigned interest sharpened at the mention of Celeste. Her cue to find out more. “What did the attorney tell her?”

  “According to Garrett, the lawyer told her that visitation was out of his hands, and she’d have to take the issue to court.”

  “What about Jared?” pressed Mrs. Stokes, keeping careful track of her husband’s microexpressions. “Does he have any say?”

  “Not according to what I’ve heard.” She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, pitched to carry well beyond their knot. “It’s all so sordid.”

  Vance slipped between Mrs. Forster and President Stokes. “Mr. President, if I may interrupt?”

  “If you’ll excuse me.” President Stokes followed Vance to a secure office, leaving Fontaine to handle the gathering. “Any news?”

  “Security around Wynn at the hospital has been tightened, as we expected. The death of his nurse has everyone on edge. The FBI hasn’t been willing to charge Keene with anything.”

  “You’re with Homeland Security. Make them arrest her.”

  “That’s outside my purview, Mr. President. And taking such an action from your position would raise unwanted questions.”

  “Has the girl indicated what she intends to do about the old man?” the president asked quietly. “Maybe she’s one of those grandparent-killing liberals who believe in the fucking dignity of death.”

  “Unlikely, sir.” Vance clasped his hands behind his back. “She is quite loyal to him.”

  “Loyalty has limits. Is she open to incentives?”

  “She shares a two-bedroom apartment with a medical resident, has a negligible bank balance except for the sudden windfall, has not secured a permanent job post-clerkship, and seems to be her mother’s sole legal source of financial support.”

  “Any leads on the source of the money?”

  “Came from an account in the Grand Caymans, which our techs sourced to another account in Switzerland, with the origin account in Macao, registered to a shell corporation created in Ireland. We’re in negotiations with the Irish government to secure the incorporators. We’ve asked for the funds to be frozen. They should be out of her reach soon.”

  “Be more creative, Vance. If the girl can’t be persuaded to act, we may need to fully discredit her. She’s already started the process for us with that stunt involving his son.” President Stokes poked Vance in the shoulder with an angry finger. “With Wynn gone before the end of the month, I’ll have an open seat on the Court.” The president took another sip of his wine. “Release the funds and watch how she spends the money. She’ll assume she’s won a small victory against us, and we can use her spending as a tracking device.”

  “I will notify the FBI and Treasury of the decision.”

  “Also, it seems to me that we have a nurse who probably wrote plenty of reports on the state of mind of Justice Wynn. A road map to lunacy. Seems like a waste to keep those records hidden away.”

  “If we release those records, sir, Mrs. Lewis’s demise becomes public knowledge. Right now, notice has been given to the marshals at the hospital, but otherwise, it’s on a close h
old.”

  “The FBI knows, so it will be public soon anyway. They’ve got more leaks than a sieve. The crime scene looks like a robbery gone wrong, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then it would be helpful if someone checked the nurse’s home for any notes. I know a good conservative judge on the bench who will be friendly to a plea from a distraught widow who came into possession of them. Understand?”

  “I’ll do what I can, sir.”

  Downing the last of his drink, President Stokes instructed Vance: “Time to get back to the festivities. I want to be out of here by a quarter to eleven.” He thrust the glass at Vance. “Make up a national emergency and yank me, okay?”

  “Certainly.” Together, they returned along the corridor to the State Dining Room. They entered in lockstep, Vance in position behind him so as not to crowd the leader of the free world.

  President Stokes waded into the tangle of guests, satisfied with his plan. As he chatted with the prime minister of some recently overturned dictatorship, he felt a shadow fall. The president turned slightly to find Ken Neighbors at his elbow. Cursing internally, he made introductions. “Prime Minister Lamb, please meet the Senate majority leader, Ken Neighbors of Connecticut.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Neighbors greeted as he raked back the hank of true black hair that habitually fell over his broad, tanned forehead. He extended his free hand to the president. “Mr. President, we were just talking about you.”

