“Played for the Knicks,” Artie says. He launches the Magic Eight Ball on an imaginary trajectory through that great basketball hoop in the sky, that one all men can find when they don’t have a real ball. The air guitar principle.
“It’s irrelevant what happens at this level anyway,” Ben says. “It’s going up to the Court.”
“And what’ll that do to your chances, Safer?” Artie says.
Ben hits a key but says nothing.
“Chances for what?” I say.
“Didn’t you know, Grace? Ben is waiting for a phone call from Justice Scalia. He’s this close to a Supreme Court clerkship.” Artie squints at his forefinger and thumb, held a half-inch apart. “Maybe even this close, am I right, Ben? This close?” He makes his fingers touch.
“Ask the Eight Ball,” Sarah says.
“The Eight Ball! Excellent!” Artie shakes the ball and turns it upside down to read it. “Oh, my God, Ben,” he says in mock horror. “‘Better not tell you now.’ Very mysterious.”
I look at Ben, reading his monitor screen. “Ben, did you really get an interview with Scalia?”
“Yes,” Ben replies, without looking away from the monitor.
“But Grace, Ben has a big problem,” Artie says ominously. “If Armen decides Hightower and the guy don’t fry, we got trouble. Big trouble, right, Ben?”
Ben types away. “Of course not, Weiss. I still have the credentials.”
“You mean like clerking for Armen the Armenian? Husband of Senator Susan, another flamer?” Artie winks slyly at Sarah, and she smiles back. I wonder if they’re sleeping together, and how Sarah squares it with her lust for Armen. Not to mention her alleged allegiance to Armen’s wife.
“The chief has sent clerks to the Court,” Ben says. “He’s very well regarded by the Justices.”
“By the conservative Justices?”
“Depends on what you mean by conservative.”
“Anybody not on life support.”
Ben’s mouth twitches, and I can tell Artie’s hit a nerve. I hold up my hand like a traffic cop. “That’s enough outta you, Weiss. Don’t make me come over there.”
“Who else is on the panel in Hightower?” Sarah says.
Eletha looks at a piece of paper in her hands. She doesn’t notice Ben reading the paper upside down, but I do; Ben spends more time reading upside down than right side up. “Here it is. Gregorian, Robbins, and Galanter.”
“Awesome!” Artie says. “That means Hightower walks. Armen writes the opinion, Robbins joins it, and Galanter pounds sand. Two to one.”
Sarah looks less certain. “Galanter’s a Federalist, but Robbins can go either way on this one.”
“What’s a Federalist?” I ask.
“Fascists. Nazis.”
“Republicans with boners,” Artie adds.
Ben clears his throat. “It’s a conservative organization, Grace. Of which I was an officer in law school, as a matter of fact.”
Suddenly, the door to Armen’s office opens and men talk in low, governmental tones as Armen walks them to the main door of chambers. Artie strains to listen and Ben inhales what’s left of his coffee. Eletha turns around just in time to catch Bernice.
“Roarf! Roarf!” Bernice, a huge Bernese mountain dog, bounds through the door. Yes, Armen brings his shaggy black doggie to work, all hundred pounds of her. He’s the chief judge, so who’s gonna tell him he can’t? Me? You? “Roarf!”
“No! Don’t jump up!” Eletha barks back. The sharp noise stops Bernice in her tracks. Her bushy black tail, white at the tip, switches back and forth; she sneezes with the vigor of a Clydesdale.
“Sit, Bernice. Sit!” Armen says, coming up behind the dog.
Bernice wiggles her wavy hindquarters in response. Her eyes roll around in a white mask that ends in rust-colored markings on her muzzle. Bushy rust eyebrows give her a permanently confused look; appearances are not always deceiving.
“She never sits, Armen,” Eletha says. “I don’t know why you even bother.”
“She used to, she just forgets,” Armen says. “Right, girl?” He scratches the plume of raggy hair behind Bernice’s ears and looks at Artie. “So, Weiss, you shitting bricks?”
Artie sets the Eight Ball down. “Enough to build a house, coach. I’m really sorry.”
“Can’t you grovel better than that? I’m disappointed.”
“Really sorry, coach. I am not worthy.” Artie bends over and touches his forehead to the briefs on his desk. “It’ll never happen again,” he says, his voice muffled.
Armen smiles. “Good enough. Shake and Bake can come to the games, but he has to stay away from the courthouse. If he doesn’t, the marshals will shoot him on sight. Plus I got you out of jail free, so you owe me a beer.”
Artie looks up, relieved. “After the game next week. At Keeton’s.”
“Fine.” Armen’s gaze falls on the papers in Eletha’s hands and his smile fades. “Is that Hightower?”
“Yes.”
He takes the papers and begins to read the first page. His brow wrinkles deeply; I notice that the dark wells under his eyes look even darker today. He’s given to occasional black moods; something will set him off and he’ll brood for a day. It makes you want to comfort him. In bed.
“Chief,” Ben says, “the defendant killed two sisters.”
Armen seems not to hear him. His broad shoulders slump slightly as he reads.
“One was a little girl and one was a teenager, very popular in the town.”
Armen looks up from the memo and his eyes find me. “It’s yours, lady,” he says.
I hear myself suck wind. “Mine?”
“You’re Grace Rossi, right? It’s got your name all over it.”
“Me, on a death penalty case? But I’m part-time.”
“I’ll give you time off later, and don’t whine.”
“But I don’t want to get involved,” I whine.
He half smiles. “Get involved. Somebody’s life is at stake.”
“But why me?”
“I need a lawyer on this one.”
Sarah freezes as she looks at Armen. I can almost hear the squeak of a hinge as her perfect mouth drops open.
Empty coffee cups dot the surface of Armen’s conference table, along with sheaves of curly faxes, photocopied cases, and trial transcripts from the Hightower record. We worked straight through dinner and into the night, reading cases and talking through the opinion. Then Armen began to tap out an outline on his laptop and I picked up the habeas petition to check our facts.
It says that Thomas Hightower was seventeen when he cut school to go drinking with a fast crowd, which got him drunk and dared him to kiss the prettiest girl in school. Hightower went to her farm, where he found Sherri Gilpin in the shed. He asked her out, and she laughed at him.
“Date a nigger?”