The Tenth Justice by Brad Meltzer Read Free Book Online Page A

said you couldn’t walk upright,” Lisa countered.
    “He said you could pee standing up.”
    “Cute,” Lisa said. “He said you didn’t have opposable thumbs.”
    “I don’t get it,” Ober said, stumped. “What’s an opposable thumb?”
    “If you didn’t have them, you’d be hanging out with monkeys. Or reptiles. Maybe bacteria. Lower life forms—”
    “Ooookay, I think we get the idea,” Ben interrupted, stepping between his two friends. “I can see you two will get along great. Now what are we doing for dinner?”
    “I thought Lisa was cooking for us,” Ober said, taking a seat next to Nathan on the large couch. “No—that’s right—she was going to fix my car.”
    “Don’t start,” Ben warned. “How about we order in some Chinese?” With a nod, the three agreed and Ben called in the order. As he hung up the phone, Lisa reached into her bag. “Ben, I meant to show you this.” Pulling out a ten-page document, she explained, “I just pulled this off of Westlaw. It’s our first published opinion.”
    Ben smiled as he read through the official document. “I can’t believe it! These are our words! This is the law!”
    “I still don’t understand this,” Nathan said. “You decide the cases for the justices? Is that legal?”
    “We don’t decide the cases. We just write the opinions,” Ben explained, waving the document in the air. “Every Wednesday and Friday the justices have Conference, where they vote on the cases. Based on our memos and research, they determine what their decisions will be. Say there’s a civil rights case before the Court. The justices vote and five think the defendant is liable, while four think he’s not. He’s therefore liable. But the decision doesn’t just get announced. The actual opinion has to be assigned and written. That takes from one to six months. So if Hollis is assigned the opinion, he comes back from Conference and says to me and Lisa, ‘We’re writing the majority opinion; the defendant is liable. I’d like to see you approach it from a Fourteenth Amendment perspective.’ We take a shot at it and hand it in to Hollis. Usually, he makes significant changes before it emerges in final form, but it’s still primarily our work.”
    “And here it is,” Lisa said, pulling the document from Ben’s hands and giving it to Nathan. “Hollis decided this months ago, but it just came down this week.”
    “Very impressive,” Nathan remarked.
    “See this paragraph over here?” Lisa pointed to the page. “We worked on that for two days straight. Hollis didn’t want to overrule one of his earlier decisions.”
    The doorbell rang. “Food. Food. Food,” Ober said, running to the door.
    “It’s not the food,” Ben called out. “We just ordered.”
    Ober opened the door, but was disappointed to discover Eric.
    “Sorry, I forgot my keys at the office,” Eric said, running his hands through his uncombed hair.
    “Perfect,” Ober said, excited. “C’mon, there’s someone I want you to meet.” Dragging Eric into the living room, Ober said, “Lisa, this is Eric. He’s a virgin.”
    “You’ll have to forgive him,” Eric said as he shook Lisa’s hand. “He’s so proud of me, he can’t contain himself.”
    “Nice to meet you,” Lisa said. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
    “You, too,” Eric said.
    Ignoring Ober, Ben asked Eric, “Do you want to have some dinner? We ordered Chinese. It should be here any minute.”
    “That’d be great,” Eric said. “Meanwhile, have you heard about the CMI merger?”
    “No. What?” Ben asked.
    “I was in the newsroom when it came across the wire. Just as the market closed, Charles Maxwell bought another twenty percent of Lexcoll stock. Lexcoll stock shot up fourteen points in the closing three minutes, and investors are predicting CMI will rocket up thirty percent by nine-thirty-five tomorrow morning. The traders on the floor were ripping their hair out.”
    “Maxwell couldn’t have known,