  Stokes pasted on his most insincere smile and shook his head, which gave him an opportunity to angle his neck to meet Neighbors’s flat-eyed stare. The freakish giant loomed like misbegotten Gulliver at six-six, hulking over his own respectable five-eleven.

  The president preferred the altitudinal equivalence of a meeting in the Oval Office to the vertical pugilism on the standing cocktail circuit. But he hadn’t clawed his way to power by bending to redwoods. Coming toe to toe, he responded, “Hope you were saying good things.”

  “Only the best.”

  The prime minister drifted off in the care of one of the president’s staffers, leaving him alone with the majority leader, an unwelcome intimacy. “How are you, Mr. Leader?”

  “Doing well, Mr. President. Better than some.”

  “Is Marguerite here with you tonight?” President Stokes asked, well aware that the man’s pocket-sized writer wife had booked a berth at an eating disorder clinic that treated the side effects of rabid alcoholism.

  The leader’s flicker of infuriation was barely visible. He replied gamely, “Marguerite is on sabbatical. You know the artistic temperament.”

  “Well, Mrs. Stokes and I were thinking of inviting you two up to Camp David next month. Will her respite be over by then?”

  The Senate majority leader appreciated the easy thrust of the shiv into the raw wound. Brandon Stokes had never extended an invitation to him not required by federal law or the social mores of Washington society. Indeed, his presence at state functions occurred in spite of Stokes, and only out of deference to his near-absolute control of the legislative agenda—and his best friend’s standing in the polls as the Democratic challenger to Stokes’s absurd appeal for a second lackluster term.

  Knowing that, he could afford to be generous to the tyrant. “We’re leaving plans loose for now. With congressional recess coming up in a few weeks, we’re thinking about heading out west to the ranch. We bought a place not too far from the one DuBose owns in Montana. Good investment property.”

  The only person Brandon Stokes hated more than Ken Neighbors was his counterpart in the House, Speaker DuBose Porter, Alabama-born and Yale-bred. President Stokes took a deliberate sip of wine to cleanse the acrimony. “Sounds lovely. DuBose’s family joining you?”

  “Of course.” Neighbors ignored his drink, focused on delivering his message to the president. “He and I have been discussing this news about Wynn. We’re thinking that the Fourth of July holiday should be truncated, and maybe we should reconsider August recess entirely. He is sure the House members will understand.”

  Stokes nearly choked. When his airway cleared, he repeated, “You both are willing to postpone recess? In an election year? How will members feel about their inability to campaign?”

  “For the good of the nation, everything is on the table,” Neighbors threatened politely. The possibility of a recess appointment, a procedural trick used by too many presidents to get their own way, had occupied a good six hours of his day. Stokes had strategized endlessly about sneaking in a replacement justice while Congress was in recess, thereby circumventing a nomination process—if Wynn had the grace to die in a timely fashion. “We want to be prepared to act, if the time comes.”

  “Have you discussed this with your caucus?”

  Not yet, Neighbors conceded silently, and getting it past them would require bribery and bullying. But he and DuBose smelled blood in the water. Stokes’s blood. “Things are moving so quickly with Justice Wynn’s hospitalization and these rumors about his guardian. We simply intend to be cautious about sprinting out of town if work has to be done.”

  “Like what?”

  “Oh, you know, Mr. President. None of us want to use the words, because we all wish Howard the best. Still—”

  “Still?”

  “A coma is usually a poor sign. And we’ll want the full weight of the Congress to weigh in. It’s a Senate job, but for the good of the country, we need to be unified, don’t we?”

  The last comment hung between them as warning and promise. “Well, Ken, I guess we’ll all have to play it by ear.”

  Stokes turned on his heel, and, looking across the room, Ken made eye contact with Speaker Porter. Ken jerked his head toward the French doors leading out to a balmy portico.

  Soon, the Speaker emerged through the glass doors. “Saw you and the president chatting,” DuBose quipped. “Felt left out.”

