I leaned back in my chair and realized I hadn’t taken a breath the entire time I’d been talking. I sucked in a lungful of air and felt the pain in my chest and the fluttering in my stomach recede. I snuck a glance at my watch: 2:20 p.m.
“Ms. LeBlanc, do you intend to present evidence in the time remaining to us?”
“I had a casting director lined up, but when you called the recess she had to get back to work.”
“Can you get her back?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Will you have her first thing tomorrow morning?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Fine, then, we are recessed until tomorrow morning at nine a.m.” I stood.
“Will Mr. Sullivan be back tomorrow?” Brubaker asked.
“I have no idea. You may just have to deal with me.” I was startled when he ducked his head and looked down.
I gathered up my papers and headed for the door. Jeff touched me on the elbow before I could exit.
“Thank you,” he said and then his expression darkened. “They can go after me all they want, but when they start in on my wife…”
I touched his arm gently. “I know. You don’t have to say anything more.”
I headed back to my office cave reflecting on love. Conclusion: it was a good thing, and I wished I had somebody as protective of me as Jeff was of his Kate.
Qwendar was at the water cooler filling a paper cup. He gave me his wintery smile. “You are a most interesting young lady.”
“Interesting in the Chinese proverb sense?” I asked, a bit suspicious.
He chuckled, a sound like a breeze whispering through fallen leaves. “No, interesting as in intelligent, passionate, determined. In short, you were rather impressive.”
“Tiny but mighty, that’s me … okay, maybe not so much.”
“You should not doubt yourself.”
I slumped. “Thanks, but I was really nervous.”
“It didn’t show.”
“If it didn’t I can thank Mr. Bainbridge and my father. I channeled them.”
“Well, it worked.” He paused for a sip. “Though it is a bit disconcerting to have humans trying to worship in our manner when they cannot possibly understand our faith.”
“What do you mean?”
“You cannot walk the worlds, so you can’t see the face of…” He paused. “Well, let’s call it God since you really don’t have a word for it.” He correctly interpreted my expression. “You don’t agree.”
“I think there’s a constant tension between inclusion and superiority in religions. The “chosen people” strain versus the “do unto others” Golden Rule thread.”
“That can be said for people as well,” Qwendar said.
“Meaning what?”
“That it’s in the nature of all creatures to think that their particular kind is superior to all others.”
“And that’s part of why we have law—to try to counter those tribal instincts.”
“You place law above religion,” Qwendar said.
I considered that for a moment. “Yeah, I do.”
“Why?”
“Because law adjudicates outcomes based on facts, evidence. While faith is important, it shouldn’t have a place in law.”
“But sometimes your facts are flawed,” Qwendar argued.
“Yes, and we have in place a system to try and counter that. It’s not perfect and mistakes are made, but it’s there. There’s no recourse with faith.”
“So, you’re saying you cannot question faith?”
“Oh, you can question it. What you can’t do is examine it. It’s not subject to analysis or investigation.”
“But at the end of the day don’t you have … er … faith,” his lips quirked in that thin smile. “That justice will be done?”
I threw up a hand. “Okay, touché. Remind me never to debate you in public.”
He surprised me by taking my hand and brushing his lips across the back of it. “I think you would be a worthy opponent.”
15
Given Maslin’s less than diplomatic approach to interviews I thought it was better that I visited the Human First headquarters on my own. That afternoon when I presented my reasoning, he disputed my conclusion—vociferously.
“They will want to talk to me. I promise you. They will want ink … well, phosphers, since magazines are pretty much all online now, on this.”
We were having the dispute in the center of reception. Not my choice of venue. Interested faces were peeping over the office dividers.
I planted my hands on my hips. “A two-second Google search and they’re going to know you’re not going to be sympathetic.”
“And that’s fine. I’ll make it clear that I’m giving them the chance to present themselves rather than letting their opponents define them.” He flashed a grin at me. “That almost always works.”
“They can’t be that stupid. You’re going to do a hatchet job on them.”
“And Cartwright won’t care. She’s savvy about playing the political game. Having the lame-stream media”—he rolled his eyes—“take out after the group will put them in hog heaven. It’ll fire up their supporters. And she knows there is no such thing as bad press. Most people are too busy living their lives to pay attention to this kind of thing. The more press the more likely it is that people will look up and notice. She’ll want to talk to me,” he repeated.
I threw my hands up and surrendered. “I’ll drive,” I said over my shoulder. “I’m not dressed for the jeep today.”
Turned out that Human First didn’t have an actual headquarters. They shared space with Cartwright’s lobbying group, Liberty Front, and were located in a strip mall in Van Nuys. I could tell from the curl of Maslin’s lip that Van Nuys was not up to his standards. I asked him about his reaction, and he answered cryptically, “It’s the Valley.”
I figured I’d follow up on that later. Right now I wanted to stay focused. We got out of the car and I studied the storefront. There were a lot of American flags in evidence, both the real variety and on posters. The latter tended to be eagles superimposed over American flags depicted in way too saturated colors. Another poster divided into three sections showing the Marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima, firefighters at Ground Zero raising a flag, and American astronauts on the moon with the flag. Then there were scary posters showing Álfar men lurking near angelic-looking human children and young, Madonna-like human women. Just inside the door there was another poster showing a demur young woman in a wedding gown standing at the altar with a giant lizard dressed in a tuxedo.
“Wow, that’s subtle,” Maslin said loudly.
The people seated behind desks and phone banks looked at us. They didn’t look friendly. I noticed they were all mostly white, mostly female, and mostly older. There were a few exceptions. There was a skinny old duffer whose bow tie just accentuated his neck’s resemblance to a turkey’s. There was a plump young woman with five little towheaded girls playing on the floor around her desk. Then I realized the plumpness was due to pregnancy. The room was filled with the sounds of ringing phones, hushed conversations, and the patter and click of keyboards. It had all the earmarks of a campaign headquarters.
I approached the desk that looked sort of receptiony. The woman eyed me. “I’d like to see Ms. Cartwright,” I said.
“Do you have an appointment?”