  “Don’t worry. There’s nothing that snake will say that you can count on anyway.”

  DuBose reached for a cigarette before remembering he’d quit last week. His hand dropped to his side. “Did he have any news about Justice Wynn?”

  “Not a word,” Ken reported. “But I thought Stokes was going to choke on his own tongue when I mentioned postponing recess.” The accompanying guffaw carried out into the carefully tended lawn. “Nigel Cooper was right. Joker’s got a plan for that Supreme Court seat. Stokes probably thinks the geezer will kick the bucket while we’re out, and then he’ll shove one of his right-wing cronies up our asses while we’re out begging for votes.”

  “Cooper may be right about his motive, but we can’t stay here forever. The Senate is your baby, not mine. Confirmations are your domain,” DuBose reminded him severely. “As much as I appreciate the man’s help with this, he doesn’t seem to get the bigger picture. My entire caucus is up for reelection, and some of these folks have tight races.”

  “Tight races? What the hell do you think the world will look like with a conservative neophyte in Justice Wynn’s place? That jerk is difficult enough to live with. What if the Right Reverend Donaldson from the Eighth Circuit gets called up while we’re off campus? Can you imagine that man with a lifetime appointment? And how excited the president’s base will be in November? Tight races will be the least of your problems.”

  The specter chilled the Speaker into silence. With Justice Wynn gone, the fine balance of the Court would tilt dramatically to the right. His constituents would go into paroxysms of terror. “Fuck.”

  “Exactly.” The majority leader scanned the area around them, then pitched his voice into a conspiratorial whisper: “We’ve got options, though.”

  “Options?”

  “According to legal counsel, Justice Wynn can’t be removed unless he dies. If Cooper is right, he’s in one of those comas that go on for decades.”

  “My guys call it a constitutional crisis. Four and fo
ur. A split court for nearly a generation. I’m sure that’s not what the Framers had in mind.”

  “Hell, in the Framers’ day, we didn’t have ventilators and artificial nutrition and living wills.” Ken cast another look around, his voice even softer as he bent low. “But the Framers did vest the Congress with the ability to increase the size of the Court.”

  DuBose’s brow soared. “Court packing? That’s your solution?”

  “You see a better way? Think about it. We hold hearings to rile up the public, then we offer Stokes a compromise. Expand the Court to eleven. Until Wynn dies, that’s his spot. The president gets to force Donaldson on us, and we add our own man. A thirty-five-year-old wunderkind with a clean bill of health.”

  “Sounds nice, but your math sucks. We’re at four and four. Add two, and that leaves us right where we are.”

  “Until our guy wins the White House. Bringman is getting up there in years, and he’s hanging on out of sheer cussedness, hoping to overturn Roe v. Wade. By the second year, he’ll give up the ghost, and we can replace him with one of ours. Then we’ve got the edge. Justice Wynn can stay as long as he likes—we’ll have a margin of two, and if the old man does pass away, we’re up by three. It’s genius, DuBose.”

  Intrigued, the Speaker asked, “And you’ve got the votes to pass this on your side?”

  “Absolutely,” he lied without qualm. His razor-thin margin of fifty-four included a couple of conservative Democrats elected by states sick of Republicans but not yet ready to embrace the liberal elite. But he’d make it work. “I’ll have Judiciary convene hearings, and by the time we’re done, every one of our people will be campaigning on a platform of saving the U.S. Supreme Court. But, DuBose, the House has to do the same and stick around in case Stokes makes a play. You in?”

  “I don’t know that hearings are the way to go, Ken. We’ve got firefights all over the map. My guys need to be on the ground campaigning, not hoping to score some points on C-SPAN.” The members of the Senate loved the sound of their own voices, but the House had a different job. They had to actually talk to the people. “I need to send them home. Let them fan the flames. If Justice Wynn is down for the count, we can make this a wedge issue. Then come back early and force a compromise.”